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 really think some people just don't think care about dismantling any safety measures in place which makes access a lot easier for rapists and paedophiles. Personally, I don't know I would trust the moral compass of someone, when confronted by a litany of crimes by rapists and paedophiles , ignores the paedophilia and rape part of it and flippantly says "oh it just reels off a list and picture of some trans women."

I meant bunters asked for evidence of infiltrating women's spaces and those Twitter links don't and are just mainly links of the same person tweeting the same list of people.

@Quaagars I'm just checking because I can't be sure.... but you do realise that every time that you ignore fundamental questions regarding this topic in favour of derailing, everyone reading the thread can see it?

Are you talking about the one with the rapists and paedophiles?

Maybe its the one that shows men pretending to be things in order to attack and rape? Far fetched apparently

Quaggers must have missed that part 😒

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...

Wait, what? Apart from the horror of what this means for girls, are Wyoming and TRAs actually agreeing that sex reassignment surgery is on par with FGM?

Isn’t that transphobic because surely the SRS is ‘vital and life saving surgery’ and FMG is awful abuse perpetrated against unwilling victims.

The roll back of women and girls protection has just hit an all time low for me. I find this news really upsetting. The injustice is abhorrent.

Sorry - I meant FGM, but really wish I didn’t.

@Alexandernevermind

And if youdofeel justified, what tangible thing are you doing to help women, besides moaning on mumsnet and signing petitions? By moaning on mumsnet and through social media we are raising awareness through each other. This board has been a HUGE eye opener for me. On a practical level, what else can we do except for vocalise- to each other, to the wider population and to the government? Storming the womens prisons and dragging out the male inmates would perhaps be frowned upon ;-)

There are limits to what ppl can do outside these boards though. We can be stalked online , assaulted or sacked for supporting biological reality and defending women's privacy and safety. But we will persist...

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime

Quaagars Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree as trans people and their rights does not make my existence as a woman any less, I don't feel like I'm going to pop out of existence as a result, or that I suddenly aren't one anymore.

Such a shame that transvocalists can't be as laid back as you clearly are! Nobody, after all, is denying their existence; what some people are saying is that while they exist, they exist as trans women.

Exactly! Really Quaagars! You're nearly there! This is what we've been saying all along, in respect to transwomen. As Askingquestions says above, nobody is denying their existence, and women upholding their rights does not make their existence as transwomen any less valid. I don't know why you don't go to where they congregate and let them know that. We are not in any way erasing them when we say that we are women because of our biology. Go and tell them to relax!

See, this whole 'being erased as a woman' thing comes down to how you define 'woman'. It always does.

If your definition of 'woman' is 'adult human female' i.e. a member of the class of people that produces large gametes (ova), then no male will ever be 'a woman'. Or, if biological males are classified as 'women', then the term no longer denotes what it originally denoted. It becomes meaningless.

'Women' are no longer a distinct sex class with specific needs pertaining to that class. It becomes impossible to protect women in law. ('We will fire anyone who gets pregnant. It's not sex discrimination as men get pregnant too.' 'We will hire Stephanie-formerly-Stephen for the role, as at least we know she won't need maternity leave. Oh and we can tick the box that says we've hired a woman, thus meeting our diversity targets for the year'.)

If your definition of 'woman' is something else, Quaagars, please share it with me so that I can reflect on my views. But please don't say 'a woman is anyone who identifies as a woman' because that doesn't help me understand. You might as well say 'a quittigee is anyone who identifies as a quittigee'.

What is your understanding of the word 'woman'?

Well, we'll just have to agree to disagree as trans people and their rights does not make my existence as a woman any less, I don't feel like I'm going to pop out of existence as a result, or that I suddenly aren't one anymore.

So if the job you applied for that was restricted to women was given to a male who had benefited from opportunities that you did not get due to sexism from an early age, now identified as a woman, you would not feel ‘erased’, ‘not seen’ or frankly discriminated against in some way?

You would just feel you had to try harder somehow for next time?

Or is it that you don’t believe that person had any benefit from sexist discrimination in their past?

This seems pertinent.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6197705/City-workers-hit-gender-fluid-banker-works-days-Philip-Pippa.html

This too.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/59c74c62-13ee-11eb-9859-b09ba5b6a3c4?shareToken=5c190285f309da669d80fae2cfc64e88

Winesalot, isn’t the person on the SNP list the one who despite saying that only biological females should work in a woman’s shelter now actually work in a woman’s shelter in a role reserved for women?

I remember a thread on MN this spring when a woman wanted to leave her abusive husband and flee to a shelter. She decided against it when a male sounding voice answered and stated that they were a woman (and had a female name). Probably not the same as the person in the article.

OP and Quaagars is this also something that is OK in your view?

Or is it so important to be kind (and given that the OP not is likely to need a shelter) that this is unimportant? A small sacrifice in order to include trans women?

Yes, they are coffee.

They did not disclose they were male and were employed in a female role. Having no certificate despite it being 2014 when they got the role (or so I believe). They manage the refuge. So, a prime example of a male gaining employment set aside for a female.

Of course, unless someone actively publicises that they chose not to use that service at risk of being further traumatised, it will not go addressed. Someone may come out year's afterward and discuss it but I doubt any women having needed that service wishes to expose themselves to the barrage of hate that would come their way.

No erasure here at all though..... nothing to seeee ....

On a sick day from work and have read this full thread. I'm closet GC -have to be because I have a business and can't risk being identified as other than "kind".

I also have trans friends of both genders, my transmen friends pretty much quietly get on with it and are living their best lives.

My TW friends are a mixed bag, and it was the discussion upthread that made me realise something - the thing about accepting TW as Women not taking anything away from biological women. This I will say - in my experience, when having conversations / interactions with my TW friends, their experience of self chosen "womanhood" dominates conversations. As a woman, I have to dance around the subject and cannot share, woman to woman a lived experience with a TW. I talk about menopause, motherhood, abusive relationship issues, all sorts with my female friends, even if we have not experienced exactly the same things our biology and sex discrimination unites us and we can relate / empathise. So when I accept a TW as a woman I can talk about fashion etc, practical appearance issues, but not anything more fundamental because it may offend or trigger them because they covet that which is mine by accident of birth, and their lack is perceived as far greater than any negative experience I have had because of my sex.

One of my TW friends suffers terribly due to her dysphoria - but if I was to empathise because I wan't born a six foot supermodel either, it wouldn't be seen as woman to woman empathy, it would be seen as not understanding a far greater and more profound struggle - I was bulimic for over 20 years due to body esteem issues but that's obviously nowhere near as traumatic as the TW position.

When a TW enters the "world of womanhood" I don't know what they expect. I can be kind and understanding and helpful until the cows come home, but they won't understand my struggles any more than I can understand theirs because it's really feckin complicated.

As a woman, having a one sided conversation with a TW who wants to be just like me but is missing the fundamental experience of growing up female, and who will pretty much always over-ride my experiences and bring it all back down to their superior struggle, plus the walking on eggshells for fear of being labelled unintentionally transphobic I do feel something is being taken away from me - the right to free speech and the sharing of opinions without being condemned for it and punished by people claiming to be my friends and allies when in some regards they never can be - because biology.

@Winesalot

Yes, they are coffee.

They did not disclose they were male and were employed in a female role. Having no certificate despite it being 2014 when they got the role (or so I believe). They manage the refuge. So, a prime example of a male gaining employment set aside for a female.

Of course, unless someone actively publicises that they chose not to use that service at risk of being further traumatised, it will not go addressed. Someone may come out year's afterward and discuss it but I doubt any women having needed that service wishes to expose themselves to the barrage of hate that would come their way.

No erasure here at all though..... nothing to seeee ....

I might be making too many leaps here, but someone posted this year (on MN, maybe?) that her daughter couldn't access rape counselling because the counsellor she was assigned (having requested a female counsellor) was a transwoman.

That was in the Forth Valley.

Where has the SNP person been working since 2018? Forth Valley.

Well, I think she said Forth Valley. But I do not have the post in front of me so it might have been a different part of Scotland and a different counsellor altogether.

Nevertheless, we see the problem. A rape victim's welfare should be paramount. Clearly, it isn't.

So when I accept a TW as a woman I can talk about fashion etc, practical appearance issues, but not anything more fundamental because it may offend or trigger them because they covet that which is mine by accident of birth, and their lack is perceived as far greater than any negative experience I have had because of my sex.

Ironic, really. So many TW appear to think womanhood is nothing but clothes and kittens and handbags, but having lacked the socialisation and formative experiences, actively resist listening to the nitty gritty.

Excellent post OldQueen1969, particularly this:

they covet that which is mine by accident of birth, and their lack is perceived as far greater than any negative experience I have had because of my sex.

Great post OldQueen1969. There is much to ponder on there.

Agree with PP, that is a great post OldQueen1969. It reminds me a bit of that list of what women lose if we accept TWAW. Unfortunately I can't locate it anywhere at the moment!

the walking on eggshells for fear of being labelled unintentionally transphobic

Forgive me, but this doesn't sound like friendship to me. With a real friend, wouldn't you be confident that even if you offended her, she would let you know how she felt, give you a chance to apologise, and then accept your sincere apology and move on? It doesn't sound like you expect that would be the outcome with the friend or friends you're thinking of here.

Sounds exhausting OldQueen

OldQueen1969, that sounds horribly familiar.

Totally self-obsessed people make terrible friends.

Great post, OldQueen.