DH starting to get it

[teawamutu]

I just picked up the height and weight check permission form for one of the DCs - DH had already filled it in but I wanted to cross out 'gender' and put SEX.

Only he already had.

Truly I am feeling the warm fuzzies right now. Knew there was a reason I married him

Noice. The more sunlight on this the better.

I absolutely know where you are coming from, but as someone who deals with these forms I can assure you that it is ignored and it goes down as gender.

@GoodnightGrandma

I absolutely know where you are coming from, but as someone who deals with these forms I can assure you that it is ignored and it goes down as gender.

Ah, probably.

But still happy.

I always complain then I see Gender: Male, Female etc.

The more noise we make the better.

Worth formally complaining. I recently replied to a council consultation on public toilets and they only asked for gender. I wrote a lot about single sex spaces and that to ask for gender rather than the protected characteristics of sex and gender reassignment certificate was likely to lead to survey data that was inaccurate. I asked to be contacted by the organiser of the survey (council employee) - they havent done so, so I am escalating it with the council.

If a reply on a form is likely to be ignored then get the form changed at a more senior level.

@GoodnightGrandma

I absolutely know where you are coming from, but as someone who deals with these forms I can assure you that it is ignored and it goes down as gender.

Not the point.

Its still a protest. And it still is seen by someone. Even if they have no power to do anything.

If everyone started doing it for everything it would make it more acceptable to be having the conversation about this subject because others will feel they aren't alone in concerns.

Its thousands of grains of sand that make a beach.

It's also symbolic.

DH is a truly good, respectful man but was very much 'be kind' and just didn't see the female POV. He was really shocked when he asked me where tw were meant to go and I said it wasn't women's problem to solve. He thought I'd been radicalised.

He still thinks Glinner's gone too far.

But he's seeing the scale of the problem now. Which is great from a personal POV and heartening if he's one of many decent men getting it.

DH is a truly good, respectful man but was very much 'be kind' and just didn't see the female POV. He was really shocked when he asked me where tw were meant to go and I said it wasn't women's problem to solve. He thought I'd been radicalised.

I hope there will be a time when all such men look at themselves in a mirror when intoning, #BeKind. I would welcome them evangelising amongst each other to ensure that people who expand the bandwidth of what it means to be a man are entirely unremarked upon in the male single sex spaces and can not complain about feeling unsafe.

My DH sounds very similar OP, he always got the main issues (sports, hospital wards, toilets) but was in the Be Kind camp and genuinely believed there to be a group who were marginalised, without human rights, with suicidal tendencies and this group live a constant daily battle being discriminated at work.

We rarely discuss it now but every time the mainstream media cover it I don't need to say a word.

I hope there will be a time when all such men look at themselves in a mirror when intoning, #BeKind. I would welcome them evangelising amongst each other to ensure that people who expand the bandwidth of what it means to be a man are entirely unremarked upon in the male single sex spaces and can not complain about feeling unsafe.

Agreed. Because for every foul, misogynist, bearded wokebro there's a genuinely kind man who just hasn't quite seen it that way. They're the ones we need.

It’s much harder for men to “get it”, as they have no skin in the game. No man is going to lose out on an Olympic medal because a transman pushed him off the team.
No man is going to be raped in an isolated men’s toilet late at night by a predatory woman taking advantage of self id to pretend to be trans. Or be terrified at being forced to share a prison cell with a convicted transman. Or lose out on shortlists designed to help male inequality. Or be filmed on the toilet by a transman planting a camera to feed their fetish.
The best way to get them on side is to ask the Staniland question. Would they be happy for their teenage daughter to face a naked penis in a female changing room. And follow up with the sports/prisons.
I am heartened by the almost 100% GC support shown by men on the Times online comments whenever there is a trans article.
We are definitely making progress.

@GoodnightGrandma

I absolutely know where you are coming from, but as someone who deals with these forms I can assure you that it is ignored and it goes down as gender.

I can assure you that will not in any way stop me from doing it.

@Babdoc

It’s much harder for men to “get it”, as they have no skin in the game. No man is going to lose out on an Olympic medal because a transman pushed him off the team. No man is going to be raped in an isolated men’s toilet late at night by a predatory woman taking advantage of self id to pretend to be trans. Or be terrified at being forced to share a prison cell with a convicted transman. Or lose out on shortlists designed to help male inequality. Or be filmed on the toilet by a transman planting a camera to feed their fetish. The best way to get them on side is to ask the Staniland question. Would they be happy for their teenage daughter to face a naked penis in a female changing room. And follow up with the sports/prisons. I am heartened by the almost 100% GC support shown by men on the Times online comments whenever there is a trans article. We are definitely making progress.

I get your point but not sure that I agree entirely. Most "normal men" - straight men with ordinary jobs - have female family members that they care about... and most straight men have a MASSIVE MASSIVE MASSIVE problem if you suggest that they're bigoted for rejecting male women (especially male women with penises.)

It's not so much "getting it" as actually thinking about things, and I think it applies to women as much or nearly as much as men... obviously trans people are humans, obviously we don't want to be bigoted against trans people and we need to give them all reasonable rights they ask for... the problem is how few people, especially men, have then made the effort to think things through.

And even if you do think things through it is so easy to miss angles... for example... "trans women are women, be nice" is something that is easy to agree with... the idea that TWAW means TW rapists should be in a women's prison is something that's very easy to not think of, or if you do think of it to assume that no-one in power would be so utterly crazy as to actually think about doing it.

@GoodnightGrandma

I absolutely know where you are coming from, but as someone who deals with these forms I can assure you that it is ignored and it goes down as gender.

Well yes, but the point is to get people to think.

@Babdoc

It’s much harder for men to “get it”, as they have no skin in the game. No man is going to lose out on an Olympic medal because a transman pushed him off the team. No man is going to be raped in an isolated men’s toilet late at night by a predatory woman taking advantage of self id to pretend to be trans. Or be terrified at being forced to share a prison cell with a convicted transman. Or lose out on shortlists designed to help male inequality. Or be filmed on the toilet by a transman planting a camera to feed their fetish. The best way to get them on side is to ask the Staniland question. Would they be happy for their teenage daughter to face a naked penis in a female changing room. And follow up with the sports/prisons. I am heartened by the almost 100% GC support shown by men on the Times online comments whenever there is a trans article. We are definitely making progress.

This

On a recent staff survey there was no question on biological sex, the question was 'How would you describe yourself ? with the options of male, female, non binary, prefer not to say. I chose the prefer not to say option and ranted in the additional comments section.

It's always heartening when other men get it. We have come a long way from #NoDebate and must never be bullied back there.

The men in my immediate family all get it. My father (in his eighties) and my son (young Millennial) are both, "Of course people can't change sex and men shouldn't be in women's prisons or rugby teams, please can we talk about something that's not just plain stupid?" My husband is more thoughtful and eloquent and willing to engage in discussion, and I'm pleased to have him at my side.