Suella Braverman is wrong to tell the police to describe transgender rapists as men.

[theilltemperedclavecinist]

First, calling a trans woman a man is misgendering, which is transphobic even if unintentionally.

Secondly, it is not accurate and precise enough. A trans woman is not a man, but she is not just any woman, either. Accuracy and precision are important for good record keeping, for research purposes, and for correctly informing the public.

Thus, a transgender rapist should be recorded as such in police and cps records, and should be referred to in press releases as per Stonewall guidelines (transgender woman, then trans woman for subsequent mentions).

If there is any doubt, I suggest a default of assuming a suspect is trans, to avoid giving offence. Stonewall guidelines make it clear that trans is an umbrella covering many things, including men who only very occasionally cross-dress, for whatever purpose.

It would help if all press releases included an explainer box about what a trans woman is, given the surprising number of people who don't seem to know.

This approach may make the use of 'cisgender' (eg for other suspects) unavoidable, which I know some will dislike. But avoiding ambiguity about what is really happening seems more of a priority at the moment.

This would include India W who has clearly shown that he couldn't give a shit about women. I wouldn't want to share a space with him.

Thinking about it, Sarah Jane Baker chopped his balls off but is still a violent male who is a danger to women. Would you move him into a women's prison?

@DuesToTheDirt is 100% right - I do not give one single, tiny rat’s arse about the feelings of rapists, and I never will.

I don’t want rape - forcible penetration with a penis - recorded as a women’s crime. It is a male crime.

I might not either. But how you or I might feel about sharing such spaces with males isn't particularly relevant. It does matter to many women - in particular those who've suffered from male violence. They've nowhere else to go, it's simply not ok for their spaces to be compromised in the way that's happened.
By all means do as some honourable transwomen have done and campaign for 'third spaces', but don't give away other women's rights because you feel ok about it.

Personally I'd like a different terminology again for the men who have had their bodies butchered and have no penis or testicles, are left with an unmanageable sore wounded hole, incontinence problems, and lifelong pain. Plus on ludicrous levels of god knows what hormones, steroids, blockers.

Some of those men are perfectly capable of expressing hatred of women, and even after genital surgery they are often just as physically dominant and threatening to women as other men. I don't want any males in female spaces. Happy for them to have different terminology, but being a woman isn't a prize for effort.

Apologies I can't quote today! That was to @JFTs post

Rapists can avoid misgendering by not raping.

Given we can't seem to get away from all the gender woo then I think we should do this:

A sex and a gender field, gender can have any number of ridiculous descriptions but must include 'no gender'

Transwomen are biological males so they are sex: male
gender: transwoman

I am a woman:
Sex: female
Gender: no gender

Etc

That way we will be able to see clearly how many men sexually assaults/rape women and how many transwomen do it.

It's called collecting accurate and usable data.

A rapist is a man! How otherwise is rape possible?
I personally think that any man who commits a sexual crime then tries to get access to more women should have their sentence doubled!

And yet it really isn't

If a man wants to wear a dress and use she/her and be called sally, fine.
If a man wants to wear a dress and use they/them and be called sally and if I don't get their pronouns right and they try and get my fired, then no.
If someone wants me to get their labels correct, then they don't get to mislabel/gender me.
it s as simple as if I am expected to respect them, then they should respect me.

I would prefer males who are trans to be called trans men and vice versa. Except that's just going to add to more confusion 😅How about transsexual men? or is that different?

They should be housed according to their sex and not the feelings. Otherwise it makes more sense.

For some reason there is an awfully high % of males who ‘feel like a woman’ in jail these days.

Women in jail are vulnerable enough. They aren’t there to affirm males’ feelings or to be used as shields for (some) males against - shock - male aggression.

I was taking this all with a pinch of salt, until it occurred to me that when Labour win the next election, this is the kind of language we will be forced to use, and OP’s strategy might be important

I can’t say I’ll ever use that language

This.

It's not really about TWs, whether harmless or dangerous. Language and law are being distorted so much that it will become impossible to exclude from women's spaces any man prepared to make a tiny effort to get in - already sometimes no effort at all given the 'be kind and don't challenge' mantra.

I think OP has a really good point. I disagree with some of it - the ready acceptance of Stonewall’s authority, what constitutes phobia & the need for cis (surely one benefit of using “trans woman” is that it returns the word „woman“ to those who need it?!) But overall, it‘s pretty sound. And the counter-arguments are too.

At risk of being accused of tone policing though (esp. as, if not a FWR newbie, then a relative young ‘un myself), I find some of the calls of offensive batshittery & egg-sucking-lessons a bit off-putting. I stuck around cos of the robust debate, but also cos, as a fearful lurker, I got the impression from reading that I’d respected & helped along on a journey to understanding a really complex issue. And here I still am, hanging around & doing my little bit, IRL too. It’s not much, but it all adds up.

I really think this is a numbers game - we need people who are prepared to engage, reflect & speak out. Once anyone‘s placed a tentative foot on the rocky way of „Hang on, they’re not really women!“ it’s hard to imagine any way but up. Seasoned climbers shouting them down from the mountain top really ain’t gonna help them along (except perhaps as practice for the avalanche of craziness about to hit them!)

Metaphor now stretched to silly proportions.

PS. I‘m with Sir Samuel, too. His Dukeship sums it up well.

I love Helen Joyce and Kathleen Stock, but I don't think they are any more likely to persuade the captured institutions than Richard Dawkins is to convince a priest that God doesn't exist (You know nothing about theology! Blasphemy! You hate Christians!) (I used to laugh at Dawkins's helpless rage at the refusal of believers to see reason. I'm not laughing now.)

Hence the suggestion to desist with the de-programming attempts, and just keep talking quite loudly and politely (and using their horrible language if we absolutely must) about the bad real world outcomes, in the hope enough people are listening.

Thus, a transgender rapist should be recorded as such in police and cps records, and should be referred to in press releases as per Stonewall guidelines (transgender woman, then trans woman for subsequent mentions).
How about trans identifying male as a more accurate descriptor?

If there is any doubt, I suggest a default of assuming a suspect is trans, to avoid giving offence.
If you don't want to be offended keep your dick in your pants and don't rape

Stonewall guidelines make it clear that trans is an umbrella covering many things, including men who only very occasionally cross-dress, for whatever purpose.
Stonewall have made up a lot of shit in the last decade that is not accepted by anyone else

100 times this

100% this! #NotOurCrimes

Thank you for your speech on the podium today for all the silly little feminists whose language needs to be corrected. 🙄

@EarthSight, if that’s for me, thanks in turn from the podium for the sarky one-liner from the crowd!

This whole thread‘s about how we use language, start to end. There‘s sarky, livid, hectoring & pretty aggressive.

There‘s whatever my post was - patronising, for you? Sorry if so, but I’d rather that than putting off lurkers on the cusp of engaging.

I'm sorry. I assumed that people would see through me much quicker, so that was a failure on my part. Interesting responses though.