Is MH just an echo chamber on FWR?

[NarcissasMumintheDoghouse]

Article in the New Statesman shows women's rights not a voter priority (and elsewhere in the publication they predict Labour would get more votes that the Tories).
sotn.newstatesman.com/2022/03/sotn-what-issues-matter-most-to-voters/

In fact, some of your comments are bordering on that famed 'hate speech' you've stated you're aware is against the law

I know where the delusion is and it isn't with most of the posters here

It's with the people who think that because they can't win a debate on an open forum ( one unlike Twitter , Facebook , even the press with no manipulation of what material you see ) that it must mean that somehow an echo chamber has spontaneously formed , rather than entertaining the idea that once people educate themselves, on the whole they tend to agree with each other

Please describe the mechanism where by this echo chamber has formed ?

I don't think trans women are males or that trans men are females.

We just want to understand your terms of reference here - I simply don't accept that trans women are not male, when 'male' means of the male reproductive class, one of the two classes that all humans are (barring the absolutely minuscule number of people with certain very rare VSDs). Ditto for trans men and 'female'.

@Artichokeleaves

Thing is, when you dig down into the very real threat about families struggling to feed children...

let's be honest about which parent is most likely to do the shopping and cooking and the trying to make budgets stretch to do this
which parent is most likely to be raising children as a single parent, quite possibly with little to no financial support from the other parent
which parent is most likely to be on a lower income as a result of having been the one who was pregnant, gave birth and spent time out of their career for children

Women's rights come into everything about this. We cannot recognise or address the issues if we can't identify who women are in law or separate out that being biologically female comes with specific issues, needs and challenges that are not the same as male people's regardless of their gender identity.

There is going to be a whole lot of shouting of 'squirrel' phrases like 'yes but what really matters is....' - they are not unrelated issues. Just the usual attempt to scold women for womening wrong.

This is key point. Women are hardest hit by poverty, and their children . Women are more likely to carry sole burden of child care and low wage jobs.

If we can’t do something easy like define the word woman how they hell are we going to measure that going forwards. How are we going to do impact assessments on the most vulnerable part of society in terms of hardship and poverty for policies and laws ?

It is all linked….

I generally find it amusing that the so-called 'intersectional feminists' are not only dismissive of women, but as here, of religious sensitivities. There's a definite hierarchy of whose views matter, and god forbid listening to anyone who ever voted Tory or doesn't think we should have open borders, on anything, ever. But we are the 'echo chamber', go figure

Well you said you see trans women as women so something must be going on in your head to accept this change so why not simply share it?
It is simple surely?

I will be honest and say I am more gender-critical than I used to be when I first joined MN about 5 years ago. The recent issues in women's sport have contributed to this shift in my perspective.

However, I do feel that many people, me included, are concerned now with the very basics of survival and my political voting choice will be for the party who best represents the interests of the working person. I don't have the luxury of being able to consider wider issues.

Ted's comments are just chef's kiss that they have no cohesive arguements.

Another one bites the dust 🤣

@BringBackCoffeeCreams

I don't think it's an echo chamber, I just think it isn't the number 1 priority for many people. Myself included. It's a very important issue but families not being able to feed their children is far more important at the moment in my opinion.

This.

I don't think it's an echo chamber, I just think it isn't the number 1 priority for many people

What could be more important than the safety of women and girls?

@Fenlandia

I don't think trans women are males or that trans men are females.

We just want to understand your terms of reference here - I simply don't accept that trans women are not male, when 'male' means of the male reproductive class, one of the two classes that all humans are (barring the absolutely minuscule number of people with certain very rare VSDs). Ditto for trans men and 'female'.

OK - I accept and believe there is a disconnect in the way the individual perceives themselves and their body and what they think their sex should be, and what their body actually is. They may have male or female reproductive organs but I believe that the disconnect is such that they experience life differently to natal men and women because they do not believe that is what they are. Many trans women won’t have the typical male privilege because they may have been excluded or bullied for looking “girly” or being gay, or even socially transitioned (e.g dressing in a manner generally perceived as female) as teenagers. Not all. Some live well into adulthood as men, I am aware. But my stance is that I cannot possibly know what it feels like to believe your bodily sex is wrong, and therefore I’m not in a position to discount that or deny that a “feeling” of being male or female pr non binary exists for these people, and that for me is sufficient to think trans people are substantially different from biological men and women.

The feeding of women and girls
The physical health

A specific religious teaching/opinion, such as one that men and women can’t be in the same room together being incorporated into public policy = bad

But as LK1972 has pointed out, this is a protected belief under the Equality Act. If some people with certain religious beliefs can't be in a mixed sex group when undressed, for example, it is reasonable to make concessions, such as making single sex arrangements available for them. This doesn't have any effect on other people who prefer mixed sex groups.

What about the specific religious belief that a man is a woman if he says he is? Is that good or bad? What makes it good or bad? Should we all be compelled to share this particular belief and incorporate it into public policy? Should there be penalties for those who don't share this belief?

How do you decide which beliefs are good and which are bad? Do you just think beliefs are good if they're your beliefs and bad if they're not?

Many transwomen thjnk they don't have male privilege but many tend to demonstrate otherwise

Just look at the prevalence of transowmwn voices over transmen

And that isn't the point
The pointing dangling penis is the point
The physical reality

It doesn't matter how hard done by they are they don't get to ride roughshod over others , they need solutions that demonstrate they have no male privilege by not expecting womens spaces

But my stance is that I cannot possibly know what it feels like to believe your bodily sex is wrong, and therefore I’m not in a position to discount that or deny that a “feeling” of being male or female pr non binary exists for these people, and that for me is sufficient to think trans people are substantially different from biological men and women.

So you don't believe that they have changed sex, you believe that they believe it and them believing it is enough for you to take everything they tell you as true?

So basically any man can say they feel like a woman and that's enough for you to take them at their word?

I cannot possibly know what it feels like to believe your bodily sex is wrong, and therefore I’m not in a position to discount that or deny that a “feeling” of being male or female pr non binary exists for these people, and that for me is sufficient to think trans people are substantially different from biological men and women.

Do you believe everyone who declares they 'feel' they are transgender? Do you think it possible that some males might declare that they have this feeling when they do not?

Well I can tell you that feeling like yiu are the wrong sex is pretty horrid but quite easy to overcome once you accept reality

Yep, OldCrone, religious belief =bad, belief that trans women are 'female'=good seems to be Teds argument, not sure Ted understands that free speech implies the freedom of belief, or is even aware that to most people Teds belief is very much like religion, something they are happy for Ted to have but not IMPOSE on the rest of us. And Ted is being very mean to all those throughout history that 'felt' at one with their God, guess their feeling is just not as important as a man feeling he's a woman.

You said what you said @TedMullins. And what you said was homophobic.

@OldCrone

I cannot possibly know what it feels like to believe your bodily sex is wrong, and therefore I’m not in a position to discount that or deny that a “feeling” of being male or female pr non binary exists for these people, and that for me is sufficient to think trans people are substantially different from biological men and women.

Do you believe everyone who declares they 'feel' they are transgender? Do you think it possible that some males might declare that they have this feeling when they do not?

I think people who are transgender generally want to ‘pass’ as their desired gender and take steps to try and ensure this happens. Usually, there is a commitment to living in that gender, whether mandated by a doctor or through choice of the individual. I may be dubious of someone who had never shown any previous signs of misalignment with their sex and gender suddenly declaring they felt transgender but not taking any steps to embrace that lifestyle. It would entirely depend on the individual. Some people may be trans but prefer not to be ‘out’, so it might not necessarily mean they are lying.

But given that countries with self ID in legislature haven’t reported a huge uptick in men pretending to be trans for nefarious purposes, I don’t think it would become a widespread issue, although it is of course possible that a minority of people might, and indeed, have, well before self ID was a talking point. People exploit all sorts of things for bad reasons, it doesn’t mean that everyone who is trans is also bad. Most trans people don’t want to be challenged in public so I think it’s unlikely that man who looks like a man but feels he is trans is going to start waltzing into a woman’s toilet. These are all pure hypotheticals that I can’t predict any more than anyone on this board. In an ideal world, gender stereotypes wouldn’t exist and everyone would be comfortable using mixed facilities and dressing/presenting/feeling exactly as they pleased, but that isn’t the world we live in, and much of the debate around public facilities is predicated on appearance.

Some people on here like to deny that butch lesbians have been challenged in women’s toilets after being mistaken for men but I know someone who this has happened to, and have no reason to think they are lying any more than a woman who says they’ve had an upsetting encounter with a trans woman is lying. Because of the fact that appearance plays such a huge part in this, I think it unlikely that a genuine trans person who still looks like the sex they were born as would attempt to use facilities for the opposite sex, for fear of what could happen. But again, this is all conjecture, the answer is that I don’t know, and you don’t know, and none of us can possibly answer that question with any certainty because we can’t predict the future.

But given that countries with self ID in legislature haven’t reported a huge uptick in men pretending to be trans for nefarious purposes

Is this actually true or did they just stop recording things nefarious men were doing as men, and start recording them as women? Thus they would never be able to know? As soon as self I'd comes in, the concept of 'women' ceases to exist.

Exactly

Although that last data I found online showed a large increase in sexual assault in Canada in recent years

@AlisonDonut

But given that countries with self ID in legislature haven’t reported a huge uptick in men pretending to be trans for nefarious purposes

Is this actually true or did they just stop recording things nefarious men were doing as men, and start recording them as women? Thus they would never be able to know? As soon as self I'd comes in, the concept of 'women' ceases to exist.

Has there been a huge uptick of reports of sex offences committed by women in those countries? If there has, and you can provide a source, I’m happy to reassess my stance, but to my knowledge this hasn’t happened.

Sex segregation also clearly does not prevent sexual assaults. A man who lived in the town I grew up in subsequently made the local news for putting on a rubber woman mask and recording women in a toilet. He wasn’t trans, he was just a pervert, and even if he had been trans, he’d still have been a pervert! This was about 12 years ago, before any of this was being talked about.

What is more important for safety is the design of public facilities with things like floor to ceiling walls with no gaps and sinks in cubicles so everyone can use the toilet privately, and as I KEEP stating, private options for those who request them where there are open communal spaces. There is a communal changing area with cubicles in the open in the leisure centre where I grew up that’s been there since the 70s and to my knowledge it has never caused any issues, my mother and her friends used to use it frequently and never expressed any discomfort. Mixed facilities already exist, and trans people already use single sex facilities, probably largely unnoticed, and have been doing for years and years before this became an issue of debate.

@TedMullins unless I have missed it, you still haven’t why you wish to exclude women from society by taking away spaces which would help them to navigate society? As most public spaces are not floor to ceiling separate cubicles, whee do you suggest these women go?

Thanks for your long reply Ted.

Usually, there is a commitment to living in that gender

Can you explain what you mean by this? How does someone live in a gender? In a recent report about one of the GRA consultations (I can't remember if it was a UK or Scottish one) they mentioned removing the requirement to 'live as' the opposite 'gender' because it was impossible to define what this meant without relying on outdated stereotypes.

But given that countries with self ID in legislature haven’t reported a huge uptick in men pretending to be trans for nefarious purposes

In Ireland there have been a few males who have conveniently decided they were transgender just before receiving a prison sentence. This has left the Irish prison service with a difficult problem because they (astonishingly) didn't foresee this happening, so the legislation didn't take this scenario into account and they had no choice but to send these males to a women's prison. The numbers are small (Ireland is a small country), but this is undoubtedly serious for the wellbeing of the women who are in that prison.

Most trans people don’t want to be challenged in public so I think it’s unlikely that man who looks like a man but feels he is trans is going to start waltzing into a woman’s toilet.

Please can we leave toilets out of this? People who come on here trying to convince us that TWAW always want to talk about toilets (no idea why). Feel free to google Katie Dolatowski, though.

These are all pure hypotheticals that I can’t predict any more than anyone on this board.

Not hypothetical. Here's a thread about things that have actually happened.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3348290-It-will-never-happen-resource-thread

Because of the fact that appearance plays such a huge part in this, I think it unlikely that a genuine trans person who still looks like the sex they were born as would attempt to use facilities for the opposite sex, for fear of what could happen.

Do you really think males fear women?