GC women thrown out of Edinburgh pub

[cariadlet]

Sorry if there's already a thread on this. I've been following it on twitter all day but didn't spot anything on Mumsnet.

The Edinburgh News has got a report about it.
www.edinburghnews.scotsman.com/news/politics/inquiry-launched-into-row-over-transphobia-in-edinburgh-pub-3355594

The reporter quotes a lot of the TRA's tweets which they would probably love but I think the reporter's just given them enough rope to hang themselves.

I'm sure the average reader who hasn't followed the trans debate won't be impressed by someone who calls themselves an "AGP porn addict male" in their twitter bio.

But it's a bit rich to give silly labels to others who don't identify as you do when you're preaching the dogma that everyone has the right to identify as they wish and that should be respected.

This needs highlighting.

Ok, Trans Women will never experience the miracle of a life inside them, the most intimate bond between mother and baby

No man will experience this. Does pregnancy mean women have privilege over men now?

Considering 77% of women claim to have experienced a negative or discriminatory experience at work following giving birth, it is really no wonder that mumsnet is not buying this cis privilege bullshit, is it?

Quite.

Did @BilindaB ever say where she got the 3,000 figure from? Or did they just make it up?

I’m very taken aback at the idea that someone can tell infertile women we are “privileged” with a straight face, and then demand that we’re polite when discussing it. Astonishingly callous.

The only way the adoption analogy works would be if the adopted mother insisted that the child was biologically theirs, had physically been conceived and gestated by them, and therefore would have inherited her genes, susceptibility to genetic conditions, shared her blood type etc, that all medical treatment should be given to the child on that basis, and doctors who thought otherwise were bigots.

As pointed out, the word mother encompasses both biological and social roles, and while they’re both extremely valuable and important, people understand the difference.

I’ve asked repeatedly for an answer to that, beef, but I haven’t seen one yet.

I think that in stating that women are privileged to carry a child when a transwoman cannot is a great example of what happens when people accept this subset of males are ‘women’.

No male can gestate a child. There is no way a male should gestate a child as they do not have the reproductive system to do this and to create one to gestate a child is for the benefit of that male wholly and not for the child.

But. If people use the descriptor of woman for those males who identify as one, it twists the narrative. All of a sudden, they are to be treated as a female and therefore a woman who can carry a child to term has ‘privilege’ over that male. And any female who menstruates has privilege. What next?

Oh yes. I have already seen it on social media. Males who identify as women stating they cannot wait to have a womb implant and be pregnant so they can have abortions.

I've become so jaded with this board recently that I rarely have the energy to engage with it these days.

Hats off to all the fantastic posters who are still batting away one ridiculous argument after another. 🏆

@BilindaB I don't know why you are trying to force a square peg into a round hole with your insistence that women are "privileged" over transwomen. Privilege can only exist amongst people where there should be a level playing field but there isn't.

In the case of males and females there is not a level playing field and this is a biological reality. Yes, we are equal as human beings, but we are different in fundamental ways that are not "privileges".

I'm not privileged over my partner because I can carry a child and give birth any more than he is privileged because he can have children without going through the physical toll of childbirth. He is not privileged because he can continue to work and renovate our home throughout my pregnancy while I'm laid up in agony.

That's part and parcel of life. We are different sexes. I don't watch a cat chase a bird and think how privileged the bird is to be able to fly away. The cat is a cat and the bird is a bird.

It is disingenuous to talk about "subsets" of women and say that there are black women and tall women and Chinese woman and transwomen. This argument has been trotter out here over and over again. Every woman is a woman by virtue of their shared biology. It's irrelevant what race they are or what they look like- this does not mean there are subsets of women. They very idea makes me feel a little sick. Transwomen, however, are transwomen. They are male.

I've no idea why anyone has a problem with this anyway. And I'd love you to explain why, in your opinion, it's such a terrible thing to say transwomen are not women.

I’m very taken aback at the idea that someone can tell infertile women we are “privileged” with a straight face, and then demand that we’re polite when discussing it. Astonishingly callous.

Yes. Absolutely. ( for you. )

Remember too though, yesterday we were reminded, as per twitter too, that we could think thoughts in our heads but if we discuss our thoughts we were harming males.

@BilindaB

In response to the post starting Have you heard of google?

You are still missing the point. All of that is absolutely a reason to ensure trans women don't suffer prejudice in employment, have safe spaces if they need them, and so forth.

My concern is the dominant gender ideology narrative has taken the genuine and good concern of people like you and fooled them.into believing the only way to achieve fairness and safety for trans people (or rather trans women, because trans men's needs don't seem to be such a hot trigger for TRA aggression) is to say all pre-existing single (female) sex identities and provisions must be made available to males who identify as women.

Surely you must see that removing the option for female people to ever exclude males entirely disempowers and unmakes female people as distinct legal and social group? Do you really think that is ok? Do you really think that is the only way trans women can achieve fairness and safety?

That is not good enough. Female people exist and have experiences that trans woman don't as vice versa. Female people are not just so-called "cis" women. Under the new meaning of "woman" plenty, maybe even most, female people are not women at all. So why don't you think we have the right to exist?

Hi Belinda, thank you so much for taking the time to respond. Would you mind explaining what women and transwomen have in common.

As a pp mentioned language needs definitions, words mean something. (Apart from in Alice in Wonderland) What does the word woman mean, and what does the word transwomen mean?

Also apologies, but do you have some statistics for transwomen are less safe and more at risk from assault than women? I know that 3 women a week are killed by men in the UK. How many transwomen are killed a week in the UK, do you know?

Grombles thank you, that's an excellent description of something I was trying to put my finger on re privilege.

@Helleofabore

I’m very taken aback at the idea that someone can tell infertile women we are “privileged” with a straight face, and then demand that we’re polite when discussing it. Astonishingly callous.

Yes. Absolutely. ( for you. )

Remember too though, yesterday we were reminded, as per twitter too, that we could think thoughts in our heads but if we discuss our thoughts we were harming males.

to you, too helleof. I’m sure your privilege was a great comfort to you when you lost your job because of pregnancy.

I do have to ask myself how someone can come to Mumsnet and tell women that the biological realities of our lives are somehow irrelevant, and lesser, and be surprised at the reaction. The site itself only exists because of the biological reality of humans being sexually dimorphic.

This thread has been thoroughly derailed now, well played bilinda.

@CuntAmongstThePigeons

Also apologies, but do you have some statistics for transwomen are less safe and more at risk from assault than women? I know that 3 women a week are killed by men in the UK. How many transwomen are killed a week in the UK, do you know?

@BilindaB seems knowledgeable about the privileges women have over transwomen so I'd love to see the stats on this too.

Although if transwomen are woman, then we can drop the "trans" bit now... and so there are 3 transwomen killed a week... but TWAW... so that means 3 women are killed a week and... er...some of them are female and some are male and...

@BilindaB, thank you for engaging politely, rather than arriving on the board, screaming a few insults and running away again.

I can't agree with you about women being privileged over biological males (I won't use the term cis, I find it deeply objectionable). It starts young.

And I'm still wondering why women, who we know are at greater risk from male violence than men are from female violence, by a massive margin, are supposed to accept people like that bar manager, complete with 'bewbs' and 'lady-dick' and an antediluvian attitude to women ('cunts') in our changing rooms and single-sex spaces.

Just no. I wouldn't feel at all comfortable, and I am, per user name, a grumpy post-menopausal woman who is very willing to complain. Teenaged me would have run a mile. Thirty-yr-old me would have ushered my DC away and been too boggled to complain.

Why is it up to women to take the risk of allowing male-bodied people into our spaces? Which exist to, um, protect us from male-bodied people? When we know that TW share the male offending profile?

(And, yes, NAMALT, before anyone gets on my case.)

Also apologies, but do you have some statistics for transwomen are less safe and more at risk from assault than women?

Last time I looked into the stats for violent crime, this was possibly true in terms of incidents, and ignoring sexual nature - something women are particularly at risk of.

Men are victims of violent assault more than women. Transwomen were somewhere in the middle - more than women, less than men.

But incidence rate is not risk.

The incidence rate is reduced by safeguarding measures, like female-only spaces, and women just avoiding certain situations, because they are aware of the risk.

A man will tend to feel more confident walking somewhere dark at night. And he's right - he probably is at less risk in a given situation. But then because men do so, the incidence rate ends up higher for them. Plus men are more likely to escalate a confrontation than avoid a confrontation than women.

If the safeguarding measures did not exist, and women did travel around the world like men do, the incidence rate would be far higher.

I think the pregnancy comment is extremely insensitive. There are males who fetishise every part of being female including pregnancy
There are groups of males who fetishise abortion and still birth. Recently a TW blogged a whole 'pregnancy' with a planned 'still birth' as the result. This person joined pregnancy groups and a women who actually had the loss of a still birth was kicked out of the group for objecting
It is there for all to see. Nobody can state that every male who wants to access female spaces has good intentions
It was 'educating myself' that opened my eyes and was what I saw not what I was told

I do wonder if the people who are happy to class themselves as privileged cis women and say we should open up women's spaces to (what they see as) vulnerable and needy males are getting some sort of subconscious comfort from feeling that they are privileged and powerful over this subset of males, a reversal of the usual dynamic.

@WhoNeedsaManOfTheWorld

I think the pregnancy comment is extremely insensitive. There are males who fetishise every part of being female including pregnancy There are groups of males who fetishise abortion and still birth. Recently a TW blogged a whole 'pregnancy' with a planned 'still birth' as the result. This person joined pregnancy groups and a women who actually had the loss of a still birth was kicked out of the group for objecting It is there for all to see. Nobody can state that every male who wants to access female spaces has good intentions It was 'educating myself' that opened my eyes and was what I saw not what I was told

Yes. But no need to listen to evil bigot feminists on this one.

Just read Detransition Baby by Torrey Peters for similar stuff. Lauded by transactivists* and the Guardian.

NB isn't it interesting how transactivists try and stop people reading feminist writing. But feminists often encourage the reading of transactivist writing?

*Transactivists are people pushing a specific form of ideology and very often not trans themselves.

isn't it interesting how transactivists try and stop people reading feminist writing. But feminists often encourage the reading of transactivist writing?

Yes, trans activist writing does wonders for the gender critical cause. I'd say it does more than half the work for us.

always has, you could be young woman, a black woman, etc

Nice bit of racism there @BilindaB, stating black women are a subset of women, what is the default woman setting that makes black women a subset?

This kind of racist shite is endemic in this ideology and you are happy to be part of that @BilindaB.

BlindaB has mentioned that this place is 'hostile' to those with their views.

I completely disagree. This must be one of the safest places on the internet, given MNHQ's overriding desire to appease TRA's (often to the detriment of their regular GC posters).

How do we think the statement below would go down if posted on the main boards and not tucked away in the naughty corner? I'm pretty sure the responses would be a lot less polite and measured than on here, particularly given that the limitations of expression applied to this board do not tend to apply on the rest of the site.

'Privileged compared to trans women. You can have children. You are less likely to lose your job as a woman than a transwoman. You won't face a fraction of the abuse and harassment that transwomen are getting. You are less likely to be assaulted. You have easier access to healthcare aimed at you than transwomen have. You are likely to earn more. You are treated as perfectly normal, not a problem, you are not regularly accused of being an autogynephile a danger to women, a pervert, just for existing. Those are all privileges, in comparison with transwomen.'

Males are more likely to be murdered than females in the UK. Murderers are almost all male. In this last year no transwoman has been murdered but 3 women have been murdered each week all by men: two of those women murdered this year were murdered by transwomen

@Blibbyblobby

I do wonder if the people who are happy to class themselves as privileged cis women and say we should open up women's spaces to (what they see as) vulnerable and needy males are getting some sort of subconscious comfort from feeling that they are privileged and powerful over this subset of males, a reversal of the usual dynamic.

That’s really interesting, I haven’t thought of that before.

And YY to the racism, red. This is a well trodden path. It places the “default woman” as being white, from which “other” types of women deviate. It also contains an unfortunate nod to the racist trope of black women being “more masculine” than white women, by placing them next to males in the alleged subsets of women.