Middle ground

[HDDD]

I've been trying to follow conversations online in regard to gender critical thought, pronouns, selfID, transrights, lesbian erasure etc. And all I can find is extreme views on both sides. Is there a middle ground? Is it here? Is Twitter too toxic? I want to be informed not screamed at.

Tbh truthisarevolutionaryact nobody has actually directed any of those explanations about why people are impatient to me, all I have received is "go look elsewhere", which just served to prove my point. I have read the explanations to others though, and have found them enlightening and useful - I didn't know the fact about admin taking the explanations down, but that makes sense and I also generally find the censoring on here annoying and unhelpful.

As I've said before, I understand why people who have been discussing the issue for years wouldn't want to keep going back to square one and would get annoyed - people have said the same thing about activists of all kinds for decades - black rights activists and feminists have been told they are a bore/too aggressive unless they explain their point politely. Nobody should HAVE to educate others, it's nobody in particulars job, but it is still inevitably the case that if you essentially say "fuck off, I think you're stupid for not knowing but I don't want to explain it to you", you are effectively taking away the chance for them to understand your point and agree with you, because all they're getting from trying is rejecting.

If you want more people to know about an issue, then you do need to be patient. I have had to explain many feminist theories that seem obvious to me over my time, it is annoying but the only way to bring more people around to my way of thinking. If you're not bothered about people learning then fine. But that's why threads like this exist.

I don't 'despise' anybody, and I've never seen any comment on FWR in the years I've been here that 'despise' any group of people. I also don't think anyone on FWR 'dismisses' trans people. You'll find a steady line through all the posts, all the threads,

everyone should be able to dress and present as they like, do whatever interests they like, free of harassment or persecution or legal discrimination for not obeying gendered stereotypes whether that's due to dysphoria or plain personal choice as I know many trans people don't agree they have dysphoria.

The line is: there has to be a limit around how far males can identify into a biological sex they don't have, because women have rights too.

The desire is for sex as a category to be eliminated and for women and all single sex provisions to become mixed sex and that any male at any time can choose freely between male and female provision regardless of his motives. And that women should have all legal power to name themselves, gather together, have freedom from males in situations of privacy and dignity and safety, even be homosexual, removed, to hand this freedom to men.

There is no win anywhere in this for women.

Disabled women unable to cope with jumping through the linguistic hoops or unable to effectively pretend and tolerate males in their spaces, women with dementia or mental health issues interfering with this, women whose culture precludes them, women whose faith precludes them, women who have been assaulted or traumatised by men, I could go on here..... these women will be driven out of any provision and any service in order that males can have full freedom of choice. And the TRA lobby say that women who won't accept that males are women if they say so (regardless of their motives) don't deserve provision or human rights.

The NSPCC fully and wholly support their pants campaign with children, that children always have the right to say no to grown ups or other children, that they should never have to uncover private parts of their body if uncomfortable about doing so or who is present, that their trusted guide should be their sense of comfort as to whether it feels safe and right. UNLESS. A boy who wishes to identify as a girl wishes to undress, shower or sleep in the same area with the girls. Then the girls have no right to say no, should crack on with uncovering, and must not only swallow their fear and shame and discomfort but hide it effectively enough from this boy so that he is not upset and they are not told off for being unkind. Girls who speak up, girls who refuse, will be reminded of being inclusive and kind (that the boy's feelings are more important than theirs, that their boundaries are conditional on male agreement) and if they won't respond to this warning and telling off (and quite possibly being reminded of hate crime and the serious consequences) then they must be sent to change alone somewhere else. Therefore excluded and shamed for their feelings.

Do you spot the constant suppression of female rights here? The wholly disproportionate, never ending subjugation of female humans to male ones?

Delusion
Fetish
Escape from past trauma/abuse
Internalised homophobia

None of those are good reason to transition and that isn’t what gender clinics aim to do.

Also worth noting: as above, the list of people who will be excluded from provisions are people with protected characteristics.

The EHCR are about to create a hierarchy of protected characteristics where trans is always the top trump. The other characteristics, like safeguarding, are completely ignored if trans becomes involved. Those people have no equality in those circumstances. Can this be right?

And lets be honest, you won't find anything anywhere in all this about transmen and their rights, and as in prison situations transmen will always be in women's provisions because females are unsafe in male spaces. Accepted fact. So this becomes solely about males removing female rights to benefit themselves.

Can this be right?

Nobody should HAVE to educate others, it's nobody in particulars job, but it is still inevitably the case that if you essentially say "fuck off, I think you're stupid for not knowing but I don't want to explain it to you", you are effectively taking away the chance for them to understand your point and agree with you, because all they're getting from trying is rejecting.

So what you want is us to repeat ourselves yet again, adding to the thousands of threads and thus making it even worse?

What is our hourly rate for this work? Are you paying by cash or cheque? Or is it just what we are expected to do for free to make our case? On top of the thousands of other times we have explained it?

using appropriate pronouns for gender as this isn’t going to harm anyway

I wish we could stop telling ourselves this lie.

Your brain understands grammar even if your intellect is tying itself in knots.

We all get the basic principle Sexual Objectification Is Bad, right? That's middle ground, that's mainstream, yeah?

The third person singular is an object. It refers to an object in the world, a body. That is how the brain understands it, because that is how the brain understands the world of objects. The mind thinks itself is the subject. We infer the subjectivity of other bodies from their actions.

You use one word to refer to the subjectivity of the male body, the inference of the male's mind is implicit; this word is 'he'. You use another for the female body, 'she'.

You do this automatically and instinctively, and no one can complain (that's the hard GC position, no budging on pronouns).

But when you do it consciously and deliberately... you're intentionally applying sexual objectification to that body.

And Sexual Objectification Is Bad. We know it's bad, and we feel we're being asked to do a bad thing, and we know it's bad for us and we know it's bad for them and so we're saying: No.

Gendered pronouns were a prerequisite for problems of gendered socialisation - but those problems are here now,, and they're not going to go away just because we close our eyes to them by ceding the ability to voice what we can see.

Sometimes you just got to do this stuff yourself November

Have a lok around read some stuff. That’s what I did

Ask a question but don’t thrash around rehashing the same question in the same thread when you had great answers
Have a think about stuff read some stuff. That’s it tbh no more or less

No need to turn i5 into some sort of essay

Langcleg

Can you not take comments directed at other people that I have said to suggest I am responding to a different comment made by you? You are coming across as a deeply unpleasant person - the only one on this thread to do so.

Somebody else asked me why I personally think people identify as trans, so I answered them. Not to try and convince people to feel the same about trans people as I do, but to answer a question that was directed at me that was tangential to the point I was making which was purely about the treatment of questioning allies, not trans people.

If you really don't see the irony of how you are responding to me making that point then I don't know what to say, other than, once again, I am not repeating my point to antagonise anyone, but because multiple people keep grilling me on it.

On the point of easily finding info.

I agree it would be incredibly helpful to anyone reading, lurking, trying to make sense of it all, like OP, for all OPs to include at the bottom of every OP a link to break it down for me. Its often referred and linked to anyway.

There are those that will find some of the battles raging on these threads too intimidating to raise the question, yet need and want to understand.

It makes women angry, absolutely, but I would hate that be the cause of any other women turning away. Sometimes its nigh on impossible to remain on track in the face of such goady continual prodding and deletions ensue, some ill-judged.

If there was always a link to break it down for me, adopted by the fwr regulars as a protocol which offers insight, to any new thread readers and potential posters, I think a lot could be gained.

It might encourage readership and engender more support. Its such a literate thread demonstrating the level of energy and time thats devoted to supporting women for womens sake.

Just a thought, but one I'd definately have found helpful, and a way to circumvent MNs ruling to not pin it themselves.

No I don't really think there are other reasons OldCrone, I just have a degree of sympathy for the people who fall into your "delusional" category because the brain is a very complicated construct and constant balance of hormones etc and things can and do go wrong in the womb.

I also have sympathy for those people who I call delusional, just as I have sympathy for anyone with a mental health problem. Of course the brain is complicated and hormones have an enormous effect on brain function, which is why I view giving children hormone blocking drugs during puberty as abusive.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'things can go wrong in the womb', though. There is no evidence that these delusional beliefs are linked to anything which happens before birth, as far as I know. If you know otherwise, please link to the evidence - I'm always happy to be corrected if I've got something wrong.

I just have some caution about dismissing these people because I fear it could be a part of how their mind is built up and not something that could be cured with therapy etc, so the kindest way to allow them happiness is to allow them to do with their (adult) body what they will.

I'm not dismissing these people, but I don't think it's kind to say to someone with a delusion that their delusion is real, and that they can be made into the person they think they are with lifelong medication and major surgery. Surely it's kinder to help them to accept their healthy body as it is, rather than encourage them to believe that cosmetic surgery and hormonal treatments will turn them into the person they think they should be.

If there was always a link to break it down for me, adopted by the fwr regulars as a protocol which offers insight, to any new thread readers and potential posters, I think a lot could be gained

But YOU didn't link in your post.

Why is it there are so many people telling the 'regulars' how they are doing it wrong and how they must do it better?

I've always found Lang to be plainspeaking but endlessly patient and helpful.
I also think she has good instincts.

I knew zippety fuck before I found this board. I learnt by lurking a long time, reading thread after thread. That's what I recommend.

None of those are good reason to transition and that isn’t what gender clinics aim to do.

What are good reasons to transition, Fieldofgreycorn? And what do gender clinics aim to do?

Yeah it’s crap that hq won’t pin that thread.

Would be a good thing to have as a stickie. Agreed
Save endless thrashing about and running round in circles

Not sure if this is in the Break it down for me thread - but it ought to be as it's uplifting and a great visual reminder of some of the women and groups involved. And it cheers me up when I'm feeling despairing.

Read this thread Novembersbean
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

It should answer most of your questions.

Bit harsh tenacle !

Did you read, I think it needs to go in OPs! Those who regularly use the fwr in adopting it as a protocol, would promote its regulsr use, right?

It will get hidden in individual posts.

I don't think you needed to make this aside

It sounds to me that this who agree with the GC position that women’s rights must not be diminished in favor of TWAW but ALSO insist that GC women be “less extreme” aren’t actually expressing a wish for middle ground but are instead expressing female socialization, something no TW experiences and therefore feels no qualms about extremity of action or opinion and is exactly the reason why we are where we are now.

I sympathise. I once followed a man who wanted to kill me into a room he then locked because I didn’t want to be impolite.

Female socialisation is a real fucker.

I've always found Lang to be plainspeaking but endlessly patient and helpful

Yep

Novembersbean
Tbh truthisarevolutionaryact nobody has actually directed any of those explanations about why people are impatient to me, all I have received is "go look elsewhere", which just served to prove my point. I have read the explanations to others though, and have found them enlightening and useful
Now you sound as though you want explanations directed to you personally, it's not good enough that you've read explanations to others.you want all the attention on you.
I've also just seen that you've described LangCleg as a deeply unpleasant person. This says more about you than you realise.
I have no words to describe this revolting description. Any words I would use would have me banned.

tentacles how have I told regulars they're doing it wrong?!!!

They've asked for it to be pinned. I just suggested it be adopted as a standard to put it in each new thread, in the OP.

I dont understand you taking issue with me making a suggestion that might help?

Nobody has to do anything, but MN won't concede to a request already made by fwr posters, so it might be a workaround.

Am I such an awful woman for suggesting such a thing

Goodness bicker

The 'break it down for me' thread seems to have a lot of pages in it.

In addition to it, would it be useful to create a new thread every few days or once a week in which newbies / lurkers can ask basic questions and be signposted to the right resources or have certain things explained by anyone who feels willing to contribute?

It might help with members feeling like they have been repeating themselves for a long time. Some of us are relatively new and won't feel as worn down by the arguments. I'm happy to try and put together a post with a bunch of useful links even though I'm not very knowledgeable.

Of course it's for genuine questions so not getting dragged into circular arguments by those who post in bad faith.
I can understand that sheer volume of posts and topics will be confusing and intimidating for those who are new to all of this.

Does this seem like a good idea?

endlessly patient and helpful

Well, I wouldn't go that far!

I do recognise filibustering when I see it, however. There have been many patient and helpful posts on this thread. All ignored in favour of filibustering. I am finely attuned to filibustering and am inclined to direct my patience and helpfulness elsewhere.

Do it nonny

Lang is very cool but has some VERY unpleasant tastes in food