To find it really difficult to support trans women now

[Shockedandbefuddled]

Some of the people who are threatening sexual violence towards JK Rowling are the people who want to access female spaces.

I really tried to be kind and support trans women. I know it’s not the general tone on here.

I was absolutely not willing to do it at the expense of women’s safety and dignity but felt there was a middle ground and the argument was too polarised.

I suggested my problems with self ID were the chances of predatory males using it to get in to female spaces. The twitter responses to JKR have demonstrated that some trans women will threaten another woman with sexual violence if they disagree with her views on womanhood.

Can these violent, hate-filled people not see what they are doing to there cause?

I apologise to all the decent trans people out there but some of the aggression has left me fearful that the loudest voices in the community are advocating sexual violence.

(Apologies for the repetition of violent / violence but ... )

When I read about the theory of gender identity, I remember how mentally sexless I felt in youth. I remember Colette’s description of herself as a ‘mental hermaphrodite’ and Simone de Beauvoir’s words: ‘It is perfectly natural for the future woman to feel indignant at the limitations posed upon her by her sex.

I read this very much as JKR confusing her own very ordinary reconciliation with her gender with actually being transgender. The two experiences are not comparable and it's pretty insulting to trans people to suggest they are.

I have friends who are TW and I love them dearly; I admire them enormously - the path they chose even 1

0 years ago was the hardest, most traumatising, most difficult, beyond anything I could have imagined.

I wish all TWs well, and TMs too, for that matter (dd numbers a fair few amongst her friends); not at women's expense. There need be no competition between us. Divest yourselves of the vile people who want me to die in a grease fire, who want to punch a TERF, who have no kindred kindness towards me and my kind. We want to progress, not regress.

@SapphosRock - I don't understand. If gender/sex is a spectrum then why is cis/trans a binary? What's the difference between feeling uncomfortable in your gender and being trans? Where is the boundary between the two?

Lemonade I don’t think it’s like people saying oh everyone’s gay, some people have a strong gender identity and some people don’t. I know I don’t have any gender identity at all, I just know I’m female because I’m female. I don’t wear make up or straighten hair or go to salons

Can see that, we're all different. Good to hear your experiences as I do have a strong gender identity separate from my biological fact that I'm a woman)
I never do make up or salons or anything like that either but how I present has nothing to do with how womanly I feel.
It's still there

It reads to me as a description of none binary as in the stonewall definition

Perhaps saphos you could explain the trans identity a little more to make it clear why it is to your mind so different . How does someone know , beyond just knowing, that they are trans and not just a normal gender none conformant, gender disillusioned or gender hating person?

@twoHopes it's a bit like a straight woman saying to a lesbian 'oh don't worry, I had crushes on girls when I was younger and I'm not a lesbian so you're not either'

but how I present has nothing to do with how womanly I feel

@LemonadeAndDaisyChains - Can you explain what "womanly" feels like?

There was an interesting thread on twitter from Kathleen Stock, who said their timeline was full of transpeople supporting JKR and discussing their biology and non trans getting angry about the literal violence directed towards transpeople from JKR and her ilk. I have seen this a lot, both online and in real life . It is MRAs.

Worth remembering that Sapphos is in a Facebook group with trans activists. Isn’t it funny the way Sapphos and Lemonade always seem to post in tandem?

I think you have a very narrow view of what it is to be transgender, @SapphosRock. JK Rowling's experience is much closer to that espoused by Stonewall, Mermaids etc, ironically. right, I am actually off to bed now, i swear.

lemonade yes sounds like you are somebody with a strong gender identity. Personally I have heard people talking about feeling womanly and always wonder what that would be like as that is not how I feel about myself at all, I would more often feel neutral/masculine and boyish. The thought of describing myself as ‘womanly’ gives me the heeby jeebies.

@SapphosRock I can see how you might read it like that but I don't think it was meant like that. In the essay JK is specifically referring to the massive increase in young girls being referred to gender identity clinics. Many of those young girls have now detransitioned and have spoken publicly about how misogyny was a contributing factor to their desire to change sex. This isn't some transphobic myth - it is a fact.

NotBadConsidering nice conspiracy theory but I don't believe I've come across Lemonade before (apologies Lemonade if we've interacted previously)

What JKR has done, in both her descriptions of her teenage years and of her experience of DV, is express empathy with those experiencing similar. Expressing empathy with women’s experiences is the greatest single thing lacking in the whole trans activism movement.

Worth remembering that Sapphos is in a Facebook group with trans activists. Isn’t it funny the way Sapphos and Lemonade always seem to post in tandem?

whatttt
I actually did a lol. These threads never fail to disappoint.
WTAF is that supposed to mean?
You have two dissenting voices both at the same time?! Must mean we know each other and are frantically whats apping each other or something behind the scenes.
Or sock puppeting and I'm Sapphos.
I just
I can't
Dafuq
lol

Also no idea what groups Sapphos is in but I know for sure I'm in nothing of the sort.

Oh go on, search each other's user names and see if you ever crop up on the same threads....

Ruffle you’re right you don’t actually have to have gender dysphoria at all now to be transgender!

Saphos I think JKR’s entire point here is that this is not the same thing as being transgender at all but that she might have been persuaded into thinking she was transgender if Mermaids/Stonewall had been going into schools back then and members of her peer group were trans/non-binary.

@SapphosRock Fri 12-Jun-20 23:19:51
NotBadConsidering nice conspiracy theory but I don't believe I've come across Lemonade before (apologies Lemonade if we've interacted previously
Don't think I recognise your name either until recently

No, I have no intention of suggesting you’re buddies. Just that Sapphos has interests elsewhere that people need to be aware of, and the two of you both tend to spout the same rubbish on the same threads. Give it a bit longer and Willis will be along soon. Call it TRA Murphy’s Law or something if you wish.

Just that Sapphos has interests elsewhere that people need to be aware of, and the two of you both tend to spout the same rubbish on the same threads

Heaven forbid TWO people disagree with you at the same time, MUST be something nefarious!

dons tin foil hat>

I never said it was nefarious, that’s what you’ve inferred. What I am saying is it’s all so predictable and tiresome, you know, the lack of answers to questions from the same people who purport to disagree.

For example Lemonade, you won’t answer what “womanly” feels like.

For example Lemonade, you won’t answer what “womanly” feels like.

It's not that I 'won't "answer.
I just know there's no point doing so.
I'll do it anyway.
I know it'll mean nothing to you and get told it's a load of crap though.
So if I answer, means you're going to actually engage people instead of belittle, patronise, and cry "define womanly?"
I have a biological woman sense, I have a mind/gender woman sense. Nothing to do with pink. Or Barbies. Or whatever.
I appreciate not everyone feels this way though.
Unlike some who refuse to acknowledge anything outside themselves or their own bubble.

Golly! A 'mind/gender woman sense'.
Well, I've learned a lot today. That's clarified everything. A 'mind/gender woman sense'.

Totally worth reading that one at least!

So do you think the “mind sense” is enough to qualify as “living as a woman”?

If how you present is nothing to do with how womanly you feel, why do transwomen seem to need to present in a stereotypical way and if someone doesn’t, how do we measure if they are “living as a woman”?