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.

Exactly. Any ‘middle ground’ can only be rights that have been taken from women.

sleepyscientist is a perfect example of why a middle ground is not possible. Hospital wards separated by gender - why? What's the relevance of gender in a medical environment? Other than the staff being aware of the patients' beliefs in case they are relevant, eg if a patient is Muslim or vegan this information might be relevant at mealtimes. Sport being separated by weight - why? Why is weight more relevant than sex, when male athletes the same weight as their female counterparts still have larger hearts, larger lungs, more efficient hip/femur angles, etc?

When someone's attitude is that reality is irrelevant, why would they have any concept that they should modify their beliefs to accommodate reality?

Absolutely. 100% This.

i consider myself naturally centrist eg can see both sides of Brexit 😁 - and presumed I would find the middle ground once I read up on this topic. I’m not - there is no middle ground.

“Mixed sport is a possibility I would like to see how we can integrate it maybe make it say a football team with a minimum of X in one weight category, X in another.”

There is already plenty of ‘mixed sex’ sport options.

What you propose is completely missing the points that people have already posted upthread. The fact that reducing testosterone doesn’t bring male people into the ranges of female people in so many measurements. Plus, skeleton never changes (for leverage, for density and for injury risk), the pelvis and Q angle is a significant difference, ligaments, brain fibre delicacy (ie. Injury risk for female brains is significantly greater with males playing against female athletes), the list is endless. And don’t forget menstrual cycle issues around energy, around ligament and injury increase in risk at particular times in the cycle.

You can keep on wishing and stating that you wish sports can be recategorised by weight or whatever. Your wish is irrelevant to reality. It makes no difference to male athlete advantage. If it can be a mixed sex sport, that option is already there.

However, you have already shown us on this and other threads that you lack understanding and empathy about female needs. So your lack of empathy about the risks to female athletes in competing with male people is no surprise.

Unless you can post the science to support your proposal, ie, how this would work and keep female people safe, your proposal means increased harm to women and girls.

The no middle ground in my view applies both way - as I really fear for the number of girls and young women who have been impacted by this ideology.

I think we can do some practical things that kind of constitute a middle ground. For example:

• Addition of gender neutral toilets and changing rooms, where building space allows (while keeping male and female single sex spaces, and obviously disabled spaces)

• Sports - renaming the men's to an open category and being clear that all are welcome in that category and no-one will be harassed for how they present (but the women's sport is female only)

• Letting people state their pronouns etc if they wish (but it not being obligatory or expected).

None of these are earth shattering suggestions, I realise! But I think trying to make some concessions makes it easier to have the conversation and draw some definite boundaries.

There is no middle ground, as everyone - nearly everyone - has said. Trans people have all the rights everyone else has, what the TRAs are so belligerently agitating for are EXTRA rights, ones that remove women’s rights to single-sex spaces. Third spaces are the only compromise that makes any sense, but unfortunately it’s the women’s spaces, with the women in them, that some trans people/activists want.

Every day I see womens rights, spaces, sports, comfort and feelings being ignored and overriden in order for men to violate, rape, injure and cause mental anguish to women, it makes me sick. I'm angry, sad and fed up of it all, I feel so helpless. Just this weekend my daughter&granddaughter have had someone wish them dead online because my daughter spoke her mind saying that women don't have penises! if there ever was a middle ground, which I don't believe there ever was, it's now a lava covered, burning hell pit!

Why is the middle ground something to aspire to? The middle would only be better if both of the two extremes are equally unworkable. That’s really not the case here.

If we visualise the polarised positions here as a line running from the sexist,misogynistic, homophobic and often racist TRAs on one far side… all the way over to women (who want to hold on to their rights as a class and safeguard female and male children) on the opposite far side…. then why would women ever want to get closer to the TRA end of that continuum? It would be literally unsafe for women to do so.

One group is making an outrageous land grab and the other group is just seeking to hold on to the rights that they already have

This influences my view to a great extent

Yes, your privileged high flying life makes you give zero shits about the entire female population just because you're fine with mixed sex everything as it won't effect you.
Tells us a lot that you have zero empathy for women and girls who are not so fortunate, yet are happy to pander to the feelings of a subset of men claiming to be women.

Mixed wards with bays dictated by gender not sex assigned at birth if possible. If not totally mixed - done by speciality

First you need to define gender.

Then it shows how incoherent gender identity ideology is, because;

1. only a tiny % of people claim to have a 'gender', everyone else is simply male or female with an individual personality. So what EXACTLY are you segregating by in the 'gender' category?

People with long or short hair?
Skirts or jeans?
People who wear make up or not?

2. There are 100+ 'genders' so how does that work, because you, and a lot of TRA's, seem to always be referring to just two categories of men and women. Funny that.

Do the non binaries get a special ward to themselves too?

The good thing about your posts sleepyscientist is that you are showing the lurkers just how utterly absurd gender batshit actually is, and how much of it is simply men wanting to remove women's rights and protections for their own benefit.

It’s the breathtaking confidence, the blatant assumption, we see it over and over again. They’re schooled by the Mumsnet experts then disappear without a word of thanks or apology. Every single week, and always just one, on their own, same old bollocks, same old disregard for women’s concerns.

#OperationLetThemSpeak

We dont. It's done. Men can't be women. No surrender.

There is no middle ground

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?

There are quite a few threads about this ie, what happened was that thanks to the growth of queer politics in universities as part of the backlash against women's liberation ie over 40 years ago, these ideas have spread through society particuarly in the media and politics.

Queer politics is about disrupting the accepted norms, and in latching on to the genuine situation of those with gender dysphoria and turning it into a vehicle to give permision to challenge accepted reality, ie you can change sex, allows the individual to become more important than the common good.

This trajectory dovetails with the MRAs who started the back lash against Women's Liberation eg 3rd wave feminism in the 90s and 00s, which used younger women to attack older women (long before anyone talked about Karens) and ingratiate themselves with men.

In the meantime the queer agenda through networks infiltrating politics and newspaper (the editor of the Guardian says "queer politics influences every decision I take") managed to help forumulate the GRA and get voted into law. This was the trojan horse that suited both TRAs and MRAs.

And it was only when the GRA was to be revised that society as a whole, and feminists who hadn't been taken in by the lib fem politics post Women's Liberation, realised just how far the MRAs and TRAs had gone in their back lash against women's liberation (ie the notion that women are autonomous human beings who are not subordinate to men), that women started to return to front line activism to confront not just men and their networks but the state.

I realise I am rushing through this history, but you will find if you search FWR there are many threads where this is gone through in detail.

So I am afraid even asking the question is there a middle ground is way to late. Because those pushing this agenda aren't interested in a compromise on their long term objective.

That women as a sex class should be erased. And if there is no sex (only gender) then there cant be a sex class, therefore you cant make the accusation that men as a sex class oppress women as a sex class.

Maybe we need the best bits of the threads where this has been written up become a pinned post.

Here are some of the threads where queer was discussed https://www.mumsnet.com/search/advanced?allTopics=false&query=queer&topics[0]=Feminism%3A+Sex+%26+gender+discussions

I also don't want it to be oh DS can't have that places on a training course it needs to go to a XX to meet some criteria.

'Some criteria' - addressing sexism in the workplace.

Does it ever occur to you @sleepyscientist why sexism may not be as relevant, if he's ever thought about it at all, to your DS as it might be to my DD?

And sexism is definitely alive and kicking, even for professional women

(the following is copied from poster minou123 on a thread about Laurence Fox)

’Sky News hosted a debate on the 'Laurence Fox' issue.
Sky invited 2 guests, one man, one women to debate.
The woman is journalist Moya Lothian-McLean and the man is Connor Tomlinson (who happens to be from GBN)

They argue back and forth about misogyny, patriarchal society and inequality of pay.
Connor asks some bullshit question, which Moya responds that's she's too tired to keep answering stupid questions.
Connor responds, quite sarcastically, "I'm so sorry you're exhausted to be paid to go on air"

At this point the penny drops for Moya and says "I'm not being paid, I'm not getting a penny for this. Hang on, are you getting paid for this?"

So it turns out, on a debate about structural inequality, the male guest was paid £200 and the female guest got nothing.’

This is Moya Lothian-McLeans tweet about the above

https://twitter.com/mlothianmclean/status/1707147163682181391?s=46

This

Not read thread….

I do not want any male in my toilet thank you, regardless if they are ‘going about their business’.

It’s as if just because they are not making a song and dance about it they aren’t stamping on women’s rights. They still are and when women object we’re made to appease unreasonable or deranged or a bigot. No just no.

No middle ground. There are males and females. There can be men who dress and present as the gender stereotype of a woman. This does not make them women or female.

I am done with centring men’s needs and feelings over women’s

Fair

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?

It was a natural consequence of the GRA, but it’s taken time

Males challenge, take, threaten and with the law behind them there is no limit

Part of my urgency on this is thinking about where we’ll be in another ten or twenty years when dd grows up

I feel like we’re failing her as a society and I’ll try to change 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.

Are you for real? Do you know how many women are assaulted on hospital wards?

I think the main change is that things have got distorted by overreporting of exceptional outlying scenarios, serving political agendas that are not friendly to women.

How many women do you know, and I mean directly, not your workmate's cousin's friend, who have actually encountered a fully male presenting person using a female space because that person is claiming to be female? The press is acting like this is happening all the time. It isn't. Has it happened? Probably. Is it statistically likely to happen to you or me? No.

The middle ground is letting go of hyperbolic fear mongering. Trans people are less than 1% of the population and those are not all trans women. Male sex offenders do not need trans female access in order assault women, and to imagine you would cut SA by merely making it harder for the tiny % of offenders who use female or trans disguise as a cover in order to access female spaces makes no sense.

You think they'd just give up? 'Oh, I can't dress as a woman now, I'll just leave women alone' its illegal to assault women in the first place - they were still doing that despite what the law says.

Let's put our anger and energy into things that actually materially impact women's safety.

I know no one here will agree, but wanted to say it.

Yes. sleepyscientist has maintained this view across multiple threads. And even worse, works according to them, in the NHS as a scientist from what I remember. Because I remember one a thread feeling horrified by the realisation that a scientist in the NHS had this opinion.

we dont have single sex spaces to keep out TW Echobelly, we have single sex spaces to keep out men - they are the ones who commit over 95% of sexual assaults. As TW are men they don’t belong in women’s spaces along with every other man out there