Scared I will lose my best friend of many years ...

[Bobkitten]

I have for the first time stated I’m in agreement with J K Rowling and my best friend was, I think, quite shocked and responded with ‘trans women are women.’

We had a long calm discussion (not argument) in which I put forward my viewpoint and we agreed that I would send her a few links, so she can see for herself what I’ve been reading.

I’ve done this, but I got the sense she’s horrified and I feel really worried she will write me off as a ‘transphobe.’

Not much point in posting really, but feeling on the verge of tears right now (god knows how J K Rowling is feeling).

I'm going to stress this again; when this debate comes up in polite conversation the very first point to make, before any further engagement is "have you actually read what JKR has written", and the conversation goes no further until you get an answer. If the answer is no or I don't need to or I know what she said from everywhere, you go back to to "so you haven't read it, here let's look at it now".

Good luck with that. Many years of careful practice in all areas of life have convinced most people that a Daily Mail (insert your hate rag of choice here) is a substitute for reading and understanding stuff.

See also: anti-vax and (my hobby horse) "the war on drugs".

Also bear in mind the call for "balance" which means you need a flat-earther on your panel if you are discussing GPS (for example). SO if you have a scientist who states that "female" is defined by XX chromosomes, you'll have to have "Barry" who says its down to your taste in scatter cushions.

@RedToothBrush I tried unpacking the JKR tweets word by word but everything I said fell on deaf ears. My friend had already made up her mind that both JKR and me were t*rfs.

HarryHarry, some friends are better lost, I'm afraid, and this one sounds as if she'll be no great loss. If she can't - or won't - exercise straightforward reading comprehension skills and do a bit of critical thinking, what is she bringing to the table?

It’s so bizarre though- she is so reasonable about everything else!

Quick help please, Mumsnetters. I’ve been sent a link to Munroe Bergdorf post about being described as a ‘weird creature‘ by the baroness. Is that true?
www.instagram.com/p/CBsxw_EAZvT/?igshid=1hvdyfqye9g76

Sorry to be rude and not acknowledge all your posts, trying to do a million and one things at once, so will log back in later.

Long story short

Yes she did but she apologised & she & MB are having tea

Luckily MB has never been caught addressing anyone as a “ barren hairy lesbian”....oh wait!

www.thesun.co.uk/news/5717376/labour-lgbt-munroe-bergdorf-homophobic-tweets-apology/

[quote Bobkitten]Quick help please, Mumsnetters. I’ve been sent a link to Munroe Bergdorf post about being described as a ‘weird creature‘ by the baroness. Is that true?
www.instagram.com/p/CBsxw_EAZvT/?igshid=1hvdyfqye9g76[/quote]
Yes it's true, I believe it's why she was told to step down.

[quote Bobkitten]Quick help please, Mumsnetters. I’ve been sent a link to Munroe Bergdorf post about being described as a ‘weird creature‘ by the baroness. Is that true?
www.instagram.com/p/CBsxw_EAZvT/?igshid=1hvdyfqye9g76[/quote]
Yes it's true, I believe it's why she was told to step down.

Bergdorf's greatest hits:

twitter.com/butterflygone02/status/1137506822863171589

If Baroness Nicholson has to be cancelled over one thing she said and then apologised for, then the same must go for Bergdorf too, right?

[quote Bobkitten]Quick help please, Mumsnetters. I’ve been sent a link to Munroe Bergdorf post about being described as a ‘weird creature‘ by the baroness. Is that true?
www.instagram.com/p/CBsxw_EAZvT/?igshid=1hvdyfqye9g76[/quote]
Yes she did. I believe it's why she was asked/ told to step down.

Apparently "weird creature " was a Shakespeare reference but I'm not educated well enough to understand if that's true or not.

On the losing your nest friend front...

It's happened to many of us. I lost mine after she stated at a rather polite dinner party that she felt it would be more appropriate for her to use the men's toilets etc as she had now gone through the menopause and was no longer a 'woman' as a result.

I think I might have told her (rather loudly) that it was the most offensive and ridiculous thing I'd heard all day and told her that, as she had a vagina, she was still a woman - menopause or not.

Scariest part? She's a nurse...

All I can, honestly, say is that she can't be much of a best friend to fall out with you over this.

'Friends' are a funny one.....Often people will keep up with people they've known since childhood, for example, out of sentiment and a feeling of security; but at some point there will come a time when we let certain friends go.

Over a life time our values and priorities change and shift, and our friends then tend to become a reflection of the person we're becoming. Few and true, is better than lots of friends who don't really align with you in any meaningful way.

Thank you all, I hugely appreciated all your comments. She understands the issue. I have sent some of the links I have seen in this thread and elsewhere in the feminism section. She hadn’t, as some pointed out, read Rowling's argument in its entirety. The main tweet she had seen was the ‘wimpund/woomud’ one, which she felt was unnecessarily hurtful to transmen who do not consider themselves women but nevertheless have a cervix. Taken out of context, I can appreciate why my friend came to that conclusion, but she in turn now recognises that this is about more than people’s need for validation.

I also sent her the image of all the ‘suck my lady dick’ responses to Rowling and she was horrified.

In a couple of weeks’ time, I am going to ask her to re-look at the responses from Radcliffe et al, and see if she reads them differently this time round.

Sorry, in the context of the wimpund/woomud tweet, I did of course mean to refer to transmen who have periods rather than transmen who have a cervix. Easy to get my ‘people who menstruate’ and ‘cervix-havers’ mixed up ... would make sense to be able to use a word that covered both, of course.

I lost mine after she stated at a rather polite dinner party that she felt it would be more appropriate for her to use the men's toilets etc as she had now gone through the menopause and was no longer a 'woman' as a result.

She said that with a straight face? She wasn't being satirical?

What the hell is wrong with people?

Taken out of context, I can appreciate why my friend came to that conclusion, but she in turn now recognises that this is about more than people’s need for validation.

It is mainly about the validation of men. Daniel Radcliffe proved this with his statement ''trans women are women.'' JKR was addressing periods, which TW will never experience, so why was DR defending TW and not trans men? Stephen King said TWAW. It's all about the TW, and everyone seems to ignore trans men.

Action Aid recently ignored trans men when they said biological sex doesn't exist. They said they stand for women and girls, and include trans women and girls in that. Trans women and girls who are, biologically male and therefore not at risk of FGM, period poverty, being banished to huts for the crime of menstruating, being sex trafficked, being forced to marry a man double, maybe triple their age whilst they're still children.

This isn't about the feelings of trans men at all. It's all about validating trans women.

She said that with a straight face? She wasn't being satirical?

Completely serious.

She said she no longer had any need for the facilities provided in female toilets (eg sanitary bins); she doesn't wear make up anyway so has no need for the mirrors and, as a result, she felt she had nothing in common with women and more in common with men and so would feel more comfortable in the men's. I pointed out that the men might not want a woman in their toilets just because she no longer had periods. She assured me they wouldn't be as small minded as me.

More than that, she sent me an email the following day suggesting I sought counselling because my reaction to her saying this was 'extreme'.

I was actually very calm. I think she was referring to me saying vagina in polite company...

That was 18 months ago and we haven't spoken since.

I thought that Stephen King’s TWAW statement was in response to somebody who had seen King retweeted Rowling on how men treat women’s opinions as if they are acts of violence, and asked King to state categorically that TWAW. King unfortunately happily obliged, but to be fair, that wasn’t a response to Rowling’s tweet and I assume he would have said TMAM had he been asked to do so.

Still disappointing that King clearly can’t see the problem.

@MyBassIsAce, that is horrendous.

Well done OP, sounds like you’re doing an excellent job of making your case

@quixote9

A few commenters have mentioned differences of opinion. This really isn't that. On one hand you have women's foundational right to physical safety (I mean, you can kill in self-defense, there's no right more basic than physical safety), as well as determining who's in their group (which all other groups get). On the other side are people who would like validation.

The degree to which we should be providing validation is a difference of opinion. Disregarding basic rights is a lot more than that. That's why there are usually criminal penalties attached to it.

This is the giveaway as to what's going on here: "
The thing that really struck a nerve with my friend was asking her whether she thought lesbians who didn’t want to date a person with physically male body were transphobic. Likewise gay men not wanting to date female-bodied people. While she initially began talking about tolerance, when I pointed out the homophobia, it suddenly dawned on her that this was plain wrong. "

When it affects gay sexuality the wrongness of erasing sex becomes more obvious to people. Erasing women's sex is invisible.

Just as women's basic rights somehow don't register. The simple reason is that women really don't register as actual human beings. Worrying about their fear or pain or dignity or desires when anyone else is involved (i.e. a man, since that's the only alternative) would be like putting the convenience of sheep ahead of commuters' need for a new road. Ridiculous. Unthinkable, meaning people just can't even think it. Certainly, you wouldn't want to be gratuitously mean to sheep for no reason. But they're not even on the map when the needs of actual people are in question.

Just look slowly and in detail at the people insisting on TWAW and "kindness" and the safety of transwomen (at the expense of women dealing with predatory men). The bit in parentheses isn't even on the map. Because women aren't.

All of this. Every word. Brava, quixote9.

@Bobkitten

Thank you all, I hugely appreciated all your comments. She understands the issue. I have sent some of the links I have seen in this thread and elsewhere in the feminism section. She hadn’t, as some pointed out, read Rowling's argument in its entirety. The main tweet she had seen was the ‘wimpund/woomud’ one, which she felt was unnecessarily hurtful to transmen who do not consider themselves women but nevertheless have a cervix. Taken out of context, I can appreciate why my friend came to that conclusion, but she in turn now recognises that this is about more than people’s need for validation.

I also sent her the image of all the ‘suck my lady dick’ responses to Rowling and she was horrified.

In a couple of weeks’ time, I am going to ask her to re-look at the responses from Radcliffe et al, and see if she reads them differently this time round.

Sounds like there might be some hope there. Good luck, OP, and good for you for tackling this.

@SerenityNowwwww

Can she explain what exactly she means by those 4 little words?

This. It's always worth pushing people of what they mean by TWAW.

Ask her what it means. What is a woman?

Can you be a trans woman? Answer: no. Why? Because you're not a man.