Rights Conflict - simple explanation?

[BreatheAndFocus]

I need a bit of help, please. I was texting with an old friend from school and they mentioned something about trans people (sorry for vagueness, trying not to identify them if they’re a MNer) and “how ridiculous some people are, saying there’s a conflict between trans’ rights and women’s rights”.

I started pointing out a few things, but it soon became clear, they had no real idea about the issue and genuinely saw it as a few bigots just being hateful for no reason.

So….how do I explain the rights conflict simply in a few sentences? I know that if I go in all guns blazing, they’ll get the hump and switch off. They also don’t like not knowing things so any specific references will be rejected if they don’t know about them and the conversation will be closed down. I want to keep the tone light and casual, but sum up the rights conflict simply, briefly and clearly.

Any help welcome! TIA

The male one and the mixed sex one were not enough for the males who identify as women, so they got the rules changed and decided the female one was for them.

This situation: the Hampstead Ponds one: this now means that male people have free choice of three pools on every visit.

There are female people who were regular swimmers, who cannot access mixed sex spaces and are now excluded from using the pools at all, so that male people can enjoy their experience using a female only pool. Despite having two other options available to them.

There were no attempts by the males demanding this to consider the needs of the females they were displacing. No willingness to talk about times, slots, to show any of the 'kindness' or 'inclusion' or 'intersectionality' so much shouted about. Zero care or consideration for others. Male people wanted what they wanted, bumped females out, removed access and facilities and took them for themselves. This is not 'inclusion', this is successful misogyny and sexist oppression by a group of males who should be ashamed of themselves.

Again: you can only justify this as ok if you hold a core belief that a biological male is intrinsically more important and entitled and a higher rank of human being to a biological female, and it is right and proper that biological females should be subordinated and have less than males do.

If you hold that belief, there's really no point in claiming not to believe that biological sex is a fixed fact, or that male people can be women: you're operating entirely from a highly prejudiced and wholly sex based belief. And again: the name of the belief you hold would be 'male supremacism'. Which is nothing to be remotely proud of.

I had to patiently explain to someone that if you have a single sex space and you allow more than one sex to use it then it's not single sex any more...

What about this? www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4424650-Male-reporter-presenting-as-male-identifies-as-female-is-let-into-changing-rooms

I thought the comment from Whingasaurus was interesting.

A friend of mine was complaining that all the senior management where she works are always men, but thought that trans women who 'passed' as women (her terminology) should be able to participate in women's sport.

I should have asked her: if half of your currently male senior management team announced they were all now women, and wore skirts, high heels and lipstick, would she be happy that women now had equal representation at SM level?

Why does what they wear mean anything?
They just need to announce it.

I feel it’s like banging my head against a brick wall with them. I honestly don’t think they get the debate at all. “Trans folk having rights doesn’t affect my rights as a cis woman at all and people who say it does are hate-filled transphobes and I’m not even going to entertain their bigotry”.

So, like many such women with a facile understanding of the issue, the slightest reference to anything that they might perceive as GC gets ignored, so it’s really hard to have a discussion. Any articles I link to will be dismissed. That’s why I started this thread, and I thank everyone who’s given examples.

I was trying to think of an analogy - where someone completely misunderstands the view of the ‘opposing side’ - but it’s hard to think of one. The misunderstanding is so deep. It’s that that annoys me probably more than us not agreeing.

Lia Thomas (transwoman) and Isaac Henig (transman) competing in the same race.

Lia Thomas: Male, identifies as a woman, has had no surgery, so remains a physically intact male. Started on cross-sex hormones and then switched from male to female competition as soon as the rules allowed it. Competing against men is not an option for Lia because that would just be too upsetting and triggering, because Lia is a woman now.

Isaac Henig: Female, identifies as a man. Has had double mastectomy BUT chosen to delay taking cross-sex hormones which would have sped up transition process but made Isaac ineligible to compete in women's sport. Isaac continues to compete as a woman, and does not find it too upsetting or triggering to do so, even though Isaac is now a man.

If you give the right to park in disabled spaces to everyone then you've effectively removed those spaces, and disabled people lose a privilege intended to offset the disadvantages they suffer.

Same for women's rights, which are intended to address specific disadvantages women have due to biology and culture and whatever-tf-it-is that causes males to commit virtually all sexual and violent crime. Grant those rights to men too and all that happens is women lose them.

And also for sports: the fairest way for humans to compete against each other is by sex category due to male advantages in terms of strength, speed and stamina. Give males the right to 'become female' and you take away women's right to fair competition on a level field.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/17/hospital-told-police-patient-not-raped-alleged-attacker-transgender/

This is a very clear example of the conflict of rights caused by trans dogma. The right of the victim to seek justice over the right of the transwomen to conceal their sex.

I was trying to think of an analogy - where someone completely misunderstands the view of the ‘opposing side’ - but it’s hard to think of one. The misunderstanding is so deep.
Maybe the mistake is to do their thinking for them. You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink.
Don't tell them what the answer is. Ask them questions, get them to defend their position.
For example, suggest to your friend that if they support Trans i.e. gender identity then that implies that they support gender stereotyping. Is that true? (double down if they have DC; do they have gendered-expectations of them?).

I agree with this approach @Senua I find many people currently are simply avoiding the arguments. They say "it is ridiculous...." and leave it at that. Not enough justification to change social expectations in such a profound way. Such a change needs to be argued for robustly.

In my daughter's previous class, there was a transgirl (known to all of them as a boy child until about age 16, so no query in anyone's mind over whether this was, say, just a very tall, bass-voiced, lanky girl). and one girl who we know had been seriously sexually assaulted.

The transgirl was a pleasant, unthreatening sort of kid. But the transgirl's presence, voice and size and undeniably male appearance and so on, was as genuinely triggering, in some situations, as any other boy's would have been to that girl. And she felt guilty about that, and was accusing herself of being bigoted for being panicked by the thought of a male teenager sharing the girls' changing facilities and loos.

I don't suppose he ever knew that, and the girl concerned was certainly never going to mention it to the school, because she put her feelings below his. And it looks like everyone else automatically does that too, when considering that sort of situation.

(I'm using 'his' there because it was too confusing to read with 'she' or 'they', and I doubt he reads MN.)

Would one way of explaining it to your friend in a hopefully non-confrontational way be to talk about how we’re all shaped by our history and personal experience? As I think talking about ‘rights’ can easily become confrontational as it sets up rights as something to be fought over.

I’m sure your friend will have been shaped in some way by being in a female body for the last thirty years - whether that’s by being steered towards English or netball rather than science or football at school, or by being alert to who’s walking behind her in a deserted park. And then those growing up male will have had different experiences, simply by virtue of being male.

And as we are all a product of our life history and experiences it’s pretty problematic to say that someone can just switch to the other gender/sex/whatever term your friend prefers.

@BreatheAndFocus

I need a bit of help, please. I was texting with an old friend from school and they mentioned something about trans people (sorry for vagueness, trying not to identify them if they’re a MNer) and “how ridiculous some people are, saying there’s a conflict between trans’ rights and women’s rights”.

I started pointing out a few things, but it soon became clear, they had no real idea about the issue and genuinely saw it as a few bigots just being hateful for no reason.

So….how do I explain the rights conflict simply in a few sentences? I know that if I go in all guns blazing, they’ll get the hump and switch off. They also don’t like not knowing things so any specific references will be rejected if they don’t know about them and the conversation will be closed down. I want to keep the tone light and casual, but sum up the rights conflict simply, briefly and clearly.

Any help welcome! TIA

Instead of trying to impress anything on them, simply ask them questions and tease out how clueless they are, not in a nasty way, and then point out that they don't seem to understand the issue themselves.

If you want to say something simply ask them what sex is and what gender is and ensure you receive clear definitions then go from there.

@sophienelisse

When I explained it to my DH the bit that "got him" was about mixed martial arts fights.

www.sportskeeda.com/amp/mma/news-when-transgender-fighter-fallon-fox-broke-opponent-s-skull-mma-fight

Until then he didn't get it.

I asked my TWAW husband 'why can't I be a transwoman?' and he said 'because you're already a woman'

At this point I told him he could drop the charade as we could both see hew knew what a woman was, and he did. He said he was 'just trying to be nice'

@crispmidnightpeace On the TWAW argument I think pointing out that if trans women are women then it follows that women are also trans women can highlight the absurdity.

Because if there is absolutely no difference between trans women and women then surely women can play trans women in films, represent them when speaking to the media etc without any issues, no?

@Rainbowshit

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/03/17/hospital-told-police-patient-not-raped-alleged-attacker-transgender/

This is a very clear example of the conflict of rights caused by trans dogma. The right of the victim to seek justice over the right of the transwomen to conceal their sex.

This.

Though I agree with crispmidnightpeace it's best to ask questions - why is this situation okay, have you read what they actually said and if so which bit is the problme - that was useful with DD around JKR for me.

I just found out that my step daugher is a fully fledge TERF.

I'm so proud.

Apparently she has never been so animated as when talking about it.

Welcome aboard.

I tried the ‘asking questions’ tack - asking politely and in a neutral way - but friend doubled down and reeled off crap she’d heard online about how TW are the most disadvantaged blah blah blah. I then moved to Lia and, again, framed my question neutrally. Friend then praised Lia and, to be blunt, acted like a f**king simpering doormat.

She’s now shut down any conversation and says she’s not interested in hate 🙄 I asked her if she was accusing the hypothetical Moslem women who needed a single sex swim session hateful, and she’s not answered. I don’t expect her to answer either. She might as well have stuffed unicorn poo in her ears. She’s pathetic.

of being hateful