I fucking despair

[InTheTempest]

I frequently read this section but have never posted before.

Just had an argument with my brother tonight about trans issues, self ID, and in particular women's sports. He's a heterosexual man- who I've never heard express an opinion on things like this until now. We were discussing biological males being able to compete in women's sport and he just couldn't see the issue in it. That 'there's always someone who has an advantage for whatever reason so it's just a luck thing'. For example being born in a rich country will give athletes an advantage etc. I tried to explain that we don't segregate sports by those factors though but we do segregate by biological sex.

He also didn't understand the issue over women's rights to safe spaces, minimising it completely- 'people can be dicks to each other anyway' and basically saying how likely is it that men are going to using self ID to abuse women.

I just give up, I really do. I mean I don't think there's any point trying to discuss these things with people who think like this. I don't have the energy. He was really quite rude to me and tbh I'm pretty angry at that tonight.

I guess I just want to know, how do you deal with men around you who think like this? How do you feel about it? My male relatives wouldn't consider themselves sexist but they are in ways they can't even be bothered to try to understand (my dad couldn't see the issue with grid girls in F1 before).

Just feeling very frustrated with it all tonight. It feels like women will never reach equality.

I think some men like to see women wound up by this.
Also a male friend likes to tease me about it, though they’ve shut up recently with some of the news reports in the papers.

OP sorry you’re having a tough time with this. it is upsetting when those close to you can’t or won’t see the issues.

That’s a silly question from your brother though. if we can visually determine the sex of skeletal human remains correctly, why would we not be able to do so at one look with living humans? Humans- especially if in interaction with others- offer us loads of other visual, audible, other physical information as to what their sex is. As PP have said, we have evolved to know the difference.

It’s all part of the validation game to have to pretend that we (as women) would be uncertain about this, or to have to pretend that women in general believe men in general ‘pass’ as women, when we meet them. They don’t pass as women. That’s fine. It’s inescapable fact after all- because humans can’t actually change sex. Sex markers are permanent, real and they are inherent to our physical selves, for so long as our physical selves persist.

You could ask your brother if he agrees that in any healthy relationship or situation, nobody should be forced to validate other people at a cost of their own detriment.
If he agrees with that, then doesn’t it follow that those people looking to obligate or enforce such personal validation under such circumstances from others, should be seen as presenting some serious red flags?

Presumably he's equally as contemptful of the Paralympics?
Perhaps people with physical disabilities should just accept they're not as fast/strong/whatever and leave all sports to able bodied men?

I bet he wouldn't advocate that down the pub with his mates.

As others have said, some people are thrilled to be able to vent their previously hidden misogyny and see this as their great chance.

This sort of thing is frustrating, but I'd keep two things in mind.

The first is it probably has nothing to do with him being a man. As many women don't get it. Anecdotally my feeing is actually that men are more likely to get it, but it's pretty close. If anything I think age is the bigger factor. So I would try not to think of it as a man not caring about women, there is a whoe sector of society that cannot see the problem.

The second is that to a large degree people are responding this way because all the programming in their environment points them in that direction. To see this as individual rather than group based differences. To be very wary - even deeply reactionary - of anything that looks like ethnic or sex based or race profiling which is a type of class analysis. To see women and men as interchangeable and with no important differences. To believe women are as strong as men. To see the desire for privacy as prudish. To see the desire for privacy from one sex as related to homophobia. to see reproductive role as a minor and unnecessary addendum to womanhood. To see feelings as defining our identity and the nature of our relation to others rather than our physical body.

These habits of thought, and starting places for thinking, are difficult to overcome. The one thing that seems to give many a second thought is some sort of personal experience. The reason some younger men seem to get it is awareness of their greater physical strength, but some don't have a real sense of that.

I agree with Barracker and others about that- it’s a way of misogynistically specifically prying into women’s politics too to make them either side with the man pleasers - or not to do so and then have to face the consequences.

Ask him whether he thinks it's ok for women who shoplift to be locked up in prison with convicted rapists.

Ask him whether he thinks a woman remanded pending trial, who is innocent until proved guilty, should be locked up in prison with convicted rapists.

Ask him who can be forcibly made pregnant and who has the rape weapons. Ask him how he'd feel if you were raped.

Show him these videos from Blaire White. A trans woman who completely understands why sport should be segregated on biological sex.

Anecdotally my feeing is actually that men are more likely to get it

That's my observation too....certainly when it comes to sport.

Also, many heterosexual men are aware of the reasons why women need and require single sex spaces. I've felt really let down by many gay men, and their attitudes, in recent times ( not all, though!)

Also, as Goosefoot says, I think it is largely an age and experience issue...... Ideals are all well and good, but life and reality teaches you something otherwise.

Also a younger generation of men have been brought up with the feeling that women are equal and " don't need protection"...that it is patronising to suggest they do. I'm always very disappointed when younger men are so clearly misogynistic, or totally dead to women's issues.

It's so hard to know what people really believe inside their heads. Even the guys who say they think we should all be equal may secretly think 'but some of us are more equal than others'.

I wouldn't even attempt this type of conversation with my brother simply because if I said the sky is blue he'd take the opposite view. It's a sibling thing I guess.

Fortunately, all of the men in my life that matter do get it. Choose your battles wisely and figure out who is worth your effort

That's what I thought, that the sport thing would make it obvious to more men.

DB is too old to be of the woke generation I think although still relatively young. He's a fan of South Park and I even tried appealing to him through that- as they seemed to understand what was going on with this stuff 10+ years ago! I think part of this is not just his views on this topic but just the way he seems to respond to me in general which has frustrated me tonight but that's a separate issue.

It did just really make me think though, how can I respect the men around me who think like this.

I've had arguments with men on tinder about these kind of issues too! Unmatched many a fool whose misogynistic views come out of the woodwork. Good to find out at an early stage...

how can I respect the men around me who think like this.

If they don't respect you then why the heck should you respect them?

There are men who get it - mostly, at any rate. Mine was pretty good anyway, having a daughter has rounded off his education.

Sibling relationships have a lot of baggage at times.

I was having a beer with my sister and her friend this weekend, someone I really hadn't talked to before. He's a gay man, pretty young, I guess in his 20s. We got onto this topic as a bit of an aside, but it was interesting. She things I am largely crazy about this, that the extreme positions are just that, she doesn't see the problems legally, in terms of stats, etc. She always worries when I talk about it in public, even though I go to some effort to not sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist.

Anyway, she actually got a bit upset, but her friend, interestingly, saw the implications right away. No idea what he thinks of it all really, but he saw the implications in terms of language and how it had changed, he was surprised about the collapse of sex and gender but could see where it could lead.

I think in some cases it's about a certain kind of mental agility with concepts more than any kind of reflection on people's moral standing. An ability to see how ideas are linked and how to take them apart. Some people are just very concrete.

Show him this, OP.

boysvswomen.com/#/

Some people can’t envisage the potential wider consequences arising out of the application of the same rules to different facts... apparently! A worrying thought.

Some men really don't care about women, or women's sport, and can be very derogatory about women's sport. But most would agree that women having a sporting category is fair - even if they think that eg. women's tennis is "crap". If they really think about it, that is - and aren't just using it as some sort of argument against women.

Just hold your head up high, OP - you're right, he isn't. And this will come out in the fullness of time. I think people will look back on this time of males being allowed to enter women's sport as one of those strange glitches in society that happen every now and then.

After all, Martina Navratilova can't be wrong

Gosh, I had a row with my sister about this. She could not see the issue at all. She seems to think she'll be okay because she's 'gobby' - she'll just tell someone to fuck off, or shut up; I tried to explain that her rights to stand up for herself, to tell someone to fuck off if they are making her feel uncomfortable, were actually being eroded. That SHE could end up in trouble, for transphobia. That SHE could lose her job. I just don't think she believes me. So I will just sit back and wait for her to realise....

To me I don't understand how some women just don't understand this stuff, how they don't consider themselves feminist. Feminist does not equal man hater or trans phobe. I don't know at what point I became conscious of it all but I know for certain I am now and it's made me look back over my life and see all the sexism, social conditioning, and I know the effects it's had too. I'm amazed that I was born in the late 80s and this is how things are for women. I should have been more aware sooner. What will things be like for my daughter? And her daughters. It's awful to imagine this.

Wrt my db, there is literally no point in trying to discuss with him again or point him to anything suggested. It's not a surprise really when I think about it that he isn't interested in something that affects me, why would he be, that's just how it's always been. As a separate issue it's just really brought to my attention why I should go very low contact and not really discuss things with him ever because there's not really a good relationship there.

Thanks for the conversation on here. It really, really helps.

I've spoken to a few men who do get it (maybe proportionally even more than women), and I think the woke bearded ones who are TRAs only exist on Twitter as I've never spoken to one in real life.

But probably for a majority of men, they do think 'transwomen are women except for relationship purposes'.

I'm very, very careful who I discuss this with and wouldn't even bother with any woke types. But so far I've actually found that ordinary, decent men get it. They may not feel that strongly about it, because, unless they have daughters, they think it doesn't really affect them. But in my (limited) experience they do understand. In fact I would say they get it quicker than women because they don't have that 'be kind' reflex. And they know what men can be like.

Which probably doesn't help you much op - I'm sorry.

Most of the men that I know get it, once I explain about the possibility of people with beards performing intimate care on their female family members. THEN they are furious. But it seems like a possession thing "no other man touches my wife" etc. Still, if that's what it takes to get them to understand, I will invoke the "other men treading on their turf" thing every time. Might as well harness their misogyny for our own ends.

Out of interest, I wonder why so many men hate women so much?

For years we have been taught to let people live their lives as they wish. We all knew a neighbour who liked to dress up but that was it. As a mum I’ve told my kids they can what they wanted. I embraced the many genders, my boys wore green and red clothes and they played with dolls. However it has changed now and we are having to question how we respond to the demands of self ID, equality training by mermaids and our sport being questioned. It feels like women can’t be nice anymore if we want to protect our sport and our spaces and the word women.

I haven't read the full thread, but is this the first time you and your brother have had an extended conversation about trans issues?

Is your brother a sporty person? I'm quite surprised about the dismissal around sports as it's the one area that most men instinctively understand, even if they don't get the other concerns. Women are more likely to not care about men in women's sports. I guess it's entirely feasible for some men to not grasp the implications.

Anyway, what I wanted to say was that most people change their minds fairly slowly and over a period of time, especially when it comes to difficult and complicated issues. I think many of us here were very supportive of trans ideology and didn't give it much thought, but over time questions and doubts surfaced as we were exposed to certain troubling concepts.

When you are firm in your own position, having had your time to come to your own conclusion, it is very tempting to dump all this information and frustration on another person in a well-meaning attempt to get them to see your point. The other person though will feel swamped by all the questions and points and simply dig down on their position because they feel pressure to pick a side or feel like their own personal values are under attack.

I experienced this when I started to lose my faith in god and realised that the Jehovah's Witnesses were a cult. There was so much about the organisation that I had discovered and I was so angry and frustrated at my mum and others around me who didn't seem concerned or who were very devoted to the belief system. I want to grab them and shake them and shout how can you believe all this? I wanted to sit them down and show them all the disturbing things I had read about the internal workings of the religious group.
It's a very strong urge and a very understandable reaction. And I get similar feelings with the trans stuff.

However, the best method is actually a sort of drip feeding over a long period. Some people get things straight away. Others take longer. It requires a bit of skill in slowly encouraging a person to reflect on difficult questions and come to a conclusion by themselves. You ask relatively innocuous questions or make certain points on different aspects. Rather than unloading it all at once, you make small points here and there, on different occasions and on different topics. Not confrontational or labelling someone as stupid, sexist etc, just pointing out some absurdities or some things being weirdly unfair.

Some people might never change their mind. But I do think the drip feeding method helps a lot of people to feel able to give themselves permission to start asking questions and over time their position might start to shift. It takes time and a lot of patience though.

Most JWs are afraid to ask difficult or controversial questions. They are afraid to challenge the religious authority because it's viewed as heresy. I think most people who swallow trans ideology feel the same. They haven't given it much thought but they know anyone who questions or challenges it is vilified as a transphobe. So they don't see the point in engaging in such debates or conversations. The instinctive response is to deflect or shut down or avoid anything to do with critical analysis in this area.

The key is giving people room to reflect and change their mind. Their initial response is to be dismissive. Lots of people who used to believe in god were initially dismissive of arguments put forward by atheists, maybe even mocking them or getting angry with them. But over time, as they listened to the questions and points ... And maybe they even tried to counter such facts with their own ... The doubts start to grow... The unease... And they start to question themselves and wonder why they are finding it more and more difficult to justify such beliefs. Until they have to admit to themselves that they too are now an atheist.

Is he heterosexual? If so, ask him if he would have sex with a trans woman.

If he wokely says yes ask him if he would without knowing.

If not, why not?

^^ sorry, obviously I don’t mean these things are bad, but just that men will often be able to apply the distinction if it affects them.

He’s not applying the distinction when it comes to sports because it doesn’t affect him.