Trans rights activism, a GC male perspective

[RealityFan]

Hallo Mumsnet allies, from recently-joined new comrade in arms. And a male to boot.
I've been deliberating leaving some thoughts on the scarred landscape that is trans activism, from an XY perspective. I'm unsure of how much interest a guy's thoughts are here.
My opinions range from the autogynephile/porn "sharp end" of the phenomenon, through my views as a male non parent on the phenomenon amongst teens, through the threat to free speech/institutional capture area, segueing nicely into the Labour Party's position and what this means post-2024 GE.
I need to be frank in this discussion, and some of what I might say may rub some readers the wrong way, but it's my heartfelt analysis.
I'm seeing very little from GC men online, save for Graham Linehan, Malcolm Clark, Dennis Noel Kavanagh, Simon Edge, Colin Wright, Billboard Chris, Wesley Yang, Jon Pike.
My take is of someone who's really thought a lot about this subject, has really weighed up lots of factors, and has really come down on the GC side, indeed is working hard to reconcile very strong emotions on the subject.
I'll post my thoughts if that's wanted, let me know.

I don't think 'want" is a good enough reason tbh. Women only spaces are to protect women from assault and marginalisation. It's not just 'I fancy it'. For that, you have to make do with choosing who you invite to a social event.

Which is where we come back to the Equality Act (sorry to bang on - but I think it's important). Women can make a valid argument for things like women only business groups because they are not equal and are still ignored in those circles. Until they are properly included, there is a good argument that these are needed to foster equality.

There is no such argument for a single sex golf club.

Unless OP has one. I still don't have an answer to: what do men need to do that they can't do with women present?

I get the talking about emotions, relationships...etc - and spaces for that exist and are legitimate.

But what difference does having women on a golf course make to the men there?

Is it - as I suggested unthread - that they are less censored with women present? What else is there?

@literalviolence Are you not both talking about slightly different things though. There are women only spaces (bathrooms, changing rooms, rape crisis centres etc) where the rational for them being single sex is so obvious its ludicrous they are being challenged. And while safety is a bigger issue for women I think almost everyone would agree men have a right to single sex toilets, changing rooms too because they also deserve privacy/dignity.

But then there are also social clubs/professional networking clubs and things which lie between the two which are more complicated. On the one hand there is an argument for women only networking/mentoring programmes to help them climb the ladder in male dominated professions. But there were also the more traditional men only groups (like the men only golf clubs/social clubs/the Freemasons etc) which were about helping men network, which were seen as bad because they were exclusionary. Actually they were as much about maintaining jobs went to a certain class/social circle than about keeping women out. You can argue that encouraging the one while discouraging the other is about redressing imbalances. But it isn't the same argument as the safety issue. I think some MRA types are definitely conflating the two (you took our men only golf clubs so we're taking your toilets). But I think the arguements are different

And I do women only kickboxing which is purely social. No work networking involved. But I wasn't thrilled when 2 men rocked up in tight lycra shorts and push up bras. I like men. I don't want to be punched in the face by them.

I think the lack of response is because we already know about all of that. Deeply, and intimately.

I also contribute to a male dominated hobby forum, and most men just keep their head down whenever I bring up this issue, at best, or many of the gay men try to completely close me down with accusations of hatred.

Most of the left leaning ( the vast majority of posters) heterosexual men just try to pretend the issue is a non issue, and don't comment on my posts at all; or else they go along with "the trans rights are human rights and don't impinge on women's rights" line.

I suspect that most are looking at porn, and they also tend to believe that prostitution should be legal and all of the 'sex positive' stuff. In fact one has just posted that legalising prostitution in the Netherlands had eliminated all people trafficking. He actually seems to believe it - or at least he wants to.

Most Leftist men seem content with the marketisation of women and their bodies, as much as they rage against marketisation.

You've explained this better than me.

There doesn't have to be a reason for men only spaces other than many men, especially older ones, don't feel comfortable with women around them, just want the safe space companionship of other men.

These are not all about plotting against women.

Your view is welcome to me and indeed you have been posting for a while without stating your sex. I want all decent men to 'get it'.

The men only spaces you seem to be referencing seem to be based on social and cultural groupings, rather than on single sex spaces which are predicated on the differences of sexed body - such as changing rooms, toilets, sports - which are the sorts of single sex spaces that most of us here are concerned about.

@lifeissweet sorry I missed your post to me. The part of me that's still an angry lefty thinks there's a very strong class element to the fact that the networks that actually are involved with men in the upper professional class are not being challenged at all. If anything I think the new evolution of talk around "lived experience", "decolonisation" etc are a female (or female inclusive) version of the old-school tie network rather than a challenge to it. The 2 complement each other.

Men only golf clubs.... where men got the lions share of the facilities and space and women were allowed a bit, if they were allowed at all.

If there was an all singing, all dancing women's golf club you can bet there would be men getting snotty about being excluded. Women are not even allowed health support groups about conditions that only exist in biologically female bodies without men turning up to target and smash them down for daring to mention that female is a biological thing and to talk without the supervision of men.

Although this is not your typical man in the street kind of man, who probably couldn't care less because no personal skin in the game. This is the kind of man who does have skin in the game where the word 'woman' or anything to do with 'women' is a red rag to a bull.

It always comes down to the acceptance of women having something that men actually care about and yet still respecting that it's not for them because women get to have lives too. And the belief that if a man has personal skin in the game he is entitled to get involved and tell the women how it is going to be.

On which note, the threads here with male people with trans identities is often worth reading, even the ones vilified by the TQ+ political lobby for going off message. Hayton is an example. Always civil, always polite, listens and participates as women explain their problems and needs for single sex spaces. And it always ends with a head pat and a speech that in essence says "I have politely and patiently heard all your petitions, and my decision is that I will be using your spaces because that suits me, and I don't see that it harms you really. And those women I exclude, well, sorry, bit of a shame, but I matter and they don't really. Daddy knows best."

These are not all about plotting against women

I don’t think anyone suggests that men are ‘plotting against’ women at all. To be honest, it’s an eye-opener if you believe it is partially about plotting against women.

@RealityFan Yeah, I live in the Netherlands and there's a small village near me where the retired men bought and built there own shed type thing which is NO WOMEN ALLOWED. I think its so they can get space from their wives and talk about old men things together. I don't think the wives mind much either. Probably the secret to a happy marriage. It is funny because its the sort of thing 8 year olds also do.

I agree with all of that, @NotHavingIt. Good post.

We are so aware of the porn and paraphilia element in all of this. Those of us who still cling to the Left as a kind and progressive movement have also had our eyes opened.

Men on the left (I'm looking at you, Billy Bragg, Owen Jones et al) seem delighted to throw women under the bus. Feminists we're saying in the 70s that they felt tolerated by men on the left rather than supported and I never really saw it until now. It's crystal clear. Those men really loved libertarian feminism and sex positivity, but are very reluctant to budge up and make space for actual equality. It is massively disappointing to witness.

As for porn and AGP...

Porn is bad for society as a whole and men are suffering from porn addled thinking and introversion.

But it's worse for women.

Sex positivity and 'sex work is work' type thinking has got us here. No shaming. All embracing. It has leaked out into empowering men who cross dress to come out into the open. There have always been men who like to put in their wife's knickers, but it was considered a bit sad and weird. I do blame third wave feminists to a degree. I think we took a wrong turn with disasterous consequences.

That's not to say I blame women for men's deviancy, just that there have been an awful lot of women enabling this crap for a long time - and it is because of the monstering of second wavers as humourless shrews in comfy shoes.

I'm interested to hear your analysis, OP. You say you think we won't like it and I'm wondering why. What is it you think you know that we haven't already considered?

I do blame third wave feminists to a degree. I think we took a wrong turn with disasterous consequences.

That's not to say I blame women for men's deviancy

Third Wave Feminism included men as feminists didn’t it? So you aren’t blaming women if you blame 3rdWFs.

True. And that was a large part of the problem.

Thank you

The power dynamic/risk assessment issues are all in the female side.
Ok, a male victim of DV might rail against a trans IDd female being in his therapy group.
But that's pretty niche, what are the chances.
Said female in any number of sensitive male spaces, I can't think of any crisis point.

It has taken my DH a long time to get what I have been so incensed about and thinking about the potential impacts from his point of view as a man, there is one risk to men from a transman in the gents' loos and that is that in a space where he should only encounter males, he risks being accused of improper behaviour by said transman, groping, harrassment or at the extreme end rape.

At the end of the day, men are primarily interested in getting off, so any ‘rights’ they fight for tend to be about widening the domain of their sexual entitlement. It’s completely incompatible to accommodate male interests in feminism.

As for male only, my Auntie goes off to her choir one evening a week and then hangs out with her friends after. My uncle loves this time because he invites his male friends over to play cards and they put their feet on the table, let their beer guts hang out and fart without worrying about women disapproving. So I think there is also a ‘letting it all hang out’ component to male only too.

This informal preference isn’t a legitimate aim for an actual establishment to be men only though imo.

Spot on.

My naive assumption a while ago was that because the left always talked human rights and minority rights, and brought in most of the pro women's legislation, then the Labour Party would always be the home for said groups incl females.

I voted Tory for low taxes and law/order (a distant memory now).

But scratch below the surface, and the substance is far worse than the surface. Misogyny and DV rife in leftist situations, women still do the errands.

That was difficult enough, but now the "trans child" has appeared. And what do we find?
At least two shadow cabinet members have trans kids, one full double mastectomy etc, and the reference for TWAW a mantra on the left.

The trans child is now ubiquitous. In the interconnected left world of politics, MSM, social services, health, education, arts, sciences even, almost everyone has a trans child, has a family member who has a trans child, has a colleague with a trans child.

And a movement which may have driven law on women's rights, but now elevates the trans child above all others, has effectively become institutionally captured, and now uses the same antagonist language against GC feminists, left or right, as they did against racists and homophobes in the past.

The left...home to misogyny and magical thinking.
Not home to reality-based women.

Oh goody.

Apparently here comes the answer that woman-brains couldn't manage all by their little selves.

You probably didn't mean to sound that way OP, but this is part and parcel of the whole problem that males always don't see anything at all that interests them as being something they shouldn't be leading the subhumans over. Which might be done with screamed death and rape threats and stamped feet, or with kindly paternalistic leadership offered out of the goodness of a proper human's heart. And there is the root of the issue in itself.

This is why this battle has to be fought by women, for women. And yes, many women are captive to dick pandering, their internalised misogyny and belief that a woman only has value if serving a penis person is something we are going to have to properly deal with this time around.

I think the thing about the left being the side of women is a common misconception - and certainly one that I held until very recently.

I only recently became aware that many US Republicans were previously pro-choice. Reagan was before he discovered that being anti-abortion was a vote winner for the Christian Right. He did a full switch. As did Bush after him.

Women's rights are not really a leftist issue. Yes, the roots of the feminist movement lie in left wing discourse and were born from the left, but I don't get the feeling that the men were ever truly on board. They would support campaigns for things like abortion, because it suited them. If they get someone pregnant by accident, it is in their interests that there is an option not to be a father against their will. That sounds hideously cynical, I know, but I feel so betrayed and let down that it's opening my eyes to the possible motivations beneath.

It all feels performative now. Anyone who truly examines the logic of the issue can see the anti-women and homophobic elements involved. I think it is impossible not to. You can't spend decades arguing that same sex attraction is valid and that people are born that way and can't be converted - and then go on to argue that women can be men and gay men who object are bigots. It makes no logical sense. Yet here we are...

And that is, as you say, where the 'trans child' comes in. If you can be born to be gay, then you can be born to be trans, right?

There is a whole lot that can be delved into about parenting theories and how we have changed from 'adults know best', top-down parenting to more child centred ideas. Maybe that has gone too far? I'm not sure. I'm just musing. I think that has something to do with gay rights and awareness too. Parents learned that if their child was gay, it would be damaging and wrong to fight that. The child does know best. That was right. But accepting your child may be gay is totally different from this. A child can experiment and find out who they are with no rush or requirement to set anything in stone. No medical changes required. Children are also under no requirement to announce their sexuality - aged 11 or so - to all of those around them. There is no pressure to choose.

But you are right. Look into any of the most vocal allies and you usually find a trans child in the mix. This has been noticed by us before on here. Repeatedly.

It is a perfect storm in so many ways. So many elements have made this happen so fast and under the radar.

This is so interesting @RealityFan I think women are taking their anger at men not being what they thought ( women with cocks) out on you.
Men are different from women.
I have a male friend, an academic, in his 20s he was full of incel talking points; he was also fat and plain-looking. 🤔 After he got his PhD he took up running, then weight-lifting. Today he is a male pinup knowing lots of girls and no longer an incel.
Really Jordan Peterson was right telling young men to clean to their rooms and take responsibility for improving their lives.

I used to think the same as you. That this was some kind of MRA or misogynistic backlash. I think to a point that’s true with the TRA themselves. It’s quite a collection, some AGs, some 4chan incels just trolling and some brain washed quite confused people.

But I don’t believe it’s the case for the wider population of males. It’s just pure indifference. Nothing actively sinister about it in 99% of cases.

Every man has a mother, and usually for those men the mother is not a threat and provides this invisible stability to a family. So they apply that to all other women. I know Jordan Peterson says women are chaos, which might be true for the insides our head as we try to juggle mental load of a trillion different things to keep everyone fed, alive and where they are supposed to be at any one point. But on the outside women are generally calm and stable part of society. So calm and stable nearly to the point of invisibility. That we are not our own individual people. Lots of women on here will talk of being support humans and taken for granted.

As a new mother I even see this with my beautiful innocent 11 month old. They knew dad was a different person after about 3 months. They are only just figuring out that I am a different person to them.

I don’t know whether this ‘invisibility flaw’ can be fixed as it seems so entrenched in our actual biology even down to the development of the human brain. But this is not the sole cause of the gender wars. It’s merely the reason I think it’s taken so long for society to catch up and be aware it’s an issue.

Now the issue is that some people are genuinely stupid and unfortunately seem to have platforms, but most are just the silent majority and we are having to work backwards and unpick this mess which is harder than stopping it in the first place.

We will get there in the end.

Agreed that women are the glue that hold society together. And they're quiet peace-makers, be kind, let's do this together. Women make horizontal supportive social networks. Men are hierarchical, fighting for dominance.
Evolutionary biology + socialization.
So with the TRAs we have a perfect storm, a 'be kind' societal attitude with a toxic mix of male hatred + violence + dominance.

As you can see, my recollection of feminism from turn of century has generated strong reactions.

I'm glad your antagonism to me isn't shared by everyone here. You really saying the male view is unwanted or males are really not needed in this fight?

You saying it was only women who toppled Sturgeon?

How many women voted for pro-Self ID Humza?

If you don't like my mansplaining style, would you really prefer it if I'd have hidden I was male, and was outed at a later date?

Yes. This is the issue. Women needing spaces for safety, dignity or redressing imbalance is not the same as men just wanting them.