Is it too early for a post mortem?

[Appalonia]

So, now that America has categorically rejected transgender ideology, which I do think will affect the rest of the world, is now the time to ascertain HOW did so many institutions, including the Democratic and Labour Parties get so completely bamboozled by this ideology? Which is crazy, not based in material reality, disadvantages half of the population, has physically damaged thousands of young people, and that they didn't think that people would see through it?

I know a lot of people dislike Matt Walsh, but his documentary, What is a Woman, was jaw dropping! We must NEVER let this dangerous idiocy happen again ( and yes I know it's not over...)

Women on this board are more likely to recognise gaslighting reversals and DARVO.

All I see is a middle-aged female who has a myriad of hangups

Added to this that I'm not sure @NotBadConsidering is female, so you shouldn't be assuming!

I love the way old-school misogynists like Butters tell on themselves ALL the time, especially when the gaslighty wheedling hasn't worked and it's women saying NO. Just bog standard, sexist male views, old as time.

Do you not even realise how obvious it is to most women looking in on what you're saying and what your attitude is? Who and what it shows you to be?

"You're all just ugly and bitter old hags".

No. We're women. Actual women. Suck it up. Something you're not and can never be. And you just HATE us for being that, don't you?

And THIS is why the laws had to be made for us specifically. When push comes to shove, even if you're a woman "playing nice" and trying to be "inclusive" of these men who claim they are all so vulnerable, just remember that they fully expect to be prioritised over you. And they expect that because they're the males and deep down they think that's the natural order of things. You come second. And lots of people will go along with that, because that is patriarchy in action.

And they expect that because they're the males and deep down they think that's the natural order of things. You come second. And lots of people will go along with that, because that is patriarchy in action.

Exactly, which is why I roll my eyes at any "feminist" woman who supports this movement.

I think that opportunistic predators are real and Karen White is clearly one of them.

She's a trans woman if she says she is. I don't like it but I can't rewrite a reality I'm not in possession of all the details of just because I find her inimical to everything I am and stand for.

No amount of incandescent rage on my part over the way she has co-opted and tainted my identity will make the harm she has caused any less real.

I despise her; despise her actions and the misogynistic culture that produced her.

I am not going to jump through hoops to try and claim she isn't really trans, as if gender incongruence is a conditional license that can be rescinded and converted to a transphobic pseudoscientific theory that only applies to the Bad Wrong Sort Of Trans People. She unfortunately exists and, far more importantly, her horrific crimes and the impact on their victims exist.

It could be the case that she is lying about experiencing gender incongruence. People do this; a handful have gone on record saying how they got themselves into an awful mess by pretending they experience it only to later admit that they actually didn't and had lied to exploit the goodwill of everyone trying to help them.

It does happen. But it isn't for me to say her transness is conditional on not being a vile predator, and doing so feels an awful lot like refusing to engage with an uncomfortable problem because it's hard and we don't like the answer.

Obviously I hope she turns out not to be trans and drops the whole thing, but I'm not going to pretend that's the case just because it makes my life easier.

“I know you are, I say you are, so what am I?”🤣🤣🤣

Like I said, nothing original. Childlike.

I used the same language as NotBadConsidering used toward me. I literally flipped a single word.

I did it intentionally in order to demonstrate how it reads to a trans woman every single fucking time you do this to us.

If you're spluttering over my usage of the exact same language as you, I recommend reflecting on how it feels when you say it to me for again again and again on page after page after page.

@ButterflyHatched
Do you not see the obvious danger both to trans people as a group, and women as a group, possibly the first shared moment in this thread, of people choosing to abuse the trans self identification for predatory behaviour?

Imagine for a moment as a thought expermient. I'm trying in good faith here.
Lets say only each person really knows if they are trans or not. And there's a least one predator deliberately knowingly pretending to be trans in a large group of trans people.
If you could magically expose that predator as a trans fraud and expell them from the trans group would you do so?

It's a thought experiment and it relies on magic, so it's not real. But would you choose to expose the predator trans fraud and kick him out or not?

When did I say this?

For reference, I'm a middle aged woman who is regularly told she must be ugly by online bigots and is trying very hard not to be bitter about living through a lifetime's worth of transmisogyny. I don't think I've been called a hag yet though.

Oh come ON. You said:

"All I see is a middle-aged female who has a myriad of hangups"

What do you think that means? How do you think that reads? Do you not think women, actual women, particularly older ones, and particularly ones who know what happens when you say no to certain kinds of men, haven't heard a version of that thousands of times before?

Pull the other one. The faux naivety really isn't going to work here.

And you're not "a middle aged woman." You wouldn't have "othered" another woman (or someone you thought was a woman) as "a middle aged female" if you thought she was actually the same sex as you. You slipped up there.

For reference, I'm a middle aged woman

Except you're not.

Oh without a moment's hesitation.

I've been saying words to the effect of 'don't be an idiot, don't do it for the wrong reasons, don't fuck it up, don't be evil - the future of every single one of us depends on you being a perfect ambassador' to other trans people since I was about 16. If I could decisively eject every single liar, predator and inconvenient idiot from our community before they fuck things up further then I'd do so.

I am not, however, going to claim individual trans people aren't really trans because I don't like them or the horrendous things they do - just as I don't try and claim Scarlett Jenkinson isn't a girl because she murdered Brianna Ghey.

It's irrelevant whether individual males are lovely or abusive, none of them should be in female spaces.

Well, that's the most literal example of DARVO I've ever seen.

@ButterflyHatched
We may disagree on other matters, but for that answer you get a big thumbs up from me.

Out of curiousity. Why are you here posting on mumsnet? I don't mean eff off, I mean what's your purpose? You clearly know that MN, and especially this form is a hang out for gender critical people. And you've come here to? Debate? See if you can get gender critical people to change their minds? Establish elements of common ground? None of the above?
This thread has been hostile territory for you, and yet you're still here, what are your hopes in continuing this trial by fire?

How many posts on this thread alone have othered me by calling me male? I find it absolutely excruciating every time you do it. I find referring to people as 'males' and 'females' dehumanising and vile. I demonstrated to you what it feels like once by flipping the polarity of a single post that was once again dehumanising me.

I would not choose to use that language myself in my own writing precisely because it's vile and dehumanising. Do you not see how you are only revealing how fucked up it is when you do it to me so frequently you don't even notice anymore?

The reaction only serves to demonstrate how completely fucked it is when you normalise bigotry like this.

Ah, to be fair, I see the post you're referencing, Butters. But it doesn't change the fact that once again, the analogy doesn't work. It doesn't translate. Because a woman calling a male person male is NOT the same as a male person using the same insult that male people have used against older women who say no to them for time immemorial, essentially "you're just bitter angry old hags with hangups".

Especially given that you followed that up with claims that we just hadn't 'caught up with modern feminism" (which strangely, is not really feminism and has gradually become more and more inclusive of men instead of being centred on women and the historical and material reasons we had to fight for the rights we did. It was part of the anti-feminist backlash, in fact.)

Edit - And to add, in answer to your latest: no. Calling you a male - which, factually, you are, regardless of your inner identity - is literally not "bigotry". Facts aren't bigotry. You do NOT experience the same as us. You are not part of the same demographic,. That's the problem and the main point here. You are not and have never been affected by any of the MAIN issues that women and girls throughout history have been affected by and on which ALL of our legal rights are based. Because you are not in the demographic that was affected by that

Claiming that I and other women are bigots for telling the truth about your sex is misogyny writ large. You want your need for validation as female to override the material facts about OUR lives. It is your failure to comprehend why this is a problem when it comes to women's rights and the material reasons we had to have them which is why the entire trans movement is profoundly anti women and profoundly patriarchal. It is ALL about you and your need for validation. None of it is woman-centred. At all.

And as a result, women everywhere are materially losing their legal rights to not upset you. Rights that had to be hard fought for. And look at you choosing to turn any objection into vile (and incorrect) personal insults about my character and those of the other women here.

No, mate. You literally 'flipped' factual, non-judgemental words for emotive hyperbolic ones.

Where NotBad said 'gender ideology' you said 'anti-trans', where NotBad said 'affirmation' you said 'hate', where NotBad said 'health problems' you said 'hang ups'.

Your whole post attempted to smear NotBad. Highly unpleasant and unnecessary.

See also 'seething prejudice'.

Again, projection.

Your compassion for women and girls ends at the point they say they need separate guaranteed male free spaces, services, sports and language that centres them and only them.

Honestly, I keep trying to defend this place to other women who have already written it off because I don't think the way it is commonly characterised is something that applies to everyone here.

I guarantee you'd see a lot worse if I were to repeat the stuff they've said to me about it.

I would always advise anyone to make regular use of mental health services where available as an integral and essential prerequisite for regularly engaging in robust and heated online discourse about contentious and personal topics. I do myself and there's no shame in doing so.

While claiming it's what we think, BH reveals that it is BH who thinks men are innately and irredeemably evil, and so BH doesn't want to be male.
To BH, the solution is to "become" female instead.
Sadly for BH, no-one who is male can stop being male and become female.
But the upside is that evil is not intrinsic to maleness.
So it's possible for BH not to be evil while remaining male.
Although BH could be evil as well as male if BH wanted.

I'm sorry, what?

Are you suggesting women who are disagreeing with you are mentally ill?

I repeat (in answer to your smears about my character):

Calling you a male - which, factually, you are, regardless of your inner identity - is literally not "bigotry". Facts aren't bigotry. You do NOT experience the same as us. You are not part of the same demographic,. That's the problem and the main point here. You are not and have never been affected by any of the MAIN issues that women and girls throughout history have been affected by and on which ALL of our legal rights are based. Because you are not in the demographic that was affected by that

I guarantee you'd see a lot worse if I were to repeat the stuff they've said to me about it.

What, you're saying all the lovely, kind, progressive and enlightened people who know to avoid all the horrible seething old women with hang-ups on here are actually are making attacks on women based on prejudice born out of ignorance?

Blow me down.

You actually don't understand the impact of your words on trans people, do you? It just doesn't ever occur to you, does it?

I refuse to believe you are so callous as to endlessly say this shit while knowing how it affects us. I don't think you're that cruel.

So, for avoidance of doubt and to reinstate a measure of perspective:

Every time you misgender trans women, call us predators, abusers, invaders, men or male, that's what it feels like. And you just do it constantly, page after page, thread after thread every day.

Watch the replies just carry on doing exactly this.