@Kelcat9494
As one individual who mostly lurks here so that I don’t feel like lonely feminist in a world going mad, I’d just like to say thanks for posting. We need more people to sit up and ask, “just why are these otherwise sane and intelligent women behaving this way” and then actually listen to the answers.
This is my POV. I get that it won’t necessarily be shared by many here. I’ve come to this POV from being a woman all my life. Probably a fairly masculine woman by imposed and stereotypical standards, in my aesthetic presentation and life choices. Nonetheless I am a woman who happens to be heterosexual, a wife and mother of 3. I’m also a mental health professional of 20+years.
I will start by saying that I fundamentally believe that there are a very small number of people for whom gender dysphoria is a real thing, and the solution is supported medical transition.
However I don’t think the current rhetoric is actually about this group. I have met trans people who feel completely alienated by current trans-activism. Completely anecdotally, from my limited experience it seems to be trans men (FtM) who feel most alienated, and I find that an interesting issue in itself. What is different about the life experience, attitudes and expectations of trans men that this should be the case?
I disagree with the notion that sexually predatory and abusive behaviour among trans women is being overblown by feminists. My own life experience, including professionally, has shown me that misophilia, autogynaephilia, sexually fetishistic transvestism and paedophilia exist in the male (and more rarely female) population to a not insignificant extent. A minority but a solid minority with the result that a significant proportion of the female population can call themselves victims/survivors.
I used to see some of these fetishists as psychotherapy patients, it was such a common issue at one time. It was very clear that these men, dressing as women, were getting their rocks off rather than experiencing gender dysphoria. There was often fetishistic exhibitionism associated with it. Extremely anecdotally I was assaulted by a MtF fetishist once because I wasn’t inhabiting my female body as he thought I should. My shoes, apparently, were too masculine. Funny I suppose but an interesting prediction for how some MtF trans people take ownership of how woman should behave and dress. These people seem to have disappeared from clinical practice; I wonder where have they gone?
Furthermore there is clear evidence from the recent past that those who wish to pursue abusive sexual behaviours are prepared to go to great lengths to be able to do this in plain sight. Pursuing the priesthood, paediatrics, gynaecology, even girls gymnastics (1 male doctor over 500 child victims, anally and vaginally penetrated). Why would using a trans identity to access women and children’s spaces be excluded from this list? I just can’t see how it is transphobic to say that self ID could provide another hiding in plain sight alibi for abusers who are not genuinely trans. Most GC women are not saying that actual trans people are paedophiles and sexual predators. They are saying that self ID provides another opportunity for abusers to easily access vulnerable women and children. The aggression with which this view is silenced alarms me.
Sticking with the MtF trans women issue, aside from the nefarious motivations that might apply to a minority, I also have concern that transitioning has become a brutal and extreme escape from toxic masculinity. For some men, those who have been traumatised or exposed to extreme toxic masculinity, it is clear that women’s spaces/clothes/traditional roles etc represent a desirable safe and nurturing space. There have been some army and police MtF transitioner-detransitioners who have spoken eloquently about this. This is neither good for women (reinforcing gender stereotypes and limiting the role of women in the world) or men (the target should be changing toxic masculinity not escaping it).
But I am most concerned about how all of this is playing out when it comes to kids. The adult brain isn’t mature until 25. Kids have really shitty executive function because their frontal cortices are taking longer to fill out, puberty itself is an incredibly variable process. It is completely biological plausible to expect that any individual child will travel through various notions of their own gender identity and sexuality on their biological journey to adulthood. And yes, sometimes they struggle. But I think the notion of changing sex, but for a tiny minority for whom we really don’t yet have the science to identify (despite what Mermaids et al say) seems like a pseudo-solution. I think we would do better by children if we protected them from sexualisation, Kardashisation, social media driven sexual ideals and championed the message that regardless of your biology, there is no imperative to aspire slavishly to gender stereotypes as they are currently presented. Nor do you have to change your biological sex to pursue your individual goals, whatever they may be. Girls still need feminism, perhaps moreso now than for a long time. But boys need to steered away from toxic masculinity too, without seeing changing gender as the only escape. The leap forward with labelling all of this as gender dysphoria rather than appreciating the challenge today’s kids have with non-conformity to gender stereotypes and persisting negative ideas about homosexuality, seems completely insane to me. I find a lot of the fervour around children transitioning to be very homophobic and a massive backward step for gender equality.
I’m not sure what the solution is here. I wouldn’t advocate medical treatment before 25 (this is the age of true biological adulthood). Children should be supported through their self-exploration without an agenda. No Mermaids involvement in schools. No self ID. Evidence based medicine approach to assessment and treatment. I do believe in equality for those who go on to transition. And for that small group of individuals for whom transitioning is the correct treatment, I think the process is too long and potentially traumatising.
The TWAW mantra is infuriating as it is surely not insulting to TW to say that they have not had the lived experience of being women from birth*. Those of us who have need space, TW need space with other TW and we need spaces that are shared too...aggressively telling women to share their space with TW was never going to end well. In my opinion TW are TW, with a unique life experience that I know little of. And, yes, there are those who self-ID but have barely transitioned at all (and don’t intend to) which raises questions as to the legitimacy of their place in certain spaces.
*I once got caught up in a discussion about the shittiness of catcalling. I’d been catcalled in the street by some drunken men outside a pub. I had been running all over town between work and collecting kids, trying to squeeze in some errands and get back to my car before the meter ran out...and just to make the day crappier I get the usual demands to smile, escalating to “moody cow” etc when I didn’t comply. I told them to fuck off and gave them the Vs. Later I was bemoaning the situation on another feminist forum, discussing how sick I am of this shit. It started when I about 10/11. That’s when I became fair game for this predatory behaviour, abuse and entitlement from men. In discussing this with a group of online feminists, one was strongly dismissive, belittling my life experience, telling me I should be grateful for this intrusion in my life, even told me it was validating. Later it became apparent that this was a TW. So yeah, maybe it would have been validating for them. But TW don’t have the life experience of women. And I don’t have theirs.