Why can’t all women see the dangers?

[Couragetocourage]

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!?

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

Isn't it just. I sometimes wonder if it was done on purpose...

Me too Noquont . A big fuck you from them to us

"MP's, and everyone else, have sleep-walked into the situation. This has been a very well orchestrated campaign, with a lot of private backing. It has sailed in under the radar, clothed in the language of gay rights and other liberation movements. Many of the most vocal trans campaigners are gay men, and lesbians, such as Maria Miller - who have adopted trans rights as their new spearhead, now that most of the civil rights that they set out to achieve, have been achieved.

Most people of left/liberal persuasion just see this as an extension of gay rights. They have not thought it through - nor seen its inherent inconsistencies and contradictions."

What @Justhadathought said.

I honestly think adhering to the "right" ideology is a huge thing for a lot of people. Women I know in the liberal arts, especially, are big on this. And they are nice, right-on people.

It just becomes the big new thing that you are supposed to believe and fight for. But really, it is an identity of "being good and kind and right" and people don't generally like to dig too deep into identities because it's uncomfortable if they don't like what they see.. Classic cognitive dissonance. It is one of the reasons it's so important to have GC people from what they'd see as the "good" side - Jonny Best for example, and trans people themselves - to start breaking this narrative spell.

Nobody thinks that in reality they are fighting for the Karen Whites of this world to be housed with vulnerable women. But I honestly don't know how anyone can ignore and minimise the blatant abusive and misogynist behaviour of TRAs, or just not see it. It's there all the time. Under our noses.

Me too Noquont . A big fuck you from them to us

Well they can fuck off to the far side of fuck and then fuck off some more. We're not giving up our rights.

I think it's because we all find our place in a tribe and eventually, however well intentioned the tribe was at the start, the patriarchal structures are so well seeded in our society that women do this trade off to get by and remain in the tribe.

It happens time and again in religion - a new creed begins and all is hope and love, and after a time the systems are put in place and women usually end up at the bottom of the pile. Eventually each woman comes to the place where she has to either swim against the tide or find a way to live within the system she finds herself in.

From what I can see, Genderist religion has parasitically attached itself to the general progressive movement, and while women are still committed to the idea that that movement is all hope and love, they will eventually face the choice that many religious women do - you either capitulate to the system and be quiet or worse enforce compliance on other women, or you begin to openly critique the errors and risk being branded a heretic.

I've done both in my time, and trust me, it is much, much easier to comply in the short term.

My Mum asked this exact question.

Lack of media coverage and not understanding. I thought all TW were gay and had surgery and were sans penis, before I landed here.
Also the whole bigot thing is really hard. I don't give a fuck now if some one thinks I'm a bigot.

I do think bigot is the progressive equivalent to the religious 'heretic'. In my experience you hear both often enough they just lose all sting entirely.

Yes •Floral* and I know its not true.

This is misogyny thru and thru. Transexuals are getting thrown under the bus too, but that is unseen also.

Me too Noquont . A big fuck you from them to us

Yep.

My female Labour MP seems to be another convert to TWAW and happily informed me today that she supports reforming not just the GRA but also the Equality Act to better protect trans people. I had informed her of the threats, harrassment and violence women faced who opposed GRA reform and her response was to ignore all of this and only say to Leeds Labour Council illegally banning a women's meeting "I couldn't possibly comment."

(In contrast my male SNP MSP was not only deeply shocked when I told him about the tactics employed to silence women on the issue, he thought it was unacceptable and recommended which actions I could take to protest to the Minister for Equalities in the Scottish Parliament (even though he was entirely uncommittal on TWAW).

I was on the fence about Angela Rayner until today. She's another TWAW believer but I thought maybe she might come around. But when she supported the women's strike in Glasgow and the GMB union today, people politely informed her who caused the problem in the first place.

For anyone who doesn't know why it's entirely hypocritical for a Labour MP to do so without acknowledging that Labour caused the whole thing, here's what happened:

1. the Labour council introduced a pay policy that was unfair to women and then
2. spent 12 years and millions of pounds defending their unequal pay for women in court and
3. the GMB had resolutely refused any strike action while Labour was in power and
4. GMB are now screwing over the women in question

she tweeted this in response:

To all those Scottish trolls telling me it was Labour’s fault regarding the dispute in Glasgow&I don’t know what I’m talking about. The last Labour gov’t pushed forward equal pay for manual home care workers & I know this because I was one of them&that’s why I joined the party!

You don't respond like that if you care about the truth. You don't respond like that if you respect Scottish people (quite aside the fact that English people pointed out the same thing to her).

But above all, you don't respond like that if you truly care about the women who were robbed of their wages - the Labour party could offer to pay some of the money owed. Instead either the now SNP council or the Scottish government or both will have to find what could amount to about a billion pounds (2.5% of the entire Scottish government budget, a budget that's been cut just like everything else in the UK). Which means even more women will die without ever seeing a penny because the money just isn't there to pay all that they are owed right now. Because of Labour.

So for her not to even acknowledge Labour's part in this and to insult the people who tried to educate her (it seems everyone just thinks she's really nice but wasn't informed) with an insult and a deflection, is deeply dishonest and morally repugnant.

Whatever her background, it seems all she cares about now is Labour and power.

informed me today that she supports reforming not just the GRA but also the Equality Act to better protect trans people.

I've heard EXACTLY that wording elsewhere. It's clearly the script.

Not rtft so apologies if it's moved on, my 2 cents...

Women are meant to be nice (and generally we are pretty accommodating and empathetic creatures) most of us will probably only know perhaps 1, or maybe 2 transwomen... and they're probably lovely non "suck my lady cock" types just getting on with their lives. So we will naturally feel outraged at anything bad said about them.

Those of us who have concerns however have probably expressed it on social media and discovered TRA's and MRA's and learned quickly that opening up female spaces really isn't so harmless as there really are cocks wanting to enter them and do such things as "punch a terf in the face" or make us "suck their lady cocks"

Because most women aren’t aware of exactly what the fight is about.

Because even some who do think that they themselves are safe in a middle class bubble and that it’s about protecting more vulnerable women - so they are lacklustre. They don’t realise that abuse and assault happen in all strata of society and that most of us are one accident, medical emergency or unexpected job loss away from being ‘the vulnerable other’.

Because women have friends and people they care deeply about who are trans and they don’t understand that their personal mate might be lovely but that that doesn’t change the fact that safeguarding matters and that dismantling existing laws will leave gaping holes for abusers.

Because they don’t realise that a male born person has already almost derailed an important medical research project and that this could happen again and again and that it will affect all women and the very small sum of money (comparatively) spent on researching female specific health issues.

Because we don’t like to think of ourselves as bigots.

Because if safeguarding comes up they can point to the huge prominent (in my local community) story of a woman who raped and abused students for years, and therefore they are able to believe that the risk of abuse from teachers on school camp is the same with female and male bodied staff. Even after listening to a school explanation of how they keep everybody safe as possible by having 2 teachers of each sex at all camps etc etc.

Because they believe that GC women are conspiracy theorists and in cloud cuckoo land.

Because if it really was as bad as all that there would be public figures talking loudly about it. And they aren’t. So it can’t be all that big an issue.

Because we are socialised to be nice and not ask difficult questions.

Or none of the above.

I’ve lost friends for stating that my feminism centres people with female biology and that I don’t believe any girl or woman should be expected to be vulnerable in a space with someone with a penis, and that I believe it imperative that female bodied individuals not be made to feel bad, bigoted or nasty for not wanting to share sleeping or changing quarters with male bodied people whether that be peers or (worse) people in positions of power.

I was surprised this morning to log on to FB and see that a very clever and critical thinking friend had posted a meme which ends with "it's not what's in our pants but what's in our heart that matters".

There you go. GC feminists are heartless and mean. Love an AGP.

Add 'What's in our Brian's is pretty important too.'

Brains!!!! Actually, leave it as Brian's...

Media positioning of pro-GRA reform has been very clever. GC feminists have been 'othered' and anyone who doesn't wholeheartedly agree is labelled a bigot.

The Tories are desperately seeking to be on what they think is the 'right' side of history - after the S28 debacle, they think that backing GRA reform will magically remove the threat of Momentum and attract more youth voters.

Media coverage has been muted, and most of it has been pro-GRA because journalists have been fed the lines about suicide risks - and who wants to see kids killing themselves because of a law? The rise of the 24hr news cycle and clickbait has impacted on the quality of investigative journalism, meaning that the appetite for actually sourcing information and validating it, isn't there for most articles because the news rooms are more like churn factories.

When the average member of the public reads about it, they think that 'trans' means 'transsexual' and that use of the word 'transgender' is just a more modern version of that. They think that being a transwoman means that you have had surgery and no longer have a penis. They don't realise that the Stonewall definition of 'transgender' includes cross-dressers and people who do it part-time. They don't understand that someone with a beard and a penis can call themselves a woman and would be legally recognised as such.

GC women and groups - like Posie, Venice, WPUK, FPFW - have been very neatly categorised as 'hate groups'. It's an easy narrative to apply because we've been denigrated and dismissed as 'shrill man-hating feminists' for many years. Consequently when people see a news story about WPUK receiving bomb threats, they think it's a common or garden hate group getting what it deserves.

Most people, when you explain all of the above to them - and in particular the point about the Stonewall definition and what self-ID would mean, are utterly gobsmacked and horrified and against it. The good news is that more wide-spread media attention on issues like 'Pips' Bunce, has peaked quite a lot of people - who genuinely don't understand how a part-time cross dresser can qualify for a women's award.

I'm a bloke, and although I've lurked over the years on FWR, I don't post much. I don't have a lot of time for the FWR flavour of feminism. Boo hoo, I'm sure you are gutted.

I do, however, share a lot of your concerns about these matters. I think there's a lot of entitlement coming from some trans people, and not enough concern shown for the real fears that some women have.

I do think that you have an unrealistic view of other women though. Some kind of sisterhood mentality. It's like me asking myself 'why did so many poorer people vote for Brexit?' The answer is that it's complicated. Some don't understand the issues. Some don't want to understand them. Some people are driven by biases and prejudice. Some just don't see the world the way that I do. I do often see women on here saying 'feminists are not a bloody hive mind!' I think that applies in this particular case too. You put women upon a pedestal as some beacon of rationality and clear though, and really, they aren't. They are just humans with their own quirks and thoughts.

@ResistanceIsNecessary - absolutely spot-on. And which makes it so sinister.

What not which !

The friends I have who see no problem, say how nice their trans friends are and how much they have seen them suffering.

I note not a comment on how they've seen the families have their own issues. They are just bigots...

This is the thing that worried me. It doesn’t say let people self ID so they can feel more like their chosen gender, which is what I think a lot of people assume this is about- it says it in the same point as enabling access to sex segregated spaces. The risks are right there and it’s even written as an agenda.
But people just haven’t thought about the potential risks, they just think if some bloke wants to live as a woman that’s fine, on a kind of theoretical level, why should I prevent that?

There is an opinion piece in the guardian by Ella someone looks very young pleading the case for trans rights and how feminists should support those rights. Just baffling