Just despair - HOW do some women just not get it!

[Mynewchairhasarmrests]

Just finished a brilliant novel written by a female author about friendships, girlhoo, womanhood, and growing up as a girl. She was so absolutely on the money about what it’s like to be a young woman and the pressures of looking and acting a certain way, the awful way women are so often treated by men, the way women are portrayed in the media, how we are programmed not to recognise sexual assault and told its just boys having fun, and how we aren’t believed even if we do report it. Her anger and passion really came through and it was good, though depressing, to read someone telling it exactly like it is.

You know what’s coming. I then look on her social media. She’s a TRA. Signed a letter condemning JKR for being ‘anti trans’. Condemns Germaine Greer for being so wrong on trans issues.

I just don’t understand how these women can see the misogyny everywhere they look BUT the place where it’s in its worst, purest form - gender ideology.

Its like a glitch in the coding somewhere. Why can’t they see it? I have another friend who is on the board of a rape charity. We had long conversations about how shit it can be to be a woman. The misogyny everywhere. I was sure she must be GC. But no. A TRA. Doesn’t speak to me now she knows I’m a TERF.

I just don’t get it. Is it fear of societal disapproval? A reluctance to admit the liberal progressive cause they publicly embraced is anything but and that they’ve been had?

I'd be wary of calling people TERFS when they have given no indication that anyone's trans status would exclude them from feminism. IME whether someone is trans or not has nothing to do with whether feminism should fight for female people.

InPraise when you say 'trans people' do you mean people that strongly want to be the opposite sex, or those that think sex and gender are unrelated and it's gender identity that determines if you are a man or a woman? I appreciate your post. It would be good to clarify just so we can be sure we're talking on the same page.

Sorry, just seen OP has identified as a TERF! Another term that has different meanings...

I REALLY wish all the people saying that they believe men role playing as women really are women would give their definition of ‘woman’, or as a pp says, acknowledge that they can’t

and then maybe think about why they can’t define a commonly used and understood word

i know these people don’t think the definition is important. But finding myself in a position where my beliefs prevent me from communicating with people using simple, basic words would worry me if I were in that position

I feel the same about journalist/author Elizabeth Day. Her “How to Fail” book helped me through a really tough time and I enjoy listening to her podcast.

But then I discovered she was full on TWAW (in her most recent podcast she referred to her own husband as a “cis-male”. Her interview with feminist icon Gloria Steinem a few years ago was so disappointing as both of them preached TWAW 😤

I am 100% radfem through and through and accept that other people have beliefs that seem illogical to me. I don't think women should be held to a higher standard and I'm not comfortable with the idea that because I think I'm right other women need to be 'convinced' to fall in line.

Even if I feel that everyone whose beliefs don't exactly align with my own are deluded, people are free to have their own views.

I don't get it either...

My DC's friend's mum is apparently a feminist, very much believes that girls can and should be able to do anything, refuses gender conformity, buys 'strong girls' books, against 'pink/fairies/glitter is for girls' etc etc. Yet is a self-professed TWAW 'ally', a huge fan of drag queens etc.

And now has this book on her DC's Amazon wishlist 🤮

Sucks you in with it doesn't matter if you're a girl or boy, you can wear pink or blue, have your hair short or long, girls can be engineers etc.

But then... There's a picture of a a baby(!) with "Girl or boy?" above it and things like, "Boy or girl doesn't cover everyone..."

Am dreading the day their DC is old enough to start indoctrinating mine...

Sorry, this one.

Depressing. Saw someone actually censor the word woman on social media the other day as “w*man” comments were interesting.

Sure. They say things like: gender is the social meaning of sex, where that means it's the collection of traits, behaviours, preferences and personality types that are socially ascribed to people who have, or are perceived to have, a given body type. Being a woman is identifying with the gender that society ascribes to women (in the sex sense).

To be clear, I am what they would call a TERF - I think that sex, and sex based discrimination is what matters. But I am not baffled by their position, I don't think it's incoherent or deranged or so insane it's staggering that anyone could think it. I just think that they're wrong, and my interest in finding out exactly what they think and how they define things like 'women' comes from wanting to really point out where they go wrong (unless of course they change my mind before I change theirs...)

Of course, and I agree. However I would love if someone would for once come and explain why Katie Dolatowski is currently in a woman's prison, having violently attacked another male inmate while serving time for sexual assault of a ten year old girl. I've yet to hear a single argument of why Katie needs to be in a women's prison that makes sense.

Sure. They say things like: gender is the social meaning of sex, where that means it's the collection of traits, behaviours, preferences and personality types that are socially ascribed to people who have, or are perceived to have, a given body type. Being a woman is identifying with the gender that society ascribes to women (in the sex sense).

OK, so if you have a set of personality types etc, that is actually linked to whether you are male or female? Society is correct to assume that being one sex or another means you are likely to act in a certain way, and if you act in the opposite way, that means you are (or you are like) the other sex?

I’ve recently wondered how a transsexual woman (that is, one who has gone through full transitional surgery) feels about transgender ‘women’ (affectively a man in a dress if they still have their male genitals) coming in to female spaces like toilets and changing rooms etc?

I agree, up to the point where these views are unquestioningly used to form the basis of laws and policies, such as prisons no longer being single-sex, no single-sex sports, etc.

They also say "this is a female penis" and claim to have menstrual periods.

predatory men have often pretended to be doctors, teachers, priests, policemen, precisely to access victims

True and I agree pretending to be a TW is a new avenue. But the % of men who are predatory isn’t any larger, so the fact there is a new style of sheeps clothing for a wolf to wear doesn’t mean there are more wolves out there. In addition, our societal response hasn’t been to ban the existence of teachers, shut down all the schools and home educate children. We all accept the risk and send our darlings off to school. So in a way, I think the reaction to the risk is OTT when it comes to TW.

Good question. Would love to have this answered.

Also, I'm not a TERF, I'm perfectly happy for female trans people to share my spaces. I'm MERF - male exclusionary. But it's not discrimination because it's all men and it's for safeguarding reasons (also privacy and dignity, but primarily safeguarding).

@Onnabugeisha

In addition, our societal response hasn’t been to ban the existence of teachers, shut down all the schools and home educate children.

No, but you can't just identify as a teacher either and walk into a classroom unchecked, can you?

Could you explain how you 'pretend to be a transwoman'? Isn't it by stating what gender you are that you are that gender? Or do you think there is any 'test' you can do to see if someone really is that gender?

We all accept the risk and send our darlings off to school.

No, we don't 'accept the risk'. We go to great lengths to safeguard against the risk posed by predatory males in schools and everywhere else.

Except now we have a weird situation where, if a predatory male says he's trans, we drop all safeguarding. That's the issue. Trans is treated as a sacred caste that should not be subjected to safeguarding.

But the % of men who are predatory isn’t any larger, so the fact there is a new style of sheeps clothing for a wolf to wear doesn’t mean there are more wolves out there.

When you create a way for predators to bypass safeguarding, to access victims, they will take advantage of it - that's pretty much the definition of what a predator does.

So yes, more predators will certainly use the loopholes to access victims. There may not be more 'wolves' overall, but the 'wolves' that are out there will be delighted to have been offered an open door to the sheep enclosure.

See also: the proportion of transwomen sex offenders in prison.

How come > 40% of transwomen in prison are sex offenders? Either there are an astonishing number of 'wolves' suddenly, or SOs are taking advantage of a 'trans identity' to either access women or gain benefits within the system.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42221629

But the problem is that normal safeguarding in schools is not being applied when it comes to 'trans' in the same way as is now applied to all teachers, policemen etc.

Children are being socially transitioned without the input of appropriate professionals in a way that doesn't happen for other issues. We don't say to anorexic children, yes it's absolutely fine that you don't eat and no-one else must mention that you look thin / ill / mention food to you at all and the school will positively support your not eating. There is a failure of safeguarding above all for the gender questioning children themselves. With any other issue professionals would look at the home environment and see if a sudden change in behaviour was being pushed by parents or a result of the home environment but not this issue. Much of this has been acknowledged in the Cass review and let's hope there will be some changes as a result.

There are also safeguarding issues for other children as well and these have not been considered properly nor, in many cases, different needs balanced as they would be for anything else.

I attended the Welsh Labour Women's conference in Aberystwyth on Saturday. Outside the venue half a dozen lesbians were handing out leaflets under a banner saying Sex Not Gender and a suffragette flag. I stopped to chat and tell them I supported them (not that many women were brave enough to do so) and a number of Welsh Labour stalwarts got very angry and tried to have them moved by security guards. One woman came up to them and accused them of desecrating the suffragette flag, shouted at them for coopting it and accused them of betraying the women who'd marched under the flag.

One of the lesbians was able to reassure her that the flag had also been coopted by TRAs. She didn't seem to have any problem with that. These are political women, women prepared to travel for hours or stay overnight to attend a small political gathering.

We don't just say, oh well there are wolves out there so let's open the doors to them and let them in.

And as I said before - the people this will harm the most in the end is normal transpeople.

It's like PIE all over again.

@FOJN
Approximately 15 - 20% of the male prison population have been convicted of sex offences, 60% of trans prisoners have been convicted of sex offences; either self ID encourages sexual predators to claim a trans identity for nefarious reasons, in which case self ID is a very bad idea or trans people are much more likely to be sexual predators. Which is it?

Neither because you don’t understand the statistics you are presumably quoting.
You cannot say that transpeople are more likely than non transpeople to be sex offenders unless you measure number of sex offenders on a per capita basis against the overall population. Comparing % prisoners between trans and nontrans prisoners tells you nothing as to whether there is over or under representation of sex offenders.

Laughing same here, science and logic need to be applied. I would also not agree with law being led by religious beliefs.