to wonder why some people just don't get it?

[papayasareyum]

Why don’t people get it?
There was a post on Facebook yesterday, regarding male violence, with regards self ID and crime statistics. Someone on the thread mentioned male violence patterns. They were jumped on by many angry voices, saying things like: “you’re a transphobic piece of shit” and “you’re a complete bigot, trans women are women you moron” and “trans women are not men, so you can’t bring them into the discussion”
I mean, it’s illogical and surely at some level these people must know that? Are they deliberately pretending not to understand or do they genuinely just avoid thinking coherently on Trans issues. Is it easier to bleat TWAW and #no debate than think it through? I just don’t get it. These are really intelligent women too. (for some reason, men are faster to understand the GC discussion than women)

The popularity of a view is no measure of its correctness.

“Those who don't know history are doomed to repeat it.”
― Edmund Burke

Yep, almost every major organisation barring the right wing media is wrong and somehow Mumsnet has become one of the few islands of sanity in the world... yessssss.

And the Communists ... those right-wing bastards

morningstaronline.co.uk/article/communists-call-protection-womens-spaces

More from the Communists

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3430714-Communist-Party-policy-supports-actual-women#prettyPhoto

Woman's Place UK
Who are we?
We are a group of people from a range of backgrounds including trade unions, women’s organisations, academia and the NHS. We are united by our belief that women’s hard won rights must be defended.

What are we for?
We are against all forms of discrimination. We believe in the right of everyone to live their lives free from discrimination and harassment. Women face both endemic structural and personal inequality. This is reflected, for example, in the high levels of sexual harassment and violence against women and girls; the gender pay gap; discrimination at work. This is why sex is a protected characteristic in the Equality Act (2010) which we believe must be defended.

Our Demands

Respectful and evidence-based discussion about the impact of the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act to be allowed to take place and for women’s voices to be heard.

The principle of women-only spaces to be upheld – and where necessary extended.

A review of how the exemptions in the Equality Act which allow or single sex services or requirements that only a woman can apply for a job (such as in a domestic violence refuge) are being applied in practice.

Government to consult with women’s organisations on how self-declaration would impact on women-only services and spaces.

Government to consult on how self-declaration will impact upon data gathering – such as crime, employment, pay and health statistics – and monitoring of sex-based discrimination such as the gender pay gap.

womansplaceuk.org/about/

*Identifying male-pattern violence, abuse and sexual crimes against women and children is vital in order raise awareness, challenge it and improve what are in many aspects serious increases in such crimes.

It isn't just the trans-lobby that prevents male crimes being named as such.*

Absolutely.
We have to stop looking at these things personally, and every male needs to ask 'what are we doing as a class to try and change things?' or more fundamentally, 'what are we doing as a class that causes this?'

Whilst not every man is going to be violent, their attitudes might still influence those who are violent, so they can still be contributing to the problem.

In this instance, it's male violence, but there are many other instances of behaviours as a class (in both men and women, positive and negative) that we can't just wash our hands of simply because we as individuals don't believe we exhibit such behaviours).

So when I can't enter a woman's refuge - it's not because I am ME, it's because I am a male, and statistically many males hurt women. It's impossible for others to know if I am a hurter or not.
That is precisely the same with a transwoman. It's impossible to know how 'trans' they are, but it IS possible to see they have male physiology and that means they can't enter a refuge either (in my eyes).

Now some will argue that women can be violent towards other women too, and whilst that's true, it's impossible to protect against that. It IS possible to minimise risk from people with a male physiology though, and that (in my opinion) is why a transwoman needs to be classed as male for protection purposes. I don't see it as anti-trans any more than I see it as anti-male.

We have to stop looking at these things personally, and every male needs to ask 'what are we doing as a class to try and change things?' or more fundamentally, 'what are we doing as a class that causes this?'

Yes!

I have just shared this article by Jessica Eaton on a running thread about the dangers of 'normalising' porn for young women.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3449288-So-depressed-by-the-Banned-Feminist-thread-on-Twitter

Its worth sharing here too:
victimfocus.wordpress.com/2018/05/18/beat-the-pussy-up-the-way-we-talk-about-sex-with-women/

origninal thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3253264-Very-good-article-by-Jessica-Eaton-about-language-used-to-describe-sex

'Susan Cox on Queer Theory
Excerpts from a January 2017 interview with Susan Cox and Derrick Jensen about queer theory'

concludes:
"So this is what queer theory does. There are no material relations of power or exploitation or harm. There are merely these phantoms of social norms that are causing the harm, these categorizations of people, the categorization of pedophile, or the BDSM or the sadist, even.”

“This is actually a real problem, because as Mary Daly said, “We cannot fight against oppression when there are no namable oppressors.” So this is a real problem for feminism, and also for any sort of activism or revolution, political revolution, when we cannot establish class consciousness and identify the division of classes. Who are the exploiters, who are the exploited?”

“And postmodernist theory argues that we need to deconstruct the creation of the category of “other” and make it so that there is no distinction between groups, and everybody is recognized as infinitely unique individuals who are irreducible to any social category of description. But in reality you actually need to identify yourself as member of an exploited class and unite together in class interest to be able to fight any power that is oppressing you.”

“We see this throughout history, throughout any act of slavery, colonization, or oppression. The dominant group can’t subordinate another group merely through brute force. They also need to engage in this sophisticated process of dismantling the group as a group, and this is done through banning their language, their religion and destroying their way of life.”

“This is also what happens in any strategy of oppression. The oppressed group is turned into nothing more than a parody of what they once were, and a commodity, like sacred cultural symbols are turned into this exotic pattern that the dominant group will tile their bathroom with. Or religious garb will just turn into this fun costume that the dominant group will use when they’re at a costume party and play. So it reduces the people, the oppressed group to nothing more than a performance, and a parody.

And this is what it’s being advocated for in queer theory, that a woman is nothing more than a performance, she is just a citation of a norm, and anyone can put on this costume. It’s basically the obliteration of the oppressed group.”

therearesomanythingswrongwiththis.com/2018/03/22/susan-cox-on-queer-theory/

(ht Glinner)

DrSue
#notalemming
Some of us have retained the ability to think for ourselves.

TornFromTheInside

You said I think it's a pretty logical assumption that a transwoman has male physiology, and whilst there may be aspects of a transwoman that are more feminine

Which aspects do you mean by "more feminine"?

You also said The problem lies in the fact that a transwoman wants to be classed as a woman, and therefore to argue they are male (or part male) seems to offend some. Maybe a better way to express it is that although they are female

What makes them "female"?

Which aspects do you mean by "more feminine"?

I do not know, it seems to vary between people. I am not the one advocating which 'feminine' behaviours determine when someone is or isn't trans, I am merely explaining the supposed logic behind trans thinking... that they believe some internal aspect (or all) of them is female and thus are exempt from negative male traits. This is not a view I subscribe to. My view is that they may well have SOME female traits (yet to be scientifically proven), but they absolutely have a male physiology, which almost certainly suggests they have some male traits too, thus are not exempt.

What makes them "female"?
I think you're misinterpreting my post.
I don't believe they are biologically female, but society appears to be condoning the treatment of them as females (within hotly debated parameters). My point being that rather than taking a hardline 'you're a bloke in a dress' approach, the issue can be addressed by saying 'ok, for acceptance purposes, we'll call you female and treat you as one, but you can't just pretend you have zero male traits and thus pose no danger'.

Yep, almost every major organisation barring the right wing media is wrong

Because of course those organisations and the left wing media are above reproach and don't have any agenda except pure goodness.

My point being that rather than taking a hardline 'you're a bloke in a dress' approach, the issue can be addressed by saying 'ok, for acceptance purposes, we'll call you female and treat you as one

I see what you're saying, but the problem is that if we accept men as women, we cannot prevent them doing all the things women do.

Not one of us here wants to stop anyone dressing and looking as they wish (in fact, we're much keener on destroying such stereotypes than the people who purport to support trans "rights"), but "accepting that men are women" means giving them everything they want.

Yes, it's a dilemma.

On the one hand, no sensible person wants to be derogatory and say 'man in drag', and maybe it's too simple to ask 'why can't you be a man who is just very feminine and nature, and who prefers to live life like a woman?' - because that presupposes a woman has one lifestyle and a man has another, when in reality there are massive variations in lifestyles across the sexes, so what's a male vs female lifestyle?

Truth be told, I can't really comprehend how someone can 'feel' like they are the opposite sex. I feel like 'me' and I make assumptions that the general feelings I have are male ones, but I cannot be sure of that. Quite often I feel apart from many men, and closer to women, but vice versa at other times. I can buy into someone feeling more comfortable in themselves living life as the opposite sex (their chosen gender) and I'm happy to treat them 'almost' as I would anybody else of that sex, but it's that 'almost' aspect that causes a lot of debate. How far should we go with it?

One thing is for sure though, 'treating' someone as though they were female is not the same as accepting that they actually are. I can suspend my disbelief only so far!

Yep, almost every major organisation barring the right wing media is wrong

It's not every major organisation is it? Its a few diversity people inside organisations changing policies at the behest of Stonewall without bothering to consult or gain consensus. It is a minority of people who are doing this, D&I people are extremely peripheral to the functioning of an organisation, about as noticeable as the post room and security staff on a day to day basis, and most people ignore their outputs. They have NO IDEA of the impact of what they are doing in reality.

Wake me when a single prominent transactivist states, in one of their frequent media appearances, “You know, perhaps we go to far when we say feminists should be burned to death, or that they deserve rape. Perhaps we should stop saying that. Perhaps we should even forcefully condemn threats of actual violence against women and insist that they stop.”

This.

The absolutely irony is that whilst violence isn't the sole domain of men, it's overwhelmingly carried out by them. To use the threat of violence just exemplifies why biological women (and plenty of rational men too) won't fall for the myth that a transwoman is a real woman. There's just too much man still in there - however repressed, however diminished, it's still in there enough to think violence is an answer.

Yep, almost every major organisation barring the right wing media is wrong and somehow Mumsnet has become one of the few islands of sanity in the world... yessssss.

I remember very similar arguments marshalled against opponents of paedophilia in the seventies and eighties, and against those raising the issue of rape gangs more recently.

Alex Drummond is a man in a skirt, fine, he can dress how he likes it's a free country. However, he is not a woman, end of story. Why are so many people willing to believe this bullshit? Why the handmaidens to these men. black is white, up is down, one can just go and on. I' m not being a hateful trans bigot by stating the bleeding obvious. (reference to bleeders). People, live your lives as you feel fit, just don't lie to yourselves and others along the way.

When I told people that Guides were letting boys who identified as trans sleep in the same tents as girls, they flat out would not believe me. It was as if I was telling them about chemtrails or something.

I think for so many people, the 'issue' isn't an issue because they deem it to be scare mongering. Not only that, but it generally doesn't impinge on their lives so they have a very laissez faire attitude.

The moment their own children or environment is affected, then it's a different matter.

The principle of self-ID seems rational. If someone wants to identify as a particular gender, in the modern world of 'live and let live' many are happy to support the self-ID principle. Then, when the potential side-effects of self-ID are explained, I think they tend to be viewed as searching for a loophole that might create a theoretical threat. i.e. scaremongering.

It won't be until a number of abuses of self-ID occur that the general population grasps the issue and by then, there will be huge reluctance to overturn regulation, instead, it will most likely just be put down to 'crimes that could have happened regardless of self-ID' - because a handful of new opportunities afforded by self-ID will be absorbed into the general mass of sexual crimes committed by men. In some cases, it may even be put down as a female on female sexual assault which will further skew the reality.

Many people are misguidedly believing that fears over self-ID are about assuming transpeople are predators. That is not the assumption at all. The assumption is that some transpeople will be (just because statistically a percentage of both sexes will be), but also some predators will utilise self-ID for their own ends, which has nothing to do with being trans, merely about offering an opportunity for predators to breach what are normally a safe havens for females.
And of course, there is the issue that with perfectly legitimate transpeople, children risk being exposed to seeing the genitalia of the opposite sex. The pros and cons of that are not a trans issue, simply a matter of parental concern.

Many people are misguidedly believing that fears over self-ID are about assuming transpeople are predators. That is not the assumption at all. The assumption is that some transpeople will be (just because statistically a percentage of both sexes will be)

This is how things are obscured. Male-pattern abuse & rates remain the same regardless of gender-identity and are substantively different to females.

What happens is that sex can't seem to be considered as the risk factor that it is.

I think a lot of people, rightly or wrongly, think that the GC lobby are overestimating the level of threat and perhaps more enraged as a matter of principle than because of the literal risk.

Men are 4x more likely to be assaulted by a stranger and the majority of them get by just fine, so it's easy to see how people assume this is a mountain of a molehill situation.

I think a lot of people, rightly or wrongly, think that the GC lobby are overestimating the level of threat and perhaps more enraged as a matter of principle than because of the literal risk.

Wrongly

Men are 4x more likely to be assaulted by a stranger and the majority of them get by just fine, so it's easy to see how people assume this is a mountain of a molehill situation.

Assaulted by another man/men.

Assaulted by another man/men.

As I've pointed out on many occasions before now (don't mean that snottily btw) I don't understand why posters always use the above statement as if it cancels out the impact of violence on a male individual.

If I'm assaulted and left seriously injured it's unlikely that I'll shrug it off or feel any less aggrieved because it was another male that attacked me.

Looking at the demographics, a man and a woman from a privileged middle class family who've had the benefit of a stable family background, good education etc, are arguably likely to share more in common in terms of life experiences than either will with a male from an extremely poor socioeconomic background who grew up in an abusive family facing extreme poverty and drug/violence issues etc.