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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Labour have committed to single sex spaces

999 replies

flumpetto · 22/09/2021 14:00

Excluding trans

This is a step in the right direction at long last....

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-trans-women-labour-b1924832.html

OP posts:
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12
WhoNeedsaManOfTheWorld · 24/09/2021 12:16

I wasn't ever willing to accept the so called old school transsexuals into female spaces and I used to work with many
Males are male and remain so no matter what they do. The only way to have the single sex spaces many women want is to not have and male persons in them
There is no benefit to women ever in allowing some males to be considered women
Transwomen are male. Nothing else needs saying

teawamutu · 24/09/2021 12:22

@WhoNeedsaManOfTheWorld

I wasn't ever willing to accept the so called old school transsexuals into female spaces and I used to work with many Males are male and remain so no matter what they do. The only way to have the single sex spaces many women want is to not have and male persons in them There is no benefit to women ever in allowing some males to be considered women Transwomen are male. Nothing else needs saying
And what has changed for me in the last couple of years is twofold:
  1. The size and aggressiveness of the 'new' trans cohort
  2. The realisation that even the old-skool crowd NEVER ASKED US IF WE MINDED. Never once. Didn't occur to them, the doctors treating them, anyone.

You can't put the toothpaste back in the tube.

Jaysmith71 · 24/09/2021 12:24

@teawamutu

Butterfly, you seem still to be operating under the impression that this is women's problem to fix.

It isn't. We've said no. Whatever the solution is, it does not include watering down women's rights and protections.

And it is not incumbent upon women and their allies to prove they need to retain their exclusive spaces. Even on a civil balance-of-probability test, those who propose change must make the case, not appropriate the space then challenge women to say why not.
QueenPeary · 24/09/2021 12:27

I always felt dubious about transwomen in female spaces such as toilets, and I always felt insulted that men who wanted to be women always seemed to adopt a cheesy stereotype of womanhood that had nothing to do with what I, a woman, see as womanhood. It's never about taking on the burdens and disadvantages that fall on women, or taking women's side. It's always about women being used to make a male feel like "one of the girls", centred and important, and women feeling they have to do that because - male.

But being socialised as a woman I thought -

  • I feel sorry for them if they're suffering
  • it's rare so fingers crossed most women are safe (yes, that's not good enough but it's how I processed it)
  • even if I don't like it I guess I have to lump it because no one gives a shit about what women want.
CharlieParley · 24/09/2021 12:28

We are going to have to find a more elegant way of defining maleness and femaleness as presented and experienced within the world.

Why? You haven't given a single reason why we should do that.

I am aware that someone who never went through male puberty will pass in almost all circumstances as a woman. I have no problem acknowledging or accepting that, testosterone is a hell of a drug after all.

But those individuals are exceptionally rare. As are individuals born without arms and legs. We make adjustments so that the latter can fully participate in our society, but we do not restructure society as if we all were born without arms and legs.

That's because individual deviation from the characteristics of a group does not invalidate the group as a whole. This applies to sex as much as any other category.

And the issue, as you already hinted at in your comment is not with people who pass as the other sex (which requires more than just emulating the other sex in appearance, but also requires the ability to exhibit the behaviours male or female children are socialised into.)

The issue is with obvious males demanding to be allowed access to female-only provisions, because they "feel like a woman".

In any case, you don't really need us to redefine the sexes if what you say about how you navigate the world applies - you say you comfortably fit into our binary world.

You rejected the demands of the self-id crowd in earlier comments, so for whom do you wish to redefine the sexes?

ButterflyHatched · 24/09/2021 12:28

@Wrongsideofhistorymyarse

Butterfly I was the person who posted the gender wars meme. It's not a reflection of hurt, or damage, or underlying transphobia, just an observation that the longer this goes on, the more irritable some of us are.

It's hard for you to understand but we care about women. Some of us have been having these discussions for a long time. Some of us have trans loved ones. And I'd suggest all of us have had men here explaining yet again to us silly wimmin that transwomen are all nice so we should just budge over.

I find myself wondering what brought you to Mumsnet. Was there a call to arms? Or are you here to 'educate'?

I understand and sympathise. Honestly, seriously. As a fellow veteran, admittedly from the opposing side, who shares a very similar dynamic with younger trans people, I completely agree that it's exhausting. I thought the meme was superb, by the way! Do you mind if I steal it? It's such a wonderful and succinct summation of generational dynamics in fiercely fought ongoing struggles. Made me cackle gleefully.

I've never sought to make an argument that trans people are all inherently nice lovely people - this is so completely the opposite of my experiences. I know a whole lot of trans people of the older 'classical' types and the newer interpretations, and have never seen anything to indicate that while you can transition away from an assigned gender you can also transition away from being an dickhead. I'm not trying to imply that the trans people in my life, who I love and loathe in appropriate degrees proportional to their personalities, are inherently worse than anyone else; I'm saying they are exactly as bad as anyone else.

Why am I here?

I just want to understand and find a path ahead. I am Very Tired of watching successive cycles of trans and gc activists fall into misanthropic spirals of mutual abuse, especially online. The entire arena has become so charged; so poisonous, from the endless noise of cycles of mutual hurt; that it has transformed into a war of annihilation.

I'm here to be educated, to help address misconceptions by presenting how the 'other side' feels both now and historically, and share relevant experiences that might help provide datapoints useful in forging policies that might not make everyone happy, but which don't at least turn into yet another back and forth between unworkable extremes.

I don't think you 'win' this gender war, which has become a wholesale culture war and created some very odd alliances. I think you merely survive it, and I want to make sure as many people as possible can do that.

QueenPeary · 24/09/2021 12:35

trans and gc activists fall into misanthropic spirals of mutual abuse, especially online.

Are you really, really suggesting that there's some kind of balance and equality in that "abuse"?

I have never ever ever seen a GC feminist threaten transactivists with violence, rape, murder, torture, doxxing, harassment etc. The other way round, countless times. I have never known of GC feminists turning up to meetings of trans organisations to threaten, intimidate and bully sttendees. The other way round, yes.

TRAs claim "violence" and "hurt" when someone simply doesn't agree with them that they are the opposite sex. But GC feminists don't have a problem with being disagreed with, they just want the preservation of sex-based rights for women, and for trans people to have trans rights and spaces.

By equating them you are already joining in with a ginormous ongoing gaslight, which we are not unaware of.

EmbarrassingAdmissions · 24/09/2021 12:36

I'm here to be educated,

I can't see that you've withdrawn your interpretation of Nazis as gender critical. For me, this substantially undercuts your claim.

Igmum · 24/09/2021 12:45

Butterfly if you are here to be educated and you want to stop the toxic spirals then please tackle the TRAs. As Queen points out, this is not a challenge between equals using similar weapons and following prescribed rules. The toxicity is a direct result of the threats, pile ons, physical assaults and gaslighting by the TRAs. I haven't seen any GCs threaten to rape, assault or main. I haven't seen any GCs ban trans meetings or terrorize them out of connecting with each other. If you mean what you say tell the TRAs to stop this. It is unacceptable in any democratic society

RedDogsBeg · 24/09/2021 12:49

@EmbarrassingAdmissions

I'm here to be educated,

I can't see that you've withdrawn your interpretation of Nazis as gender critical. For me, this substantially undercuts your claim.

Quite.

You aren't here to be educated, you are not here to listen, you are note even here to compromise of find a solution @ButterflyHatched.

There are many examples that to me show you for what you are and what you are trying to do whilst trying to maintain a veneer of being reasonable. The above regarding Nazis which you ever so slyly worded so as to not outright call GC feminists Nazis but it is clear as day that is what you think and mean, is one. Another was your comments regarding infertility, again couched in deliberately sly language but your intent and meaning were absolutely clear.

For someone who claims they have always known they were a woman you have shown time and time again that you haven't a clue about women and the world they inhabit.

EmbarrassingAdmissions · 24/09/2021 12:51

You aren't here to be educated, you are not here to listen, you are note even here to compromise of find a solution @ButterflyHatched.

Perhaps an asserted desire to listen and be educated is another form of the immersive fiction identified by Kathleen Stock.

Waitwhat23 · 24/09/2021 12:52

@QueenPeary

trans and gc activists fall into misanthropic spirals of mutual abuse, especially online.

Are you really, really suggesting that there's some kind of balance and equality in that "abuse"?

I have never ever ever seen a GC feminist threaten transactivists with violence, rape, murder, torture, doxxing, harassment etc. The other way round, countless times. I have never known of GC feminists turning up to meetings of trans organisations to threaten, intimidate and bully sttendees. The other way round, yes.

TRAs claim "violence" and "hurt" when someone simply doesn't agree with them that they are the opposite sex. But GC feminists don't have a problem with being disagreed with, they just want the preservation of sex-based rights for women, and for trans people to have trans rights and spaces.

By equating them you are already joining in with a ginormous ongoing gaslight, which we are not unaware of.

Yes, there definitely seems to be a push to re-frame the narrative as 'both sides as bad as each other'.

As pp's have said, the death and rape threats have come from one side. The no platforming, doxxing, and chilling effect have come from one side.

Whenever I hear someone say 'this debate is toxic on both sides, I remember this www.terfisaslur.com

It's not even comparable.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 24/09/2021 12:56

Just reminding posters on here that Butterfly earlier commented :
"...I do think that there are undercurrents amongst some strains of gc feminism that can skew heavily authoritarian and unsavoury unless watched and carefully regulated, and there have unfortunately been some well documented incidents of this happening.... "

Not sure that I'd "innocently" pop onto a trans focussed internet site and make a similar comment Confused . When someone shows you who they are and all that, it's worth believing them

EmbarrassingAdmissions · 24/09/2021 13:02

@MrsOvertonsWindow

Just reminding posters on here that Butterfly earlier commented : "...I do think that there are undercurrents amongst some strains of gc feminism that can skew heavily authoritarian and unsavoury unless watched and carefully regulated, and there have unfortunately been some well documented incidents of this happening.... "

Not sure that I'd "innocently" pop onto a trans focussed internet site and make a similar comment Confused . When someone shows you who they are and all that, it's worth believing them

Agreed.

It's authoritarians who control language and attempt to control thought.

The immersive fiction is strong with somebody caught up in DARVO in this matter.

teawamutu · 24/09/2021 13:03

I might also point out that listening earnestly to women's reasoning and refusal, and treating it as the start of a negotiation, is behaviour we've all seen before.

QueenPeary · 24/09/2021 13:04

Maybe such posters think their debating skills and articulacy are so brilliant that mumsnetters won't be able to take apart their statements and evaluate them for logic.

Rookie error

ArabellaScott · 24/09/2021 13:05

Stereotyped gender conformance behaviours are problematic reinforcements of patriarchal oppression imposed on women to silence and control them, apart from when trans women defy gatekeeping and don't exhibit them, at which point they're exhibiting inherent markers of maleness that show they aren't 'really' trans.

Parklife.

ArabellaScott · 24/09/2021 13:05

Sorry, Butterfly, I couldn't help it. The scansion was too perfect to resist. Smile

ButterflyHatched · 24/09/2021 13:07

@teawamutu

Butterfly, you seem still to be operating under the impression that this is women's problem to fix.

It isn't. We've said no. Whatever the solution is, it does not include watering down women's rights and protections.

I couldn't agree more; watering down women's rights and protections isn't the way to fix this. It isn't women's problem to fix how completely screwed our society is.

This is a massive, ongoing, miserable trainwreck where women are caught in the middle of a culture war that so frequently silences their voices, minimises their suffering and cynically uses their causes and language to trojan horse regressive agendas.

I'm sorry. It's awful.

ChristinaXYZ · 24/09/2021 13:08

@OldTurtleNewShell

Hmm. It"s a step in the right direction but I think he's still got miles to go and I'm not convinced he's not going to step backwards again.
I just don't believe Labour at the moment.
FlyingOink · 24/09/2021 13:09

This also extends to heavily male-socialised trans men, from observation.
And
trans guys who, without wanting to throw shade on several of my mates, demonstrably exude trappings of male socialised privileged behaviours and make women inherently nervous by being present in their spaces

Transmen are not male socialised. The same argument for gender non-conforming boys who are bullied and grow up to become transwomen applies. Being unhappy at the allotted socialisation is normal for all people, gender non-conforming or not. Transmen grew up as girls, and are aware of their inherent vulnerability. Transmen also have a lot of internalised misogyny. Transmen and "non-binary" girls/women display an awful lot of "not like the other girls" behaviours.
I'm a butch lesbian, I have lived with dysphoria and I have lived through the internalised misogyny. Guess what? When you are very masculine, you don't get looked at by men in the same way and it's quite freeing. You can walk about without feeling like you're on display. You can be invisible. That's a huge motivator for girls who are fed up feeling like a piece of meat.
But as gruff and as rude as some transmen can be, and some I know are like caricatures of the worst type of man - that's not the same as being male socialised. Growing up with different expectations to those placed on boys has an effect, whether the individual succumbs to those expectations, makes peace with them or rejects them entirely. And again all women do this to some extent in their lives, because the requirements of femininity are too demanding to live out 24/7.
So no, roid rage and a beard and referring to women using derogatory terms, and belching and farting and manspreading don't demonstrate that a transman had male socialisation as a child, it's probably more likely that a transman, being female, is socialised to observe behaviours, recognise and replicate them. Quite often, like I said, it looks clunky and awkward, like a woman aping a fourteen year old boy. But quite often the approximation of behaviours, along with the requisite facial hair, means that transmen "pass" to disinterested strangers. As many gay men have pointed out, they don't pass to men who are actively assessing them, it's just that looking like a man means you can walk around largely unobserved.

Either: Trans women are inherently dangerous predators with transparent psychological attributes of maleness, or: there are no psychological attributes of maleness because gender isn't real, and all behaviours are constructed. Which is it? These can't both be true.
This is a false dichotomy, gender isn't what causes men to be more dangerous than women. Otherwise your transmen friends would commit crime at the same rate as men do, which isn't the case.

If we are talking about learned socialisation, then I profoundly agree; toxic behaviours imprinted on people by the patriarchy are indeed astonishingly shitty. However, if I express the experience of having been victim to them, I'm appropriating womanhood and they can't possibly be real
Again, you might have been subject to certain experiences if you pass 100% of the time, you might be subject to homophobia if you don't (if a stranger reads you as an effeminate male), and you haven't been socialised as a girl.

EmbarrassingAdmissions · 24/09/2021 13:09

@QueenPeary

Maybe such posters think their debating skills and articulacy are so brilliant that mumsnetters won't be able to take apart their statements and evaluate them for logic.

Rookie error

It's something that's been cultivated. Donna Zuckerberg wrote about the phenomenon.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3420810-Donna-Zuckerberg-Social-media-has-elevated-misogyny-to-new-levels-of-violence

ArabellaScott · 24/09/2021 13:10

Either: Trans women are inherently dangerous predators with transparent psychological attributes of maleness, or: there are no psychological attributes of maleness because gender isn't real, and all behaviours are constructed. Which is it? These can't both be true.

No, not 'inherently dangerous' anymore than any other male. Transwomen present the same level of risk as all males. And it's not even just the 'psychological attributes' we're talking about here, it's the nuts and bolts of what a male body can do to a female body - again.

We are seeing this exact mechanical bog standard issue playing out in California in women's prisons. Whether the sex acts are consensual or not (I would argue no incarcerated woman can really consent to any form of sex), and leaving aside the ethics of the issue, even; pregnancies can and will be the outcome. They are happening now.

This is not, as they say, a drill.

Helleofabore · 24/09/2021 13:13

Either: Trans women are inherently dangerous predators with transparent psychological attributes of maleness, or: there are no psychological attributes of maleness because gender isn't real, and all behaviours are constructed. Which is it? These can't both be true.

This is yet another use of the typical 'all or nothing' device meant to be thought stopping.

Trans women are inherently dangerous predators with transparent psychological attributes of maleness

Transwomen belong to the sex class that commits 98% of sex crimes. There is NO evidence that this rate decreases with transition. If you have evidence, please link it up because I am sure that we will be very interested.

Not one poster has said that all transwomen are predators. At all. So, this statement is logically true because you don't state 'all' and this is not asserted on this board.

there are no psychological attributes of maleness because gender isn't real, and all behaviours are constructed.

And yet, the 98% sex crime rate is there and has been consistent for years. And again, no one asserts ALL males are like this. It is completely disingenuous to not acknowledge that this is so. Why is it so? I am sure that there are many factors that feed into this and it would be interesting to know how much may be attributed to nature vs nurture.

Either way, safeguarding principals looks at FACTS to guide decision making processes to protect vulnerable people. In this instance, females and children.

Attempting to deflect from the facts using this 'all or nothing' approach is rather facile.

WhoNeedsaManOfTheWorld · 24/09/2021 13:14

Third spaces are the only solution.
If a woman is happy to be there she can be and single sex spaces remain
It provides dignity and privacy and protects women from those who get their kicks out of challenging women's boundaries (the ones everyone in power wants to pretend don't exist)