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've a feeling that on the whole, men get it more than women do. I'd need to see the stats, of course, and I could be wrong. But women are trained to be kind so they think that being "inclusive" is the right thing to do. Men aren't so bothered about being kind, but more importantly, they know what men are like. They know the risks of putting teenage boys in girls' changing rooms, they know how much stronger and heavier a male rugby player is than a female one, they know that some men will use women's toilets for nefarious reasons.

I tend to be less worried about men as a group than I am about the massive extent of regulatory capture - the police, the law, schools, child protection charities and so on. I find that really frightening.

Men aren't so bothered about being kind, but more importantly, they know what men are like.
Yes this is what I'm finding too.
When I discuss it with women you can see them tensing up and looking over their shoulder - as am I - whereas men are more likely to go straight to, 'Are you having a laugh?' Or 'That's insane!.'

Suggest that he takes up the issue with Joe Rogan

He knows what he's talking about

I'm not sure it's a man/misogynist thing, just a "who can be the most woke" thing.

My DH and my male and female gay friends all get that TWAW is a nonsense. Ironically, it's when I've had conversations with the women in my life that they've played out almost exactly like the OP's did with her brother.

They don't see the big deal about males in women's sport, and think I'm being a bigot by thinking self ID is a bad idea. When I say "no males in female spaces please" they hear "no transwomen in female only spaces" and simply cannot discern that it's not transwomen I'm worried about, but predators who will exploit the system.

I for one am extremely grateful for Jessica Yaniv.

I was speaking to a very pleasant, well meaning, young man yesterday and he was extremely concerned that trans people should not be bullied, a sentiment I concur with.

I told him about Yaniv and he didn't really believe me. He is going to research it for himself on the internet, which is really the best possible option.

He will discover that, in addition to the massive entitlement, narcissism and bullying of vulnerable women, Yaniv has a period fetish and an interest in underage girls.

I shall report back on whether his views have changed. I am confident that he will appreciate that, as well as trans identifying people being entitled to be protected from violence (which we both agree on) that he will have learned that some misogynist men with AGP (I explained AGP to him too) pose a danger to women and to the rights and freedoms of transsexuals and trans identifying people.

So, er, thanks Jessica, I really appreciate your continuing helpfulness in this debate

Men are happier being crude too Floisme. Women aren’t meant to be crude or rude are we? Men will go “er no thanks it’s a chick with a dick” and everyone will laugh. I’m socialised not to be crude or rude but even if I were to say “no, they’ve got a penis!” I will be shouted at.

The point is to get to the stage where others’ disapproval is unimportant; truth has the highest virtue of all.

The sports thing - men do often get this, if they have some experience competing or training with women. If not, they may not.

As recently as the 90s it was a big deal in pop culture to show women as being equal to men in sports and strength. GI Jane, GirlFight - they not only played down differences but suggested that only sexists would believe they existed at all. Remember the sergeant (I think? Viggo Mortensen, anyway) coming into the shower to talk to Demi Moore in GI Jane? And films still tend to reinforce that view. No one these days would peep about something like the likelihood of women being able to get some of the more physically demanding careers.

My DH is a (very) decent club runner and some of his mates are even better, representing England/holding records/winning marathons. I don't even need to test the waters with them on the subject, they all just get it instantly. Some of them have even brought it up with me. If you look at the top 2000 runners in the country on Run Britain, less than 1.5% of them are female. It's so obvious in running, so perhaps that helps. DH instantly backed up a female colleague at work who dared assert that males shouldn't be in female sports, he wants single-sex spaces and sports preserved for his DDs and future generations. He's only 30 so generation woke, too. He's quite grumpy and stubborn for 30

My dh once said that he didn't care about trans issues because it's never going to touch him; my face was a picture and I think I spat some words at him and left the room in high dudgeon. Then he remembered that we have a daughter, and now he's onside enough to be tolerable.

Some men also feel like it isn't their place to speak out about women's issues. I don't really agree, but enough women do that I can't really blame someone for thinking that.

Yes, I think most men grasp the unfairness and potential predatory aspect, but view it as a women's issue and therefore not something they should comment on because they always hear that straight, white males should shut up or that they aren't qualified to comment on issues because they are a straight, white male. So I don't blame them for disengaging.

The ones that do speak up tend to have daughters, so they realise that ignorance and inaction isn't an option.

However, the issues affected by the trans lobby are sufficiently wide that it's easy to get most people on board by discussing things that catch their interest.

Get them to watch some of Joe Rogan's stuff or the Triggernometry interview of Harry Miller. These are ordinary blokes talking about institutional capture, the police recording hate incidents as non-crimes that stay on your record forever without any trial etc. Most men will be on board once they realise how extensive the trans stuff is. How insisting that biological sex is real can get you in trouble with your employer, or that the trans lobby are trying to remove the legal protections around people being deceived into having sex etc. This moves it from 'women's issue' to 'shit this could happen to ordinary blokes like me'.

Men and women tend not to give a shit about political issues until it starts to affect them in some way.

I also think that men are more likely to be accused of being oppressive and bullying and are very cautious about being accused, more so than women.

Pretty much all the people I speak to can see that the current mess with identity politics is insane, however if you are a man, and especially a straight, white man, you don't have a good position from which to say you feel oppressed.

I am concerned that we are living in a cultural bubble in which the person who can claim the most victim points gets to have the biggest platform.

This heirarchy of oppression was one of the things that I disliked about the political landscape in the late 80s and early 90s.

Of course some people are more oppressed than others, but everyone should have a voice and most people have absolutely no idea what oppression and problems people have faced in their lives, bullying at work, narcisitic, cruel parents, child sexual abuse, rape, bereavement, suicide in the family, the list is endless.

I just think we have to be really careful about heirarchys of oppression as narcisists will use the cloak of opression and victimhood to conceal power grabs and entitled, abusive behaviour. This has been demonstrated many times on social media videos showing TRAs abusing women while shrieking about being oppressed.

It can be sad and disappointing when someone we care about expresses those kinds of views. Especially if we previously thought or hoped they “got it”.

I may or may not seek to persuade them, and change my thoughts about them for the worse .

Some men have this daft idea that female equality means that women are as physically strong as men, or that we want people to think that we are. Sometimes at work I need help with something heavy and I'll ask a bloke. He'll inevitably make a joke about "oh, what happened to feminism, eh?" as if he's caught me out reverting to being a weak and helpless woman, when really it's that I know my physical limits and don't want to do my back in!
Some men think equality means that noting any differences between men and women is sexist. Like we are all identical humans with slightly different genitals, rather than constructed completely differently.
Also, they see TW as being vulnerable and not really men. The least we can do is let them join in with the girls. Dp totally gets it about men in women's prison, in terms of the Karen Whites of this world, but looks uncomfortable when I say NO men should be in there, ever, because he feels that post genital surgery they should be treated as female. I guess I used to think that too, that you could "become a woman" which I don't anymore. Actually, the prison one is interesting because usually men and women immediately go "rapists shouldn't be in women's prisons but TW are vulnerable and it would be dangerous for them to go to men's prisons" . The first thought is always what about the man, no thought at all for the women.
I always answer that with the fact that lots of types of men are very vulnerable in prison and that's why you need vulnerable prisoner wings.
My son gets it about women's sports because he follows women's football, and because he used to play against mixed teams but now they are older they are separate and he knows that puberty makes boys much faster and stronger. I think males who do sports probably understand more often.

Some men have this daft idea that female equality means that women are as physically strong as men
I have to say I've encountered a number of young women who think this too, which I find quite alarming. I mean I believed that when I was 10 but by the time I came out of puberty I'd wised up. It's as if some young women aren't getting the reality check.

True Floisme. It always crosses my mind when women and men talk about female on male violence as if it's equivalent to male on female. Obvs all violence is bad and domestic violence is horrible, but a woman hitting a man is just not the same as a man hitting a woman.
That's something my OH understand s completely. He knows full well that if I tried to punch him he wouldn't like it but he would not actually be fearful, because he could neutralise the attack, whereas I know (from previous experience) that when a man goes to hit you you fear for your life and you can't do much to stop it.
I'm strong and tough but just not physically match for even a weedy man.

It's as if some young women aren't getting the reality check.

Yes. There's so much pseudo-feminist propaganda around about how women are "strong", women can do anything men can do etc that it's possible for women to appreciate how massively, massively stronger men are. It's exacerbated by those kinds of classes that tell women how to fight off an attacker by using martial arts moves and that kind of thing - it just creates a false sense of security.

There was something I read a long time ago that stayed with me. It was a young policewoman who was set up as "bait" for a man who'd been attacking women in a particular spot - this was in the days when the police actually thought this an acceptable way of trapping someone. As soon as the guy grabbed her she was shocked by how much stronger he was than her - and this was a woman who'd been through police training, obviously. Of course she was rescued by police colleagues but the point is she realised that without them she stood absolutely no chance at all.

Just google gov stats on violent crime. So, men are responsible for (can’t remember exact figures), but 80-90% violent crime, and practically ALL sexual violence (something like 98%). Predators are opportunist so mixed sex changing rooms/loos WILL result in women and girls being assaulted who wouldn’t otherwise be.
Sports. Look at this. Quite graphic boysvswomen.com/#/
Also, the comparator is not any man v any woman. To assess unfairness, look at comparative speeds/results of the BEST female athletes with the BEST males. Males will ALWAYS win.

In practice some men just turn off listening to “women’s issues”. Is it worth your while bothering with him? Of course if you have a mutual MALE friend, he’ll likely listen to him, more than to a woman.

Back in 2018, the day when I read about McKinnon, I googled for about an hour, quickly reading up about the whole sordid farce.
Then I phoned British Cycling to ask them if they had heard what happened and what their views were on it.
The reply was quite calm, divorced from reality really. They were aware of it and suggested that I look up the IOC rules. I asked them if they thought it was fair and they didn't answer.
So, the turkeys just bury their head in the sand and go along with the lunatics.
I suppose if it is that easy to identify as something you are not, then tomorrow I will identify as being 91 years old and break the 1 hour cycling record for over 90's, despite having not trained for fifteen years.
If anyone has a go at me, then I will accuse them of being agephobic.

I had a conversation with a (male) friend once in which he said 'Well, what's the point of women's sports anyway? The fastest strongest person in the world is always going to be a man, so we should just have men's sports, and then women are sort of a disabled category.'

No thought at all that 'men's sports' aren't much use to women, or that girls and women want to compete fairly, or that, actually, if we want 'thing that goes fast' we'd be better watching a horse than a bloke, or...

well, or any number of things I was too speechless to say at the time.

What's the point of men's athletics?
Race horses are faster. And as for cheetahs...

Not much more to add to this apart from
I completely feel the same!

I tried to have. Conversation with my brother (a very woke Californian 🙄)
He said I was "like a racist". Right? Because saying TW shouldn't be in women's spaces is EXACTLY the same as racial segregation.
He accused me of "ranting" when I was actually stating some pertinent facts I thought he would learn from.

I'm still hurting actually. I can't view him in the same way at all. I can only hope he will peak-trans in his own time, but it's harder for men.

A poster here once outlined exactly why men don't see transwomen as a problem for women.
Lack of empathy is one.
They can't see TW as men in any real way because of their own deep seated castration anxiety. Even if they know most TW have a dick, they still can't fathom why a man wld want to be viewed as a woman bc to them a woman is a man without a dick.
They have a fear of being tricked into sex with someone with a penis so they'd much prefer TW being separated and kept away from them.
Obviously men deny that, and say they just think women should be nice.

Castration anxiety doesn't explain why so many women don't get it.

I am tending to think that so many of the reasons we discuss come down to us being, on a cultural level and often on an individual level, extremely alienated from our own bodies and physicality, and maybe from physical nature all around.

I used to have a hobby farm and I was pretty up on a lot of basic level animal behaviour and veterinary stuff, and I can't tell you how many times I hear someone say something about men and women, that there is no difference or that it's wrong to think there is a difference, (and this is both from gender advocates and sometimes feminists,) and I think, well, that is clearly true about some mammals, it isn't impossible at all. In fact it would be surprising if these differences didn't exist to some extend with human mammals.

Castration anxiety doesn't explain why so many women don't get it

Women don't have castration anxiety.

Women don't "get it" because they've internalised the "be nice" socialisation put on all girls from a very young age. Women are brought up to be nice even to the point of being detrimental.
Women only "get it" after they realize they've been taken for a ride.

Men don't have the same pressures to "be nice" instead they simply cannot fathom why someone with a penis would want to be viewed as someone without a penis (regardless of whether or not the TW has a penis or not), and think that women should be nice and accommodating and accepting of these people, so that they don't have to.

• I suppose if it is that easy to identify as something you are not, then tomorrow I will identify as being 91 years old and break the 1 hour cycling record for over 90's, despite having not trained for fifteen years. If anyone has a go at me, then I will accuse them of being agephobic.*

Nah. Because you'd be impacting another bloke.

In fact it would be surprising if these differences didn't exist to some extend with human mammals

There's a whopping clue in the term 'mammals', for one thing.
A lot of this 'no difference' thing is down to not making the very simple distinction between individuals versus the population. Some women will be sufficiently strong enough to be firefighters. Most won't be. Saying that women who are capable of a job should be allowed to do it if they wish in no way leads to the idiotic suggestion 'feminists want women to do 50% of all jobs' which MRA types trot out.