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...)

Has it ever occured to you that people here have a fundamental problem with the very concept of 'trans'...That someone is actually the opposite sex to that which they are - and that this entitles them to mangle the language, remove protections for others, and hold everyone hostage.

No matter how someone feels about themself; no matter their own self ideation; no matter what has brought them to this state of consciousness......it is not possible to change sex...and sex matters.

We can all have empathy for an individual's suffering.....as we have all suffered in our own ways - but that doesn't change reality, and it doesn't change one bit the need for women and girls to have single sex spaces in certain circumstances for their own privacy and dignity.

If the trans lobby had not over-reached - by a very long margin - and intruded upon, indeed attempted to colonise a space that was not theirs in the first place, then there would be no issue.....and we could all carry on as we are.

Gender is a social construct. Sex is real.

Ignore the blinding DARVO

Thankyou for sharing how you metaphysically classify trans women. You have made it very clear, without a shred of ambiguity, that you have a fundamental problem with the very concept of transness. I appreciate the honesty; it's quite refreshing.

I imagine it is extremely difficult for you to encounter trans people in daily life while holding this view. It must be exhausting every time you see one of us.

I've a couple of questions, if I may:

1. If trans people don't use facilities reserved for women, does the problem persist? Is it acceptable for us to work in the same building as you, wait your table at a restaurant, or sit next to you on public transport?
2. Are these fundamental problems exclusive to trans people and the concept of transness in general, or do they extend beyond this to other groups as well?

Nobody has a problem with trans people using female facilities, as long as they're female.

Another point that needs repeating often.

I do not disagree with this principle at all. It's sensible and smart and I wholly support it when implemented compassionately and carefully on a respectful, case by case basis that takes into account the practical realities of all those involved within each particular context.

Right, so women have to beg, plead, argue for and justify why they want absolutely male free spaces and services. And have to do so on a case by case basis, reveal all manner of private, personal, often traumatic history and experience so others can judge whether or not their request is deemed worthy?

Why?

Spaces that women have already fought long and hard for, for example public toilets in order to end the urinary leash that kept women out of society. Guess what happened to the very first female public toilets, they were burned down by men because they didn't want women out of the home for extended periods of time. Sound familiar? Now by males insisting on accessing female only toilets many women are self excluding and hence their life in society is very much diminished.

Other spaces such as DV shelters, rape shelters, rape counselling and services were built and funded from ground zero by women for women. Now women are not seeking help from these services because they cannot be guaranteed that their will be no males in them. Brilliant.

Why should women have to lose what they fought so very hard for? Why do you feel it is right and fair to remove those spaces and services from women? Why can you not accept that women have the right to what they want and need that doesn't include you and any other males who want to take those resources?

I can say any manner of things that are not true but I don't think there is anything I can say that will give you what you want. You don't seem to want honesty. You seem to want self-flagellating screenshot-fodder.

Would you have preferred it if I'd lied about the personal truth I've known all my life, claimed to be a man and then apologised on behalf of all men despite knowing myself from childhood not to be one? What would that achieve? Would you feel better having guilt tripped a trans woman into relinquishing her personal truth so that you can then quote it and use it against her in future?

Would you have preferred it if I lied and pretended I had never realised how important single sex spaces are to many women? I am well aware of their importance. They are important to my friends, my family, and to myself as well.

We have a long and miserable tradition of assigning collective guilt toward minority groups in this country and then demanding collective apologies from them. It's vile, divisive, and deeply offensive.

Here you are asking for an apology on behalf of a demographic I don't even belong to and have spent my entire life under the shadow of abuse for not belonging to.

I can't give you what you want.

Would you have preferred it if I lied and pretended I had never realised how important single sex spaces are to many women? I am well aware of their importance. They are important to my friends, my family, and to myself as well
Having you in there immediately renders them mixed sex. If you gave a toss about the importance of single sex spaces for women you’d stay out of them.

I am well aware of their importance. They are important to my friends, my family, and to myself as well

but you just don’t care. We get it.

Men know that a male being present in womens spaces will likely traumatise rape survivors. We've said it clearly often enough.

Either they don't care, or they do.

I can't give you what you want. Yes you can, but you don't want to.

You are a man, no matter how much you claim otherwise. Stay out of women's single sex spaces. There isn't any amount of word salad you can write or say that can justify your presence in those spaces, and no woman wants you in those spaces.

Your refusal to acknowledge and respect what women have repeatedly told you we want is quite objectionable.

I don’t believe IdylicDay was expecting an apology on behalf of 50 % of the population. She may have been and I will let her confirm this.

An apology on behalf of 50% of the population would be a performative action, in my opinion. A grand but empty gesture.

Whereas acknowledgment of exactly why a woman needs a single sex space to be without any male person over the age of a child who needs a carer for toileting, that acknowledgement would mean that at least the poster is not simply ignoring every post from women stating their needs.

And it would indicate that maybe, just maybe there is a chance that women will no longer be accused of all the hyperbolic accusations that we have seen on this thread again on MN by that accusing poster. Accusations that have crossed over at least once to abuse. in my opinion.

We do want honesty.

The repeated "I am not a man" is the opposite of honesty.

You're not being asked to apologise on behalf of other people. You're being asked to acknowledge the harm that you personally, and the group that you belong to collectively, have caused to women by insisting that you are one of us and are entitled to use our spaces.

Yes. Of course gender ideology wants "woman" to be defined by things men can purchase (clothes, makeup) or obtain by other means (breast implants, facial surgery) rather than anything men can't have for themselves (natural organs, sex chromosomes).

Wow the last 10 pages of this thread have been something else. The tantrums have begun.

@FlirtsWithRhinos thanks for your post from pages back. It resonates with me for reasons that women on here understand.

I have stated this multiple times on multiple threads over several years. I agree.

I am very, very desperately aware of the issue here.

I want to find a way to resolve the access clash humanely and compassionately in a manner that is practically achievable.

With regard to the post-US election discussions happening online among different groups of people, and the tensions the election has caused among groups of Left-aligned people (e.g the Ultras v PMCs debate of recent days) I found this tweet and thought it would be of interest to the thread:

https://x.com/hatpinwoman/status/1863971201636245897

"There are those who want to mire us in conflict they won’t resolve, in bad faith demonisations we can’t refute because they are not even in reality, and in endless cycles of tending to their egos.

And those people are not always trans activists but none of them are primarily here to save women’s rights regardless of the position they take.

And in spite of what they profess.

They want your focus, because they are self aggrandising, and they don’t care if they lower your morale or undermine the fight for women’s safety by denigrating thousands of the women involved in trying to protect it.

In the end, it all just matters so much less, to them, than their feelings do.

We ultimately have to walk around them. They can’t be reasoned with because their own reasoning never sees all that far beyond themselves. And that kind of narrowness of perspective is an abiding flaw.

This fight can be exhausting, and demoralising, especially when women articulate a coherent political position and only get insults or condescension or dismissal from people they thought were “on our side”.

But zoom out just a little, and you will see how much it matters that you are giving your voice to this. It is vital that you are speaking up for women and girls everywhere and that you are holding a consistent line.

Over the noise of all the radio static, truth is still the voice that speaks most clearly and will be heard from furthest away.

I really believe that. Even if it can take time for the signal to get through.

No one else has your exact perspective, intellect, or life experience so no one else can offer what you can to this fight. When I first got here, I once said I was a small minnow in a large pond, because there were so many wonderful woman here doing so much and I so admired them.

I still admire them but now I know that there are no small minnows here and there are no small contributions to fixing what is broken. Every single part of doing so is vital and therefore huge.

So, don’t let the bastards grind you down

We are going to stop the decimation of women’s rights. With or without them."

That is so apposite, utopia. Thank you !

I read that yesterday and she is so right.

The arguments on whether any of this affected the Democrats rages on, so I guess the post mortem is still a long way away.

There are individual snippets of democratic voters admitting to their friends this is the one reason they voted for Trump.

No. You don’t. You want to find a way to remain, as a male person who knows they shouldn’t be in those spaces, in those spaces and have other male people excluded.

Right now you have options available to you already. You deliberately choose to use female single sex spaces knowing that female people are highly likely to be distressed knowing you are using the space. You could use a third space or you could use the male single sex space. And if any male person looks uncomfortable you can simple say you are in the right space for male people. You can answer simply as many of us have had to over the years to the question ‘are you in the right toilet?’ I was assumed to be a boy many times as a child and a tween.

You chose to not cause other male people ‘discomfort’ and chose to use female single sex spaces. You have declared that us using the word male person to accurately describe you for the purpose of accessing any female sexed based provision should not be allowed to happen, that it is abuse. You have attempted to strip us of the very language we need to say ‘no, this space is not for you!’, so that we don’t say what you don’t want to hear.

You are not seeking to “resolve the access clash humanely and compassionately in a manner that is practically achievable.” You want to resolve the clash in a way that continues to allow you access.

Just like your reaction was to discuss apologising for 50% of humans was performative, so to was the statement you want to resolve the clash humanely and compassionately.

The resolution is already ‘practically achievable’ from female people’s point of view. That resolution is that all male people over the age of about 8 years old use a third space or they use the male provision. If you, personally. want other options go and campaign for them.

But I consider this statement below to be just performative dishonesty.

“I want to find a way to resolve the access clash humanely and compassionately in a manner that is practically achievable.”

I want to find a way to resolve the access clash humanely and compassionately in a manner that is practically achievable.

My arse you do.
We have repeatedly said we'd back and support a/your (you individually! TRAs collectively) a campaign for 3rd spaces.

Why don't you take us up on it?

Pursuit of the impossible dream is what sustains it.

Humans are sexually dimorphic mammals.

Words can't change this. It doesn't matter who agrees to pretend.

There is nothing metaphysical about biology and sex. The concept of an innately gendered soul is pretty metaphysical, though.

It is not "difficult" to encounter people with trans identities in daily life. I encounter them frequently ( males and females of all ages.....especially the males. The females tend always to be younger) and what is always obvious is their sex. I'm not exhausted by it, either.....though I'm often bemused, especially as the males tend to present in exaggerated and often fetishised ways.

The main problem is expecting others to pretend to believe they are something they are not...or to pretend not to have noticed obvious incongruences.; and of course, being expected to tolerate male people in spaces meant for female people( on account of their specific vulnerabilities in certain types of situation).
Nobody likes being forced to believe that the emperor has new clothes.

Other than these sorts of issues which impact directly upon other people and their protections, then crack on......nobody is much bothered by what you believe about yourself, though you should have to follow the same rules and guidelines as everyone else in appropriate situations.

Trans people are manifesting their sexist belief system. To me it's no different to someone coming to work wearing a T shirt with a sexist or racist slogan.

They may well perfectly pleasant in aspects of their life not related to their sexist beliefs, but at the end of the day they are still a person with sexist beliefs and I cannot respect that side of them, only hope that they learn and grow and realise the gender rules they thought they were breaking were only ever their own prejudices.

To that end, I try to think of trans people as people on a journey out of sexism who have taken a wrong turn, with the potential to learn and do better rather than my enemy.

And again, you snap straight back to wielding nuance-free axioms like a sledgehammer, claiming they solve the problem.

They do not solve the problem. They allow you to ignore your problem. They also allow you to cynically weaponise the suffering of marginalised people against themselves while giving you a satisfying rush of power. It feels good to bluntly deny other people's lived reality; make them suffer as you have suffered. You have incorporated this into your entire personality and made it an article of faith.

Accepting that a single trans woman has needs or experiences similar to yours brings the entire house of cards crashing down. Much like your endless dismissals of evidence that human minds and experiences are far more complicated than the reductionist metaphysical categories you have backed yourself into a corner over, you now cannot allow for exceptions to the rule.

It is pure, callous, cruel rigid thinking serving as the load-bearing pin for your worldview. You have forced yourself to deny the lived reality of certain types of woman over it despite their cases clearly requiring flexibility and compassion to any reasonable person.

It doesn't matter to you, though. You have to be ideologically correct and pure and if that means denying the womanhood of groups of strange women whose existence confounds the axiom, then so be it. Your need for purity trumps human reality.

It is completely unreasonable and inappropriate to ban people who transition from facilities they are legally entitled to use and have been using for decades. We are a compassionate and humane forward-thinking society who has long ago decided that people who transition are who they say they are.

We have regressed so horrifyingly as a society under the influence of evangelist wedge issue attacks on all human rights that we are are in all seriousness back to beating trans women over the head with their own pain.

Your ideology does not render irrelevant other people's real lived experiences. Your need for purity does not trump other people's need for humanity. Weaponising trans people's pain to effectively ban them from basic human services and facilities is inhumane and while technically a solution to your problem with them, is not a solution to the problem.