I thought I was transphobic

[Garlicked]

I mean, experts both self-appointed and authoritative have been telling me for years that I am.
I misgender as a matter of course - the transgression could be called right-sexing, but it's the same thing.
I don't believe humans can change sex, either literally or 'in effect'.
I've been a gender abolitionist since someone first told me girls couldn't do something that boys were allowed. Gender's a system of social oppression.
I don't believe anyone has an innate sense of their gender, because gender isn't a natural quality.
I never use gender as a synonym for sex.
I don't believe anyone can be transgender, because anyone can pick whichever bits of either gender they want to adopt at any time.
I find it ridiculous that some people think their thoughts about their own gender can determine their sex.
I find beliefs in 'brain sex' absurd in many ways. The brain certainly does not determine a person's sex.
Sex means reproductive category, in humans and most other life forms.
There are fundamental physical differences between the two sexes, which is a function of sexual dimorphism. These cannot be changed.
No woman has a penis and, if you think they do, I've got a diamond mine to sell you.
... etcetera.

I've accepted many labels imposed on me by others over the years, including but not limited to Humourless Feminist, Slag, Bimbo, One Of Those Career Women, Bitch, Old Bag. While the intention of the slurs was not lost on me, I wouldn't dispute the underlying truth of the epithets. So it was with Transphobe.

Anyway, I've just decided to look up a reliable definition of transphobia. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I figured the European Institute For Gender Equality might be trustworthy. It defines transphobia as:
Irrational fear of gender non-conformity or gender transgression, such as a fear of, or aversion to, masculine women, feminine men, cross-dressers, transgenderists, transsexuals, and others who do not fit into existing gender stereotypes about their birth gender.

Surprised to find I am NOT transphobic, I noted that the definition stems from 2016. Well, words change their meanings very fast these days, depending on who's defining them. I double-checked with United Nations Human Rights. Their definition:
Any form of prejudice or hostile attitude towards transgender people, including denying their gender identity or refusing to acknowledge it. Transphobia may be targeted at people who are or who are perceived to be trans, and may manifest as exclusion, stigma, harassment, criminalization, pathologization, discrimination and/or violence.

I meet the first part of their definition. However, the UN's Declaration of Human Rights says:
Article 18 - Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom ... to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.
Article 19 - Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

So I have the right to manifest my thoughts & conscience, freely expressing my ideas. Anyone trying to suppress my beliefs would be violating my inalienable rights. Confusingly, this seems to negate the preceding definition.

The second part of the UN's definition is a bit woolly. I was particularly interested in "Transphobia ... may manifest as exclusion." I'm committed to the exclusion of male people from female spaces & activities as needed. This might be covered by Article 27-1: Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community. Women are sometimes unable to participate in mixed-sex activities of various kinds; don't know if this would technically apply here? Disabled people can, for instance, exclude the fully-able from their activities to ensure their own participation. And let's not forget associations like Old Etonians, which are automatically exclusive by virtue of their purpose.

I'm not especially looking for replies (and have to bugger off the internet for a while) but would be quite interested in further thoughts!
Yours,
Garlic The Transphobe (Arguably) 😎

Some of my motivations for using preferred pronouns at work:

• maintaining focus on the task at hand/ not letting the session becoming derailed
• not giving someone the attention they crave for an issue that isn't relevant at that point in time
• recognising the fragility of group cohesion within a group and tackling one issue at a time, trans identities not be the most pressing one
• it isn't relevant to the nature of the group and situation

Exactly. Fear of, say, butterflies would be a phobia. Fear or dislike of men who demand the right to enter women’s single-sex spaces or take women’s sports prizes is utterly rational.

Why would you feel uneasy by a 5 foot, 6stone 24 year old who identifies as a boy?

Sorry - meant 14 year old, but I guess 24 year old still applies

Essentially wanting a quiet life. It’s like trialling going out with your legs unshaven to see what it’s like, and the stress and anxiety isn’t worth it, so a little piece inside you dies as you conform to an unfair situation.

I recently stuck a tentative toe in the water of a group, around an interest of mine and there was a bloke there, wearing a woman’s name, with a stuffed bra, being referred to as she and her. I felt offended, as a woman, but I kept shtum. Still woke up the next day feeling like I’d betrayed myself on some level for appearing to condone it.

I use preferred pronouns at work too and it sticks in my throat but I don’t want to get fired. I know it’s not a fight I can win at work so I just refuse to put my pronouns in my email & don’t comment

however I’m not doing it to be kind or accommodating, I’m doing it so I don’t lose my job

No, my motivation in all of those instances was something other than wanting 'a quiet life'. I provided my reasoning in the post.

"I use preferred pronouns at work too and it sticks in my throat but I don’t want to get fired. I know it’s not a fight I can win at work so I just refuse to put my pronouns in my email & don’t comment

however I’m not doing it to be kind or accommodating, I’m doing it so I don’t lose my job"

I think that's a horrendous situation to be in and I don't think anyone should be forced to use preferred pronouns.

I have worked with a couple of organisations who have, upon discussion, settled with policies whereby people can either use preferred pronouns or names, but not sex based pronouns. This hasn't pleased everyone!

Yes, I understand. They could be read as ‘the most practical and smooth’ options. All of them. If you chose a different way in those situations, the way forward would be rough, fraught with hassle and stress. Not the way of someone prefers peace, ease, etc, and like eyeballinthesky wants to be certain to keep their job.

Two options:

1. play along with nonsense and enjoy ease, peace, harmony, focus, security.
2. not play along with nonsense and experience tension, fragmentation, disharmony, disruption, insecurity.

I thought I had got this sorted after a rocky time with my adult children. But I am now in trouble because I said, during a conversation about Rebus that I was sad there weren't be any more Cormoran Strike adaptations.

That's not really where I'm coming from.

In many situations at work, and in my social life, gender has bugger all to do with what is happening, or needs to happen in that context.

I have no appetite to gender identity issues derailing what we are there for. Where this is the case, I will take steps to prevent it from becoming the focus. I have a number of colleagues that would love to create drama around pronouns- I'd prefer to keep us task focussed in order to deliver what is needed job wise!

I have no appetite to gender identity issues derailing what we are there for.

Same here, I went along to a hobbyists group. Bloke there with a stuffed bra and woman’s name, massive progress flag on the wall, trans flag in a heart shape saying “trans inclusive” on the toilet door. I could not be arsed to do anything about it, but it tainted my experience. I just squeezed my aversion back in like a good girl and got on with trying to enjoy myself.

That's grim Cuppa and, in my view, an example of a place not being inclusive!

I have very little time for clubs, societies and organisations being unaware or ignoring how there 'oh so inclusive' actions actually alienate others.

I was delighted when the CEO or my organisation demanded that everyone took down the Israeli and Palestinian flags adorning their desks and took a hard look at themselves in terms of considering what is and isn't professional in the work place!

One of the thing that bugs me most about 'trans people' is that they are talked about and we're supposed to think of them as some special kind of person rather than just people who enjoy wearing (some a little too much, urgh) the fashion designed for the opposite sex. All this fuss and all these stupid flags etc etc n treating them like a special caste for what is essentially clothing n make up choices.

Um what? Are you asking a serious question?

I’m not transphobic, in that I don’t run away screaming when I see my 19 year old daughter wearing men’s jeans and a hoody.
she thinks I am of course.
im not transphobic when i see a gormless vain idiot man on the make up counter and some hapless young girl obviously wishing she’d gone to a different shop.
im pretty transphobic when one comes in the loo. I wasn’t, but then that was the 80s.
i am very very very transphobic when these utter evil people peddle steroids - the sort that killed quite a few sportswomen in the 80s, to my child. Theorugh fking asda and Safeway wtaf.
And I’m fing school phobic when I think of the crap their fking lgbtys club fed my daughter and the sht they told us. Or rather didn’t tell us.

The women that pander to them make me so uncomfortable.

There’s a clip of Drew Barrymore and that Dylan person, both on their knees, Drew clasping his hands and giving him the most “we welcome you to womanhood” sympathy face burned into my brain. (I loved her growing up!)

You are definitely transphobic.

I agree that sex and gender are different things.

You aren't going to be able to tell if someone was born a different sex if they started taking hormones young. And there will be people where you literally can't tell if they're male or female regardless.

But fundamentally I think it's weird to have such an obsession with random people's genitals. I don't walk past people and think, "Hmm, wonder what they've got down there," the way transphobes seem to do. Not sure if it's sexual frustration or being abused as a child or what. I really don't care what people are wearing or what they look like. And as they say, if you care that much about other people you've got too much time on your hands that you're wasting.

No one should be taking life changing infertility inducing hormones early that’s the fucking point!!!!

and as always it’s only ever TRA that bring up genitals as if everyone’s bodies are completely the same and literally the only way to tell the difference between men and women is whether they have a cock or a vag.

I think that narcissistic and borderline personality types have always been a problem in hobby spaces and, in recent times, the growth of online socialisation (as well as the increased popularity of nerdy or geeky interests) has meant the original social misfits who were occupying those spaces before the influx of new people were the ones who determined the group culture and so now we’re all at the mercy of the Geek Social Fallacies:

1: Ostracizers Are Evil
2: Friends Accept Me As I Am
3: Friendship Before All
4: Friendship Is Transitive
5: Friends Do Everything Together

https://plausiblydeniable.com/five-geek-social-fallacies/

That's a great post, @Garlicked!

I dislike being accused of transfobia because I don't have an aversion to women who are 'trans' (want to opt out of womanhood and become men).

I have more of a "mansfobia" a definite fear of encountering a strange male where I am vulnerable and undressed. Such men are predators imo and should be viewed with extreme caution. These views are based on my six decades of womaning experience and are entirely laudable and sensible.

It is no surprise to me that men are taking advantage of the current trans-insanity to destroy the boundaries women have erected over many decades in order to dominate and subjugate us. As for them grooming our children...

@GailBlancheViola

Sorry - rubbish typos!

I meant to type - what is rational about being scared of a 14 year old girl who identifies as a boy?

This was in response to the suggestion that it is rational to fear 'trans people'.

I as many fears for many trans people as I do of them (depending on who they are). And in saying that, I am not tapping in to the 'most vulnerable' narrative, but into one where I know that for some, transgender identities are symptomatic of trying to find a way out of distress. This happen when individuals have either been sold, or have latched on to, the idea that their problems will be solved through gender identification.

This is well referenced and evidenced on this board.

AKA - WE KNOW!

It’s rational to fear that a trans identified 14 year old girl might try (and succeed) to get you sacked from your job, or influence your kid to take up the nonsense and alienate you from them, or encourage your child to start taking cross sex hormones, etc. Things are currently weighted in their favour if they wish to do so.

Agreed. From this thread, I think you can be a bit shallow in the way you surmise what is going on at mn @Brainworm and I get the feeling you haven’t experienced the sharp end much.