Trans and losing my mind...

[bluepetergeneration]

Posting here in good faith. And I'll leave that at that.

I'm a TS. I was born male. I don't normally post on mumsnet but I started using it as I have a 1 year old DD. I won't tell my whole life story, that would be self indulgent, so I'll just say what I came here to say.

I'm sick to death of my community. I'm sick of the misogyny. I'm under no illusion that I'm a woman or ever will be. I transitioned when I was very young so I pass, but I still now only use female bathrooms when there's no other option (such as a disabled bathroom- I would feel unsafe in the mens). What I have is a disorder- it was crippling- and now I live my life so that I can actually enjoy it and not feel 'wrong'.

The idea of self-ID sickens me, and I'm tired of having to have the same conversations over and over again with other trans people who accuse me of being some kind of self hating transsexual just because I care about the safety of women. I also care about the safety of my kid. Partly because I'm worried she'll be in danger because I'm trans, and also because I don't want her to get caught up in all these weird messages that being trans isn't a disorder around dysphoria (which it is).

I guess I'm posting this to say that in this fight, trans people with genuine dysphoria who aren't delusional will be standing right beside you.

Also a plea to not paint all of us with the same brush. You can fight for the rights of trans people (like me, I should be able to present female and not get attacked, and when I was in my late teens and still looked a bit male I did get attacked) and also be gender critical

Actually all I hope is that people stop using emotionally manipulative language and express their thoughts clearly. And if others ask questions because they are confused by the stance, don’t assume you are being attacked.

I personally am fine with people holding different opinions. There are many issues discussed on this board where my opinions differ.

However, I also respect the many people who contribute here enough to not attempt to admonish and chide them.

I will ask you NotHavingIt if you don’t mind answering, if you use emotionally manipulative language where you accuse the majority of posters of ‘ripping into’ when that is clearly hyperbole when people read back and check as I did, and you use make accusations such as echo chamber, what would you expect the reaction to be ?

Genuinely, What type of response do you expect to receive?

@scratchedbymycat @NotHavingIt I can see your point, but I can also see why other posters take the hard line. We’ve had so much, ‘both sides’, ‘be kind’, ‘just compromise’ that women are sick of it. The compromises all seem to be on one side, and a compromise usually means both sides partly achieve their goals. It’s very hard to see why allowing males in female spaces (ie making all spaces mixed sex) will benefit women.

I can also see why some women are adverse to offering a “hand of cooperation”. Why is it womens job to help males to be more comfortable? Do women not have enough of a job fighting for our rights? How many of these males offer cooperation back? It’s not cooperation if only one side bends….

In order to move forward and implement meaningful change in any legal, political and social sense we need to understand the points of view of all involved in a conflict and find a way meeting the needs of different groups in as best a way that is possible.

Because this issue stems from something which is deeply ideological in origin and which has been around for long enough to affect a whole generation of young people, many institutions and organisations, and now involves the lives of many people who have transitioned ( some irrevocably) as well as their friends and families, it is not going to be an over-night solution.

Political campaigning, action, directives and law are going to be the first and most obvious routes to meaningful and lasting change. In order to attain that you have to have a degree of consensus won by public discussion and debate and through increased knowledge and awareness. You have to co-operate. That doesn't mean that you don't have any red lines, but it does mean that you have to listen to and and have dialogue with all parties.

Inevitably not everyone will be happy with whatever the outcome is, but things have to move forward unless you want a permamnent paralysis and stalemate with everyone screaming at each other.

They are dooing that and thinking they can get away with it because they are operating in the confused space that has been created by the likes of Stonewall for many years, whereby many have assumed that this has been a legitimate entitlement. Now that the issue has become so polarising it is like a " big fuck off to you" mentality. Especially for someone so gobby, self promoting and entitled as Willoughby

How do you suppose we go about getting the TWAW side to listen to our concerns? They have been saying 'no debate' for years. The only other response we get from them is insults, abuse and threats.

How can we get them to change this attitude and understand that there is another side to this?

Scratchedbymycat clearly experienced the responses to her post in that way; as being very hurtful and almost violent in intensity. It can certainly feel quite disturbing when people accuse you of, or suggest, the exact opposite things that you stand for or believe in.

@NotHavingIt
What @Helleofabore bore and @Happylittlechicken said.
Also, speaking for myself, I felt genuine questions were asked by me of both you and @scratchedbymycat and evasive or defensive non-answers were given. That's always going to irritate more than the straightforward expression of a opinion.

Your latest post addressed to me is a perfect example of a non-answer. I asked specifically what@scratchedbymycat wanted to discuss. We know what the other side wants and it is diametrically opposed to what women need. A consensus can be built around a compromise but no compromise is possible in this case. Either spaces are single sex or they are not. If you disagree, can you explain to me what is the compromise position which preserves women's single sex spaces and also allows a cohort of males to use them?

My question to you was why is it that you feel that the OP would need to see a change in the law or the existence of third spaces before they could do what others do, ie stay out of women's toilets? If what you wanted to say was that they should use women's toilets in the meantime or even all the time, why not just say that and then defend your opinion?

In one of your first posts, iirc, you expressed the hope that the OP would join you in any future campaign for third spaces. I thought you must have mistyped but now I wonder if you do see it as our responsibility to organise provision for this cohort of males, and not theirs. Have I got that right?

I think many posters on this thread have listened to trans people and already have a depth of understanding about the needs they express.

Which is why this thread has played out as it has.

The position that some people wish to advocate for still means some women are excluded.

Do you mean to imply that people on this thread are ‘screaming’, by the way? Or do you have a group of feminists in mind who are ‘screaming’? Or was that a linguistic device and used for emphasis?

I think we have to " go higher" and be better. We have to be reasoned, rational and willing to co-operate, even if the 'other side' aren't. That way you win the argument in the court of public opinion. You also benefit from developing your own empathy, even if that it is not reciprocated.

That is not to say that red-lines are withdrawn, but that you approach the situation around those lines in a more concilatory way.

conciliatory

I'm making general observations on conflict rather than personal comment.

....and nobody has suggested that males should be permitted into women's spaces.

That didn’t answer my question though. I will detach it from the rest of the post so it is clearer.

And I do appreciate the effort, thank you.

if you use emotionally manipulative language where you accuse the majority of posters of ‘ripping into’ when that is clearly hyperbole when people read back and check as I did, and you use make accusations such as echo chamber, what would you expect the reaction to be ?

Genuinely, What type of response do you expect to receive?

I don’t expect you to answer for scratched but this is actually relevant to my direct question to you regarding the use of ‘screaming’ as well.

@NotHavingIt
The TWAW side are ideologues and will never take on board our concerns, much less compromise. I'm quite surprised you still hold out hope.
Luckily, the TRAs are a tiny minority.
The general public are who we need to take with us and they do not need a lot of convincing when faced with the facts. Or Adam Graham's penis.

I think the OP could benefit from understanding why there can be no compromise anymore. I accept a flat 'no' might work - but only if you think lawmakers will respond to that (I don't think they will). However, I believe if TW do not have a deep understanding of why this is a serious non negotiable issue for women, then it will just come up again and again and again. It's kicking a can down the road that my daughter will have to pick up and deal with.

But, frankly, I don't even think it's kicking the can down the road because I think, in the face of what looks like incalcitrant unreasonableness to people outside the nitty-gritty detail of this issue, we're going to have a "compromise" imposed on us. My daughter will have to live with the consequences of that too.

Like you say I cannot accurately speak for someone else, but as I also mentioned' the use of the word 'screaming' and shouting refers to the general tone of highly polarised and intense debates in which people face each other off.

So, what ‘compromises’ are you suggesting? That have not been already suggested for years?

Because what I seem to have concluded is that posters are being told they are not ‘compromising’, but both posters suggesting compromises then immediately say ‘but no males in female spaces’.

I am genuinely confused because I see a disconnect here.

It really comes down to

Do you have a new compromise in mind that has not been discussed?

Yes - what is it?
No - then why plead for a group of women to make a compromise when we collectively have been attempting to do this for years with no success.

It does seem to indicate telling women to do something that has been collectively being done for years without acknowledging how the fuck we got to this point.

Is this something you find works in real life? Telling a group who have been working towards a solution with their campaigning etc to find a compromise when that is what the group has been doing for years already?

Cards on table time.

I am a millennial who became a TRA at the age of 18. Now ex-TRA, due to try to understanding new points of view, so take it from me, I think I understand the philosophy quite well.

With that in mind, it is not women's rights campaigners who shouted "no debate". It was TRAs. I know, I was there. Women have been trying to engage in dialogue for years and years! They've talked and talked and talked, and they are still doing it.

Talking is fine. We want to talk. It's getting other people to listen that is the problem, and as I said, having been that clueless cognitively-dissonant young adult, I know about that from the other side. But there is a difference between women engaging in discussion, and women being willing to capitulate and sacrifice the welfare of all the women who need single-sex spaces.

I'm still somewhat an ex-TRA in mindset, in that I don't personally mind mixed-sex spaces. The brainwashing, see? But mixed-sex spaces exclude other women. If there is no single-sex provision for women, then those women are pushed out. We can talk and talk, but I will never ever agree again that it's more important to include some male people in the women's provision than it is to include women. When we make women's facilities mixed sex, without replacing them, we give male people a choice of two places to use: the men's and the formerly women's, at the expense of women who lose out on having any facility.

Women shouldn't be second class citizens.

@Helleofabore

I don't believe posters 'ripped into' the OP. And I am surprised that you cannot see 'ripping into' as emotional hyperbole. So, yes. It was dishonest

I don't know what YOU think 'ripped into' means, but here's a dictionary definition.

rɪp/ us. /rɪp/ -pp- to attack or criticize someone or something with great force: She ripped into her opponent's proposals, calling them "completely unworkable".

Here's another one:

(rip into someone) to criticize someone very severely

She had publicly ripped into him on a television chat show.

And yes, this board is not an echo chamber because it allows differences of opinion.

Twitter / Facebook / Social Media platforms are frequently called echo chambers. They all allow differences of opinion. Most understand the nuances of what the phrase means.

Is there a reason you will not give a direct answer?

Is it because you understand what happened and you are trying to sit on the fence, while you are here discussing language usage?

Do you see the disconnect?

A poster uses polarising words and let’s face it, inflammatory words, yet you are here talking about ‘both sides’ using polarising words, when women have said ‘no’ and then had to bolster that when that boundary was ignored. A poster then chides those woman for not responding in the way they are comfortable with using inflammatory words.

Calls for compromises that are supposedly a new concept and don’t apparently mean males enter women’s spaces (when OP has indicated they still will do so) are made of people who have offered compromises for years.

And it all seems to come down to ‘tone’. And tone policing, yet when others point out the inflammatory language used by those who are tone policing, it all gets evasive.

Do you really not see how hypocritical it looks to others?

@NotHavingIt are you telling women yo #bekind? Seriously? Have you not seen the rape threats, death threats, assaults, violence, doxing? Why are you not telling the TRA to be kind? Why are you expecting women to compromise and be conciliatory to people who do these things?

Sorry. Forgot to say my usual response when people tell me to #bekind. It’s “you first”.

Oh my god. I literally read that and put my head in my hands. Have you read the thread?

And you don’t think those terms are inflammatory to use on this board at all?

You don’t think that using those words here when some many others use them daily as tools to denigrate others is even a little bit inflammatory?

I appreciate you coming back by the way. Thank you.

can you please answer the question, if you use those terms and your posts seem to come across as censuring a group for their views, what did you expect the reaction to be?

Did my saying pages back that the term was emotionally manipulative even cause you to think about it?

Thanks for answering, @scratchedbymycat
On this very thread, multiple posters, male and female, explained to the OP in different ways and very eloquently why we need single sex and why special exemptions can't be made for them. Their response, and Bathhy's response was that they were going to carry on using women's toilets and in Bathhy's case, that they were entitled to. Ditto the person called Snow whose tweets were screenshot and shared. I think you're going to have to accept that they do not care sufficiently about our concerns to modify their behaviour voluntarily.

Getting those people to see our point of view isn't going to happen - but the reasonable males who claim to be women do see already. Frankly I think we would have to keep fighting to retain our rights whatever happened because the transgenderism movement is embedded and very well funded. The current state of affairs has been in the making for decades. But I would rather fight from a position of actually having equal rights.

Like you, I fear a damaging compromise being imposed on us - ie single sex spaces in name only - but we just have to keep battling. The important thing to remember is that the general public are on our side. And also, reality always wins in the end.
Again, thanks for engaging.