Dear lurkermom I am glad you recognise the problems with what MW said. I'd like to clarify a few things though about the rest of your comment.
That being said - some of the comments on here citing MAN and ridiculing pictures of this human. Well to be honest . I’m shocked at this. Why ? Doesn’t really make you any better to be so cruel and SO vindictive.
I am not a believer in the doctrine of gender identity. I am an atheist. Just as I do not espouse any other religious beliefs, I won't espouse this one. So when I use the word "man", I use it correctly as a sex designator word for adult human males, just like "stallion" or "bull" are sex designator words for adult male animals.
Believers in the doctrine of gender identity posit that the word "man" is not a sex designator word, but a personality designator - a man is a person who manifests preferences for masculine-coded clothes or activities or jobs or behaviours.
So to recap,
Believers in the doctrine of gender identity say
A man is a person who has a particular personality and can be male or female.
Everyone else says:
A man is a person who is male and can have any type of personality.
Now I respect the right of those believers to do so. And to say so publicly. In return, I expect to be shown the same respect in not being forced to use (or avoid using) the word "man" as if I too believed it referred to personality and not sex. It is neither an act of bullying nor is it cruel or vindictive for me to refuse to espouse the views of believers in a faith I do not share. This is as true for the doctrine of gender identity as it is for Catholicism, Buddhism or Paganism.
On the Guilty Feminist thread, I posted this about MW:
I've met MW at an event in the Scottish Parliament. I'm hypervigilant, so I read MW as male both in person and on video. There's simply no way I would have been able to disclose to MW even without knowing all of this. I carried so much shame and guilt that I knew no man could comprehend and I needed to talk to a female counsellor.
That's not a judgement on MW's appearance nor an expression of ridicule. It is a simple statement of fact. I read the sex of this person as male. I cannot therefore reach a state from which recovery from the trauma of male violence is possible in their presence.
This is my truth.
According to decades of research into female victims of male violence as well as many frontline workers and a number of surveys of female victims of male violence, this is the truth for 99% of us - we need a female-only therapeutic environment to recover from the trauma caused by male violence.
It is neither an act of bullying nor is it cruel or vindictive for women like me to express our anger, however raw and uncensored, at being condemned because our involuntary trauma responses to the presence of males also happen in the presence of males who identify otherwise. And to be threatened with re-education that is nothing more than brainwashing in aid of an ideology that has no place in counselling.
It is an act of self-care and self-love for a female survivor to express her need for a female-only service. Especially in the face of MW's words. And it is an act of compassion and love for others to defend my right to express my needs and to have those needs met.
It is an act of bullying and unspeakably cruel to deny us the help we need.
Cruelty is never a helpful Way forward . Have we not Learned this?
What I have learned in the four years I've been active on this issue is that appeasement is never a helpful way forward when male desires are conflicting with female needs. And that it is cruel to female victims not to stand up to those demanding that we acquiesce to male desires out of the kindness of our hearts.
It's not kindness when it harms others. And what you are exhorting us to do, to give in to believers of the doctrine of gender identity in order to be kind to them is harmful to us.