I'm a young feminist; I cannot understand your Gender Critical positions

[borandukht]

Hello all, I'm writing this because I'm at the end of my tether with my mother, who has become engulfed in the gender critical discourse mainly thanks to this website (cheer or weep for that depending on your view). She had originally been very comfortable with transgender rights, and given we have a closeish relative who is transgender too, I've never felt put out or uncomforted by what the trans-rights movement was all about.

After absorbing what you lot have to say about the matter (in general, I know there are some pro-trans feminists on here) she's completely changed her tune and frankly it's becoming exhausting and absurd. I had never really listened to the arguments of GC feminists before the last year or so, and frankly after listening to them I have become ever more convinced that you are unfortunately gravely misinformed on a variety of topics regarding transgender individuals, the goals of the rights movement, and the resultant society that values trans-lives. Some of the repugnant transphobia I've seen online further makes it hard for me to value this movement's "genuine concerns" as truly genuine. What made me snap was yesterday seeing a comment on here stating that the Daily Mail was more feminist than the Guardian. I read neither, because they're both toilet paper, but anyone who says anything so blatantly obtuse to reality clearly has a very specific, narrow view of feminism predicated entirely on not liking GNC people - I don't see how anyone who's read any Daily Mail article ever could say that without laughing.

So, I'm here to listen. GC people always say they just want an open discussion, and I am happy to oblige. There will be no hate, nothing like that. I will try and engage you directly, and respond to why you have these positions as fairly and equitably as I can. Hitherto the arguments I have read/heard from GC's online and in print have been unconvincing, but here at least I can respond directly and try and start this discussion that is so desirable.

If you want specific starter questions (god I sound like my lecturers), think about stuff like:

1. Why do transwomen represent such a threat to you in women's spaces, in your mind?
2. Where do intersex women fit into your feminism?
3. What makes a woman? If it is genitals, does a transwoman with bottom surgery count in your mind? If it's chromosomes is Caster Semenya a man?

I hope to read your answers soon. In the meantime, merry post-Christmas!

As an example, years ago, white women felt very uncomfortable being in changjng rooms with black people. And black people are disproportionately represented in prison. However Since it can be shown that the feeling of uncomfortableness was not driven by any rational difference and purely by an unjustified fear, the same fear that leads to the prison population problem, segregation isn't allowed on skin colour
Are you . u seriously comparing the discomfort of sharing a changing room with a male with a penis is the same as sharing with a b!ack woman. The latter was as a result of racism and not genuine fear. Fear of sharing sleeping accomodation or a communal shower with a male with a penis is not an irrational fear or mere bigotry on the part of females and any suggestion that it is ,insults every woman and smacks of rape apology.

So the us has a discrimination problem,
So ???
Why does that affect the TWAW question ????

Are women in female prisons more or less likely to get pregnant if they are locked up with people with a penis or without a penis?

What I a. saying is if the "genuine fear" could be shown to be an irrational fear and not genuine at all, then we should reconsider

Yes, you may feel that is so unlikely it does not need to be said ....

I'm not sure why you're bringing gay men into it?
We don't think that they should be in female prisons either!

I looked up the Transcrime website, given that JJ is using the cases listed there as statistically representative of overall figures.

This is how they state they collect the information:

“Trans Crime UK collates media reports of crimes committed by transgender individuals in the UK;”

So this site only records the cases that were reported in the press that they noticed. It’s well known that the vast majority of criminal offending goes unreported.

Given that there was a disingenuous news report a couple of years back about “the rise in women’s sexual offending” which stated six women had been convicted of rape in 2016, I think it’s obvious they are missing a huge percentage of crimes.

And I know that there is a tiny possibility that these “women” might simply have been aiding and abetting a man, but it’s far more likely that the majority of those six women had a penis and did the raping themselves.

So to summarize, the source of your data does not claim to record all crime committed by men who claim they are women, but only those reported in the press and seen by those running the website. This is likely only the tip of the iceberg of actual offending, which is better represented by looking at prison figures.

Had the police done the smart thing back in 2009 (or whenever it was that they started to record self-ID’d gender) had they continued to record sex alongside claimed gender rather than instead of it, then by now we’d have accurate figures to work with.

Whose interests might be best served by us not knowing, do you think?

@jj1968 You said this earlier:

Only one self identified trans woman has been convicted of rape in the last five years compared to around 12,000 men. That is overwhelming evidence of a huge disparity in offending patterns.

And then:

The US study I posted suggested that one reason LGB people are so over-represented in prisons is that they tend to be given longer sentences than straight people for the same crimes.

I understand that you're saying that the disparity between prison populations and convictions could be due to the transwomen getting longer sentences. On the face of it, that looks like a legitimate argument, but if you're saying that only 1 transwoman is convicted of rape in 5 years compared to 12,000 other men, yet the numbers in prison are 46 transwomen compared to 13,808 other men. So then the question is when were these transwomen convicted? If it's only one every 5 years then some of them must be hundreds of years old and have been given absurdly long sentences.

Yes but anyoldprion dont you get it? if you dont include the sex offenders, then there are no transwomen sex offenders! East peasy , problem not only solved but was never a problem in the first place.

Ignore the inconvenient facts, close your eyes to the things you don't want to see, and dismiss any dissenting voices as bigots...
Makes life so much simpler

What about when your evangelical friends or the Murdoch press decide to stop pretending to like LGB people

Guffawing. From what I have seen here a very high proportion of the posters are atheist lefties and plenty of them are lesbian. Making up random shit does not move the argument forward. Whether it is this kind of nonsense about who we are or daft talk about TW offending like women not men if you define TW carefully enough.

jj1968 also said this on another thread:

The fact that not one verified trans women was reportedly convicted of rape, murder, sexual assault, serious violent assault, terrorism or involvement in organised crime in 2020.

Which means two things. Firstly jj has ignored every single report here:

www.womenarehuman.com/category/crime/

Second, jj thinks there’s some way we can verify trans women, presumably to see who is genuine and who isn’t.

So jj can you explain those crimes committed in 2020 and can you tell us how you verify trans women?

*What I a. saying is if the "genuine fear" could be shown to be an irrational fear and not genuine at all, then we should reconsider

Yes, you may feel that is so unlikely it does not need to be said ....*

Well you explain how allowing males with penises to share changing rooms, communal showers and sleeping accommodation with women should not make women afraid?

@jj1968

All I was saying was that all men, regardless of whether they are just men or identify as transwomen, commit crimes at the same rate.

The US study I posted, based on prison populations, showed that gay men are twice as likely to be in prison than straight men, and are more likely to be in prison for a sexual offence. By your logic this proves that gay men are inherently more criminal than straight men. Twice as criminal in fact. Lesbians and bisexual women were close to ten times more likely to be in prison for a serious offence (sentenced to over a year) than straight women. Can you not see why drawing inferences from this is problematic?

Yes, I can see why it's problematic, so I don't know why you're doing it.

You're doing something very different to me. I'm saying that all men, no matter how they identify, commit crimes at about the same rate.

What you're doing, is saying that because a subgroup of men or women is over-represented in prison, that someone might conclude that this must be because of greater criminality. This is not what I'm saying. I haven't said that transwomen are more likely to be in prison for sexual offences, but that they are as likely as any other man to be convicted of such an offence, probably because they commit such crimes at approximately the same rate.

To put it a bit more clearly. Let's imagine that the % of white men and black men in prison was approximately the same. I would say that this is probably because they commit crimes at approximately the same rate.

In your argument (which you wrongly attribute to me), the % of black men in prison is greater than the % of white men, and the conclusion is that black men are more likely to commit crime and be jailed for it. This is fundamentally different from my argument.

@Bambam2019 bit late to respond to your response to me cos I've been busy, but I used to play rugby. Appreciate that there is a limited number of sports where men and women can compete equally (darts, snooker etc) but the vast majority of sports are physical. If rugby was mixed there is NO WAY I would have played it. The risk of serious injury would have made it untenable.

So jj can you explain those crimes committed in 2020 and can you tell us how you verify trans women?

Oh oh!! I know this one. We need Layla "I can see into souls of trans people" Moran from the Lib Dems - she can verify trans people.

I will turn your question round

If there was no difference between male and female offending patterns do you think it would be justified for women to be specifically feared of men?

If by AGP you mean the somewhat archaic and discredited 40 year old theory that trans women are either exclusively sexually attracted to themselves as women due to a target location error or are 'extreme homosexuals' who possess a natural feminine essence then you are quite incorrect. Many of the people claimed to be AGPs by Blanchard and co went on to have full gender reassignment surgery, and all were by his very definition sexually disordered meaning that conventional heterosexual sexual activity was of little interest to them.
@jj1968

And yet there are many self confessed AGPs online, as well as many women who married these men. None have had their penises removed or turned into a neo vagina. www.transwidowsvoices.org/
You seem unable to give us any sources for your statements.

@EdgeOfACoin

Presumably you also think that people of colour are inherently more criminal than white people as well, thats what the prison stats say after all. You are using tactics straight out of the far right playbook now.

Are you saying that you think that women commit crime, including crimes of a sexual nature, at the same rate as mtf transitioners but that the legal system (for whatever reason) punishes transitioners more harshly?

I'm saying there is a disparity in the figures. When we look at annual convictions then trans women do not appear to commit sexual or violent offences at anywhere near the same rate as men. However trans women do seem to have similar patterns of imprisonment for sexual offences. There are several possible reasons for this. One could be that trans people are given longer jail sentences as was found in the US when it came to LGB people. Another could be that most of the trans prisoners transitioned in prison or after committing the offence. This would suggest that trans women do not retain male patterns of criminality post transition but they may prior to that. Another could even be that some of the trans prisoners are trying it on, or more likely that a long prison sentence might push someone who might have identified as gender fluid or nonbinary if they weren;t imprisoned towards identifying as a trans woman because the prison system isn't really geared up for nonbinary gender identitities. A visibly gender nonconforming man may well be at risk in the mainstream prison estate. A trans women on the other hand may be given her own cell, may be segregated for her own safety and be allowed to use things like showers at seperate times.

So there are several ways to explain the apparant disparity betwen the numbers of trans women convicted of sexual offences and the number of trans women recorded in prisons. But that disparity clearly exists and is an area that warrants research rather than people jumping to conclusions based on whatever makes trans people look the worst.

I think things get even more complex when you look at comparisons of offending between trans women and non trans women and the prison population is really not the place to start examining that. There's quite a bit of research which demonstrates that female sexual offending is under-reported and also that female sex offenders are generally given less harsh sentences than men (journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1557085111430214). Which is not to say of course that women commit sexual offences at anything like the same rate as men, more that the data is so noisy, with so many potential areas of potential bias that it would be very difficult to unpick - although I think it would be good for someone to try and put an end to this aspect of the debate.

d-miller.github.io/assets/HsuInPress.pdf
A more recent paper on AGP

Just like those crime statistics that prove transwomen are less dangerous than other males. We seek them here we seek them there......!

There has never been a group in history who are more privileged than transwomen. They make demands and those demands are met, immediately, and without question. All within a few years. It took women hundreds of years to even be allowed to vote and another 60 years after that to be able to expect equal pay in the UK. Transwomen demanded that the entire English language be changed to meet their demands and, just like that, the demand was met.

This!! I read an interesting thread on Twitter which taught me it took women 4 decades of fighting to get public toilet facilities FGS

@NotBadConsidering

jj1968 also said this on another thread:

The fact that not one verified trans women was reportedly convicted of rape, murder, sexual assault, serious violent assault, terrorism or involvement in organised crime in 2020.

Which means two things. Firstly jj has ignored every single report here:

www.womenarehuman.com/category/crime/

Second, jj thinks there’s some way we can verify trans women, presumably to see who is genuine and who isn’t.

So jj can you explain those crimes committed in 2020 and can you tell us how you verify trans women?

I was talking about the UK only obviously. It would be pretty astonishing if no trans women anywhere in the world had been convicted of a serious sexual or violent crime in 2020.

I was using self ID to verify trans women, as I've explained, probably about ten times already on this thread. I assumed those who said they were trans women were trans women. And not one self identified trans women appears to have been convicted of rape in the UK in the last 2 years.

JJ
You lost me here:
"trans women and non trans women"

Women are women. Women are not non trans women. Women are not a subsection of trans women.

Your narcissism is unparalleled.

I think my eyes rolled the whole way around.

" When we look at annual convictions then trans women do not appear to commit sexual or violent offences at anywhere near the same rate as men"

Statistics to prove this statement??????????????????????????

Yes but anyoldprion dont you get it? if you dont include the sex offenders, then there are no transwomen sex offenders! East peasy , problem not only solved but was never a problem in the first place.

I am fully aware that jj is disregarding more than half of the cases recorded on that website, but in addition, jj has selected a website that is missing a huge percentage of cases in the first place.

I wonder whether an FOI requesting stats for numbers of women convicted of rape since 2000 would show an interesting pattern.

@334bu

" When we look at annual convictions then trans women do not appear to commit sexual or violent offences at anywhere near the same rate as men"

Statistics to prove this statement??????????????????????????

I have the statistic that 41% of trans women prisoners are there for sexual assault offences but I'm being ignored by JJ 😂