TERFs are not the problem

[niadainud]

AIBU to think that transwomen's beef should not be with so-called TERFs, but with men who rape women or who have sexual proclivities such as autogynaephilia?

It is not (imo) transphobic to want women-only spaces for a number of reasons, but if (some) men weren't predatory in one way or another then women would have nothing to worry about.

I realise this is a highly utopian way of looking at it, but it riles me enormously that it has somehow become socially unacceptable not to pretend a man in a wig and a dress is actually female. I was introduced to someone's "niece" recently and they had facial hair. It's just ridiculous.

I also think that "real" transwomen (i.e. those who have undergone surgery etc.) make things more difficult for themselves by adopting this very black-and-white stance. People like Blaire White are realists and seem to speak some sense about the issue but they're a tiny minority.

There was a time when journalists followed this board closely - you'd see a thread and later that day the details would appear in the press. Since the scandals, court cases etc have been so publicly exposed, journalists now do their own research.
But it's always good to be reminded of our own little group of anti women monitors, seething with frustration at women being allowed to speak without male permission.

Oh no. We had that Greg Wallace moment already on the ‘too early for a post mortem’ thread. This poster used the term ‘middle aged female’ as an insult to someone who they assumed was female.

That thread has been eye opening for the tactics used and has several times crossed into abuse in my opinion from this poster with no acknowledgement of that at all.

'Being watched' said as if it were a threat. By the poster who made amazing allegations against other posters (bigots, obvs) and admissions of practising and encouraging sexual assault / rape through stealth.

I don't think we are the ones who should be worried.

@Enough4me I'm all for robust debate but those last couple of posts are just nasty and unnecessary. It would be a shame if the thread goes that way and gets deleted so I have reported them.

i hope so but what about on Reddit and other online fora though? That thought worries me a lot to be quite honest.

I agree, any influence that butterfly has is a concern.

Many of Butterfly's posts on this thread are concerning, yes.

Consider that the.BBC have also been minded to offer advice on the subject.of 'stealth ' sex:

www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0bqqgq8/disclosure-shorts-2-should-i-tell-you-im-trans

Well, you got an ology you’re practically a scientist!

Just rewatched that short programme. Interviews several trans identifying people. At no point does anyone mention the law, or 'sex by deception'. It's presented purely as a moral choice.

“especially the 'we can always tell' myth that I usually see wielded as a thought-terminating sledgehammer.”

Nothing Butterflyhatched has posted has dispelled what they call a myth. What they have done though has shown a horrific intention to use someone’s inability to understand that some one is the opposite sex to what they materially are to their sexual advantage.

And worse, exposed a fabricated moral justification story that is false while believing they are morally correct.

I don’t believe anyone who says that they can always tell means that everyone can always tell. This is where hyperbolic and absolutist thinking leads someone. What someone who is saying they can always tell can only mean is that they, personally, can always tell and that is them relating their own experience. And they may mean ‘we’ to not mean everyone but a group of people on a thread.

It is highly likely that female people can correctly sex a male person with interaction with that person. It has also generally been acknowledged that female people taking testosterone may be harder to correctly sex.

There are some glaringly obvious reasons also why some one won’t be able to correctly identify the sex of a male person. And only one of those reasons include being under the influence of alcohol. Others are indicators that a person might also be highly vulnerable.

There has been no ‘dispelling’ of any fucking myth on this thread.

Instead, what has been shown is how willing someone is to use someone’s inability to correctly sex a person (for whatever reason) to their benefit. That is predatory behaviour which is why posters are so upset.

Using a person’s inability to correctly identify someone’s sex to have sex with them without disclosing to them first, while understanding that some people would rescind consent if they knew. This can only ever be described as predatory behaviour.

There is no defence for this and yet, we have a poster who is also actively dismissing the significance of this with a ‘well they can always just say no next time’.

As if the person finding out has not been subject to a criminal act.

And through the repeated statements, a person advises that they counsel young people to choose someone who is not likely to take them to court upon finding out the sex of the sex partner. With the repeated emphasis being on ‘not taking you to court’ rather than the wise counsel of always be honest and upfront first and if it really makes a difference to that person, better to know before sex and before emotional investment.

That is what has been exposed on this thread.

In any case, it is actually is irrelevant for the purpose of this thread whether a person says that they ‘can always tell’, can in fact always tell.

Completely and utterly irrelevant.

However the use of this as a sick gotcha as has been now stated as a positive outcome of this thread, pretty much encapsulates all the things wrong here.

I would suggest the ‘can always tell’ statements have been misunderstood due to a mental block which could be formed for numerous reasons. Because when you (a general ‘you’) can only ever take a comment that disagrees with you and turn it into a catastrophic polarised position, how can you gain any depth of understanding?

Particularly if you then have never asked further questions or even analysed how this could be true because you are so heavily invested in no one being able to correctly sex you. Again this is general ‘you’.

You have viewed that information as being something that cannot be true because if it is, it shakes your world and changes it irrevocably.

It is of course, a statement that is purely based on subjectivity. There is no evidence that shows 100% of people can correctly sex someone 100% of the time in every situation.

It comes down to the question always asked ‘how many is acceptable collateral damage to be harmed’. If even 1 person could not correct identify the sex of the person they are about to have sex with, when that 1 person also would retract consent if they had that knowledge, that should be considered too many.

It is compounded by the dismissive nature of ‘they can always say no next time’.

This ‘myth’ is really irrelevant here. Except to highlight the type of person who will use it as a ‘gotcha’ on a feminist thread with mostly female people discussing the horror of non-consensual sex acts.

That is grim.

While I can logically understand how they have constructed this defence of this practice. I cannot believe that the BBC would not state the law clearly on this.

The BBC programme effectively makes all the arguments Butterfly has made on this thread, with not a single mention of the legal implications.

So, while the women here have been shocked and horrified at what they've read, our national broadcaster seems to support the rights Butterfly advocates.

A trans identifying woman (a 'transman', born female, obviously female) in the documentary mocks a man she'd just slept with for not realising he was in fact gay. What had led this man to presume he was straight? Attraction to and sleeping with a woman who said she was in fact a man.

This ideology is kind to nobody. It gaslights, confuses and deceives those who subscribe to it as well as those who don't, and that is the intent. It's destructive, corrosive and damaging to everyone.

ButterflyHatched has highlighted two groups of people who are vulnerable.

One - Lesbians who have sex with male bodied people who manage to 'pass' and are vulnerable to unplanned pregnancy.

Any woman who has sex with a man can get pregnant, the younger the woman is the more fertile she is. Penetration is not necessary. Being a transman is no protection unless her ovaries and uterus have been removed (which brings a whole suite of other medical risks). A transman having sex with a man is not, herself, a gay man.

Two - Transwomen who 'pass' and have sex with heterosexual men who may react not with bigotry but with violence when they find that they have been deceived. The notorious vulnerability to harm of Brazilian sex workers is directly linked to that danger.

Sex by deception is dangerous. Alcohol and other drugs that reduce caution an increase arousal increase that danger. 'Bigotry' is not the biggest risk.

As I said upthread, it has been very thought-provoking. An ideology based on the lie that fantasy is more important that reality and that lying in personal relationships can be repackaged as 'stealth' is dangerous.

I cannot help but remember the two posts from lesbians (different people on different threads) who admitted that they had not correctly identified the sex of the person they had intended to have sex with. And when they found out that they were about to have sex with a male person, they felt too much fear to withdraw consent.

Because that is what is happening.

The reason female people will not withdraw consent at that stage of sex is that they fear attack. PLUS they fear the repercussions such as ostracism from their friends and social groups. Both those female people I refer to went through with unwanted, non-consensual sex due to fear.

Why? BECAUSE THEY WERE VULNERABLE!

Because they were absolutely the people that the advice we are being told is being given, harms. They were not bigots. They also were not people who felt they had any power to say no. They were certainly not going to the police or the court about it.

The mental anguish they felt was devastating. They could not tell anyone amongst their social group in case they were ostracised because of people like the poster on this board considered them bigots and made this about being 'trans'.

They are exactly who the advice we have been told is given targets. The advice as we have been told is being given exploits vulnerable people.

And yet, apparently it is a moral victory crowing about 'gotchaing' and supposedly 'dispelling the myth'.

I feel so sorry for poor teenagers who have been tricked into believing that they have to accept this packet of lies, or at least act as though they believe that. Particularly for the neurodiverse desperate to 'fit in' to something.

I overhead a group of teenaged lesbians telling each other that if they didn't 'do dick' when it was a male transgender person, then they would be bigots.

Those lesbians would now all be 18. They are the people that the advice given by an adult male who seems to have no boundaries and little understanding of abuse outside their own targets.

Those lesbians are certainly not even going to tell their closest friends that they have been effectively raped because they felt they could not withdraw consent. Because they have been told by their friends, by the fucking BBC and by 'respected elders' giving advice that only bigots would even want to know the sex of the person they are having sex with.

To top it all off, we were also assured that male people who get off on reading women's distress are also reading this board, were also reading it very carefully right at that moment.

I wasn't going to comment without having read the full thread, but!

Imagine someone is in a poorly lit place, gets sexually aroused, and sexual activity starts with someone they do not know is masquerading as the other sex (not necessarily in that order!). Initially this seems consensual, even enthusiastic. But at some point, one of those people is going to get a hell of a shock. And you think that's fine? Really? I hope if it gets to court the court doesn't think that's consensual!

Can I just add to the informed consent discussion.

The informed part of informed consent can cover many different aspects as well as the context being discussed in this thread.
examples:

AIDS status. In some places it's illegal to have sex with someone if you have AIDS and don't dislose that to the sexual partner up front. There are drugs that can almost guarantee AIDS not be transmitted during sex if both parties are taking the drug, but that assumes knowledge on behalf of the uninfected party that they should take the drug.

In the UK a massive scandal recently burst where it was discovered that undercover police officers had been having sexual relations, relationships, and in some cases children with women that they were surveiling as part of their police job. The women didn't know the partners were police officers and they themselves were under police surveilance the whole time. The general reaction to this has been it was highly unethical. I think the police are facing multiple lawsuits.

My point being that informed consent means making a sexual partner aware of ANY information that a reasonable person would consider MIGHT influence a person's consent BEFORE sexual contact. It does not single out or discriminate against any one particular group and as I hope my examples have demonstrated can include a wide variety of factors including biology and even someone's job. By it's nature it covers edge cases. Situations that the average person wouldn't expect to encounter, and its this very fact that an average person is not expecting to encounter this situation that places the onus of informing onto the person bringing the unusual situation to the table. Knowing you bring an unsual situation to a sexual contact that might affect the other person's consent requires you to inform that person. If you do not inform, you cannot be sure the consent would still exist if the other person was informed. You are the one generating the unecessary legal risk to yourself. The very simple way to avoid this risk is to inform first, before. At this point you now have informed consent, and any legal risk is avoided.

Getting all uppity about the concept of informed consent goes against what the majority of people think is moral, and can result in significant legal jeopardy. It also sounds quite rapey to most people.

ArabellaScott · Today 06:09

Consider that the.BBC have also been minded to offer advice on the subject.of 'stealth ' sex:

Good grief! That's absolutely shocking, I'm going to make a complaint.

This all goes to show what happens when you create a group of people who are never told NO - a sacred caste.

They become extremists. NHS trusts with policies explaining how to wedge male sex offenders onto women's wards. Senior police officers advocating that male officers claiming to be women must be allowed to intimately search women.

They become dangerous - unable to self regulate and empathise. And those around them (assuming that senior staff in the NHS & police are not actual predators) also suspend their knowledge of the law, safeguarding and what is socially safe & ethical & give them a free pass to behave in ways that are actually criminal. Voyeurism and Indecent Exposure are crimes - as is sex by deception. Yet we have countless organisations openly enabling men to commit these crimes

It's very dangerous.

Exactly @MrsOvertonsWindow