How to lose friends and alienate people? Be openly GC

[ProfessorFlitwick]

I have recently "come out" as GC to my friends, and I am sad by some of their responses. It turns out that for some of them, me thinking a woman is a biological female is an insurmountable hurdle to our friendship. I'm sad to see women who I know are intelligent just repeating the gender ideology dogma without being open to applying any critical thought to it.

Atheists and theists can respectfully debate the existence of God, and still be friends. They understand they are debating the wider concept of God, and not attacking each other personally or denying the other person's right to hold their view. GI supporters seem incapable of comprehending this way of debating something, any form of discussion is seen as a direct "attack" on the "existence of trans people" and must be immediately shut down. When I think of the types of people in history who try to silence or intimidate people who disagree with them, it doesn't bring up a great bunch of people.

Does anyone else want to vent about their experiences of navigating (or losing) friendships with GI supporters?

@Mrspenguinsschoolforfreaks

Is that a serious question? Are you able to think of an answer yourself?

Beautiful. That's why I come onto MN.

It's the modern day equivalent of talking to a wise old sage (auntie, grandma, older sibling, mum or dad even, etc) who would say just because you feel this or that, doesn't mean the world owes you anything.

I always remember the greats of TV interviewing, Brian Walden, Sir Robin Day, Parky, Jeremy Paxman...they would never have placated interviewees, would have called out this BS for what it is.

We're lacking a whole generation of vocal truth sayers in the media.

But clearly what we’re disagreeing about is the definitions of “woman” and “man”, not whether a body which developed down the male pathway in the uterus can ever become how it would have been if it had developed down the female pathway (and obviously in the vast majority of cases this extends to the effects of having gone through a typical male or female puberty).

Agree, @RealityFan

The “interview “ that Ali G did with Tony Benn c 25 years ago is brilliant: TB was having none of AG’s nonsense and wasn’t scared of being labelled a racist for calling out AG’s deliberate stupidity - unlike everyone else he interviewed.

I'm wary of saying everything from that period was a free speech champion time. Guess who were two of the most prominent figures to tell Salman Rushdie to pipe down in the early 90s? None other than Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit.

But, with the fracturing of Western societies via social media, and the dilution of legacy media and journalism changed from seeking the truth to amplifying grievance mongers, TRA can flourish in our atomised society.

Tony Benn, Michael Foot, Dr David Owen, even Bob Crow, would have been as of one with Rosie Duffield.

Beyond the anti Semitism issue, the biggest disappointment Corbyn was to me was his capitulation to TRA and open borders migration policy, and his embarrassment over Ukraine.

I can't think of any genuine socialist from his generation that would be so openly hostile to women. His mentor Tony Benn would have been horrified. Indeed Corbyn would have probably tried to silence him.

I hadn't mentioned any because I thought it was obvious. But here are a few if you are genuinely saying you are unable to think of any (obviously these are only examples and there are many other instances where society has deemed such segregation to be appropriate).

Anywhere where people are in a state of undress, for example changing rooms, hospital wards.

Anywhere where the physical differences between male and female bodies is important, for example sports.

Anywhere where a totally mixed sex space would put women at risk, for example prisons.

Woman = adult human female
Man = adult human male

Are you suggesting that there are other definitions? What do you think are the definitions of "woman" and "man"?

Same here, essentially.

My point wasn’t about free speech or lack of, but was an attempt to provide an example of one of the “plain talkers” of yesteryear in politics and the media who wouldn’t hesitate to call out bullshit or even consider pussy-footing around sensitive topics for fear of causing “offence”.

Totally agree with your list of these people: their style of plain talking is much missed by those of us who grew up in a period of robust debate. Imagine Tony Benn being asked to define man/woman: he’d give the journalist very short shrift for wasting his time on a question that everyone knows the answer to.

And he would then very much have gone on to discuss how the class system keeps women down, rich men and poor women. And then women of colour, disabled women, lesbians etc.

He'd have given short shrift to any Left analysis of politics diluting or replacing class based politics. He'd have said any left wingers supporting identarianism or intersectional politics was selling out working class women, any man taking part, impersonating women, was a traitor to the cause.

I suspect he'd be in the position today that Germaine Greer is. An absolute hero of the Left in her day, persona non grata today.

But clearly what we’re disagreeing about is the definitions of “woman” and “man”, not whether a body which developed down the male pathway in the uterus can ever become how it would have been if it had developed down the female pathway (and obviously in the vast majority of cases this extends to the effects of having gone through a typical male or female puberty).

I’ve talked about this in my post. If you want to change the definitions to suit genderism, then we’re still going to need to distinguish between actual men and women because they are different. If you don’t think actual physical men and women are different, why would anyone care so much about being called or treated as the sex they’re not? And where do they get the idea of men and women from? It’s circular and illogical. Either there are men and women and they’re two separate and different things, or there aren’t. And if there aren’t, why is it a thing at all?

As GC people have said before, if you have to change a definition to fit into it, you weren’t in it. Changing the definition to include either sex makes it meaningless. If I change the definition of cats to include any dog I say is a cat so that my dog can be a cat, it no longer means cat. But cats still exist, as will be evidenced by the fact that they’ll come off worst if we put cats and dogs together.

I'm putting it as politely as I can when I say bollocks. TW don't have a women phenotypes. All the surgery I'm the world does not give them a women's body. They just look like surgically altered men. Besides which, there is a simple answer to whether TW should ever be treated as a female. No.

That said, we should not exclude TW or other men unless there is a reasonable justification for doing

That's the only sensible and ethical position.

I'm disgusted at anyone who read that article and agreed with it. It says TW are at risk if using men's spaces and obfuscates the fact that women are at risk if TW use their spaces. That's a revoltingly unequal analysis and shame on anyone who supports it.

the “TW are at risk in men’s spaces” argument is so daft as it directly counters the argument for self ID. In practice self ID means any man can enter women’s spaces by just saying he’s a woman (or “non-binary”). That means whoever TW are scared of in men’s spaces can just follow them into the women’s. Why would they want that?

Most of the surveys suggest the majority of the population think this.
While you might think that makes them daft it is probably the result of obfuscation.

I agree there’s an issue about circularity and the potential for the meaning of terms like man and woman to collapse. But I also think it’s possible for words to mean different things in different contexts and for a word which originally derived its meaning from one sort of ‘core’ case to come to take on different meanings in other types of cases.

I think the word “mother” is a good example. Its core meaning refers to a person who produces an egg which is fertilised by a sperm, and she then carries and gives birth to the resulting child, and raises it. But “mother” is also used to mean a person who carries a child produced using another person’s egg, or a person who is the parent of a child which came from her fertilised egg, but which was carried by a surrogate; or the female parent of an adopted child; or, in the case of a same sex female couple who are parents, the partner who didn’t carry the child and didn’t provide the egg.

I think the term ‘mother’ is correctly and meaningfully used in all those cases. But how is it defined? It could be ‘primary female person with parental responsibility’ but that could incorrectly include a grandparent or aunt who steps in to help care for a child for whatever reason.

that doesn’t stop us using and understanding the word mother, even if not everyone would agree about whether or not it correctly applies in every possible case.

Can you make the same argument for the word "woman"?

You've gone into a lot of detail about describing a different word which is not the one being discussed. What is the point of this? It would have made more sense to explain in detail how you believe "woman" can have lots of meanings. Why didn't you do this? Is it because this sort of argument doesn't stand up if you're trying to redefine "woman"?

Thank you.

I agree in relation to sports, if you are going to have separate categories for men and women (and I agree there are good reasons for doing so) then it would not make sense to allow trans women to compete in women’s categories, assuming that the evidence suggests that any treatment they have undergone or are undergoing doesn’t remove any advantage (and I understand the evidence in relation to most sports is that an advantage is retained).

In relation to places where people are in a state of undress, I think that for purposes of privacy and dignity no one should have to undress in front of anyone they don’t want to - there should always be individual cubicles or some kind of curtain. If a person chooses to enter a situation like a spa or sauna where it is acceptable for people to be naked then I don’t think it necessarily follows they should have a right to dictate who else is in that space. So that’s a case where I don’t think it would be inappropriate to make a space mixed sex. If there’s a situation where people have no choice but to be naked around other people, then I do think it should be sex segregated, as people may well feel more uncomfortable being naked around people of the opposite sex than the same sex. However, if you had a trans woman or man who had transitioned physically to a significant extent, a difficult judgement would need to be made about which group to put them in to achieve the least discomfort and distress for all concerned.

At to prisons, I agree that in the current system where inmates are not well protected from violence (including sexual violence) and have little privacy then men and women need to be segregated as women are clearly mostly going to be at a big disadvantage physically and at very serious risk of sexual violence. In relation to trans women and trans men I think a careful case by case assessment needs to be carried out into any potential risk they pose to other prisoners and the extent to which they are vulnerable to violence and sexual abuse by other prisoners, and that assessment used to decide where to place them taking into account the needs of everyone affected

Wheat from chaff.

I had to laugh at my fully kool aided 19yo son back peddling furiously when we had friends over at the weekend.

Turns out the daughter of some of our friends (who is a drop dead stunner, and who he had changed his plans to hang around for) is a gender critical TERF just like his (and her) Mum. It would appear he does in fact know what a woman is after all.

They all do, they are just pretending otherwise with various motivations.

The joy of getting older is that I no longer feel the need to tolerate fools. I will say what I like, you can fuck off if you like, no skin off my nose.

I think if someone spent a while on these boards they would see some plausibly transphobic comments. Yes, they are often called out. But they are there and it’s naive (or very blinkered) to deny that. No I bloody well can’t point to one because I don’t memorise mumsnets threads but I have been here for years.

@Mrspenguinsschoolforfreaks
Your naivety is astounding. Risk assessment, risk assessment, risk assessment…do you think that the overstretched and understaffed prison service has the time and resources to carry out your risk assessments on every new prisoner? Sometimes risk assessments fail. At what cost?

Segregate by sex, not risk assessment. FGS.

By the way, in an earlier post you included some waffle on the embryo in the uterus which didn’t make much sense. In your most recent post you make clear that you understand the meaning of the words male and female 🤷‍♀️

@MrsSlocombesCat You are "on the fence" about puberty blockers because you trust doctors. Sadly that trust is misplaced. Too many caved under pressure from groups like mermaids and a lack of resources. Mermaids encourages children who were questioning who they were with no regard to safeguarding. Psychiatrists who tried to help distressed teenagers identify the causes of distress were informed that was "conversion therapy" and they should only affirm. The moment trans is suggested became the moment of transition.

Children too young to have sex, marry or drive a car were encouraged, you might even say groomed, to become lifelong medical patients. They are frequently sterile and young women, who now make up the majority of transitioners, will go through menopause. To quote from one guide to trans health care "There are certain physical health risks associated with both oestrogen and testosterone hormone therapy, and others associated with the individual hormones. For example, both are associated with increased cardiovascular risk, development of type 2 diabetes, and impaired fertility (gamete storage should be discussed prior to starting hormones). Oestrogen therapy for maleto-female (MTF) transgender individuals is associated with venous thromboembolism (VTE) - it is therefore recommended that patients over the age of 40 years are prescribed transdermal oestrogen patches instead of oral preparations to reduce this risk. The main risk associated with testosterone therapy in female-to-male (FTM) transgender individuals is polycythaemia therefore regular FBC monitoring is recommended"

No-one is yet sure about what long term hormone use does to the brains of children - brain development continues to age 25.

Many of the young people seeking transition are autistic. Many are care leavers and/or have a history of abuse. Many have mental health diagnoses. Some have internalised homophobia or parents seeking to "trans away the gay". These young people were frequently failed by everyone involved in their care and if given proper therapy would have become healthy homosexuals.

Until a young relative, fortunately not my own child, transitioned I was vaguely in the "be kind" camp. But when you know that children are being pushed towards permanently damaging their health you shouldnt be on the fence. It is not straightforward as there may be a few children who really do experience gender dysphoria, do not have homophobic parents and actually need puberty blockers - but they are likely to be a very tiny minority. No child should be receiving affirmation in self-harm, they should all have to consider other reasons for their distress.

@Mrspenguinsschoolforfreaks the Prison Service has segregated prisoners on the basis of sex since the time of Elizabeth Fry. Prisoners now go to prisons based on their physical sex. Unlike other environments, we DO make them take their pants off to check. There is also provision for multidisciplinary meetings (transgender boards) to decide the best course of action for a TW prisoner.

The new rules prevent any TW who has committed a violent or sexual offence from even being considered for a place in a women's prison. That has pretty much ended the discussions about location, because the overwhelming majority of TWs committed to prison are violent or sex offenders. TM offenders are never ever placed in the male estate.

@Mrspenguinsschoolforfreaks
If there’s a situation where people have no choice but to be naked around other people, then I do think it should be sex segregated, as people may well feel more uncomfortable being naked around people of the opposite sex than the same sex. However, if you had a trans woman or man who had transitioned physically to a significant extent, a difficult judgement would need to be made about which group to put them in to achieve the least discomfort and distress for all concerned.

Single sex is still the most appropriate option. A person who has had extreme cosmetic surgery to make them resemble the opposite sex has not actually changed sex. The least amount of discomfort and distress for women is achieved by making places like this single sex and keeping all men out. There is nothing difficult about this. If men who have chosen to have extreme cosmetic surgery are unhappy with this they need to campaign for their own third spaces.

@Mrspenguinsschoolforfreaks of course single sex is appropriate. Yuck to think of men forcing spaces to become unisex for their own benefit 🤢