Anyone in the middle?

[piesforever]

All I see on here is GC rants. I am in the middle, I support trans people but do agree they shouldn't take part in gender specific sport, and there needs to be more caution in "changing gender" for sure, especially hormones and surgery for young people. I do agree some are troubled or young people, who are hating puberty or have had some trauma. Let's support them overall though, it must be horrible whatever the outcome. Anyone else feel a bit of sympathy to both "sides"? In fact, why are there sides, we need to find common ground and help each other!! Instead of being furious all the time. It's not healthy.

Well aren’t you smug and self-righteous.

Just bask in the glow of your moral superiority to the mere mortals that are FWR regulars.

They’ve all got it wrong.

Only you understand.

Sure.

Honestly, I've not met anyone "terfy" who I'd consider not in the middle, or at least not having started in the middle.
I've been sat on the fence so long I'm fairly sure there's a post up my arse, but people generally don't like fence sitters or mediators in this space generally, especially on the trans side.

It's the TRA's insisting that any and all disagreement makes you a bigot that has caused people to become quite weary with trying to sugar coat their words or be kind or make compromises anymore.
As you can imagine, over time that builds up and people will dig their heels in harder.

On top of that, TRA's have been given an inch and taken a mile one too many times, people are sick of it and so don't want to budge anymore - Other's are so sick of it they think things really ought to be budged back, and honestly I can't disagree with that view in some areas.
Children can't consent, that should never have been up for debate as just one example.

I’m so sorry Transparent2. I can’t imagine how difficult that must be for you. 🌼

I agree with this. I was quietly questioning but relentlessly kind for a long time. Fuck that, it got me assaulted more than once. Trans women and trans men are not the same as each other, the way men and women are not the same. Not equal, yet. Trans men have my utmost support. They, for the most part, go through the same struggles as women. I’m “in the middle” in that I support people’s right to present however they choose, to call themselves whatever they choose, I’ll play along if you’re nice about it. But once it starts to endanger women or take opportunities away from us, or deny the very real sex-based discrimination we suffer, my sympathy is lost, as is my kindness.

I oh sweet summer child. We all went through a stage where we thought there was a middle ground to be had.

At some point you'll learn that questioning any aspect of trans ideology makes you a TERF. They don't want a middle ground, they want ALL their demands to be met.

A very valuable viewpoint from an incredibly difficult position.

I don't think there is a middle ground.
Men are not women
Gender identity ideology is encroaching upon children's safety and women's rights.
Additional Unisex spaces are not what is being asked for by men who say they're women, besides, why should costly provision be made to support what is usually a fetish? There are already precious few women's toilets compared to men's given our different needs, It will likely impact on the hard won disabled facilities and also ignored the wants of the women who claim to be men.
It is not unreasonable to want to keep the limited female spaces we have or to want children to not be indoctrinated to believe they might be born in the wrong body.

👆

Agree with AvocadoFieldsForever

@piesforever I'll add my voice to this one as well.

I was a lurker on MN for a long time, reading things and building up my knowledge through listening to others. My entry point was gender dysphoria in adolescent, autistic girls but I realised that in order to understand this (and help my daughter with her confusion about what "gender" meant for her), I needed to widen my reach and get my head around all of it.

Despite my concerns for my daughter and others like her, I've remained "in the middle", similar to how many others have described.

I still use preferred pronouns in some contexts - never a child and never where the clarity of someone's sex is specifically important. In the former I'll just avoid any pronoun. In the latter I'll either do the same or, in some circumstances (probably on fewer than 5 occasions so far at a guess), I'll use sex-based pronouns.

I decided to join Twitter when the harms relating to children and gender identity belief started to bubble up in the public discourse a bit more. It's not fully open in discussion yet but it's getting there, with puberty blockers and the question about how teachers and schools should handle this whole topic.

In the past on MN, I've been questioned about whether my views are genuine and I've been told off several times for "policing people's language". I still maintain that I never did and that I was simply advocating for respectful debate but never mind that now 😁 The reason I mention it is because it hopefully illustrates how "in the middle" I've been and am. Even when advocating for respectful debate, I've also always seen value in different voices. Yes, that sounds a little like a paradox but we really do need all of it IMO. Some people's engagement styles have shifted over time from more "in the middle" to hard line, but from everything I've seen that doesn't stop people caring about trans people too.

But caring for others doesn't mean letting lines be crossed. Nobody should be able to identify their way across someone else's boundary. Not everyone believes that we have an inner gender identity, an innate essence of being male, female or other. Why should a believer get to force others to accept it as a truth?

From my experience on MN, that's what I see in other people who post: care for those who experience gender dysphoria but hard lines on what can't be forced on to others.

I'm on Twitter more than MN now, taking my "in the middle" style of engagement with me. Where there is substance to a comment, I'll engage. I've had some great discussions on that basis but most of the time, that involves me ignoring insults that are flung at me. I only comment back on the actual substance and if there's not any at all, I step away. Despite staying in the middle in my engagement style (I'll admit I'm prone to the odd bought of sarcasm, but mostly not) I've been called: Nazi, bigot, fascist, transphobe, deluded, part of a cult... and my personal favourite... A paedophile! That one was when I said that children should be allowed to go through puberty in relation to a conversation about the dangers of puberty blockers.

For me, the “middle ground” is the law as written and intended. The 2004 GRA. Exemptions for women’s sports and single sex services (inc. lesbian groups). Birth sex as the comparator for trans discrimination Equality Act cases where the complainant does not have a GRC. No GRCs for under-18s (hence no right to opposite-sex spaces).

We are in the bizarre position that supporting the actual law (rather than Stonewall law which Parliament never voted for) puts me at risk of losing my job.

I get you. The thing is is that I personally don't think I believe in gender. I believe gender is a combination of stereotypes and personality. For example I don't get why people want to change 'gender' as it insults us all. What can a person not do as their own biological sex? If boys want to wear makeup and skirts, crack on. It doesn't make you a girl, just be a boy who wears makeup and skirts. If a girl wants to do stereotypical 'boy' things why the hell not? But why not do it as a girl?

I do not want men in my changing room. I do not want Eddie Izzard in my toilet and I do not want Isla Bryson in a women's prison.

Where is the middle ground? I think those generally struggling should be treated fairly and with kindness, but I’ve gradually moved to a position where I no longer really believe there is such a thing as a “trans person”, at least not in the way that term is currently being pushed.

Obviously there are people who are undergoing a process of trying to imitate the opposite sex in various ways, right up to having extreme medical procedures, but we are told that “trans people” don’t need to do any of that and that it refers to people who have “a different gender identity from their sex”. I don’t believe there is such a thing as “gender identity” and I don’t believe there is a coherent group because I think there are multiple different reasons why people are trying to imitate the opposite sex.

And the fact that there are multiple reasons why people are trying to imitate the opposite sex is at the heart of the problem with “rights” being demanded for them. A young woman who hates her body needs very different things from a man who gets an erection when he wears a dress and pushes his way into women’s changing rooms.

So I think demanding “rights” for this incoherent group is fraught with problems, not least of which is that the men with erections are very much more demanding and have more power than the young women who hate their bodies, so that the demands being made are very much skewed to benefit them. In addition many of those men despise women and are supported by many others who also despise women. The impact on women’s rights is a design fault and not an accident.

If that seems like a rant to you, then so be it, but it is where I have ended up after watching all this unfold over several years.

👏🏻👏🏻

@PriOn1 nailed it 👌

Where have you seen GC rants?

These were banned years ago. I'd love to know which ones fell through the cracks. Can you send me a link to one please.

Thanks.

I have sympathy but I struggle with the idea of what is kindness. Is it kind to tell a teenage gay child they can be the other sex? I know a few through my kids. They actually think they can change sex. TikTok and YouTube tells them they can. However we all know this is a lie that must come crashing down. I think it is heartbreaking

Yes, I think the OP forgets that a great many of us have been here watching this unfold for years. (Around 7 and counting in my case). The alarming authoritarianism and violent threats towards women who dare to question, women being hounded out of their jobs for factual opinions on their own lives, history and reality and a correct understanding of UK equality law, and the completely false framing of what are called "GC" views as somehow a new extremist belief has frankly been sinister and is something I am very happy to oppose.

I'm unclear why it's "extremist" in any way to do so; it's a pretty moderate, liberal position. Am 100% with PriOn1.

Middle ground would be third spaces and sports. Most people with gender issues and their supporters do not and never will want third spaces.

There is NO situation where I think drugging and mutilating minors is a solution. None. There is no middle ground. Caution is not good enough. The immature brain requires completed puberty to become a mature brain.

And all of this ignores the Acronym which Gets People deleted. The fetish cohort are EVERYWHERE. Part of the fetish is the display, you cannot pretend it doesn't exist. I'm sorry you don't feel the same but I have no requirement to take the middle ground on any male sexual fetish. None.

I'm mostly lurking. I came to a gender critical position as I have a teen child questioning their gender, for a number of complex reasons. The information they got online was: that parents are the enemy, that medical transition is a walk in the park and solves a multitude of mental health problems.
I found first the Genspect and Transparency podcasts, those helped me a lot to form my opinion.
I occasionally find that the debate on this board can become quite robust. (You would say a rant). But if you look at how the debate on self-id went in Scotland, you can clearly see that the lack of will to find a middle ground and the silencing happen in real life, it's not an exaggerated perception coming from Twitter. So I totally understand where the rage comes from.

Yep, Prion nailed it. I'm not focused on Trans people. My full focus is on women and girls and keeping Males, no matter how they identify, out of Female single sex spaces.

I’ve gradually moved to a position where I no longer really believe there is such a thing as a “trans person”, at least not in the way that term is currently being pushed.

I don't believe in gender identity but I do believe trans people exist. They are people who do believe in gender identity, who feel a distress because they perceive a mismatch between their inner sense of "gender" and their body. I'm not sure it's helpful to question trans identity. It's one of the tenets of gender identity belief.

I don't believe in God but Christians exist. They are people who do believe in God. Obviously they aren't being pulled towards the idea of changing their bodies as part of this belief but religion does have its own rules for believers to follow.

Where it gets questionable is the Malaga Airport (three letter acronym for the airport).
By way of comparison, I think it's fair to say that not all priests will believe in God. The church has had its fair share of public scandal and it's pretty clear that some will have pretended to believe in God in order to be able to cross others' boundaries. In the case of the priests I'm obviously talking about known scandals where children are the victims. For clarity, my Malaga Airport reference isn't specifically about children as victims.

Here's an idea. Go and post this on X/Twitter and see how it goes. Keep a tab on all the abuse and threats you get and where they come from. Really test your claim of being 'in the middle'

Malaga Airport

Oh very good indeed.