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.

“I’m not transgender myself so you are better off listening to those who are so they can explain it much better than I can.”

But no need to listen to women though, eh?

Women who want single-sex female-only spaces when they are in a state of undress, and don’t want all single-sex female-only facilities changed into mixed-sex at the behest of males who self describe as a member of the opposite sex, those women should be ignored, called “transphobic” for wanting to retain their right to privacy and dignity when in a state of undress, and told to educate themselves?

@Anniessong - well, not quite. It depends on whether 'woman' refers to sex or gender. Most people use it by default as sex. Therefore:
Women are women (female)
Men are men (male)
Transwomen are men (male)
Transmen are women (female)

I agree that transwomen should be able to live their life freely. But transwomen are transwomen. I don't see the issue with occupying that space. Rather than the translobby spitting venom at anybody that tries to suggest that having a penis is incompatible with being a woman (female). Woman have spent hundreds of years fighting for the right for safe spaces from men (males). Trying to tell us that our sex means nothing, we don't understand what it means, and our safe spaces are not important is what we are so angry about. There needs to be a conversation about how transwomen are catered for and included. But it doesn't include erasing and entire sex for their own agenda.

@Pleaseme in the situation you’ve described that person is either pretending to be transgender to attack women or it is a transgender person who is also a sexual predator. Violent men have always pretended to be something they’re not to win women’s trust then attack them (a nice boyfriend, a good husband, injured, broken down in car and needing help etc) so this is another avenue for those types. But also sex offenders come from every cross section of the population so this will include trans people. Obviously not all transgender people are violent/ sex offenders just as not all men are. I understand why women are worried about safety (I have experienced a lot from a young age) but I don’t think it’s transgender women we need to fear

How are you defining transphobia, OP?

If you mean people saying that women should be entitled to single sex spaces and sports and that we shouldn't be pumping gender confused children full of hormones, that's not transphobic.

Nobody is denying the existence of trans people. I don't believe elves exist and am therefore not concerned about elf rights being in conflict with women's rights or the medicalisation of young elves.

This!

Firstly, using the term phobia to describe a view different to yours is in my in view is deliberately antagonist, everyone is entitled to their view - it does not mean they are phobic.

Secondly, if people now are recognising that you can' become a woman or man but are born that way I don't see that worrying - I see that as common sense and am glad that people understand what biology means.

Thirdly, the reason why people in the past thought that that a trans woman was a woman was simple because the agent of this group has been subversive - pushing the boundaries. It meant that this ideology gained a foothold it never should have in society. More and more people are waking up and realising that the way this ideology is influencing young people is dangerous.

Exactly @GodDammitCecil

This ignores the actions of people like Anne Coombes - any unrelated adult in a room where children are changing is weird and concerning as to motives. "What’s more, public opinion on trans women accessing women’s spaces has shifted decisively over the past few years – and this change corresponds with the increasing media coverage."

Left wing coverage also does a lot of harm when it is unquestioning and reads like a parody of the Guardian. What about objective coverage, respecting the rights of all.

Statistics should be neutral, not 'Stats for Lefties'.

@Anniessong - your post stinks of privilege. Same argument from the ‘pick-me’ brigade. Ie I have never been affected by the erasion of MY space(s) so you all must be transphobic. MY life has never been affected and therefore you are all bigoted transphobes. The only thing missing from your statement was ‘literal genocide’.

How about you listen, as in really listen to women tell you why access to single sex spaces is crucial and it is our right. Read up on some history - the urinary leash - and how this still exists in many parts of the world and understand why women - the uninteresting biological kind - need their own spaces.

It’s not the Student Union. Come back with a more nuanced and balanced argument, rather than insisting that everyone is transphobic which is terribly tedious.

not believing something is not bigotry. I don't believe that transwomen are women because they are men. doesn't mean I hate them or discriminate against them

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

What this shows, for the first time, is that the general public hadn't ever understood that they were actually supposed to think of males as women.

Don’t be a silly Billy 😂
No-one is denying that trans people ‘exist’. They’re just rightly stating that as people cannot change their sex, then it follows that TWAM / TMAW.
2 years ago, before I ‘educated’ myself, I thought that a TW was in fact a female who wanted to be seen as a man.

The terminology deliberately hides. People thought ‘transwoman are women’ because they understood the term trans woman to mean someone born female who identified as trans (ie a transman). So they didn’t see a problem with them in women’s spaces because transmen are female. Some others (😡including politicians) thought the term meant men who had all the surgery including genitals and felt sorry for men who had their penis removed. What has happened over time is people now realise they are expected to pretend any Tom, Dick or Harry with a penchant for cross dressing is a woman and should be allowed to strip off in front of their young daughters unchallenged.

I do blame the guardian though (not just them) for not reporting this matter clearly, using obfuscating language, pretending transwomen criminals are women, campaigning for a male sex offender to be placed in a women’s prison without mentioning their ‘9 inch surprise’. Only yesterday did the guardian present false statistics about puberty blockers in a hit piece on a singer. People now see just how totalitarian and harmful the trans a gender is.

but I don’t think it’s transgender women we need to fear

They're male, like any other male.

@LoobiJee I am a woman! And I am listening to/ reading other women’s thoughts. Just presenting my opinion which happens to be different to yours which is what happens on discussion boards.
I agree that women’s safe spaces should be protected and women should be protected from violent men. I don’t believe the transgender community are the threat

I absolutely beleive in peace, love and harmony. If a man wants to dress as a woman, I have no issue, if they want to live their life as a woman, I have no issue. But they are not a woman.
I take absolute exception to womens spaces suddenly being available to men. Changing rooms, toilets. I object to men taking over women's sports.
I frankly despair that all the hard work my generation did is being undermined by a radical minority.
So no, a transwoman is not a woman. They are a transwoman and should be proud of that identity

This is exactly why we have safeguarding including single sex spaces. Do you not understand that there's no 'purity' test to discern sexual predators from others?

OK, so you accept that the stereotypes placed upon people born female and people born male are unhelpful/unacceptable/restrictive/ridiculous/inequitable?

What I don’t understand is how you have made the leap from this, to “person born male who prefers the female stereotypes is therefore really female”.

I also wonder if you’re posting disingenuously, or really just have not given this issue sufficient thought. There are people born female who for one reason or another and cannot be in spaces with males, especially when they are in a position of vulnerability, for example women who have been raped, women who require personal care from a healthcare worker. This is not theoretical - there are many, many documented cases.

Do you believe the right of these people born female to single sex care is less important than the rights of people born male to have their identity validated?

I’m not denying they exist, I’m denying that Transwomen are women. Transwomen are Transwomen…aka men

Let me guess, Data Journalist Ell Folan is a she/they.

in the situation you’ve described that person is either pretending to be transgender to attack women

but don’t Stonewall say acceptance without exception? It seems very transphobic to accuse the wrong sort of trans people of not really been trans! 🤷‍♀️.

Anyway how are we supposed to know who is a proper trans and who is pretending? Which is why single sex places are important. If women feel confident that biological men can be challenged entering changing rooms, etc then we don’t have to worry about “is that one a proper trans or a pervert who might attack me”. Because it’s men/someone with a penis who we have to worry about. I couldn’t give a shit if they were a dress, wig, lipstick.

Only two posts in and the hyperbole has started: “Denying the existence…”

Saying an apple is not a banana is not “denying the existence” of apples: it’s a fact. An apple can never be a banana, regardless of its colour, shape, taste. Dying an apple yellow will not magically turn it into a banana. Saying that the yellow apple isn’t a banana is the truth. Demanding that everyone around you - children included - refers to a dyed-yellow apple as a banana is compelled speech.

Everyone can see that it’s an apple. Many people are very weary of your insistence that we see it as something different.

Nobody is denying the existence of trans people- ffs they get far more publicity and 'support' than any other tiny minority precisely because they chuck about words such as 'phobia', Hate Crime' & 'literal violence' at every question or comment.

Men are not women, women are not men and everything else under the Quetta keyboard is a person with a fetish or an underlying mental illness!

@Barr77 I have experienced sex abuse from age 9 by a relative, rape as a teenager, domestic abuse as an adult. Plus countless grabbing, name calling etc on a regular basis. You really shouldn’t presume to know about the lives of strangers on the internet

How about you listen, as in really listen to women tell you why access to single sex spaces is crucial and it is our right. Read up on some history - the urinary leash - and how this still exists in many parts of the world and understand why women - the uninteresting biological kind - need their own spaces.

It’s not the Student Union. Come back with a more nuanced and balanced argument, rather than insisting that everyone is transphobic which is terribly tedious.

The rest of her post was bang on @Anniessong

Agreed