A third of Britons don’t know that transgender women were born male

[RoyalCorgi]

Really interesting piece of research from Murray Blackburn Mackenzie (MBM), asking people if they knew what a "transgender woman" was. They found that 35 per cent wrongly believed that a transgender woman was someone born female, or they were unsure. Apparently, they're even more confused about the term “trans woman”, with 40 per cent either being unsure or believing it meant someone who was registered female at birth.

In other words, when pollsters ask questions like "Do you think trans women should be allowed to use women's toilets/take part in women's sport/be housed in women's prisons?" a huge chunk of the answers are from people who think that trans women are biologically females.

[[https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/06/third-of-britons-dont-know-trans-women-born-male/

Blimey. It took a few minutes to remember what the three letters were. But the posts are being deleted rapidly.

Kind of ironic to see such swift censorship on a thread about language and meaning 😂

I’ve always thought this was the case - the language is intentionally confusing.

Depends on how good the polls/surveys are as many have the definition of terms laid out before the questions. You’d hope that at least half of people would read that bit before answering.

You only have to look at a few threads on MN to realise how few people read introductory text.

OP: "I'm a single parent looking for UK holiday destinations that I can take my DD (7) to."

Replies: "Ask your husband for ideas", "Do you have children"," "We love Warner adult-only resorts", "Barbados is lovely", "How old are your DC?"

Good to have quantified what we always knew was the case. It was obvious there was some confusion from comments sometimes seen on here and elsewhere but now we know the extent of it. It’s good that they didn’t try to put both questions to the same sample of respondents but instead asked one sample the first question and a separate sample the other question (with both samples being a representative sample of the population).

It's a language thing - people are thinking "what is a transgender woman? Is it a woman who wants to be a man?" Contrary to what some people think most people do not live in a world where they encounter transgender people or even think about it so the language IMO leads to the above opinion.

The whole movement relies on linguistic obfustication and deception, and a forlorn hope that if people can't say it, they can't think it. Where as many of us are looking at the deleted posts and knowing exactly what was said.

You cannot force people to say they see one sex when their perception and grip on reality tells them they see the other sex. You cannot force people to lie and participate in a belief that they do not hold. This has been tested in court. I wish HQ would catch up. The whole thing about 'it's offensive to state reality (to some)' is ridiculous as a reason, as it's deeply offensive to require me to lie and pretend to believe something I do not.

I would respect this ideology so much more if it did not continually try to control and coerce me, and managed a bit of live and let live.

Trans lives matter.

Identifying as a different sex from the one you were born is currently fashionable.

Men often earn more than women over the course of their careers.

The first three words of each of those sentences is banned.

It really is

Yes, how shocking and on a site for women too.

Are posters failing to mind the GAP?

It’s why the special rules for this forum are definitely out of date and have caused problems. MNHQ has contributed to posters on this website being confused.

But TW are born women. That's the current thinking, isn't it? By definition. It's no longer, he has always wanted to be a woman / believes he would feel more comfortable dressing as a woman / wants others to perceive him as a woman / thinks he should have been born a woman. Now it's she is, and always has been, a woman. It's not mental health, it's not trauma, and it's certainly not anything to do with sex (in either sense of the word). TWAWAHABW. How that leaves anything to trans from or to I don't know but no wonder everyone is so confused.

No. It is another. Using tran identified in association with any sex category.

Ah. Thanks

To me, transwoman without a space seems to make some sense as a man identifying as woman but add the space in and logically it reads as woman identifying as man.

The merging of transsexuals and transvestites into a single category of transgender seems to be at the heart of the confusion.

Censorship and totalitarianism are intimately connected. "The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the convinced Communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction (that is, the reality of experience) and the distinction between true and false (that is, the standards of thought) no longer exist. (Arendt, 1968: 474).
Such regimes by their very nature aim to destroy civil society and tradition in favour of a utopian re-fashioning of humanity to suit their collectivist ideological purposes. The twentieth century totalitarian state thus emerges as a juggernaut of terror, a terror maintained in no small part by the eradication of fundamental human values and all critical thought in favour of ideology and propaganda"

AFAIK the forbidden term was framed to MN in 2018 by TRAs and their supporters as "hate speech". Why? Because it's a clear description with no ideological baggage.

If a third believe trans women were born women, what do they think they transed from?

I imagine they think that trans just means "is identifying as the opposite sex". They're not aware that it's supposed to change their "gender" which is more important than sex.

So for them a "trans woman" is a female person who identifies as a man.

I suspect most older people still think in terms of 'transexuals' and are not familiar with the terminology of gender/transgenderism.

This clip is interesting though.

https://twitter.com/talktv/status/1688281785598144514?s=46&t=HTxp6zC_d4GZ2FFv4a-YeQ

Sorry for those not on twitter. It may be on YouTube or global player or whatever the catch up for talktv.

It is Trisha Goddard explaining there is a difference between ‘trans’ and ‘transgender’ in y
her mind. Because trans is all the genders. Where as transgender is just the opposite sex.

So confusion reigns.

However, will this become a defined schism? Because we have had males with trans identities on this very board telling us they don’t respect the 120+ genders. And we have seen it on social media platforms.

It reminds me of the horror at catholic priests not reporting child abuse. It shows a total lack of understanding of the participants in the situation. Priests are particularly poorly placed to provide any sort of safeguarding. They are deeply in trenches in a religion that absolves sin (ie forgives) if you are truly repentant (say sorry it was a bad thing to do). Furthermore they are not allowed to disclose what is confessed to them possibly this would be considered far worse than the penitents crime. Further to that they have little or no understanding of normal sexual/emotional relationships as they remove themselves from that. How anyone would ever consider they were well placed to deal with a determined abuser is beyond me.

Similarly how anyone can expect terminology created by a group who feel they can “be” whatever sex they choose would in anyway highlight precise definitions that allow clarity of the very state they want to believe their way out of, seems silly. I think often when I see yet another defined “identity” that this is known and an attempt to look more solid and transparent though it adds to the confusion.

I imagine around 50% dont care.
Because they were born men and it’s not their rights that are being eroded

Wow!

I can't remember what the post said. Anyway.

Transwomen are men.