Feeling really conflicted

[Tittie]

I've been lurking on the GC threads for quite some time, but don't feel articulate enough to contribute, compared to some of the brilliant posters here!

I peaked about 2 years ago. I remember confidently describing Mumsnet as transphobic to my friend not long before that I can't even remember what it was that changed my mind.

Anyway, there seems to be more and more coverage of trans/sex/gender issues in the media at the moment. It's making me incredibly uncomfortable that I find myself agreeing with newspapers, celebrities and politicians that I would ordinarily distance myself from (eg the Daily Mail). I am 100% gender critical, but I have this nagging doubt about who I am both agreeing and disagreeing with. Is anyone else feeling conflicted in this way?

Dentons isn’t a think tank it’s a big law firm that was providing free advice.

Global perspective, is it?

Let's consider the global fricking perspective.

Have you heard of something called FGM? A while back, during the boredom of lockdown, as a woman who was wont to say that mumsnet was a bit transphobic, I joined twitter. Followed a bunch of interesting people, including trans activists. (Boosting trans voices, amirite?)

And you know what I kept seeing? Trans activists disrupting the activism of FGM campaigners. Policing their language if they say the flipping word woman.

A couple of weeks ago you were on about us donating to a bus. Well, I donated to that. I donate to a hell of a lot of things. So what the hell have you done in all your posts here except to put down women? To try to tell us we're seeing things when we see TRAs actively destroying things women have worked for or are working for instead of building their own stuff?

You're on here all hours of the day. How about trying to rein in your allies piling on black FGM campaigners on twitter?

@ChazsBrilliantAttitude

Dentons isn’t a think tank it’s a big law firm that was providing free advice.

indeed

www.dentons.com/en

according to their home page, they are the second best known law firm in the world

JJ, when we say 'it's not women's problem to solve' - whether sports, toilets or shortlists - we mean not that we don't care at all, but we reject the only proposed solution. Which is that we give up the stuff we needed and fought for, for bloody YEARS, to convenience a small group of people who don't want to have to do the same thing.

I know you know this really.

Over on Twitter, I anticipate the trans movement is going to welcome a man with open arms, despite his past couple of days of trivialising the holocaust, and trying (and failing) to play the "But some of my best friends are Jewish!" card.

But sure, feminists are the ones who are anti-semitic.

And you know what I kept seeing? Trans activists disrupting the activism of FGM campaigners. Policing their language if they say the flipping word woman.

I think this is a problem with social media. I have challenged some of that nonsense, so have many people you would dismiss as trans activists, but it only takes a handful out of the hundreds of millions of people who use twitter to make such comments and it becomes presented as typical of what trans people think.

I've posted on here because this is a forum dominated by discussions about trans people often with trans voices completely excluded, and where I believe trans people are often unfairly maligned and a lot of misinformation is spread. I deliberately haven't posted on threads which aren't about trans people because I am content to just read them and listen to people's thoughts and experiences. My posts on mumsnet do not represent the totality of my political thought, and certainly not my thoughts on feminism - there are many great feminists who have been an inspiration to me for my entire life.

jj

"But that's not the usual response to questions about how trans people should be able to exist in the world safely and with some dignity. Not women's problem is the usual reply. (not specificlly replying to you with the following but the thread more generally)"

Although I'm loathe to use a bathrooms example since the issues are of course bigger than that, I think the perspective of those giving you that reply is very loosely akin to the following:

Parents have a need to change their child's nappy while out and about, but let's say it is rare that provision is made for this in UK establishments. Parents demand to each be given a Radar key so that they can use disabled facilities. Disabled users of those facilities say, "hang on a minute, those facilities are for us and we will be disadvantaged if Radar keys are handed out willy nilly to any parent who wants to use them". Parents now round on the disabled users themselves with the question, "well then where am I supposed to change my child?!"

It would be quite reasonable of disabled toilet users to reply, "I've no idea - perhaps you should take it up with the relevant authorities because, although I sympathise, this hasn't become my problem to solve purely because your initial - unworkable - suggestion focused on facilities designed for me".

In my book that doesn't make them callous shirkers of responsibility, it just means they are declining to be charged with finding a solution for something wholly unrelated to them on pain of losing the facilities originally provided for their specific needs.

If it were really a minority opinion amongst people id'ing as trans activists, you'd drown them out.

It would become verboten to do something like it.

If any feminist account attacked Hibo Wardere, especially an account using her real name, she'd be shredded by other feminists.

This. Mysteriously. Does. Not. Happen. Amongst. The TRAs.

You want to castigate GC feminists because someone's video is hosted on a site next to something rightwing, then you need to look at the online trans community. If a community is anti women's rights, then you cannot complain that a few women notice.

No-one needed to "present" me with TRAs being vile. I found it all on my own. By fricking accident.

I know you know this really.

JJ does, and these threads tend to go round and round and lose focus on the original clear point.

Yes. But they get me angry. And when I get angry, I tend to do things, like writing letters.

Oh, wonder if any TRAs have spoken to Zoe Williams to say that they appreciate trans-inclusive services, but they don't want them at the expense of women with learning disabilities or poor literacy?

I'm sure there are loads of them speaking up for the needs of marginalised women.

It is strange how Guilt by Association only goes one way.

I find that in the absence of a mute button, developing an automatic habit of scrolling past the long posts that follow certain screen names is very helpful. You owe no one your time.
/helpful feminist.

Perhaps I'll take a leaf out of my son's book. He told me yesterday that sewing was fun, because you got to stab the fabric over and over again.

It's surprisingly loud when he's doing a cross-stitch kit.

If the Daily Mail agrees with me, so what? The people at the Daily Mail also agree with me that the Earth orbits the Sun. I'm not going to start claiming the Sun orbits the Earth just to be on the opposite side to the Daily Mail.

This!

It doesn't really matter to me who else thinks that biological sex is real, that women are adult humans females, that men are not women and that women are entitled to single sex spaces. I couldn't give a fuck.

I'm certainly not about to allow single sex spaces to be abolished so that I can be on 'the right side'.

If any feminist account attacked Hibo Wardere, especially an account using her real name, she'd be shredded by other feminists.

I'm sorry I'm not convinced of this. There have been plenty of trans inclusive feminists who have been absolutely monstered on twitter and I've rarely seen gender critical activists stand up for them.

Did you not see the way Glinner was hounding some young feminists prior to his getting banned? Did you speak up about it?

If you’re looking at someone you consider to be a bad person and finding you agree with them, one possibility is certainly to re-examine your views, but the other possibility is to examine whether that person actually is a bad person or not. Or further yet, take a big old leap and imagine that humans arent actually easily divided into the goodies and the baddies and there’s a world of nuance and subtlety out there. It’s beyond some people, of course, who can only conceive of the world in black and white.

I have no idea what you're talking about. I started using twitter during lockdown.

And again. We're not talking about random "transinclusive feminists" whatever they are.

We're talking about an FGM campaigner. I'll repeat that again. An FGM survivor and campaigner. What kind of group can you think of who would stand for harassing an FGM campaigner?

JJ as the parent of a disabled child I respectfully ask that you stay away from using our struggles as whataboutery.

Thanks.

Haha, nothing like responding to accusations of conspiratorial thinking by posting a rant from some intellectual dark web gobshite edgelord about how psychopaths are secretly creating a totalitarian society by brainwashing everyone into believing a pseudo-reality.

An ad hominem attack is the first - and most telling - sign that a person cannot engage with an idea and so has to resort to namecalling.

Hello again OP, I hope you're finding this thread useful. I've certainly found it interesting to hear how people have formed the opinions that they hold.

It's also been interesting to see that some can't accept that a particular viewpoint may be held without trying to make links with far right groups, Trump supporters, homophobia, antisemitism and conspiracy theorists. I'm waiting to see how we're somehow responsible for climate change too.

Not particularly a fan of James Lindsay (I think he's a prat and I muted him so his posts stopped coming up in the feed.

But I thought the dark web was something a bit harder to access than twitter?

@WWJackieWeaverD

jj

"But that's not the usual response to questions about how trans people should be able to exist in the world safely and with some dignity. Not women's problem is the usual reply. (not specificlly replying to you with the following but the thread more generally)"

Although I'm loathe to use a bathrooms example since the issues are of course bigger than that, I think the perspective of those giving you that reply is very loosely akin to the following:

Parents have a need to change their child's nappy while out and about, but let's say it is rare that provision is made for this in UK establishments. Parents demand to each be given a Radar key so that they can use disabled facilities. Disabled users of those facilities say, "hang on a minute, those facilities are for us and we will be disadvantaged if Radar keys are handed out willy nilly to any parent who wants to use them". Parents now round on the disabled users themselves with the question, "well then where am I supposed to change my child?!"

It would be quite reasonable of disabled toilet users to reply, "I've no idea - perhaps you should take it up with the relevant authorities because, although I sympathise, this hasn't become my problem to solve purely because your initial - unworkable - suggestion focused on facilities designed for me".

In my book that doesn't make them callous shirkers of responsibility, it just means they are declining to be charged with finding a solution for something wholly unrelated to them on pain of losing the facilities originally provided for their specific needs.

A really excellent analogy that I will be keeping in reserve for the future, thank you.

TheBuffster I think maybe you meant to address me about using disabled toilets as an analogy?

If so, I certainly meant no whatabouttery, but thought it was a potentially helpful analogy purely to illustrate why one group's issue does not become another's to solve purely because the latter declines to share their existing facilities with the former.

It's interesting that your use of the word peak is still in your post, OP. I had a post removed this week for using that exact word in the same context. 🤷 I did look thru the guidelines but couldn't spot anything specific about that word.

WRT your dilemma, I agree. It feels like the world is topsy-turvy sometimes and what I once thought was liberal is now just idiotic, check-your-brain-at-the-door catchphrases.