Transinclusive feminists, please help me understand.

[thinkingaboutLangCleg]

Genuine question. I recognise that some men suffer from gender dysphoria or truly believe they were meant to be women, and some want to live out their fantasies. So I understand why they want access to women’s single-sex spaces and facilities, to validate themselves.

I understand why they want language and culture changed to include them in the category of women.

Some men will take advantage for personal gain (eg taking ‘women’s officer’ roles or sports prizes), or to harass women and girls in intimate spaces eg toilets, or to be transferred from a male to a female prison. Women and girls lose out, obviously, with no corresponding gains to compensate.

I can understand that women who aren’t feminists may not be concerned about the effects on women and girls.

But how does a feminist reconcile her feminism — centring women’s rights and needs, including the right to privacy and safety —with supporting transwomen’s actions that necessarily impinge on these?

This is a genuine question, as I wonder if I’m missing or misunderstanding something.

People on here have never heard of female liberation before? As a thing?

Or is it actually that certain posters have wilfully twisted the semantics of a particular post in order to state that? I say ‘wilfully’ because I’ve clearly explained the meaning of my not particularly ambiguous post about three times since then.

Regarding the ‘two a week’, what do you expect the average man to do about the two in three million men who are extremely violent. Statistically there’s a good chance they could have serious mental health/drugs/alcohol/etc issues.

At this very second, a man two miles away from me could be about to murder his partner. What can I do to stop him?

I appreciate that making a slightly controversial post about the seemingly changing definition of feminism was always going to rile some posters on here (and I probably should’ve known better). But how can I stop the man down the road from committing murder, and how am I personally responsible as a man if he does?

Is his female neighbour also responsible, or only me because I have a penis?

At this very second, a man two miles away from me could be about to murder his partner. What can I do to stop him?

Christ on a bike, the projection is strong here! I didn’t ask YOU to solve femicide personally. You make accusations about us not answering your questions but you are building a strawMumsnetter big enough for a wickerman remake.

I gave you an example as to why ‘equality’ is not a desirable outcome (because to be equal, women would have to become more violent) You added another, which is that women would have to up our suicide rates.

So nope, ‘equality’ with men is not something to work towards, because we don’t want to kill our partners nor ourselves.

and Rod Liddle, Ben Shapiro , Jordan Peterson and Stuart Campbell (Wings over Scotland)

and Dave Rubin and the Triggerpod chaps and James Kirkup and Andrew Gilligan and Andrew Neil and no doubt loads more I forgot.

Should probably make a list of all the women making notable contributions to the debate to bring this thread back towards the topic but it does really rankle me when women’s rights are pitted as a direct fight against men or an aim to become more like men.

Most people are heterosexual so separatist feminism is never going to work and women are always going to be somewhat invested in a society that works well for men because every man on this planet got here via his mother.
I love my son to bits, but I still don’t think he has a right to take a estrogen for a year and then compete in a women’s division/carry out a smear test/stand on an all-womens shortlist.

I love my son to bits, but I still don’t think he has a right to take a estrogen for a year and then compete in a women’s division/carry out a smear test/stand on an all-womens shortlist.

I agree with you on this and if you’ve seen any of my other posts on here you’ll see I’m very against self ID etc.

To me, equality refers to the areas where women are disadvantaged, and the fact that men are more violent is not an advantage that needs to be addressed from my personal perspective or a statistic which women need to equal.

I guess the ‘male violence’ thing touched a nerve with me because it’s often wheeled out as a bit of a gotcha. I’m not saying it should be ignored as a statistic, but often a jump seems to be made where it’s used as an argument against individuals which is where it goes awry IMO. Of course, male violence is much more of an issue than female violence, but logically if men are responsible for male female violence then the opposite is also true, and I think most women would not be very receptive of the suggestion that they’re responsible for the actions of female murderers.

Of course, another perspective is that it’s sociological/toxic masculinity whatever, so this could be addressed if it were the case, but personally I just don’t believe this from what I’ve seen (working for a company who analysed evidence for the police - I was in an account management position but I’ve seen pretty much all the horrible cases you could imagine). I believe testosterone plays a large part. Studies have concluded that it increases aggression in males, female, and various mammals, that it is in higher concentration in violent offenders, and that it heightens the fight/flight response (despite what Cordelia Fine says the evidence seems to be against her).

I used to work the evening shift when I was a HGV driver and would always be around the city centre on a Thur/Fri night. Given the amount of drunken (and often physical) arguments I’ve witnessed between couples outside pubs, usually in the rougher areas, I’m surprised tbh that more than two women don’t get killed every week given the size of our population. However, I’d imagine that for every women murdered there are 20 that are in violent relationships who regularly get beaten up etc.

I still have no idea what I can possibly do to help. I’d imagine a lot of behaviour stems from childhood, upbringing, life experiences, etc. I guess I could volunteer for a charity for wayward youths (I have actually been involved in community boxing clubs which serve a similar purpose), but ultimately I’m a guy just like most who looks out for his family first and foremost and worries about his own day to day survival and hanging on to his job in these uncertain times. I think most blokes are the same, and most don’t even know somebody who’s murdered their spouse so they worry about more immediate pressures like the bills and their kids etc.

I realise it looks like I’ve contradicted myself above. What I mean is that whilst I believe that violent individuals are likely created by a variety of sociological and personal issues, I think that what makes men act on their anger more than women is possibly a hormonal predisposition towards violence, possibly even something that evolved as a survival mechanism.

How has this conversation about whether/ how feminists can be trans inclusionary

Turned into a chat about how it's out of line to mention women getting murdered by men because it makes some men feel bad.

Every time I've switched on the telly today it's been Peter Sutcliffe this that. Feels a bit jarring to have a, well presumably a chap. Saying look ladies you're more likely to choke on your food so why are you going on about it..

I dunno mate. Maybe your thoughts would be better directed at the mainstream news outlets who have been going on about women being murdered today. Because they've been talking about it way more than women on this thread..

We were just talking about words.

Turned into a chat about how it's out of line to mention women getting murdered by men because it makes some men feel bad.

Or was it actually about how it’s out of line to blame three million men for the actions of two, who the vast vast majority don’t know and will never meet...

I don’t even know why some feminists do it. It’s clearly not working and most women don’t seem to agree. Seems to do more harm than good tbh.

Any chance this discussion could go back to the original question? Trans inclusionary feminists (the kind who want to include males), please come back and engage. I’m interested.

Trying to catch up, can't remember who it was but it still appears to be based on the stereotypical visual idea of a woman.

And certainly that is how women and girls are presented visually to us. Babies learn very early on to associate certain features with their mummy or daddy; my two year old was naming weird creatures in a book either mummy or daddy based on eyelashes and overall physique. That's partly a very normal human developmental skill plus the gendered norms around us, which are absolutely everywhere. So the basic biology of most women plus what we add to it through the marketing of handbags and clothes etc.

More gendered societies tend to have individuals who become a group of "gender opposites" within their sex, eg Hijra in India. The culture created a third space for them. Probably also because women at the time had no power and so they wouldn't want a hierarchical social downgrade.

The point of tackling and talking about gender is that it was designed to keep people in roles. Women's Lib and second wave feminists, radical feminists (radical means root) reject gender ideas. So that by its very nature includes recognising that butch looking women are women. That the only physical boundaries to what they can do in life and careers etc are sex based when it matters - usually childbirth, also sport due to sex differences.

Unfortunately due to how males do and have historically treated women, sex segregation does need to still be "a thing."

But if we see 'woman' as a collective group of faintly similar looking people, that excludes all the women who don't fit that mould. And yet they still need sex specific things.

It makes no valuable sense to describe women as a gendered idea. It's a woolly concept that includes some males and excludes some females.

Woman and female are nouns, feminine is an adjective.

The adjective feminine is in the eye of the beholder. It's subjective. It's an idea. It's not actually tangible. It's symbolic. Betty boo is a collection of shapes our brain makes common links to stereotyped visual collectives. The Mary Wollstonecraft statue has offended many as it's an idea of a woman that can't be upheld. Excluding most women.

And pp have gone to great lengths to describe how transwomen are abused by certain men who have a fetish for it. Which is horrific.

And they're being abused for the very reason they're male and a transwoman. Not because they're women. So the biology and context matters.

We can be trans inclusive if trying to protest against male abuse and violence, however, no matter how much we wish it wasn't the case, this protest would also include protesting some transwomen too, who have abused women in the same way.

For abused women who've been coerced and gaslit by males it's the ultimate slap in the face to bend and blur the boundaries of what a woman is.

There is a huge difference between blaming three million men for the actions of 2

...I will take a little pause here. Based on ONS data and one of the rape charities

As best we can estimate, 20 to 25% of women in the uk suffer serious sexual abuse like rape at some point in their live. It's significantly higher in some countries.

That type of abuse is life changing, typically leading to mental health issues, often easily triggered by men behaving innocently

A typical convicted sex offender will be committed of 4 offences. If we assume that it's not just a case of you get away with one or two offences , then My basic maths says that 1 in 20 men is therefore likely to be involved in serious abuse of women, not 1 in a million

So 1 in 4 women have suffered abuse at the hands of 1 in 20

...now back to my point

Women are not Blaming men, sorry if you feel that way. They are just risk adverse. And when 1 in 20 men is likely to be of the kind that will harm a woman sexually, and you can't tell by looking, you can't tell by knowing the man at a social level, it's just being careful

Couple of ideas I want to pick up from upthread.

The idea that this ideology is something that men don’t have to worry about itself demonstrates the sexism inherent in the ideology (we never have endless debates about “what is a man, really”). It’s a neat trick to make feminism tear itself apart over this.

The second is the idea that sex segregation is threatening to non gender conforming people and this should give us pause. I get misgendered a fair bit- I’m very tall, athletic build, cropped hair, and if someone’s not looking properly, out of the corner of their eye, I might look a bit like a man. A second look always clarifies. I’m not one bit worried about the situation worsening for me, and nor is any other non gender conforming woman, because we know we’re women, and any confusion can be easily cleared up with no harm done.

And all of that is completely irelevant to the areas that I’m concerned about: sport, prisons, hospitals etc. I don’t give a shit if someone says to me “excuse me mate, this is the ladies”. I very much give a shit if we’re going to drop sex segregation in rugby in favour of gender identity and my build is being used to demonstrate that men and women aren’t very different physically.

Lord has done a splendid job of whataboutery and derailing - even better than jj’s into men’s sexual practices.

My reaction to Betty’s suggestion of offing 2 male partners a week woke the cat. Thanks for cutting straight through the bullshit. It’s been an interesting thread.

How can you expect men to take your argument seriously (or ‘give you permission’ as you put it) if you can’t, or won’t, even discuss it like an intelligent adult.

Oh, the irony.

@midgebabe

There is a huge difference between blaming three million men for the actions of 2

...I will take a little pause here. Based on ONS data and one of the rape charities

As best we can estimate, 20 to 25% of women in the uk suffer serious sexual abuse like rape at some point in their live. It's significantly higher in some countries.

That type of abuse is life changing, typically leading to mental health issues, often easily triggered by men behaving innocently

A typical convicted sex offender will be committed of 4 offences. If we assume that it's not just a case of you get away with one or two offences , then My basic maths says that 1 in 20 men is therefore likely to be involved in serious abuse of women, not 1 in a million

So 1 in 4 women have suffered abuse at the hands of 1 in 20

...now back to my point

Women are not Blaming men, sorry if you feel that way. They are just risk adverse. And when 1 in 20 men is likely to be of the kind that will harm a woman sexually, and you can't tell by looking, you can't tell by knowing the man at a social level, it's just being careful

Good point about the one in twenty.

As a scientist who spends a lot of time doing stats, I'm always interested by numbers you can arrive at through two different methodologies.

We can arrive at the one in twenty number two ways.

1. Do as you have done, namely match up number of victims, and what we know about patterns of repeat offending.

2. Ask men. This is what American criminal psychologist David Lisak has done on American campuses. If he gives college students questionnaires with questions describing behaviours (but avoiding the word rape), he finds that about 6% of male college students will admit to behaviours meeting the threshold for rape or serious sexual assault. If he actually uses the word "rape" in his questionnaires, the percentage drops to 5%. (So your one in twenty, and rather blows out of the water the idea that "date rapes" are down to "miscommunication": in fact the men doing the raping know they are doing it, don't care, and are taking a calculated risk that their chances of being convicted of it are close to zero.)

So 1 in 20 men. A long way off "all men", but still a horrifyingly large percentage. I always think of it this way - crowed tube carriage or rush hour bus - chances are there is at least one rapist on there. You meet and interact with these men every day, they don't come with the mark of Cain conveniently on their forehead, most of the time you simply don't know.

If a man can't get his head round the fact that a 1 in 20 chance of a man you meet being a rapist, when you meet hundreds of men in any given day, might leave women feeling quite rightly cautious in their daily lives, then frankly, not only is he lacking in empathy, he's a bit thick. It doesn't mean we think he is a rapist; it means we can't tell and are therefore going to err on the side of caution.

I think men often don't get the mental impact. Which I think is much greater than the mental impact of other physical assaults, because of the guilt , shame and disbelief that accompanied rape. A man taken into hospital with a broken jaw will be believed.

I'm not sure if this will make sense because it relates to a topic long since passed and I am not sure I can phrase it well, but it related to 'identity'. In the second-wave, we didn't sit around and talk about identity. If we did, it isn't in the way that people do now. We talked about our-lived lives as working-class, Black, lesbian, wives, mothers, women needing abortions and so on. It wasn't about how we identified, but about who we were and the material conditions of our lived lives. Thus, the language was "I am..." and not "I identify as..."

Also, Firestone didn't want to get rid of 'gender' as such - she wanted to change the biological reality of being female and thus she advocated exo-genesis.

So much of the writing in those days was out-there, experimental, new and exciting. It was never taken as the Gospel truth. Importantly it was written to be debated and it was debated.

This idea that we can't truly sex anyone and we're just basing it on gender signifiers - I call bollocks.

Ditto on the wailing about the impossibility of separating toilets by chromosomes.

We don't separate by chromosomes, we do it by observable phenotype. In newborns this is a quick glance at the undercarriage, in children this is indeed usually signalled by clothing and hairstyle, and then puberty kicks in and we're going based on the observable body again. Gait, bone structure, size of hands, and a whole host of other features which together indicate one sex or the other.

You do not need to see someone's genitals to make a judgement about their sex. Humans do this with a very high degree of accuracy. Pretending we need to see what's in someone's pants to satisfy ourselves of someone's sex is strawmanning.

If I were to gender this hypothetical purse-dropping female, I could, perhaps, if I were male, make a sexualised remark about her arse as she bends down to retrieve it, or say "While you're down there..." with a leer.

As I'm female, gendering her would mean treating her in a manner considered socially appropriate for f/f stranger interactions. In the instance of a dropped purse, this means I may finish my "You've dropped your purse" with 'love' rather than 'mate'. That is literally all the gendering I would be doing.

And now I shall catch up with the rest of the thread.

@DidoLamenting

The idea that you can't tell someone's sex most of the time without gender signifiers is patently nonsense.

I think this is largely true, with the key phrase being most of the time. How many people do you 'sex' every day? How many people pass through the changing rooms at Oxford Circus Top Shop every day, or use the loos after a gig at Wembley Stadium? Even if people on average are correct in assessing physical sex 99.9% of the time (and they really aren't) that's still dozens of people potentially being quizzed about their genitals or having their birth certificate demanded as FPFW have called for just in those venues. It would happen to tens of thousands of people every day across the country. Which is why many gender nonconforming feminsts object to any attempts to police toilets and changing rooms by birth sex.

Ok jj, lets just leave it as sex separated toilets and if someone can truely fool people and not get caught then that's fine. I think that's so rare that I am much less worried.

My experience - talking to men of my acquaintance and to other women - is that biologically female people identify sex far more accurately than biologically male people.

The reason is pretty obvious. For men, biological sex only matters for furthering you genes. Men, in my experience, tend to sort the world into "women I find attractive" and "the rest", and they don't care about the biological sex of "the rest."

Women, on the other hand, don't just have to identify potential mates. We have to identify potential threats. And since (as discussed upthread) something like 1 in 20 men we come across on a daily basis may well be a rapist, this is actually a very real, very acute issue for us. NB this is not to do with the argument (which we've already discussed at length upthread) as to whether transwomen's offending stats resemble the male population at large, or the female population. This is at a much more fundamental level. We just clock "male body" far more accurately than men clock "female body" - because we have to. Because our safety depends on it.

@Butterer

Are you referring to gender non conforming women when you specifically actually mean trans women again, jk?

No, even if trans people, or people with DSD's didn't exist, if toilets were segregated on the basis of physical sex then thousands of people would face being challenged every day.

I realise it looks like I’ve contradicted myself above.

Many, many times 🤦‍♀️

Which is why many gender nonconforming feminsts object to any attempts to police toilets and changing rooms by birth sex.

Who? As in, which feminists, which orgs?

Because the prominent GC feminists I’ve encountered, either through their work or in person are majority GNC (off the top of my head, Long, Ruzylo, Jeffreys, Berns, Bellos, Tunks, Bindel at al - all likely to have been momentarily mistaken for a bloke at some point, all unscathed by it, as SophocIestheFox personally attests).

The more gender-conforming-in-appearance campaigners (Minshull, Williams, Allan) get berated for being GNC on grounds of gobbiness not being very ladylike anyway.

The idea that women’s libbers, gender critical women and second wave feminists are somehow making life harder for GNC women is proper DARVO, JJ.