How do we find a middle ground?

[Namechange2468109]

How do we find a place where it’s ok to say we believe their are transsexual people (in my lifetime it’s always been around and as far as I am aware not particularly fought against/prevented people accessing services/given equal rights) generally these people (who I totally support and would advocate for) appeared to me to want to go under the radar and just live their lives. I’d have NO issues sharing a bathroom with these people.

What shifted? Why is it now a case that we are bullied into accepting a man (with a beard who in every way looks and acts like a man) as a woman?

I thought in the 90s we accepted that what you wear, your hobbies, who you slept with and career choice did not define you. I was never girlie, wore boys jeans but at no point did I think I was a boy or prevented progressing my life.

We now have men that define themselves as women by going backwards in stereotypes, basically the clothes define the man.

The levels of irony baffle me ‘sex doesn’t exist, but if I wear heels I’m a woman’ ‘don’t assume or judge, but if you don’t assume correctly I’ll punch you’ and my favourite ‘I’m a non-binary lesbian’

The ironic thing is (and sorry if this offends anyone) I never coined myself as a feminist. I genuinely thought the previous amazing women had won the war, I earned equally or out earned my male counterparts, I never felt being a women provided me different opportunities to my brother, if anything maybe a tiny advantage.

But now I feel that all that has been pointless and at 41 I’ve become a feminist because I NEED too. Is this not such a rewind in society. I was genuinely a little nervous today at taking a book to the counter (material girls) a bloody (amazing) book, but a book.

How do we rationalise this?

Sorry for the long post but I am genuinely lost at the next steps to take.

I never thought about all of this until decades later, I thought feminism was something that we’d achieved and moved on from. But we were hoodwinked to think we had it all, and it was all of our own doing if we failed, it didn’t take into account what individuals were experiencing. I laughed off being pinched on the bum (so hard it made my eyes water) when I worked in a pub. I put office sexism down to ‘banter’, I thought we were done….I was so wrong.

“I think we do have the middle ground now, society is moving forward with gender neutral spaces and acceptance of GRA”

why is acceptance of the GRA middle ground in your eyes? Do you support the means the. for some males will be able to be in female wards with a GRC? Is that what you mean?

This is such a good example of a luxury opinion.

I despair at this

It’s in so many countries

Men get more emboldened every year, look at 2004 when the first male could get a legal female sex certificate to now

Look at the coercion, the lies and language. Where will we be in 10 years if we don’t get legislative change? I want to undo it for dd. I’ll try. And say I’m so sorry if I can’t help make that happen

Interesting that only now I’m remembering a man spitting beer in my face calling me a slut because I wouldn’t sleep with him. At the time it was ‘he’s a man and pissed I can handle this’ ‘I’m a strong woman’ Jesus.

I think they're related to some extent. How much who can say, imagine this though. It's an extremely simplified summary: I'm different, not a proper bloke, maybe I'm a woman then? I don't mean to insult anyone who considers themselves transgender.

I'm not sure to what extent the fetishists make up the numbers. My suspicion is that they're a minority but I wouldn't know where to begin to actually be sure about that

I actually support mix sex wards dictated by medical speciality not gender. Single gender bays are ideal if possible, but it's about the best medical care in my book not being comfortable.

If Press for Change & Stonewall & all the others had campaigned for third spaces from the start, things might be different now. But they didn’t.

Also PfC deliberately blurred the difference between transsexuals and transvestites into ‘trans’ because they thought the public would be more sympathetic then.

And that’s without even getting started on what they’ve done to the LGB.

There is no middle ground.

You can't simultaneously recognise a man's identity as a woman and also restrict women's spaces to female only because doing that contradicts the idea that a man can be a woman.

There is no middle ground.

You can't simultaneously recognise a male sexual assault perp as a woman and accept his victims account of him as a man.

You can't simultaneously tell children they can choose their sex and protect them from experimental medical treatments that purport to change their sex.

You can't simultaneously recognise same-sex attraction and accept that some men are lesbians.

You can't simultaneously understand the differing risks from men and women for safeguarding purposes and appropriately risk assess men as women.

You can't simultaneously acknowledge that there are some instances where women need their own accolades separate from men and also think it's fair for men to win them.

There is no middle ground but we can all treat everyone, no matter how they identify, with compassion, dignity, humanity and respect.

Repeal the GRA.

I would much rather be ask for my genotype in medical settings and lose man vs woman in everything else.

so no more single sex spaces, hospital wards domestic violence refuges, rape centres, hospital wards, prisons. No more postive action to encourage women into certain professions or positions. No more single sex sports

That's a very privileged position you write from.

Seconded

What is this magical, mythical, mysterious middle ground...?

So-called women's spaces, which are actually mixed sex, because some really sad men hate their sexed bodies and want access?

Nope. No thanks.

There is no middle ground. Women's spaces and words are for women.

I should also say that ime this kind of man is as magical, mythical and mysterious as the middle ground that people seem so keen to find

I actually support mix sex wards dictated by medical speciality not gender. Single gender bays are ideal if possible, but it's about the best medical care in my book not being comfortable

Why do you keep conflating sex and 'gender'?

Mixed or single sex wards are determined by sex not gender.

You might be happy with mixed sex spaces (not the cutsie euphemism gender neutral) but most women aren't.

Women are simply female humans with individual personalities and a female body.
All the wishy washy sexist identity ideology shite is highly regressive.

Sports will hopefully remain segregated by sex, for the safety and fairness to female athletes. Male feelings are irrelevant.

I see we already have an example of ‘it’s all acceptable, gender neutral is the norm so you might as well give up trying to push back’

nope!

The middle ground is wear and call yourself what you like as has always been the case, but that doesn't change your sex, single sex spaces are still required in certain circumstances and language is important.

Sorry, but you're wrong. What we have is as far from a middle ground as possible. Males now have 3 choices, i.e., the men's the women's and the mixed sex/gender neutral whistle women have nothing. That's not middle ground in any way, shape, or form. And as for it all dieing down soon 96% of men and women want single sex facilities not gender neutral so I would expect it to become more of an issue.
As for wanting a more biological system for sports well you don't get a better one than sex. Oh and splitting groups of people up by sex is no way sexual.
The only fair reasonable middle ground is 3rd spaces for those people who aren't happy to use the facilities for their actual sex.

If I remember correctly, Ray Blanchard has stated in interviews that in his, and colleagues experience, the majority of men claiming a cross sex identity are AGP, whereas in the past the majority of men who claimed this identity were HSTS.

No middle ground. We had a sort of middle ground when vanishingly few trans identified men used our single sex womens toilets.

No one ever asked me if that was alright with me, no one asked my mum, my grandma, my sister. Someone just decided that certain men had to live as a woman and that was one way to prove it.

Now that trans identified men are allowed access to any women only space on their say so that they are women, they've lost any middle ground they had.

Most days I just think, well this had to happen eventually, even if it had remained vanishingly few (5000 or thereabouts) women would have said enough already.

What next? Repeal the GRA. It's the only way back. We can fiddle with the EA til the cows come home, but as soon as we define women as anything, men too will be defining themselves as it.

I mean I'm not going to argue with changes to the EA, all power to that, but having seen this roll out over the many years, I can see how it will likely play out.

Whilst ever there is a law for changing legal sex, we are screwed. So we need to get rid of it permanently, no watering it down, no protestations that women will no longer be affected, just gone. Forever, never to return.

UtopiaPlanitia · Today 18:49
I understand what you’re saying about male gender nonconformity but most of this current problem isn’t being caused by male gender nonconformity, it’s being caused by men who want to live a fetish/perform it in public and to have the legal right to do so, as well as the legal right to prevent anyone from being able to stop them.
It's not just that they want to live a fetish/perform it in public they want you and your daughters and your young sons to be part of their sex life too. It's mental rape.

You are part of the problem.

And you write utter nonsense.

Oh there is no middle ground, just women and children's boundaries.

Good point, I should have remembered this aspect. Something to very much keep in mind when the tendency to be kind slips in.

In the 1970s doctors recommended men who said they were women, to use the ladies toilets as part of 'living as a woman' - unfortunately for me and my sisters.

and of course they didn’t bother to ask women if we were ok with this