Thankyou for your post @Diverze.
I think as a long time feminist who naively thought that we had won most of the big battles (not all of them, but enough to make things feel a lot more equal than when I was young) the whole trans issue came to me as something of a shock. I thought I lived in a society where by and large most life styles that didn’t impinge on other people’s well being were accepted. That people’s choices were respected, that tolerance was a value that had currency in our society. I knew this didn’t apply to everyone , but we were working on it and moving forward.
Then suddenly, not only did I discover a hitherto generally unseen culture that said it was discriminated against and often reviled but it turned out that I , who would previously have described myself, and prided myself, as a tolerant and non discriminatory human was actually one of the major discriminators and revilers. I was one of the people denying other people their rights, I was one of the people whose selfish behaviour was blocking someone else’s freedom to live their life as they wanted. And all because of my XX genes, which made me a woman. I was an adult human being with a womb and a uterus, and I was the enemy. I was shocked. And ashamed. But when I began to examine the situation a bit more I became angry.
Because it turns out that while I am not the person responsible for making some trans people uncomfortable and threatened in male spaces I am the one who has to shift over and accommodate them in my spaces.
And while I am not the person responsible for the lack of representation of trans people in organisations and groups I am the one who has to lose my representation as a woman.
And while I am not the person who has chosen how sexes are referred to and named in our language, I am the one who is expected to accept my sex being erased from ,or reduced to made up terminology in , documents, advice and information even when those documents, advice and information are directly referencing my sex.
And while I am not responsible for the biology that gives the male sex longer bone length, greater heart size, lung capacity, muscle strength and pelvic floor stability I am expected to acquiesce to athletes with those capabilities expecting to be given equality with female athletes without them, and to watch my sisters being beaten and demoralised by those who don’t understand basic concepts of fairness.
I have been put in the middle of a battle, a battle moreover being waged by people who are not prepared to use the normal processes of change like engagement, debate, understanding and negotiation but who instead use bad science, lies, bullying,intimidation and threats to get their own way and who cynically coerce vulnerable people to their cause
Well I have fought battles before, I have fought for human rights, for workers rights, for women’s rights to the autonomy of their bodies, I have supported anti racism movements, anti fascist movements, peace movements.
So I’m up for another one. I am happy for trans people to be part of our society , to take their place as productive members of the community, to have dignity and respect, to be free to love who they want to, to have access to the health care they need both physical and mental, but , hell , I am damned if I allow that to happen if it means relegating half the adult population of the country back to being pushed into the shadows and refused their humanity because they have the genes that make them women.