Help me present evidence to my son

[AlbertaWildRose]

My DS is 18 and heavy into the TWAW belief. He thinks JK Rowling is a despicable human being for her position and thinks that women should have no problem with all of this, and it's all just "scare-mongering" to say otherwise. Whenever I try to talk to him about this I end up getting too emotional to be rational. I really want to present him with evidence that this movement is not good for women - please help direct me to some good resources. Thank you.

How about the fight at the Olympics?

The rapes and sexual assaults in jail.

The woman raped on a ward and told she couldn't have been because there were no men.

The NHS and other organisations dehumanising women by referring to them as cervix havers and birthing people.

The nurses told they needed to be re-educated because a man was in their changing room.

The sportswomen who have lost places on the podium in cycling and other events because of men.

The children given hormones and placed on a path without exploring their mental health. The women given mastectomies.

Girls not wanting to go to the toilet because of boys. Boys in their changing rooms.

Men masturbating and putting cameras in women changing rooms and toilets.

Men in vulnerable women's spaces such as refuges, homeless shelters and rape crisis groups.

Women who have been deplatformed, driven out of spaces for wanting to meet and losing their jobs for gender critical thought. Women being visited by the police for views on social media.

His position isn't rational or logically thought through, so I'm not sure that evidence would make any difference. Perhaps I'd just say that he can't consent to these things on behalf of women who don't agree with him and perhaps ask him to explain why he thinks he can?

"How about the fight at the Olympics?"

You mean the fight between a woman and a woman with higher-than-normal levels of testosterone? Probably not the best example.

"Men masturbating and putting cameras in women changing rooms and toilets."

Implying trans women are only trans so they can enter women's facilities to commit sex crimes is a transphobic trope. There is nothing stopping cisgender men simply walking as-is into a woman's bathroom to do what you mentioned, so there is no reason at all for a man to go through the whole process of a sex change.

This is a good approach.

I would show contemptuous anger.
“What an embarrassment you are, pretending you think a man can be a woman on his own say so. No one believes it- not even you. All you’re doing is showing yourself up as an idiot to your friends, and relatives.”
”It’s so sad that you have to be reminded, but women are allowed to say No to men, even if those men feel sad or angry, and even if you feel anger at women saying no. The answer is No, so get back in your box, and STFU.”
”How dare you presume to lecture me with this complete nonsense. You educate yourself and don’t raise this topic again unless it’s to give the groveling apology you don’t yet realize you owe me.”

So i am also a TWAW, full disclosure

BUT... the biggest issue that i still find difficult is the tension within the equality act whereby both sex and gender reassignment are both protected, because i do realise that there is a real tension there that isnt easily resolved to everyone's satisfaction and needs more consideration

So if i was trying to show someone the counter arguments to some of the trans rights arguments i might start with women only spaces in refuges for survivors of sexual violence? Or i might talk about women being offended by blanket use of gender neutral words such as "birthing parents" which can reinforce the already huge deficit in women's health funding and knowledge (although be prepared for a robust challenge on the language thing, because most of the time these are words suggested for use with trans patients only and not actually used with majority of women)

i dont think its useful to use many of the suggestions in the second post, mainly because i know that it wouldnt change my mind so i doubt it will change his

and i definitely would go this route if you actually want to change his mind and get him to listen
No one has an open chat after being told they're an embarrassment...

I would go down the route of asking questions so that he examines where his beliefs come from.

That tends to be the most successful way of getting people to change their minds. Google street epistemology or deep canvassing for ideas.

Don't get angry with him. That will just make him dig down deeper.

There's a great video of a teacher in the US who asked a student to explain why JKR was so hateful. I can't remember if I saw it on FB, Twitter or YouTube but I'll post the link if I can find it.

“Higher levels of Testosterone” whatever their identity those higher levels of T are due to that recalcitrant Y chromosome.

If that’s your view why bother having separate categories for male and female anyway?
Also, why would two ‘similar’ athletes be prohibited from taking part on a mixed sex team or men and women?

He doesn’t deserve an “open chat”. With his pomposity he deserves ridicule.

Found it! If you want your son to listen to you and to engage in debate then it's really important to be open and non-judgemental (no matter how awful his ideas are) and to encourage him to engage in critical thinking.

Don’t get into an argument with your son about it, don’t let this ridiculous issue divide your family. It will all fizzle out soon enough and you will find you have been arguing over smoke and mirrors. Focus on being a happy family and unplug from mainstream media if it helps

I’d be telling him misogynists aren’t welcome to live with me

Or even, "In PSHE you learn about the importance of consent. I assume this means you understand that a girl shouldn't be forced into a situation where she has to take her clothes off in front of you without her consent. Why should that be any different if you were trans? I don't understand the logic that a girl has the right to say no to taking her clothes off in front of a boy, unless the boy says he identifies as a girl, in which case suddenly her consent is unimportant? You don't have the right to tell women and girls that they should be OK with sharing their spaces with members of the opposite sex, or that they should be OK with being redefined to include members of the opposite sex. And actually, women and girls don't have the right to say it's OK on behalf of other women and girls either. Consent is not transferable from one human to another. If even one girl is not OK with it, it's not OK."

Why wouldn't it change your mind, out of interest?

Turn the narrative around.

Ask why he's so homophobic and supports 'transing away the gay'? The prevalence of same sex attracted teenage girls who have been drawn to transition raises huge questions about what's going on. Where have all the teen lesbians gone? Then add in the element of sterilisation.

Why does he think it's ok for males to tell lesbians that they are transphobic for refusing to do dick? Are women supposed to change their sexuality to accommodate the feelings of men? That sounds a lot like conversation.

The evidence used to support transition is from mainly males. There has been a desire to lump everyone who identifies as trans as a singular group. Yet when you look at this dispassionately there's a problem - it's mainly older males who transition and very young women and girls. And that's just the start of the differences. The treatment needed to transition is totally different for each sex. They literally give each group a totally different set of drugs. So why do we lump all research together? We don't actually have a body of evidence for female transition at all. What we do have is knowledge that the drugs used for female transition have particularly bad side effects for other conditions. Yet this is just hand waved away because all trans people are the same.

There's no proven clinical benefit to transition. No one has found that transition actually is improving quality of life and reducing mental health distress. We know that distress is persisting despite transition. So how is it actually helping to transition?

People who identify as trans deserve high quality care and research. We know this isn't happening. Especially not for minors where information about outcomes hasn't even been recorded. How is this ok?

You can't make an informed decision to transition in the absence of this. It's just all ideology and belief based.

Talk about how we know that the comorbidity issues are leading to transition being seen as a fix all because fear of being accused of transphobic is preventing proper support and care for other underlying issues which don't go away if you transition.

Then ask why the burden is on women to prove that there isn't an elevated risk to them rather than on trans people to disprove the risk. Keeping in mind we know that transition in sex offenders is HIGHER than the general population by quite some amount.

Ask why women aren't allowed to define themselves and why they must accept the definition imposed on them. And our language to describe ourselves is being removed but this isn't mirrored with the word man. Isn't this sexist?

Why are transwomen not safe from male violence in the mens? How are women safe from male violence in the women's if males have full access.

Ask how can the laws on voyeurism be enforced if any male can claim to be female and enter a female changing area without question. Any woman who challenges risks being assaulted or accused of transphobia.

Ask how the impact of males using female facilities is being measured. What is the rate of self exclusion? How is this being recorded and measured to ensure that groups such as Muslim women aren't being disproportionately disadvantaged. Ask how he is ensuring that cultural concerns aren't leading to women being told by men that they must not participate in activities they previously would outside the house? If this isn't being recorded to ensure that harm isn't being done to the lives of women, why isn't it being recorded?

Ask why it's known by aid agencies that access to single sex toilets vastly reduces the rate of sexual offences committed and it is always recommended in disaster and development projects that single sex provision is essential to women? And why the same thing no longer seems to apply to the developed world? Isn't it racist to suggest that we are somehow more civilised? Where is the evidence to back up that mixed sex / gender neutral provision doesn't lead to an increase in sexual violence following this known pattern elsewhere in the world? Isn't it sexist to fail to check this?

Then we have the whole debacle the Edinburgh rape crisis centre raises. Why are traumatised women asked to reframe their trauma by a man who isn't qualified in counselling and doesn't even have a GRC and applied for a job designated as for women only and backed up by legal exclusions that allow for single sex applications? How does he justify putting the identity of staff members ahead of traumatised, vulnerable women? Should women be refused care in this situation? Should they be forced to accept males to do intimate examinations because they identify as women?

I'm sorry you raised a sexist, homophobic, racist son. And even more sorry that he's too pig headed and arrogant to listen to his mother and her life experience. Where does he get off dismissing you. Why is he so ageist?

Everyone knows what a woman is. They are the one who gave birth to you.

Men know who women are because they know which ones to oppress. And abuse.

honestly, ive listened to a lot of these arguments before and i always consider anything that is put to me. A lot of the discussion tends to ask me to judge an entire group by the very worst behaviour of some, and i wouldnt expect every middle aged white man to be a paedophile so it seems inherently unfair to ask me to expect every trans woman to be a predator and limit their rights accordingly. And i'm also a scientist, so i like data. The current laws regarding self ID have been in place since 2010 and we havent seen a spike/increase in the types of crime/behaviour that are often used in these arguments, but we have seen a massive increase in media coverage. Plus i have trans friends who ive known for decades, so its perhaps a bit less "abstract" and more personal?

im not so arrogant as to assume im right and other's are wrong, but thats just where my life and my reasoning has landed. Im always open to changing my mind if there's a new view i havent thought of/new evidence i havent seen

I think a better strategy is to personalise the issue. A lot of men his age don't see women as human with our own needs and boundaries. So present him with some different scenarios that would be impactful to you....

If you were imprisoned next week, would it be okay for you to share a cell with a rapist like Isla Bryson?

If you took up boxing or rugby as a hobby, would it be okay for you to compete against people as strong as his dad who would have the physical strength to leave you brain damaged or paralysed?

If you were raped next week, could he understand that it might be important for you to request another female as your doctor, nurse or counsellor?

If straight - will he prioritise finding a trans woman to date, marry and start a family with? If gay reverse the scenario.

If his dad demands that henceforth they want be known as "Sylvia" (she/her) would it be okay for his dad to go to the women's changing room tomorrow and get her penis out in the women's communal showers and changing room?

A number of individuals who swear they are transwomen are doing so mostly for the access to girls/women. I'm not saying all, I'm saying some.

And if a person has an increase level of testosterone it impacts muscle mass and physical strength. There are parameters for normality. I don't know if the said person referred to has had a DNA test or not. Neither do you.

The International Boxing Association said the two boxers had failed a gender test, twice. They hadn’t been tested for testosterone levels. That strongly suggests it was a genetic test, and they were found to be XY. That means they’re male. They appear to have some kind of DSD condition.

Regarding toilets, the point is that allowing any man to claim he is a woman and enter a women’s toilet makes it easier for any man to enter. In the past, there was a social taboo against men in women’s toilets, so it was easy to get them out. Nowadays we can’t do that, because we’re likely to be thrown out ourselves for being “transphobic”.

It’s like saying that a burglar can get into your house whether you leave the doors unlocked or not. But you wouldn’t therefore leave your doors unlocked. That would be making it easier for him.

Aren't these arguments a bit "not all men" though? Why do you think we have single sex spaces or services that exclude men in the first place, given that most men aren't the worst behaved?

Also if you like data why do you need to see a spike rather than consider the stable patterns that we see replicated across various countries? Isn't the fact that prison data shows trans women and males are vastly more likely to be in prison for sex offences than females of interest in and of itself?

If you’re referring to the UK, the current laws don’t permit self ID.

You refer to 2010. Do you mean the Equality Act 2010? That doesn’t mention self ID.

Regarding “judging” an entire group, we’re not doing that. We know that some men are rapists, so we keep all men out of women’s toilets. We aren’t judging all men, or claiming that all of them are rapists, we’re just recognising that some of them are and therefore it’s safer for women if all men are barred from women’s safe spaces. Decent men accept that, they don’t feel that they are personally being judged. Everyone accepts that men’s rights should be limited in this case, i.e. that they should not have the right to enter women’s safe spaces.

i take your point, but i disagree
Its not "not all men" (which i detest as a phrase, because male violence is a genuine and measurable issue, systemic and embedded in power structures and institutions) And i am completely supportive of single sex spaces (and also separate/additional single gender spaces) because of this
Its more a "based on data, where is the threat?" and interpretation of the data of offenders in prison shows a trend, but this isnt a reasonable sample. you cant extrapolate from a sub-group of a population by saying the behaviour of trans criminals is applicable to all trans people? There just isnt compelling evidence for me to fear the trans community as a whole, and certainly not more than straight men. And, as i said before, i have trans friends of all ages from 20-70 so ive prob got an implicit bias there too, which i'll totally accept might colour my view

the whole process of a sex change.

You mean the "whole process" which consists of saying "I am a woman"?

What's the difference between a man who says he's a woman and any other man?

If you behaved that way as my parent I would not be talking to you at all never mind about trans rights!