Help me reply to my "BeKind" brother in NZ, please!

[Fubbs]

I'm in a WhatsApp group with my Dad (in Ireland, as I am) and brother (in NZ for years). I've been trying to explain what's been happening to women's rights but it's ended up that they have expressed compassion for Barbie Kardashian so I've plainly failed (although my Dad did post that Monty Python "because I say I am" speech so I think he's not totally on board).

(Bit of a lead up to it, before that particular part of the conversation, I got the "KJK is a Nazi, not welcome here" line from my brother. I pointed out she'd been attacked and Nazis were in Australia and he didn't mention that and denied the Nazis were there and said there were more protesters than attendees at the Auckland Let Women Speak meeting (I think that proves KJK isn't popular for him). He didn't bother reading thecountess.ie for a very good summary of the issues. He's married with a wife, two boys and a girl. I'm married, two boys).

I asked why it was okay to house a violent man (to be fair, my brother hasn't tried to correct my sex-based pronoun use) with women and he gave me "prison authorities are doing their best for everyone), I countered that women have rights too and that includes single sex spaces. Final message so far (there's quite a time delay) and woke up (I'd my phone on silent, I've been waking at night in turmoil that he doesn't see it and is happy to basically throw me to the wolves):

"Yes, your position has been made clear.

need legal (legislative, judicial, enforcement) society/facilities/legal institutions to figure the mess out for all.

An example I shared earlier about professional level sports bodies [athletics] making a deision, regarding competing, shows it is possible but even that is not the end of it but a single step in a conversation, a process, an evolution.

It will not be straightworward nor easy nor quick but it will requre a lot of hard work from everybody on a good faith basis, because that is where most of us are and I hope not in a bad actor basis because that is the horrific but rare example, abhorrent to all"

He is being aggressive and bullying in his messages - if you actually think about what he is saying.

”Why would you even feel entitled to speak to a woman like that?”

Oh for god's sake.

'I've had [forty years] of being female to form my views on being a woman, you doofus. Thanks a bloody bunch for suggesting I need a 'terf movement' to tell me I'm smaller and more physically vulnerable than the average bloke.

I guess you won't ever get it. That's because you're a bloke, and you've never had to give it a thought. That's why transwomen don't get it, either.'

I like that. It’s important to call him out on his bullshit like that.

I think sometimes in these debates, the other side sticks their heels in and is incapable of acknowledging that you have the better argument.

My elderly sister in Canada believes everything the CBC says so is convinced I'm a nasty person who wants trans people to suffer. But she has never conceded an argument to me in her life, so it is just another topic we cannot mention.

Love this response.

Yes, I have certainly falling out with people in the US/Canada.

You are really stuffed with them, because they don’t differentiate the word ‘sex’ from ‘gender’. They also have swallowed all their HR policies and are so confident they know the ‘right’ answer to every moral issue, they simply can’t hold a coherent argument in their minds.

You’ll say something like “I know my sex is female when I’ve given birth and am getting the stitches” and they’ll respond “your gender isn’t always relevant” and it is total facepalm time.

However, I have found that men to respond well to bold, teeth-baring defiance in a way women don’t. Women will just try to ensure you are outcast and unable to find employment again.

@Abhannmor exactly the church of the penis rebranded

Just tell him ''Men deciding how much to take off women to give to men.'' And refuse to discuss it with either of them any more.
(Its from a post by nilsmousehammer)

'Men defining what a woman is, what women should and shouldn't fear, what women should and shouldn't say, what rights women should be fine with giving up and, of course, what constitutes 'real' misogyny: get a bloody mirror. That's real misogyny, looking right back at you'

JKR

Just ask him if he believes twaw, would he fuck one?

It'll be no help at all, he'll just get all 'how dare you?', but it might be funny.

Love this response!

Well, thanks . I'm around 8 stone wringing wet, and first exploded this way when DH (not a bad chap, honest) rashly compared my concern about flashers, single-sex wards, hostel rooms etc to his 18-stone self being embarrassed by showing his bum to a female nurse.

He didn't seem to have noticed the BLOODY GREAT ASYMMETRY involved. He's like one of those Great Danes that get intimidated by a cat.

I've switched to my tablet and it's too hard to quote everyone! You'll never know how much I appreciate all the responses, I felt like I was losing my mind and couldn't understand why what I was saying made no impact. The name calling secretly thrilled me, particularly as I don't swear IRL!

The posts that really hit a nerve are the ones about the unemotional debate that is scoring points for him and he doesn't even consider that this affects me. Or doesn't care. You're right, I don't like him which makes me sad but if he's happy to feel all motal high ground and superior and make me the problem, why would I? He's happy to make me uncomfortable and unsafe.

I'd forgotten but I raised the subject of JK with my other gay brother and he gracefully disagreed with me but at that stage I didn't really have any idea how bad it really is. I think the fact that I'm having to grapple with odious people like Trump and Piers Morgan saying the same thing as me is painful! My older boy told me that he's educated himself and was like I am now but I don't know any better because of how I was raised. He'll turn off a radio rsther than hear news, gets all his news from YouTube. My younger son is a bit yes, men can be women but I've told them both they will never be anything other than my male offspring. Which means I haye t4ans prople, apparently.

I do think I need to respond to the mansplaining of me being a big meanie insisting my rights being supported, I like the idea of explaining my 50 years of lived experience have taught me something. And my A in Honours Biology, back when God was a boy!

He's probably swanned off feeling all superior, having put me in my place. Wonder if he even cares that his words have me awake since 3 the last two nights, wondering why I can't seem to get across how this is real for me or why it doesn't seem to matter. Wondering how i must have chosen the wrong words and how my words are being interpreted and what is the right combination to explain.

My Dad asked what a TERF is. I said it's "an insult to silence women. Literally means...but now means shut up and stop saying men can't be women". Tempted to add, commonly used with bigot, transphobe and Nazi but spared the poor man! REALLY tempted to say on the group chat that "if words aren't enough" and then link to the video if that poor woman being punched.

If you've made it this far, you deserve a bloody medal! I've been lurking here sine Graham Lenihan got reinstated (first time i actually checked what he'd said originally to get banned on Twitter) and have been educating myself since. I think I was happier when I didn't know, ignorance is bliss. But once you see what's happening, you can never unsee it.

Boy, I real needed to get that off my chest to people who actually understand, don't twist my words and are so articulateand wise. I think i might actually sleep tonight, THANK YOU SO MUCH YOU WONDERFUL HUMANS!

I’d be tempted just to disengage, with a “let’s chat about this in a year or two when you might have learnt what this is really about. I’m not going to debate my rights any more at this stage”.

My reply would be -

'Women aren't human shields or support humans. Our services and spaces aren't resources to be utilised for the benefit of males. Women who are in prison don't deserve to be incarcerated (as they currently are) with convicted male sex offenders. Women who need single sex rape crisis services are currently self excluding from the services they need because because all the services available are mixed sex. I'm astounded that you feel that women's spaces and services are yours to give away.'

Would this help?

I'd love to but i might hospitalise my poor Dad!

I've just realised, it's peak male privilege, happily give away my safety and how dare I not be happy! Finally understand that JK quote now too.

Once someone has mansplained your own mind to you as terf ideology it's time to put the conversation in the bin.

There's enough decent men that can see the reality.

Mansplainers on the left are too dense to reason with. We don't need them as there's a majority of reasonable people who are not making outlandish accusations about reasonable requests that even the Equality & Human Rights Commission in the UK confirmed are already covered in the Equality Act.

Let him go.

Ask him, would he support a trans wing in prisons, and if so, would he support a male rapists who preys on trans women to claim to be trans to get access to his targets?

If he doesn't support the above, why would he put women in the same jeopardy in their everyday life?

I can suggest a two word, one-syllable phrase but I don't think your brother would appreciate it.

Probably best to agree to disagree.

For your own sanity read Jonathan Haidt's The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion. He uses a moral psychology framework to explore why and how people prioritise particular virtues and how conflict can arise.

Buuuut just on the point of the authorities "doing their best for everyone" or whatever it was he said... when or rather if organisations do any kind of risk assessment for putting men in women's spaces, they don't actually look at the risks to the women whose spaces they are, they look at the risks to the man.

Ask him, if he thinks it is just a case of it is fine for transwomen to be in those spaces, would he also think it was fine for men in general to be?

Does he think it is right for men to decide what women will allow?