How do I argue back?

[katheroo]

medium.com/@OwenJones84/no-celebrating-trans-rights-is-not-repulsive-45247d0a7835

My oh can't understand the way I feel and has argued back with this. What are your opinions?

Standard strawman argument

Kirkup rightly criticises two issues -

1. Labour's tweet implies all criticism of sex self-identification is transphobic.

But the anti-trans backlash Labour refers to wasn't anti-trans it was anti-self-id and pro-women's rights. The backlash was women daring to inform Labour that their adoption of sex self-identification was harmful to women as it undermines our sex-based rights and those Labour women were asking Labour to consider upholding their rights.

2. It's also a blanket refusal to engage with women. Here Labour declares loudly and proudly that it does not accept any criticism of sex self-identification and that it will not engage with women (because that was the only backlash Labour was facing at that time - from women protesting against Labour's anti-women stance in refusing to listen to them, well, actually in refusing to even consider they could have a point.

Particularly galling was that at that point Corbyn had promised to listen to women's concerns, but this was the public response put out by Labour.

So that's Kirkup's tweet explained. He criticises as repulsive that with his tweet OJ is celebrating the silencing of women around this issue.

Owen's article then goes on into a strawman argument that Kirkup has called the celebration of trans rights repulsive. But that is false. Kirkup only refers to OJ dismissing women's concerns as transphobic and additionally crowing about women being ignored on the issue.

OJ then spends ages on women supporting trans rights. We do support trans rights. But while the situation may be different in other countries, trans people have equal rights here in the UK and are protected through two acts of Parliament - the GRA 2004 (Gender Recognition Act) and the EA 2010 (the Equality Act).

There is no right that other people in this country have that trans people do not have. We are equal in law.

And women support this, as Owen is at pains to lay out. However, women object to sex self-identification. It is this one, singular issue that we are protesting against.

Not trans rights per se, but the granting of a right to trans people that undermines (or effectively abolishes) the rights of another protected group - women and girls - because it renders our protected characteristic of sex meaningless if anyone can identify into our sex class by a mere statement of intent.

Then a lot of bla bla
Then a statement that "transwomen are men" is hateful and transphobic. We know this is a factual statement. They are male. Men are adult human males. Transwomen are men. If they were women, they wouldn't need to transition.

Got to go pick up my kids but I'll continue this later.

My DH refuses to discuss this with me, he doesn’t agree with self id but feels he is too old to get involved.
I do talk about things to him especially the more ridiculous stuff, I’ve just shown him that photo of Corbyn in the link
I also point out various rapists who have id as women
And I showed him the photo on here of Jacinta White.
I also told him about the spiteful civil action against Linda Bellos
He doesn’t comment or disagree
I don’t push him but I make sure he knows exactly how I feel
I’ve known him for over 30 years
I’ve also told him I intend to be more vocal in future
I have read threads on here by much more eloquent women than me.
I have retained a huge amount of information and intend to use it in future.
There is a thread on here called [break it down for me] it’s a real eye opener
This could have an effect on him for various reasons
So I’ll just have to see what the future brings if it does have an adverse effect on his business dealings

sorry the last few line of my post are jumbled up
I meant to suggest that your DH reads the the thread Break it down for me? and then see what he thinks.
the next line should refer to my DH not yours
I've tried to do a click link but I can't

Kirkup did not say that supporting trans rights is repulsive; he called the crowing repulsive. And he is right, it is. The crowing demonstrates this is about a power grab.

As for your OH, I think men who don't get it see this as a male rights issue. they feel that if we say we don't want men in women only spaces, we are insulting men. and they take it personally.

Tell your OH its great he supports trans rights, and that he should fight to make all mens spaces mixed sex.
Then shut him down when he tries to object or discuss it any further.

I‘d ask, if he tries to mansplain to you that you are actually in favor of transwomen in bathrooms and so forth, because this article says so. I mean, what is his Argument? What is this article supposed to tell you? ‚People eat shit, cause a billion flies can‘t be wrong?‘
You can also show him the picture of Paedo Jacinta and ask him, if he really thinks she is a woman, just like you and should share a room in a hospital with you.

I think Owen Jones doesn’t really appreciate what “tragic reality” means.

Have to agree with previous posters. Some men don't get it. And that's perfectly normal. It took my DH weeks of me bombarding him with this, but he's just offered to go to our local high street with me to hand out Fair Play for Women leaflets & postcards.

And there's no time limit on this. If sex self-id is made into law or if its adoption by stealth continues, once more cases of abuses of the new law become known or "unintended" consequences, it's likely there'll be a backlash against all of the LGBT in addition to an ever growing movement of women campaigning for their rights. You can convince your OH then.

Just wanted to add one more thing:

By OJ saying "transwomen are men" is hateful and transphobic, he is denying women a very basic right. As many others have said before, females have the right to define themselves - in language and in law - in a category of their own, separately from males. Anyone who, like little OJ here, denies women this basic right, is denying human rights to women.

The UN has just started another campaign for single-sex toilets for girls around the world. Because sometimes, some spaces need to be just female spaces. For our comfort, our dignity, our privacy and our safety.

Men like OJ are trying to bully women into submission with this rhetoric. Acquiesce to having your boundaries violated or your a hateful transphobe. That's what it boils down to.

And maybe you could ask him what punishment he thinks is fitting for mothers who don't want their teenage girls sleeping in the same room as a male stranger and who dare to say that out loud or for battered women in the showerroom of a refuge who don't want to be naked in the presence of an intact male. What consequences should they face for complaining?

These things have happened. And if you bring in a law, it can be enforced. So ask him what punishment fits the crime of a woman asking for bodily privacy (one of the most basic human rights we know).

But they suspended Mr womanwednesday for standing on AWS. Words fail me.

As for the next bit of OJ's piece - most of the actions he subscribes to anti-trans campaigners are not the actions of women's rights campaigners. There's a lot of DARVO going on as well about people being harrassed or silenced for supporting trans rights. They're not. But some people are challenged by women's rights campaigners about self-id, usually very calmly.

As for his reference to Ireland and there being no problem. The law is three years old and the silencing of gender critical views has been so successful that complaints are highly unlikely. The trans community is also very small and large parts of the community conservative enough to give short shrift to self-id abuse (I read about an incident where some bloke tried it on in a swimming pool and he swiftly got kicked out. No fuss, no media.) Hence, all we have is anecdotal so far. There'll have to be a big issue for this to kick off.

Additionally, Ireland has privacy and dignity laws that don't exist in the UK and self-id trans prisoners are housed by sex not gender (and they had a total of two trans prisoners. We have at least 65.) So that's a big difference to the UK.

The rest of OJ's article are ad hominems directed at the Spectator and whataboutery.

Thank you all. Lots to read through and take in.