@Zoecarter did you know that 80% of transwomen have no medical intervention at all - no drugs, no surgery? They are literally male people, raised as male, who say they subjectively believe that they are female. That's it. All that is required. And no, transwomen are not more likely to be murdered than anyone else. They're half as likely, in fact. The suicide stat is bullshit, too - it was based on just 27 kids, from a self-selected sample, via an online survey for a prize. Nothing stopped anyone entering twice, it was anonymous, without probability weighting - so data was worthless. Yet it's endlessly cited.) GIDS at Tavistock say that the suicide rates are similar to all kids in contact with CAMHS, and claiming otherwise harms resilience.
Have you ever considered what it could do to a woman fleeing male violence, to encounter a male in that shelter? Can I ask you to read what a women's refuge provider had to say, in a speech to the Scottish Parliament on this?
Did you know that 1 in 50 males in prison now self-ID as trans according to Ministry of Justice figures? If it's so dangerous, why are so many choosing to come out when in jail?
Were you aware that according to Rhona Hotchkiss, Scottish MP and former women's prison governor, now have more transwomen sex offenders in prison than females?
Were you aware that 95% of prisoners are men, and 5% women? That most women in prison are there for financial crime, and most men in for violent offending? Were you aware that while men commit 98% of sex offences, more than 99% of prisoners in for sex offending are male (because they also commit more serious crimes)? Were you aware that even back in 2016, when there were only 126 openly transwomen in prison, 60 were sex offenders? There are around 200,000 transwomen in the country, it is believed. At the same time, there were only 128 women in for sex offences, altogether, from a population of 32 million... and 13500 men.
If transwomen commit offences, specifically sex offences, at standard male rates, why are they women? Why should women locked in prison be forced to live alongside a rapist, as soon as that rapist says, "I'm a woman"? Are you willing to be locked into a prison cell with a male rapist because of that? If not, why not? And if not, are you saying other women should have to? Are you aware that women have already been raped, in several countries, because of this policy? Why don't you think that women prisoners should be the ones to decide that - and nobody else?
What about a women's shelter? Did you know that a woman has been made to leave a shelter because, as a rape survivor, she couldn't sleep in a room with a strange male, however he identified? Are you aware that a man has used self-ID to access a women's shelter where he sexually assaulted vulnerable women? Are you aware that a rape relief shelter in Canada has lost all public funding for insisting they remain women only, and have had dead rats nailed to their door?
Are you aware that a leading researcher into violence and victimisation against women has, alongside concern for trans people, been extremely clear that there are massive ways in which access to women in vulnerable situations can be exploited? Are you aware that despite just 30% of changing facilities in sports centres in this country being mixed sex, 90% of sexual assaults have happened in them - yet unisex facilities are being constantly pushed, including in schools, to make trans and non-binary kids more comfortable (instead of increasing third space provision)?
Are you aware that women with our views are threatened with violent death, rape, and mutilation, almost as a commonplace? Are you okay with that? Are you okay with women being told to on/suck my dick" when they express these views? Why are rape threats okay with you when the person making them says they're a woman with a penis?
All of that hate is from transactivists, aimed at women with our views. I invite you to find anything remotely equivalent here, or indeed anywhere else. I've not managed to. And it's notable that the hate is not aimed at transphobic, hateful, aggressive men. It's aimed at women. Us, in fact.
Transwomen certainly pose no more threat to women than any other biologically male person does, and transmen pose almost no threat to anyone (which is why you'll be hard pushed to find a feminist with a strong opinion, as long as the transitioner is an adult. Because that's none of our business - nobody else's rights are engaged.) But biology can't change just because the possessor of that biology wants it to, and nor does risk.
That's before you even get into the issue of how to keep out predatory men who aren't trans, but want to access women, if you say that anyone who identifies as a woman can use communal changing/showering areas at will. A man exposing himself in a park commits a crime. A man doing so in a communal area, where you're also naked, who's told the reception staff he ID's as a woman, hasn't.
Sport is another huge area. Martina Navratilova was trained by a transwoman. She's supported transwomen all her life. What she doesn't support is bullying lesbians into having sex with 'lesbian transwomen' (aka as heterosexual males) or males, with a huge physical advantage, competing against women in sports. Which is happening, and which is grossly unfair.
Did you know women with these views can be fired, and have no recourse? That what I am typing here risked, until less than a month ago, someone reporting me to the police for a hate crime non-crime, because all that is required is for someone to assert that they subjectively think that it's hateful speech? A High Court judge said the effect of the police's behaviour to a man, “because of his political opinions must not be underestimated. To do so would be to undervalue a cardinal democratic freedom. In this country we have never had a Cheka, a Gestapo or a Stasi. We have never lived in an Orwellian society.”
Are you aware that dozens of clinicians have resigned from the Tavistock over their failings, including the Governor? Who later wrote a damning article, setting out to examine why a huge flood of girls, at least half of whom are probably autistic (a third actually diagnosed, when girls are massively underdiagnised), and others who may be anorexic, or survivors of trauma, are seeking to alter their bodies in ways that they feel will solve their problems? Are you aware that it's pretty much normal for autistic girls to feel wrong, and uncomfortable in their own bodies; that most outgrow it - and that autistic girls are likelier to be gay? That internalised homophobia can lead children to want to be the opposite sex? Are you aware that puberty blockers result in 100% transitioning, when between 80-90% will settle into birth sex after puberty? Did you know hormone blockers may cause sterility, a large IQ drop, bone density loss, and more?
British Medical Journal:
Treatments for under 18 gender dysphoric children and adolescents remain largely experimental. There are a large number of unanswered questions that include the age at start, reversibility; adverse events, long term effects on mental health, quality of life, bone mineral density, osteoporosis in later life and cognition.
It is often said that the use of puberty blockers in children is completely safe and irreversible. This claim however has never been tested in long term studies and its use for gender dysphoria remains experimental. Questions still remain about long term health concerns and the effect on the natural trajectory of the development of gender identity. Ethical questions remain about the capacity of children to consent to a treatment which blocks their natural development at puberty, especially given the evidence that this locks them into a medical pathway resulting in sterility and potential loss of sexual function.
Keira Bell, a detransitioning woman, is seeking Judicial Review of all of this, because she wants to protect other troubled young girls from her own childhood treatment, that led to a cascade of interventions, many irreversible.
Did you know that the head of Mermaids, the leading charity for gender non-conforming kids, took her child to Thailand so they could have their testicles and penis removed and cosmetic women's organs constructed on their sixteenth birthday, which was the earliest it could be performed - surgery against the law here at that age, and now against the law in Thailand, too? We don't let kids that age get tattoos, drink alcohol or use sunbed salons. Yet this is the person advising on best practice for gender nonconforming children? Mermaids have advised LAs and schools on how to treat children. A judicial review is underway on that, too.
Why must we accept smear tests from any male who feels they have a woman's gender identity - what does that even mean? And yes, that is happening; a rape survivor who asked for a biological woman for her intimate care found that letter being used to train hospital staff on unacceptable bigotry. And a woman in a psych ward, of men in her psychosis, was deemed transphobic on her notes for refusing to accept reassurances that a transwoman was a woman. Women in psych hospitals have solid cause to fear men.
Innate gender identity is a belief system. There's no evidence one exists; it's the equivalent of a soul. I respect all faiths. Bhuddists, Christians, Jews, Muslims. But if a sect suddenly announced that all their (male) priests must access women's spaces; they'd had a vision, and all women must repeat after them: priestwomen are women, and any who refused were bigots... would you accept? Why must I serve someone else's faith belief?
Do you know that the very word 'woman' will change definition, if the lobby you support succeed? If we can't define what a woman is, how can we accurately capture data? How can we record male violence, the pay gap, our representation in media, finance, business, the law, government, civil service... anywhere?
A lobby loudly insisting that they won't be erased (when the main trans org is brought in to train all major businesses, branches of government, universities and NHS trusts - many have the logo on letter heads) are actively campaigning to erase the very definition of what a woman is. Have you noticed how easy it is to define a woman when we're being aborted, married off to old men, denied the vote, subject to our husbands, raped, murdered, paid less, represented less in every single sector of industry, government, media, and finance, expected to perform most of the world's unpaid labour, and constituting 71% of the world's modern slaves? The only places that seem unsure on what a woman is are the places feminism was starting to make inroads. It's almost like there must be some sort of a connection, isn't it?
I don't have any resentment or hatred for trans people. I agree that there should be protection against discrimination and abuse. I just don't agree that male people should access women's spaces, or benefit from women's provision, at will, without our consent.
I started researching this to prove gender critical women wrong. But I was wrong. You ask why women here aren't going along with it all. So I ask - why are you?