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"

Sorry, “what women must allow”.

Does he know what people in the U.K. who have seen those videos now think about NZ?

If I was feeling petty i might tell him that his support for "transwomen" is an indication that he doesn't actually think they're women, because if he did he probably wouldn't care about them.

That's easy for me to say though, my brother (who is 28) agrees with me. I'm not sure I would push the issue with him if I thought it might become a wedge between us.

Sorry, don't mean to spam your thread op, but I've just remembered that Helen Joyce says don't try to convince people. People don't get argued into opinions and they don't get argued out of them. Pushing can make them dig in.

Maybe drop it for now and if it comes up again, or younl think the time is right, ask him lots of questions. Probe his views. Get him to really think about it and explain what he thinks and why. Get him to really examine his position.

I think being pro -trans is all another outlet for the famous Australian and NZ mysogyny;

and possibly an outlet for some of these men’s repressed homosexual tendencies.

I think some of them think, ‘What if I were trans’ and are a bit attracted to the idea of being a bit sissy.

They also cannot stand to be told,”No” by women.

Sorry, I did not mean pro-trans so much as trans activist.

I wouldn't discuss it with him anymore. You can't change people's minds like that. You aren't going to change yours either!

It's hard though when someone you love disagrees with you on something like this. I do think it's very easy for men to be generous with women's single sex spaces. It's less easy when you're a woman, so it would annoy me too that he is so quick to shoot you down

Ignore him. Save your energy. Cut him out of your life as much as possible: he's not woman-friendly, is he? Join a women's group here in the UK and start getting involved in the fight-back. No need to argue with your brother, focus your energy on getting things changed here. Then we'll see the rest of the world begin to realise what fools they've been you can torment your brother by quoting back to him his stupid, male, misogynistic words.

I was a remainder, but I wonder if Brexit has helped this place where we live be Terf Island to some extent?

OP......something along the lines of,
Is he OK with his young daughter having to accept a naked man next to her in the gyms showers?
Does he understands for many women objecting it's not just about whether trans women are sex predators or not. Even if you could guarantee there would never be a single sex attack on a girl or woman by a transwoman. For many the main part is the penis.
1 in 6 women will be raped or suffer a serious sexual assault in their lifetime. That is literally millions of girls and women walking around in our society. Can you spot them? No me neither.
Next time you are walking down an street with a lone woman in front of you or steping into a lift with a lone woman see if you can tell if she is one. That women who have been raped manage to get over it to the point where they can mix in the same spaces as men is amazing. It is almost like some weird super power. I know I would find it incredibly difficult to mix with men again, but they do.
A big thing that enables them to is they have safe spaces when they are at their most vulnerable When they are in public toilets with their underwear round their ankles, knowing it is only women in that space ie nobody with a penis, enables them to cope. The same goes for changing rooms at shops or swimming pool showers in sports facilities of even prisons? How about elderly women receiving intimate personal care when living alone at home? Or even when attending a rape crisis centre after being raped, the right to not have a male bodied person treat you cannot be too much to ask. The fact that women complaining in these circumstances are called bigots tells us just how far this has gone.
It's the fact that the feelings of millions of women carrying the trauma of a rape are being put behind the feelings of a comparatively tiny number of trans women.
If trans women had all had theirv penis removed that would be one thing but the vast majority still have their working junk and have no plans to remove it.
Transwomen need to have their safe spaces and their needs catered for with dignity, but it shouldn't be at the expense of vastly larger number of normal women and rape survivors. Another way needs to be found.

Or something along the lines of "I love you Bro but I can't engage with an advocate for misogyny and homophobia."

I wouldn't bother. Helen Joyce has it right, we go round them, rather than try to convince them. Write to the New Zealand Ambassador instead.

Yeah, I would say, let's agree to disagree and change the subject. Put your energies where they will male a difference.

Make!

I would ignore his “arguments” — just tell him you are incredibly offended at how he has appropriated and disrespected your identity as a woman, and he has no right to tell someone else how to define their identity when they are not part of that group. Then leave it there.

The one thing these sanctimonious types don’t like is their own ideology being turned back on them. If only trans people can comment on trans identity, he as an oppressor of women shouldn’t be commenting on women’s identities.

This whole movement is a men’s rights movement that legitimates all the old-school sexism that we fondly imagined we’d got rid of — men talking down to women about what they should think. There’s no difference from men telling their wives what to think about “women’s libbers” in the 1970s.

Sorry that your brother’s a bit of a twat. Most men are tbh.

This is my opinion on it

You should have said 'but you are saying she is a woman therefore you are not allowed to tell her no as it hurts her feelings. Lesbians are being told saying no to trans women is being sexual nazis so next time you get hit on by a trans woman you have to take them home and make sweet love to them as anything less than that makes you anti trans. She doesn't have the wrong junk for you... she is a woman so she has all the right junk and your eyes are lying to you'

Not just men but the teeniest group of the most oppressed people to ever walk the earth who I'm apparently wishing out of existence. Instead of just wishing them out of women's spaces.

I'm afraid to ask my sister in case she's the last sibling and I'd hate to be the only GC one. It's sometimes hard to keep thinking you're right when you're agreeing with your parents and disagreeing with your siblings! I should be grateful my mum let me rant on about the subject and that I live on the opposite side of the world to my brother

I like the idea of contacting the NZ embassy ...

I think you have to accept that you are not going to change his mind, the aim should be for him just have to respect yours. Think about if he had a different view on abortion or a religion. This may make it easier

It reminds me of the abortion debates, and men thinking they had the right to dictate to women about their bodily autonomy, and shaming women that protested. The latent disregard for female agency. The railroading of male views about a topic that disproportional effects women.

There is a sea change coming, best to relax about it and let time reach him the errors of his mysogynistic ways.

I'm waiting on Helen's book to arrive and ordered that other one about personal journeys into being peaked today, the title escapes me!

I think i feel better that I'm not shouting into a void. I feel more relaxed today. Having said that, I got a notification that my brother has posted another message but it can wait until tomorrow. He's getting no more headspace from me!

Has he seen a photo of the Ladies GAA player?
I said something along the lines of “If you’re telling me that you’re standing with this chancer, we both know you’re taking the piss, and laughing at women.”

I definitely try to make them own as much of the extreme stuff as possible.

I'm a bisexual woman who used to id as transmasc. It's a complicated tangle trying to get people to understand bc it's "believe all women, unless the accused is a transwoman."

This book has helped me so much, and has even gotten some be kind types to accept that not everyone is against this ideology in bad faith https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/59049711-you-told-me-you-were-different

It's a baby step, there are still some people of gender in some of the accounts, but it's a frank and honest depiction of how "queer" women are preyed on not by "the straights" but gender queer or transwomen.

Frame it that way. Also, and this was something that woke me tf up, ask him open ended questions, don't just tell him things. Ask him if he ever feels guilty for thinking certain things, or doubting, even in his own brain. Ask if he can come up with a single criticism of the trans community. He doesn't have to tell you what it is, just to himself. That cognitive dissonance can be really startling.

Google "this never happens" and look for their poster of dozens of male rapists who identify as us

I would be tempted to respond to this message thus:
"In return, I will point out that the intent of your points and position may be to support transwomen, but the impact of them is to give me the impression that you're willing to override the needs of the 51% of the population that is of the opposite sex to you, to pander to the wants of a very small portion of the population that is the same sex as you. Also that you think violence against women is acceptable when they're women that you don't like. (If he's tried to justify the reaction to KJK there). Perhaps you should consider whether it's a bad sign that you've been influenced by the misogyny pervasive in New Zealand, which has the worst rate of domestic violence in the OECD."

At a guess:

He can imagine being a transwoman and feels uneasily sorry for them.

He has no clue what it’s like to be a woman and assumes it must be easy, given even his sister manages it.

Isn't he pompous about it, though? It would make me want to revert to childhood and put yogurt in his hood.