Well, I've just come out as GC on Facebook...

[SapphireSeptember]

I watched this video this evening, and decided I couldn't keep quiet anymore. So I shared it on Facebook, along with the caption 'women are women, women's rights are human rights,' and thanked JK Rowling for standing up for women.

A male friend of mine replied with 'transwomen are women' said it was a TERF-y video and asked if I'd posted it accidentally. Guess he's no loss as a friend.

I’m not sure if the Victorian message was for me @open?

Emma Watson has very carefully managed the cognitive dissonance of accepting being a representative for female humans and issues specific to being born with female biology while still saying and behaving in ways that genuflects to the political lobby.

It would not stand up to conversation any more than Radtwit's comments would.

Which babies get buried alive at birth, or abandoned, or disproportionately aborted? How does anyone know which babies to do this to and why do they do it?

Which small children get married off and sustain terrible injuries or die in childbirth with a body not ready to do it? How does anyone know which children to do this to, and why do they do it?

Which children get their genitals mutilated and stitched up to prevent their sexual pleasure and control their behaviour? How does anyone know which children to do this to, and why do they do it?

Who freezes in period huts? How does anyone know who has to do this and who doesn't, and why do they have to do it?

Who's ability to work and avoid rape is reliant on access to single sex toilets? How does anyone know who needs these? Why do they have to have them?

Now try and get answers to any of that without some very grim, racist colonialism about the superiority of the western world. And even in the western world, who is entitled to privacy, dignity, a lived experience, freedom from cultural and derogatory appropriation, their own language and choice of self expression, valued choices and protected identity - and who doesn't? How do we tell those people apart? Why is the one group subordinate to the other?

Being born with female biology is relentlessly attached to disadvantage. You can only lie about it, threaten people for talking about it and shame them for acknowledging that they see it. You cannot hide it.

@Alwayslearningthings it was for OP. I’ve not seen your messages so no idea if it’s relevant but it’s important to know where gender comes from and what it actually means.

@BaronessFloralBunting - Thank you for your reply.
I would have thought if they were mentally ill, this would be picked up in a lengthy psychological analysis?
Sadly teenagers are at a difficult point in their lives already, I remember it all too well myself, however I imagine when you are doubting your sex too everything is overwhelming.
My DSis is gay, and I can’t imagine ever telling her she should still accept a man who identifies as a woman, or else she would be classed as transphobic.

It seems like a topic of many different elements, and probably not one I can form an opinion on in a day.

@OpenTheCurtainsPleaseDear Thanks for the clarification!

Wow, that’s such a powerful video. She puts everything I think into the words I can’t find. It just so often feels ridiculous to be arguing that women are women that I often feel completely blindsided by having to argue that they are.

I saw a good question on Twitter.

Ask people: 'Do you believe women should continue to have all the rights they currently have in law?'

If they say yes - say thank you, we agree.

If they say no - be suitably horrified.

Most of the time, from what I have seen, they will squirm, prevaricate, deflect, try to avoid answering the question, claim that you are trying to 'reframe' the argument or 'drive a wedge' or some such bollocks.

I think we can all agree it's neither a hard question nor a trick question. But it's enlightening to see who treats it as such.

So what are the current laws on transwomen using female toilets etc because I can’t make head nor tail of it.

Well, there's what the law actually says and then there's what Stonewall has been telling people that it says.

Hi, Alwayslearning

There’s a lot of variability in the transitioning of children and teenagers.

Firstly, a number of detransitioners have complained that they didn’t get much at all in the way of counselling. There is now a problem with counselling as well, in that practitioners can be denounced and possibly lose their accreditation unless they counsel in an “affirmative” manner – that is, always agree with what the child says about their transness. And of course, with counselling, the child must be a willing participant. If they keep insisting they’re trans and refuse to talk about anything else, there is little a counsellor could do. Additionally, children get coached on the Internet about what to say in their counselling in order to get approved for transition.

Secondly, there clearly are some parents out there who cheerlead their child’s transition from a very young age. It looks like a form of Munchausens by proxy. They are eager to socially trans their child, get them on puberty blockers etc and boast on the Internet about how woke their family is. I think it’s TrangenderTrend has some extremely revealing excerpts from social media groups that illustrates this very alarmingly.

I think the point for me is that breast removal, etc is something that no child is really mature enough to consent to, however much counselling they have. And the same applies to puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones. The brain doesn’t really mature fully until age 25, after all, and just about the last thing to develop fully is the ability to really grasp the reality of long-term consequences.

AlwaysLearning, 'lengthy psychological analysis' is not happening. In your research, I'd recommend looking at Kiera Bell, and her current court challenge. She went through the system in the UK, medical interventions and all, and has desisted, and testifies that due diligence is not what you think it is and young people are being asked to consent to things they have no way of understanding fully.

In the US, where the health system is a consumer enterprise where the patient is the customer and it's all big business, and the prevailing ideology of 'best practice' is the affirmation only model, which is promoted by those self same business interests, rather than watchful waiting, which is the actual clinical best practice, given that the vast majority of children with gender dysphoria find the problem is resolved by the end of puberty.

@Michelleoftheresistance - Yes, this is similar to the conversation last night with my husband.
I spoke about a lot of what you have put in your post, his reply was stunned silence, though I imagine the reason he didn’t carry it on was because I was becoming enraged that I couldn’t even be classified as a woman in some people’s eyes, as it may offend somebody who has transitioned, despite them knowing exactly what I am.

I showed him what JKR’s comment was based on, and he said something along the lines of ‘Well if I was trans, I’d know if that applied to me regardless of if I classed myself as a woman or not.’
EXACTLY! So why must we not just say women? Those who no longer, or have never had periods know they’re not being catered for, so why do they need to mess around with the terminology?

@kesstrel - That’s very interesting, thank you, I’ll do some more research on that.
It hasn’t been touched on in any documentaries I’ve seen to date that some are coached and medical professionals are scared to disagree with a child’s view. That wouldn’t happen in any other circumstances I imagine.
In one programme I watched a while back there was an 8-yo who’s mother claim that she knew her son was supposed to be a her daughter from being a baby. I did think then, which seems to be backed up by what you’re saying now, that they just wanted a trans child or a daughter, or both.

Well, there's what the law actually says and then there's what Stonewall has been telling people that it says

Could you elaborate?

@BaronessFloralBunting - Thank you, I will absolutely look at that too.
I know from a family member’s experience that medicine and medical procedures are seen as money making opportunities in the states, which is a sad but sobering way to look at things.

@CheerfuIPotato - in simple terms, the TRA movement, including Mermaids and Stonewall, have managed to get ahead of the law by conflating sex and gender.
Under the Equalities Act, sex is a protected characteristic. The TRAs would like that to be changed to gender, as they consider gender the be all and end all, and sex is just a "social construct" (don't get me started).
So they started telling all sorts of organisations that they had to get with the programme, stop using sex, start using gender, and make sure that all rights that pertained to the female sex were allocated to the female gender.
The way they talked, many many organisations, including the NHS, various councils, universities, schools and businesses, pretty much fell for it and started changing the way they worked - thus we ended up with namechanges in hospitals in some areas, some Universities decreeing that transwomen had access to female toilets, ditto schools etc etc and many application forms requested gender instead of sex, despite sex being the more appropriate statistic needed.

I haven't got the details at my fingertips, and maybe someone else will come along and give you more fine detail, but that's the crux of it. Somewhere out there is even a manifesto explaining HOW to create change, by making out that change has already happened and organisations are actually behind the curve and need to catch up - and that's exactly what has happened here.

Wow. Preach it Posie! Love her!

LillianBland

I can't say too much without outing myself, we were looking at documents from a couple of years ago, I hope my point was made but it wasn't at a high level so who knows.

Could you elaborate?

The law says for privacy and dignity women have a right to separate facilities, so toilets, showers, changing rooms.

Stonewall say it is up to how the person self identifies.

And, although most accessible toilets are gender neutral, these are apparently 'degrading' for trans women to use, because, reasons.

Alwayslearning

Do you think your husband perhaps believes that all transwomen are attracted to men? Does he know about autogynephilia?

[quote slug]Whenever I see the "Trans are the most oppressed minority ever" line I've taken up asking them for the data to support this assertion. I've yet to have a response. But if I ever do I'll point them to this particular gem.
twitter.com/janeclarejones/status/1270632633052127232[/quote]
@CheerfuIPotato - if you read this Twitter thread linked here, you'll see that Jane Clare Jones also points to the way that the TRA movement got such a running start.

Always

because I was becoming enraged that I couldn’t even be classified as a woman in some people’s eyes, as it may offend somebody who has transitioned

Let's be honest, it isn't somebody. It's a person who is male. As a female, you cannot classify yourself as a woman in some people's eyes because it may be too offensive or distressing to a male.

Females cannot have single sex spaces any more because it is too distressing to some males.

Females cannot have their language any more because it is too distressing to some males.

Females cannot have equal civil rights any more because it is too distressing (and presents boundaries to) some males.

This is good old fashioned male supremacism.

I doubt their parents are pushing them to get their genitals changed and breasts removed...

I don't. Some parents are fucking awful.

some parents would do absolutely anything to avoid having a homosexual child.

I don't agree with you so I probably would have called you out too. If you're allowed to post your opinion then so are your critics.

Excellent post from michelle at 12.27