Serious question from someone not of the LGBT community

[Shev1996]

I’m sure it’s been answered and debated many times. But there are so many posts and most seem to assume some previous knowledge. So speaking frankly can someone explain to me in basic terminology the issues between feminism and transgender? The is an honest thread, I wish to understand

This should help, OP.

But be aware that things have moved on, and certain terms are now banned.

The rules are at the top of this board pinned as a sticky.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

Thank you, the general information is very informative, I must admit I never really understood the issue before but this explains a lot

Someone posted a more updated thread, several months ago but dammit I can't find it. Anyone remember the title?

Unfortunately, this post shared by Datun makes a lot of inaccurate claims and has incorrect information. Please speak to transgender women and/or their friends and families to form an opinion first hand. I'm not a transgender woman but would be happy to talk more on this :)

Always happy to talk Suzi. What, particularly, is incorrect?

OP, coincidentally, Debbie Hayton, a transwoman, has just written an article about AGP. Which you might find informative.

quillette.com/2020/02/02/i-may-have-gender-dysphoria-but-i-still-prefer-to-base-my-life-on-biology-not-fantasy/

@SuziMarshall thank you, but I’m more confused now. I know no one in the trans community to ask about this. I was just trying to gain some general understandingm. In life I’m pretty experienced about most issues, but in this I know only news stories and therefore little facts

You just have to read, research and make up your own mind OP.

This issue is divisive, so doing your own research from original sources and reading peer reviewed information is useful.

There are zillions of links on that thread. It's not a quick process.

Thank you for your replies, I’ve spent some hours reading whatever I can find, although it’s surely not enough. I have no prejudice to anyone identifying as any sex, frankly you’d all be welcome in my house. But being born XX or XY seems indisputable and that seems to be the main argument here, science. Thank you all for sharing your views, apologies if it’s caused any issues

Not at all. You're welcome.

Shev, yes it's about basic biology and how women have been and are oppressed due to biological needs,

It's also about misogyny, homophobia and how sexist gender stereotypes all cause irreparable damage.

It's also a safeguarding issue for children and an issue for education.

The conversation is moving on daily, this is a recent article spelling the above out.

standpointmag.co.uk/issues/february-2020/speaking-up-for-female-eunuchs/

An it's not hyperbole, this slid a book written by a teacher for young children which basically says that because this girl hated pink frills and dolls and like cycling through mud, she was actually boy.

This Is Me: The Girl Who Was Really a Boy https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/190932079X/ref=cmswwrcppapiii_.g8nEb0SNXH0N

These are the issues that lots of us are concerned about and have tried /are trying to get th e hopeful Labour leaders to address

same-sex health worker or care-givers (not same gender) especially for intimate procedures.

20/01/2020 02:21wakemewhenitsallover

I've made some suggested changes, below. I hope it's helpful. (Please ignore if not!)

These are issues that affect the fundamental rights of half the population. They are across every conceivable layer of public policy, and affect us from cradle to grave. Are you open to hearing views?

• self ID and its potential abuse: do you accept that it's inevitable that sex predators would take advantage of self-ID to gain access to vulnerable women and children? What do think should be done about this?

• Reform of the Gender Recognition Act - consultation in June 2018, over 100,000 responses , where is it now?

• There has been rise of more than 4,000% of girls referred to the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS) at the Tavistock. Penny Mordant promised an enquiry. Where is it?

• Spousal escape clause (which you described as 'awful'). It is a popular misconception that this clause a "veto", but it isn't. Spouses have no power to veto sex change or GRA application. What this does is give women the right to exit their marriage before its terms change entirely. Please note at least 3 of the women who recorded their support are directly affected. How do you reconcile this with own views on domestic abuse?

• protection of vulnerable young people from those who promote transition which can sometimes include puberty blockers. Given time many would develop into healthy homosexuals, however data shows that nearly 100% of children given puberty blockers continue medical transition and go onto cross sex hormones. Medical transition leaves children sterile and can mean they never develop the ability to enjoy sexual pleasure as an adult. Vaginal prolapse is common as is hysterectomy. Do you accept that children can't possibly understand the implications well enough to give informed consent to commence such a life-changing process? Do you welcome the possibility of a judicial review into GIDS?

• Are you aware of the many ex GIDS / Tavistock clinicians and senior professionals who have resigned and.or whistleblown over their grave concerns over the treatment regime for children and young people and culture at GIDS? Do you agree this is unprecedented and that we are failing children who identify as trans if we don't listen to the concerns of these professionals?

• social contagion aspects of gender issues in young people

• entrenchment of gender roles - boys don’t play with dolls, if they do, they're girls. Why can't we focus on removing gender stereotypes?
• the protection of natal women's rights

• trans women in sports - male bodied people competing against female bodied women - aspects of safety and fairness

• would a Parliament of 50% men and 50% transwomen be truly representative?

• the importance of teaching biological facts in schools

• what is the definition of a woman?

• the influence on policy and on institutions such as schools by mermaids and stonewall when (correct me if I'm wrong) the content is not evidence based. Schools under pressure to affirm children in social transition despite that being against NHS recommendations (reference available) .

• treatment of lesbians at Pride

• Need for sex segregation in women's refuges

• Mixed prisons - we know women have come to harm, and the 2016 PSI on Care and management of Transexual Prisoners has been withdrawn as a result

• Mixed sex hospital wards generally (there have already been sex assaults).

• Vulnerable/elderly people treated or provided intimate care by a person of the opposite sex on the basis of their gender - unable to complain. Social care in home - how will we ensure the safety of these people?

• Mixed sex locked psych wards (there have already been sex assaults).

• Police recording non crimes in databases that may be reported on a DBS check as a crime.

• police recording crimes by Gender rather than sex, so particular crimes are apparently rising by women offenders

• Free speech generally and on university campuses.

And

• attempts (on social media in particular) to silence women who raise concerns about the above

• people being disciplined at work or losing their jobs (e.g. Maya Forstater) for stating their views/biological fact

• are concerns always prejudiced, even if lots of people share them?

I think it depends on who you ask in the trans community Suzi

A mother of a trans child is going to have a different experience from the ex wife of a trans woman.

I only have experience of knowing a trans woman. I feel sorry for their ex wife.

I am also not from the LGBT community, but for me feminism is concerned with women's rights as opposed to equality for all (which is the view my younger female relatives have).

So feminism for me is about the rights of people born female, be they homosexual, heterosexual or trans (including transmen, who by definition were born female). Where I personally have an issue, is transwomen (therefore born male) trying to force their way into the hard won sex based spaces and rights that took decades to be established.

As a lesbian, I worry that stonewall and yogyakarta definitions of lesbians which focus on gender rather than sex are collapsing categories that we still need.
I still face discrimination as a lesbian. It isn't about gender - people can see I'm in a same sex relationship.
I'm not attracted to a gender. I'm attracted to those of the same sex as me.
I worry that one category of person is being protected at the expense of another.
I worry that the currently popular approach isn't really very good for anybody anyway.

Magdelen Bern's videos are worth watching if you'd like to get a better understanding.

Magdalen.

Have to say for me......what piqued, incensed and outraged me was that 'being a woman' is considered to be of so little consequence and import....That my life in a female body, in this society, on this planet; my unique female experiences...everything has been so well and truly colonised and bastardised. It is just so fucking offensive...and I'm not one for swearing.

That being a woman/female might just be a show, an act, a theatrical performance...rather than a real, lived, meaningful experience. It feels like a total negation and a total insult to women everywhere....to the lives and struggles of women around the world; their suffering; their part in creating new life; in nurturing life........

Dress however you want, call yourself any name you like........but none of that can turn a man into a woman; a male into a female........Civil rights for all........but being female is an actual thing; a real thing...not just a feeling in someone's head.

Transgender seems to be the tip of a very big iceberg which has implications for the rights of women, children, LGB and autistic people. So it is a feminist issue, which can't be summed up in a handy post. Here are a few subjects for you to research:

AGP - see Debbie's article - is problematic for many women. Fetishizing and mimicking what we are.

There can be links with violence against women and children - Google will help you discover how many sexual offenders have been or are trying to get transferred to women's prisons having announced they now identify as female.

The massive rise in young girls - many with autism, many young lesbians - being referred to gender clinics.

The binder / puberty blocker / mastectomy /stetilisation provider issues.

The rise in male athletes taking medals, opportunity etc away from women & girls who can't hope to win.

It's a huge subject; I'm 18 months in from my first 'huh?!' moment (it was #stickerwoman on Twitter) and am scrambling to keep up.

Just a quick response to the opening question as so many have posted very good summaries and links and this thread looks like one that should be saved.

I think many feminists dont as such have a problem with "transgenderism" ie that some people may want to express not being trapped into the social conformity that says if you are male your dress and behave in certain ways, and the same for women.

But the issue for feminists is that what had seemed to be something that was part of the "gender bending" of the 70s has turned into a campaign and set of beliefs that centre on 2 things. One is that you can change sex. The other is that being a woman is a feeling.

Feminism and specifically the feminism of women's liberation is that women are oppressed on the basis of the sex they are born. And that to say that someone who is born of the sex class that oppresses women ie men, can become a woman by identifying as such is not only a denial of biological reality, but also an attempt to erase the reality of the discrimination that women face because it denies the reality of sex.

Many of us were not aware of, or did not forsee the consequences of the GRA 2004. And it might not have been much of a disrupter had it not become (or as some say was also intended to be) the foot in the door) to become an attack on women's sex based rights.

I know some people do not like this comparison, but it is noticeable that most people rejected the notion that a white person could claim to be Black because they identified as such. To accept that would be to deny the reality of not just daily racism, but the experience of growing up in a racist society and how that has impacted on your life.

Probably not for this thread but there is also the fact that the arrival of queer politics in universities in the 80s which led to the dismantling of women's studies and more, has created generation of women who have been "educated" into believing that sex and gender are the same thing. Many of these are now in positions of influence in the media etc., who now routinely report on someone's gender in a news report, rather than their sex.

In doing this women are being erased. If society is conditioned into thinking you dont exist, how can you campaign or legislate to protect your rights (one of the aims of some trans activists was to get rid of Sex as a protected characteristic in the Equality Act).

Gender is a social construct that most feminists want to dismantle. Sex is a biological reality.

Transgenderism as now expressed and echoed by the media has become an attack on women's rights because it denies the existence of women.

I know some people do not like this comparison, but it is noticeable that most people rejected the notion that a white person could claim to be Black because they identified as such. To accept that would be to deny the reality of not just daily racism, but the experience of growing up in a racist society and how that has impacted on your life

Absolutely!

Transgenderism as now expressed and echoed by the media has become an attack on women's rights because it denies the existence of women

And not only that, but also suggests that being female; being a woman is something that can be re-defined and re-negotiated by people who are not female -to suit. This renders actual women; actual females powerless to define and inhabit their own reality.

Have come back as I see the OP said about not being part of the LGBT community.

Doesn't mean you cant ask the question, particularly as it is about feminism.

But the impact of trans activists on what used to be a movement focused on people who were same sex attracted ie lesbian, gay or bisexual has been terrible.

Lesbians be told and even coerced into having sex with someone with a penis.

And some people say that in fact it was only to get additional funding the LGB groups eg Stonewall added in the T. Once you add in the T (which has nothing to do with same sex attraction) you may as well add in any other letter of the alaphabet. But for instance I has no place there. Intersex is in fact about biology, and nothing to do with identity. People born intersex have their own issues and how to campaign around them.

For more on how the T has alienated the core members of the LGB community take a look at LGB Alliance.

lgballiance.org.uk/
twitter.com/alliancelgb?lang=en
www.facebook.com/LGBAllianceUK/

Always happy to talk Suzi. What, particularly, is incorrect?

Never change, gender identity ideologues!