Anti trans debate

[Beedleneedle]

I’ve noticed on mumsnet there’s a strong feminist anti trans stance. That’s fine in theory, but I’m surprised these topics affect so many people. In my day to day life I never experience any push/agenda! Where is this happening?

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

This thread provides very useful information dating back some time. It might help you understand.

@porridgecake jeeze, obviously not. I’m saying I see articles in the papers , I see the reaction on here. I’m not supporting trans rights in the slightest.

From your posts, OP, it isn't obvious what you mean. I am trying to tease out the reasoning behind your posts. What you are actually asking.

@Beedleneedle I work with vulnerable children and young people. This situation is real in my day to day job, where I see children being drawn into the trans narrative, and as a result the actual foundational problems they have (on the whole girls who have experienced child sexual abuse or rape as a young adult) is ignored and their desire to be their ‘true’ self is celebrated.

I work with parents who are genuinely afraid that as their child is ‘transitioning’ and they want to approach it with a ‘watch and wait’ that this will be seen as them abusing their child.

So yes it’s happening in day to day life, trust me.

Oh and to add, and I can only talk about it in a confidential forum on MN as I could potentially face disciplinary action (I say possibly as I hope that recent court results will change that!!!!)

OP you say this has had no effect in your daily life.
Are you a woman? Do you have any experience of sexism? Let's start there.

I think you will learn a great deal and understand, if you read the threads you have noticed. There are some really well written, researched and explained posts on FWR.

@heldinadream yes I’m a woman and yes I’ve experienced sexism.

@porridgecake im not even sure anymore! I’m guess I was just trying to gauge whether there is an wide trans community that I just don’t seem to come across in my personal or professional life or people are more concerned about the ideology being imposed

I recommend " Trans" by Helen Joyce.

I can share an experience. It happened not long ago. I stayed overnight at a youth hostel and chose a women's dorm. I arrived in the evening and decided to take a shower so went into the women's bathrooms. It was at the back of the building and there was no one around. Each shower cubicle was tiny with only a few inches of space alongside the shower itself so its easier to strip outside in the communal area of the bathroom by the sinks. I took a shower, got out, started putting my clothes back on. Still no one around. It seemed completely deserted. Then someone came in. They were dressed in a stereotypically feminine way but they were 6 foot tall, huge, clearly male judging by their height and build. They smelled strongly of perfume. My whole body went into a fear mode, I froze. I'm a tiny 5'3ft petite woman, I weigh 7.5stone, and I did not expect to encounter a huge male person in this deserted women's bathroom. They can easily overpower me. I don't want to share a women's bathroom and a women's dorm with biological males because as a lone female traveller it makes me feel less safe.

Now I've had that experience I know that if I book a women's dorm it doesn't guarantee that only women will sleeping there.

Obviously there are now very few places that you can voice this fear without being told that you're a bigot for being scared because the person you encountered was a woman, just like you.

@Beedleneedle what’s your view on professional (or amateur) sports women losing out to trans women? There are loads of examples in the press recently in swimming, pool, tennis, running, etc.

Can you give an example of sexism in your life that has made you upset/angry/disempowered?

OP you are entirely right that it's an extreme minority issue.

@MrInbetween I think it’s wrong, but tbh I don’t really care for professional sports.

@heldinadream being asked if I intend to have a child during an interview?

Do you have kids OP? You can't get away from the issue in secondary schools at the moment.

Yes.

Marks and Spencer's changing rooms are no longer single sex.
Hospital wards are often the same.
In Scotland if you need the services of a rape crisis or refuge the only way you can know it will be female only is because JK Rowling has set one up.

Imagine a rape victim having to undertake a medical examination including intimate swabs - do you think she be able to ask for a woman?

If the UK government had not stepped in in Scotland that rape victim would not only not have a right to a woman taking swabs but could be prosecuted for objecting to a man.

If you go to prison you may find yourself sharing a cell with a man in a wig.

If you ever want or need a same sex service whether it be swimming, a spray tan, taking part in sport, winning an award that used to be female only then you are at risk.

If you have daughters do you know that at guide camp they may be sharing a tent with a male who 'identifies' as a female.

If you are arrested and strip searched it can now be a male who does the searching.

Do you know that 90% of 'trans women' have taken no hormones, had no surgery and are over represented as a group as carrying out sex crimes?

Even if you feel you haven’t been affected in day to day life, every woman is affected by the redefinition of the word “woman” to include some men with special lady feelz.

I thought “transwomen are women” was a kindness to a few men with gender dysphoria. Mumsnet opened my eyes that thanks to Stonewall it was now meant to be taken and believed literally. Combined with the self-ID that Stonewall and many politicians were pushing, it would mean that any man could say some magic words and be treated as if he was just like me. Access to women’s spaces, sports, prisons, opportunities (all women shortlists).

No man, no matter how strongly he feels drawn to stereotypes associated with the female sex, is a woman.

No child is “born in the wrong body” and needs wrong sex hormones & surgery to change their body to “match” the gender identity that we supposedly all have but is based on nothing but regressive stereotypes.

Just yesterday the Scottish prison service claimed that they don’t know the risk that a violent male who says he’s a woman would present to female prisoners if placed in the female estate. They’d have to assess the risk, including what sort of violence it was, context etc. NO! No male (violent or otherwise) should be held in female prisons, no matter how much he wants to be there. Only a man who wants to overstep women’s boundaries would even think of asking to go to a female prison. 90%+ of transwomen keep their penis.

Hopefully this will never affect me, as I have no plans to go to prison, but I and all the other women on here care about other women, about vulnerable women (many with a history of trauma caused by male violence, many in prison for minor crimes like not paying their TV licence).

Keep living in blissful ignorance if you like, OP, but I won’t stop talking about this until everyone’s eyes are opened to the harmful ideology.

I’ve been a lurker in this forum for a few years now. It affects me in real life all the time, as a teacher and a mum.

Only last week, my daughter told me her autistic best friend now identifies as male and is researching puberty blockers and reassignment surgery. She’s 11 years old and wants to be like her favourite anime character.

I’m not anti trans. I’m anti the mutilation of vulnerable children every step of the way, though.

Is it 'anti-trans' or is it just knowing people cannot change sex and understanding and discussing the myriad ways that this disadvantages women and girls?

By a man presumably. Now imagine that man had been dressed as a woman and using a woman's name, and you felt you had grounds for complaint about his behaviour, but everyone you spoke to accused YOU of being a terrible right-wing bigot because this man-dressed as a woman, in a position of power over you, is considered by everyone else to be the most vulnerable kind of victim there is? To the point where if you question anything this man does or says you are in danger of being arrested and charged with a hate crime? And no-one is listening to you when you're saying - but it's a man! In fact the more you say it the more YOU are blamed and ostracised. And this man in a frock just sits by and smirks at you going through all this.
How do you feel now?
Because this is what's happening. To women like you.
Let alone bringing all the issues around the transing of children into it.
How can you only get angry about things that have personally affected you?

Loads of things make me angry. Many of which I have no personal experience of.

Even here in very rural Scotland, out of the 21 kids who were in my daughter's class in primary school, two girls have undergone some medical transitioning, one of them is currently crowdfunding for a double mastectomy. There were at least two more at high school, one of them a boy whose mother set up a crowdfunder for surgery. They are all 19 or 20 now.
You have to lead a very sheltered life not to come across any of this outside MN.

Women being called hateful, silenced or prevented from speaking about their biological reality is something I have personally witnessed, yes.

It's not necessarily Trans identifying people themselves, but the ideology that has infected everything, including schools and workplaces which has become a new orthodoxy that mustn't be questioned. To the detriment of women and our biological reality.

@Beedleneedle ok so you don’t care about professional sport. Should my 16 year old daughter have to fave a trans woman in a rugby match. Not professional, just at a local club. If not why not? Can you imagine what my worries are about this? Or turn it around what are the possible problems with having a transwoman on her team when they change and shower together?

It really does not take much imagination.

But I suspect you don’t want to listen to these issues as it does not impact you. Or you already have a set view on how ‘unkind’ we are here.

Mumsnet peaked me, I was like you once and when I educated myself I couldn’t un see it. It’s everywhere.

Do you work in corporate or public sector? Read your company’s policies.

Go to your local council run sports centres? You’ll find unisex changing rooms.

Present as a male for an X-ray and you’ll be asked if you could be pregnant.

Try to get a feminist related book in Waterstones to learn more. Yup two flights up in the far corner or not on display at all.

Fucking progress flags in every day shop windows.

Virtue signalling everywhere.

Park Run women's races won by men.

Once you’ve seen it…