Still Genuinely Willing To Discuss In Good Faith

[Catiette]

I've taken the plunge and started a new thread. In the interests of good manners, an addendum that I may be disappearing to work for a while myself, as this has all been far too interesting to allow me to achieve any of my urgent weekend work to-dos today - I hope that, in the light of that, creating this follow-up thread isn't bad form. I just thought other people may want to continue discussing these issues (mainly, now, the redefinition of woman, and statistical trends re. women globally), and I'd definitely dip back in when the urge to procrastinate overcomes me next. No worries, of course, if people think we did it all to death on the old thread - we were fairly thorough, methinks(!), so can also just let Good Faith Discussion #2 rapidly fade into Mumsnet obscurity. 😀

I don't feel I've been particularly hurt or abused by men; my concern with women's rights and issues stems from my inherent sense of the dignity and integrity of women as a distinct grouping of human being.

i find it deeply offensve and disrepectful to refer to male people as women. I'm accepting of the trem Transwoman - but that implies they are trans - not an actual woman. A male person 'presenting' as a woman - whatever that means.

Which is where the 'good faith' aspirations tend to come to a natural end. It is impossible to square a circle. Confliuct of view and interest are what politics is about. This is where the agendas come in.

I believe the “good faith discussion” description required that those involved agreed terms. The discussion can only really begin in good faith when it is acknowledged that the group who call themselves transwomen are inherently not part of the group women. Only then is it possible to have a good faith discussion about how both groups can be supported.

As I said in my original post, if we start from the point “transwomen are women” we have already acknowledged that we believe these groups are not separate groups and thus good faith discussion about how both groups can be accommodated is impossible.

Women cannot afford to start from there as their position is already compromised. Any honest discussion must start with factual acceptance of reality.

I'm not sure I quite understand what you're saying here.

Is it Spooky implying that feminists have been tricked by conservative men that is equivalent to suggesting that believing TW should be in women's spaces means you also want to legalise paedophilia?

Or is it me saying Spooky doesn't credit us with much intelligence that is equivalent to that?

Yes, you have to have some basic agreement on some basic concepts and terms - otherwise everything is working at cross purposes. It becomes an intellectual parlour game with added 'nice' rules of engagement.

On the subject of homophobia and LB women’s rights - I’m a lesbian who came out during Section 28. I was able to phone a local Lesbian Line and be welcomed into a world of lesbian discos, clubs, pub nights, book groups, support groups, discussion groups etc, and it was simply taken for granted that all of these were just for biological women who were same sex attracted.

If I came out now I wouldn’t have any of that unless I managed to find it underground, because now it would all be about gender and ‘queerness’.

Tbf to Spooky and others we’ve managed 60 pages of mostly reasonably put discussions, nothing like the trolling one sentence comments we get from others (marbles etc). And I think anyone lurking will have learnt a lot.

Regarding the rolling back of gay rights, or certainly a new hostility to 'Queer' agendas - that was always going to be inevitable so long as it was insisted there was "No LGB without the TQ+".

Not all gay or lesbian poeople buy into Queer Theory - or its offshoot 'Gender Identity Theory' which is why the LGB Alliance was formed. To advocate on behalf of gay, lesbian and bisexual people on the basis that they are same sex attracted - not same gender attracted.

I meant that you can feel that there is an agenda at play without believing that everyone who supports that 'side' has that agenda.

So Spooky can believe that the GC movement is being driven by men who have a final aim of removing gay rights and women's rights without thinking that every gender critical women has that as her motivation. In much the same way as I believe that the TWAW movement is being driven at its higher levels by queer theorists whilst thinking that there are lots of people like Spooky who believe in gender ID without subscribing to that higher agenda.

Spooky has explained that she had thought that an agenda that she disapproves of is driving GC thinking and a number of posters seem to have taken this as a personal attack, while at the same time they hold the view that the TRAs have a sinister agenda. I don't think those poster genuinely believe that Spooky is trying to to steam roller all sexual boundaries and more than I think Spooky thinks GC women are planning to roll back women's rights.

I see. But I disagree and find that offensive.

I am absolutely, 100% certain that my own views (that women are adult humans of the female biological sex who deserve their own spaces and sports, and that belief in gender identity is inherently regressive and sexist) are not driven by conservatives whose views I mostly find abhorrent, but who are much cleverer than me and other gender critical feminists and have therefore managed to use us as pawns to progress their anti-trans agenda without us realising it.

I don't think this point of view is really compatible with crediting gender critical feminists with being capable of independent and intelligent thought. That's why it is so insulting (as well as being obviously wrong).

I suppose an alternative possibility is that Spooky has completely misunderstood what gender critical feminists actually think. Now is the ideal opportunity to learn.

Sorry, that should have been FWR board. The short name for the section of Mumsnet that these posts are on.

I totally get what you mean about the tone change BTW. I'm also choosing to scroll past a few things now for my own sanity, even when I know I come from a similar "I don't have a gender identity" viewpoint as some comments 🤦‍♀️

IMO it's so much more valuable if we don't get tied up in definitions of words and jump straight to the issues at hand on the premise that:

1. people that don't believe in gender identity are likely to believe that TWANW, so when they use the words "women", "transwomen", "lesbian", "mother", this refers to biological sex
2. people that do believe in gender identity are likely to believe that TWANW, so when they use the above terms, this means that they will distinguish between "trans" women and "cis" women.

From what I've seen, I annoy several people on both sides of the gender identity belief/gender critical debate with this suggestion but I'm following on from your comment earlier that you were happy to discuss things on this premise. Thank you 🙏

On that basis, I wanted to follow up on the example from one of your earlier posts that lesbians should be free to state that they prefer people without penises. We're both in agreement on that one. I've seen a recent PP saying above that she's glad she came out years ago because it would be so difficult to state this preference now. It's definitely a very real problem that impacts lesbians.

I can't think of a perfect answer on this one: from my POV (no belief in gender identity), the words "woman" and "lesbian" should be adequate for this preference to be clear. I'd also express a strong dislike for using the phrase "people with penises" in general descriptions as it sounds as awful as "genital fetishist", just from a different perspective. Also, I can't imagine Keir Starmer or any other politician who says that TWAW (or variations of this) saying that "I prefer people without penises", "people with vaginas", "women with vaginas" or "women without penises" to describe it either. It's a bit of a head mash at that point, when the obvious answer to me is for a lesbian to say they are attracted to women and also for Keir Starmer to say the same (hopefully just his wife in his case 😬).

I'm not sure if you have context from other threads on this board but I'm aware you're in the US and our politicians may not be so well known there. He's the leader of the Labour (left) party who recently wouldn't define the word woman and then went on to say that 99.9% of women "don't have penises".

I promise you this isn't a gotcha!! My agenda is up above in this thread. It's a geniuine question on a difficult difference in opinion that has a real impact on lesbian women.

I'm not asking you to solve this on behalf of the world @SpookyFBI , just wondering if we can discuss it without annoying each other 😁😬

I don't disagree with you.

But I'm sure that Spooky would regard my view that the the TRA movement is a (perverts charter) sheep in wolves clothing is offensive too.as.I'm.sure that isn't her personal motivation.

She has engaged with us rather than the usual 'ploppers' or name callers and post reporters.

I'm sure she has misunderstood or been mislead about what those who hold GC views think but if we want her engagement to continue I don't think rounding on her for thinking there could be an agenda in play is the way to achieve that. Especially as she said she had believed that not that she currently does.

Ps @SpookyFBI I should also say that I'm happy to leave that undiscussed just now. There's a lot going on on this board, so me plucking one difficult subject out for specific discussion right at this moment may not be ideal. No rush whatsoever on your response and "I have no answer" is totally fine. I have no answer other than TWANW, so "lesbian" and "woman" already mean that a preference for people without penises is clear. That's a pretty easy position for me to be in on this board, even if my approach/motivation/style may be questioned.

I don't think rounding on her for thinking there could be an agenda in play is the way to achieve that. Especially as she said she had believed that not that she currently does.

☝️☝️☝️(italics added by me) and everything else you just said @OttersMayHaveShiftedInTransit

I think a good faith argument may require one of the foundational acceptances that people may find some things discussed offensive.

Maybe we have to try and work with that. If no offense is intended, then hopefully we can move on and continue to discuss, bit by bit.

Worth bearing in mind we have years of bad-faith engagement to contend with, that is not easily forgotten.

Discussion can be tricky, frustrating and sometimes challenging. I suppose that's the whole reason we're in the situation we are - for so long we were told 'no debate' and women were forced to stay quiet or risk censure, job loss, threats, etc. We are still only shakily coming out of that horrible situation.

Fair enough.

In which case, the best way I can think of to explain it is this.

There are two things, sex and gender. The various competing belief systems choose to accept or reject either one or both of these things.

Group 1: rejects the reality of sex, accepts the legitimacy of gender.

Group 2: accepts the reality of sex, rejects the legitimacy of gender.

Group 3: accepts the reality of sex, accepts the legitimacy of gender.

Group 1 are those who believe that trans women are women and trans men are men. They believe that having a penis is not an impediment to being a woman and having a uterus is not an impediment to being a man, because what really makes someone a woman or a man is what gender (i.e. presentation, roles, behaviour etc.) you identify with.

Group 2 are gender critical feminists. They believe that men are adult humans of the male biological sex and women are adult humans of the female biological sex. They find gender regressive and believe that people of either sex should be allowed to present and live however they like, provided they aren't harming anyone. They do, however, believe in the importance of biological sex in certain situations, for example, sports. They believe that women should have equal opportunities to compete in sports as men do, but not that women should actually compete against men, because they recognise the reality that women and men have different bodies, making women uncompetitive against men in sport, but men unable to have babies.

Group 3 are social (and often religious) conservatives. They believe that if you have a penis you are a man and if you have a uterus you are a woman. They also believe in gender and believe that men should conform to masculine standards of presentation, roles and behaviour and that women should conform to feminine standards of presentation, roles and behaviour. They believe that sex is inextricably linked to gender, and anybody who rejects the gender roles associated with their biological sex is effectively breaking the social contract. This is why they are both anti-trans and anti-feminist. They see trans people as perverted for wanting to perform the gender roles and stereotypes typically associated with the opposite sex. And they are generally opposed to women's rights because they see women fundamentally as breeders, who should spend their fertile years barefoot and pregnant and their whole lives taking care of the family and the home.

This is important because both Group 2 and Group 3 define men and women according to biological sex, not gender. This gives those in Group 1 the ammunition to say that Group 2 are allying themselves with Group 3 (despite the fact that most of us abhor Group 3 and agree that they are not feminists and do not have women's interests at best heart), and to claim that defining women as breeders is regressive.

But it is a fact of life that we are the ones who have babies. That is the very reason why we need sex specific rights (to prevent us from being fired for being pregnant, for example) and sex specific healthcare (such as the right to an abortion). It is very very difficult to fight for the rights of a group of people you cannot even name.

So no, it is not regressive to define women as the childbearing sex, because that is what we are and it is why we have specific needs that men do not have if we are to participate equally in a world that has been built by and for the benefit of men.

Personally I think the alternative viewpoint - that women are people who identify with the gender norms typically ascribed to the female sex - is regressive. Feminists have been fighting for decades for women not to be limited by these things, and for us only to be treated differently to men where there is a physical reason justifying such difference in treatment (i.e. asking people to give up their seat for a pregnant woman on the bus). The idea that a woman is something entirely nebulous and subjective, something you can choose to identify as or not, is hugely unhelpful in that regard and risks undoing decades of work by feminists to build a better world for girls and women.

Just checked back up the thread and she did say the Conservative Party.

I still get the feeling that some posters forget the 'feminist' side. They still are focused on the 'right wing' side while ignoring or forgetting the depth of feminist discussion that has occurred about these issues and where it all stems from.

That conflation is something that extreme activists embrace, and I believe must be responsible for.

And frankly, it doesn't always matter what individual's 'agendas' are. It sometimes comes down to 'are they perpetuating (even unknowingly) a broader political agenda in what they say and how they react to things people say'? It isn't always about the individual when tactics, words and concepts that are from the broader group political agenda are being used or repeated.

And if I was posting things that were demonstrably false and people showed evidence to that end, I would, of course, be rethinking my stance. Spooky has told us they have done this already. I believe that falsehoods need to be pushed back on maintaining respect, of course. But still, why allow falsehoods to be allowed to stand without pointing out that they are indeed false?

"That conflation is something that extreme activists embrace, and I believe must be responsible for."

I don't mean posters on this thread, I mean generally.

Yes. Here it refers to the Conservative party.

And I find the situation in the USA to not be comparable to the situation in the UK. However, we know very well that extreme trans rights activists (in general) have used this 'rolling back abortion rights' as an argument to dismiss women's concerns in countries such as the UK and Australia where abortion rights are certainly not in contention in any way near the way they are in the states.

This has been a very deliberate tactic by those extreme activists. Hence I asked Spooky who had convinced them that feminists in the UK (maybe even in the USA) were campaigning at all to remove the rights around sexual orientation protection or women's rights in general. Is it the usual, picked up through wildly biased reading of media or social media, or is it someone telling them this. Like that ' brilliant' person who fed the other poster some huge falsehoods.

Are posters who believe these easy to disprove falsehoods being influenced more by media / social media or by friends and family?

Please see the screenshot attached

I also want to add that many extreme activists also use falsehoods about contraception and not just abortion.

Please see SpookyFBI · Today 13:31

That is the reference I was referring to in my post about Trump not comparable to the Tories.

Did the screenshot show up like this for anyone else?

Yeah, for me too, Helle. Glad someone is being considerate of my sensitive disposition. 😄