[quote CloudyVanilla]@wellbehavedwomen I agree with you. The problem on MN is that there is blatant transphobia and it is constant. It's literally the entire focus of the feminism board. There are situations in which as you said it will not be appropriate to rule in favour of transgender people but the stance on MN is that they are essentially all just misogynist men in dresses who get off on pushing women's boundaries. Look at the poster right under tours and their "bend reality" comment. The fundamental position on here that is not understood is that trans people have a right to recognised as the gender they choose, not based on biology but on the pure fact that they are transgender.[/quote]
Honestly? Women are being threatened with rape and murder, losing their jobs, and because of that, many are terrorised into remaining silent. Look at what happened to JK Rowling, who has said nothing transphobic - and a woman who spoke out against that avalanche of violent misogyny has just been dropped as a judge from a women's book prize. And have you seen some of the things regularly said to gender critical women, more generally? It's strange to me, that people can be so enraged by Mumsnet postings, while apparently just shrugging at the extremely explicit fantasies of rape and murder directed at women who dare to assert that biology is real, and matters. I've seen absolutely nothing similar from any gender critical woman, ever - thank God. I'd be appalled if I had.
Have I seen transphobia on Mumsnet? Yes, sometimes. I've challenged things I strongly disagree with, and I've not been alone in doing so. This is a hugely busy site, with all manner of views. But I also think that one of the reasons people think it's so terribly transphobic is that they are not used to seeing this discussion happen at all. They are not used to seeing women push back in any real way, because it's the only mainstream site that allows this to happen at all. Sadly, feminism itself - real feminism, that centres women - is now seen as transphobic if it dares point out that the best interests of women, and the best interests of transwomen, cannot align on some issues, because they diametrically oppose. That's not transphobia - it's actually horribly misogynist, that people characterise feminists not supporting male interests instead of their own as bigotry. But when you never hear the other side, the Overton window narrows, and frank expression of the opposite shocks. Personally, I think it's pretty shocking that major corporations have opened up communal single sex changing rooms to anyone who wants to self ID in, without warning the women using them - but women objecting to this meet with abuse, and I'm afraid I doubt you would notice. Abuse of female women is the norm, after all.
And you say it's a fundamental right for someone to be recognised as their gender. Do you accept that it's not a fundamental right to be recognised as a member of the opposite sex, though? Because that, right there, is the crux. Stonewall campaigned to remove the exceptions for sex. There are moves afoot to replace sex with gender. That would erase women, as a biological sex class - and with it, our capacity to defend our own rights. Given oppression for women, across thousands of years and all over the world, is sex based, that is a massive problem. Women and girls are already being told that connecting their biology with their sex is transphobic - and it's not happening to men. There are no campaigns to make prostate cancer PSAs 'inclusive' by rendering the words men, male, or boy problematic. This is all aimed at women, and all aimed at removing our rights to retain single sex spaces, and to collectively identify as a group, based on shared biology. Which we very much need.
You can't defend what you can't define.
The problem is that the focus is on a group of very distressed male people, and what needs to happen to alleviate that distress. And few seem interested in what the wider impacts on all women will be, if our definition, rights, and ability to name central facts are erased and reshaped to suit a small group of males.
I'd also point out that it's telling, really. The above paragraph. We live in a profoundly, pervasively, and almost invisibly sexist world. Like fish in water, it's quite hard to notice.