If you're GC, what should trans people actually do?

[AmaListening]

I'd like to understand what someone with gender critical views thinks trans people should do.

Maybe let's make it specific with a couple of famous examples: Laverne Cox (trans woman), and Elliot Page (trans man).

Imagine you had it exactly your way. What should those human beings, who feel and identify the way they do, do about every aspect like: names, pronouns, surgery, clothing, relationships, social spaces, work, sports.

How should Laverne speak about her own identity? Should Elliot not have had top surgery?

I'd really like to understand what the world looks like for trans people if we carry GC views through to their end points.

Im sorry I was snitty with you earlier in the thread @AmaListening

you wouldn’t believe the amount of times similar threads are started, the OP never returns & then it’s all over twitter & Fb with screenshots

thank you for listening to what we’ve said.

@MavisMcMinty yes you've named succinctly a few reasons why these POVs are new to me: I'm new to MumsNet, I'm in the LGB part of the acronym so assumed the T part was part of "our community" too.

Totally understood. I can imagine my question was infuriating given you've clearly been discussing all this on here for many years. I have many threads to read now!

Get on with thier life and leave others alone to do the same!

This'll blow your mind, then.

Heterosexual men are hanging out in gay male bars and on dating apps because young heterosexual girls who identify as men are going there to (attempt to) pick up gay men, so straight blokes are pursuing them, presumably pretending to be gay, to pick them up.

Straight women trying to coerce gay males into sex, being pursued by straight men, pretending to be gay, to get sex from straight women.

That's what happens when you don't base sexual orientation on sex. But sexism.

And, of course, there are straight men saying they're women, trying to get lesbians to have sex with them. All endorsed by Stonewall.

Many of us came here from the same position, having been a strong supporter until we encountered an issue that opened eyes.

I dislike the word 'ally', it's not a war, it's unhelpful phrasing. But I continue to be as strongly emphatic in protecting the rights of trans people to equality under law and freedom from harassment and discrimination as I am for all other groups. I do not intend to stand by while harm happens to anyone. I am equal opportunities in this rather than believing that some worthy groups deserve more at the expense of less worthy humans having less and being less, according to the currently political fad of what makes people 'worthy' and what makes them 'unworthy'. That way madness lies.

I think I assumed that people who wanted to restrict trans rights

Thank you OP, for a useful reminder of how the GC view has been framed in public discourse. That 'terfs' want to restrict trans people's rights.

GC feminism is about women's rights. It's not about attacking or taking things from trans people, but about defending and preserving the hard won rights of women. But framing the issue in this way feeds the assumption that GC women are nasty bigots, wanting to stop others from having rights.

So you never ask, 'what rights haven't trans people already got?', because the answer is that trans people have all the same rights as anyone else. What they don't have, is the right to things reserved for categories of people to which they don't belong. What they don't have, is the right to force others to go along with their wishes and beliefs. Just like everyone else in society.

Those controlling the narrative don't want you to ask, because when you do the whole house of cards falls down. Women (usually bright, politically literate, inclusive in the original sense of the word women) haven't en masse decided to become nasty divisive exclusionary bigots. Why would they?

Can I suggest that in between other threads you read this one below :

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me?latest=0

The second half is full of links to studies and to important developments. There is a huge bank of links so it will take some processing as to what you want to read or not.

Hats off to you, OP. It's not easy to listen to views that challenge those that we already have; especially not if they are at odds with some part of our 'identity' that is important to us.

FWIW there are many trans people who are allies of women and respectful of women's rights and broadly in agreement with the points made here. Some of them have been subject to the most horrible abuse from so-called 'trans allies', including one transwoman who was prosecuted by a woman for transphobia, absurdly (Miranda Yardley). The case was thrown out of court because it was bollocks.

Plenty of lesbians, bisexuals, gay men, and trans people are called 'transphobic' for their beliefs.

And most women that I know who are fighting for women and children's rights would also fight, and in some cases have fought for many years, to ensure that trans people can live their lives free of discrimination and discomfort.

If it is any consolation OP I have had extreme activists yell, some screamed, at me a whole slew of misrepresentations and misinformation. These young people were protesting because they believe the falsehoods. But they cannot listen to anyone who tries to point out that they are yelling complete bollocks at people.

It would be funny if they weren’t so violently intimidating and sometimes violently assaulting people.

Heh. Even though you have helpfully explained the scenario twice in different terms, I still cannot compute.

It is nuts isn't it!

Bridges was doing okay and was on the elite British Cycling training programme. I know some of the youngsters that were there at the same time, it's a tough tough tough world and unforgiving of any weakness whatsoever. Genuinely unforgiving.

Bridges is not the only youngster who didn't make it beyond that level, and some of the young adults that went no further, just like Bridges, achieved far far far more in their cycling careers with BC than Bridges ever did or will. Bridges' potential was obviously there, but it never came to fruition.

Whilst I can't describe Bridges as mediocre (nobody who makes the BC programme is mediocre), Bridges did not have what it takes to make it beyond it, for various reasons (I believe an accident was involved). That's just the way it goes. Career ending accidents happen to professional cyclists all the time. It's part of the sport.

What Bridges wanted was the sanctuary that a different spot offered. A spot where Bridges would almost be guaranteed to be better than the other competitors and wouldn't have to deal with the failure. What better place than women's cycling? Easily beaten competitors, the fanfare of having extra special status (as opposed to being the "odd" boy people avoided) and forgiveness from Mamma Bridges who no doubt reminded Bridges every day of all the sacrifices she made (and there would have been plenty, it's a full time job for any supporting parent to get a kid to BC).

I think what Bridges tried to do is utterly contemptable but I will make some allowances for a young person who was probably put under a horrific level of pressure at home and at BC and who, clearly, cracked. I hope Bridges gets the help Bridges so desperately needs.

I'm delighted that UCI have put a stop to this crap.

Accept their sex
Get therapy
Learn to live with their sexed bodies
Trans-identified men should not try to colonise what it is to be female, or a girl, or a woman.
Use the correct single sex spaces where privacy, dignity, and vulnerability to sexual assault is a factor
Not cheat in sport
Accept that women's single-sex rights are not transphobic

But mainly, direct their complaints about and analysis of "transphobia" to men, and masculinity. As far as I know, no GC feminist has ever assaulted a trans-identified man.

Being told that I am 'cis' by others is exactly the same as a Christian sect member calling me a heathen because I don't belong to that sect and don't accept its beliefs, or exactly the same as a fundamentalist Muslim group calling me an infidel because I don't share its beliefs. And so on.

In other words, the label 'cis' comes from an ideological belief system which posits that there is such a thing as an abstract inner gendered soul and that this soul is NOT based on the sex of the body a person inhabits. Within this secular religion those whose body just happens to match their inner abstract gender identity are to be called 'cis'.

If I accept that label, then I am accepting the tenets of the gender identity ideology, and would agree that I am a woman not because I am female, but because I feel somehow inherently feminine (whatever that might be).

To see this better, note that the gender identity ideology does not even have a name for an adult human female being, because it is a heretical concept within that ideology.

We are both told to pretend to believe in their religion and also told that expressing disagreement with that is heresy.

This is extremely dangerous in a secular democratic society where people are allowed to believe in their own religions, but others cannot be forced to also pretend to believe, and it will also logically result in the kind of thing we now observe in the academia (both teaching and research) where content is scrutinised for lack of proper belief and where facts are erased if they don't match the current religious teachings.

Yes, accept their bodies, grow up, be happy as they are. Keep away from the drugs and knives of the cynical profiteers. I wish that people didn't end up in the sort of heartbreaking situation this young man describes.

https://twitter.com/kittypurrzog/status/1682908313149927424

So I'd like transwomen to use male toilets, changing rooms, etc, AND for men to be broadminded enough that for them to do so is utterly unremarkable. And the same in reverse.

Hear, hear! @Motorina

“Bridges did not have what it takes to make it beyond it, for various reasons (I believe an accident was involved). That's just the way it goes. Career ending accidents happen to professional cyclists all the time. It's part of the sport.
^^
What Bridges wanted was the sanctuary that a different spot offered. A spot where Bridges would almost be guaranteed to be better than the other competitors and wouldn't have to deal with the failure. What better place than women's cycling? Easily beaten competitors, the fanfare of having extra special status (as opposed to being the "odd" boy people avoided) and forgiveness from Mamma Bridges who no doubt reminded Bridges every day of all the sacrifices she made (and there would have been plenty, it's a full time job for any supporting parent to get a kid to BC).”

This is all correct. But the “Bridges could just train harder” point which you’re responding to wasn’t the PP having a go at Bridges. The PP was using the line which is directed against women who complain about males in women’s sport: that the female athletes should just “train harder” if they want to beat the males changing female sporting competitions into mixed sex competitions.

The PP was using the line which is directed against women who complain about males in women’s sport: that the female athletes should just “train harder” if they want to beat the males changing female sporting competitions into mixed sex competitions.

Sharron Davies talks about this on a podcast from a couple of days ago. She trained from childhood, 6 hours a day. Her father/swimming coach put both her plaster-casted broken arms in plastic bags to keep them dry and made her train regardless, ditto when she had a leg injury he tied her legs together and made her train just using her arms. Then of course she was pitted against east German women who’d been hormone-tampered, and made all the difference between her being a gold medal Olympic champion and an also-ran in the history books. She is such a wonderful experienced voice for fairness in women’s sports.

Yes, Sharron Davies is fabulous - her interview on Triggernometry is really worth a listen/watch (either YouTube or podcast).

@AmaListening

The right of that person to live as themselves, without having to conform to anyone else's definition.

It is amusing that you put this as a definition of what trans is as defining what other people are is what trans activists are trying to do.

I totally agree that the term cis is based on an ideology and therefore shouldn't be adopted or seen as normal

Thank you to all (including OP) who have written such thoughtful and thoughtful-provoking comments. I have only been able to read a subset so far but would like to read more. Is there any way to archive this thread?

Quite. Perhaps you'd like to have a look at this thread @AmaListening do you think the person described in it has the right to expose children to his living as himself?

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4870506-today-i-had-my-first-encounter-irl-with-a-transwomen?reply=128364539