Husband thinks I'm transphobic

[plesiosaurus]

I'm devastated.
My husband has just said he believes trans women are women, and that my gender critical views are abhorrent. He compared it to thinking that all Muslims are terrorists, and said that I'm bigoted and transphobic. I'm struggling to see how we go forward from this to be honest.

My DH was in the 'be kind' category a couple of years ago, then a 'maybe it isn't great but isn't it really important' group.
Now he is firmly in the 'wtf is going on, it is really wrong and unsafe' group.

I didn't argue with him, I just kept reading out Karen White stories, JKR threats etc as they happened.

Eventually he worked it out for himself.

If your life partner who is probably the person who knows you best thinks you are transphobic, have a think about whether he may be right. There is a perfectly respectable stance where, for instance, you don't accept self-identification but you do accept that people with GRCs who have had surgery are entitled to toleration.

He has no skin in the game so his opinion is worthless.

He said that it's wrong to mistrust all men, and if he said that he mistrusted all women I'd accuse him of misogyny.

I think a lot of people struggle with this to be honest. For example, if we knew that poor people were a lot more likely to steal, we would still
be uncomfortable with saying things like, say poor people are more often thieves, and we would think it was wrong to bar poor people from shops, or to follow them around.

In some ways sex segregation for certain things in a little unique. It's true on the one hand that sex segregation in some things is a pretty efficient way to guard against certain types of sex crime. And it's not unfair, men have their own changing areas and hospital wards, and aren't worse off for that.

But there are other elements - one is just that sex is a very powerful and basic drive in almost all human beings. And not all sex crimes are about weird evil people hatching nefarious plans - they can often be opportunistic, something the person might not have really thought about doing, lots of people have pretty poor impulse control. You prevent all kinds of socially unacceptable things and avoid a lot of social problems by just not making that an issue.

But also, it's not the full story to say it's all about risk. Most of us do not want to be changing or living in a room even with opposite sex people we know and know to be safe. It's awkward among adults, in good part because we are aware of the implications of nakedness and sex and attractions. Can you imagine the teen boy expected to change with the teen girl he has a crush on? Would it make him a sex offender if he was tempted to peek, or think about her nakedness? It would be pretty natural actually - why put him in that position?

Anything that applies to opposite sex people still applies when you are talking about self-id. Some would argue if you are talking about fully surgically transitioned gay males a lot of those issues are not so significant, but in any case the trans lobby does not want that gatekeeping so it doesn't come into it.

OP, it seems to me that your husband needs to define more clearly his thinking about sex segregation.

Also - for a lot of people who define themselves as liberal, they are still very influenced by the media that they are reading. It can be quite shocking to them when someone they thought was on the same page seems to have views they are being told are deeply bigoted, and it's quite upsetting to them. Typically it also means they are only seeing half the story too as their media won't report anything really suspect and tends to avoid stating the more pernicious parts of the ideology.

And it can be surprisingly difficult to get some to see their trusted sources aren't as reliable as they imagined.

I recommend reading this.

uncommongroundmedia.com/how-i-became-a-trans-rights-activist-then-turned-gender-critical/

@Beveren

If your life partner who is probably the person who knows you best thinks you are transphobic, have a think about whether he may be right. There is a perfectly respectable stance where, for instance, you don't accept self-identification but you do accept that people with GRCs who have had surgery are entitled to toleration.

There is no evidence to suggest that the OP does not take the reasonable stance you outline. The vast majority of people labelled as bigots in this debate do take this exact stance.

Yeah, yeah, my DH thought I was transphobic AND making a fuss over nothing AND 'dragging unlikely things into the conversation' right up until our young relative had a double mastectomy.

I asked him if he really believed that particular teenager to be a man. He said, 'God no. Of course not.'

Ask him if he would have sex with a transwoman and if not why not? If he says he wouldn't, ask him why you should accept transwomen into your spaces as 'real women' when he wouldn't accept a transwoman as a real woman.

if your life partner who is probably the person who knows you best thinks you are transphobic, have a think about whether he may be right

Personally id go with

if you, who is probably the person who knows you best, don’t think you are transphobic, you are probably right

Whatiswrongwithmyknee

Exactly

Personally, I would ask questions based around his DD.

My DH was always a bit wtf about it all but upon hearing his teenage DD might have to share a room with a boy declaring themselves trans or spar against a post puberty male in martial arts competitions, was completely peaked.

@Beveren

If your life partner who is probably the person who knows you best thinks you are transphobic, have a think about whether he may be right. There is a perfectly respectable stance where, for instance, you don't accept self-identification but you do accept that people with GRCs who have had surgery are entitled to toleration.

And does this then lead to recommending that 'If your life partner who is probably the person who SHOULD know you best thinks you are transphobic, have a think about whether he may not know you very well at all'.

Bless him, he sounds deeply confused.

He thinks transwomen are women, but disagrees that Laurel Hubard should compete with women.

He thinks that inact transwomen should have free access to every private female space but that it would be unnacceptable for men to do the same and that trans people are not 'normal'

Frm his attitude to women feeling wary around men they don't know I think a lot of it comes from chauvenism rather than needing to be kind. You see it quite often in lots of men who claim TWAW and call women T**Fs and worse.

Rather than being kind he sees trans people and women as 'non-men' and therefore something less so he can lump them all into the same group. Its funny how these progressive types are really quite regressive when it comes down to it.

Tell your DD and DH that you have decided to be a man. This is all based on hideous gender norms - so don't cook, don't do housework, don't do washing, don't do present buying. Don't do kind. Don't do anything that TW think makes them suddenly female. When you are out with your husband, insist on using the mens. Tell him you are changing all your bills/banking to Mr&Mr ........ and they will have to accept that a TMAM And yes - I am fuming about poor Marion and had a couple of glasses of red. Until people start to see the reality of this, there will always be the liberal 'be kind' shite who think they are so progressive and cool.

As far as I can see everyone is GC and deeply transphobic to the point that you literally murder TWs with your words, or are "all-in" with a pro-trans agenda.

I think OP needs to know that he needs to agree with all of the below in order to be on the side he thinks he is -

(1) Chromosomes and body parts (ie sex) have literally NOTHING to do with whether you are a man or woman.

(2) Having a sexual orientation is transphobic. It is literally impossible to be heterosexual or gay without being transphobic.

(3) Sex-based rights do not exist, all rights are either universal or based on gender, and gender is 100% in the mind of the individual and can change at any time.

I would be sorely tempted to also accuse him of being gay because you became a trans man overnight. Maybe refer him to Lisa Michele on youtube ()

And one more thing. "TWAW, be nice" is actually "TWA literally in every way W and all sex-based protections need to be removed because women with penises say so."

Also does he realise how many "old school transsexuals" would agree with you that he is wrong?

Isn't it ok to agree to disagree? People can be married to people who vote differently, have different faiths and so on.

As LaetitiaASD suggests - 100% tell him you are now a gay couple. He will obviously be totally onboard with it - as TMAM just as TWAW.

I found this UN poster on a UN twitter account. Be interesting to see if he agrees.

Snowdrop30

I think different couples have different levels of being able to tolerate significant differences in values. It is up to the OP to work out if she can tolerate her partner telling her she is transphobic etc.

he sees trans people and women as 'non-men' and therefore something less so he can lump them all into the same group. Its funny how these progressive types are really quite regressive when it comes down to it.

well said.

The UN can fuck right off with that rapey bullshit.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

I found this UN poster on a UN twitter account. Be interesting to see if he agrees.

What the....?!