So much confusion over transgender issues

[Shockedandbefuddled]

Hello - I realise I am here under a new user name.

I am now on a feminist board, having never described myself as a feminist.

My university friends would laugh wildly to hear me described as such.

I feel strongly transgender people need to be looked after and are vulnerable. I do not believe acknowledging transgender people exist poses a threat to womanhood.

However, I am scared that there are a lot of bad men, perverts, abusers and fetishists out in the world (far more than transgender people) who could abuse self ID.

I’m afraid to post this away from Feminist boards because of the backlash but am genuinely confused how the argument has become so fractured.

I think its ok to say I want full support for transgender people but it cannot be at the expense of women, kids, those of religious belief etc?

of course it's ok to say that
but it might be a bit scary if you know all your friends will disagree
but don't worry, you're on the right side of history

Totally ok to say that. Pretty sure none of us want any harm to come to transgender people. We just want women’s rights protected too.

Of course it is (or should be) OK to say that.

Transwomen are transwomen. They aren't women, as women are adult humans of the female sex and transwomen are male. They feel they are very different from men, and that's fine, I accept they feel that, but they aren't female.

None of that means I wish them any harm, I certainly don't. I support them in their fight for specialist services, protection from abuse and discrimination, and to have their human rights upheld.

You nailed how I feel tbh. You're not allowed to have concerns like these nowadays- you're immediately labelled as transphobic. It is entirely possible to accept trans people identifying as male or female, and appreciate they're vulnerable AND it is possible to worry about how some unsavoury people could use it to their advantage to gain access to traditionally safe spaces.

It's about a conflict of rights.

You've got a women's prison filled with some of the most vulnerable women in society. A male-bodied rapist says he's a woman and requests to be transferred into the women's prison. The male-bodied rapist has had no hormone treatment and no gender reassignment surgery.

Whose rights prevail? I've had a friend tell me to my face that the male-bodied rapist's rights should prevail. That's so wrong I actually felt insulted that I could be gaslighted in this way.

Oh my dear, do you want women and children to be protected from harm and enabled to participate fully in society? Do you want to make sure that they are not held down by their specific biology and the issues it creates in a culture that defaults to the sex with different biology (men)?

Because that's what feminism is all about as far as I am concerned. Don't be afraid to have those intentions - they are entirely good, and they do not mean you wish harm on anyone at all, completely the opposite.

But my problem is the complete shutdown of discourse. I would like to advocate transgender rights but cannot because cannot discuss the possibility of impact of women’s rights and safety.

Hey, welcome! I'm pretty sure that what you feel is what many of us here feel. It's also what a lot of transwomen feel - the militant trans lobby don't speak for them either. If you're on Twitter, check out people like Fionne Orlander and Debbie Hayton

Give yourself the freedom to think, and the freedom to speak your mind, and value the freedom to change your mind too.

The truth is often to be found where some are busy burying it from view.

Go digging where you shouldn't, and ask the questions you're not supposed to.
That's how you find the answers you're not supposed to find.

Welcome, btw.

Barracker - blimey - can we have that on placards please! Wish I could be that erudite!

I think you've summed up how I feel. Pretty much exactly.

It is very sad that I’m now scared that it is the biggest attack on women and safeguarding that cab happen is being politicised in an abhorrent way.

Yes, definitely. As I've always told my kids, it is never a bad thing to ask. I'm probably a bit weird because I have to them that if someone tells them they are not allowed to ask why, they should take it as a warning to be extremely cautious about trusting the person.

Excellent advice floralbunting I'm going to use that.

I do not believe acknowledging transgender people exist poses a threat to womanhood.

It's weird isn't it how any concern you raise is framed as an assertion that trans people don't exist/don't have the right to exist. It's a shockingly dishonest basis for any argument about competing rights.

Of course trans people exist, whether you define trans as people with gender dysphoria or as people who say 'I am trans'. There are lots of people who fit into one or both of these categories so trans people definitely exist.

If we want to understand what 'trans' actually means and how it relates to our rights under the Equality Act, wrt the protected characteristics of sex, sexual orientation, gender reassignment and sometimes religion or belief, then TRAs need to get over their stupid assertion that we are denying their right to exist.

Along with TWAW it's a thought-terminating cliche which is designed to shore up the tactic of #NoDebate. It's a way of shutting you up.

#NoDebate has been dead in the water for at least a year now. There is a fucking debate and we are having it. If some people choose not to participate because they think there is #NoDebate or they think women speaking up for our rights causes them to somehow cease to exist or they would prefer to #ExpelMe or whatever that's their own lookout.

We will have this debate. Welcome aboard.

As my original post I’m quite naive to all of this but much It is is an eye-opener and seeing a very hard, efficient lobbying group getting such influence is interesting. If TWAW where does the cis term come in?

The biggest risk to women and children is that we are not allowed to discuss the risk.

It's actually nothing to do with people who are transgender but everything to do with the removal of safeguarding and sex segregated spaces.

I agree with you. If you think about it most people must because for X amount of years (certainly all my life) women have got along nicely with transgender people in womens changing rooms/toilets/whatever then suddenly you say people can just say they are and they are and there’s a rise in a certain type of crime and lots of outcry...

OP “I feel strongly transgender people need to be looked after and are vulnerable. I do not believe acknowledging transgender people exist poses a threat to womanhood.”

How are you defining transgender people? I have to ask because I come across many people who think it’s a person who had full medical treatment and surgery.

where does the cis term come in?

It's an invalid back-construction from 'trans', intended to pretend that women are a subset of a group which also includes transwomen.

And it makes no sense if you don't ascribe to having a 'gender identity' yourself.

So it goes straight back out the door here.

From what I've read on here, no one wants transgender women to be void of any rights, they just don't want transgender women's rights to trump those of women's rights. No one's rights, which to be fair, women have had to fight pretty hard for in a lot of cases, should trump those of others.

As a PP said, a women's prison for example is full of vulnerable women. Prisons are of course for people that have commited crimes but there's always a back story. Most people, women especially, that commit crimes have a back story and those stories usually involve abuse of some kind. Most women that are in prison are not murders or child abusers or raspists (the type of people that commit those crimes shouldn't have human rights in my view), they are mostly in there for less serious crimes. There's still a handful of women in prisons that are truly evil and have committed heinous crimes but the majority have not and they shouldn't be put at risk

Hi ShockedAndBefuddled (that's how I feel!)

It's good that you've found this board. One thing to remember is that what is going on in universities isn't what is going on all over the UK. In fact many people are totally unaware of this issue and will probably have wondered at the news today about a former policeman being accused of almost hate speech by current police.

Unfourtunately for you, one of the problems is that universities, since about the 80s have been a breeding ground for queer / choice politics. This was part of the backlash against Women's Liberation politics so that Women's Studies became Gender studies, prostitutions became sex work, the media were persuaded to start using the word gender instead of the proper word sex, and so on. If you have the time read or listen to Selina Todd's speech on how this happened and the implications womansplaceuk.org/2019/05/21/feminism-postmodernism-and-womens-oppression/

Even though at the time some radical feminists thought that queer politics was anti woman, no one thought it would get the grip it has, because all those students who went through universities have now moved into positions of influence eg media, politics etc..

But what none of us (or very few of us) realise was that the GRA of 2004 was a sort of trojan horse. Most people thought it doesn't really matter, only a very few people would go so far as to think they could change their sex. But some groups, such as Stonewall saw this as the building block to then agitate to remove sex as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act. Once women started speaking up about this threat to women's sex based rights this was when what had been campaigning going on quietly in the back ground (a deliberate tactic) the more militant TRAs started creating all those accusation against feminists about wanting to deny trans women the right to exist and worse ie implying feminists were the cause of violence against trans women. And once women started publicly organising against self id (and some women wont to repeal the GRA) that is when the level of aggression not just on line but in real life started happening.

You will know better than any of us how the way groups work in universities, who influences who, and just how easy it is for one way of thought to become seen to be the accepted way.

I dont think anyone here would think you should make your university life difficult, but it might help to know there are many women who agree with what you have said.

And there are a number of groups organising on the issue, eg WPUK, Fair Play for Women, Mayday for Women and many others.

But unfortunately we cant be with you IRL where it must be hard if not one of your friends agrees with you, or at the very least accepts that you have the right to have the opinion you have.

I am genuinely quite naive about this - a great example is the cis terminology, if TWAW then that surely negates the cis. Catch 22.

I just know there needto be safe spaces for women and the current woke policies are not acknowledging that.

Shocked, you bring up an interesting point. Can you explain more of what you mean? I'm just intrigued by your thoughts on Twaw negating the cis. And welcome!!

The confusion tends to clear up when you find out what rights transgender males want that they do not already enjoy.
Unfettered access to women and girls and the right to displace women and girls are the two rights they are lobbying for.