There are genuine transgender people - but they are quiet.

[andyoldlabour]

I found this on KF, and it shows that there are transgender people with empathy, who do not agree with the way very masculine transgender people are treating women.
It came as a surprise to me, but also was very heartening.
If they were all like this person then there wouldn't be any problems, so it has confirmed my beliefs that certain people are not really transgender but using it for their own nefarious reasons.

twitter.com/kinesis/status/1062885504541110272

Whilst we separate into transsexual and transgender we continue to cede space to people who aren’t born female.

More than 99% of what I see in relation to womens spaces I am in absolute agreement over. I am not prepared though to commit to 100% because I believe there can be certain circumstances outside of the norm.

For example I do not use womens toilets nor do I use womens changing rooms and am in agreement here. These are spaces where this is a safety risk and there are always alternatives. I have already said I consider sports should be a blanket no to transgender women competing as women. You cannot deny physical differences between men and women that cannot be reversed.

Personally though I do use a ladies gym, with permission and I do not feel this to be an issue, nor do any of the other members (quite the opposite). The womens gym is intended as a safe space away from the testosterone fuelled and I share that need for a safe space - I am and have been a target for the "alpha male" just like many of the other women there.

Further whilst I do not beleive biological men should have access to womens refuges etc. nor ever be put in a position where any women could feel threatened, I do think that there are situations where due to lack of any alternative some services should be made available with adaptation. For example a post operative trans woman that has been raped should not be told they must do without counselling because nothing is available for men.

Another example - breast screening is a woman only space. Should transsexual people be excluded from this space even though they are still at risk of contracting breast cancer ?

There is always grey areas.

As I said before during my investigations prior to HRT I was found to have CAH - an intersex condition. Should that intersex condition be entirely ignored because my body at birth was essentially male ? Not all intersex conditions result in ambiguity over physical gender which was a surprise to me - how do we treat those people.

I would be genuinely interested in thoughts on this: having had an intersex diagnosis should I still continue to identify as transsexual or distance myself now from that ? I do have Gender Dysphoria but in my case its been found to have a cause - should that make a difference ? Should those with intersex conditions be treated the same way as transsexual people (and note intersex is under the transgender umbrella).

You can see why I dont think anything is ever black and white.

Personally though I do use a ladies gym, with permission and I do not feel this to be an issue, nor do any of the other members

How do you know this? Have all the other members been asked in a manner where they're free to answer their true feelings? Or have they been appealed to also?

I do think that there are situations where due to lack of any alternative some services should be made available with adaptation. For example a post operative trans woman that has been raped should not be told they must do without counselling because nothing is available for men

So why are you not campaigning for that service to be available to males? Why do you think that severely traumatised women should have to share a very necessary service to validate transgenderism? Using this as an example is another appeal to female socialisation.

Another example - breast screening is a woman only space. Should transsexual people be excluded from this space even though they are still at risk of contracting breast cancer

Men also develop breast cancer. There is no reason to have anyone other than women at breast screenings for the privacy and dignity of women attending. Have you considered appealing for a transgender session? Or a mixed session for those women who are allegedly happy to share with all and sundry, or do you think you should be able to make every session mixed sex?

It is black and white. Intersex conditions don't make someone trans, you using it here is another appeal to women's socialisation to be kind to you.

If you have a male body whatever hormones you take, whatever surgery you have you do not belong in any women's spaces or places. Arguing the grey area is a massive lack of respect for our boundaries. It is black and white. There is no grey area between male and female. Stop attempting to carve one out.

This thread is the single best thing I've ever read about all of this (and I read a lot of the threads here).

Thank you to all of you for posting-many more people read than post.

I have put forward my position and the way I feel and am told once again how I am wrong. Assumptions have been made that arent correct but if I object I will be told I am disrespecting female boundaries.

So why are you not campaigning for that service to be available to males? Who says I am not ?

Have you considered appealing for a transgender session?
As it happens I have already written to the health authority.

Intersex conditions don't make someone trans, you using it here is another appeal to women's socialisation to be kind to you. Thats a hell of a leap. I am not appealing to anything merely stating facts and posing a question. You are assuming a motivation that isnt there.

This is why traditional transsexual people cant be on mumsnet. What gets focused on is the areas of dissent and never the common ground.

Have all the other members been asked in a manner where they're free to answer their true feelings?

Actually they have and are asked every single time I attend.

You are still emphasising how you feel.

Women are responding to you without adding their emotions.

It isn't easy, there is no fix, law or convention that will allow a return to the blind acquiesence of yesteryear. Women will now always question the right, as in the moral right, of any male person to access female spaces.

Don't blame women. Don't argue with us that we have done something wrong. Have that discuss with other men, who could just as easily make room for you.

Or do as generations if women have done and work for your in space, without taking anything from women.

Harsh? Well, tough. As so many women have been told. Like female athletes, you just need to try harder!

And yes, I do appreciate just how entrenched I sound. A year ago I wouldn't have typed that...

There’s no point haranguing someone who has come on here in good faith to share their point of view. Life for any of us is not black and white. If you are transsexual, with a condition like transsexualNOTtransgender then life is most definitely not black and white and it is difficult to navigate public space, even with the best of intentions. It’s not always safe for transsexuals who present as women to use male facilities. A gender neutral third space is probably the best option, with the proviso that sex-segregated spaces are retained alongside those third space to ensure the safety of children and women.

Let’s face it: the true enemy here is male violence, not people who have a genuine intersex condition and are just trying to live their lives. Male violence against women, children and transwomen is the problem.

Every male transperson seems to have a line in the sand that they won't cross. Some don't think male transpeople should be in women's competitive sports, others won't use female toilets, some don't use female or women to describe themselves.

But for every one who doesn't do those things, another male transperson will, meaning that women don't have any female only spaces or words to describe themselves.

So I am going to decline to answer such a loaded question.

It wasn't a loaded question: it was a clear question.

Your reaction to it speaks volumes, however.

It is perfectly fine to advocate for your own aims as a transsexual. I will either support or oppose you in them depending on which particular aim is under discussion.

What I do not see as fine is for you to conflate your aims with women's rights. This is no different to any extremist TRA.

I don't think TSNTG is conflating their aims with women's rights. They just said they would stand alongside women fighting to protect women's rights.

Should those with intersex conditions be treated the same way as transsexual people (and note intersex is under the transgender umbrella).

Not quite sure what you mean. Treated in what way?

I can't speak for intersex people as I am not one, but I understand their conditions and needs are diverse, and I do wonder what benefit there is for, say, intersex individuals who have infertility issues but no gender dysphoria to be lumped together with people who feel they were born into the wrong body.
There's evidence of persistent lobbying by prominent trans rights activists in this particular area against the wishes of many intersex rights organisations going back years. I would love to know how exactly it became acceptable to conflate the two.

See page 5 of this thread (the whole thread is well worth a read!!) www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3463920-Lets-go-back-to-2007?pg=5

14 May 2000 - AISSG UK's 'GIRES Statement'

A Position Statement Concerning GIRES (Bernard Reed) by the Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group UK (AISSG UK):

Introduction

The Androgen Insensitivity Syndrome Support Group (AISSG) is a peer information/support organisation established in the UK in 1988 (formalised in 1993) and which achieved UK charitable status in early 1999. We are completely autonomous but are affiliated to the Genetic Interest Group (GIG) and Contact a Family.

We have around 120 subscriber members (and many more contacts) in the UK (mostly adults but many families too) affected by intersex conditions such as AIS, XY gonadal dysgenesis (Swyer's syndrome) and 5 alpha reductase deficiency; with some XX female members who have Mayer Rokitansky Kuster Hauser (MRKH syndrome, *Mullerian dysgenesis/aplasia, vaginal atresia etc.

We have representatives in USA, Canada, Australia, Germany, S. Africa and Spain. Our website at www.aissg.org has received much praise, from people with AIS who come across it after years in the wilderness (having not been told about their condition) and from medical specialists in the intersex field.

After extensive email correspondence with Bernard Reed of GIRES during mid March to early April 2000, we decided not to work with GIRES at the present time. Overall, we wish to disassociate ourselves from GIRES and to state that they do not represent us.

We have already established mutually beneficial relationships with several groups of clinicians and are working with them on AIS-related research projects and the provision of multi-disciplinary patient care. We collaborate on joint projects with other related support organisations (e.g. the UK Turner Syndrome Society, the Anorchidism Support Group) via a consortium set up by the Genetic Interest Group. Within this consortium (set up in 1999) we have recently published a leaflet for clinicians to give to parents on receipt of a 'genetic diagnosis' and have obtained a grant from the Baring Foundation to enable one of the clinical psychologists with whom we work to carry out counselling skills training for the three groups' helpline volunteers. We also work very closely on an informal basis with the UK's Adrenal Hyperplasia Network (AHN) and Congenital Adrenal Hyperplasia (CAH) Group.

We do not foresee that an association with GIRES would follow the same spirit as those above, so do not wish to join forces with Reed. We believe that Reed's desire to change the medical management of intersex, although reasonable in itself, is based firmly on the discourse of gender dysphoria (transsexualism/transgender, often referred to as 'trans') and moreover masks an underlying attempt to exploit physical/biological intersex so as to provide an authenticity to that scenario, an authentication that it doesn't need.

We started asking questions about GIRES's policies and aims, about the nature of its membership and its credentials as a mouthpiece for intersex people. There followed a number of emails from Reed giving information about GIRES and asking for our comments on some GIRES guidelines for the medical management of intersex and on a draft synopsis of the issues that GIRES thought the BBC programme should cover.

Throughout his emails, and in his guidelines/synopsis, Reed would employ the phrase "gender identity and intersex conditions" as a means, it seemed to us, of slipping gender dysphoria into the picture without explicitly saying so. While many of the points in GIRES's management guidelines made sense at first sight in terms of intersex, we were wary of this "Trojan horse" approach to including trans within these recommendations because whatever aetiological considerations might link these, in terms of medical treatment there is a world of difference between purely gender issues and the issues faced by intersex children. We did not comment on the content of the guidelines/synopsis.

We noted several other things during the exchange:

a) Reed wrote that "We don't ask our members what conditions they have" and "I am confident that the majority of our members have no condition at all and nor does any member of their families. I estimate that only 7% of the charity's income is derived from those with a condition or the parents of such persons." It seemed strange for someone representing an organisation so underweight on the intersex side of things to be throwing so much weight around in that sphere.

b) names of well-known researchers and clinical experts seemed to appear 'overnight' against the various topics on further drafts of his 'BBC synopsis'. At least one of them (a consultant gynaecologist in the team at the UCL/Middlesex Hospital, London, who are our main collaborators on research/clinical aspects of AIS) had no idea she was itemised in this way and was quite annoyed; so we surmised that others possibly hadn't been consulted either.
(continues)

They just said they would stand alongside women fighting to protect women's rights.

Unless a woman says something they don't like, in which case, collect £200 and move straight on to outrage at non-compliance and appeals to female socialisation.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Just read this thread and the irony has struck me...

The OP was commenting on how genuine transgender people are being quiet....

We then have someone come along, make a few posts which whilst you may not agree with I found interesting. Then suddenly they get turned on, told they are just like all the other TRA and then the thread concludes with a below the belt dig that wasnt deserved.

This was not fair to TSNotTG.

I agree with everything Sweary has said.

Some males may believe that they are somehow internally women due to their belief in sexist stereotypes, and/or because they have had cosmetic surgeries, it makes no difference to me whether they call themselves transgender or transexual. They are all still males and should be restricted from female only spaces, the same as any other males should be, there should be no exceptions made for certain males.

Trying to blur the distinction between intersex and “transsexual” is also something that we see very often in their arguments.

As is the old argument that “none of the women mind me being in their spaces in real life”. If a male is there (regardless of what he calls himself) then it is no longer a female only space, as there is a male in it.
Males that want to be in women’s spaces need to understand that many, many women do not want males in our spaces for many various reasons, trying to elicit sympathy from women in order to get one’s self admitted is a form of emotional blackmail.

Passtheknitting

I completely agree

If a male is there (regardless of what he calls himself) then it is no longer a female only space, as there is a male in it.

No one can argue with this.

The space was set up for a reason, and the male person has disregarded those reasons and made it into a mixed sex space. Why would someone who respects women, and calls themselves an ally do this?

What is a ‘genuine transgender’ person?

What is a ‘traditional transsexual’?

Terms are being thrown around without definition.

Aren’t transsexual and transgender the same thing? Isn’t transgender just a millennial rebranding of ‘transsexual’?

Mu understandingis that transsexual is someone who has Gender Dysphoria and has transitioned whereas transgender is an umbrella term for anyone who chooses to express an alternative gender identity whether diagnosed or not and transitioning or not.

knowyourmeme.com/photos/1313387-lgbtq

You know this really is hilarious how a thread wanting to know why transsexual people are quiet ends up with a transsexual person getting called manipulative and deceptive.

I didnt agree 100% with what was said but nothing rang alarm bells with me and I would have been interested to see that discussion go farther.

Are you still rhere TSNotTG ?

The trouble is, I have no idea who has gender dysphoria and who is expressing their gender identity.

Either way, my need for sex segregation doesn't disappear because either of those people exist.

👆🏻That

There was a really good attempt at discussion here.
Sadly it's ended like the other times discussion has happened.
I get it, it's a rare thing so all emotions run wild and everyone swoops down all at once. But it's totally overwhelming and unfair in my opinion.

I get it though.

*Have all the other members been asked in a manner where they're free to answer their true feelings?

Actually they have and are asked every single time I attend*

So no then. They’re not being asked in a manner where they’re free to express their true feelings. They’re being asked to agree to a fait accompli.

Why do you think women join a women only gym? Anyone male, regardless of their inner essence or surgery and drug regime turns it into a mixed space. Something the members have gone out of their way to avoid.