What IS the answer?

[Youdonthavetobegood]

I'm firmly GC with my opinion now, and happy with that. But I have a few questions (hopefully not incendiary but who knows these days) but genuine ones that im not really sure the answer to.

When I've had (heated) debates with friends taking the opposite stance, they often come up with the counter argument to keeping female only spaces, as 'where are raped transwomen supposed to go? Where are transwomen prisoners supposed to go? where are they supposed to go if they are domestically abused?'

And I'm really not sure of the answer. Partly I kind of want to say, well it depends how far on their transitioning they are? Like, do they have a penis still? Can they still rape.women? But that somehow feels a bit crass, particularly in the refuge scenario.

So what is the answer to this kind of pushback? A third space? If so, would there be funding for this? It's not as though I don't have compassion for transwomen who have been raped or beaten, so I'm genuinely interested as to the best solution to this, that doesn't further endanger women, or transwomen (I guess in the case of them being in a male prison and fearing for their safety because they are trans.)

What's the compassionate answer?

I can only conclude that the problem isn’t the third spaces themselves, which are just unisex facilities and services, it’s the provision of services for women.

Feminists on a feminism board have every right to say “this is not a feminist issue”. Not everything falls under feminism. Many of us would agree that the NHS needs more funding. But that is not a feminist issue and these boards are not the place for that discussion no matter how strongly we may agree. Likewise a campaign to stop the extinction of endangered animals or sustainable clothing or workers rights or an improvement in disability rights. Whilst there may be a feminist angle to any of those they are not exclusively feminist issues.

Sorry, you must have missed memorandum 2iii1b: intersectionality means feminism does actually make women responsible for all these things.

Oh I see the tweet thread.

@chiller you seem to have a distinct comprehension bias but I am sure you don’t care because, well, fame and glory. I am right?

You have certainly gloried in your false comparator of race vs sex. And, to be fair, it has been done over and over before.

But thanks for pointing out that you would be very happy for your mum to be place in a jail cell with a male rapist if they identified as a woman. I am sure she would be most pleased.

I am also sure she’d be well pleased that if she needed a place to help heal from rape, that you have been instrumental in promoting that she might have to share a dorm with a male. I can certainly see where your kindness gets the mum you have used as an emotive manipulation tool.

You know that there are no evidence that certain races commit sex crime because of they are that race. That the racism you speak of was a shameful part of history and to be abhorred.

But racial segregation is not the same as sex segregation. I am sure you understand why.

And it is clear you, and your twitter mates, cannot actually understand what women are saying when they say, ‘it is not for women to sort out’. It is not from a lack of compassion or empathy as you put it, but a prioritisation of our efforts. We are focused on supporting females however they identify. Females! Not males.

Obviously a shock for you to have read it. You obviously are fully immersed in the narrative that females should be nurturing all minorities and campaigns to better the world. You know, I have heard that described as feminism too. But I don’t subscribe to it at all.

Take a step back from yourselves. What you have become is not good.

So… an instruction to what ‘educate’ ourselves? Well, thank you. I have.

Next time you come to shame women discussing their needs for single sex spaces to upheld and express your disgust, could you please bring the evidence of where transitioning has decreased the male propensity to commit sex crime to that of the female rate.

No? You don’t have it? …. We know! There is no evidence. In fact, look at the hand sorted statistics and it paints an entirely different picture.

Maybe instead you, in turn, should take a step back from twitter and do some reading. And some critical thinking away from seeking acclaim.

Need some places to start?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

Particularly towards the end it is a very good archive of links etc. You might find some interesting studies listed and unless you are prone to outsourcing your critical thinking skills to self identified social media influencers, you might understand why your comparator falls flat.

And why the screenshots you did post are not the ‘gotcha’ that you obviously felt they were.

@SomepeopleareTERFSgetoverit

PP suggests their problem not ours is a hateful stance. When I read that I heard “Why isn’t mummy making it better?”

Women are not here to solve all the problems of the world.

That was exactly how it comes across from the post and the tweet thread.

Hateful women, not putting their attention to making life easy for males, and focusing on … females, of all ages. Very naughty women!

And using the term ‘solution’ like they don’t realise it is such a dirty, dirty hurty word.

And to recommend that lobby groups and charities spend their money getting spaces that suit those individuals needs for their own privacy and safety while preserving the privacy, dignity and safety of women… what horrors!

I only know cos OJ has retweeted.

Maybe OJ did at one stage retweet it, then actually read the tweet thread and realized that if he left it up it would make him subject to people pointing out that those posts don’t actually say what the tweeter wants them to say. And so may have deleted it quickly.

That must be gut wrenching for a person aiming for so much acclaim to have potentially had the attention of such a one as OJ and lost it.

@merrymouse

I also fail to understand why third spaces are inherently problematic given the increase in numbers of people who are not comfortable identifying as male or female and the large numbers of people who say they are happy to use any toilet if the queue is short.

Validation Why did TRA in Scotland campaign for the word gender rather than sex in the legislation about consent in sexual assault trials? If gender was used a male* would be given the right to ID as a woman and carry out a sexual assault examination on behalf of the State. The male would be placing objects and male body parts on and in the body of someone who had suffered a sexual assault. The male would attend Court and testify under oath that the victim of the sexual assault had consented to the State collecting evidence on the provision that woman carry out the examination. The male would testify to a jury that State's evidence collection process (placing objects and male body parts on and in the victim body) including obtaining consent had been followed.

(*Same for a female when a man was requested)

The point that the State would be legalise sexual assault by a medical professional was not a problem.
The point that the male medical professional would have to be immoral and willing to commit perjury to obtain a conviction was not a problem.
The point that the male medical professional would have committed sexual assault to obtain evidence for a conviction was not a problem.

At first I think I also felt like I had to ‘provide’ some kind of thought into what trans women could use instead.

Which is weird, it’s not my issue. I’m a woman, and being one can be hard enough with our own issues.

It just comes back to rigid gender stereotypes - men have a problem and shout about it because they don't know what to do, women are blamed and forced to solve it to avoid their ire.

Women are socially conditioned into the role of the peacemaker and the problem-solver from a very early age - it's natural that so many women want to help trans people as it all comes back to stereotypical gender roles.

PP suggests their problem not ours is a hateful stance.

Oh dear, that's beyond funny.

For years women have been saying 'this excludes those women, and what about those women who can't use mixed sex spaces, and what about this alternative and that alternative that would meet your needs and these women's needs?' And have been met with howls of 'that's hateful!' and 'those women don't exist' and I think Lily Madigan mentioned those women with faiths, cultures etc interrupting what Madigan wanted should just abandon those faiths and cultures on the spot, right now, and think/believe what Madigan did. And women with disabilities, trauma, history of assault, women prisoners? It's been openly stated - the Trans political lobby does not care , has no hesitation at all in saying so very bluntly, and sees no responsibility to care for or consider those women, only TW.

So excluding and saying 'we don't care if you have no facilities/get raped and assaulted' is not the hateful bit, it's fine to say that to women: women saying no to males that is the bit that's objectionable.
#notyourmum . If the political lobby don't like the taste of their own medicine then perhaps they shouldn't have dished it out so freely.

It takes a long time to set up third spaces

Better get cracking then. Disabled access took some years to set up. Refuges did. This does not justify ramming women out of their own resources and expecting them to suck up the disadvantage that apparently is far too much to expect TW to bear, even considering those women have no other available resources to use while TW always have male facilities and often other facilities available too. It's like the whole 'TW are in terrible danger in male facilities' thing while at the same time telling women who protest about the danger to them of mixed sex spaces that they're being silly, and some women getting hurt or worse is a fair price for TW being happier in society.

The double standards are insane. It's just straight out, sex based thinking predicated on two sexes where one matters and the other doesn't. No.

I just love you women. The thought skills and knowledge of women in this debate are exemplary and highlight our true fabulicity (new word). Welling up when I see the real compassion of women, for women.

Women first in this debate, no apologies.

We're not always great, but on this subject, we are excellent.

Dear oh dear.

The lengths some will go to in order to shame and berate women for fighting to maintain their perfectly legal rights and boundaries, trotting out the same tired arguments that hold no water.

Once again for those who still don't get it:

Males with identities already have all of their right.

It's not women's problem that they don't want the rights and provision made for them. ( ie male changing rooms etc)

Including males in any single sex provision for females immediately excludes certain groups of females. That's colonisation and male supremacy.

Being shocked, offended, hurt and disappointed because the nasty women won't put males others before themselves says quite a lot about you rather than us.

I won't bend the knee, neither will countless others and sad little screenshots posted on Twitter for head pats won't do much to shame us into submission either, but you do you.

The tide is turning. Women Won't Wheest. Ever.

The answer is for people to come to terms with the fact they can not change sex and that gender is an abstract construct.

They do not campaign for 3rd spaces because they do not want third spaces.

Look at the Hampstead Heath ponds, there are mens, 'ladies' and mixed. But the TRA's insisted on being allowed into the ladies pond.

There are ofc men who identify as trans who simply want to live their lives and would not dream of entering women only spaces. For the TRA's breaking women's boundaries is the point.

merrymouse I must have been practicing my hair flicking when that email went out 😉

Men who are serving a prison sentence should stay in the men's prison and refrain from pretending to be women.

They don't want third spaces because that apparently means no validation. I would support 3rd spaces.

I always find it interesting that when TRAs post screenshots from Mumsnet threads, they never ever post a link to the thread?

Why is that?

If its all so laughably batshit here, then why not post the link so that everyone can have a proper good look......?

Because if you put it honestly in context, people would see things you didn't want them to see and think other than you want them to think.

That's the key difference. Women here encourage everyone to read everything, from all sides, and to engage brain and think for themselves. That's the dangerous bit apparently.

Thefartingsofaofdenmarkstreet

indoctrination requires control of the source material.

It's always amazing to see the amount of people on Twitter who read without critical thinking or any effort to do any independent fact checking.
The evolution of myth and legend must be a social researchers dream.

@Thefartingsofaofdenmarkstreet

I always find it interesting that when TRAs post screenshots from Mumsnet threads, they never ever post a link to the thread?

Why is that?

If its all so laughably batshit here, then why not post the link so that everyone can have a proper good look......?

That is interesting. I've never seen a link, only ever screenshots.

Gadzooks. Holy context & verifiability.

Yes, it's all about controlling the narrative (and making sure no-one actually visits MN to see for themselves - just stay well away from those nasty witches).

Also, some of the things they screenshot probably end up being deleted for breaching MN rules anyway, so screenshotting them makes the outside works believe that MN allows that kind of talk, when often the extreme/insulting stuff ends up getting deleted after the activists have waltzed away with the fruits of their labour.

Let's be honest, some of what has been screenshot for Twitter has been screenshot in the first place by the Twitter person coming here and posting it themselves to prove their point, and then quickly screenshotting it before it can be deleted.

It really is a problem when the witches won't even create the evidence and you have to do it for them. No end to the emotional labour.

@Artichokeleaves

Let's be honest, some of what has been screenshot for Twitter has been screenshot in the first place by the Twitter person coming here and posting it themselves to prove their point, and then quickly screenshotting it before it can be deleted.

It really is a problem when the witches won't even create the evidence and you have to do it for them. No end to the emotional labour.

I saw that happen once.

I clicked to open a thread so I could report. The op was 2 minutes old. By the time I clicked back to the list of threads it had been deleted.

The original post was tweeted as an example of mumsnet transphobia.

Although, my favourite is the screenshot of many deleted posts...

We'd been posting recipes and there had been a heated discussion about some sort of weetabix monstrosity.

Aw no, not the damn weetabix. No wonder MN is the Millwall of parenting sites.

NoThankYouSaurus
Transwomen are not trying to smash male stereotypes and expand the bandwidth of what it is to be a man

No; they are trying to smash the female definition and expand the bandwidth of what it is to be a woman.

From the outside.