To feel incredibly sorry for Eddie Izzard

[ColdstreamAnnie]

I don't want to pity Eddie but I felt a wave of sadness after reading that Rosie Duffield (MP) said she would rather be arrested than refer to Eddie as a woman.

I pity Eddie too, he listened to the wrong people..... he was encouraged with the she/her stuff.

He's stood up for JK Rowling. He's funny, and he's done some amazing things.

I wish he was happy with being a man who expresses his identity with feminine clothes.

Then I've used 'echo chamber' in the wrong context. I meant as in the majority here understanding the issues whereas being in AIBU gives opportunities for posters who hadn't considered the valid arguments before some exposure to them. Totally not explaining myself very well 🙈

I pity Eddie too, he listened to the wrong people..... he was encouraged with the she/her stuff.

Eddie is not a child. He didnt need any encouragement to ensure he is the centre of attention.

Its the same when he needlessly used the womens toilets at that labour party event. He wasnt in any danger using the mens, he knew it would be noticed.

Transvestites perform in public for the attention and the thrill of it. Hes not changed.

Yes, for decades he was a man/male who liked to paint his finger nails, wear heels and put on a skirt. That was absolutely fine and no-one raised an eyebrow. But to be expected to now go along with a lie and pretend he is a woman is just ridiculous.

I will refuse to refer to Males as women. There is nothing more stupid than reading articles blatantly about a man but the writer uses she and her throughout. Send me to prison, at least the heating will be free and 3 meals a day!

These threads are hardly ever allowed to remain in AIBU, the monitors report them quick smart so they get moved. So damn annoying.

How come so many other threads don't get moved to their own forum? Plenty of parenting threads are left, pet threads, relationship threads, but not gender.

Hmm, I wonder why some people don't want these threads to reach more people.

I wonder why Mumsnet obliges?

I don't feel sorry for Eddie. His 'girl mode' is demeaning and offensive. He seems to think when you change shoes you change sex.

I feel sorry for the women and girls who feel uncomfortable and are made unsafe in public toilets and changing rooms because men like Eddie feel entitled to use them, and women increasingly feel unable to challenge men in those spaces. I feel sorry for every woman whose boundaries are disregarded when men like Eddie assert their right to be in women's spaces. I feel sorry for Rosie Duffield who's been deluged with abuse for speaking the truth, and received precious little support from the leader of her party.

I don't feel sorry for an ultra-rich celebrity who 'identifies' as a man when it comes to earning a man's salary, and as a woman when he feels like putting on high heels and make-up.

No worries.

I am all for this thread moving back to AIBU.

I find it very strange that people still try to make out that the majority of women in the UK don’t support female single sex space and don’t expect honesty around sex when it matters. It is simply not true . It is proven every poll that comes with a thread like this one. hence the poll is always very enlightening.

As are the wonderful posts from women who don’t post on the feminist boards , but have a good grasp of what is happening and are saying ‘no!’

He could say 'girl mode' is a mode. It doesn't mean I've changed sex.' He could say that.

He is choosing not to say that.

I think he has got himself into a tricky position, stuck between ideologies, and I think he is being a coward.

Oh give over.

Please dont indulge someone looking for screenshots.

Agree @Helleofabore. I think there are still a lot of people who are careful what they say out loud but they can't control what people think inside their heads. Of those people I've spoken to irl about this subject, all believe in science and sex and chromosomes.

LOL!

Yes, it must be terribly difficult for Eddie Izzard getting all that dosh for performing a male role in his latest film, mustn't it? I mean, the money is literally doused in the blood of transpeople, and they are all subject to literal violence seeing Izzard performing in his biological sex.

I feel a little sorry for a transsexual person who suffers from dysphoria and spends their whole life knowing they can’t be an actual woman and avoiding female spaces but being very uncomfortable in male ones.

Yes, @Gymrabbit I think gender dysphoria, and even the sexual dysfunction of the condition that Ray Blanchard has identified (but we must not name here) must be very difficult to live with. I cannot imagine how it must feel to have your mind/consciousness so deeply at odds with your physical body that you want to undergo serious, painful, and life-changing surgery to try to alleviate the dysphoria. Or to have a sexual preference which means that neither same-sex or opposite-sex sexual activity is wholly fulfilling.

What these people need is proper therapeutic treatment. And a society that undertands that maybe some men need to cover up their maleness or hide from it. Transsexuals and transgender people should not be discriminated against.

But ....

That does not mean that the rest of us should be forced to deny who & what we are, and exercise constant censorship of our thoughts & words.

The parallel with the gay liberation movement is a false one. To take just one example, the fight by gay men & lesbians for equal (same-sex) marriage wasn't carried out by homosexual people demanding that all heterosexuals renounced their concept of marriage.

Or more fundamentally, homosexual people didn't demand that heterosexual people stopped speaking about or practicing heterosexuality because it wasn't "inclusive."

This thread shouldn't have been moved from AIBU. Feeling sorry for Izzard is not actually a feminist position!

i identify as a 2nd wave feminist - always have and always will. And our position has been, consistently, that gender as a social construct holds people back. Wear a dress if you want. Wear make up if you want. Work in construction, work in fashion, work in banking - do whatever the fuck you want. If the things you want to wear and do aren't done exclusively with your genitals there is NO REASON you can't do them.

I literally don't care what people wear or do as long as they treat other people with respect and kindness. That is it. The only adjustments i would like to see in places like boardrooms and parliament etc is that women and other minorities should be given priority if two candidates have the same qualifications but one is a white man. To redress the balance of centuries of discrimination. Representation is important.

Hope it's ok to post this. I have separated it fromy other post in case not. I did ask MN why we'd been put on the naughty step with this as it really is a good AIBU thread. Their stance is still "we don't consider it a naughty step"

TBH given other boards are quite quiet, letting it run for 5 pages in trending and AIBU may drive traffic to other parts of the site, it would be doing the forum a favour (this is not a call to start malicious reporting. It is a casual observation and answering a question posed upthread)

@bellinisurge or throwing 2 teenage girls kit of the ladies toilets so a man can pee.

Yeh this type of thing you mention at the end needs to stop. We don’t need to see it as women.

I have had a look at the feminism: sex and gender section off the back of this thread, I wouldn't have if it was in aibu

@MNHQ, would you be kind enough to go through AIBU and move all the threads that mention Christmas to the Christmas board, all the threads that mention Harry or Meghan or Charles or William & Kate to the Royald board, all the threads about the new PM to Current Affairs, all the threads about useless / abusive husbands or exes to Relationships, all the threads about not liking dogs off-lead or cats shitting in the garden to the relevant sub-forum in Pets Corner, and so on?

No? Just the threads - including those starting from a very unfeminist position, like this one - that mention a sacred caste that get moved to FWR then?

Gosh, how odd! Why would there be such an inconsistency?? 🤔

On a completely unrelated note, does anyone here remember LangCleg? She was banned for pointing out the mods were the victims of coercive control by malign and non-member external forces (aka “the monitors”). Unfortunately there was a misunderstanding and the mod in question thought he (or maybe she or they, I won’t presume to know how they identify) was being accused of exercising coercive control, and took exception to what they erroneously saw as an accusation of acting abusively.

Anyway, no reason this should pop into my head right now. I miss LangCleg and her knowledge of safeguarding, that’s all.

to be fair to MN i don't think they actually go through AIBU to move things. I think they are reported and people are trigger happy with anything that could conceivably be moved here. I believe them when they say it's not "a punishment" (ie a move to the naughty step)

@SpookyPanda that’s great. A big warm welcome x