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'm still reading through all the things I missed while I was working today. I only had chance to jump in a couple of times earlier to follow up on specific points.

@ArabeIIaScott This very much echos my sentiment: if I was in a forum knowing that I held a minority viewpoint, I'd find it really tough. The instinct to slope off quietly or leave with a giant "fuck it, nobody cares what I'm saying so why should I bother?" must be huge.

Lots of people on here feel strongly about one, multiple or all aspects of gender identity in relation to women's rights and child safeguarding. I'll add myself to that list. I feel especially strongly, and at times angry, about the impact of gender identity as fact (rather than belief) being taught to children. Many children now seem to think that "deciding a gender identity" is a natural step to make in life. Almost part of a standard rite of passage. I want to challenge this because to me that doesn't make sense and I don't believe it should be conflated with gender dysphoria as a mental health condition.

But equally, there are trans people. They exist. Gender dysphoria does exist and it's real. I don't think it's possible for society to successfully navigate this difficult subject unless those that don't believe in gender identity listen to those that do.

What @SpookyFBI said about Maslow's hierarchy through the lens of a hypothetical transgender person really resonated with me. When I see the videos of TRAs protesting I see lots of anger but I hadn't really thought that some of the anger was coming from fear. I'm not justifying the violence at all but the whipped up emotion (some of it carefully orchestrated by big players in the TRA ranks, I'm sure) isn't just anger.
If you genuinely think the other side is out to get you and are going to do you harm, why would you bother worrying about whether they are middle aged ladies like me or Nazis? Also why would you bother debating? It's much safer to just shut/drown it out.

It strikes me that this point about identity is key. And I would have to concede society is sending mixed messages.

Because if we say to people that what's important is who they are inside, who they feel themselves to be, their inner identity. And in their inner confusion they decide they're 'really a girl' and make that declaration to the world. Then a GC response 'don't be silly of course you aren't' probably does feel like an annihilation.

A lot of it comes back to what's taught. We need to go back to basics. The lessons of the enlightenment. The importance of materiality. What you are, not what you feel yourself to be.

That's what I liked about the Maslow way of approaching it, @BonfireLady - the hierarchy recognises a distinction between the condition of gender dysphoria (respecting this as absolutely bottom-of-the-pyramid-body-and-life fundamental to those suffering it) and gender identity (which I'm inclined to think is more complex, and often embraced by any number of people to meet various needs a few levels up or higher). It also legitimises (since this seems to be required!) why safety is non-negotiable for most GC feminists - but also, I've no doubt, some trans people. And it encourages the separation of these foundational issues from the complicating factors higher up (relating to eg. validation etc.) which lead to demands for mixed-sex spaces and one - our -fundamental, foundational need being thrown to the wolves. It says No, this needs to be put first, well above validation, from the objective perspective of a long-since passed theorist free from the emotive influence of both sides.

(But then, that theorist's approach happens to favour my GC perspective. So do I favour it cos of my own biases? In part, almost certainly.

Hm...)

I don't have a problem with the concept that gender dysphoria exists. Scientifically, that is not a problematic concept, because likely pretty much all aspects of consciousness are rooted somewhere in biology and where there is a biological process, there is the potential for that biological process to be impacted by genes, the environment, illness, etc. However there are at least two caveats to this (probably lots, but let's start with these.)

The first is, we are also being told that someone can be trans WITHOUT gender dysphoria and, IMO that is a signal that what gender ideology advocates are interested in is not, precisely, the wellbeing and health of people with gender dysphoria. The concept of 'being trans', in itself, is incoherent, when divorced from mechanism in this way.

Second. If the category of people with gender dysphoria rooted in brain function were admitted to, it would fit simply into existing schema of developmental disorders, or mental illness, or something similar, or some combination thereof. I doubt it would be any more controversial than ADHD or food allergies. Something that society needs to accommodate in reasonable ways, emphasis on the word "reasonable." For example, with food allergies, a child's classroom may be nut-free, but the world has not chopped down all the nut trees and declared nuts illegal so that children with nut allergies may feel safe. And yet, instead of being in the category of disability, or developmental disorder, or mental illness, we are expected to categorize it as a new way of being, and all of society must reorient around it, with women reduced to "uterus havers" and "menstruators" and being deprived of private spaces when they need to deal with private bodily functions in the community, and being deprived of the set aside resources (such as sex-specific sports) that were developed to ameliorate the disadvantages women suffer as a result of being female-bodied.

“I'm not justifying the violence at all but the whipped up emotion (some of it carefully orchestrated by big players in the TRA ranks, I'm sure) isn't just anger.”

No. it is not just anger. However. I have stood holding hands with other women in front of those literally screaming protestors and I can assure you, most of what they are screaming is ludicrously false. It really is ludicrous because if they just applied critical thinking and just once thought about it and made the connections themselves, it is very easy to find the truth.

I and others asked some of the young female protestors why they ever thought some of what they were yelling was true and they simply repeated the same trope that the self appointed social media influencers say. There was nothing else. And any time someone tried to speak to them they just turned and screamed us out.

So, sure. There is fear. We know this. It has been fed by social media influencers and groups that are supposed to support them. I notice that when I asked Spooky just where Spooky was getting the information about feminists wanting to remove LGB rights and women’s rights, there was no answer. So, are intelligent people simply outsourcing their critical thinking skills on this topic? And why?

And who benefits from keeping trans people fearful that they latch on to the ‘genocide’ and the ‘suicide’ and the everyone hates you messages? Because perpetuating those messages is certainly not benefitting most trans people at all.

I believe also that the term ‘peaceful protest’ has become twisted over the past years as well. There is nothing peaceful in yelling and screaming abuse as a huge group a metre (as I experienced) from people who are not doing anything back but standing holding hands with a policeman standing between you. There is nothing peaceful about the tactic of attempting to surround women who are simply speaking to each other but not yelling back or anything like that.

In saying that, these people most certainly do not understand the violence that is inherent in the intimidation tactics they use. They have been also fed a lie that this violence is righteous. And they are adults choosing to act violently.

Really good point about the "peaceful" protest, Helleofabore. Ditto "protestors" preventing access to venues, screening of films etc. That's not protesting so opposing voices can be heard, it's silencing. Enforcing no debate. And the baddest of bad faith as can be.

”In saying that, these people most certainly do not understand the violence that is inherent in the intimidation tactics they use. “

By this I mean that these people are supported by some people to believe that this is ‘peaceful’ and ‘non-violent’. We have seen in here on the threads about these protests , posters actively dismissing the violence against women speaking. Victim blaming the women for speaking so called ‘hurtful’ words. That justify these protests.

They think these tactics are normal and are righteous. And people supporting them allow this to be perpetuated.

Therefore they don’t see the violence in the way they are acting.

It is rather startling to have seen a woman interview some young female protesters this weekend. One young protester told the women that their brother told them the women at the rally were violent. That this protestor saw not violence what so ever from
the women, and that there never has been that I remember, seems to have not caused any doubt whatsoever.

It is the totally implausible statements that makes it almost impossible for me to understand how people don’t go and research it all and from original source material. How do intelligent people believe things that are demonstrably false that is right there in front of them?

What the protestors have done is awaken the interest of YouTubers who like to document protests for whatever reason. We saw this in Australia and here in the UK. These people have huge reach. And the message these YouTubers have spread is one of horror at the violence, while being confused by the messages being yelled (they go and check for themselves) and also rather horrified by the tactics used. They document it because their audience is now questioning WTAF is going on!

Is now a good time for a quick plug to suggest people watch the film in the Film Review thread?

@Catiette I hope you don't mind me making that connection here but I've just finished watching it now and I was inspired to create the film review thread by the discussions here. I think it's so important to seek out different viewpoints. If people could listen to some of the concerns and thoughts about women and children being shared, calmly without all the whipped up emotion, they may feel less threatened. Perhaps that's utopian, but I'm hoping it's possible. Here's the link to the thread if anyone is interested in watching it.

@Helleofabore I can't imagine how that must have felt. I've not been in a situation like that and whenever I've seen the footage from some of the Let Women Speak events, I struggle to make sense of it.

☝️☝️ Yes!

All of it but particularly this bit:

Because if we say to people that what's important is who they are inside, who they feel themselves to be, their inner identity. And in their inner confusion they decide they're 'really a girl' and make that declaration to the world. Then a GC response 'don't be silly of course you aren't' probably does feel like an annihilation.

Amongst the many takeaways I've had from this thread, that's a big one.

To clarify what I was trying to say here, (I haven’t read ahead yet so I don’t know if others have tried to speculate), suggestion like ‘big pharma created the trans agenda to sell hormones’ or ‘paedophiles created the trans agenda to give puberty blockers to teens so older teens would look younger’ (paraphrasing) to me are a bit far fetched on the level of ‘they’re putting micro chips in the covid vaccine’. And without anyone challenging these assertions, it made it feel like this is the kind of thing all of the posters believed. It felt very similar to my belief previous that the conservatives were pushing those who had valid concerns about the loss of single sex spaces into extreme transphobia and fascism.

both of these things felt like examples of what’s outlined in this video about in group /out group dynamics on the internet, and I just wanted to try to give you (the general you) a bit of a reality check.

This thread has been very helpful to me at least to check myself of the assumptions I have held about the gender critical movement by talking to actual people who hold these views, rather than just listening to trans rights activists talking about the gender critical movement as I had previously.

regarding the whole ‘what is gender identity and why can no one explain it?’ question, I am explaining my understanding of it as someone who is not trans, as someone indeed who, like many of you, doesn’t really have a strong feeling of gender identity. I would describe myself as ‘cis’ more for convenience, because I don’t really not identify as a woman and my own feelings of my own gender don’t really affect my day to day life, so it’s possible that non-binary or agender might be more accurate. Although ‘she/her’ pronouns feel more comfortable than ‘they/them’ pronouns. I can imagine that there are cis people who do have a stronger sense of gender identity who might be better equipped to explain what it meant to them.

I think a more useful way to understand what gender identity is would be to ask a trans person, because they have a strong sense of gender identity that is in opposition to what society tells them they should be feeling, so they have by necessity had to put a lot more thought into it than I have. But even so, in order to try to explain it they would have to explain what it’s like to be them to people who aren’t them using whatever vocabulary they have available to them, and it’s often very difficult to put an experience or a feeling into words. it’s often very difficult, borderline impossible, to try to explain something you take for granted to someone else who has no knowledge of what you’re trying to describe. How would you explain the colour red to someone who was born blind?

and then of course there’s the barrier or someone who is gender critical asking a trans person to explain gender identity without first making the environment emotionally safe for them to be genuinely vulnerable and talk about something so personal. Although I do know some trans people, I am not remotely close enough to them personally to feel it would be appropriate to ask such a question. Even I would not have felt comfortable saying the first paragraph about my own experience of gender identity (or non experience) at the beginning of this thread.

my attitude is that people are saying they have this experience, and most of them have no reason to lie about it, so even though I don’t share or fully understand this experience, I must accept that this experience exists for some people. I don’t think it’s really useful to try to pathologize the experience - it must be caused by trauma or hatred of the body or autism - any more than it’s useful to try to pathologize neurodiverse experiences like autism. I try my best to understand the diverse array of human experiences, although as a human with my own biases caused by my own experiences this process is often difficult and flawed.

'Gender identity' has become part of mainstream trans rhetoric because when a man is trying to justify his demands to violate women's boundaries and enter female-only spaces, to the unsuspecting listener it sounds a lot more palatable to hear "I have a female gender identity, therefore I am a woman" than the raw truth of "I am a man who obsessively desires to be woman".

It all becomes a lot clearer when their framing of 'gender identity' is demolished to reveal the underlying yearnings and desires. Then we can easily see these are just men who covet what they can never have, and who lash out when the fantasy is challenged.

I would find this, or something very similar to it, to be a reasonable thing for a trans inclusive parent to say to their questioning teen also. If my daughter, some day in the far future, spontaneously told me she was a boy and wanted puberty blockers, I might say something like ‘that’s a very big decision and if it’s something you decide you want to do when you grow up then you will have my full support. For now why don’t you try living as a boy for a while and see how it goes. I would be happy to take you to get a hair cut and buy you some boy’s clothes if you like. Would you like me to start using ‘he/him’ pronouns to refer to you, or call you by a different name?’ I would really only consider hormones if she had consistently expressed a desire to be a boy without wavering for several years. Otherwise I would focus on giving her the space to explore and express herself freely. I have seen many others in trans inclusive spaces agree that this approach is best.

This is again why I have found this thread so useful. Because I had always assumed that the typical gender critical response would be ‘oh no, you’re not a boy! Wouldn’t you rather be mummy’s pretty girl? Don’t cut your beautiful hair, it would break my heart!’ It’s surprising to see how much I actually have in common with a lot of you after taking the time to talk with you. I think after hearing your perspectives, I would now add to the scenario I imagined above that I would be more explicit about the fact that if she lived that way for a while and found that actually it wasn’t for her, or that she liked some parts of it but not others, then that’s okay too and there’s nothing wrong with changing her mind.

had always assumed that the typical gender critical response would be ‘oh no, you’re not a boy! Wouldn’t you rather be mummy’s pretty girl? Don’t cut your beautiful hair, it would break my heart!’ It’s surprising to see how much I actually have in common with a lot of you

So you honestly thought gender critical people would force harmful stereotypes of hair and clothes onto children?
That's bonkers, can you not see the absolute lies you have been fed!
Clothes make no fuckin difference to biology, it's those pushing the trans agenda that need clothes to signify of you are a boy or a girl isn't it. Really think about it for a while.

I have seen this discussed somewhat by YouTuber Abigail Thorne (not sure if you’ve heard of her, she’s a trans YouTuber who discusses philosophy, usually just in a general sense but often she discusses how her own understanding and experiences of these topics have been shaped through a trans lens. She came out a significant amount of time after she created her channel so in her earlier videos she identifies and presents as a man. I’ve always found her videos to be very interesting and thought provoking and some others might find her interesting too. Her channel is called philosophy tube if anyone wants to check her out.)

Anyway, in one of her videos she does talk about the fact that it is common for trans people to feel pressured to say what the therapist wants to hear to overcome the barrier to the medical care they need (I understand many of you won’t see it as ‘medical care they need’, but surely you understand that this is the perspective of the trans people seeking this care).

I can understand and even relate to this experience. When I wanted to undergo assisted reproduction in order to have my daughter, I needed to talk to a therapist and then wait through a 6 month cooling off period. I certainly couldn’t escape the feeling that this therapist, a woman I’d never met and who’s expression often did feel very judgemental, was scrutinising everything I said in order to decide that actually, I wasn’t the ideal candidate to be a mother, I would be doomed to be childless forever because I expressed a single doubt about my ability to handle motherhood perfectly in every way and every circumstance. And I couldn’t help but feel a little resentful of the fact that someone who got pregnant by accident could freely express doubts about the prospect of becoming a mother and not have the chance to do it anyway taken away from her.

So I can fully understand why a trans person might have a similar feeling about having to talk to a therapist about their identity before gaining access to hormones they feel they need. Although I can also see the problem this can create as well, especially when it comes to children and teenagers who haven’t really taken the time to fully explore their own identity

You’re being very uncharitable here. Yes, I believed that the gender critical movement was pushing stereotypes, in the same way that you believe that the ‘trans agenda’ is pushing stereotypes. We are both wrong because neither of us has actually taken the time to really listen to what the other side is saying. I am trying to do that here in this thread. Have you ever taken the time to enter into a trans inclusive space and really listen and try to understand their perspectives and examine your own assumptions about them?

Has anyone here actually done what I am trying to do here?

You say you want to understand the trans inclusive perspective, but have you actually honestly been seeking it out in good faith, or have you been demanding that those of an opposing viewpoint come to you, and not just explain their perspective, but have to defend it agains arguments, then when most people reasonably decide ‘it is neither enjoyable nor useful for me to spend my free time doing this for these people’ and leave, pat yourselves on the back and decide ‘see, of course their worldview is garbage, just as I suspected’?

I think that if you really want to understand other perspectives in good faith, you need to be the one to be willing to enter their space and hear what they have to say on their terms, and be willing to eat a little bit of humble pie and realise that maybe you had some things wrong too.

I’m not saying every single person here has to do this. Let me tell you it hasn’t been easy and there have been times when I’ve thought ‘why am I putting myself through this?’ What I am saying though is that until you do, you will never truly understand the other perspective, as much as you may think you’ve got it all figured out.

Thank you very much @BonfireLady for sharing your personal journey. It has certainly changed my perspective on this issue and opened my eyes to the nuances I didn’t see before.

also please know that I don’t include you in my earlier post about whether the people posting here had actually sought out other perspectives. I made that post before reading this one. It’s clear that you have done so, and I admire you for that and really value your unique perspective in this.

Additionally, I have seen the perspective that asking someone to give their pronouns can be problematic for people who are still figuring it out discussed somewhat in trans inclusive spaces as well, but it is often drowned out by the larger narrative and I think this perspective should be given a bigger voice, especially when it comes to how to handle it with adolescents

Thank you for providing these links! I would definitely be interested in taking a look. I have bookmarked your post to read for later (hopefully I’ll be able to figure out how to do that - still new to mumsnet!) I’m currently still in my pjs at 1pm having done no housework and had no lunch during my daughter’s morning nap and still haven’t caught up on all the posts!

If my daughter, some day in the far future, spontaneously told me she was a boy and wanted puberty blockers, I might say something like ‘that’s a very big decision and if it’s something you decide you want to do when you grow up then you will have my full support. For now why don’t you try living as a boy for a while and see how it goes. I would be happy to take you to get a hair cut and buy you some boy’s clothes if you like.

@SpookyFBI how exactly would she live as a boy? What does "living as a boy" entail?

Why does a hair cut matter? What sort of hair cut do only boys have?

What are boy's clothes? What sort of clothes do only boys wear?

Spooky, there are lots and lots of posts, going back years, detailing what happens to women who raise gender critical points in trans friendly spaces online.
Nine times out of ten, they are immediately banned. Mumsnet is one of the only places online where we are allowed to voice our opinions, they are considered by many to be so hateful.

I also would like to hear what living as a boy entails, given that you say there it’s no pushing of stereotypes going on with gender identity. What changes would a teen girl need to make to live as the opposite gender? From what you have said, it seems that you believe that a sense of gender is an inner feeling with no connection to actual physicality or stereotypical behaviour, so why is transition necessary and what would it involve? I’m presuming that you would say, whatever the person wishing it wanted it to involve, but in this case, wouldn’t they be the one basing it on the physical nature of sex, or stereotypes? Aren’t you just delegating the process of applying stereotypes to them, so you can say you’re not doing it, even though you can see that that’s exactly what is happening?

I'm going to work backwards your recent messages and add a few thoughts if that's OK @SpookyFBI This will be my longest post by far, I'm sure!

This for me is the crux of it all when it comes to children and vulnerable young people (and adults). I wrote a safeguarding document to support my daughter, which I still use today for all health care appointments. If a health care professional won't accept our safeguarding request, we don't go to the appointment.

Thankfully I was able to work with our GP to help refine it (I needed to use it at school in her official paperwork in support of her autism and it's only admissible if it's from a professional). The longest part of my discussion about the document with the GP was on pronouns. I genuinely think we discussed just this bit for about 45 mins.

I wanted to stop anyone asking her what her pronouns were. He (rightly) pushed back and said I can't demand people say or don't say specific words (I wrote this on another thread and someone did point out the irony of people demanding others use their new pronouns - fair point!). Anyway, we settled on some wording that worked all round and we added a "parent commentary" section next to it where I explained about how she found the question "what are your pronouns?" really overwhelming.

I work in IT in a large company which is a Stonewall Champion, has a large LGBT+ community and a sizable young adult (under 25) workforce. We are actively encouraged to share our pronouns so that others feel safe to do so. I get this, I really do. My worry is that there are so many factors at play which make people vulnerable, even when they may not think they are. Age is one of them, with the adult (risk averse) way of thinking not kicking in until the switch around in the brain (under 25 we're all hard-wired to take more risk because of the dominant part of the brain when it comes to risk processing). This to me makes people vulnerable to making decisions that could have irreversible consequences. Everyone should have the space to think about what they want for their lives and what is right for them but I'm not convinced we're achieving that with all the active encouragement to share pronouns.

I don't state my pronouns in my work email or anywhere else. I want people to feel comfortable to share theirs if they want to but I don't want people to feel obliged to have an answer. I've never directly been asked my pronouns yet but I'm now planning to say "I don't know" if I am. I don't want to dwell on it and I don't want to directly confront it - I don't think either would play out well in whatever situation I'm in. But I'm not going to declare a gender identity (e.g. she/her pronouns) when I don't have one.

My own personal rules on pronouns when they are requested (and differ from birth sex) by others are:

1. someone under 18. I'll avoid all use of pronouns. Even if I have to use their name continuously I will - if I use a pronoun naturally, like it did in this bullet point, that's fine
2. someone 18-25. I'll use their preferred pronouns out of respect for their belief in their own gender identity (see also point 4), but I'll assume/worry that they are vulnerable. I can't do anything about it but I'll still worry.
3. someone over 25. I'll do the same as point 2 but with less/no worrying.
4. where it's important that it's very clear that the biological sex of someone is known (e.g. transwomen in women's sports, transwomen advertising make-up and sports bras by acting girly in a very stereotypical way, a transwoman demanding access to women's facilities), I'll use biological pronouns. I read the article "pronouns are rohypnol" and I agree that it's important. I'm still happy with my approach in points 2 and 3 because as far as I'm concerned, respect for the individual's request is also important. However, if I don't have respect for the person's actions I'm not going to respect their own personal gender identity at this point.

I fully agree, Spooky, that this whole subject needs more discussion. It gets lost amongst everything else or it gets polarised, with people just shouting their own viewpoint at each other more loudly, without listening to the other side of the conversation.

I think something else I’ve realised from the thread that I hadn’t full appreciated before is the extent to which all this is the product of a society resistant to gender non-conformity. I know that feels embarrassingly obvious, and yes, I did always recognise it in a rational sense and from the GC perspective - but there’s been some weird almost tangible shift to understanding-in-the-sense-of-feeling more clearly those who say it’s progressive and subversive and positive, and our shared aims there. I respect this.

What I struggle with it the way in which such complex issues are being moulded into one rather reductive assumption: you’re trans. I’d totally support the gender non-confirming daughter Spooky hypothesises in the way described… up to proactively suggesting she lives “as a boy”. This, to me, could function as an implicit suggestion from me - and ultimately from society - that girl is incompatible with these behaviours etc. And it shouldn’t be!

She may ultimately decide to live as a gender non-confirming girl. Or “live as a boy” through a social transition (I have major reservations about this - what it represents to her about girls, what it may encourage her to do in future - but that’s in part because I don’t fully understand it; like Bonfire, I’d also do a heck of a lot of reading!) Or she may have gender dysphoria and need more substantial support. And this may be temporary or long-term. So I’d want to wait and see what conclusions she came to, then do my best to support her in the meantime.

I think what concerns me is that society is pushing one high-stakes explanation above all others.