Thank you stonewall - now I know who to avoid

[Kit19]

136 businesses come together to support corporateWall sorry stonewall on trans ‘rights’

Like everyone on fwr I fully agree trans rights are human rights but what they are not is women’s rights. They are reserved for biological women

Also they must be rattled if they’ve got the city bods on their board to do a ring/email round to do a show of support

Agree that's not biology.

It is gender though. Women have the babies. Need to recover. Maybe breastfeed.

Then gender kicks in. About women's roles.

Societal pressures are very strong. The issues are deep and systemic.

The individualistic approach is a cop out. Ignore history, societal norms, social pressure, wage inequality etc etc. And say. Well it's individual women's fault for doing it wrong in their own relationships.

It is not biology- it's a failure to organise domestic arrangements , if it is a 2 parent family.

The problem is that the shift in responsibility often starts with maternity leave, and maternity leave often impacts on earning potential, and it becomes ‘logical’ for the lower earner to continue to have greater domestic responsibility.

It takes a lot of course correction to get back on track, but then you hit the school years, probably having had another child, and you realise that society still assumes that one parent has a job that can fit around children, or doesn’t work.

significant enough commonalities for trans women to be included in the political class of women.

Woops

No-one considered women to be included in the political class of women during the 2015 trans equality Committee review.

@CaraDuneRedux

Then you have a child and all the sexist assumptions about the double shift, being expected to do that extra 4 hours on a work project which you can't stay late for because you have to do the school pick-up, finding you can't travel to that crucial client meeting because it's the week your child starts school and finding your career sidelined as a result - all that comes back to bite you on the arse... because biology!

I'm not sure that that sailing through your twenties, having a good career, and then missing crucial client meetings because of childcare responsibilities in your 30s is a particularly universal experience of womanhood.

There are plenty of young mums on benefits who support trans women - and who are all too aware of systemic sexism - as well as LGB or Queer women and those who have no intention of having children. And I'm pretty sure there's plenty of young working class women facing ever more precarious conditions for who trans inclusion isn't even on the radar of things they've got to worry about.

I think the difference is that when some of the people here think of trans they either think of someone awful like Karen White at worst, or of a middle aged not particularly well passing late transitioner at best. Let's face it when most of us were growing up trans women were virtually invisible except as the butt of jokes, or portrayed as serial killers or sexually duplicitious villains. When young people think of trans women they think of their mate, who socially transitioned young, who hasn't really experienced male socialisation (or even male puberty in a very small number of cases) and who is part of their friendship group and has always been seen as one of the girls. They might feel concerned for her if she was forced to use the men's toilets in a dodgy or club, or think it would be humiliating if she had to trudge off to the men's changing rooms if they were out shopping together. I wonder if this is why gender critical views sometimes meet such a hostile response. You want to tell these women they must not 'be kind' to their trans friend or sister, that they are a fetishist, or deluded gay man, or are unsafe to be around. That they are at risk. Yet they don't feel that way about them, to them it just feels like you're bullying their friend. I think this is at least part of the explanation for the differing generational views.

Any soz, I know I said I wouldn't post again but I thought a couple of these posts were really telling about why gender critical activism seems dominated by such a narrow demographic in terms of age and class.

significant enough commonalities for trans women to be included in the political class of women

The utter lack of comprehension of why women are saying no, these are not true commonalities beyond a very superficial level, you just don't realise the extent to which female people's lived experience is different, and this because you project your male self onto what you imagine female is with your own agenda and your own desires and needs and a socialised expectation that you don't need to question or listen because male people have the inalienable right to do this.....

demonstrates all by itself that no, TW are not in the political class of women.

It also demonstrates that this political union is solely to the agenda and benefit of TW, and not to women, and indeed has no interest in the impact on or relevancy of what this does to the political class of 'woman' for the female people who make up more than 99% of it. That isn't inclusion, it's colonisation with scant regard for the indigenous population.

As of 2018 official stats show only 18% of women reached the age of 45 without having children - so childbearing, childrearing, and the impact that has on one's ability to earn one's living is an experience which impacts the majority of women in this country (and even if individual women don't/can't have children, they are still impacted by social and cultural expectations about their fertility).

This doesn't just affect women with high flying careers - it hits the woman working as a health care assistant who needs childcare for overnight shifts, the woman working in Tescoes who needs to fit shift patterns round school hours, the woman on benefits who doesn't actually want to be on benefits but finds there are next to no "school hours only" jobs in her area that she can apply for (and who may be barred from moving to another area to look for work by the terms of her child custody arrangements with the child's father if she's a single parent).

I think it takes a certain type of socialisation during one's formative years, and a certain type of privilege, not to see that the responsibilities of motherhood, and the expectations society places on women in regard of motherhood (which are rooted in sex, not gender ) are one of the biggest issues women face, and the root of an enormous part of the sexism (plain old sexism, not "gender discrimination" ) that they face.

And this too, courtesy of Michelle: The utter lack of comprehension of why women are saying no, these are not true commonalities beyond a very superficial level, you just don't realise the extent to which female people's lived experience is different, and this because you project your male self onto what you imagine female is with your own agenda and your own desires and needs and a socialised expectation that you don't need to question or listen because male people have the inalienable right to do this.....

When young people think of trans women they think of their mate, who socially transitioned young, who hasn't really experienced male socialisation (or even male puberty in a very small number of cases) and who is part of their friendship group and has always been seen as one of the girls. They might feel concerned for her if she was forced to use the men's toilets in a dodgy or club, or think it would be humiliating if she had to trudge off to the men's changing rooms if they were out shopping together.

This is likely true for many. Particularly if they don't also have a lovely mate who happens to have a faith or culture or disability or history of sexual abuse or trauma or DV that means they can equally understand and empathise why their two lovely mates can't share a changing room and a shower. And see that neither of those two people is less or more important in their needs and rights than the other.

I don't think I've ever seen a post on FWR exhorting anyone to 'not be kind' to anyone, trans or otherwise. What they would try to encourage everyone to understand is that it is not kind - or helpful - to cover up the fact that the person locked up in a cell or a communal shower in a woman's prison may be that lovely mate or it may be Karen White, and that person will have no rights or protections whatsoever to boundaries or safety. And that person may also be someone's lovely mate with very serious reasons why they are unable to share a mixed sex space without causing distress, harm and exclusion that is not acceptable to subject anyone to.

Answers that meet everyone's needs is not unkindness.

Yeah, some people's lovely mates, are not really a sensible basis for redefining the entire political, biological and linguistic meaning of women is it?

🙄

It’s got nothing to do with being kind. It’s not kind to expect women to tolerate TW doing their smear tests or sleeping on single sex wards.

Maybe young women don’t have those things on their radar. Uptake of smears is low in this group. They may never have had to stay in hospital alongside strangers. But these things will come to them. And I’m making sure they’ll have access to these facilities safely when they eventually need them.

They are free to be kind to their friends. I’m being honest.

isn't even on the radar of things they've got to worry about.

When young people think of trans women they think of their mate

And you have just indicated that you do in fact realise that the ‘young women’ are being ‘kind’ to their friend and as yet the impact of their total support is yet to occur to them.

who hasn't really experienced male socialisation and this I think is where you fail to realise just how early the socialisation begins. And your lack of understanding that their is quite the gap between your interpretation of women’s experience and the reality. And I doubt you will ever change your mind or clarify your thinking which seems quite narrow and confused when it comes to women and feminism.

who hasn't really experienced male socialisation and this I think is where you fail to realise just how early the socialisation begins. And your lack of understanding that their is quite the gap between your interpretation of women’s experience and the reality. And I doubt you will ever change your mind or clarify your thinking which seems quite narrow and confused when it comes to women and feminism.

Male socialisation starts with males being born. Sex selective abortion doesn't apply.

Male socialisation starts with males being born. it most certainly does. And it does not diminish no matter how they present.

Yeah, some people's lovely mates, are not really a sensible basis for redefining the entire political, biological and linguistic meaning of women is it?

I dunno. My brother is soft hearted, has endless patience, is amazing with kids, and is a great person overall. So much so that its totally unreasonable to expect him to take a CRB check before he lands the job hes after in a school. Its just bigoted, and horrible to blame all adults for the few who are abusive. CRB checks are so discriminatry and wrong, they make out that every single adult is a danger to kids, which hurts my feelings as I am a good person too! My brother should be able to state that he does not need one as he is 'one of the good guys' and this be accepted without question, and if it isn't, the the decision maker is a heartless bigot who thinks all adults are dangerous.

Forgot to add. When CRB checks disappear, noone will be at risk anyway, because if school staff behave badly towards any of the kids, it can be reported to the police afterwards. No harm done, see.

Mind, the police point is moot of course, because, it would clearly never happen, noone would go to all of the trouble of applying for a job in a school if it was for nefarious purposes. Never have, and never will. All the stories about it happening are just from adult haters. Placing unnecessary checks onto people who just want to teach children. The horror

Hello, I'm part of the yoof, and I'm so millennial that I have multiple avocadoes in the fridge this very minute. I'm also very working class, and have a history of being very pro-trans rights because of having lovely trans friends from the LGBT society.

But not quite as pro trans as you say I should have been.

I am still pretty happy to share women's toilets myself with transwomen, because as you say, I worry about them being subjected to male violence in the men's. However, I always saw that as a courtesy to be extended to transwomen, not their right to be demanded, and I did think it had to be balanced against other women's interests. I am, for example, aware that Orthodox Jewish women and observant Muslim women need single sex space, and I have always taken it for granted that this need should be respected. Do you? I always thought that the best way to accommodate my trans friends was the addition of extra single-occupant unisex toilets in all new buildings. (In retrospect, I'm not sure they realised I thought that.)

I don't know what my late mother thought of transsexuals, because it never came up, but I know that she wouldn't have been able to use the ladies if Alex Drummond was in there. I'm not really bothered about sharing public toilets with obvious bloke, due to years of 21st century social conditioning but she would have been. I know that she needed a female HCP for any intimate care or screening and preferred it for other issues too. I know that if she had been faced with a person like Julie Marshall on a hospital ward, she would have self-discharged unless she was unable to physically leave the hospital. She would have been effectively excluded from medical care which would have reduced her life expectancy to even younger than it was.

There is no point, then or now, at which I would be or have been happy to agree that my lovely mtf trans friends' wishes to be included in the women's ward were more important than my mother's right to feel safe in hospital or the rights of anyone else's mother. Trans people need to go in private rooms, and in fact that serves their needs better than public wards.

I am a terminal rule-follower myself, but I am sort of prison-adjacent in that I know men and women who went to prison in their own youth. Based on what they have told me of prisons, I feel very strongly that women's prisons should be single-sex.

I'm so millennial that I have multiple avocadoes in the fridge this very minute

I'm not sure that that sailing through your twenties, having a good career, and then missing crucial client meetings because of childcare responsibilities in your 30s is a particularly universal experience of womanhood.

The average age for a first child is 28/29, and most women have children, so the practical impact of having children does tend to hit women at this age.

Also, please don't write off the experience of women who have professional careers as less 'real' than people who are on benefits. Women had to fight for the right to join the law society. It matters that women are under-represented on boards and in politics.

or of a middle aged not particularly well passing late transitioner at best.

Personally, no. These are the small number of people who the 2004 legislation was designed to accommodate.

I'm more concerned about the people 'extending the band width of what it means to be a woman' or presenting as male and taking advantage of all related privileges while claiming non-binary status. I'm concerned about men who will refuse to leave female only facilities because "how do you know I identify as male?".

When young people think of trans women they think of their mate

I think this demonstrates that you have really misunderstood women's concerns.

Women are not concerned about trans people, they are concerned about men.

Women want sex based rights and in some cases single sex services despite the fact that they obviously have fathers, brothers, partners, friends and sons who are men.

Women are not concerned about trans people, they are concerned about men.

This is true. However, I have noticed that the more I hear from the wider circle of transwomen, the more I see many still retain their birth sex traits and the rest seems performative. For instance, they talk about wanting to pee and never talk about other more structural oppression women still face. I keep asking for names of these transwomen campaigning for anything outside of their own needs and I find nothing. And yet, they throw around the intersectional label all the time.

It seems to go only one way in their case , and again I would like to see a prominent example that disproves this. It seems to go along the line that those feminists accept the minorities into their fold, but I don’t see those minority members actively fighting for other minority groups or for rights that don’t effect only their own narrow experience, unless it grabs headlines.

I don't know Winesalot - You seem to be criticising an approach to political action.

I don't need sex based rights because I am applying any kind of value judgement to men or women. I need sex based rights because of the consequences of sex.

I need sex based rights because of the consequences of sex.

Maybe I worded it poorly, but I am talking about this. I rarely hear this group of feminists (self identifying women) discuss the much wider discussion about women’s sex based rights.

Hopefully, this young woman will encourage others to speak out (apologies if it has been posted already). Or at least, as she suggests, to actually critically think for themselves.

I think we will see much more from her and I welcome it.