Jk Rowling and trans issues... talk to me!

[bunters]

Ok mumsnet, please talk to me. I’ve noticed that the feminist section of mumsnet seems disproportionately preoccupied with trans issues and I’d like to understand it. I opened the feminism chat today and topic after topic related to trans this, gender that

It is an indisputable fact that women suffer horrific domestic violence in this country (and worldwide), at the hands of men. Women are regularly beaten, raped, controlled, murdered and otherwise abused by men every single day. It’s so standard that it barely makes news when it happens, unless the crime is truly shocking.

This whole trans hysteria feels to me like if the government were to start a huge campaign to raise awareness of the dangers of choking on peanuts, while ignoring the huge damage caused by alcohol and tobacco.

JK Rowling has started a bizarre war around the language used to refer women, in the name of women’s rights. With her money and popularity she could have done any number of things to help women in a huge way. What has this achieved, other than pitting feminists against each other? Even if you believe she has a point, surely you can see that whatever ‘danger’ trans people pose to women is minuscule compared to the very real danger men openly pose to women every day?

We all know that men have felt entitled to take what they want when they want for centuries, and they don’t need to dress as a woman to do it. The women gang raped to death (can you even imagine the horror) in India weren’t attacked by men in dresses. I’m despairing of the fact that attention has been diverted from these horrors in such an extreme way.

When I look at my beautiful, tiny daughter I don’t worry about some trans person hurting her, I worry about the very likely situation when a man hurts her. In fact, I’d worry more that she’ll be trans and be hurt by someone before I’d worry about a trans person hurting her. When I walk alone at night somewhere, my mind isn’t imagining trans people waiting in dark doorways to rape me, it’s men. Men being bloody men.

If we accept that men don’t need to be trans and gain access to women’s spaces to hurt us, and we accept that trans people are way more likely to attempt suicide than the rest of the population (and so really are in need of help and protection as much as women), why do trans issues continue to cause such anger?

And if you do feel justified, what tangible thing are you doing to help women, besides moaning on mumsnet and signing petitions?

I thought women were a sort of formless void? In which case how do we have an inside or an outside to align?

"Yep, I thought so too but it's the way it's insinuated that anyone who doesn't always agree with "GC" must think that.
When nobody's said that at all apart from a GC poster!"

Rather like the comment about Section 28 actually made by a trans ally as a joke, but used ever since as an example of how "transphobic" it's supposed to be on Mumsnet.

This is a superbly informative thread for all the thousands of lurkers intrigued by this board.

As others have stated, the bizarre war on the meaning of the words 'women' and 'girls' (interestingly, there is no similar war about the meaning of the words 'men' and 'boys' as the meaning of those is almost never challenged) was not started by JK Rowling.

It was started roughly a decade ago when woke articles began writing about women as 'egg producers,' 'ovary-havers,' 'menstruators' and 'vulva owners' when female biology could not be avoided in a piece.

When enough women complained about such terms, the woke articles began using 'people' for 'women,' thus turning the female body into a gender-neutral thing.

All those terms started the bizarre war on words. They replaced 'women' and even 'females' because trans activists argued

a) that trans women, too, are both women and females so that even the latter term could not be applied to biological aspects of the female body

and b) that because some female-bodied people have identified out of the group 'women' into trans men or, later, into nonbinary people, talking about the female body as if it was female excluded them.

If you think about those changes more carefully, however, they are not really just about attempts to be inclusive (ironically, the intent is to destabilise the concept of 'woman' as the term 'inclusive' comes from queer theory and aims to destabilise, not to create fairness):

Once it is accepted that the female body is not particularly linked to having the gender 'woman' or even to the concept 'female,' then what a woman is and what female is become undefined. All women who accept for themselves the gender label 'woman' because they live in a female body are suddenly stripped of their own gender identities!

And I think that is the angle Rowling was using in her tweet about how 'menstruators' is used. For her (and for millions of others) being a woman is an experience which is very much embodied.

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

I thought women were a sort of formless void? In which case how do we have an inside or an outside to align?

And that is how the UN Women view it all! It is hilarious in the gallows sense of humour, given all the women suffering from sex-based oppression they are supposed to help.

@testing987654321

It doesn't mean I'm suddenly not a woman anymore, or a subset if woman. I still am one, it's not magically been taken away from me.

See this is the problem with people not understanding language.

I am part of the subset of women who are vegetarian. Also part of the sunset who are short.

We are all part of many sunsets of women, but our women's bodies are what unites us into a group that doesn't include men.

If you "accept transwomen as women" you are creating a new group called women made up of women and men. The thing that unites women and men is that they are both humans. There is no common factor that unites women and transwomen that also excludes men. So what you have done is change the word woman to mean person. This isn't helpful at all when people want to talk about women.

The acceptance of the mantra TWAW, No debate, Acceptance without Exception have without doubt led the the horrendous incidents and abuses highlighted earlier in this thread. The OP appears to have confirmed that they don't care about the female victims in those cases, seems to feel their suffering is a price worth paying, albeit as long as it is other women and girls paying it not her and hers. It's refreshing in some ways to see someone so clearly admit that, pity the others who agree with the OP and hold similar beliefs won't do us all the courtesy of admitting it.

I am still waiting to hear why blocking the Wyoming law against female genital mutilation is good for girls.

But maybe they are just an accepted casualty in order to enable children who are too young to vote or to drink legally to have gender reassignment...

@Quaagars on what basis do you 'accept transwomen as women' if you know that they are biologically male and you can't change sex? How, then, are they women? I don't understand!

Oh blimey Knights you're not hoping for a definition of 'woman' from a genderist are you?

optimistic

[quote KnightsofColumbusThatHurt]@Quaagars on what basis do you 'accept transwomen as women' if you know that they are biologically male and you can't change sex? How, then, are they women? I don't understand![/quote]
It's a mystery that will never be solved Knights along with the mystery of inside outside birth sex and alignment.

Oh look, what a surprise, I haven't had an answer to my question. So predictable...

Never any comments on the mutilation of children

A poster just pointed out that a Wyoming bill against FGM has been delayed due to activists.

Never any comments on the selling of babies. This is another area where the rights of women are being eroded in the name of fertility equality. Meaning that to provide people with children that they perceive they have the right to have especially created for them, women and their bodies are put at risk.

Never any comments on the violence directed at women. This is one of the first things discussed in the OP.

This thread isn't even about any of those.
Have you actually read this thread?

Every thread that is put up about surrogacy gets taken down. Call me bipolar Polly. No one gives a shit about that either. Not because we aren’t talking...they just get deleted, a few weeks ago there was a thread about women in mental health units...got deleted. So yes maybe we are being corralled into the trans issue, most of the other, brilliant emotive threads get deleted. I often wonder why.

This whole trans hysteria

• you shut off a lot of your potential audience with this incredibly patronising description. It's not hysteria. It's a reasonable reaction to our rights being eroded. Interesting that you frame that as 'hysteria'.

what tangible thing are you doing to help women, besides moaning on mumsnet and signing petitions?

• Silly women eh? Talking about our rights. Venting on a forum for mums as opposed to TRAs who contact people's workplaces to get them sacked, terrorise women online and try to shut down their events when they try to speak about their rights.

@RedDogsBeg

I guess I am never going to get an answer to what outside birth sex doesn't align with inside that determines trans, yet another unanswered question to add to my ever growing list.

I think, but I'm not sure, "inside" here means you "feel" you are Barbie? That's what makes you a woman? amiright?

"Cis" as well as being a linguisitic sleight of hand which assumes everyone has a and agrees with "gender identity", enables women to be relabelled as the oppressors, which is of course ridiculous. "Cis privilege" my arse (my arse which will be judged and groped against my will).

I therefore wholeheartedly reject "cis".

Oh dear.
I got deleted and a strike for writing about an idea that was voiced in a video posted on mumsnet. You'd think they would have warned that you cannot mention anything about this video because the thoughts therein are banned. I don't think it was about the one where I said we have to lie (or else Stalinist lurkers will report the truth being spoken and any rejection of the new genderist ideology is deleted as 'Pravda" and falsehoods are maintained). But it confirms that post.

It was about the unacceptability of Cis and how offensive it was if you don't subscribe to the new 'genderist' ideology. It is a term which is from chemistry and it means nothing when applied to a person in such a way. That is why it has never been used to apply to people and their 'gender' before this brave new world. I also stated that it only means something to people who have adopted those beliefs.

If people are allowed to say Cis is a thing as applied to people, and use it to refer to people, why am I not allowed to give an example as to what I think it is equivalent? Cis is a term from organic chemistry and indicated the sides/location of functional groups. It does not have a meaning when applied to people to refer to their 'gender'. If you think people are divided into configurational isomers, then give me your scientific proof. That should be easy. Maybe Cis people (sic) have hearts in the place where others have spleens. Maybe Cis people (sic) have teeth in the place where others have the small intestine. Also, you'd have to confirm for each person that they buy into this new 'gender' ideology and agree with this term and how it applies to them.

If I can't say when I find a term offensive then free speech is gone. Falsehoods and lies are being protected and promoted. I think I'm just really sick of the lies. As for people who think their elective cosmetic surgery should trump a womens' life saving cancer surgery.... . You'd think someone would be embarrassed to show what a vile and deplorable person they are. Unfortunately, in society at the moment you are probably celebrated for being vile.

If I can't say when I find a term offensive then free speech is gone. Falsehoods and lies are being protected and promoted. I think I'm just really sick of the lies.

Yes.

@Quaagars

Is birth sex on the outside then? Well, yes, your birth sex, what's between your legs on the outside, that's your birth sex, right, surely you know that?

This just demonstrates just how ridiculous the TWAW argument is. Sex is not just about what's "in between your legs", it's written into every cell of your body. Inside and out.

So true. No wonder the prevailing ideology is that if you change the things on the outside of your body, or between your legs, you've actually changed your sex. People are just being misled and not able to use their own critical analysis.