Maya on Radio 2 today

[JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon]

Maya is being interviewed on the Jeremy Vine show today.

Exactly! Fixating on being able to give birth does rather imply that it's all about him and his obsessions and not really about a meaningful desire to have children, doesn't it?

I'm here with ImherewithBoudica!

Women have human rights, too!

I personally do find it to be quite disrespectful to write off someone’s same sex relationship just because they’re now in a an opposite sex one, and especially disrespectful to extrapolate that perception to a wider group.

I very much doing the OP has ever had the conversation with even one of those women to know the truth.

I take your point about experimenting, but I do think there is a different dynamic in your case - it’s why we have that concept of ‘coming out’ and not one of ‘going in’.

Link for @heresamarshmallow and anyone else who's new to these discussions.

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

Basically we have got throusands of sterile kids as a direct result of susie green trying to justify taking her child to thailand to have him sterilized and genitally mutilated.

I don't doubt what you say, but also... it's hardly a massive jump to think that a clued up pubescent girl who doesn't want hassle and harrassment from boys might identify as a lesbian in schools to try to put them off.

Until the trans community can get a grasp of the fact that gender has always been fluid and that gender has changed and will change throughout history then there's no hope that they will understand the difficulties they are bringing to women.

I just found this quote from Alex Drummond: "What I want to do is to widen the bandwidth of gender, to make it more possible for more people to come out as a transgender, to live authentic lives. If all you ever see is trans women who completely pass and are completely convincing as natal females, then those of us who just don't have that kind of luck won't have the confidence to come out."

Alex hasn't widened the bandwidth of gender. It's been widening since at least the 1920s. With no hormones or operations, Alex isn't a woman, he is a man who has widened his bandwidth and recognised that he is comfortable in clothing that is "gendered" for women and likes to wear makeup. In that way, he's akin to women in the thirties who widened their bandwidth and decided that they liked wearing men's trousers so they would despite it being illegal in a few places and very shocking at first. They didn't want to be men, they just didn't want to be restricted. In the 20s women cut their hair short and some wore underwear that flattened their breasts. It was all for the aesthetic. They didn't want to be men, they wanted to be fashionable and show some of their freedom from the previous generations.

Gender is a societal construct. In any given era what it is to be a woman changes and in recent decades it's given us more freedom of expression. The construct of the male gender has changed less but that's easily solved. They need to lean into what makes them more comfortable and say "It's not unmanly to wear makeup and frocks. It's not unmanly to see things that suit me in the female gender construct. I'm just a different sort of man and there are more like me."

Young women need to be helped to understand that being a woman doesn't mean pretty frocks, makeup, "gossiping", or being girly 24/7. There are so many ways to be a woman and funnily enough, the lesbian community have been showing that for decades.

I guess the thing I'd agree with TRA on is that gender is fluid but I disagree that we need to step outside our gender in order to experience that fluidity. They just need to accept that just because society says "this is a man" it doesn't mean it has to be. I'd also add, finally after going on for far too long, that I would really like it if many (if not most) transwomen didn't go for a backward notion of the female gender because what an awful lot of them seem to be buying into is something that hasn't been accurate for decades and because of that it often feels as though they are cosplaying at being women and getting it wrong in a way that undermines women. The fact that this dated version of being a woman comes with added male privilege is more than a little problematic.

I'm glad Maya can be so articulate and calm because I think that about halfway through me being both of those things I'd lose my shit and turn into some old-fashioned notion of a harridan. Or, you know, just an actual and unapologetic harridan.

DD (now 19) says that in Year 9 or 10 loads of girls came out as bisexual for about a fortnight, then it all went away again. Not sure if this is 1) the kind of thing that the PP was referencing or 2) whether or not that behaviour was representative of this cohort at that time.

DD says it stopped the boys being homophobic so it had some effect. (If I'd known about the homophobia at the time I'd have encouraged her to report it, obviously.)

You are right to an extent, but I increasingly feel uncomfortable around people who look like they might not respect LGB and women's rights, and some of those are trans. The TRA movement is transphobic if you define transphobic as something likely to increase harm to trans people, and even if that harm is people wanting to have as little to do with trans people as possible.

I do not want to be put in a position where I have to lie, betray my beliefs and validate someone, nor do I want to get into a debate, nor do I want to be blunt. I do not want to be around trans people because I find it hard to conceive of an interaction that doesn't leave one of us or both of us less happy than before the interaction started.

I fear that there is the potential for an interaction with a trans person be as productive as a militant atheist turning up at a bible studies group. It is hard to see how anyone is going to benefit. Of course I would welcome the opportunity for the atheist and some of the bible studies group to have a civilised discussion about whether god exists if they choose to have that debate, but the bible studies group may not be the place. You need a place where both sides are entering voluntarily in the hope and knowledge than they will hear opposing views and get the chance to counter them.

I respect a trans person's right not to have me voice my opinions simply because they declared their pronouns... but given I am not being given the similar right to reject their beliefs without being seen as transphobic. I don't like being in situations that feel unfair.

I'm glad Maya can be so articulate and calm

That's why @heresamarshmallow needs to listen to the show.

@IReallyLikeCrows I think cosplay is a great way of putting it! It all feels very grubby, and for so many it is a fetish that they are now being given a place in public to air.

Oh probably.

The other thing people don't always like to talk about is the fact that teen sexuality can really be all over the place. Their hormones are going crazy, and also a lot of them aren't really having any real sex, and they have been exposed, even without porn, to all kinds of images of very unrealistic sexual content in advertising and film.

Lots of people have attractions in the teen years, or a fantasy life, that doesn't much resemble what it will be later on when they are more settled.

But now there is so much weird emphasis on identification, putting yourself in a box. Because sexual or romantic attraction are identity issues, things you need to know to live authentically and claim your place in the hierarchy.

There is also a tendency for teens to believe that the broader your sexuality, the more ethical it is, because discrimination is a kind of character flaw.

About this "widening the bandwidth" thing.

I think it really has limits that people are going to come up against.

Most human beings are interested sexually in one sex, usually the one they are not. People are not really very interested sexually in non-sexed human beings, in any case.

This is a pretty basic element of being human, a small number have no interest, but to most people it is very interesting and at times even consuming.

You can change or broaden the cultural views on what is associated with each sex, something like wearing make-up maybe. But in the end, all that means is that people attracted to men will see wearing make up as a thing men do too. Like wearing shoes.

They are still going to be attracted to men as men, and women as women. And there will still be some cultural signals around those things that people will respond to. Even when someone is deliberately counter-cultural about it, and that is attractive, it still depends on the recognition of a cultural norm.

I often wonder what would have happened if the haters hadn't joined the fray, and trans people were happy to use unisex loos, and the unisex changing room. That is was enough to be accepted, respected and understood without forcing and encroaching and putting others at risk. That your identity does not trump the little girl in the loo next door who is just started her period and doesn't know where to turn.

That prisons were determined by your genitalia and not your self ID, that having men in prison with women carries so much risk, and they had been gracious in understanding the damage they can do to women's sport and rights etc, if they were really attempting a lived experience of what it is actually like to be a woman, surely the first thing they would realise is just how important our rights are.

If only the trans movement could look beyond themselves, and understand that others are being raped, hurt and damaged so they can 'fully express themselves', if they had shown compassion, empathy and understanding - maybe this would have had a different outcome. A much more nuanced compromise that could have worked for everyone. Who knows they may even have won our support.

I feel bad for the transpeople out there that do not agree with the harmful aspects of their campaign and do simply want to live a happy and contented life. God knows where this all leaves them. My sympathy will always lie with those through no fault of their own find themselves compromised and endangered, and they are mostly always women and girls.

I thought Maya was excellent but I am afraid to say I did laugh at Jeremy “misgendering” Anna the trans “lesbian”.

i was annoyed though at the message they read out claiming that “cis” women are at less risk than trans women. Why does this shit keep getting trotted out? I can’t remember the last time I heard of a trans woman being murdered, certainly not the 2 - 3 women murdered a week.

Why do we ever bother segregating anything by sex then? Even if privacy, dignity and safety don’t mean anything to you, you can surely accept they do to other women

But they won't listen they are too closed minded and prejudicial and yet they have the gall to berate us for being an echo chamber.

I genuinely don’t understand why being inclusive to others is harmful to you

Come on - you can't be that naive?

If we believe TWAW then any person can enter female spaces. Some will be TW, some will be men who are using that as camoflauge
If TWAW then there is no rape crisis group for solely female bodied people despite the fact that female bodied people have had male bodies used again them
If TWAW then people with the biological advantage of male puberty will dominate 'women's' sports
If TWAW then you can have a female short list, born our of attempts for positive discrimination, filled with people who until yesterday were male but now identify as women
If TWAW then we have no way of monitoring whether women continue to experience the more negative outcomes in healthcare which we know to be the case at the moment as a result of a male focus and assumptions in healthcare
If TWAW then we can't say that women need cervical smears, we can only say that people with cervixes need cervical smears - with no clear way of saying who has a cervix
If TWAW then people feel that they have the right to describe women as bleeders rather than say that women have periods. This is dehumanising and confusing language.
If TWAW then we are not able to properly describe the murder rate of women being killed by men (much higher than Trans murder rate btw).

If you can't see the need to have a women to describe female bodied people than you don't understand the discrimination that can be directed at them.

Thank you to the poster sharing The XX Files you tube. I didn't know about that channel.
I thought Maya was brilliant. She showed there is a line and that line is based on biological sex. And as most of us would agree anyone can dress how they like and call themselves what they like, but the line is there and must be respected with regard to women's single sex spaces.
I was shocked that the mum took her autistic child to a psychiatrist at age 10 and they suggested he may grow up wanting to be a girl. What did that do to the way the mum brought up her son. Everytime he showed an interest in so called girl things did mum just say that's okay you will be a girl one day?
Anna was clearly a late male transitioner. He called himself a lesbian and said he had a wife, but for all we know his wife could also be a man who says he is a woman. I did like how he had never thought or knew he was a lesbian in his youth and of course being called a he by Jeremy was gold!
I didn't think Dawn was bad as others had said. I do like her saying the word lesbian is taken and the word woman is taken.
Jeremy Vine really seemed to be struggling cognitively to get his words out at times, probably as he was trying to police his own language.
Well done Maya, this is how we need to talk, objectively, factual and with no need to call people names or deny someone's right to live how they want.

Anna was clearly a late male transitioner. He called himself a lesbian and said he had a wife, but for all we know his wife could also be a man who says he is a woman.

Yes, I wondered that when I listened to it. JV stumbled on how to phrase his next question and I thought he was trying to ask that, but in the end he asked something else instead.

I was confused about "Anna" knowing they were a lesbian years before they transitioned. At that stage they would have been male....so if they found women sexually attractive, wouldn't they be thought of as heterosexual...?

I think Amma said the lesbian revelation came later.

@heresamarshmallow

web.archive.org/web/20220930232224/www.wcax.com/2022/09/28/randolph-high-school-investigating-gender-locker-room-dispute/

This is what being inclusive means. It means girls being forced to get undressed in front of a male making lewd comments.

How is this fair or kind to these girls?

Let us say, for the sake of argument, that "TWAW"

They claim they want to use women's facilities because they don't "feel safe" in men's facilities, and that because they are "women", women won't be endangered.

But any man who wishes to can claim he is a "woman"

There is no way to distinguish a "TW" from a man pretending to be a "TW". This means that not only "TW" get into women's sex-segregated spaces, perverted or bigoted men can also gain unfettered access to the women's facilities. By definition the ones who will demand such access will be perverted and/or bigoted (otherwise they wouldn't want to be in there).

If these men can get access to women's facilities at will - where the "TW" are now peeing and changing - how does this make "TW" any safer? Men can get access to them - and to women.

If this is allowed it ultimately doesn't make "TW" any safer - all it does is endanger women and children.

Thanks for sharing, I listened today and also thought Maya was so brilliant!
I thought of my own dd when I heard the mother caller on the Jeremy Vine show about how it was her dd's choice to take Puberty blockers ......
As a mother of a teen also with ASD (Hf) I'm very conscious of her capability to make informed decisions, she can be quite naive about things compared to her siblings, for example she gave her no. to a 23 year old man who was just a friend of a friend. As a 16 year I give her independence but also want to protect her and her ND psychologist conceded that my dd does still need extra direction.
I think a lot of parents are made to feel guilty for not giving their children enough freedom to make their own choices. I work in a primary school & I'm surprised how much freedom children are giving to make their own big decisions. However big decision making can lead to bad consequences, it's heartbreaking. :-(