Why do people think TW dominate the 'discussion'?

[Sparklybutold]

So - I'm interested into why TW seem to dominate the trans debate. My only thought it that TW were born male and therefore have all the physical and psychological elements that contribute to men having the privilege and sense of entitlement to have the final say. I can't help but feel the whole thing actually does more harm for trans people generally and certainly doesn't help trans men.

Thoughts?

”The quiet side are keeping their heads down and trying to get by quietly maybe deliberately distancing themselves from that movement.”

There’s also a small group of frequently overlooked TM who are indeed quiet, but are heavily involved in politics, though by means of eminence grise and not up front. Some of the most influential campaigners are TM such as Stephen Whittle and James Morten. I suspect internalized misogyny might play a part, but they are, in some cases, a major driving force, perhaps predating and shaping the Denton’s document, as well as (in Whittle’s case) pushing changes in the medical arena by way of WPATH.

Completely. The changes to language comes from mainly TW and their supporters. It's down to the fact that they simply cannot bear the thought that it is our female biology that makes us women, because that is something they will never share, and so the attempt is to uncouple women from their biology by using phrases such as PEOPLE who menstruate, CHEST feeding, etc. It can "include" them then. Denial of biology is a real thing, there are TW who claim to have periods, want to join menopause or other female related health groups, or claim to have body parts they do not (I'm looking at you India Willoughby). It's insane. There have been a couple of cases of TM driving the changes to women's health literature but in the main the outrage has been on the side of TW and their desire to be included in things that simply will never concern them. However, if THEY can't have it or be it, WE can't either.

Because they are men and that comes with huge advantages in this world.

It's not possible to change sex.

Being a TW is a concept that has somehow been accepted as a reality, with dangerous consequences for women.

Yet so many women caught up with the 'be kind' mantra welcome TW.

This will probably be deleted.

I'm interested into why TW seem to dominate the trans debate.

Because they're men. Entitled and privileged.

TM are women, seen as 'less than'. The TRA movement is never going to be about women. It's all about men and their entitlement.

@alexdgr8 ha! I had no idea!

@ErrolTheDragon really interesting observation. Do you have any evidence for this out on interest?

The other reason TW's issues dominate the 'debate' is that they are fully supported by MRAs. MRAs don't care about any transpeople but they do care about attacking women and trying to ensure women lose rights, platforms, jobs. Lots of the very vocal voices about transwomen are actually just the same old misogynists. This entire issue has emboldened them to show just how much they hate and disrespect women.
Trans rights is a trojan horse to put those uppity women back in their place. It's a backlash to women's rights campaigns and MeToo.

I think you're right, OP. Male privilege and sense of entitlement.
I do, though, think there's something about male violence in the idea that trans-identifying men must use women's loos etc because otherwise they'll be attacked by hostile men. While I don't agree with trans-identifying men using women's spaces, I abhor male violence and recognise that men do commit the vast majority of violent acts, and I am not without sympathy about this.

Although I also wonder if it's overblown; surely this kind of violence is very rare, despite what some 'statistics' would have us believe?

Yep. Men gonna men.

James Kirkup has written powerfully about this. When you want to inflict an anti women, anti child safeguarding ideology on the public, people will stop you. So you operate behind closed doors and make the political and legislative changes in secret having self identified as an expert in whatever is being discussed.

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-document-that-reveals-the-remarkable-tactics-of-trans-lobbyists

Although I also wonder if it's overblown; surely this kind of violence is very rare, despite what some 'statistics' would have us believe?

You’re right, some commonly invoked scenarios are basically unheard of. I don’t think anyone’s ever found a case of a TW being attacked in the men’s toilets. TW in this country are less likely to be murdered than women or man-identifying men, and none of the examples of this in recorded history were identity based hate crimes.

(And as probably everyone reading this knows, hate crime statistics are just propaganda at this point- police lump together hate crimes and “non crime hate incidents” which can mean hurt feelings, or even purely vexatious complaints intended to harass the person being complained about.)

I agree with a lot of the above - whether an individual man is consciously aware of it or not growing up as a male posits you at the centre of things - words like mankind, chairman etc. A film with 4 male main characters is seen as a film about people, one with 4 female main characters is seen as a film about women.

Whereas growing up as a woman I think you’re more aware of your ‘otherness’ and the fact you’re not always put front and centre. And to some extent you learn to live with that.

And so when a man decides he’s a woman he’s bringing a whole set of values, baggage and entitlement that the average woman who decides she is a man simply won’t have.

Which is partly why I think the idea that someone can change gender is ultimately flawed - as we are all massively shaped by our upbringing and you can’t suddenly ‘switch’ to have had a different upbringing to the one you have actually had.

So where does this stuff come from about 'most oppressed/vulnerable group'? (I mean the stuff that's been circulating since before the latest hate crime conversation and figures).
TWAW types I know absolutely believe the most oppressed line.

So where does this stuff come from about 'most oppressed/vulnerable group'?

I’ll be vague because I’d definitely be deleted if I was straightforward.

I think that there are a lot of benefits for some kinds of people in perceived as vulnerable. I think that cross-dressers were generally not perceived that way and that “transgender” males being seen as vulnerable did a lot to erase cultural memories of cross-dressers. Also I think that a group that is or once was defined by having a mental health condition (dysphoria) actually is vulnerable in some ways, although not in ways that indicate “affirming” them is a good move.

Thank you. What I really mean is, people I know who buy into it will refer to the 'figures' about oppression/violence. And I think I've read Stonewall figures before claiming 'most oppressed' etc.
I'd just like to know where these 'stats' come from – and how to refute them!

So where does this stuff come from about 'most oppressed/vulnerable group'?

Some people said it and other people repeated it.

A long time ago they used to justify it with some "stats", but they've stopped doing that because they feel it would be counterproductive to get people to look at them. Enough people are paying attention, and they've got enough people who will just repeat it without thinking. So now it's just a meme.

The things that used to be used to justify it were things like the claimed "life expectancy" of transwomen being 35 or so, combined with a high homicide rate.

Now, most dead transwomen, by absolute numbers, seem to be in the sex trade in South America. Which is very dangerous for either sex. So what you're seeing is figures massively skewed by that, if not outright cherry-picked. Transwomen computer programmers aren't at risk.

And on top of that the "life expectancy" of ~35 is a distortion from those figures - it's actually the average age of transwomen murder victims. And actually, that's pretty much the average age of ANY murder victim. Or indeed the average age of anyone, really. It's the case of the number coming detached from its meaning.

See also ~40% of trans people "committing suicide". No, that's 40% of people in a self-selecting survey said they'd at some point thought about suicide. And it may even have been adults - I'm not sure. Suicide is certainly vanishingly rare among children, so applying that to children is probably a double stretch. I believe GIDS was asked about this, and they were aware of 1 (or 2?) suicides among patients they had treated ever.

I genuinely think it was mostly made up. Like completely made up out of whole cloth. People were afraid to question it! Some of it was from ridiculous sources - like there was a study of murdered transwomen that found they were mostly under 40 when they were murdered and for a while TRAs went around saying that transwomen have an average life expectancy of 37! I haven’t seen that one in a while actually. They must have started getting pushback.

There was one recent ”study” from the Williams Institute, trying to prop up the knackered old myth, they might cite that if you press them. Oddly enough the citation TRAs offer goes to a press release summarising their “findings”, asking you to email the author if you want to know more, but someone here found the original analysis. Seemed like they were trying quite hard to bury it, for good reasons. It was unbelievably bad.

I don’t have the link to the MN thread but if you can find it I think it was quite good; IIRC some idjit was posting all the TRAs’ best “evidence” so a lot of it was dismantled in one place. I can’t think of any useful search terms other than “Williams Institute” though!

Ahh Necessary I didn’t see your comment, could have saved myself some typing!

Cognitive dissonance. The transwomen shouting the loudest have based their entire new personality, their social life, and usually their professional/financial life too, on the premise that they are ‘brave’, ‘special’ and, in the words of the globe theatre, “divine”.

Anyone who undermines that view (eg by hinting that donning a frock and lipstick does not mean you understand what women go through) is an enemy whom transwomen will attack relentlessly, because the transwoman self-concept does not allow for debate. If transwomen aren’t women, then they aren’t brave/ stunning/ special ‘women’, but instead they’re just people, doing their thing, just like everyone else, no better than anyone else… And their self-concept (and finances) cannot allow that.

Transmen, on the other hand, are usually not running towards, they’re running away. They aren’t seeking access to kiddie storytime or attention or demanding validation. They’re seeking to escape the male gaze and they are usually quite happy keeping their heads down.

Transgenderism is about codifying gender rules.
Gender rules conflict with other rules and rights.
Not caring about that conflict is how men are socialised to behave, and women are socialised to support them.

Feminists make an active effort to unlearn gender socialisation. Its why feminism is hated.

They can't shake the male privilege they grew up with.

Thank you, NecessaryScene and TastefulRainbowUnicorn.

It's almost a running joke where someone has a list of murdered women in the last year and someone asks why they haven't included any transwomen. (Cos none were murdered - murder rate is like one every 5-10 years in the UK? And almost never related to being trans.)

Or places like Scotland doing "Trans Day of Remembrance" when no trans person has been murdered in Scotland ever, as far as I know.

Rose of Dawn (transwoman YouTuber) has done a couple of good video rants about this, going into some stats:

No links to hand... over the last few years when there have been various reports about eg period products making their wording 'inclusive' it's often supposedly at the behest of TM or NB females. And then of course there's 'seahorse' Freddie.

Not all of it, of course, I said 'some'.