transgender supportive, TRA unsupportive

[polarpig]

Am I the only feminist who supports people who are transgender who are living their life as a woman and getting on with it with the minimum amount of fuss, with the support of their partner and not creating TRA style controversy?

I know a lovely transgender woman who I consider to be family and she is just getting on with her life with the minimum of fuss. She is transgender at home and work and is accepted by all and doesn't shout from the rooftops about it.

Frida how is changing the meaning of the word woman harmless?

Giving ‘women’s’ rights to male bodied people will make it impossible to defend those rights in a court of law.

The only reason we have specific rights is because we have female bodies. If we can’t hold the line here, our sisters in developing countries will be utterly fucked before they even get started.

Woman has to mean Adult Human Female.

Imo we can advocate for female only spaces and still say that trans women are women - I just think it’s a small linguistic concession we can make that doesn’t really hurt and means a hell of a lot to some people

That is your decision to make, and you have every right to of course.

But why should your linguistic consession mean that women in prison for example, are put at a higher risk of rape and sexual assault?

Imo we can advocate for female only spaces and still say that trans women are women - I just think it’s a small linguistic concession we can make that doesn’t really hurt and means a hell of a lot to some people.

You are contradicting yourself there.

If you say transwomen are women, then they are women! Any advocation for female spaces ould inlcude them, as you say they are women!

Your small linguistic concesssion would hurt very many women - see recent cases in court, womens prisons etc etc. That means a hell of a lot to me and very many other women!

trans women are women - I just think it’s a small linguistic concession

Small linguistic concession?! No, it fundamentally changes the meaning of the word woman.

As a woman It means a huge amount to me that I can no longer believe news reports when they say "a woman ...". I have to check whether they are really talking about a woman or not.

trans women are women - I just think it’s a small linguistic concession

That's really no different to saying
A packet of crisps is an apple
A glass of wine is a glass of water
A dirty garden trowel is a surgical scalpel

All fundamentally different things.

By the by, Peter Tatchell was on the the radio last night, discussing the Brunei law of stoning to death gay people.

He stated gay was "same sex attracted".

Now, given what our Trans friends tell us, sex is absolutely meaningless and it's all about gender, therefore a male sex person and a female sex person can easily be a gay couple. PT is officially approved by the trans lobby, yet when speaking on a live interview...ooops!

Excellent post Erythronium

The AWAs have used the trans issue, and the few troubled individuals who lived as best they could, to groom and gaslight a whole society, and their over reach will create a backlash that we've been warning about on here for ages, and part of it will be the people who had these brutal surgeries will no longer be able to comfort themselves that anyone is willingly playing along with the illusion. That is what under the bus means for transsexuals, and it is really cruel

Yep

The family member of mine uses, where possible, the toilet that is unisex. I've never seen them use the female toilets

We are very up for a campaign for more third spaces on this board, we are aware that I’m some cases there isn’t adequate provision for trans people.

Imo we can advocate for female only spaces and still say that trans women are women - I just think it’s a small linguistic concession we can make that doesn’t really hurt and means a hell of a lot to some people.

What is the difference between a women only space and a female only space?

Are we assuming that everything at the moment is women only, and therefore we are going to have to campaign for female spaces? Or vice versa?

What is the difference between s women and an adult human female?

I'm 100%:supportive of everyone's right to live and dress as they please, wear makeup and hairstyles as they choose, and use the name they want. That harms no one.

No one should be discriminated against in employment, provision of services including housing, medical care etc. No one should be abused ever for being who they are.

But it fundamentally does harm women and girls if a man who chooses to wear a skirt, makeup and long hair is described as "living as a woman" and it is also harmful to describe a woman who chooses trousers, short hair and no makeup as "living as a man". This is harmful because it places unreasonable expectations of performance of femininity as the defining feature of womanhood.

Women and girls are discriminated against due to their sex not their gender. Transmen are discriminated against due to both their female sex and due to their transgender status so my intersectional feminism is very much concerned for them. Transwomen are not discriminated against because of their sex as they are male. They are discriminated against because of their transgender status and they should not be - but that isn't the fight that feminism is concerned with. Feminists centre women.

When examining the rights of a transwoman the appropriate question is not whether they are being treated the same way as a woman would be, but are they being treated the same way as a gender-conforming male would be. If they are being denied housing, employment and services that would be available to a gender-conforming male due to their trans status then that is discrimination. Refusing to address someone by their chosen name is unreasonable. But a male not being allowed access to spaces, services and opportunities reserved for females is not discrimination.

There is no need to describe a transwoman as a man though obviously. Transwomen are transwomen - they are male at a biological level but wish to opt out of the gender expectations of masculinity. That's fine - fully supportive. There is nothing at all wrong with being a transwoman. Transwomen are not women though. Why pretend otherwise? Why be ashamed of the trans prefix? There is no harm or shame in being trans so own that prefix as a badge of honour.

If we can’t hold the line here, our sisters in developing countries will be utterly fucked before they even get started

Exactly!

I was coming back in this thread to say that a small linguistic concession is harmful and EluphNaugeMeop's last paragraph hits the nail on the head.

Trans women are trans women
Trans men are trans men

Both should be proud statements, both are true statements, and both should be common statements.

Gender means very little to be honest. It’s like saying someone has a ‘yellow soul’ or as relevant in general life as someone not liking orange juice.

I don’t like bullies and I don’t like liars. Women’s rights have been hard fought (and we aren’t there yet) yet they seem to be shrinking and not because of a genuine social reason. It’s become a trend and is very damaging to women and it really shows how little (generally) men really think of is.

I treat people as I find them.

Legal definitions are too important to be based on compassion or politeness.

A teeny weeny linguistic concession to include biological males as women?
How about we make a little concession on behalf of men; biological males can dress however they want and still be included as men.Ta da!!
Actually they did that in the 70s and 80s,so there’s no need to suggest we eradicate the meaning of the word woman. My compassion is for the women and girls who will be damaged if the current trans ideology persists.

Excuse me, what is AWA?

I’m critical of the concept of gender but wouldn’t want to associate myself with Gender Critical movement because of some of the vitriol

Again, the new I'm not racist but....

Again, the giveaway word vitriol.

It's not hard to find a new word that doesn't make a post flash like a belisha beacon!

AWA = anti woman activists

I just wanted to ask something respectfully OP

The family member of mine uses, where possible, the toilet that is unisex. I've never seen them use the female toilets

Firstly it's grest that your family member has applied the sort of tacit agreement that transwomen have had with women regarding public toilets. Transwomen and Transmen are nothing new, they have been around for years and the tacit agreement has been abused over the years I'm sure but not to the degree we have now.

What I wanted to ask was if your family member was to commit a crime and go to prison should they go to a male or female prison?

Or if they were, god forbid, needing medical treatment requiring a stay in hospital, should they be on a men's or women's ward? The NHS has recently admitted that they treat the condition and the person according to their gender.

Whilst I would want your family member to be treated with respect and humanity it's important that we recognise that if, by doing so, we are in direct conflict of doing the same for women we should, at the very least have a discussion about it.

This is why I have such an issue with the trans ideology #nodebate as it removes women's rights and voices. It's 2019, we can do better.

The small linguistic concession of calling men "she" or "women" is incredibly oppressive. Given that we're actually punished if we don't toe the line e.g. job loss, social ostracism, loss of a public voice on the internet, it's clearly not small at all. It's a requirement for women to deny reality and erase ourselves. That's why I'm wondering about your relative's colleagues OP, would you support them if they used the correct terminology about your relative ('male", "man", "he")? I'm even wondering if this post will be deleted by Mumsnet because in naming reality I haven't followed the new social rules that women were never consulted on.

Fairly sure this is the position of most posters on here. I know its mine.

Mind, I would extend TRA to include TRA 'types', you know those 'I am nw a lesbian, worship my female penis or you are a bigot' types? And the usual MRAs ho latch ono this. TRAs are the main issue, the blatant misogyny and homophobia is just shocking. However, this uns way deeper than a few hundred dedicated 'activists'. I would actually probably wager that at least half of those currently IDing as 'trans' are not actually transsexual. And IMO, 'transgender' is a load of bollocks. Its all about stereotypes and random 'feelings'. Transsexualism is about body dysphoria, which is very real and an awful condition to live with. But of course, 'saying trans people have dysphoria is transphobic!!!' these days.

The Hayden screenshot, purposely twisting the thread about narcisists..business as usual.

Wow my typos seem worse than ever, think I may need a new keyboard as a lot of letters seem to randomly not register..

Thanks Repeal

SignMeUp, a word or two on the use of AWA as opposed to TRA - I use Anti Woman Activist because of what we've been talking about on this thread - my focus is not on trans anything, the only thing that interests me is when certain people push for things which harm women and girls. That 'Trans' is the currently fashionable means by which to do this is just scenery, really. It's the anti-woman focus that is the issue, quite apart from the fact that Trans-rights activists are not pushing for rights but privileges over and above other groups.

Hope that explains the use

Having moved from Transgender to TRA I may now move to AWA... on the basis that my langage is changing as my opinions and understanding evolves.

Thanks Floral