Can we talk about the mental impact of being told the definition of woman is changing?

[UglyCathKidstonBag]

I’d like to hear specifically from women who feel their mental health has been in any way impacted by being told the definition of “woman” has or will change so that it either excludes them or includes men. Has anyone felt their mental health has been impacted by the “erasure” of woman.

I have long term therapy as part of treatment for PTSD and GAD both of which are centred around abuse from various men in my life. I had been able to control both to a manageable state thanks to this treatment until the past 3-6 months.
I am now unable to use places such as gyms, swimming pools, changing rooms and similar settings because of my fear of being in intimate spaces with unknown male bodied people. This is now starting to have a knock on impact for my work.

[Datun]

It really is shameful.

Women can read, quite plainly, protocols being put in place which dilute safeguarding.

But just because a child hasn't yet been damaged, in the last five minutes, it's a baseless worry.

[Knicknackpaddyflak]

Access to women's spaces is generally controlled (i.e. the right to sue for discrimination) by the Equality Act

Rubbish. The Equality Act exemptions have already been fatally weakened, have already ceased to be invoked with a surrender to self ID partly out of fear of the TRA lobby's harassment and bullying, and on a case by case basis will be subject to relentless harassment, bullying, threats and legal challenge.

Even if these men were to sign a false statutory declaration, this would not give them the right or ability to enter safe spaces.

Of course it bloody would, don't be silly. Self ID means self ID, plus not being asked for any form of ID, have you actually read the GRA consultation? Any man can go anywhere unchallenged, end of. Be honest about what you're seeking here. Ireland is not the same as the UK, this has been pointed out many times, and the prison service with their captive population under observation have plenty of evidence that sex offenders are happily exploiting transgender ideology to further their personal interests.

Sexual assaults against women in women's prisons do happen.

Whataboutery. Some women sexually assaulting other women does not make it ok to put a sex offender with a penis and a record of using it to violently abuse women in with captive women, whatever that sex offender may think about their identity. You're basically saying women get abused anyway, so what if it involves a predator with a penis? You see women as mere collateral damage.

[Kyanite]

Girls are being taught that it's ok for their bodies to be seen by male bodied people. Breaking down boundaries that parents teach them to stay safe.

[Ereshkigal]

Good post. Another Groundhog Day effort from SarahAr.

[Ereshkigal]

I might buy a few copies of the Gift of Fear. One for vickyjgo and one for SarahAr, definitely.

[UglyCathKidstonBag]

*@vickyjgo don't PM me. Your comments are the nasty ones.

And now uninvited PMs too? What appalling behaviour. Almost the tactics of people trying to deliberately derail women from taking. Strange.

[JackyHolyoake]

transwidow.wordpress.com/2016/01/25/the-masculinity-of-mtf-transition/

[HawkeyeInConfusion]

To answer the original question - I have experienced a dip in my MH. I was baffled as to why initially. But it is the nagging anxiety about what is happening to women's rights and children's safeguarding that is getting to me.

I am not overly worried on my own behalf. But desperately worried about the world my kids, particularly my daughter, are growing up into.

Plus, I have a feeling of betrayal. I grew up thinking I was an equal, and that everyone saw me (a female) as an equal - and the only ones that didn't were dinosaurs stuck in the past. Discovering that wasn't the case and that a significant number of the males I interacted with may have resented me has turned my past on its head. And that is disturbing and disorientating.

[thebewilderness]

I have been a defender in the war on women for many years.
I have seen one after another of the gathering places for women destroyed or disbanded in both the material world and cyberspace by authoritarian asshats.
I will likely be gone when the misogynists come to full power, if they are not stopped. That is why I can't stop entirely and only take a mental health break from time to time.

[Ereshkigal]

You are awesome bewilderness

[thebewilderness]

I adorable you all. You give me hope.

[Voice0fReason]

It is tiresome being told by men what it means to be a woman.
It is tiresome being told by men not to use certain words and terms because it excludes them.
It is tiresome being told by men that our fears and concerns are not real and don't matter but theirs are and do.
It is tiresome being told by men that I am a bigot when I am nothing of the sort.

I try to manage my involvement so I don't get too sucked in. I avoid the worst of the activists - I refuse to watch Riley's videos any more as they just make me cross!

[AngryAttackKittens]

My guess is that they noticed that people here really don't appreciate trolling and me-railing on support threads and have thus decided that targeting those threads is the best way to get people to say something bannable.

[SophoclesTheFox]

That sounds right AAK.

It does bring home the rather terrifying lack of empathy. It takes quite a special person to barrel into a thread where people are sharing their difficulties and tell them they're a bunch of crybabies.

It's particularly galling in light of the fact that we're repeatedly told that the fragility of trans people's mental health is such that we must guard our langugage and our very thoughts AT ALL TIMES because of the carnage a misplaced "he" can wreak.

Massive double standard.

[SophoclesTheFox]

So for some people (like sarah and vicky above), the answer to the title question of this thread is clearly "no, you can't".

[AngryAttackKittens]

Shame for them that people are going to keep doing it anyway, eh?

[LangCleg]

It does bring home the rather terrifying lack of empathy. It takes quite a special person to barrel into a thread where people are sharing their difficulties and tell them they're a bunch of crybabies.

Yes. And, as ever, all these tactics are ultimately self-defeating. The lurkers are reading and watching.

[Knicknackpaddyflak]

Massive double standard.

Very characteristic behaviour of perpetrators of abuse, incidentally. A quick read on the relationships board finds this everywhere.

The perpetrator of abuse sees themselves as more special, more deserving, more vulnerable, more justified, has entitlement to standards of treatment, service, stuff and respect, and defends that entitlement fiercely. They see their victim as certainly not entitled to equal treatment, equal consideration, equal service and stuff, as less human than them, and heaven help their victim if they fail to provide required service to the perpetrator or tread on the perpetrator's perceived entitlements.

Plus ca change.

[Ereshkigal]

I've seen two transactivists and one handmaiden complaining about this thread on Twitter. The handmaiden thought trans people shouldn't even have to read about women's mental distress caused by the misogyny around the trans debate. How terrible we are for sharing our feelings.

[esmew]

There seems to be a lot of vulnerable women on these boards...... mumsnet needs to get it's house in order.

twitter.com/joss_prior/status/1023514858770366464

[SophoclesTheFox]

And you think that's helpful, do you, esme?

[ReluctantCamper]

I'm sorry esmew the individual whose tweet you have linked to has such a precarious mental state that they subscribe to a mass list which blocks 30,000 people, of whom I am one, despite the fact that we have never interacted.

So I'm afraid I am unable to cmment on what they've said.

[Knicknackpaddyflak]

Yes a lot of vulnerable women on these boards. You can generally spot them because they're tougher than all hell and are handling situations that would drive many people under. Try talking to them. They don't want infantilising, patronising or 'safe spaces' from HQ, and generally don't appreciate people assuming they aren't perfectly competent to think for themselves and make their own decisions about what they do online. That kind of paternalist bullshit doesn't help anyone.

Oh and that tweet, mentioning the poor vulnerable (stupid, unable to think for themselves, impressionable with no capacity for critical thought or intelligence) women who are being so upset by all the lies they're being fed while being so uninformed … .bollocks. I haven't found any woman yet on FWR who is that limp a lettuce, and they're very well informed, that's the whole point of what these threads do.

The evidence discussed here comes direct from the TRA lobby

Discussing the evidence and its impact is neither a problem nor in any way wrong or offensive. Mentioning the evidence is not a problem, nor in any way wrong or offensive - no woman has a duty to suppress negative propaganda for trans people at the cost of her own interests and feelings. The evidence itself is the problem. Like all the tweets about cuntscum and diaf and punch a terf and cotton ceiling ad nauseum ad nauseum. That might be the major problem that needs addressing.

[UglyCathKidstonBag]

That twitter thread says “run by Miranda Yardley, a person of uncertain trans status”, which I think you will find is transphobic.

[UglyCathKidstonBag]

I've seen two transactivists and one handmaiden complaining about this thread on Twitter. The handmaiden thought trans people shouldn't even have to read about women's mental distress caused by the misogyny around the trans debate. How terrible we are for sharing our feelings.

Women can’t discuss their mental health now? What next their vaginas? Giving birth?