DD has just called me a bloody T*RF!

[SauvignonBlanche]

DD is home from Uni, she identifies as a feminist and a lesbian but when JK Rowling somehow came into the conversation and I said something vaguely GC she came out with the old TWAW and shut down any debate by calling me a TERF.

It’s scary how there’s no debate allowed, she just told me to educate myself on intersectional feminism but then left the room when I declined to say that JK was ‘wrong’.

Apart from telling her to FU how do you have a debate with an opinionated young person who can’t see there’s the possibility of being GC without being transphobic?

Make up your mind. Do you think trans people are bad for "conforming to stereotypes", or that they should "conform to stereotypes"?

Neither. I think anyone can conform or not conform to stereotypes. What I don't agree with is that "gender identity" has anything to do with their sex or which sexed spaces they should be allowed into or whether people should have to consider them the opposite sex to what they are for the purposes of attraction.

"a lesbian has to consider you as a partner"

A lesbian, or anyone else for that matter, does not have to "consider as a partner" any woman she does not consider attractive.

This applies to cis and trans women alike. There are cis women a lesbian won't be attracted to, and there are trans women a lesbian won't be attracted to.

But not finding a woman attractive does not mean she's not a woman.

I am the messiah! Oh wait, don’t people get locked up for saying that?

[quote SillyStrings423]@WiseUpJanetWeiss
You are a woman if you call yourself one. Simple as that. Anything else is irrelevant.

Would you prefer not to? Then you don't have to be a woman. But stop thinking about "social expectations" and think about what you feel best describes who you personally see yourself as.[/quote]
Does any other word work like this? Am I a child if I call myself one? Am I Korean if I call myself Korean? What if I call myself an MP? A millionaire? A vicar? A cat?

Why is 'woman' the only word that has to mean anything anyone wants it to, with no basis in material reality?

@SillyStrings423 oppressors have no regard for their victims self-idenfication.

I think you typed a word too many there

@MrsMadderRose

Make up your mind. Do you think trans people are bad for "conforming to stereotypes", or that they should "conform to stereotypes"?

Neither. I think anyone can conform or not conform to stereotypes. What I don't agree with is that "gender identity" has anything to do with their sex or which sexed spaces they should be allowed into or whether people should have to consider them the opposite sex to what they are for the purposes of attraction.

"Sexed spaces" are inherently a social construct. There's no such thing as sex-segregated bathrooms in nature.

Make up your mind. Do you think trans people are bad for "conforming to stereotypes", or that they should "conform to stereotypes"?

Who has said trans people are bad?

Anyway I think you must have missed my question. What is a woman?

Still haven't answered why it is acceptable to appropriate the term lesbian to describe a male person attracted to another male person.

"There's no such thing as sex-segregated bathrooms in nature." - this is hilarious. Wow. Generally, as a rule, there are no bathrooms in nature. Sex segregated or not!

SillyStrings423

Could you please answer the question about what the social category of man means to you right now?

If you wish to noodle on speculative fiction about alien civilisations, I recommend all the books by an author called Becky Chambers. But I want you to describe human culture to me as if I'm an alien that doesn't know your categories, not to create fiction.

I agree (and all this 'people are attracted to gender, not sex' nonsense is just hideous homophobia) but as Stonewall have taken it upon themselves to change the definition of homosexual to same gender attraction, this is why we get posters who are unashamedly homophobic calling the posters on here nasty names.

Just to be clear, the problem is not just that Stonewall believes that homosexuality doesn't exist any more - they're a lobby group and they can believe whatever mad things they like.

The problem is the fact the government and corporates have been letting them completely take over their internal policies (and paying them for the privilege!) and train their employees and stakeholders to adopt this belief unquestionably.

Part of Stonewall’s ideology that corporates and public bodies have willingly accepted is that questioning Stonewall’s view is transphobic by definition.

The only reason the head of a charity can stand there and say belief in biological sex is akin to antisemitism without all their supporters running a mile is because the government and corporates (and all of us who work for or interact with them) have been groomed to be fearful of questioning Stonewall.

We can obviously see how this nightmare happened now, but it raises serious questions about policy capture and government impartiality, because the country has basically been taken over by a religious group without anyone even realising.

@@SauvignonBlanche I would actually avoid that subject tbh.

Why?

Well my mum and myself have very different opinion on racism. She is happy to say many things about muslims for example in a very derogatory way which I find arborent. She doesn’t see anything wrong with those comments.
So we avoid the subject to avoid the huge falling out coming with it.

Your dd is clearly feeling very strongly about her tWAW and that you are transphobic. And so do you. I suspect that any attempt to ‘educate her’ or have a discussion will end up with a fractured relationship.
At most I’d go with very low key comments.

At least, that’s my experience on it.

Sexed spaces" are inherently a social construct. There's no such thing as sex-segregated bathrooms in nature.

There is under the single sex exemptions of the Equality Act 2010 though. And as always, the only focus is on toilets. What about prisons? Rape Crisis centres? Domestic violence shelters? Cervical screening clinics?

I made a separate thread.

Sillystrings (I love the name by the way), please join me there.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4383563-For-the-Attention-of-Posters-in-the-bloody-terf-thread

Well my mum and myself have very different opinion on racism. She is happy to say many things about muslims for example in a very derogatory way which I find arborent. She doesn’t see anything wrong with those comments.
So we avoid the subject to avoid the huge falling out coming with it.

Islam is a religion; not a race.

I would also add that she is likely to encounter TW who will say they are lesbians and have to deal with the ‘how do I tell them I’m not attracted to them because they have a penis’? (Esp when those people wait until the very late minute to actually tell their potential partner that they still have a dick).

THEN she’ll need support. Unconditional support. I’d want to be there for her.

@AssassinatedBeauty

"There's no such thing as sex-segregated bathrooms in nature." - this is hilarious. Wow. Generally, as a rule, there are no bathrooms in nature. Sex segregated or not!

I this this is called Jumping The Shark. 😂

Some of it is that nobody wants to be ostracised from their peer group and being labelled a terf is the death knell for socialising among Gen Z.

@IHateCoronavirus

I am the messiah! Oh wait, don’t people get locked up for saying that?

It's an interesting thought! Say someone genuinely believes he is the Messiah. He suffers real emotional distress when people point out that he isn't. Maybe he can articulate that he feels much better about himself now that he has this belief. It might be kind, if you see him every day, to refrain from pointing this out and to go along with what he says. That doesn't mean that you believe he is the Messiah. It certainly doesn't mean that he is the Messiah and that religious organisations should be obliged to recognise him.

Interesting documentary from Canada that your daughter might find interesting.

It covers detransitioners and those happy with transition.

@AssassinatedBeauty

"There's no such thing as sex-segregated bathrooms in nature." - this is hilarious. Wow. Generally, as a rule, there are no bathrooms in nature. Sex segregated or not!

That's kind of the point, yeah.

Sex-based segregation, in and of itself, is a social construct. Categorizing humans into "men" and "women", and deciding which spaces they should be sorted into, is assigning social significance to sex. And there's a word for that: Gender.

Sex-based segregation is gender, and upholding sex-based segregation is the opposite of "abolishing gender".

@AlfonsoTheUnrepetant

Well my mum and myself have very different opinion on racism. She is happy to say many things about muslims for example in a very derogatory way which I find arborent. She doesn’t see anything wrong with those comments. So we avoid the subject to avoid the huge falling out coming with it.

Islam is a religion; not a race.

Yay yay, I knew someone would happily point it out….

In that case, it is about racism because my parents are in France and most Muslims there are from North Africa/arabic countries.
So it’s not just the religion that my mum has an issue with it’s all Arabs.

I just didn’t think going into those details had anything to my posts…..

Which is about maintaining a relationship with your child when you have such different pov on a subject that both of you might be seen as crucial.

You are a woman if you call yourself one. Simple as that. Anything else is irrelevant.

Anyone who genuinely believes this to be true in every circumstance is not a woman.

Note I say genuinely - I realise there are lots of biological women who say they believe this and try to force others to believe this.

But they know really that biological sex is sometimes relevant.

Make up your mind. Do you think trans people are bad for "conforming to stereotypes", or that they should "conform to stereotypes"?

Having a male body while saying you're a woman and a lesbian isn't breaking stereotypes. It's not a stereotype that women look like the female sex, because women are the adult category of the female sex. It would be a stereotype to say that women should wear dresses and make-up.

Sex-based segregation is gender, and upholding sex-based segregation is the opposite of "abolishing gender".

To me there are two threads to this, sex based segregation for facilities is necessary due to the power imbalance between males and females - mainly around physical strength and the risk of harm to women. There is an element of this also being due to gender differences, but stripping everything back it is purely because of sex.

On the flip side sex segregation in a country such as Afghanistan happens due to gender stereotypes and what is deemed to be a female's place in society. It is not to protect a woman from harm.