Why are women so complacent re. trans nonsense?

[JazbayGrapes]

I mean, outside GC or radfem circles, i have heard some of the most outrageous things, coming not from the loony left, but seeming well-meaning, semi-conservative women. Like "What is your problem? Can't you just #BeKind?"

1. Re. sports: "A lesson in inclusion and acceptance for a girl is much more valuable than any trophy. Or maybe your daughter should train harder."

2. Re. prisons: "That's easy - don't break the law and you'll have nothing to worry about."

3. Re. homeless shelters: "Imagine being so ungrateful for a roof over your head that you would complaint about trans."

4)Re. public toilets/showers/changing rooms: "If you are such a prude to undress in front of male genitalia, them maybe you should stay home and never go to gyms or swimming pools or etc."

I'm a a loss...

Privilege/middle/upper class nonsense. Desperate pick me behaviour. Maybe if they side with the men, they won't be the woman assaulted, raped, affected.

Sometimes, it is just straight up stupidity.

Certainly those mothers who have allowed or even encouraged their children to be treated with puberty blockers and cross sex hormones for their mental health problems will be in absolute denial against anyone suggesting that doing so will have caused sterility without necessarily giving any long term mental health benefits.

For those parents, women pointing out the paucity of evidence supporting that pathway could easily be painted as hateful as the alternative must be unbearable.

And of course, such parents will see resistance against the societal changes that their children have taught them are necessary for their happiness as despicable. Having invested everything in this ideology for their child, backing out must be impossible.

I agree Wellies that it is not ‘anti-trans’ to discuss this. I think it takes some deeply entrenched prejudice to think that the discussions on here are anti-trans. And it points to someone either heavily invested in a belief about gender identity or someone with a very superficial understanding of the discussions taking place here.

Both no 1 and no 4 are about girls/women kowtowing to men.
It is baffling.

No 4 is astonishing as even if it were only being prudish that should be more than a good enough reason. Prudes want to swim too! Rights for prudes.
My New Battlecry.

But bearing in mind it is for safety … ach, I’d love to be such an innocent blossom again. Sadly, rape and attempted murder (not at the same time) tend to make you a bit skittish around men in enclosed spaces when you are in a state of undress. Funny that.
I know I SHOULD reframe my trauma, but have decided to embrace my inner Prude instead.
(So fuck those people).

Maybe because everything is too black and white on this?

You can be kind and not want trans women in women's sports.

I've said before on here my partner is a trans man. I didn't see myself falling in love with someone trans but here we are. 😉

Him and I agree with all of your above. In fact if you go on YouTube you'll find quite a few voices from Trans women who agree with you. Blair White is my favourite. There was a trans woman who even testified here on behalf of Jordan Peterson.

The thing is it's hard for conversations like these because it seems all or nothing.

For me to agree with above on MN at least means my boyfriend gets called delusional and my girlfriend. He's a trans man. He's not a biological man. We both get that. But respecting him a transperson also doesn't happen.

There's the faux outrage about it all being bullshit on here and that makes women who are like me not want to engage.

I can recognize the injustice on both sides. Unfortunately there doesn't seem a place for women like me.

Too right for the left, and too left for the right.

Sadly I don't think anyone wins in this.

It's too bad because there are actually trans allies out there but on mumsnet at least they would not be a welcome voice.

I imagine we could all be assets to each other. Many trans women and men don't want to be lumped in with performative outrage and demands of certain trans people.

I wish there was more of a welcome middle ground.

I do wonder too if, to buy the TWAW rhetoric, you have to have pretty old fashioned ideas about what men and women are like/ should wear/do. Surely people who think in a more modern way can't believe in some sort of women essence which then somehow men can have.

What does respecting your partner as a transpersonal actually mean to you? what do you want people to do?

A supposedly feminist forum bemoaning that some women are capable of independent thought.

I don’t understand the accusation of “faux outrage” at it all being bullshit. When it wasn’t close to home for me, it was easy to ignore the facts. But when my son is, apparently (though he never actually says what he thinks or believes), pretending to be a woman, and demands that I do so, I do find it outrageous. It is absolutely bullshit and it has messed up our family, and in trying to understand it, I have come across literally dozens of the other people it has distressed and messed up. I am very worried about what he will do to his healthy body.

As for the even more outrageous demands of the trans rights activists, that we all lie and give them rights that we give no-one else! And the women whose fears are ignored, and whose jobs turn into nightmares, and whose marriages are destroyed, and whose hopes are trampled all over? Well, who cares about them?

I think deliberately calling him my girlfriend is rude.

I don't think calling a transperson by the gender they prefer is asking too much.

There's a big difference between:

Trans women are real women.
Trans women are men.
And Trans women are trans women.

He's a transman. I don't see how insisting he can't be trans and must be a woman helps anyone?

These arguments are interesting.

We see these in the black community too. If you're like Candace Owens you must be a self hating African American. We must all share one brain or hate ourselves.

People have different opinions based on experience.

Me being a woman doesn't mean I have to agree with every opinion on here. I think we can all do better.

I think lots of people care about them. I care about them. I can also care about trans people.

I don't see it as one or the other.

In fact many trans people care about these issues. The don't believe in hormones for children. They are speaking out. They are allies.

Some of us are grateful to them ( as I said Blair White was a Godsend).

OP, because it's easier to say that shit and go about your day feeling virtuous. Because you don't want to be like the women who asked questions, got angry and disappeared down the long, dark, disturbing path of feminism and politics and thinking. Which leads to realising just how fucked up and misogynistic our society is, how women really don't count as real human people in the minds of a great many men and — possibly the most disturbing of all for me — the realisation of how so much of mens' lives is focussed on sex. I grew up with a dad who wouldn't have page 3 in the house and now I have friends who take it for granted that their husbands are wanking late into the night watching internet porn. It's normal, they say. I have to work with one of my friends' husbands...

It's brilliant and the first half is so interesting and funny. I agree both sexes would benefit from it.

There's a privilege to thinking that the trans issue is the most pressing issue that many women face.

He's a transman. I don't see how insisting he can't be trans and must be a woman helps anyone?

Your partner is trans and your partner is a woman. In my humble and realistic opinion.

I think it is more complicated than just letting saying OK your partner is female bodied but not a woman. Because then what are the criteria for being a woman? I.e. if your partner is not a woman then neither am I or most of my friends. We see ourselves as women because that's what we call people who have bodies like ours (and your partner). The ideas that this can just be about an individual is wrong. I'd call your partner a transman but that is just a polite way of saying a woman who wishes they were/ believes they are a man. It's like not commenting on a fat person's weight I guess. Like, that doesn't mean you think they're thin.

@Josette77 I can't speak for anyone else, so I can only say that I think perhaps you misunderstand my perspective on this if you feel that your partner would not be respected as a transman and that I would feel 'faux outrage' at the way they identify.

I simply have no interest in identity. It's not that I disrespect anyone's identity or think it's bullshit, it's just not a topic I have any engagement or interest in. I have never considered my identity. I am a woman because of my biology, I have always been annoyed by any expectation that I should conform to feminine stereotypes and I am eternally grateful that I live in a liberal society in which women can live free from rules dictated by our sex.

It's similar to the fact that I am an atheist and while I have friends with religious beliefs, I have no engagement in spiritual thought - it's just not something which interests me.

My interest is in women's rights and safeguarding. I am interested in the protections we have in law and the way they are being eroded. Your partner is a female person who has every right to present, express, feel as they wish, whether or not that means anything to a random person like myself should be irrelevant - just as I would ask nothing of you. BUT your partner does have rights as a female. This is hypothetical - I'm not expecting you to answer - but if your partner ever needed intimate care or an examination or to be strip searched by the police or imprisoned, they would have the right to be treated as female - and maybe they would be grateful for this? Maybe not, who knows - but I am determined they should have that option. I will do what I can to preserve these rights for every female person - girls and women and those who do not wish to be defined as such.

I don't think it's about excluding other concerns just trying to protect women who have been abused and side lined because of TW invading their spaces. Personally I can think about that as well as other issues affecting women and people as a whole.

No doubt you think that I hate trans people, because I am angry about the nonsensical and damaging ideology that they seem to have embraced? I don’t hate trans people. I don’t hate my son. I don’t hate the other trans people I know or have come across directly. I don’t even hate the trans activists who have misled my son and made many people’s lives a misery - but I don’t respect their nonsense and I don’t respect their activism, which ignores the rights and dignity of anyone other than those under the trans umbrella.

@Seasmoke7 That's because they still assume they have rights. For example, they have no idea that they could ask for a female doctor to examine them and end up with a male who identifies as a woman.

It is not a privilege to worry about this issue, it is privileged women who can think it's all about being kind. When women are at their most vulnerable they need single sex spaces and it is these women who are facing the reality of policies which are written in such a way that ANY man can say he identifies as a woman and be treated as such.

It is not the only issue facing women, but it is such a no-brainer that men shouldn't be allowed to enter the tiny number of essential women only spaces that it beggars belief that so many privileged women are willing to make life harder for others without a second thought.

It's not just this issue. Most people are complacent about most things. It's kind of Invasion of the body snatchers. Only a small number of people notice, and a smaller number care. Such a depressing film.

Again, you're suggesting they must be ignorant. What a patronising attitude that no one can possibly have the same information as you and come to a different conclusion. Perhaps they know that and don't mind. Perhaps they think it's so vanishingly unlikely to happen, it's not worth worrying about. Perhaps they recognise that "women don't have rights any more!!1" is ridiculous hyperbole worthy of the Daily Mail. It has nothing to do with "being kind", I have no idea why that's become such a GC buzz word, and again you're patronisingly suggesting that tolerating trans people represents some kind of soppy weakness. All you can do is personally attack women who feel differently to you.

Realistically most women are only really affected by the toilets one. And the chances of running into a predatory transwoman in the toilets are thankfully still low.

I'm just amazed that people can't see the potential issues even if they're not affected by them right now.
If you leave giant loopholes, such as any male declaring he's a woman getting access to single-sex spaces, a predator is going to step right through them.

I'm afraid I have a very low opinion of people, not just women, that can't imagine it.

Think about all the dodgy blokes you know, any one of them can now come into any women's space. They don't need to change anything about themselves, just walk in and cry discrimination if they're stopped.

It's enraging that people are so blind to this.