Accused of cherry-picking trans horror stories

[PuertoVallarta]

How do you deal with people who say that pointing out transgressions by individual transwomen is like combing the news for examples of immigrants behaving badly?

I do understand this particular criticism of GC talking points.

I am quite vocal about this issue in my daily life. But sometimes I feel caught between a rock and a hard place:

“That never happens.”

“Well, Karen White...”

“You’re just picking isolated examples to paint a whole segment of the population as villains. You’re as bad as Trump in America.”

I don’t want to sound insane and obsessed as I keep rattling on, “Well, this happened, too! And another transwoman did this! And another did that!”

Heeeeeeelp meeeeeee?

It's important to note that TW have the same offending profile as men

I think that the ‘acceptance without exception’ argument has proved to be difficult here. We know that trans women are over represented in prisons. If their offender profile is the same as men, then the only explanation is that some prisoners are identifying as women for their own purposes. It is not a case of using an isolated example.

However, it's based on a truth not dissimilar to men committing most violent crimes.

Not really. Racial differences are literally skin deep.

The same cannot be said about the differences between men and women.

First of all, if you do think they represent a particular threat, it is crucial that you try to get reliable figures on what the crime ratio is of trans criminals to the general trans male - female population. Otherwise, you could make this sort of argument about any population and keep bringing out examples. Even your own demographic could be demonised in this way. It will invalidate any argument pretty quickly if your argument is not robust enough. Also, the type of crime is important. Someone might be a criminal, but there's a difference between shoplifting and assault.

There's no real need to focus that way on trans people to keep women's spaces anyway. The issue isn't juat about them, even if may appear to be. The issue is about reducing the risk of sexual violence done by biological men towards females, which means limiting or not allowing them to have access to female spaces where women are likely to be vulnerable. If you want the stats to show that males represent a risk to women, I'm sure there is plenty of data on that. The point is that by allowing trans women to access women's spaces it makes countless women and girls vulnerable to the very same harassment and violence that trans individuals are concerned about! All they're doing is making that risk greater for women for girls by opening up our spaces or making it difficult for us to challenge anyone who says they're trans. So far they have not presented any decent argument or procedure that I've heard about that convinces me will mitigate this risk.

We are asking that all men are treated the same, no-one is discriminated against by being treated as all other men.

Yes, it is that simple.

The race comparisons are appalling and totally miss the point.

Its not about individual transwomen.

It's about ALL predators.

Any predator in the country can now exploit the laws pushed by the trans ideology.

Every paedophile, rapist, harasser, bully violent male.

The lot.

Although I have found myself conflicted over the parallels with racial profiling

There are no parallels though. We arent 'gender profiling' and saying some men get a pass into womens spaces but others dont.

NONE of them do, regardless of how they present. No profiling needed.

Which is all very reasonable until you come face to face with "Transwomen are women #nodebate"

The reason is that we must not acknowledge the truth of male pattern violence.

We politely pretend that single sex spaces are about some sort of innate prudishness about being unclothed around members of the opposite sex that we should accommodate.

Talk of single sex spaces must include comments about how naturally men would also not want women in their toilets or changing rooms or conducting intimate examinations in order to preserve this myth.

There is some truth to it and socialisation about separating the sexes for using public toilets and trying on clothes etc probably means that some men would feel uncomfortable disrobing in front of women but it’s not the real reason.

The real reason for single sex spaces if that whilst NAMALT a frightening proportion of men would sexually assault a woman if the opportunity to do so without getting caught presented itself. Mixing the sexes in enclosed private spaces where women are vulnerable like in a hospital or refuse or where they undress like a toilet or changing room increases the rate of sexual assault.

But we can’t say that. Because if we acknowledge the real reason why we separate men and women sometimes we might have to actually do something about it. And men wouldn’t like that. It’s much more comfortable to avoid the whole issue.

This is from Lineham's speech. It neatly summarises that women are being told that our feelings don't matter, our instincts don't matter, our safety doesn't matter, safeguarding doesn't matter. All that matters is men's feelings. And it puts women in enormous danger

Thats how organising an ideology works.

Being transphobic is exactly the same as being racist, and homophobic etc.

It really is that simple.

As with every single social change bringing equality to maligned groups there will always be propagandists pushing back.

Even on this thread theres lots of propaganda being layered, for instance the idea that trans women retain a 'male criminality' has been debunked by the author, and it relates to 20-40 years ago, the F.O.I. request by fairplay for women was ridiculously flawed and convoluted to suggest half of trans women in prison long-term were violent offenders, there is zero reliable data on how many trans people are even in prison or and men gaming the system.....which should NEVER be held against trans people, that is merely propping up the literal toxic patriarchy.

Fairplay for women are literally a propaganda group, transphobia is rife in the uk, clearly and obviously it is rife on these boards, which have been quite successfully colonized by many right-wing MRA groups to attack trans people, and troll women.

Most of the stuff on these boards are bunk propaganda.

It's really that simple.

You are picking isolated cases to attack a class of innocent people, to feed your own bias and bigotry.

The world outside of mumsnet fwr is unrecognizable to most of the gibberish in here.

Even on this thread theres lots of propaganda being layered, for instance the idea that trans women retain a 'male criminality' has been debunked by the author

"The author"? Who is this? There is not one single "author" responsible for statistics.

Read this article.
medium.com/@evastanford/transwomen-sexual-offenders-a-closer-look-6c507d9e2414

@freethegenders

You seem upset. Hug?

Human beings cannot change sex, it's not possible, so men will always be men. Women will always be women. I wouldn't pick out individual examples of unscrupulous men using self id to assault women.
The sexes are segregated for a reason, what reason would that be?
I'm not living in fear or horror that trans people will attack me. I know that statistically I'm more likely to be sexually assaulted by a man. Any trans status is completely irrelevant. It's men that rape and assault women and girls, I don't want to share personal space with men or boys. It's my right as a woman to have sex segregated space, nobody has the right to override my right or give it away.

@freethegenders Please go ahead & report any transphobic posts here, or elsewhere on MN. As feminists, we'd be very grateful to you.

Oh, and now you've plopped and before you go, can you define the terms "woman," "female," "man," and "male" without resort to historically specific and culturally constructed stereotypes?

there is zero reliable data on how many trans people are even in prison

Which is very odd, don't you think?

Bollocks, Freeethegenders.

I have no more beef with transwomen than with any other man. But 'any other man' can get pointedly told to bugger off out of the ladies' shower block (and in fact I asked one to leave yesterday - he was a perfectly pleasant chump standing outside his small daughter's shower but I didn't want him there, thanks).

You cannot convince every woman that male people are 'really women', because they really aren't.

So their presence in female facilities is intrusive, their presence in female sleeping areas is the same problem as other men, and their presence in female sports is just as unfair.

Biology, reality and not excluding women from society isn't 'ideology' love. It really isn't. Nor is it progressive.

If you're on the side of fairness and inclusion, you've got a bit of a hole in your logic there.

freethegenders

How do you account for one in fifty prisoners being transgender then? Given the definition of trans is anyone who says they are. Unless you have a different definition, of course.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/09/one-50-prisoners-identify-transsexual-first-figures-show-amid/amp/

The world outside of mumsnet fwr is unrecognizable to most of the gibberish in here

I shouldn't think my daughter's classmates are on Mumsnet. They still feel uneasy at the thought of a child they knew as a boy last month now being 'a girl' and entitled to use their changing rooms and loos.

As I mentioned on here last week, that includes a girl who has been raped and really, really doesn't want to share facilities with any male however charming.

But because of the brainwashing going on in school, they feel both uneasy and guilty for having those feelings.

Thanks a lot.

No reliable data? What about these?
www.bbc.com/news/uk-42221629
"125 transgender inmates in England and Wales, in a prison population of 85,513."
60/125 are sex offenders

That's from 2017.

As of 2019 supposedly 1 in 50 prisoners are transwomen by self-ID.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2019/07/09/one-50-prisoners-identify-transsexual-first-figures-show-amid/

Or are you saying they don't count because prisoners are lying about being trans for perks/to get access to female victims, which no shit. Kinda the point.

When people ask about this, I think you have to go back a step and ask why we have certain sex segregated services. They will generally answer two things, possibly safety, and possibly privacy.

If they say safety safety, that's easy enough, you point out that the safety issue for trans people is the same, that most trans men are sexually interested in women, that they still have a penis, that they are physically capable of rape. You can also point out that the evidence we have seems to suggest they are as likely to assault women as regular men. This all applies to the laws as they stand now, with the further addition of self-id there isn't even any necessity for a transwoman to "present" as a women, and there are already some who do not - it simply becomes impossible to manage the safety question.

If they say it's not about safety, it's more about privacy, and they feel that's a cultural imposition that would be better left behind, I think you can query that. I would point out that while they may be lucky enough not to feel threatened in such situations, that is probably because of their particular experiences. I would point out that women's facilities became common at all because women could not safety go out, and that this is still a problem in many parts of the world. You might ask why they think this is something the UN talks about in refugee camps, or why young women in some countries avoid school when menstruating because of lack of private washrooms. You could point out that these rules also protect people in more vulnerable positions, like prisons, or ensure that women in male dominated workplaces have privacy accommodations.

The question of racial profiling is relevant, in that you can attach statistically significant numbers to certain types of criminal behaviour and race in some places. I think the answer there is complicated, for me in part it's that the question of separate facilities for omen isn't just about risk, maybe not even primarily, it's about privacy, which has no equivalent with race. I think its also relevant though that in that case, we are impinging on the rights of people, doing searches etc, and that requires a high bar for allowing it. In this case though, we are not saying trans people can't use the toilets, they just need to use the right ones for their sex, we aren't restricting them in any way.

I suppose the last thing I'd say is that if it really doesn't matter, we should have no sexed facilities at all. Some people think that, at least about some places - many draw a lie around places like prisons even so. Those people are at least being somewhat consistent but I'd point out that unisex facilities have more problems.

Sounds like you’re just telling the truth OP, of what’s been reported publicly and you are keeping safeguarding of women and girls front of mind. Why would anyone object to that?

A good sign that someone us spreading propaganda is the endless use of blogs as sources.

Medium pieces, wordpress blogs etc where sophistry and manipulation to an agenda is abound.

You can simply read up this thread and see the defensive reactions of people invested in a one-way nefarious narrative.

The only trans people that are counted in prisons in the UK, are those that satisfy two requirements, to be long-term, and to have requested a case review outing themselves.

yes these could be nefarious men pretending to be trans women, that is not the fault of trans women.

There is not a single statistic that exists outside of right-wing opinion piece imaginations, and blogs that suggest trans women have anything remotely like 'male criminality'.

That evidence simply does not exist, only evidence to the contrary.

But some people really really want you to believe Propaganda outlets like fairplay for women, whose whole raison detre is anti trans, claims to have evidence and a convoluted juggling of figures to show trans women are male, despite the M.O.J. making exceedingly clear with the F.O.I. none of those figures are reliable.

But then the conspiracy theorists and anti-trans brigade tell you EVERYONE is desperate to push through trans rights, and it is being forced through despite EVERYTHING saying it is bad and wrong.

Ohhh aren't we all brave standing up against the scourge!!

This is precisely the thinking of people susceptible to conspiracy theory and quack pseudoscience, and propaganda.
They end up isolating themselves from the rest of the world and actual reality.

The worlds moved on, this endless cycle of mumsnet transphobia, contrarianism, and clique-building is really sad to see grown ups acting this way. Some people are really super-unhappy I guess.

Um, my link that one in fifty prisoners identifies as trans was according to the annual report by Peter Clarke, the chief inspector of prisons.

yes these could be nefarious men pretending to be trans women,

How can you pretend to be trans, when the only criteria is you are, if you say you are!

Is the penny in the air yet...?

a convoluted juggling of figures to show trans women are male

You don't need figures to show this, it's factual, trans-women are male, this isn't as you put it quack 'pseudoscience'.