Is it even possible to debate the trans-narrative outside MN?

[HagoftheNorth]

I’m regularly astonished (tho I guess not any longer surprised) by the number of organisations trumpeting gender identity as if it were an accepted fact. Most recently in response to Sunak’s statement on the matter; Women’s aid federations declaring their belief that TWAW; Andrew Boff (GLA) on R5 last night declaring that of course people can change gender (not corrected, as Sunak specifically said people can’t change SEX); I’ve heard some people saying that it was illegal for Sunak to make such a statement - again, no pushback.

It makes absolutely no sense to me. Does anyone know of a forum where people are actually prepared to debate this and defend their GI viewpoint?

Whenever some TWA* says I have a unisex lavatory at home I always point out that a thousand people a day do not use any of my lavatories at home, only people I know well. Make them look stupid, and that they are the logically ignorant bigots.

Every little helps!

"Yet, in polls, there are significant numbers of that age group who don't believe people can change sex and that sometimes this matters and that gender should not be prioritised for those laws and policies. Perhaps not as high but then also the same number of people in that age group as with others are confused by what the terms around transwoman, transman actually mean."

That doesn't surprise me honestly, I turned 27 this year and thanks to MN have felt emboldened to speak out to people my own age, and to be fair a few times I've been pleasantly surprised!

Most recently I was chatting in a group voice chat, and we ended up going on at each other for over an hour about how ridiculous all the gender woo stuff is.
This was from someone who I'd assumed was fully on board with that stuff simply because the most vocal of the group is and everyone had agreed with him at the time in a massive group.

The more I talk to people, the more it seems in most friend groups there's only actually one person who actually believes it, and funnily they weirdly always ending up being the one person of the group who is the most argumentative for seemingly no reason!

Weirdly though, I've genuinely never talked with someone my age or younger who is confused by the terms generally - I wonder what the backgrounds are of those who are and why they're confused by it, it's everywhere in some way shape or form to be completely honest so that's genuinely shocking to think x-x

Nepeta, your point that TRA’s are unpracticed at producing any meaningful argument was very well demonstrated at Mermaids v LGB iirc. But I’ve been gradually concluding that there isn’t a solid, rational argument to make to support
a) allowing TW to access otherwise single-sex services/sports/spaces, including those for vulnerable women and girls
b) encouraging children to believe they can change sex, and offering wrong-sex hormones and surgery with little attempt to identify, understand and treat underlying issues

I don't see much actual debate though.

Just insults and name calling between warring factions.

I have stopped posting on there now as it got so awful.

I discuss it with people I know in reallife.

I am pretty direct about it these days.

I couldn't give two shits - I explain how its destroyed my family and how the crap concerns me. It gives a fair amount of food for thought.

I've had one person defriend me. Again I couldn't give two shits. She's apparently a lesbian. She's also married to a man who identifies as a man and has two kids. Whiiiicchhhhh pretty much sums up her position in a nutshell. She likes rainbows.

I've found the opposite is true. What marks MN out from other forums in which this issue is discussed - and I use this term loosely stopping short of 'debated' - is that the GC position is largely informed, both by real world events, the plain evidence of people's eyes, and an actual knowledge of where the pretentious 'queer theory' came from that underpins GI in the first place.
You don't seem to understand what an echo chamber is - as nothing you've posted there is talking about an echo chamber, despite you saying you find the opposite - then talk about something completely unrelated.
It is an echo chamber, as in it is a place where you ( mostly) all share the same views and expect praise or reinforcements of beliefs whereas anyone dissenting gets accused of being a man, "welcomed" to MN 🙄 or if that doesn't work try to paint as being angry.
An echo chamber of posts.

I've seen a fairly robust discussion on a particular club's forum, which was quite interesting to watch as a fair few of the posters who were generally inclined to "be kind" were uncomfortable about the unfairness aspect. And when the Isla Bryson story came out, even the most vocal TWAW ones were "yeah, I don't think that's right", although they seemed to think it could be dealt with on a case by case basis rather than it being evidence of flawed policy. I think one of the reasons that the discussion didn't get shut down was that one of the more TERFy posters was one of the mods, although she seems to be in the TWATW camp rather than the TWAM one.

SuperNewMe, where can I go where there will be people who believe TWAW, and who will be prepared to debate/defend their position without resorting to insults or worse? I’d really like to explore this properly - see where the differences lie and whether there is any common ground.

Personally I’ve found this board really helpful. I arrived feeling I was the only one questioning the “treat me like a woman” narrative, and found a whole community asking the same sorts of questions and more. I like the rationality of the arguments developed here, and that they are supported by evidence. I agree it’s a bit of an echo chamber because we get few fully GI voices, but those who come, in my experience, aren’t prepared to debate, and don’t offer anything that can genuinely counter the GC position

SupportRobin - yes, it’s always disappointing when mods shut down a discussion before it can even start, and as pp have described, this just leads to a failure to test and hone your own beliefs or consider other people’s point of view.

“It is an echo chamber, as in it is a place where you ( mostly) all share the same views and expect praise or reinforcements of beliefs whereas anyone dissenting gets accused of being a man, "welcomed" to MN 🙄 or if that doesn't work try to paint as being angry.”

And yet, as you admit, rebutting voices are fully able to post here. They are able to post on every thread on this board, and do so, and they are able to post their thoughts and their evidence and to stay within talk guidelines.

Posters who don’t agree with feminists who seek to prioritise sex when needed over gender post here. On nearly every thread.

The cultural aspect of praise or pushback doesn’t make this necessarily an ‘echo chamber’. I believe you are instead using this as a reason to negatively frame the board. Something you spend post upon post doing.

I find it hypocritical to negatively frame praise here when you, personally, have a very long history of giving praise to posters who you feel get their points across. You also will often join in ‘taking down’ a poster or posts.

That is not then including the fact that so many people who receive negative pushback started posting in threads with posts aimed at shaming posters or the board in general with no intention of engaging either with the thread or with posters. And you praise them too.

Or is your intention merely to praise posters who deliver posts that fit your ideological viewpoint and who you believe also shows up the ‘echo chamber inhabitants’ poor behaviour? while you yourself scold and join in on the sidelines?

So, your historical posting patterns indicate that you celebrate the behaviour from others that you deride in regular posters here. It all depends on which point of view they are supporting. Isn’t that hypocritical?

The majority were silent

Someone posted this upthread.

Preference falsification is doing a lot of work on these issues.

Most people with 'gc' views (sex is dichotomous and immutable) stay silent in case of attack.

While I appreciate that many of the trailblazers have suffered greatly, and some people have to be cautious for professional reasons, things have changed.

I've heard this week about a workplace where one person mentioned feminism, cautiously, to have every other staff member agree, one by one.

Now is probably a good time to speak up for many. It's in the news. It's current. GC beliefs are protected in law.

And the Scottish Hate Crime Bill is not yet in force ....

The Bryson case didn't get much discussion,someone mentioned it and was told it was 'nothing but a moral panic'.

I work in the public sector and was attending some on like training a couple of weeks ok. The trainer asked us to introduce ourselves in the comments and put our job title and pronouns. There was about 20 of us on the course and not one person mentioned their pronouns. Of course you can’t read too much into that but it felt like a quiet act of rebellion at the time 🤷‍♀️

I think GC are the equivalent of homophobic people a few decades ago who automatically invalidated someone else's experience just because they couldn't understand it

whereas anyone dissenting gets accused of being a man, "welcomed" to MN 🙄 or if that doesn't work try to paint as being angry.
An echo chamber of posts.

So if one person posts those three responses, that makes it an echo chamber?

Commenting that someone seems angry and pointing out it's their first post, happens all over MN. Always has.

I've never called anyone a man on here, because I believe it's a biological descriptor not a personality type, and most GC people would say the same.

There, I've disagreed with you.

I think most people aren't well versed in being the object of people's questions or posts so due to their number (eg if someone said "well women are feminine" they would provoke a lot of responses) it's easy to perceive hostility that wasn't intended. You need to treat questions like genuine questions (that is what "good faith" means, partly) and not attacks.

And if you (general you) post misogynist things on a feminism forum you need to be prepared to clarify or back up your claims, or be thought of as a numpty.

You've got it the wrong way round.

Do you think same-sex attraction is valid?

Or do you think a male and female couple are gay because of how one of them feels?

One of those is the gender-critical view.

Happy for you to help me understand the trans experience though. When someone says they are a woman, what do they mean? They are female? They are feminine? They wear certain clothes?

speenmum, could you elaborate on your post please? Could you be more specific in who you are referring to. Feminists?

Speenmum, thankyou. I’m genuinely glad you are here. Can you support your statement please?

Yes, I can definitely back my statement up. People tend to see the few instances of trans people abusing their identity to take advantage of people and assume that the majority of transgender people are also like that. This is the kind of sweeping stereotype that gay people have also had to face in the past and I find it sad that people are falling for the same misinformation again.

Trans people and supporters don't deny that there are some people who cause issues but most trans people do not act in this way and there is usually no way to even tell they are trans. Realistically, you are no more likely to get assaulted by a trans woman than by anyone else and we should be using these cases of assault to deal with the abusers themselves and not an entire group of people on a whole. For example, if someone gets assaulted by a cisgender man, this is not an excuse to start being discriminatory towards all men in general.

The reason that Sunak's comment was harmful was the fact that he is supposed to be the voice of the whole country and what he said has completely missed the 'point' of what being transgender means. For someone so high up to not know that sex does not have to match gender is quite harmful, and many people argue that he should be tackling greater problems in our country, such as climate change and systemic racism for example. He is entitled to his own opinion of course but this opinion in particular isolates and shames a certain group of people

@popebishop If you want to understand being transgender fully, you are probably best to ask someone who is transgender because I can only speak for the people that I know and not for myself. I am not sure about your point in terms of same-sex attraction, could you clarify it?

'GC'? Dehumanising, much?

We are right here, you know. You can speak to us. And your thought sounds like bollocks to me, but do go ahead and expand.

'if someone gets assaulted by a cisgender man, this is not an excuse to start being discriminatory towards all men in general.'

So you think all spaces should be mixed sex?

@ArabellaScott Most people in the GC group label themselves GC. Although now you have mentioned it, you're getting offended by me labelling someone in a certain way....remind you of any other group of people?

Separated bathrooms are not discrimination. But people would not shame men on the internet for the same things that transgender people are shamed for
Cis women debating the genuine issue of bathrooms should not turn into people being transphobic for the sake of it