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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Dating as a TERF

579 replies

TERFisTHEnewTREND · 14/12/2023 19:39

I'm a 34 year old female. I'm currently dating via Tinder.

When the gender issue has come up and I've mentioned that I'm a TERF, a lot of men have disengaged from me. I once went on three dates with a man, we got on great, and then when I mentioned my views on gender ideology, he ghosted me after!

Do you mention your stance up front or do you wait? I don't want to date anyone who thinks humans can change sex, is it worth stating this on my profile?

Any help/ advice/ insights appreciated.

OP posts:
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quantumbutterfly · 16/12/2023 09:55

I refer to myself as a terf in the same way I reclaim the word bitch. How biological realism became rebranded as bigotry is farcical.
I was asked many many years ago if I was a feminist, it was said in a denigrating way. My reply was that I supposed I was as I quite liked having the vote.
We live the reality of womanhood, we've earned the right to define ourselves.

Helleofabore · 16/12/2023 09:55

DC1888 · 15/12/2023 23:53

"Terf island" though... e m b a r r a s s i n g.

We like to poke fun at the bible belt, fox news and the rest of the crazies.. yet we have our own wacky little clan.

You can have moderate views about what is or isn't acceptable (fast tracking gender status via the Scottish bill (that was rightly quashed), natural born males in women's sports (most would agree that shouldn't happen until such time (if ever) it can be proven zero advantage would be gained), and the most contentious of them all, natural born males in women's spaces...this is where a rigorous test is required to ensure that the transition is legitimate)...but just dismissing them as blokes in dresses is not acceptable.

I join others in asking ‘what is this rigorous test’?

Your every post seems to be either filled with misinformation, or repeating some kind of false middle ground mantras.

What is the workable middle ground position you support?

What is Margot saying that is the extreme position that you reject?

What is this rigorous test?

I think we now have to thank you for taking such the morally superior position that you seem to think you have. Because this has been pure gold for showing the incoherent position that you hold. And even by ignoring most of the questions people ask, you are showing that you are only here to sneer, denigrate and incompetently distance yourself from people you have demonised with your posts.

It is hilarious in a way. Except for the ignorance your posts display seems to be all too real and reflects your own bigotry, not the bigotry you accused others of.

Abhannmor · 16/12/2023 09:57

AccidentallyWesAnderson · 16/12/2023 00:21

Well being a terf will severely limit your pool of potential partners..

Thank fuck for that!

😂 😂 😂

It's like that Andrew Tate post where he announced he won't date women have had the vaccine. It works then!

quantumbutterfly · 16/12/2023 10:13

Abhannmor · 16/12/2023 09:57

😂 😂 😂

It's like that Andrew Tate post where he announced he won't date women have had the vaccine. It works then!

😂

thirdfiddle · 16/12/2023 10:20

The middle ground thing - honestly that's where I started till not long ago. Clearly if you think there should be no self ID, and TW shouldn't be in women's sports or changing rooms and all that, you do not believe TWAW. But we start at a place of be kind, use pronouns, don't say out loud that they're men.

But thanks to listening and reading, what trans activists are saying more than anything, I'm coming to the position that that being kind by polite pretence is being used as leverage to achieve sterilisation of children, the end of women only sports etc. Yes it sounds blunt to say blokes in dresses, but it is also true. And if you think TW can be excluded from women's sports or spaces, you also think it's true. You're just trying not to say it. So far.

MargotBamborough · 16/12/2023 10:46

DC1888 · 15/12/2023 23:53

"Terf island" though... e m b a r r a s s i n g.

We like to poke fun at the bible belt, fox news and the rest of the crazies.. yet we have our own wacky little clan.

You can have moderate views about what is or isn't acceptable (fast tracking gender status via the Scottish bill (that was rightly quashed), natural born males in women's sports (most would agree that shouldn't happen until such time (if ever) it can be proven zero advantage would be gained), and the most contentious of them all, natural born males in women's spaces...this is where a rigorous test is required to ensure that the transition is legitimate)...but just dismissing them as blokes in dresses is not acceptable.

Right, I think I am probably about the 10th person responding directly to this post now, and I don't hold out much hope that @DC1888is actually reading the replies or taking anything in, but just on the off chance, here's my 2p worth.

The main difference between you and the women you dismiss as "TERFs" is a lack of critical thinking on your part.

You refer to situations where you appear to believe it is inappropriate for "natural born males" (by which I assume you mean simply "males") to be in women's spaces, and the need for a "rigorous test" to "ensure that the transition is legitimate".

I can only assume that you believe this is the "middle ground", and that "TERFs" undermine their own arguments about single sex spaces and sports and safeguarding with their crazy Bible belt belief that humans can't ever change sex and their unkind characterisation of trans women as "men in dresses".

Your starting point appears to be that we should all accept that trans women are women, but that there needs to be some safeguarding to ensure that only genuine trans women can access women's spaces and to protect the integrity of women's sport.

This is THE WRONG WAY ROUND.

This is, in fact, precisely how we have ended up in the mess we are currently in.

The Gender Recognition Act introduced onto our statute books the concept that a person can change their legal sex and therefore a "natural born male", as far as the law is concerned, can be considered as female as your mother.

There appears to have been no impact assessment to consider what effect this would have on women. Women were certainly never asked whether we consented to this. The attitude appears to have been that women's consent was not necessary, and that in any case, the number of people expected to change their legal sex was so small that most of us would never meet one of them.

But of course, it is not about the number of people with a gender recognition certificate, or the number of people who have their male genitals surgically removed, and never has been.

Because nobody is standing on the door of public toilets and changing rooms, checking people's genitals or gender recognition certificates.

As soon as you accept that a male person can be a woman and have access to women's single sex spaces, you have to accept that any male person can have access to women's single sex spaces.

The position that "TERFs" have reached today is that the legislative changes which were introduced without fanfare and without our consent 20 years ago which were expected to only have a tiny impact have actually been disastrous for women and girls.

What SHOULD have happened, is that the legislators should have asked themselves, "Is there any way we can give people the right to be legally considered the opposite sex, which does not have a negative impact on the rights, safety and dignity of the rest of the population, particularly women and girls? If not, we can't do it. If we believe that the impact is minimal but that certain groups are more severely affected, such as religious minorities and survivors of sexual assault, can we accommodate both these groups? If not, do we consider that people who want to change their legal sex are more important than religious minorities and sexual assault survivors, and why?"

That kind of analysis was, to my knowledge, never done.

You can bleat all you like about rigorous tests and being kind but the reality is that no such rigorous tests exist or are capable of being implemented, and it is not kind to throw all these women under the bus just because it is currently more fashionable to care about trans people.

The only difference between you and "TERFs" is that we can see the bloody obvious and we aren't afraid to state it.

MargotBamborough · 16/12/2023 11:10

thirdfiddle · 16/12/2023 10:20

The middle ground thing - honestly that's where I started till not long ago. Clearly if you think there should be no self ID, and TW shouldn't be in women's sports or changing rooms and all that, you do not believe TWAW. But we start at a place of be kind, use pronouns, don't say out loud that they're men.

But thanks to listening and reading, what trans activists are saying more than anything, I'm coming to the position that that being kind by polite pretence is being used as leverage to achieve sterilisation of children, the end of women only sports etc. Yes it sounds blunt to say blokes in dresses, but it is also true. And if you think TW can be excluded from women's sports or spaces, you also think it's true. You're just trying not to say it. So far.

There's a lot of truth in this.

Honestly, the real middle ground, the only middle ground as far as I can see, is that society accepts that some people choose to present as though they are the opposite sex to the one they actually are and that in social situations where sex isn't relevant, it is polite to pretend that they are the sex they believe they identify as.

The mantra "trans women are women" is designed specifically to make it difficult to object to male people in women's spaces. Because if trans women actually are women, there is no logical argument for excluding them from women's toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards, rape crisis groups, prisons or sporting categories. Why would you exclude them, if they are women?

It puts you in a position of having to say, "Yes, they are women, except in these situations" and then needing to justify why they are different from other women and should be treated differently in those situations.

But really, it should be the other way round. We should be saying, "They are men, but in the following situations where sex isn't relevant we should refer to them as though they are women because that is how they prefer to be addressed."

The other thing is, we know this pretence isn't kind to women and children, but I don't actually believe it is kind to trans people either. If they live in a bubble of trans people and trans allies who accept them as being whatever they identify as, it must be very hurtful every time they step outside that bubble and are confronted with reality, such as a middle aged woman in the ladies' toilets who says they shouldn't be in there.

It is especially unkind to children going through the school system now and being told that they can be whatever they want to be and change their pronouns and all the rest of it. Not only are their teens likely to be an absolute shit show, whether they go through their natural puberty and find it horribly traumatic because they are growing into a sexually mature adult body which doesn't align with what they believe to be their gender identity, or whether they take puberty blockers and go on a one way path to a lifetime of hormones and surgery. But then they will eventually go out into the adult world and discover that basically no one believes they are the opposite sex, there is a huge issue about which toilets and other single sex facilities they should be using, and very few people want to date them. (I'm not being unkind here, this is a simple observation. Most people of both sexes want children one day, and straight women and gay men tend to like biological males who present as male and straight men and lesbians tend to like biological females who present as female, so trans people are always going to struggle to find acceptance.)

In my view it would be very difficult, but ultimately much kinder to everyone, for society to say, "Look, we have fucked this up rather. Humans can't change sex. Sorry if you were led to believe this was possible. We should be accepting of different types of people in all their glorious diversity but we also need to accept biological reality, and this is it."

ApocalipstickNow · 16/12/2023 11:25

Is the test you put your hand on some Judith Butler book and solemnly swear?

Froodwithatowel · 16/12/2023 11:26

Quite.

The complaints about women saying 'bloke in a dress' is that they have torn down the illusion and the pretense and are calling it what it is.

Be kind = play the game, build the illusion, enable the man.

No. There's no reciprocation of kindness or respect, so moan away that I'm 'regressive' for not enabling. Shame away. Nag away. Kind enablement and pretense got women hugely taken advantage of and harmed. And the anger about women just saying 'bloke in a dress' is that it gives said men nowhere to hide behind while they do the behaviours that harm women.

And look at all the response has: 'if you don't lie and enable on command, then men who have no respect for women and use them as service humans won't want to date you'.

This is somehow supposed to be a problem?

tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · 16/12/2023 11:35

SinnerBoy · 15/12/2023 22:32

DadJoke · Today 15:45

It's a good thing to flag up on your profile to eliminate the large number of people who wouldn't date somone with those views. No matter how charming you are, people who support trans rights aren't going to want to date you.

To which trans rights are you referring?

The right to impose themselves on and intimidate women in toilets? The right to cheat in and dominate women's sports?

Or the right, which we all support, to dress and call themselves as they please and go about their everyday lives without harassment?

I don't think I have ever seen anyone ever be able to articulate the rights trans people don't have that apparently human rights.

Unless as you say it's the right to go where they please totally unchallenged just because it matches their feelings. Which definitely isn't a human right.

Hey ho. Unfortunately I don't expect to see an an answer here either

tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · 16/12/2023 11:36

stillplentyofjunkinthetrunk · 15/12/2023 23:41

better to be alone than with the wrong person

Or an idiot who believes humans can change sex

MargotBamborough · 16/12/2023 11:42

Froodwithatowel · 16/12/2023 11:26

Quite.

The complaints about women saying 'bloke in a dress' is that they have torn down the illusion and the pretense and are calling it what it is.

Be kind = play the game, build the illusion, enable the man.

No. There's no reciprocation of kindness or respect, so moan away that I'm 'regressive' for not enabling. Shame away. Nag away. Kind enablement and pretense got women hugely taken advantage of and harmed. And the anger about women just saying 'bloke in a dress' is that it gives said men nowhere to hide behind while they do the behaviours that harm women.

And look at all the response has: 'if you don't lie and enable on command, then men who have no respect for women and use them as service humans won't want to date you'.

This is somehow supposed to be a problem?

Edited

All of this.

I would actually go as far as to say that it is necessary to think of trans women as blokes male people in dresses who choose to present as though they were female in order to do any kind of safeguarding.

The politicians who debated and passed the Gender Recognition Act were essentially debating the following question:

"Should men who wish to be considered legally women be allowed to do, and if yes, what do we need to do to make that happen?"

The question should really have been framed as, "Are there any situations in which men who wish to be considered women can be treated as such without it having a negative impact on women, and if so, what are those situations?"

But because they let the tail wag the dog and just passed the law without considering the safeguarding angle, we are now in the absurd position of having to ask, "Are there any situations in which these women should be treated as though they are men, for example, in prisons or sports?" which doesn't on the face of it make any sense.

It is so much clearer and so much easier to understand what we are talking about and why, if we are allowed to say that they are men.

And that is why we are not allowed to say it.

Not because it's bigotry, but because it is the truth, and the truth is inconvenient.

Froodwithatowel · 16/12/2023 11:45

And once people speak the plain truth without fear, there's nothing left.

Helleofabore · 16/12/2023 11:48

tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · 16/12/2023 11:36

Or an idiot who believes humans can change sex

If a person believes a human being can change sex and will shame those who disagree, what other material realisms are they in denial about?

And there are people on this thread who are trying to portray themselves, deniers of material reality, and one who just wants it to be swathed in ‘kind’ language, as being morally superior.

Honesty, who the fuck thinks those denying material reality are trustworthy and on the right side of history in the wider society?

If anyone is fully prepared to lie about the material reality of this issue and that gender identity is a belief system and is not material reality, what the fuck else are they prepared to lie about or to obfuscate to remain kind?

I would much rather be called rude than a fucking liar!

howdoesatoastermaketoast · 16/12/2023 11:48

tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · 16/12/2023 11:36

Or an idiot who believes humans can change sex

Indeed @tellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz

Women are either a type of human being who can have any personality, a full range of human emotions etc. wear a dress or jeans depending on the occasion but happen to have the fact that they're female in common. OR option 2 they're not, they're something else (precise wording varies)

But I contend anyone falling into the option 2 category would be a great guy to avoid

MargotBamborough · 16/12/2023 11:54

I actually thought of an alternative definition of "woman" the other day.

A woman is any adult who would not be able to avoid sex based persecution in Afghanistan simply by putting some trousers on and choosing to present as a man.

DC1888 · 16/12/2023 13:04

howdoesatoastermaketoast · 16/12/2023 01:28

Even the swishiest and most effeminate of boys are boys. With a full and complete entitlement to their own bodies. To teach or preach otherwise is incredibly hideously homophobic. If you teach kids that not all boys are boys it'll be the little gay lads that'll think you're talking about them. That the rest of the class turns to look at when you say it. Teaching kids crappy ideas as if they're true makes more kids more unhappy and the only people benefitting are the people selling the 'cures'.

So no thank you. People deserve compassion and respect. Ideas can (at most) expect to be considered carefully before you decide if it is after all a good idea or a bad one. I've thought about this very carefully indeed. I've listened to a lot of people. And no whatever gender identity maybe it is clearly too personal and nebulous to in any way be useful for the government to track it or laws and policies to be rewritten on the basis of gender identity rather than sex.

Adult human females continue to exist and are quite significant enough to retain the word which refers to us in law and policy. To say this is not an attack on anyone. To deny or oppose this is preposterously misogynistic.

And yes ironically @DC1888 your totally reasonable and mild assertions would get you labelled a terf if the purity police came for you.

Gender dysphoria is real though.

You aren't seriously denying that there are people who believe they are in the wrong body?

These people, an outlier in society (less than 0.5% of the populous), deserve, quote, "compassion and respect".

SinnerBoy · 16/12/2023 13:10

Populous is an adjective, describing a place with many people.

SinnerBoy · 16/12/2023 13:11

ellmewhenthespaceshiplandscoz · Today 11:35

I don't think I have ever seen anyone ever be able to articulate the rights trans people don't have that apparently human rights.

As far as I can see it, that's because it's a false claim, one used solely to browbeat and carry out emotional blackmail, to get their own way.

MargotBamborough · 16/12/2023 13:14

DC1888 · 16/12/2023 13:04

Gender dysphoria is real though.

You aren't seriously denying that there are people who believe they are in the wrong body?

These people, an outlier in society (less than 0.5% of the populous), deserve, quote, "compassion and respect".

I don't think anybody here is denying that gender dysphoria is real.

But that has no impact on what everybody else is.

Even if having gender dysphoria could be said to be an identity (as opposed to a psychiatric disorder), being biologically male and having gender dysphoria would not be the same identity as being biologically female and not having gender dysphoria. Would it?

So why are we being forced to use the same word to describe male people with gender dysphoria and female people without gender dysphoria, and to pretend that these two groups are for all intents and purposes the same?

Who does that benefit, other than male people who want to access female only spaces for reasons best known to themselves?

PermanentTemporary · 16/12/2023 13:17

Yes there are both men and women who believe they should have been, or are, the opposite sex, and have a constant debilitating misery if they are presenting in the ways 'coded' in their society for their sex.

I was just watching a documentary bout lifts this week including the story of a transwoman who had a really successful career as a lift engineer, a happy life and died beloved by all. I would have no wish to cause her any distress, would use she/her pronouns, would respect that transition suited her, would likely have hot on with her, would happily accept her at our book club (which is all-female but not deliberately so). But she was a transwoman. Not a woman. Census statistics should reflect that, single sex spaces should stay that way.

TheMarzipanDildo · 16/12/2023 13:19

DC1888 · 16/12/2023 13:04

Gender dysphoria is real though.

You aren't seriously denying that there are people who believe they are in the wrong body?

These people, an outlier in society (less than 0.5% of the populous), deserve, quote, "compassion and respect".

Someone believing they were born in the wrong body does not mean that they were actually born in the wrong body. No one was, we are our bodies. Our sense of self changes over our lifetime, and we know that teenagers often have low self esteem and feel like they are different to their peers. Affirmation at all costs leads to teenagers being castrated and dealing with the lifetime of heath issues that this kind of surgery almost inevitably means.

To use a well worn analogy, we don’t tell anorexics that they are fat to be kind.

MargotBamborough · 16/12/2023 13:21

DC1888 · 16/12/2023 13:04

Gender dysphoria is real though.

You aren't seriously denying that there are people who believe they are in the wrong body?

These people, an outlier in society (less than 0.5% of the populous), deserve, quote, "compassion and respect".

Also, I'm not sure what is so unreasonable about saying, "Yes, this 0.5% of the population deserves to be treated with compassion and respect, but not in such a way that involves depriving 51% of the population of the compassion and respect THEY deserve", which is what we are saying.

Literally the only answer proponents of gender identity theory seem to have is basically, "the 51% would have no issue sharing their single sex spaces and sports with trans women if they just stopped being bigoted and believed that trans women are women".

Which is just an insult to everyone's intelligence.

DC1888 · 16/12/2023 13:24

Helleofabore · 16/12/2023 04:27

Oh dear.

Do keep posting. You are doing more to show the deep prejudice and ignorance behind the term than you are showing anything else.

You have also shown how deeply hypocritical you personally are. You keep posting about how offensive some people are, while you are the poster who used the term hermaphrodite for those people who might have differences of sex development. You cannot answer any questions, nor articulate any views in a meaning and considered way, yet seem to be here relishing calling people ignorant. Your own posts lack coherency and the ability to think beyond the superficial level of a concept.

All you have done is shown your own views about women’s need match those you have called extreme, and vilified, denigrated and demonised. It really is a case that you cannot conceive of being seen as being like those women you have seen described as mean, hateful terfs so you join in pointing fingers.

Yet your own views are mostly aligned. The difference is you cling to this perception that this magic solution ‘case by case’ is a workable one. Why? Because some people in the Labour Party hide behind it despite them not being able to provide details on how that will work? Do you understand how closely you have emulated their stance which is one empty and devoid of delivering a workable solution? They must be hating the thought of their election interviews because women and trans people will push for answers and when there is no clarification it will show that the ‘middle ground’ was never going to work. We know, because we have quite thoroughly explored middle ground. It still harms women and children.

Has it ever occurred to you that you are the one that is part of the group causing harm to women and children?

Fuck. There is some disconnected thinking on display in your posts.

Of course I'm largely ignorant, as is everyone who posts here I suspect. We don't live that existence. But being hostile to those who do and referring to them as blokes in dresses, it's not exactly progressive thinking is it?

As I said previously, this backward thinking is very un-UK like. There has always been a fringe of nutters (Oswald Mosely, Lord Haw Haw, Enoch Powell etc.) but generally people here are sensible and tolerant.

TheMarzipanDildo · 16/12/2023 13:34

“As I said previously, this backward thinking is very un-UK like. There has always been a fringe of nutters (Oswald Mosely, Lord Haw Haw, Enoch Powell etc.) but generally people here are sensible and tolerant.”

Believing in biological sex does not make you Oswald Moseley. And it’s gender ideology that’s backward thinking, not feminism.