‘Dilation day two ….

[RudsyFarmer]

……. let's play. Where in an airport can I locate a clean, dry, private place I can lie down, take my knickers off and spread my legs?'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12535827/Transgender-ex-Labour-MSP-Heather-Herbert-disabled-toilet-Gatwick-Airport.html

They are no words are there?

I have a friend who read Trans or one of the other books that mentioned sissy porn and was stupid enough to google. One of the main things I remember her saying was that from what she had seen toilets and bathrooms were a preferred setting for the videos. We wondered whether it was a choice to film scenes of sexual dominance and humiliation in toilets or whether they simply couldn't film it at home so used hotel and pubic loos. I'm guessing Herbert has watched a lot of sissy porn.

This is revolting. First the entitled colonisation of women’s toilets and now the same for disabled people’s toilets.

I don’t think for a second she did her wound care on a public toilet floor completely unnecessarily.

I think it was an excuse to say the words ‘lie down, take my knickers off and spread my legs’ on a public forum. And have people think she was sticking something up herself. Because that is what it’s about for her.

Turns my stomach, quite frankly.

He, his surgical wound, sticking something up himself. If he wasn't male he wouldn't have had to have surgery to create a cavity, he'd have grown his own.

I don’t believe a ‘she’ did anything like lay on a urine covered floor to insert an object into a vagina.

I think a male who demands people use ‘she’, voluntarily laid on a urine covered floor to maybe insert an object to keep a wound open, or maybe they did not.

Considering we know that within this group are also male people who willingly and enthusiastically pour urine over themselves and film themselves with an erection under their dress, it doesn’t surprise me at all that this male person lay on a urine covered floor to post this image.

Everyone has their own boundaries on what they’ll accept or go along with in this debate. Yes he’s clearly a he, for fucks sake. The photo and story tells you that. But I’ll call him she as that’s respectful and also means that what I’m really trying to say doesn’t get eroded by the ‘you’re causing me literal injury by not using my pronouns’ bullshit.

I do understand the importance of language and I get what you and the poster after you are trying to say. But I would rather that my point about the pure fetishism that he’s displaying about himself was the focus.

sure. But your point about the ‘fetishism’ is exactly the point that your using ‘she’ hides.

This is a vast majority, if not entirely, male fetish. Using the female pronoun twists it to being a female acting in this fashion.

In other words, your posts reads as a female has laid on a piss covered floor to ‘take her knickers off and spread her legs’! The point about being male is lost completely.

You are talking about a fetish, sure. Your post makes out that it is a female indulging in their fetish.

That is exactly why language is important. Your choosing to be respectful hinders your meaning a great deal. It has twisted your words to be meaningless.

Your choice. But don’t be surprised when people make your point for you using clear and precise language.

Not to mention, ny their own admission, many of these men get turned on when someone uses she.

It's bad enough being forced to participate in someone else's sexual fetish without feeling that complying denotes 'respect'.

You are absolutely spot on there Datun.

@Helleofabore alright, I’ll take it on board.

I have several friends IRL who are either determined, when I bring up things like this, to say these people are not representative of the trans population or desperate to minimise all the issues (I had one say dismissively ‘yes but that’s just stonewall’ when I brought up lesbians being classed as transphobic for not wishing to have sex with men claiming to be women. I pointed out the far reaching influence stonewall has so much in daily life and she didn’t want to hear it) and the only way I can have these conversations with them is to abide by some basic rules like referring to trans women as she or the outrage is such that I can’t get my point across at all. And for me I’d rather be having these conversations with them as occasionally I think I might just be getting through, especially as it all gets more and more ridiculous.

I also do honestly think that are a very small number of genuine transsexuals who do deserve to be referred to as she, most of whom are genuinely appalled and horrified by how things have got.

But this thread/board probably isn’t the place to raise that and I’ll be more careful with my language here in future. I very rarely post actually, so maybe I’ll go back to lurking!! As you were everyone!

I should imagine that the fact that they can be in an ostensibly private space, whilst amongst the public is all part of the thrill.

They are actually leveraging the very concept we are all fighting for - privacy in women's spaces - in order to enact boundary violation for sexual kicks.

They want it for the violations but we can't have it for safety and privacy.

Absolutely get that you have your own boundaries and fair dues for upholding them. I myself rarely use correct sex pronouns on this board as I don’t want to risk my posts being deleted. Hence, I have a very precise and perhaps tedious way to posting.

You most definitely SHOULD post more often because it is very helpful to have a broad spectrum of views. And it is a great place to post your thoughts to gain better clarity. I am probably not typical in that my views have not really changed at all since I started to learn about what was happening.

I post to calm the dissonance in my head though. Maybe it will help you to have an outlet where you can also work out your thoughts so you feel you can articulate them better with your friends.

Personally, I have had to have a clear conversation with my teen for even simply using they instead of wrong sex pronouns. I told them that people cannot change sex and language conventions are there for clarity and once you make an exception for one person, how do you draw a line for others. That then involves making personal judgments about who is and isn’t worthy of that accommodation. And how inclusive or kind is that when it is stripped bare?

So, do keep posting. Accept that you will be challenged and here, at least, you shouldn’t be abused for it and you won’t necessarily lose ‘friends’. Me being challenged has made me go off and find as much information that I can find to calm that dissonance that I feel. I love being challenged.

Tbf although it grates to see 'she' used for men, I'm not sure that MN is with the program. I use names or 'they' to avoid sex specific pronouns altogether rather than have a post deleted. So, I'll give other posters the benefit of the doubt, it can be wearying and/or time consuming to word a post appropriately.

We seem to be okay using 'he' if the tw is a criminal or has done something sufficiently 'ick' either with no criminal conviction or one pending. Sometimes if a conviction is pending or justified, though unlikely in this case.

I'm not sure what a 'genuine trans' is? The depth of the delusion? How can another person judge that? If someone put on a vintage French General uniform and marched on Moscow I still wouldn't call them 'Napoleon', except possibly under duress.

I think a 'genuine trans' wouldn't need external validation. Someone who was still mentally ill, or narcissistic might.

Please don't go back to lurking!

The more the merrier in this debate.

I admit that I really struggle with the pronoun issue too and I can totally see both sides of this argument. Like you, I have no desire to upset harmless trans people who are just going about their lives, minding their own business, and feel very upset about being referred to by pronouns corresponding to their biological sex rather than their preferred gender. I also think that when talking to some audiences, "misgendering" a trans person will instantly cause the person you are talking to to dismiss you as an awful transphobe and not listen to anything you might have to say on the subject. In those situations, where you are much more likely to get your point across by treading carefully, using people's preferred pronouns might be more strategic.

However, on this thread, on this forum, your audience is largely made up of gender critical women who are absolutely disgusted by this person's behaviour. I agree with certain other posters that using "she/her" pronouns to refer to this person is insulting to women and obscures the point under discussion, which is that it is men, doing these very male things, in women's spaces and now in disabled people's spaces, that we find unacceptable, and we should be allowed to say so without fear of censure.

I love being challenged.

Come at me, Helle!

I know where I'm putting my money.

I see the pronoun thing a bit like a nickname/shortened name. Say my name was Katherine, but people generally knew me as Kitty. At work it might be 'Kitty's just popped to the loo' or my friend would refer to me as Kitty. My medical records would day Katherine, and if I were accused of a crime or anything 'formal' Katherine would be used.

Using 'she' for a trans woman in an informal context, sure if everyone is happy with that
But using 'she' for medical records or if that male raped someone - absolutely not.

Greenfishy

Not everyone agrees that people must refer to all males in real life, as he. You'd lose friends in a heartbeat. It's not personal. It's not about individuals.

There are, indeed, many women who simply refuse to do so, and are quite happy to shed friends as a result. But there are equally, others who don't.

Personally, judgment in that context has to be tempered by understanding. But that's not the same as disagreement.

I genuinely believe that if you call a single man, she, you are contributing to the problem. (And, of course, I understand one doesn't want to be hurtful to friends. The two things aren't mutually exclusive).

Transgenderism as a concept is profoundly sexist. The idea that a man could adopt the accoutrements of 'womanhood', in order to 'be a woman' relies on sexist stereotyping.

You don't get a man claiming he's a woman, because he's the CEO of a company, do you?

So if it relies on sexist stereotyping, which has historically been very detrimental to women, why would one help to perpetuate it?

Especially for the sake of 'being kind' to the very cohort who is doing the oppressing!

Hint, I don't believe any of this is about kindness, it's about power. Because if it was about the concept of kindest, how come it only ever goes one way? And women are always the losers...

Please don't go back to lurking!

^ and that !

I also struggle with the idea of a surgical wound requiring dilation being in any way equated with the possession of a vagina. It think it’s even worse than pronoun enforcement somehow to misuse biologically accurate language in that way.

it’s so dangerous because being biologically misleading is against informed patient consent, and it backs up the promotion of the casually interchangeable Lego parts approach to human bodies. This is what TRA gender theorists have put forward over recent years. This concept is to the great detriment of many young people who have been subject to these surgeries or the precursor medications and have been left with awful new physical health problems and no improvement to their mental health. As well as permanent irreversible damage to their natural organs and bodies.

Humans can’t change sex and we all know that whatever courtesy pronouns we may be forced or choose to use. However, I feel we need to say louder, that a surgical made cavity in your body has absolutely nothing to do with a vulva, vagina, or any of all the rest of the female reproductive system. Not its properties, natural functions, capacities.

The surgical equivalent of a pseudo-‘Penis’ roll of flesh attached to a woman’s body has equally nothing to do with actual male genitalia and it’s plumbing and all the rest of it either. Same problem.

I think the whole notion of ‘changing sex’ physically needs to be described very differently and this incident really highlights that for me.

Can I make the zoom zoom crackle noises too, PULEASE! I LURVE a light sabre fight.

cake, I think we all know that since we have been doing these vigils for people to come and answer questions that never get answered (on other threads that is), that it will simply be a glass of wine, some cakes (I am NOT eating tunnocks or that malty soreen bread stuff) and a battle of who can come out with pertinent gifs. That is where I would be putting my money.

It’s definitely something I will think about and absorb. Using the ‘correct’ gender pronouns has become a default I suppose, as I have either TRA friends or ones who are so terrified of being outed as TERFs that they refuse to engage. (Although I know for a fact one in particular is deffo on our side!) And one just doesn’t care about anything except her kids, clothes, gardening and telly (I love her, she’s my bestie, don’t judge).

I also work in an organisation where it could be career suicide to ‘misgender’ someone. So I’ve trained myself to use the pronouns I’m told. But I honestly do get the arguments all of you are putting across.

With regards to ‘genuine’ trans people I suppose I’m referring to the people who aren’t fetishising it in any way, who aren’t using it to get access to women’s spaces and who aren’t messed up/mentally unwell/ND/young adults/teens who have been brainwashed. There have always been people who genuinely feel they are in the wrong body and there has been a spectrum of treatment for those people ip to and including surgery. But they are a much much smaller percentage of the population that are now claiming to be.

They are all fetishizing being a woman. No-one is actually 'born in the wrong body'. It has no biological basis or meaning. If not exactly a fetish then some sort of maladaptive response around sex and sexuality. A TIM I know who would fit your definition of 'genuine trans' - went to Thailand in early 20s for circumcision and the inversion process, lived as a woman for many years etc - now concedes in his forties that he was and is actually a gay man. His father was incredibly homophobic throughout his childhood and transition was his attempt to adapt to that. His father was more ok with the 'I was born in the wrong body' and should have been a girl' notion, that was accepted without question back then, than having a gay son. He now lives with an openly gay man and, according to him, only has gay sex and does not use his surgically created 'vagina' at all.

"With regards to ‘genuine’ trans people I suppose I’m referring to the people who aren’t fetishising it in any way, who aren’t using it to get access to women’s spaces and who aren’t messed up/mentally unwell/ND/young adults/teens who have been brainwashed. There have always been people who genuinely feel they are in the wrong body and there has been a spectrum of treatment for those people ip to and including surgery."

Again, I hear you.

However, how do you make that judgement without a lot of personal knowledge about that person?

Absolutely, when you have to use compelled pronouns, you probably have little option. As I said in my post, I had to have a very long conversation about it with my teen because I use a neutral 'they' for nearly all their friends because a) I can't keep up with who is and isn't now trans and b) that is my social compromise. Yet, according to my teen, I am transphobic because I use 'they' as a compromise. We agree to disagree on that one.

It all comes down to whether you are being honest with yourself as to why you are doing something. I think that if you resort to compelled speech to remain in work or to retain some friendships that mean a great deal to you, that is your boundary. But always know why you are doing it.

Yes, and there is a distinction. You're talking about old school transsexuals.

What Ray Blanchard called homosexual transsexuals. Usually effeminate men who objected to toxic masculinity. Sometimes due to homophobia, either internally or externally, or men for whom masculinity was repugnant.

And you won't get many women here disagreeing that rejection of toxic masculinity isn't entirely understandable!

What you will get though, is the feminist view point, which is, well let's fix that then. Let's address toxic masculinity and why some (many?) men reject it.

Not, let some men utilise women and use the very sexism that's giving them personal difficulties, in order to avoid the issue entirely.