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.

Yes, I thought you'd disagree, red. Because you've never alluded to it, and I think you would have, had you thought it.

It's something that I've been thinking about lately. Because the lack of logic is so startling. All the instances I've mentioned above, are ridiculous. And no intelligent person should be expected to accept them. Yet we are.

But yes, that can be explained by cult behaviour, of course. I do agree, from what I've read, that it is very cult like. But I don't have that immediate concept in my head when I look at the issues, as I think you do.

It doesn't explain why our politicians and social narrators try and make us swallow it though. But I'm guessing they are doing that for a different reason to the actual believers.

Important to note it because going around calling people stupid. No, I agree, and it's not really my style, generally. People stop listening.

Personally I try and simplify things. For both my own sake, and anyone else's. I attempt to find a common denominator. But I think it's pretty obvious, that, certainly with this issue, and how extensive it is, there is no common denominator. Other than, as you say power, corruption and misogyny.

I've got to say, I find it more interesting that there is little academics work or councilling going on that seems to be picking up on these key words and phrases like 'corrected' as they are utterly glaring klaxons of what's going on and no one picking up on them is a massive oversight by the profession of psychology.

And a missing sense of it which has increased because of technology and displacement of traditional communities with long historical ties to a place. And bonds between families as we've splintered from large close knit extended family networks to isolated individuals who live miles from any family or live very separate lives even under the same roof.

Which means it's going to get worse?

It's something that I've been thinking about lately. Because the lack of logic is so startling. All the instances I've mentioned above, are ridiculous. And no intelligent person should be expected to accept them. Yet we are.

It's a religion. I don't believe that all religious people are stupid, but there is no logic to religion. We are being asked to accept the religious beliefs of others as fact, and use those beliefs as a basis for making laws.

red RE: Klaxons/oversights - you might want to read around the pathway approach that's very much established in healthcare/psychology and impacting research and academics.

(And actually the same may apply to probation to a certain agree re offender programs that have glaring oversights but probation officers must believe in them.)

Red, so would you say that cult aspect enters with the assertion that TWAW? And all that entails.

Possibly. Possibly not.

I think that people are waking up to the problem in some ways, but not in others.

It's part of the realisation that the freedom and promises of liberty that the internet first brought are not as we thought and there is this very real dark side to the internet we need to be more aware of and cautious about.

Certainly we are starting to get the problems about fake news and propaganda even if we haven't yet got solutions. Awareness of it is a big deal.

It depends on how much push back the tech giants give and how dumb assed and ignorant politicians approach things. I'm reasonably hopeful as I do think there is a certain amount of political will there which means it's being regarded as priority rather than a side issue. There's pitfuls but yeah, I think there is a change of mood generally about 'somewheres v anywheres'.

I reflect on my own experiences here. I was one of the first wave of people who adopted and was part of those type of online communities when I had this sense of not belonging. As I went on I become very jaded by it and in many respects rejected it and came out of the other side of it a lot more cynical and realising that online isn't a substitute for real life relationships and communities. Mainly cos I matured and found peace elsewhere with myself as most people naturally eventually do when they grow up, take on responsibility and settle down.

The process was over 10 years of being in those online community which can be all emersive and all incompassing. I was 17 when I started and about 30 when I had enough.

Obviously you have kids growing up in that environment from much earlier ages but I think there will, in time, be a change in this because people realise how much of a wild west it is and how it's ultimately only fufilling to a point.

The crunch point being when you want to settle down and online relationships simply not being enough anymore.

And I think where MN fits into this is important too. The core demographic of the site are people who need to live in the real world because of the practical implications of children. There isn't time in the same way for most people to spend your entire life online once you have kids (I'm probably the worst example that disproves my own theory with the amount I spend on here!). What I'm driving at more is you realise that you need support around you when you have kids and you realise that both you and them need real life relationships for a healthy balance.

When you have a baby it's a really isolating process which can break the bonds of former friendships and you go through this whole process and finding a new purpose and identity as a parent which readjust your priorities and values. MN can prove some support if you are really isolated but it comes at a time when you realise you can't live your life ideologically or through a screen anymore.

And this affects women far more than men. Men don't necessarily go through the same process to the same degree.

So whilst we have talked a lot about the importance of biological psychically, I also think the importance of child bearing psychologically in terms of the internet and our identity on this subject and why MN has such a significant role is also very much understated.

Women have to live in the here and now of reality whereas men have the privilege of being able to continue to live in a fantasy land

But as I say, I think there is a huge element of it all unravelling.

My experience of online communities is they tend to be somewhat cylic and short lived before they undergo a 'turnover' or 'evolutionary stage'. My gut is that the current trans one is reaching a certain natural peak and is starting to enter a new phase.

My concern is about what the next trend is going to be and I think you do have to look towards what's happening with the incel communities as I think that one is still very much on the ascendancy.

I could be reading all this wrong of course, but that's what my instincts and experience are saying to me.

Things are changing, both in good and bad ways.

It's likely to get worse before it gets better I suspect but I don't think it's end of days stuff either.

It depends on what happens in wider politics and whether we hit a certain tipping point or regain a sense of stability.

May you live in interesting times as the saying goes!

Growing up, I believed that upon a Priest consecrating wine during Mass, it literally turned into the blood of a man who died 2000 years ago.

Any scientific facts shared would only have strengthened my belief. You cannot fight belief with fact.

But you can say - we respect your right to your beliefs but don’t share them. We need spaces & services for us and spaces & services for you.

Also, it has to be said, the level of discourse, analysis and intelligence is far higher in women than men over this issue! Is that a known thing, are women smarter than men? Much smarter? Like loads...

Women tend to have more insight when it comes to understanding others. This might be a result of their mothering roles, or acquired gender role, or innate -- it doesn't matter. They simply seem more interested in the deeper clockwork of how and why people are the way they are. That's a kind of superior intelligence many men seem immune to, just not interested in developing. Of course, NAMALT.

It's something that I've been thinking about lately. Because the lack of logic is so startling. All the instances I've mentioned above, are ridiculous.

Right from the start what struck me was the dissonance between the claim that gender is fluid, as they all say, and yet insisting that one IS 100% the opposite gender to their biological sex. That for me was such a glaring contradition I was baffled at how anyone could argue the latter.

Well this thread turned into a cracker and no mistake.

Thank you, thank you THANK YOU to the OP for starting it. You’ve been amazing helpful

My key things to mull over are about what baiting the hook means (where trying to do a kindness is actually harmful), and about how important it is to keep in mind that “effeminate” men trying to escape the bonds of masculinity have no legitimate claim to womanhood because of that urge. That they think they do is very telling of the power dynamic that they believe that they’re escaping from, which they’re actually enforcing. Effeminate men don’t deserve to be men, but they’re still man enough to force women to accept their demands. Boom.

Good days work, wims!

^^”effeminate men don’t deserve to be men“ should be in quotes as it’s not what I think. I mean it’s the prevailing wisdom, the patriarchy, toxic masculinity or whatever that sets these standards for men to fail to live up to - not feminists.

And I think where MN fits into this is important too. The core demographic of the site are people who need to live in the real world because of the practical implications of children.

This is a massively important point.

Well this thread turned into a cracker and no mistake.

This! I've been busy and come back to wonderful women having a wonderful discussion.

Women tend to have more insight when it comes to understanding others. This might be a result of their mothering roles, or acquired gender role, or innate -- it doesn't matter. They simply seem more interested in the deeper clockwork of how and why people are the way they are. That's a kind of superior intelligence many men seem immune to, just not interested in developing. Of course, NAMALT.

Even the men who say they are interested, and write reams of what other men consider insightful philosophical treatises, seem incredibly superficial and limited in their thinking.
I used to think it was me when I asked the 'is it me or is it them' question, until I noticed most men do not ask themselves that question.

I've said for a while that men are not allowed to be feminine by society. And in a culture which has increasing toxic masculinity this has helped pushed 'the solution' to feminine men getting a kicking is for them to be 'corrected' by becoming women.

Women were told there were things they weren't allowed to do because they were women, so women set out to change society. Men are told there are things they aren't allowed to do because they are men, so they decide they are women.

I know an effeminate man. I've known him since my early 20's; he was a good friend then and I met him recently again after a few decades. He's always been very slight of build, very soft spoken, sort of dreamy, writing poetry and songs and playing rather cheesy spiritual songs and accompanying them on the guitar. He's the sweetest, kindest man you could imagine, always good-natured and smiling. I might have thought he was gay if I had thought about it much back then, but I didn't -- I was just very fond of him.

He seems to have made it through life with his soft personality very well. He got married to a woman about 40 years ago and they are still together, no children. She is the tougher sort, slightly bossy and obviously the one in charge of practical matters. They run a home-based business together which isn't terribly succesful but they still have a lovely chocolate-box cottage in the country in the South of England, and own a dog. He still writes poetry.

It was lovely, meeting him again after all these years, and he is as sweet-natured as ever.

I don't like the word "effeminate" for him as it is a bit derogatary, isn't it. He just seems to embody the feminine, "nice" qualities usually attributed to women, and it suits him well. Now he is slightly balding and still painfully thin (petite, for a man!). And he doesn't have any of the overwrought effeminate gestures we often see with men who identify as women.

This is a propos of nothing and I have no point to make; just that a man can be succesfully non-masculine and still have a very good life. I'd be happy to see more such men; it beats the toxic kind any day. I would have married such a one, had the opportunity arisen.

There's absolutely no need to think you're a woman, if you're like that.

Exactly, Old Crone — what’s lauded as stunning and brave is actually a failure of courage to fight male dominance, as women have had to.
Every freedom or female space women have, women endured physical violence from men for first asserting or claiming. Yet they persisted. THAT’s what stunning and brave is.

Even the men who say they are interested, and write reams of what other men consider insightful philosophical treatises, seem incredibly superficial and limited in their thinking.

I can't help feeling the same. I know a lot about this issue, and it's a really good benchmark for me to judge accurately. I make no apology for that either.

I think, for me, because I spend time analysing what people like the OP and some tw on here say, I just get to the point where I want to yell, I can't believe you're This stupid. Partly for saying what they say, but largely for expecting me to accept it.

Because, in my heart of hearts, I genuinely don't think they believe what they're saying. And maybe that's why it doesn't always come across as a cult to me.

They simply seem more interested in the deeper clockwork of how and why people are the way they are. That's a kind of superior intelligence many men seem immune to,

Yes, perhaps that's what I mean, rather than intelligence. I'm just finding the way men view this, even the ones who write accurately about it, is rather one-dimensional.

Lamahaha

That's a lovely description of your friend. Truly. And you communicate very well the kind of man he is. Wouldn't life be great if we could view everyone through that lens?

Red, so would you say that cult aspect enters with the assertion that TWAW? And all that entails.

I think the cult aspect enters before you get to TWAW.

It starts as soon as you say 'born in the wrong body'.

It's as soon as you challenge material reality and start facilitating the denial that someone isnt the sex they were born by being nice.

The whole point is this idea of a soul. It's the belief bit.

Lovely post Lamaha

I have several male gay friends now in their 70s, who are effeminate men, sweet and gentle and with wicked senses of humour and what they refer to as camp. They camp it up with the best. They've met the snobbery from younger men in the gay community against campness, which had its roots partly in the history of anxiety around men who gave them away in the days when it meant arrest or losing your job, and partly because of the history in the last few decades of gay men breaking away from camp as the stereotype and assumption of gayness in men. That gay men were 'real' men like any other men. But it's led to the same rejection of effeminacy as is found among straight men.

There's a very good documentary about Kenneth Williams, Frankie Howerd and Charles Hawtrey, that follows the angle of three men who were who they were - naturally camp, not able to hide easily among straight men and living in fear because of it - and that the Carry On films were the only place where not only were they turned loose to be themselves on set and camp as much as they wanted, but celebrated for it, where if they did it off set they were in real danger. (And not the literal violence kind.)

This was only the 1960s. It was so recent.

so you get the power to define who gets to draw the lines as to who 'earns' sex-specific support?

It nails precisely what I find most offensive and oppressive.

This whole idea that 'allowing' these 'vulnerable young women' in the view of the allower, was something generous and is evidence that self identified women may choose to gift sensitivity to some women as and when they feel called to do so.

That kind of paternalistic condescention really can fuck off to the far side of fuck. It makes very clear who the women are - they're the ones who'll be told what they can have and what they can do and it's very clear who their masters are supposed to be. Those masters identify with some bits of womanhood, largely stereotypical preferences, but absolutely not with women or as women as a whole. They act out constantly their sense of superiority to actual women while claiming in words there is no difference.

So we have the OP who is bellowing at women that they will take what they want from women and women don't get a say in it, and the style I've heard from a few TW on MN of kindly paternalistic 'I'll give you this if you're good, but you need to accept what I give you and that I know best, and that's the end of it.'. The OP at least is honest about what is going on.