Trans rights are a part of women's rights

[ASugar]

Trans people don't negatively affect women's rights. They are a part of the women's rights. Both trans men and trans women experience oppression based on being female/a woman.

@Justhadathought

The prevalence of gender critical feminists in the UK is not reflected in Ireland, the States or most of Europe

It does seem as if the U.K is leading the way on this. But where one gets organised and starts to challenge, others will tend to follow. Then wider public awareness and consciousness follows too.

I think that women everywhere in the world that has recently brought in legislation around this issue are discovering what it means in reality. I am watching it happen in Australia as well.

I do think that activists have misjudged incredibly the reaction as women become aware of the changes and see how it affects them. I think they have banked on be kind and women with lived experience of oppression are turning around and saying 'no, I don't agree'. The no debate tactic is now being shown in the UK to have caused both women and trans people harm and this is being taken notice of by others putting the pieces together.

@Sophoclesthefox

I started as a trans ally and would have described myself as an intersectional feminist, back until about 2014 or so. I was happy to include transwomen in my feminism, I didn’t see any issue with that. I’ve never voted further to the right of the Lib Dems. Your basic issue gentle lefty with a penchant for the underdog and an interest in social justice etc.

Until I saw Caitlin Jenner pick up Woman of the Year award, and be described as “always having been a woman”, and being the sports fan that I am, I know that there was not then and is not now a women’s decathlon event. I started to read, to discuss, to question, to think, to interrogate, to test my assumptions.

It all fell apart when I pulled that first thread.

I fundamentally, completely changed my stance, and I started to,centre women again. I looked for the real underdogs: the gender non conforming children being treated with untested medications of questionable value. The teenage girls fleeing womanhood and getting their breasts and wombs removed because they’re on the ASD spectrum, or they’ve been abused, or they just don’t see themselves in this current pornified incarnation of being a woman. The trans widows whose lives have been blown up but who can’t mention it in polite society because their painful stories are inconvenient to the narrative. The sportswomen losing scholarships and medals and glory. The women in prison at risk of being sexually assaulted while the state falls asleep at the wheel.

Please, if you can persuade me back to my state of innocence and explain how all of this doesn’t happen and doesn’t matter, will you do just that, because it’s fucking horrible. Persuade me- I was there before, so if you’re right, then it should be possible to get me back there using the evidence you have.

Wonderful post.

@Kettlingur

Prisons- I think it’s very, very difficult and there should be a third space.

Just so you know, this view is often considered deeply transphobic.

Yes, "separate but equal" has never been a great look in any context.

Dad joke, the concept that “OH MY GOD feminism is in bed with the religious right!!” was tired the first time I heard it thirty years ago when the topic was pornography. It’s still tired now. There are many groups of people who do not think that gender identity overrides or supplants a persons sex, and that this should not be unsayable. I agree with them on that topic, and probably not a lot else. But so what? It’s increasingly clear that some elements of the left are not the enlightened saviours we once may have thought they were.

Is it evidenced that the original poster is one of the group , what if they don’t want to destroy easy thing and genuinely want to have a conversation.

No, maybe it's an innocent coincidence that she decided to post on this board on precisely the day a bit of a Twitter storm was kicked off by a trans activist. Could be that simply made her wonder about MN.

(The transactivist is a woman who'd choose to be called Cis whose most notable achievement to date is unsuccessfully taking someone to court for transphobia. The judge said the case should never have been brought, and the thing which makes it truly remarkable that the accused - who suffered significantly as a result of the stress, I believe, is a transwoman.)

As an established scientific consensus.

Gender identity isn't really the domain of serious science, is it? I've never seen anything remotely like what you're claiming.

@Ereshkigalangcleg

Why are people continuing to engage with those who have come here for the sole purpose of winding us all up and destroying mumsnet? You will not change their minds.

For the lurkers to see the quality of arguments on show.

I am one of said lurkers, I usually just read and digest, it's just the way I am.

But I do think there is value in laying this bare for people to make their own minds up on. It's quite illuminating. Although the energy and time that you fantastic women are expected to expend on engaging with some really poor/ill-thought out/bad faith discussion points is quite something. Hats off to every one of you for the public service you are doing, you're all amazing, I mean that.

So, once again i have to ask, where is the evidence of this "scientific consensus" that DadJoke is so fond of referencing?

It may come as some surprise to those who are invested in the idea of women happily conforming to sexist stereotypes, but there's quite a large contingent on here who are scientifically literate. Quite a few of us even work in the sciences. In my experience there is rarely a consensus in any discipline beyond the underlying principles. It's what makes working in academia so stimulating. But for the love of the Goddess, please reference at least some of these papers so we can go and apply our over educated minds to them.

Yes, "separate but equal" has never been a great look in any context

Equal but different. Equality embraces difference; in fact true equality often enhances differences.

The judge said the case should never have been brought, and the thing which makes it truly remarkable that the accused - who suffered significantly as a result of the stress, I believe, is a transwoman

And a number of transwomen and transmen who've spoken out against gender ideology have also been targeted for abuse and smears. Which only goes to show it's really not about supporting trans people. Either you believe all the way or you're out.

As an established scientific consensus. You not believing in gender identity,

No, as posters on other threads have pointed out, you are conflating different definitions of gender identity and claiming the simple fact of knowing your own sex proves the more nebulous gendered brain one. It does not. You haven't managed to back your wrong body hypothesis up, with anything more than vague links.

Compelled speech and compelled belief hasn’t got a stellar history, either...

I never understand why being gender critical is compared to the religions where were the ones who dont share the faith.

Surely its the gender believers who insist we must agree with their beliefs who are more like religious fudementalists?

DadJoke if by saying seperate but equal in regards to prisons youre after getting prisons abolished, maybe start your own thread on that one. See if anyone agrees with you we shouldnt keep some people seperate from others.

@Justhadathought

Yes, "separate but equal" has never been a great look in any context

Equal but different. Equality embraces difference; in fact true equality often enhances differences.

It'd be a great look in sports. Of course, women's sport isn't yet accorded equal status - it would be nice to get there before it's destroyed.

And here's a fun quiz for you. Which of these are gender critical feminists, and which members of the right and which do you disagree with?

There's a fun quiz people play on Twitter, called "TRA or MRA". I imagine it's similar?

For those posters who seem to focus on the associations of some of those people who are vocally pro-women, perhaps it is pertinent to also then look at some of those lauded for attempting to silence people who are pro-women and seeking a way forward to resolve conflicts between two group's rights.

For instance, the activists who have in the past used slurs and misogynist terms and made misogynist statements. Activists who are active in advocating to lower women and children's boundaries. A similar move was made in France in the 70s, and people are only now discussing the ramifications.

As they say, a broken clock is always right twice a day (if it is a 12 hour clock to be specific). And purity spirals are never a good thing.

Even on this thread, posters who state that there is no negative affect on the rights of women, have glossed over instances pointed out where there were in fact documented affects.

They agreed that women should have those rights and neglected to acknowledge that at the moment these rights are not being unheld. So, in effect, they have already shown their stance is flawed. Because it did not suit their discourse.

never understand why being gender critical is compared to the religions where were the ones who dont share the faith.

DARVO. Deny attack, reverse victim and offender.

Gaslighting, in other words.

I hear members of the far right also think the sky is blue and that water is wet?

As an established scientific consensus. You not believing in gender identity, or the efficacy of vaccines come to that, makes no difference at all to reality.

Vaccines definitely have a scientific consensus, with detailed knowledge of how they work.

I have never studied gender identity in science, can you explain what the scientific concept of gender identity is?

Whenever it is raised by lay people in the context of transgender identities it is a "strong feeling". I don't have any such feeling of identifying as male or female, so I don't have one.

"Bats are a part of wombats"

🤣

@ASugar

Trans people don't negatively affect women's rights. They are a part of the women's rights. Both trans men and trans women experience oppression based on being female/a woman.

👏👏👏💖

Yes, "separate but equal" has never been a great look in any context

Right. Best abolish mens and womens prisons entirely then. Mixed sex all the way.
Best abolish mens, womens and disabled sport then. Just sport all the way.
Best abolish all disability benefits then cos they aren't needed either.
And we best abolish any medical records/research/funding that refer to sex in any way because all bodies are exactly the same.

Cracking. Thats equality sorted.

I missed the vaccine dig 🤣 good grief. Literally never seen an anti vaxxer on feminist chat. We’re all about the science. What a fatuous remark.

So, once again i have to ask, where is the evidence of this "scientific consensus" that DadJoke is so fond of referencing?

I am actually very interested in these 30,000 papers. Could we please have a link, I assume that they have been collated and stored where we can access them? It is the second time I have seen that number referenced so I would expect that there are grouped together somewhere.

I would like to read some of them. Obviously not 30,000.

it is their human right to do it.

They can compete with the other members of their biological sex class. That is fairness. And I disagree that it's a "human right" to compete in sport. By that argument there should be a handicap system in athletics so non sporty me can compete.