Please can someone explain like I’m 5

[Justdontgetit000]

I’ve name changed for this.

I feel very weird about the trans issues lately, something feels “off” but I can’t put it into words. I’m pretty left wing, very pro-choice, I consider myself a feminist.

I “hang around” online with others who have similar beliefs to me mostly, they are the ones I find myself agreeing with and wanting to defend. So I feel like I know where I am with most topics. Then on a forum I lurk on, someone got banned for saying they don’t want to be referred to as body parts. The person who started the thread (who is also a mod) said that when discussing Roe v Wade we can’t just say “women” we also need to say AFAB or “womb/uterus owners”. If we don’t our posts will be removed. I don’t post on there anyway so doesn’t affect me, but it rubbed me the wrong way.

I can’t articulate why, I feel like I’m in a place mentally where I SHOULD be fine with this because of all my other beliefs. Does that make sense? Yet I felt angry reading this. I don’t want to be offending people simply for using the word “women”. Then I feel guilty and like I’m transphobic?

I want to say I have no issues with any trans people, in that I’d have nothing but love and support for a friend for example who was trans, and would never ever be rude to or abusive towards trans people. Yet I get the feeling my mixed emotions towards all this would get me called a TERF. I know what that stands for but don’t really understand the term, I know a little of JK Rowling and her situation and I read that she got some awful messages after her controversial tweets, and that scares me. So I’d only talk about this anonymously.

Can anyone help me figure out, in a very basic way, what is happening in my mind and perhaps point me in a direction where I can learn more? I’ve tried to look for threads like FAQs about this issue but can’t find any.

Thanks for reading!

Cognitive dissonance hurts, but recognising one has been duped also hurts.

Preference falsification is worth looking at.

Women on these boards also quite often have doubts:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4540123-im-having-an-are-we-the-baddies-moment

These are healthy. It's good to question your beliefs. It's good to not always agree with those whom you might see as 'on your side'. If you have to always agree, that's not friendship, that's a cult.

(We can't say 'cult', btw, so this post might get deleted. )

I'm glad you stuck with this thread OP, and glad that my post resonated, despite the weird formatting errors italicising and bold typing random sentences! Sorry about that, should have previewed the post.

Great post thank you, and many thanks also for the link to that thread, that’s exactly what I was looking for.

I’m not familiar with some of those topics you’ve listed, for instance “trans away the gay”, but I’m assuming it means instead of a person accepting they might be gay, they instead transition to the opposite gender so they can continue to call themselves straight? Things like that are so important and need to be talked about.

Oh something else that occurred to me today is this - I have a lot of personal experience (unfortunately) of the very right-leaning Christian fundamentalist mentality, and they are big on “boys being boys” and being manly, not letting them play with dolls or make up for example, and they would say this is part of what is causing so many trans issues. But isn’t it the opposite? If they did let their boys play with dolls for example, and still called them a healthy happy boy, that boy might be LESS likely to want to become a girl, not more?

So they are inadvertently contributing to the problem!

ps. Sorry if I don’t get to reply to every comment, I’m grateful for every single one of them! I’m reading them all and so thankful for the links and the info.

Totally agree with you, in fact I’d say it’s absolutely essential to question our beliefs every so often and I consider it a huge sign of intelligence when talking to someone when they say they look at things from all angles and don’t arrogantly assume theirs is the only correct way.

Cognitive dissonance, yes that sums up this feeling I’m having lately pretty well.

No it was brilliant, didn’t even notice tbh!! 😘

Thank you for these links, much appreciated!

Oh interesting about the “if men got pregnant” statement! Very revealing.

Brilliant, thanks so much for that book recommendation, going to try to get it second hand if possible.

I didn’t know there was a racist origin when it comes to this kind of language..ok this is where I feel very confused about all this because I know in Black Lives Matter’s manifesto, they are extremely defensive of Black trans people and wanting to protect them.

I feel bad saying this, but sometimes I feel like there’s a connection between the far right anti-trans people and the far left pro-trans people! Like they have more in common than they realise, I’m sure there’s a phenomenon of this but can’t remember what it’s called.

Thanks for your kind words 🥰 I’m totally with you, I’ve got nothing against trans people living their lives, doing what they want to do etc, I’d never ever be rude to a person on account of them being trans.

The change in language is a line in the sand moment, in fact it was on this other forum where that mod said we HAVE to include the other terms or we’ll be deleted, that actually made me feel degraded as a woman, and I don’t feel that way often, the only times have been from very obviously abusive and misogynistic men. It was a weird feeling.

On the subject of changing sex, can I ask a question? As far as I’m aware, and from reading more since last night, there are only two sexes and it’s determined by our chromosomes. A while back I saw someone state this online and someone argued that this isn’t correct, and that latest research shows that sex is actually on a spectrum and is more fluid than simply “boy or girl”. I know intersex exists but I don’t think they were talking about that, they were saying that in general it’s on a spectrum. Anyone know what that’s about and if there’s any basis in truth? It doesn’t sound correct to me.

Welcome, sister.

I both love and hate the prescience of this quote. That woman is bloody amazing.

indeed @Justdontgetit000
'trans away the gay' is the term given to telling homosexual girls that they can grow up into heterosexual men. Reality of 'transition' does not necessarily live upto expectation.

referral stats over 50% describe themselves as lesbian gay or bi upto 90% describing themselves as something other than heterosexual although what if anything we can know from these labels in the circumstances is unclear.

On the subject of changing sex, can I ask a question? As far as I’m aware, and from reading more since last night, there are only two sexes and it’s determined by our chromosomes. A while back I saw someone state this online and someone argued that this isn’t correct, and that latest research shows that sex is actually on a spectrum and is more fluid than simply “boy or girl”. I know intersex exists but I don’t think they were talking about that, they were saying that in general it’s on a spectrum. Anyone know what that’s about and if there’s any basis in truth? It doesn’t sound correct to me.

I saw someone create like an animated cartoon explanation of this and it left me a bit confused. So I’m curious about this too.

Primary sex characteristics ( ovaries, testicles and internal and external genitals) are entirely binary except in the rare case of development disorders of sex. Secondary sex characteristics (breasts, hair, facial features, size ) are hormonally driven at puberty and vary. Most people fl in the middle but every feature can be plottedon a graph and they always form a normal distribution curve. The curves of male and female overlap when plotted together, so a male at the low end of normal range can be smaller than many females, or a female can have a deeper voice than a male , but this not a sex spectrum. It is the overlapping normal distribution curve of two seperate populations.

Hello, I absolutely love your post and have found it really easy to understand. You explained things in such a relatable way and helps me to work through some of these opinions I’m now forming.

Completely agree with everything you said about how women are being described by their body parts, ironically there’s such a misogyny there isn’t there? It makes me think of that “hilarious” joke sexist men like to tell about the dishwasher not working “Oh tell her to get back in the kitchen” lol lol 😐 I’m paraphrasing but hopefully you know what I mean! Or men who say “Look at the pair of tits on that”. It’s so reductive and clinical. And as you say, there’s already a perfectly good word! But in some places we’re being forbidden from using it and shamed for it.

As you said, we can’t defend what we can’t say.

Thanks for this, so basically it’s the secondary characteristics that can be on a kind of spectrum, but the primary ones are either/or?

Have I understood that right? So you could be a woman with high testosterone, excess body hair and a deep voice, or a man who is the opposite to this but they are still respectively a woman and a man?

I think its something about horseshoes (but I can't remember either)

I found Helen Pluckrose absolutely excellent at explaining where many social activist ideas come from.

The theory of hierarchies of oppression and how they effect power and knowledge. Grouped under the ideological heading of "Postmodernism".

What people term "progressive" or "liberal" (in the American political sense) or Social Justice (as a movement).

Like communism it is idealistic and sounds great in theory, but seems inherently illiberal to me (and power driven).

newdiscourses.com/2020/06/helen-pluckrose-evolution-postmodern-thought/

Thank you! I’m reading it slowly and carefully. I have to be honest and say I find a lot of this hard to understand, I’ve only really skirted around it the past couple of years and seen surface level stuff. I’ve been distracted by other issues and personal things and so am only now really delving into it, and it’s a lot to take in.

I genuinely appreciate all these replies and links to other resources.

I just have to say THANK YOU (yes I needed to shout it 😉) for this incredible post. It’s really helped me to understand on a very basic level, and I’m going to read it a few times so it sinks in.

Its upsetting to read you’ve been called all those names, but it’s also hopeful to read that you’re ok with it and it hasn’t caused you to back down. I especially love “I cannot identify out of my biology”. That kind of sums it up and is something I’ll remember going forward.

And the pronouns issue, this gives me anxiety too! I worry that I’ll forget or just slip up, and I’m sure the vast majority of trans people would be fine with that, but it scares me that some would take that as bigotry.

There are a LOT of different issues intertwined and related, OP. So it's hard to take it all in.

It's not just the belief in 'gender', which amounts to a hardening of stereotypes.

It's not just that the NHS has bought this and is making a hash of various things in healthcare such as single sex wards, same sex HCPs, or campaigns that erase or ignore biological sex.

It's not just that children are being taught there are 'over a hundred genders' and they can change sex by lots of groups in education

There is a whole industry set up to sell this nonsense to education.

Or that universities are enshrining it in dozens of crappy 'gender studies' courses and churning out students that won't question it.

Or that the media has largely not reported on much of it until fairly recently.

Or that the MoJ and Police forces whole heartedly embraced gender ideology and chose to ignore women's groups.

Or that various members of the government have worked hard to push legislation through.

Many people have profited from creating a whole new ideology that then has to be sold, taught, applied to regulations legislation policy etc.

Also, btw, congratulations, you've come through the traditional Mumsnet FWR hazing without flouncing. That takes grit. You may now have a stiff drink and a bowl of Weetabix.

Oh something else that occurred to me today is this - I have a lot of personal experience (unfortunately) of the very right-leaning Christian fundamentalist mentality, and they are big on “boys being boys” and being manly, not letting them play with dolls or make up for example, and they would say this is part of what is causing so many trans issues. But isn’t it the opposite? If they did let their boys play with dolls for example, and still called them a healthy happy boy, that boy might be LESS likely to want to become a girl, not more?

Suzie Green, who runs Mermaids, has a TED talk that is quite heartbreaking about how she and her husband dealt with a gender non-conforming child.

FWIW, 'let clothes be clothes' and 'let toys be toys' were both born on the pages of Mumsnet, as far as I recall. www.facebook.com/lettoysbetoys

Wow that is powerful when you put it like that. What is behind this, what’s the agenda? It’s like “Emperor’s New Clothes” where everyone is going along with it but it’s madness right before our eyes. So many of us are blind to it, I have been for ages and I’m fairly sure my friends/family/colleagues don’t question it as they are mostly left wing and very liberal. Unless they’re just not saying anything 🤔
What is the end game to all this I wonder?

Also, btw, congratulations, you've come through the traditional Mumsnet FWR hazing without flouncing. That takes grit. You may now have a stiff drink and a bowl of Weetabix.

This made me smile!! Haha! It was rough going at first but I’m glad I got through the initiation 😅 Off to grab my wine glass and cereal bowl!

What is the end game to all this I wonder?

I think there are probably various outcomes being fought for.

Some are well intentioned. People are trying to make up for being homophobic and think this is the next big civil liberties movement. They are trying to be kind (because they have had a very strong narrative of how gender non-conforming people are 'the most marginalised group' repeated ad nauseum).

Feminism, in trying to overcome oppression has got tied up in a theoretical post-modernist muddle (see Judith Butler) that thiks that because gender is used to limit women, we can escape oppression by saying we're not women, or replacing 'sex' with 'gender'. Much of it is linguistic. We can get really easily confused with words and theory, and some of the theories that make interesting thought experiements make really terrible policy when translated into the blunt, messy real world.

Some are not well intentioned. Some see this as the perfect opportunity to beat women - whether that be metaphorically, literally, or in sport.

Some will see this as a great way to do away with the legal protections women have fought so hard for (if you can't define 'woman', you can't protect her in law).

And there are some people who want to push this ideology either to affirm their own beliefs or - well. There are various reasons males would like to be put in women's prisons, put it that way.

Thanks for this explanation, the first one in particular I think may be what a huge amount of people are feeling. They want to be an ally, and because the T is on the end of LGB, it’s all kind of put together and so it’s almost like you support one aspect, you need to support them all.

That last one, about the prisons, is so sinister.