Transsexual women face erasure

[joannegosling2]

It's a fine state of affairs isn't it?

Please - before the administrators axe this post, at least hear me out.

August 2019 - Transsexual women (not the self ID-seeking transgender - I refer to those of us who surgically transition lock, stock and barrel under strict medical supervision but whose narratives have been appropriated by the TG activists and advertised as their own) now being clobbered by feminists, not only here but every where else on the internet too, whether it be on TGN or this new Spinster group I've heard about. I understand the voice of feminism on the latter has reached unseen heights of extremism.

In fact, if I may say, equally as extreme as the trans activists whom feminists have been resisting for quite some time now. But what a difference a week makes. It seems they are now mounting a full-on attack on their own allies - we transsexuals (who are no less
appalled by the behaviour of the transgenderists and feel equally threatened by them), suggesting we are exactly like those same people with no respect at all for women. AND IT IS CATCHING ON.

They insult us further by calling us men and insisting we submit to male pronouns and acknowledge the absurd assumption that we benefit from male privilege (whatever that is, I surely never realized there was any).

For the zillionth time WE are NOT the problem. This entire farce was started by the self ID demands of the TG crowd. It is true - and we recognise - that women are fighting for their rights as never before. But regrettably there are certain feminist agitators who now see this as a golden opportunity to rid the streets and social life of not only
cross-dressing men who seek to enter their spaces but transsexuals too. To this end they have petitioned MPs to scrap the Gender Recognition Act which affords some legal protection to us...which by happy coincidence (though for different reasons) is exactly what their enemies demand also.

So here the two opposing sides have found common ground, and the politicians, having had the wool pulled over their eyes by the TRAs using narratives stolen from us, are joyfully legislating to bring peace and harmony to our troubled society. Cross-dressers will have their self ID on condition they respect segregated spaces and women will be safe from men in their toilets. And we will all live happily ever after.

Not so for us transsexuals. Someone somewhere has decided that we must be the sacrificial lamb to enable this to happen. We must cease to exist as a group. And not existing together with self ID being in place means it will be deemed no longer appropriate to transition via surgical means. Consequently all such treatment, once tailored purely for he needs of transsexuals, will vanish forever.

I hear women repeat over and over that they were never consulted about 'old-school' transsexuals using their spaces like we have done for years. Since in all probability many of you here weren't even born when I had my operation some 30 years ago that would have been rather difficult. And besides I don't recall being consulted about these outrageous proposals to erase me and my compatriots from society. There are certain well-known individuals on social media claiming to be transsexual but who eagerly cow to feminist insistence that they be labelled men. If they are happy to be blokes, fine. But they
certainly do NOT speak for most of us. I will NOT degrade myself in that way just to please others - nor to seek validation.

Personally it matters little whether women accept me or not. They never did when I was trying my best to present myself in the male role either. That used to hurt me a lot. But now I've grown harder. If the feminists treat their allies worse than they do their enemies, then they do not deserve allies. Whilst still supporting women's concerns in general, transsexuals are also entitled to fight for their existence - especially in the face of so many seeking their total erasure.

I believe feminists have singled us out for one simple reason. Thanks to our years of serious and medicated transitioning (unlike the TG community) many of us pass so well women cannot tell should they brush by us in their toilets. (If you have they're most probably cross-dressers). This I feel is what irks them most as it makes it near impossible to keep us out. So the fewer transsexuals enabled to transition, the less will be in their spaces.

I refuse to pay atonement for the sins of transgender activists. I'm sorry but I just cannot accept that from now on we be barred from women's toilets and hospital wards. For I can tell you it will not stop there. Next it will be parks, libraries, shopping centres and schools -
indeed any place where there are children. Apartheid sound familiar?

So know this Mumsnetters. I shall go on using women's toilets as I've done for half my life now. Not because I'm some misogynistic, foul-mouthed lager-drinking bloke who seeks to undermine or abuse women as many feminists seem to relish believing these days, but to
quietly assert my right to exist; you see I do it in the context of the time when black people once sat at segregated lunch counters enduring terrible abuse and violence from bigots.

Feminists can so do their worst. We few transsexuals who are left have nothing to lose now.

I haven't RTFT yet and may well echo the words of pp, but the OP's narrative of good trans vs bad trans reminds me of good men vs bad men.

No, I don't mean that in the NAMALT-sense, but rather the question of what makes a good man.

The measure of a good man is not just that he doesn't hurt women, it's not just that he doesn't harass them or discriminate against them, and not just that he respects them as equals.

The true measure of a good man in the way he treats women is his awareness and acknowledgement that there are bad men out there who do hurt and harass women.

He understands that therefore all men, himself included, have to stay out of a limited number of single-sex spaces set aside for women for their privacy, dignity and safety. He knows that there are some women who have been abused so badly, they fear all men, himself included. He supports them in their need for refuges hand shelters where no men, including himself, are present at all, regardless of self-identification.

And he accepts that women have the right and the need to organise and assemble outwith the presence of all males in order to overcome sex-based discrimination.

In my view, that's also where the difference lies between the good and the bad when it comes to those born male who identify as trans.

VikVal, Male priveldge doesn’t automatically give every man a job. On average, within the same class/race/disability/educational level they will do better at a significant level Ie ther will always be some women better off than some men but across the whole group the difference become stark.

Anecdotal- I remember looking for work and basically being told no chance because they were men who needed the jobs. ( ex mining community)

Needingadvice29

You may not have an issue with 'Real TS women' but in true male privilege manner the group of people you are talking about assume that if one woman has ever said that it gives them validation to ignore every woman saying NO however loudly we say it

In my view, that's also where the difference lies between the good and the bad when it comes to those born male who identify as trans.

I think you’ve summed it up perfectly, Charlie.

Any decent man, including those who identify as transwomen, will respect the need to stay out of women’s space.

VikVal - unwittingly, you've made a good point. If the women on FWR were to be prioritising which XYs they might want to support and when - would it be the OP, with the imperious demands, entitlement and aggression? Or would it be the man at the food bank who needs a kettle pack because he can't afford enough leccy to put the oven on? Cos I'm betting they're not gonna pick OP.

we have not actually seen any supporting case law moving in that direction, have we?

No, Sophocles, we haven't. Which is why it is absolutely vital we support those GC crowdfunders going. We're in the period where precedents will be set. Quite a few failures on their side already - so let's hope for success on ours.

I would like to thank the OP though because reading the responses to this thread has highlighted to me a change over the last year or two. The vast majority are now unapologetically saying a very loud very clear NO to people like the OP whereas when I first joined MN FWR many namechanges ago the appeal to be nice to the poor TS TW would certainly have had me and other women trying to see their point of view.

So yay to us &

All that was what changed my perspective.

I've done the polite hiding in a cubicle if a TS person was in the toilets. I certainly wasn't going to make them uncomfortable - or upset them - but yes I knew, and yes I was not comfortable. Hello female socialisation that the feelings and needs of others come before expecting others to respect your feelings and boundaries. Which you probably shouldn't have if they might upset people.

Took me years and a lot of MNetting to overcome those wobbly boundaries and learn not to be a codependent doormat (and several abusive relationships behind me because of it.)

What I realised through extensive discussion here, and that includes TS MNetters who are well worth listening to, never plop and run and are never rude or aggressive either, there really isn't much difference between someone born male who has had full reassignment surgery and someone born male with a beard and moustache and a dress if the key message from both is 'I hear your fears and discomfort, I recognise that my presence means women with religious/cultural needs and disabilities and women who have been abused and women just plain not comfortable are excluded from women's spaces. But I don't care. I will use your space because I feel I need it.'.

Often, in both cases as the OP has demonstrated, accompanied by good old fashioned fury that many women have experienced when they say no to a man.

There is no difficulty on the part of anyone concerned in knowing who are the actual 'women' - they are the ones supposed to shut up and enable, and who are the target of superior lecturing or anger if they don't. It's obvious in the discussion what the hierarchy is perceived to be.

The GRA 2004 was a compromise. Males were given rights by other men to enter women's spaces - without consulting or telling women. It was a tiny proportion, women appreciated those men involved were serious about transition, and while it affected them they sucked it up. It's been proven beyond all doubt that if this right is given to any male that it is based on a decision that the feelings and wishes of men are superior to those of women, that women are there primarily to be used by any males that feel in need, and how this affects those women and how they feel about it is irrelevant. We are now witnessing men fighting amongst themselves over whether any boundaries at all should be permitted to women even if the men concerned wish to openly enact sexual fetishes or threatening behaviour (bloke taking selfie with dress and sword in women's toilet) using the women present as props.

It's the same behaviour, it's the same derogatory, sexist view of women, it just differs in degree.

I am sorry for the OP and other TSs who didn't have to deal with women saying no to them, or see women as a class begin to say no, we have boundaries and we're done with this. It's interesting that women saying no to men, and talking outside of the rules of men is 'extremism' to a man who feels threatened by women having that degree of equality and freedom to speak their own truth. But women have realised that being 'nice' and giving an inch to men out of sympathy has led to men taking every mile in sight, trampling women's rights, women's needs, appropriating every part of woman hood including their language to describe their own feelings and needs, changing the law to better enable this and reacting with rage and blame when women say even - hang on, can we have a voice in discussing this?

Meet the new boss, it's the exact same boss women have known for centuries resurgent with lipstick on. Enough. Men are going to have to take responsibility now for sorting their own shit amongst themselves and come to terms with the fact that women are not in their possession.

...when I first joined MN FWR many namechanges ago the appeal to be nice to the poor TS TW would certainly have had me and other women trying to see their point of view.

I've only been GC and on Mumsnet since last November, so, less than a year. And I have to admit, I did notice an urge in myself to try to understand, to commiserate with the OP. At first. That's due to my womanly conditioning to "always be nice, always be compassionate".

But by the time they got to the bit where they said they'd always still use women's loos, and gave us the finger -- that's the point where I switched and said to myself, uh-uh, NO WAY.

That was male conditioning showing through, and I saw it at once.

See, I'm learning!

Michelle as always so clear and on point. Brava!

Often, in both cases as the OP has demonstrated, accompanied by good old fashioned fury that many women have experienced when they say no to a man.

This. Like I always say - there isn't a better way to test a man than by saying no to him. You soon see which are the good ones and which are the bad ones. Orientation, identification? Irrelevant.

Great post Michelle.

Isn't gender determined by chromosomes? (As in, females have 2x Chromosomes and males have 1x and 1y)?

In which case, people born with male chromosomes will always be males regardless of whether or
not they have had an operation to change their genitals to look similar to female genitalia.

Surely that is an unarguable fact?

Gender isn’t determined by anything scientific. Sex is. Sadly some believe that gender is a Real Thing.

there really isn't much difference between someone born male who has had full reassignment surgery and someone born male with a beard and moustache and a dress if the key message from both is 'I hear your fears and discomfort, I recognise that my presence means women with religious/cultural needs and disabilities and women who have been abused and women just plain not comfortable are excluded from women's spaces. But I don't care. I will use your space because I feel I need it.'.

Excellent post michelle, especially this bit ^.

You have to wonder what goes through a man's head when other people are saying no to him and he's just thinking I'm fucking doing it anyway. And when those saying no amounts to a considerable number? Almost everyone in fact?

Where does his inner justification come from? And if he just thinks it's because I'm superior, where's the analysis to accompany that?

‘Menz thinks’. Must be a scientific thing.

I think once you start engaging with GC arguements then it is almost a natural process to arrive at the point where you say actually sex segregated facilities are just that, segregated by sex not by clothes, or how you look or what you have done to your body. It doesn't take too long to decide actually I don't believe that a woman is just a man with no penis.

Fish don't think about water, but the men in families struggling and the women having to support men who have found themselves out of work and can't get another job sure think about male privilege and when it's going to happen for them. May be they're the fish out of water, oh well, as long as we can massage our egos and continue with our crusades that's the main thing.

I don't think you get it, either.

This issue isn't so much about male 'privilege' as male 'biology'.

I get that many people feel class issues are overlooked. It annoys me too. However, when it comes to who uses which toilet it isn't about who has the most privilege in terms of their background, education, job, financial stability. It is about who is physically capable of causing harm to who.

Men as a sex are a danger to women because of their biology. That is the bottom line and no amount of artificial hormones or surgeries change it.

You have to wonder what goes through a man's head when other people are saying no to him and he's just thinking I'm fucking doing it anyway. And when those saying no amounts to a considerable number? Almost everyone in fact?

I think it was a FWR thread where a male born poster said if 75% of women were ok with a TS person using their facilities this should be enough to green light it. Totally missing that the 25% of women saying no were the women with the most serious needs, issues and difficulties with them being there .

You're left wondering is it arrogance, is it naivety, is it absolute innocence to the reality of what life is like for some women that allows someone to totally dismiss them like this.

The bottom line is that you can only subscribe to this ideology if you believe that males are intrinsically of more value, importance and seniority than people born with female biology. So the whole lot of wittering around 'but you wouldn't know' and 'sex is a social construct' is proven just nothing more than lipservice. The actions show it. Everyone knows exactly what the hierarchy is and it's biologically based. Women can't opt or identify out of their place in it.

Ego ego ego

Mostly I am left wondering what some people don't understand about 'my consent is not yours to give'.

Oh. Ok, so transsexual males then. I read the title and clicked because I.expected "transsexual women" to be adult human females who were dysphoria and doing their best to "live as men".

Ten years ago I would be been correct. So thanks, TRAs for deciding to "queer" everyday communication with your "up is down" TRA dialect.

The GRA 2004 was a compromise. Males were given rights by other men to enter women's spaces - without consulting or telling women. It was a tiny proportion, women appreciated those men involved were serious about transition, and while it affected them they sucked it up.

This statement is a contradiction.

How can it be a compromise if women were not properly consulted?

Women were then told to suck it up because it was only a small number.

I don't see where it was 'appreciated' by women that this was OK, because no one actually went back and informed them properly that the GRA didn't require surgery and in practice it was enabling men without a GRC to self ID too.

I think the myth that it was 'a compromise' is one that needs to be flagged up.

It was a liberty of women which was given away by a very small number of people - it was categorically not a compromise that there was a widespread informed consent that women agreed to and appreciated.

*dysphoric