TWAW

[Billi77]

Thought it might be an idea to start a thread for women who support TWAW. I understand ‘Feminism chat’ should also include us and give us our own space?

Ah, the "it's already happening so what's the point in objecting to additional threats" angle.

No.

I know they’re coming from a place of prejudice towards trans people and not a place of genuine concern for women’s safety

Well, you " know" wrong, then.

If TRA activists were not intent on bulldozing their way into places reserved for women and girls then there would be no issue.

Create your own spaces.

Can you not see the contradiction?

@maudspellbody

For what it's worth, I would quite like to lurk on a thread purely for people who believe TWAW. I want them to speak freely and discuss what it means to them - without anyone questioning or trying to educate them. I think it would be really interesting to hear the whole position. I would like to think it would consist of more than 'just be kind. TWAW and that's it.'

But unless we let it run without leaping in, we are unlikely to ever hear the actual reasoning (if, in fact, there is more depth to it that that).

I fear it would be 'TWAW. Be kind.' Followed by talk of how mean everyone else is... but I would still like to read it to be sure.

I really want to understand without being antagonistic about it.

I lurk on Reddit for that precise reason. The above, plus a fuckton of seriously dodgy 'science', is pretty well it.

CluelessBaker - your logic seems to be "women prisoners are raped by male staff, so let's let more men in to rape them too, it'll make little difference" and "men rape women anyway, so let's not bother with any safeguarding".

These seem to be strange suggestions. Shall we apply that to other areas too - safeguarding isn't 100% effective so let's not bother with it; DBS checks don't catch everyone so we won' t bother with those either; some women are murdered by people they know, so we won't bother protecting women from being murdered by strangers.

The idea that a virtual room full of feminists neither no or care about the many threats to women and girls that don't come from transwomen is ludicrous. Try again!

Ah, the "it's already happening so what's the point in objecting to additional threats" angle.

Nope, this is not remotely what I am saying.

I am saying that if you characterise trans women as the single greatest threat to women’s rights, and give absolutely no time or attention to the far more significant threats women (including trans women) already face, then your motivations are clearly prejudice and not genuine concern for women.

@CluelessBaker

Where do you stand on safeguarding issues and what is your solution?

Let’s start with the Karen White example since it has come up so much. That was a terrible thing which should never have been allowed to happen. There were obvious signs that Karen White was a predator, and clear failures in procedure.

But do you know what I never see mentioned on the FWR board whenever KW is mentioned? The fact that 60% of rapes of inmates in the U.K. are perpetrated by prison staff. Nobody seems to give a single shit that by far the most significant threat to women in prison is prison guards, and that will not be helped one tiny bit by insisting that trans women be imprisoned with men.

It’s the same issue whenever people express concern about the possibility of men exploiting self-ID to attack women in bathrooms and completely ignoring the fact that the overwhelming majority of rape victims are raped by someone they know, who finds an opportunity which has nothing to do with whether or not trans women can use female changing rooms or loos.

So it’s not that I don’t think there is a discussion to be had about women’s spaces. It’s that if a person’s focus is exclusively or overwhelmingly about the relationship between trans women and women’s spaces, with little or no awareness or passion for the much more significant and real threats that women already face and which have nothing to do with trans people, I know they’re coming from a place of prejudice towards trans people and not a place of genuine concern for women’s safety.

Thank you. This is interesting and it's good to talk these things through. It actually helps me to understand my own position better...

I don't know where the statistics are from about prison guards and I would need to read around it to understand the situation, but thank you for highlighting it.

My problem with that is that 'what is being suggested is not as dangerous as...' is a race to the bottom. We know that most assaults are at the hands of people (men) we know. We are well versed in the problems of male violence.

So knowing that does not make it ok to drop safeguarding measures in different situations.

We do need to tackle male violence in domestic settings. We do need to tackle male violence in prisons, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't employ safeguarding processes in other spaces - it doesn't follow.

That's a complete representation CluelessBaker
Of course those discussions happen, just not in a discussion about the GRA.
One problem at a time, is how people generally do it.

What's this obsession with safe spaces online all about? You're dismantling our real life safe spaces and telling us to suck it up, yet whining about virtual space online not being safe. Jesus Christ, listen to yourselves!

THIS

Interesting how those intent on dismantling safe spaces and safeguarding for children feel threatened by my expressing the opinion that that is what they're doing. Suggests they have literally no clue.

Alternatively we are focusing on the areas which are new risks for women at the same time as we address the existing ones.

I would quite like to lurk on a thread purely for people who believe TWAW. I want them to speak freely and discuss what it means to them - without anyone questioning or trying to educate them.

I can't remember where I have seen it, but somewhere I was reading the viewpoint that 'Cis (sorry!) men cannot become trans women'.

In other words, all trans women have always been trans all their life. Coming out as trans is absolutely analogous to coming out as gay.

It's why detransitioners, and clinicians who don't automatically affirm and medicate trans kids, don't fit the logic.

Oh my, now the attempt to shame me into silence by saying I clearly don't care about women.

No. That doesn't work, either. I'm shameless when it comes to protecting women's rights.

Laws and safeguarding is not there for the 99% of people who wouldn't dream of transgression. Its to filter out the outliers, the KW's if you like, without them doing the damage.
You cant have a discussion of safeguarding without mentioning the KWs etc.

Shaming and emotional manipulation are all the TWAW side have, so of course that's what they're going to use. When all you have is a hammer, etc.

Well I'm interested in hearing the arguments for TWAW.
I hope they continue.

CluelessBaker - your logic seems to be "women prisoners are raped by male staff, so let's let more men in to rape them too, it'll make little difference" and "men rape women anyway, so let's not bother with any safeguarding".

What insanity is this?

I want to know why you’re turning a blind eye to the rape of women by prison staff when it is by far the most significant threat to women in prison. Why aren’t there countless threads about that, if it’s an issue the feminists of mumsnet are genuinely concerned about? Why is this board overwhelmingly made up of threads about trans rights if you recognise that there are much more serious threats to women which also can and should be addressed?

Why is your alternative to having trans women in prison not the abolition of prisons if you really care about women’s rights? 80% of women prisoners in the U.K. were convicted of a non-violent offence and end up in prisons where the greatest threat to their safety is the guards hired to protect them. How can you possibly think that the focus of your efforts should be making sure that the tiny number of inmates in the U.K. who are trans women aren’t housed in women’s prisons when there is such a clear case for prison abolition (or at the very least, fundamental reform on a massive scale)?

Do you see how frustrating it is to see the time, effort and talent of the feminist on these boards be ploughed endlessly into opposing trans rights at the obvious expense of countering the very serious threats women face from things which have fuck all to do with trans rights?

I sit on the board for a rape crisis centre which has been effectively supporting women (including trans women) for decades. So believe me when I say it couldn’t be clearer to me that vulnerable women are being failed constantly by a movement which focuses on trans rights to the exclusion of virtually all other issues.

I also think that you are seeing (and are concerned about) the fact that women are overly bothered about the trans issue, while ignoring more prevalent issues and this is evidence of transphobia. (I'm paraphrasing, so please correct me if I'm wrong)

I think you can see from a lot of the discussion here that we don't see the issue as separate from those other issues - it is all part and parcel.

Why?

Well our solutions to the threat of male violence in our homes and public spaces have been fought for:

The legal right to female only spaces Including refuges, single-sex hospital wards, single-sex spaces for when nudity is required.

But what is being asked means the legal lines blur and we lose the solutions we already had in place. Not because of threats posed by trans people, but because of threats posed by men.

The whole think is up for grabs - so yes. That really is the most pressing agenda item right now.

I am saying that if you characterise trans women as the single greatest threat to women’s rights, and give absolutely no time or attention to the far more significant threats women (including trans women) already face, then your motivations are clearly prejudice and not genuine concern for women

Feminists, by definition, centre women and girls in their thoughts on all issues. So i'm not sure how you come to the conclusion that they do not care about anything other than oppressing trans people.

It is not just about threat, either, but about the privacy, comfort and dignity of one's sex. About the natural integrity of the human female. about the lived experience of women and girls. it is about fairness in sport and the opportunity for female people to excel and gain awards for excellence. If you cannot see any of that then you are no friend to women, and you are certainly not a feminist.

The conflict arises through the attempt to forcefully enter a space that was not designed for 'you', and to redefine everything to suit 'yourself'. A form of colonisation.

I'm having difficulty in understanding how someone could not see that this is the issue.

You don't magically stop being a woman if trans women are accepted, I find that an utterly bizarre thought process

You don't stop being of the female sex, no. But woman no longer has a tangible meaning if it includes men too.

People would need to clarify if you were a female woman or a male woman. It wouldn't mean anything in it's own right.

I find it disconcerting now when I read about something aimed at 'women' because I no longer know if it's referring solely to me (a female); is aimed at me and TW; or, in the cases when I've seen things open to 'self identified women', whether it even includes me at all - as I'm not a 'self identified woman', I'm a woman because I'm female. Not because I identify as one. I don't 'identify' as anything.

Already the reliability of the word is impacted.

My workplace has already implemented no gendered language. There are posters in the staff room at work instructing us not to refer to children as girls or boys just in case. Which is hard when you really just want to say, "good girl/boy" to a 5 year old as they quite like it!

I'm autistic. I'm one of the women who is impacted by this. I also find it mentally painful and physically distressing to be inaccurate or lie so i don't think i could ever refer to a TW using female pronouns. I would use their name or the neutral they/their (for all its grammatical inaccuracies!) But, for some, this still wouldn't be enough.

I dont know if my protection under the Disability/Autism Acts would extend to this.

I can't even use people's nicknames or abbreviated names once I have got to know them - I use the name they were introduced to me by forever. So it's nothing personal.

I'm most baffled on this thread by the patient, eloquent and well constructed arguments given by people on the GC side with so very little from those on the other. Just, "well I dont agree with you" with very little to no engagement with the points made.

It’s that if a person’s focus is exclusively or overwhelmingly about the relationship between trans women and women’s spaces

I think you will find that the discussion about spaces relates to proposed changes to legislation and policy that would make it impossible to deny men access to previously female only spaces.

There were obvious signs that Karen White was a predator, and clear failures in procedure.

Of course there were clear signs that KW was a predator, given the nature of KW's conviction. What isn't clear is what would stop the situation from happening again.

Nobody seems to give a single shit that by far the most significant threat to women in prison is prison guards, and that will not be helped one tiny bit by insisting that trans women be imprisoned with men.

Neither will it be helped by removing laws that enable single sex spaces.

Just to illustrate my point, of the 50 threads on the first page of this boards, 38 of them are about transgenderism, and those that aren’t generally have far less engagement that those that are.

Don’t tell me you care just as much about non-trans issues affecting women. They don’t even get a look in on this board.

Clueless

It is firefighting.

We need a legal definition of woman to allow any laws that protect us to be enforceable.

So all else is pointless until we have 'woman' and 'female' pinned down to a definition that makes sense and isn't circular.

We can't argue for anything for 'women' until we know what a woman is.

There were obvious signs that Karen White was a predator

Yes. But they were still a woman under the current guidelines. Because they said so. If TW are to be assessed on an individual basis, that amounts to gate keeping and a level of safeguarding that wouldn't apply to a female woman which still recognises that they are not a woman and, ultimately, evidences that these people are 'woman' in name only and not any sort of tangible reality. Whilst the tangible reality of female women is diminished in order to include them some of the time.

Why are women worth so little?

If transwomen are women what are they doing about the issues affecting women?