Guardian comments opportunity

[LambChopsMcGee]

I'm sure this has been mentioned but Zoe Williams has done a piece on John McConnell's Mumsnet chat. She mentions the trans issue in passing.

Comments are open. And one says "what is it with Mumsnet and transphobia anyway?"

I'll see if I can link...

What is it with Mumsnet and transphobia, anyway?" discussion.theguardian.com/comment-permalink/120570800

Maybe we should tell them??

My issue is with people who harass trans people purely for existing. This is very much a thing that happens. Based on reading this thread, however, it doesn't seem to be the philosophy here.

No, this is certainly not the philosophy here. We are trying to protect women's rights in all this. There is the current consultation on changing the GRA (ends 19 October) which no one knows about fairplayforwomen.com/ womansplaceuk.org/wpuk-guidance-on-gra-consultation/

There is help understanding what is going on on a few threads. This is one:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3335962-Frequently-Asked-Questions-FAQs-I-have-noticed-here

There is also a Breaking it down thread which hopefully someone can find.

There has been a lot going on over the last 2 or 3 years and it is mainly unreported.

Probably and anyone else who is watching this thread waiting for anything to screenshot no, nobody here wants to harass trans people just for existing. Contrary to popular belief, we don’t even want to deny their existence. We’re quite happy for trans people to exist, and feel safe and comfortable, but we would just like to respectfully ask that this isn’t done at the expense of women’s rights.

I’m pretty confident I can speak for the vast majority here when I say we don’t think anyone should be attacked, harassed, abused or made to feel unsafe. The out and out misogyny we have experienced when querying why it is ok to make women not only feel unsafe, but be physically put at risk by the GRA reforms and allowing male bodied people into female spaces is staggering. We are told to die in fires, horrible threats are made and as we have seen recently, careers come under threat (see any thread referencing what is happening in academia).

I would cheerfully stand shoulder to shoulder with trans folk and campaign for a third space for them. I will not agree that sex is some kind of imaginary spectrum, nor will I agree that women as a class should shuffle up and include some men just because they “feel like” women. Until someone can actually define “woman” I really think it would be better to take all cards off the table and start again, as this is fundamental to the debate. I won’t stand by and watch the government quietly change what it means to be a woman.

I also will not stand by and watch rapists and pedophiles get locked up with vulnerable women and children, but that burning rage is for another thread.

Reading the comments, somebody was was suggesting that Womens Aid and Rape Crisis are totally on board with allowing men aka TW into their organisations. This is scary and will discourage women from using said organisations. I know for funding reasons they may try to word their policies in certain ways but surely, surely this is not happening?

@Badgerthebodger

I think with identity politics in general there's a vocal minority who take a "My way or the highway" attitude, and in this case it's leading to things like lesbians being told they're bigots for not fancying trans women. It seems to come with a certainty that the speaker is right, which makes them feel justified in leading with abuse and threats.

Obviously this is bad both in itself and because it can drown out the conversations reasonable people are trying to have about important issues like this. And I find it especially worrying when academia starts being suppressed.

In a recent Guardian piece about the WEP Gaby Hinsliff referred to “a trans rights movement that some fear is riding roughshod over vulnerable women’s concerns”.

Some posters took exception to this: one said that it was utter nonsense, and it was really harmful that Gaby was giving airspace to the poison and bile put out by nasty mumsnet transphobes..

My reply was on the lines of Nonsense, poison, bile? Are you referring to the claim sometimes made on Mumsnet that transwomen are in fact men?

Another poster said that Gaby’s comment was "a little too TERF-y for my tastes! It should be a given that the plight of trans women is taken into account by women's rights movements."

My reply to this was: Why should women’s rights movements be required to take into account the plight of men who identify as women?

Both my comments were deleted because, according to an email from the Community moderator, they were or could be interpreted as ‘extremely offensive … hate speech’.

Once we feel the victim, we feel justified in acts we would not otherwise carry out. Ask the Israelis and the Palestians.

but yes, as Probably says, Academia should NOT be acting in this way. Academics should be striving towards disinterested enquiry and suppression of argument should be done very sparingly indeed.

Until I cancelled my Guardian subscription earlier this year, I had read and bought it for well over 40 years. It's editorial line is now anything but liberal where women's rights are concerned and too much of the on-line content is dross. I'm a relatively recent lurker on Mumsnet and have learned so much in that time on these threads. Thank you - I have already written to my MP and am completing all the various consultations really the GRA etc.

DonnaBe you said: So trans women are women then? As long as they have vaginas

Apologies for going way back on this thread, but I've only just caught up with it and I can't let this go.

TW do not have vaginas. I find the assertion that sex reassignment surgery gives a TW an actual vagina deeply offensive.

My vagina is much much more than a hole. It is part of my complicated, amazing female reproductive system. Please don't equate a surgically created facsimile of a vagina with my vagina. To do so reduces real vaginas to nothing more than somewhere for men to put penises.

This, amongst other things, is why I fear the erasure of women.

Probably

Welcome.

The reason we are considered trans phobic is because we can see the very real issues and dangers with self ID.

The vocal trans community seem to think their feelings out weigh very real concerns.

We know abusers abuse and we know abusers will exploit any loophole in order to do that.

That doesn't mean that I believe trans people are all abusers, but it does mean that an abuser claiming to be trans could, and indeed has, used that in order to get in a position to abuse and the abused people are women and girls.

I'm a teacher. I teach supply. I will never be alone in a room with a child. Or a lift (I'm disabled so stairs are not an option).

Schools are now built with glass in doors and windows onto corridors to protect both children and professionals. If you are always on view and never alone with a child, it protects children from abuse and professionals from accusations of abuse.

I'm not insulted by these measures. I do not scram and shout that I am not an abuser / paedophile and I don't scream that people are antiteacher.

For me self ID and the current vocal trans element is two fold, it undermines me and every woman's identity. I don't 'feel' like a woman, I am female and I have, and continue to face discrimination because of it. Telling me I do not exist is discrimination of the most extreme.

The second element is that self ID leaves women and girls open to abuse and that is deemed by society not as important as how a man 'feels'.

I believe in equality and equal rights but I believe when the rights of one group take away hard fought rights from another group then that is not equality.

Being trans is covered under equality legislation with regard to employment, housing etc.

Where it is legal to discriminate it is because granting those rights would take away rights from another group.

I mentioned I am disabled. This means there are certain occupations I am legally prevented from doing and are excluded from disability equality legislation eg you cannot drive a train if you are blind. You cannot fly a commercial flight if you are deaf, not because you cannot use the controls but because you cannot hear air traffic control.

If you have IBS you cannot work as an air traffic controller.

And I have to wonder why TRAs want access to those few places they are excluded eg women's refuges. Surely you work in a refuge because you want to help vulnerable women, not because you feel a need for your own validation.

In 20018 saying a woman does not have a penis labels you a trans phobe and operating a hate campaign.

Back to lurk mode, but before I go I thought you might "enjoy" the response I got after cancelling my Guardian subscription:

"I am sorry to hear of the inconvenience caused regarding our commenting rules used on our website. The Guardian website provides a growing number of opportunities for readers who wish to discuss content we publish, or debate issues more generally. Our aim is to ensure this platform is inclusive and safe, and that the Guardian website is the place on the net where you will always find lively, entertaining and, above all, intelligent discussions.

"We recognise the difference between criticising a particular government, organisation, community or belief and attacking people on the basis of their race, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or age. While we recognise that the debates around the government's plans to amend the Gender Recognition Act are both controversial and worthy of debate, The Guardian believes in the inherent dignity all of the members of our community deserve."

So apparently asking for the trans-approved definition of "woman" constitutes an attack.

“While we recognise that the debates around the government's plans to amend the Gender Recognition Act are both controversial and worthy of debate, The Guardian believes in the inherent dignity all of the members of our community deserve."

Very interesting.
Controversial and worthy of debate is a move...

there's a website set up by people fed up with the Guardian's moderation of comment
LINK
Ironically though, a post about why the Left are so wedded to TA's was pulled,