Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Original poster

Why can’t all women see the dangers?

155 replies

Couragetocourage · 23/10/2018 19:59

I’m having another wobble about all this. I’m watching women I agree with in almost every other political view, and yet they disagree with me about the dangers of self-ID. Why can’t they see it? I understand why men can’t, but women? Labour women MPs, who clearly have thought about the issue, disagree about the dangers. Why? we're not wrong are we!?

OP posts:
JuniLoolaPalooza · 23/10/2018 22:03

Why do people think all these socialist, long standing labour women have suddenly morphed into bigots? Why aren't they thinking about it?
I think this must be the arrogance of the young, thinking anyone older is out of touch etc. I think some of the language around the topic can be really challenging (thinking GG's use of 'mutilation' to describe transexuals etc)
Critical thinking is not used in schools etc now, young people seem to question things far less

NottonightJosepheen · 23/10/2018 22:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

NottonightJosepheen · 23/10/2018 22:10

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Noqont · 23/10/2018 22:12

I think this must be the arrogance of the young, thinking anyone older is out of touch etc.

I think this is definitely part of it, (although there are of course younger women who are able to apply critical thought to this.) I think being an old bird who has worked in safeguarding for years, the red flags are blindingly obvious. But many of the young female transactivists haven't experienced what could happen. No doubt they will, as most women do eventually. I doubt there's many of us older women who have got through life without being sexually harassed or assaulted by males.

FlowersAndHerts · 23/10/2018 22:13

I think many young middle-class women have been sheltered from those sort of experiences. To them, it's inconceivable that these type of people exist.

DameFanny · 23/10/2018 22:14

Legislating Trans rights as if they're all Karen White is like legislating women's rights as if we're all Myra Hindley

gendercritter · 23/10/2018 22:15

I have been very upset by seeing certain friends post stuff about 'anti-trans feminists' on Facebook. That is a very clever labelling of us because who wants to be thought of as an ignorant bigot?

I 100% think they believe that trans people are hugely oppressed and vulnerable. They think that we would have been homophobic once, too. It's hugely offensive and wrong because actually the trans rights movement is homophobic but there we go.

This issue is so divisive. I've honestly lost a bit of respect for a couple of women I valued highly before based on the stiff they're coming out with. They just don't get it and they're betraying their own sex.

birdbandit · 23/10/2018 22:20

I think the blinkers are a sort of self defence mechanism.

In that, if they don't acknowledge there might be a problem, they don't see it, it doesn't exist.

In the same way people always blame victims, come up with a "reason" as to why that has happened to them.

Without a "reason" someone would have to acknowledge that this is something that could happen to them. Who would want to know that?

For example, suppose someone says they are married to an abusive transgender person (that's me!) it is easier for people to imagine that I am lying about the abuse, or lying about his reasons to present as her.

That's far easier to swallow than to acknowledge that I have done nothing to deserve this. If I haven't, then the same shitshow could happen to them or someone they love.

NottonightJosepheen · 23/10/2018 22:22

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Noqont · 23/10/2018 22:25

Women are entitled to hard won safeguarded spaces apart from penis bearers. Not all men are rapists but all rapists are men (legal definition of rape).

This

titchy · 23/10/2018 22:26

Legislating Trans rights as if they're all Karen White is like legislating women's rights as if we're all Myra Hindley

As far as I'm aware we ask female teachers to undertake a DBS check. Are we assuming all female teachers are Myra Hindley, or ensuring safeguarding of children?

moofolk · 23/10/2018 22:27

I also think many MPs value their career more than women's rights and safeguarding

This.

And @Couragetocourage I get why you don't want to be cynical enough to believe it but I do (although I don't want to believe it about Angela Raynor - I'm hoping she's in the not-thought-about-it-enough camp).

I had lengthy debates about the matter with my MP (woman, safe labour seat, careerist). When we actually spoke she seemed to get it and both emails and in person she hinted that she agreed but refused to give an opinion until she'd heard 'what the front bench' had decided was the party line.

I was so annoyed with her, but with politics in general. What's the point? They know. But don't care enough to fight.

Justhadathought · 23/10/2018 22:29

Older women ( feminists) have been around long enough not to take anything for granted; and many have been at the front line.....before the advent of neo-liberalism and the politics of identity that we now witness.Everything today is about the freedom to be and do as you please; about individualism and freedom of personal expression. A post structuralist analysis ( for those who are analysing anything at all) of society. Queer theory arose out of this post modern vision of society. It is all pretty hedonistic and self centred.

XXwoman · 23/10/2018 22:29

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Thethiniceofanewday · 23/10/2018 22:30

I think if you haven't seen male fetish in all its angry entitled horror you don't understand what you are opening to door to. The TRA movement has successfuly presented the issue as 'we just want to pee in peace,' glossing over the more challenging issues of penises in rape counselling centres and DV shelters.

Also, because the media is constrained from mentioning that an offender is trans unless it is truly the central issue of a story, so much criminal behavour is not correctly reported. Very few people, for example, understand that David Challoner wore a dress and used a female name when he abused that poor child, AND THAT THIS MEANS he counts as trans under the Stonewall definition.

Most people want to believe that the people who want access to female spaces look like Laverne Cox, not Karen.

Original poster
Couragetocourage · 23/10/2018 22:30

Legislating Trans rights as if they're all Karen White is like legislating women's rights as if we're all Myra Hindley

Say what now?

99% of sex offenders are men. Why should we allow them a loop hole in law which means they can access women's legally won sex segregated spaces?

And also, exactly which rights do trans people not currently have?

OP posts:
Thethiniceofanewday · 23/10/2018 22:33

The media also minimise. Tara Hudson was presented as a gentle make-up artist. It was only through reading posts on here that I understood she had headbutted a barman, knocked his teeth out, and still had a penis which she used to earn money as a self-described 'hung angel.'

Noqont · 23/10/2018 22:35

And also, exactly which rights do trans people not currently have?

Exactly. Transpeople have exactly the same rights as anybody else.

Charley50 · 23/10/2018 22:39

Tbh if it wasn't for mumsnet I don't think I would have become GC. I'm a Channel 4 News watcher, and used to read Guardian online. I listen to Radio 4. I have only one publicly GC Facebook friend. If it wasn't for mumsnet this whole dangerous, scary, war (for want of a better word) might have gone under my radar.
Mumsnet, plus the number of autistic, already troubled, trans teens (female to male) at my workplace made it all real for me.
Now, I'm obsessed. I've got a few colleagues and my DP obsessed too.

Noqont · 23/10/2018 22:45

You might not have been GC Charley, but on the other hand I don't suppose you'd be out there trying to dismantle women's rights either.

BlatheringWuther · 23/10/2018 22:47

Mumsnet is definitely an eye opener.
Other than that I think to acknowledge that there will be problems is to acknowledge that men are problems. And how long will it take someone to shout about how misandrist that is and namalt. To paraphrase Germaine Greer if the full extent of male contempt and hate for women becomes known, how on earth will women ever manage to live with men again.

MsTSwift · 23/10/2018 22:48

Charley feel exactly the same - also obsessed and now dh is thanks to my ramblings. We have pre teen girls.

Oh and my friend was in a shop changing room today and was filmed over the top of the changing cubicle. Lucky this never happens isn’t it? Except...it just did

Ineedacupofteadesperately · 23/10/2018 22:58

I think it's possible for people to deny reality for a long time when reality is uncomfortable.

Why did so many people ignore the many, many reports of child abuse by Jimmy Savile? Why did he get a knighthood ffs? AFTER he admitted some decidedly dodgy stuff in his autobiography and AFTER many, many reports of abuse.

I think people were scared of speaking out too. He and his pals were powerful (still are I expect).

Charley50 · 23/10/2018 22:59

No of course not Noquont, but I tended to think (before) that if it was important, bbC or ch 4 or Guardian would report it. I can see how it just isn't on some people's radar, especially the silencing of debate. I was naive.

Without mumsnet I would have had no idea about the silencing of discussion, the aggressive, threatening behaviour of the TRAs. and the hounding of people who disagreed with the TRA/ GRC narrative etc.

The deafening silence opened my eyes to the contempt these media corporations have for women.. we pay half their fucking wages in ad revenue and licence fee, but aren't given a voice? Wtf!

So ironic that it's coincided with celebrating 100 years of women finally winning the fight for the vote.

And fucking hell, how the hell does wearing a wig, a frock, and a bit of lippy make a man a woman!!? (Sorry for rant)

Charley50 · 23/10/2018 23:05

@MsTSwift - every day my dp asks me what is the next story in this whole sorry saga. He's as constantly shocked as I am.