Q&A thread for New Posters

[CharlieParley]

Welcome to the FWR board and welcome to the debate. If you're new here and have been told your questions might be better on their own thread, but you're not comfortable starting your own, then please feel free to ask your question here.

I'll try my best to answer and some of our other regulars might pop in too.

This is one of several threads called something like 'this never happens'.

The title is is, of course, irony.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3348290-It-will-never-happen-resource-thread

Are gc feminists anti trans people? What is the issue?

You’ve been called out on this many, many times jj. You clearly know of the many other cases of sexual assault, paedophilic crimes and other such convictions of transwomen in the last 2 years.

Well if transcrime is correct there are no examples of a trans women being convicted of sexual assault in 2020 against either an adult or a child. There was one conviction for attempt to engage in sexual communication, one for images of child sexual abuse and three people convicted for breaching terms of sexual harm prevention orders. 2019 shows a pretty similar picture. Thousands of men are convicted of sexual offences every year. Even at the lowest possible estimates of the numbers of trans people if trans women offended at the same rate as men you'd expect to see dozens of offences, and they just aren't there.

As always, with the prison question, I would far rather focus on “do women have the right not to be locked up in cells with male bodied violent or sex offenders?”

I mean, I guess you could say “no” to that, or “it depends if that violent male offender really wants that to happen”, but it’s not a very ethical position, IMO.

@Mrsmorton

Just the one rape then. Well. That's fine *@jj1968*

IT IS ABSOLUTELY NOT FUCKING FINE

No its not absolutely fucking fine. Just like its not when women sexually assault other women. But we don't make any other decisions in society based on just one incident, if we did we'd never release sex offenders from prison, let men work in schools, or women for that matter, or allow cars on the road.

@JackieBeaver no they're just feminists.
The issue is that many trans rights activists want to infringe on women's rights. For example, rights to compete in our own sports and have our own safe spaces.

Historically women (feminists) have had to battle hard for these (For example, league football for women was banned after the war; the fact that there were no women's toilets in workplaces was used to keep women out of the workforce.)

Obviously asking to dismantle these things is a conflict of interest.

@jj1968 you are literally advocating for men with cocks, to be incarcerated with the most vulnerable women in society.

So... why is that? Why do you think it's acceptable for women to be collateral damage to your ideology?

[quote Mrsmorton]@jj1968 you are literally advocating for men with cocks, to be incarcerated with the most vulnerable women in society.

So... why is that? Why do you think it's acceptable for women to be collateral damage to your ideology?[/quote]
No, I was arguing to start shutting the prison system down and replacing it with something better.

For the record I think trans inclusion in prison should be done with careful assessment, that sex offenders not be placed in the women's estate and that arrangements are introduced around showers/cells to ensure privacy and safety for everyone. Prisons make decisions every day whether it is safe to release people ack into society let alone a different type of prison, and trans people should only ever be transferred if the safety of everyone can be established - at least as much as possible in an institution that contains murderers who probably arent very safe either - less safe I imagine than a trans woman banged up for beneift fraud.

Also though, shall we not trash this thread for new people with the same arguments we've had before. I've posted to show that some of the 'fact' often claimed here are heavily disputed, but I'm happy to just leave it at that without arguing the toss about each one.

Well, we are in a bind, aren’t we?

If I list all the links I found to stories regarding transgender sex offenders convicted in the Uk in the last two years, of which I found about ten with a quick google, then I will be “accusing all transwomen of being sex offenders”, when I don’t believe all transwomen are sex offenders.

But If I don’t link the stories, then the minimisation can continue.

I do not want to look at lots of reports of sex offences, I’m feeling queasy from just finding a few.

I think I’ll just leave it at that.

Also though, shall we not trash this thread for new people with the same arguments we've had before. I've posted to show that some of the 'fact' often claimed here are heavily disputed, but I'm happy to just leave it at that without arguing the toss about each one.

Sorry they are not heavily disputed, the numbers of transgender prisoners born male convicted of sexual offences etc. are a matter of public record and unfortunately confirm the other evidence that the subset of males which consists of transwomen present a considerable risk to the female sex and should not be allowed in places where members of the female sex are vulnerable.

@12frogsincoats

I honestly can't stop laughing at the hypocrisy of FWR posters accusing other people of sealioning

It’s literally a discussion on the taxonomy of Sea Lions. It’s glorious!

I think only a discussion on the etymology of ‘diversion’ could beat this.

@Anovaneway welcome to mumsnet! Fascinating first thread but I genuinely look forward to your evidence based contribution to the feminism board.

(Thank you! It is easier to post on a Q&A thread than to make a new thread for something that may have been discussed.)

My question is about the term "gender critical" or GC. In my native language, sex and gender (as a classification system) are the same word. For example if I say "We don't know the baby's sex yet, but we've chosen a traditionally gender-neutral name" the two highlighted parts are the same word. There is a separate word for a sexual act: for example, "nonconsensual sex is a crime".

I find the use of sex and gender in English confusing. I understand the separate status of "sex" and "gender reassignment" in UK law but the words sex and gender still seem to be used nonconsistently in most other ways. If sex is biological and gender is the culturally specific traditions (stereotypes) around it, where is the line drawn? Can it be drawn consistently?

Someone used a comparison with age earlier which I found thought provoking. Someone’s age is a biological fact, but there is cultural padding around it: both laws that vary and may not even exist in some places (age of consent, age of majority, drinking age, conscription age, retirement age) and more social or stereotypical concepts like “acting your age” or “you’re too young to wear makeup” or magazine articles (mainly for women) showing how to dress appropriately for your 20s, 30s, etc. Why linguistically separate sex from its cultural baggage, but not age?

Anyway, I wondered if the term "gender critical" is something some feminists have chosen for themselves, or is it a label imposed on them? And can one be gender critical without being a feminist, or vice versa?

Also, the term "radical feminist" seems to be used interchangeably with "gender critical feminist" but much of the feminist analysis I've seen that's labelled as "gender critical" from the UK seems based in Marxist, materialist or socialist feminism rather than radical feminism. Is there a difference between radical feminst versus Marxist feminist views on "gender" and the conflict of rights?

What do gender critical people want? Or if this varies which it probably does could you say what generally as a group gc people are looking for?

@jj1968

You’ve been called out on this many, many times jj. You clearly know of the many other cases of sexual assault, paedophilic crimes and other such convictions of transwomen in the last 2 years.

Well if transcrime is correct there are no examples of a trans women being convicted of sexual assault in 2020 against either an adult or a child. There was one conviction for attempt to engage in sexual communication, one for images of child sexual abuse and three people convicted for breaching terms of sexual harm prevention orders. 2019 shows a pretty similar picture. Thousands of men are convicted of sexual offences every year. Even at the lowest possible estimates of the numbers of trans people if trans women offended at the same rate as men you'd expect to see dozens of offences, and they just aren't there.

Thank you to jj for drawing attention to what a valuable resource Trans Crime UK is. For newcomers, this website collates data to counter the “this never happens” claims:

transcrimeuk.com/

You can click year to year and read the cases that jj calls “only”. These are people who also want to access women’s and girls’ spaces but who no one, particularly not jj can explain how we can tell these people apart from the nice transwomen.

Unfortunately jj also thinks that it’s “only” just a few paedophilia cases to worry about in 2020, and we can just ignore all of the cases Trans Crime has documented going back to 2014. Because apparently it’s never quite enough cases (n+1) and they haven’t happened recently enough.

And if any newcomers are asking themselves is jj always this disingenuous, the answer is yes.

@MildlyIrritatedOfChorley

Why is cis a banned term? Why do people get so cross when it is used on here?

Speaking for myself:

Trans ideology posits that Women are either Trans or Cis, and that these groups have something in common with each other but no other humans that makes them Women.

My understanding of myself as a woman is (a) female biology, and (b) the social implications of that biology. That's it.

Since a transwoman doesn't have (a) therefore doesn't have (b), whatever the "something" is that includes both Cis and Trans women, it's not part of my conception of myself as a woman and therefore under Trans ideology I am not a woman.

(It's important to point out here that while I think it's both comic and tragic that the people advocating for this new definition of Woman are also unable to define it, I don't need them to provide a definition to know that it excludes me, because if it includes male people it cannot include the only two things that on which my identity as a woman rests.)

So far, so academic.

But in the real world, while I don't really care whether I'm called a woman or not as long as there is a label for my sex class (I'm currently using AFAB as a label for describing female-born people which cannot be identified out of by transmen nor appropriated by transwomen), I very much care that the legal and social protections put in place to counteract the oppression of AFAB people were coded as "Women's", and therefore the redefinition of the word Woman has both opened them up to people with male privilege and closed them off from some of the females they were intended to protect.

So to describe me as cis is to impose upon me an ideological definition of Woman that does not in fact describe me in any way, is damaging to many AFAB people and excludes them from their legal rights.

No its not absolutely fucking fine. Just like its not when women sexually assault other women. But we don't make any other decisions in society based on just one incident, if we did we'd never release sex offenders from prison, let men work in schools, or women for that matter, or allow cars on the road.

see jj - we do exactly that. The DBS system of background checking (formerly the CRB) was brought in as a result of the horrendous murders of Jessica Chapman and Holly Wells by Ian Huntley who should not have been allowed near a school due to his background.

The DBS system was subject to an attempt to undermine it recently by a transgender (male-born) judge who is advocating to make it easier to hide a name change to avoid 'outing' transgender people but will also make it harder to do name checking. Incidentally this judge, who benefitted from male socialisation and male career advantages for a large part of their life before transitioning and being included in the Times Top 100 Women which implied that the Time couldn't find 100 actual women to admire and find inspiring (they included two other non-female women - knocking 3 actual women out of the list).

One incident was one incident too many for the 10 year old victim of Katie Dolotowski who is a male born transgender convicted sex offender who was allowed by the social worker escorting Dolotowski on a visit to Morrison's to use the women's toilets while the little girl was in there. Dolotowski had a knife and sexually assaulted the little girl while her dad waited outside (because he was a normal human being and expected no males to be in the ladies toilets).

The Scottish government is currently bringing in a law to make this sort of attack easier (instead of being normal human beings and trying to prevent further attacks).

Yeah she was a wee girl of ten who just went to the ladies toilets where her dad waiting outside thought she would be safe

Jeez jj I never see you supporting women and girls. Sigh

Thank you to jj for drawing attention to what a valuable resource Trans Crime UK is. For newcomers, this website collates data to counter the “this never happens” claims:

As a very quick point most of the people on transcrime are what the site calls 'violent male transvestites' which seems to mean any man who was known to occassionally wear women's clothes. They are not trans women, they don't identify as trans women, they were not treated as trans women by the justice system and if imprisoned they went to male prisons.

I think the problem is more that some groups are seeking to dismantle existing trans rights, which would leave trans people without any right to spaces to protect them from male violence and which they can use with dignity at all.

Not sure what 'groups' are being referred to here, nor which 'rights' specifically, but the problem here is clearly that it's male violence which needs to be tackled. Any suggestions for what we do about male violence? That might help us all, particularly women.

And the rights that exist are not socially enforced. Trans people should have the right to go to a toilet without worrying someone will either shout at them for being in the 'wrong' space or rape them.

Women should have the right to go to a toilet without worrying someone will rape them. The best way to do this is to keep such spaces penis free.

Trans people should have the right to walk down the street without facing violence and abuse.

Women should have the right to walk down the street without facing violence and abuse.

Trans people should have the right to define their gender and how they are legally viewed/treated without having to prove themselves to a government panel.

Why? How does this benefit society as a whole?

Trans people should have the right to trans specific healthcare without waiting lists which are up to 6 years in some parts of the UK.

People in the UK unfortunately often have to wait a long time for medical treatment for painful and debilitating conditions, sometimes several years. It's not only 'trans specific healthcare' which has long waiting lists. Perhaps you should be campaigning for better funding for the NHS.

Trans people should have the right to privacy and not be put in positions where they have to 'out' their trans status.

Why? How does this benefit society as a whole?

Trans people should have the right to be treated equally in work and housing and yet poverty, unemployment and homelessness remain disproportionately high amongst trans people.

Disproportionately compared to all other groups?

If these are the rights that trans people don't have, they seem to have as many rights as everyone else, but are demanding special privileges.

@jj1968

Thank you to jj for drawing attention to what a valuable resource Trans Crime UK is. For newcomers, this website collates data to counter the “this never happens” claims:

As a very quick point most of the people on transcrime are what the site calls 'violent male transvestites' which seems to mean any man who was known to occassionally wear women's clothes. They are not trans women, they don't identify as trans women, they were not treated as trans women by the justice system and if imprisoned they went to male prisons.

Hold on, you’re saying it’s a valuable resource when it shows that there haven’t been that many convictions lately but not a valuable resource because of its labelling for previous crimes? How are you squaring that circle then?

Can you also explain how people can tell the difference between a “violent male transvestite” (as you quoted) and transwomen in female spaces?

And can you also explain how many of the cases listed on Trans Crime have been referred to as women in the press, and some have in fact been placed in women’s prisons, contrary to your claim?

Surely if they say they’re trans, they’re trans. You sound like you’re gatekeeping to me jj..

As a very quick point most of the people on transcrime are what the site calls 'violent male transvestites' which seems to mean any man who was known to occassionally wear women's clothes. They are not trans women, they don't identify as trans women, they were not treated as trans women by the justice system and if imprisoned they went to male prisons.

Again with the " not real transwomen" . So what is a real transwomen and how do we distinguish them from all the " not real" ones?

@jj1968

Thank you to jj for drawing attention to what a valuable resource Trans Crime UK is. For newcomers, this website collates data to counter the “this never happens” claims:

As a very quick point most of the people on transcrime are what the site calls 'violent male transvestites' which seems to mean any man who was known to occassionally wear women's clothes. They are not trans women, they don't identify as trans women, they were not treated as trans women by the justice system and if imprisoned they went to male prisons.

But they are 'trans' according to Stonewall's trans umbrella.

And how do we tell the difference between a transvestite and a transwoman, when Philip Bunce has won an award for women in business when all he does is go to work wearing a dress occasionally?

What you seem to be saying is that a man is a woman if he says he is, but if he commits a crime he isn't really a woman. So a transvestite is a transwoman until the point where he commits a crime, at which point he becomes an occasional crossdresser and not really trans.

@JackieBeaver

Are gc feminists anti trans people? What is the issue?

The short answer to this is "no". The slightly longer answer is "GC feminists do not think that gender (feminine and masculine behaviours according to social stereotypes) is the same thing as sex (a matter of biology) and are critical of it being used as a marker for what sex someone is, are in favour of women's rights, and oppose women's rights being removed in favour of men's rights."

No matter how sweet and nice and feminine-behaving individual men may be, some women have excellent reasons for not wanting to share intimate space with people who have or may have male genitals and a male outlook and a male rate of sexual offending. This means that people with male genitals or people who may have male genitals should continue to be excluded from spaces where women are vulnerable (prisons, hospital wards and particularly mental hospital wards, rape crisis centres, swimming and gym changing rooms, and yes, public lavatories), as they are at present in law, and the law should not be changed to make it impossible to exclude them from such spaces.

Also, the term "radical feminist" seems to be used interchangeably with "gender critical feminist" but much of the feminist analysis I've seen that's labelled as "gender critical" from the UK seems based in Marxist, materialist or socialist feminism rather than radical feminism. Is there a difference between radical feminst versus Marxist feminist views on "gender" and the conflict of rights?

I'd be interested to hear the answer to this too. Are there many on here who consider themselves radical feminists, that is those who consider patriarchy responsible for women's oppression and as such seek to abolish patriarchal institutions such as the nuclear family, the church and capitalism, or those who consider themselves Marxist Feminists who seek to abolish private property? My impression is things are a bit more liberal/conservative in these corners but I'd be interested to hear otherwise.