Help me peaktrans DH

[maslinpan]

We haven't been able to discuss the many terrifying elements of the trans rights agenda in a constructive way. I am a lifelong feminist, DH is as supportive as they come, has mainly female colleagues who he deeply respects, and he wants DD (14) to do and be whatever she wants.
He had a MTF flatmate years ago who was receiving counselling, waiting for surgery, and was a very private person who just wanted to live their life. I think that is his only model of a trans woman, and he is loyal to that memory - not that they have kept in touch at all, so can't ask them what they think. He is an academic who has some awareness of student politics - rainbow flag waving very proudly at his uni - but I think he feels they have very little influence and relevance to anyone else. I pointed him to FPFW but he found a statistic which he thought was not very reliable, so he is quite dismissive of that source. How can I persuade him that my concerns are real, pressing, and relevant to all girls and women? Twitter threads won't do the trick, I need cold hard facts with lots of evidence. The resource thread It could never happen is great, but what else?

Show him this thread - even reading the first couple of pages without opening any of the links gives a good overview.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me?pg=18&order=

My DH thinks that as trans people make up such a small % of the UK population there is nothing to worry about it terms of power, influence or each so I focus on the education stuff (Stonewall schools and No Outsiders) and also also government porticoes or even politicians who can't say what a woman is.

I also try to discuss TRA violence/male pattern violence, free speech and police and hate crimes but he is easily overwhelmed and won't really discuss any of it with me anymore!

As your DH is in education I would focus on that, has he seen the recent video of that kid being thrown out of class? Some real life examples might be better than statistics if they can be dismissed or undermined.

Does your DD do sports ?

Can't you leave him to make his own decisions? I wouldn't appreciate someone showing me articles all the time to try and change my view point on something.

It takes persistent drip feeding. I understand the desire to dump all the evidence out at once and overload someone by having long conversations about it, but partners can get overwhelmed and bored and switch off. It's one of the reasons why I'm desperate to join a GC group in Edinburgh or meet some GC women to talk to, because my partner was getting a bit tired of me going on and on. He is supportive and respectful of my GC views.... still a bit unsure and on the fence about the trans issues but he's slowly making noises and expressing doubt. We were watching a very conventional and feminine looking woman on the telly rabbiting on about being non-binary and using they/them pronouns and he was totally confused 'wtf there's nothing about her that seems non-binary...' and then we had a good laugh when he exclaimed 'omg you're turning me into a TERF!!'.

Like others have said, focus on the censorship, free speech, intimidation of women and academics, medical professionals resigning from Tavistock over concerns etc. Space out the discussions so it doesn't feel repetitive.
It will slowly start to stick and little questions will pop up in his mind when he reads a story or hears colleagues discussing something. My partner overheard colleagues bad mouthing 'TERFs' recently and since he knows I'm not some raving bigot, he actually started to understand a bit of the reactionary attitudes towards feminists.

Thanks all. I think because he only looks at the Guardian and the BBC, he isn't coming across the news stories which might get him to question it all. If it's just me getting angry then I am just one voice. If DD did sport that would be such a great starting point but she doesn't, not Guides either. Of course he is free to disagree with me, but the lack of any engagement really upsets me.

Send him the link to Women are Humam

Point out instances where a woman would really want another woman to say: do their smear, council them after a rape, be in the next cubicle to them when they are naked, at the gym/changing rooms, perform a mammogram, wipe their aged bums in a care home, locked in a prison cell with, have sex with...

Now a male bodied person who gets to do this - riding roughshod over the wants or needs woman he is doing it to/with - is what? A woman because he says so. He may say that he feels like a woman - how exactly is this a can it be measured or judges truthful? How do we know he isn’t lying? Even if he does - his willy still works, no? He may say that he is a lesbian - so the technicalities are...?

Why do men get to call the shots and tell women to shut up and accept all this?

For my dp it was the cotton ceiling. I told him about the Sonia Pouton/ lgbt sandwich interview:

"lesbians don't like penis"
"yeh but how do you represent that with a sandwich?"

Just because it honestly cracked me up. He thought it was funny but said he didn't get it. I said "there's some controversy at the moment over whether lesbians like penis". He said "how is that controversial? Someone with a penis who fancies women is just a straight ma... oh this is a trans thing isn't it. Wtaf?" It was quite entertaining.

He's also a statistician so the idea of data being recorded by feelings as opposed to reality really got under his skin.

There is nothing that you can how him that will get him to see the problem, because his problem is he doesn't listen to you.
If you want a women only toilet or changing room than it should be your decision, not his.

I pointed him to FPFW but he found a statistic which he thought was not very reliable, so he is quite dismissive of that source.

he only looks at the Guardian and the BBC

He gets his news and views from specific sources and discounts yours. That isn't a feminist position, it isn't rational, and it isn't academic.
He's actually being pretty nasty about it.

I'm just curious - you say "he found a statistic [on the FPFW website] which he thought was not very reliable"

Which one? They ought to know

Even teen DS understood the issue when we talked about the academic cyclist.

If his mother is alive discuss how any bloke saying they feel like a woman could become her intimate carer in the NHS or a home or even alone in her own home whether she is comfortable with that or not.

This photo sums it up in terms of elbowing your DD out of opportunities/internships etc
twitter.com/greengranma/status/1006485727956422656

What does he think about Karen White?

Does he think that women prisoners are sub humans who deserve to be locked up with a convicted Male rapist ?

I went on and on and on to my DH. Undermining his faith in the Guardian was very important - managing to get across that the Guardian in general is not a feminist newspaper, that there is conflict within the Guardian itself - the point where someone tweeted 'the Spectator is more feminist than we are!' was important.

Got him reading other papers and seeing you have to triangulate your news sources.

Of course it did help that my contact with trans people has been diverse to say the least - two utterly fabulous colleagues, one MTF and one FTM who are amazing people, then MTF trans prisoners.

But really I got him using the evidence of his own eyes - people are so quick to ignore that in favour of what we are told or a wish to be polite and not make a scene.

Subscribe him to the Times and send him links to all the articles when they come out. It is just a fraction of what is coming out and the major concerns, but it is a reputable source

The BBC has an agenda, as does the guardian. Of course anyone can get their news where they want to but it might peak him to read the diversity report from the BBC.

The BBC hasn't been unbiased for a long time and it took me a while to realise this as I ex-employee I have always been a supporter of the BBC.

Ask him if he regards transwomen who retain male parts as genuine candidates for a straight sexual relationship with him (assuming he’s a straight man). If no - point out that he does therefore have boundaries on who he regards as a woman and just sets them where they are convenient for him rather than you / other women ?

The thing about the BBC is once you see how reporting works, you can't unsee it.

It doesn't have to be about GC issues, it could be about another issue that is close to his heart. I had a junior doctor once raging about how the mainstream press were reporting the junior doctors strike and a lightbulb went off in his head 'do you think they report every issue like this?' When I said 'Yes, yes they do' he was utterly depressed initially but it transformed him politically.

So for your DH - does he think the BBC reports everything accurately on say Brexit? Or universities? I'd guess not - so why does he think they do on everything else.

Most of FPFW’s statistics are skewed, Particularly the statistics relating to prisoners.

For me, I have always been of similar opinion to your DH although the issue that I find really difficult in my mind is sport, so it’s worth discussing that and going from there to see where he stands on it if it means so much to you.

Sitting down in front of the TV an add comes on featuring a stunning bearded lady.
DH: What the fuck is that?.

Your family sound pleasant. Do you always get joy out of mocking someone’s appearance or is it exclusively saved for those you assume are trans?

One thing is I wouldn't push it too much. Even people who are pretty laid back and generally sympathetic can just get tired of someone pushing an idea on them all the time. It starts to feel like nagging or bullying because you can't really put your spouse on ignore, or at least you shouldn't.
I find this hard, because I want to talk about it a lot, and while my husband is pretty much in agreement he's not as interested.

As far as what might do it for him, this seems to depend on people's personalities. For some people its really when it connects with them emotionally. For others it's more about realising some kind of reasoning or factual contradiction. That story about the baby who died because of confusion at the ER really upset my husband, for me it was the academic control elements that got me into reading more and more, and then seeing the real lack of medical/scientific backing, and especially the way disagreement in the medical community was shut down by activists. The Toronto clinic in particular really was a turning point in my thinking.

I would think about your husband, the kinds of things that are important to him. If he is really interested in accurate statistics, the question of data collection might bother him. Don't expect it to be an all at once turn around though. It takes time.

Let him come to his own conclusions.

Anyone with any sense sees through it all, I don't know anyone who buys this shit (well, I have one acquaintance who does but she is generally very woke.)

I peak transed a long time ago but did it all over again when I listened to Woman's Hour and heard women footballers talking about how hard it had been for them to get anywhere. I felt almost violent at the thought of a guy coming along and saying he was now a woman and wanted to be in their team.

It clicked properly for DP when one of his fb friends transitioned displaying their obvious AGP.

Ricky Gervais stand up cemented it.