Worrying Increase in Transphobia

[PorcelinaV]

https://www.thepinknews.com/2023/09/09/transphobia-uk-press-media-negative-coverage/

An increase in transphobic sentiment among the British public has been fuelled by hostile coverage of trans people from the right-wing press, argues data journalist Ell Folan....

Unfortunately, newspapers still have a great deal of influence on the public and political agenda in Britain, and nowhere is this more obvious than in how perceptions of trans rights have changed.

As recently as Feburary 2021, an absolute majority of British voters (51 per cent) agreed with the statement “a transgender woman is a woman”, including 6 in 10 women. Just 34 per cent disagreed. But after years of negative coverage from the press, those numbers have changed.

In April this year, only 33 per cent of voters agreed that trans women are women, with 47 per cent disagreeing....

It is clear that the media plays an important role in shaping public perceptions, and unless their negative coverage is corrected and refuted, public opinion will continue to worsen.

You aren't expected to follow any particular religion.

But if you start getting critical with religious ideology, or start suggesting it may have harmful consequences, then yes this gets considered Islamophobia a lot of the time.

You have some atheists / right-wingers that would sound similar to what you are saying.

"You are throwing accusations of Islamophobia to silence the debate".

A few times now I have encountered men in women’s spaces- recently at a service station there was a man in there using the loo facilities, recently in the ‘women only’ room at my gym a guy lifting weights and about a year ago in the communal women’s changing room at a swimming pool- fully naked getting changed in front of women and little girls. I saw women exchange glances with each other but no one challenged in any of these situations.

maybe none of these men ‘realised’ they were in the wrong place (although blindingly obvious in my opinion) but the fact that no one would say anything is telling. And I bet if anyone complained the staff would probably dread going near such a complaint due to fear of discrimination etc.

so it’s not just about ‘predatory trans’ people- just a general relaxation of rules designed to protect women that is scary- enabling any old man to go where they want and no one being able to do anything about it.

Actually, if you look at the article linked in the OP, they are unusually clear about what they think transphobia means.

They point an increase in people not agreeing that trans women are women and call it transphobia.

So it's right there in black and white.

It's not clear at all because there is no definition of the words women or transwomen. The study is flawed.

You have to go to the police.

This. We have a transwoman in our walking group. Everyone was as welcoming to them as we are to anyone and everyone. We use the name they introduced themselves as. No problem. What is just bloody annoying is the joining in with menopause chats, discussing child birth experiences, anything else we,as actual women, want to talk about because it is/ has affected us. You want me to call you Rose. Fine I'll do that. You want me to believe, particularly when your extremely tight pink leggings show a cock very, very clearly, that you are dealing with all the issues of menopause. NO. That is a delusion too bloody far.

Transphobia is 99% a made up load of crap.

It means nothing anymore. As that article shows believing trans women are not women is now transphobic, instead of just reality.

So I couldn't care less about being accused of transphobia any more.

And I'm not going to qualify that with lots of reassurance about how I care about trans people. Because I don't much. (except for children). They're just not top of my worries/ concerns in life. I can't care about everything and I'm more inetersted in people with disabilities tbh. But everyone will have their own concerns and interests. Fair enough.

I think anyone should have the right to dress how they want and call themsleves whatever they like and not be discriminated for it. But my interest in 'trans rights' ends there. Yes I agree you have that right like everyone else.
That's the end of my interest.

I don't have to respect you, care about you, agree with you, worry about you, like you, understand you, or even interact with you if I don't want to.
I just have to not discriminate against you.

I'm suspicious and uncomfortable with any adult male who suddenly starts dressing in womens clothes. It reeks of attention seeking narcisstic sexual gratifcation to me.

Now I may meet such a person get to know them and change my mind about them and thier sitaution. But my initial resposnse of discomfort feels well placed and rational to me.

I'm very concerned about children who identify as trans because I think it is covering many other issues and is leading to harm. So my initial response is concern and to raise questions.
Now I might over time come to conclude this child really does have dysphoria which is likely tp persist and may become a transexual as an adult, but my initial response of concern feels well placed and rational.

Every thing above will be regarded as 'transphobic' by many. I don't care.

It 👏 is 👏 not 👏 because 👏 they 👏 are 👏 trans 👏 but 👏 because 👏 they 👏 are 👏 male 👏.

Cote D'Azur I will add you if I may to my increasingly long list of women champions to whom I owe a very large drink. 👏

There was a study done about dating and the worries young men and young women had about going on dates with people they had met through OLD. It was a Canadian study I think. The young men's number 1 fear was that the women on the date would laugh at them. The young women's biggest fear was that the men they met would rape or murder them. All women ,no matter whether you are wary of where you go and what you do or whether you are entirely chilled about walking around at night, can absolutely understand the point of view of the women in this study. If you have lived your life as a man and have now decided you are a woman you just don't have a clue. Presumably that's why they are so determined to get in our spaces and have no idea why we are so afraid of that. You let the men in who aren't going to bother you and you can't stop the others who don't want to swim or play tennis,or buy clothes etc etc. The ones who do wish you harm.

I entirely agree with your analysis on that.

The only reason I expressed concern about it in this thread was the potential for your discussion to be used by others to take the thread in a different direction, things escalating, and the thread (which is now a masterclass in the classic TRA lines of argument) getting deleted. I hope I didn’t cause offence, and sorry if I did.

Trans women are NOT women. They have a Y chromosome.

Still no idea what we do with the women we exclude from anything at all so that some women can nurture their special male people and provide them with all the choices?

No?

I do wonder at the tone of derision and dismissal extended towards women's voices and issues here when 'hate' and much hyperbole is being cast at the extreme meanness of women saying 'no' to men. Can you imagine the howling if someone said to a male with a TQ identity who said they were afraid to undress in a male changing room to reframe their trauma? To stop scaremongering? To get help with their anxiety?

So one should avoid criticising religion or suggesting it has harmful consequences, then?

No thanks.

Oh, no offence taken, but thanks for the apology.

I don’t think we can control how others take the direction of the thread, especially when there are bad faith TRA posters who are invested in derailing, though you’re correct: it’s all very predictable how they do this.

I didn’t read Porcelna’s post as saying religion shouldn’t be criticised. I read Porcelna’s post as saying when people criticise religion, they can be at risk of being accused of bigotry and prejudice.

Can we start a separate thread on religion? I’d be interested in the discussion.

So, basically, transwomen ( men) are not safe from men in men's spaces so must come into women's spaces. Women are perfectly safe, apparently, from these men just because they say they are women now. How are men not safe from other men but women,who are attacked, assaulted, raped and murdered on a daily basis are entirely safe because a man decides he's a woman now.

I'm very concerned about children who identify as trans because I think it is covering many other issues and is leading to harm

Indeed, and to me this is actually the saddest aspect of this whole debate. (Hopefully) well meaning people focusing on transgender concerns, and potentially messing up children and destroying their lives, while the real issues remain buried and ignored.

I agree with you that we can’t control how others take the direction of the thread, it’s just that it can be disappointing/ frustrating when the very predictable sequence of derails comes over the horizon. And funnily enough the derailers seem particularly attracted to the threads with the most useful discussions. Can’t imagine why.

Wouldn't the solution to the 'spaces' option be the same as the sports solution:

A females only space and a mixed sex space.

So anyone who is trans doesn't have to out themselves or have their essence erased or whatever, and the women who don't mind sharing with men can also go in those spaces as 'allies' or whatever.

Leaving just a seperate space for women who just want a female space.

If men don't like it they can start a grass roots movement to object. We could support them or eat popcorn while we wtach.
And if the trans people and women don't don't feel safe around the men, we can say 'well duh' we did say.

Let trans people, their women 'allies' and men sort this out. Why is it our issue to solve?

Here you are one one such thread from 2014 Cote
Really interesting discussion too

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/2166847-Any-appetite-for-further-discussion-on-trans-feminism?reply=49158071&utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

The problem is though that if you believe that TWAW then the transwomen will be in the women’s changing room.

"...it's not about men pretending to be women."

Actually it is.

Men can't be woman, nothing they do or say can change that.

We're at the mind blowing point in history where all it takes to have society collude in an individuals' pseudo reality is a self declaration of a special identity and everyone else has to go along with it while truth, material reality, free speech, safeguarding, and the rights of half the population get thrown in the bin.

Genderism is a male supremacist movement - it centres males and their wants and desires under the guise of a civil rights movement and plenty have fallen for it. And the apparent ease with which almost all institutions have caved to it shows how fragile women's rights actually are.

Once you see it for what it is you can't unsee it.

So Pink News et al can keep on with the testerical accusations of transphobia as much as they want, that particular accusation is losing much of its power, and the rest of us can get on with fighting this ridiculous and harmful ideology.

No, no it's a female only space. A space only for people with the types of bodies which have the potential to gestate.

And then a mixed sex space.

It's the way many sports are going. Let's do the same with other spaces.

@WandaWomblesaurus fair enough- educate me. How do transgender people affect women and children in their day to day life? Because you’re right- just because they’ve never affected me doesn’t mean they don’t others. I appreciate the need for women’s safe spaces (I once used a women’s refuge centre for 3 nights) so aside from that issue please. I mean ordinary trans men and women who are not criminals or violent and are just living their lives- how do they affect women and children?

Indeed.

In my post at 09.44 this morning, I said this:

“A tactic routinely used by those lobbying for the removal of women’s rights is to ignore any points made about women’s right to “privacy and dignity” (which must be an absolute right or is meaningless/doesn’t exist at all) and to change the discussion to one about “safety” and “safe spaces” (which moves it into the subjective realm of perceptions, degrees of risk/harm, balancing of interests, and - importantly- enables all sorts of whataboutery, distraction and in bad faith arguments).
^^
The key thing it does is to allow the removal of women’s rights lobbyists to throw all sorts of false, emotive, hyperbolic, mudslinging claims at women who want to retain their right to privacy and dignity when in a state of undress. Those false claims are made in order to make it easier to accuse women who want to retain the right to privacy and dignity when in a state of undress of transphobia, and to ensure they are not listened to. A favoured false claim is the claim that women who want to retain the right to privacy and dignity when in a state of undress are saying that all males who assert a feminine gender identity are a sexual threat to women. That’s a false claim: no one has said nor is saying that all males who assert a feminine gender identity are sexual predators - in the prison population it’s about half of the male inmates who assert a feminine gender identity who are convicted sex offenders, which is a much higher proportion than for other prisoners; outside the prison population we don’t know what percentage of males who assert a feminine gender identity have committed a sexual offence but not been convicted of it, nor whether it’s lower, higher or the same proportion as for other males in the general population.”

And lo and behold, look what happened over several pages. A poster steadfastly ignoring the fundamental point about retaining women’s right to privacy and dignity, and turning it into a discussion about perceptions of risk, minimising and denigrating women’s concerns, and throwing around ‘scaremongering’ accusations.