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.

So much for women never understanding how much men hate them..
Oh I think we do

That's interesting Lech.

so if a couple had met and the woman said she wouldn't ever consider dating someone who was, say, unemployed, and the guy was unemployed but said he wasn't, and they subsequently had sex. Would that be illegal?

I had a long think about what to write in my complaint to the BBC and tried to keep it neutral. This is what I said:

This programme featured an American interviewee, who is trans and does not tell sexual partners, believing that they have no need to do so. This is sex by deception, a criminal offence in the UK. There was no exploration, or explanation of this. I find it shocking that it was allowed to stand unchallenged and could possibly encourage others to follow suit and commit serious offences.

I feel I could have done better, I rewrote it a couple of times.

"who is trans and does not tell sexual partners which sex they are, believing that they have no need to do so."

That would be my edit. "Trans" is a hard to define concept for some - it's the sex of the body that is the issue.

Of course there are people that might not mind about biological sex, butno-one can assume that for them and remove the opportunity to inform them.

Yes I agree with @popeydokey, be clear about what the issue is, it's not about "trans", it's about biological sex.

It's good that you complained, and your email was perfectly understandable though, @SinnerBoy

Back in the olden days there was an Ally McBeal episode about leading people to believe you were a type of person you weren't to date them - not anything that might depend on someone's sexuality or orientation, which isn't a grey area at all, but I think it was a man who had stalked a woman to find info on what she was into (or got the info online) and pretended to be into all the same stuff, working in a similar field etc to get her to date him. All pretence and deception.

I don't know.
In my opinion it depends on what a your average person can expect and how unusual a situation is. There are lots of unemployed people, so I wouldn't consider that unusual.
It would be deceitful. I think the normal remedy would be the woman gets pissed off and she ends all contact with him. Although I'm assuming the police wouldn't get involved, there's nothing stopping a civil lawsuit.

Your question has reminded me of an even more extreme example on top of the two in my previous post. This is a real example not made up.

A guy in the US pretended to be a porn movie producer, and put out adverts asking for female porn models. The models that applied had unpaid sex with him as an "audition" for his porn movies. This sex was consentual. Until the models found out he was not a porn producer, and there was no prospect of paid work coming from the audition. There were no porn movies. At that point they went to the police. As word got out more models came forwards with the same story. It went to court. "charging him with rape, sodomy and fraud". Charging him with rape means the court considered the consent that was given at the time to be invalidated because the models believed work might come from it, but he knew there was no prospect of work. The guy is now in prison.

I wanted to find a link for evidence the story is true. I did a single google and found a story, but incredibly it's not the story I was thinking about, so this has happened more than once! :(
https://nypost.com/2017/09/14/fake-porn-producer-goes-to-prison-for-duping-women-into-sex/

I doubt the people you talk to are transphobic. They just don't agree with your world-view that men are more important than women and if a man wants to dress as a woman and go into their spaces then women must let him.
Sorry if that comes over as transphobic. It isn't.

I was trying to find that episode! The nearest I found was Love's Illusions in S2 but it doesn't seem quite right.

My comment that I was writing while thinking about Ally McBeal (?) and this issue.

ANY information that a reasonable person would consider MIGHT influence a person's consent

I wonder if much depends on the interpretation of whether that's something a "reasonable person" would assess that way. I vaguely recall a TV drama storyline about a woman suing a man who had studied her tastes to represent himself to be everything that she wanted/admired, and whether that counted as deception. A little bit like a legal take on the manipulation involved in the initial attempts to woo Rita in Groundhog day.

Not an ethicist, so interested in the discussion.

I've found further detailed guidance on 'sex by decepton' from the CPS:

https://www.cps.gov.uk/publication/deception-gender-proposed-revision-cps-legal-guidance-rape-and-serious-sexual-offences

And a public consulation in 2022:

'Owing to the volume of responses (> 400) and the complexity of the subject matter of this consultation, further time has been needed to analyse the responses received for this consultation and to prepare the CPS response. We anticipate doing so in the first half of 2024.
Since the consultation was published, we have removed the UK Government’s definitions of “sex” and “gender” from the consultation document. This is because it has come to our attention that the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has added a guidance note to the article from which the definition was taken, which states that:
“The government definitions of ‘sex’ and ‘gender’ included in this article are not current and do not reflect a current cross-government agreed position. They are only intended for use within the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) context.”
Accordingly, we do not think it appropriate to continue to rely on these definitions.'

https://www.cps.gov.uk/consultation/consultation-deception-gender-section-rape-and-serious-sexual-offences-rasso-legal

The relevant part of the Sexual Offences Act:

'The Sexual Offences Act 2003 (the Act) came into force on 1 May 2004. Section 74 of the Act defines consent as follows: “for the purposes of this Part, a person consents if he agrees by choice, and has the freedom and capacity to make that choice”.'

And CPS guidance on consent:

https://www.cps.gov.uk/legal-guidance/rape-and-sexual-offences-chapter-6-consent

Oh, interesting.

FOI, in which the CPS declines to say who was consulted for this consultation:

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/which_bodies_were_consulted_for

Even after the ICO told them to.

Blood well done to the incredibly persistent woman who pursued the FOI!

Eventually they complied, god knows why it took so long for them to do so:

1. The name of each of the interested groups consulted with at the pre-consultation stage

• Women’s Aid • The Survivors Trust • Nia Ending Violence • Refuge • Welsh Women’s Aid • Rape Crisis • Survivors Manchester • RESPECT • IMKAAN • EVAW (End Violence Against Women) • Home Office • Government Equalities Office • Galop • Mermaids • Gendered Intelligence • LGBT Consortium • LGBT Foundation • Scottish Trans Alliance • Stonewall

1. The name of each group that participated in any of the workshops held after the first

draft was provided, and how often they did so

Workshop held 29/1/20
• Nia Ending Violence
• Women’s Aid

Workshop held 12/2/20
• Galop
• LGBT Foundation
• Mermaids
• Scottish Trans Alliance
• Stonewall
• Home Office
• Government Equalities Office

Thread on the consultation:

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4641909-cps-consultation-on-guidance-re-sex-by-deception

Very much so. I've already come across someone saying to me that everyone ought to be bisexual, and that it's bigoted to be heterosexual or homosexual. I was so taken aback that I didn't know what to say. I've crossed out heterosexual, because there was a pretty clear hierarchy at play:

bisexual >> homosexual > heterosexual

Yeah. colour me surprised.

That's probably insufficient problematisation of the nature of desire these days. A while back, wasn't "bisexual" deprecated in favour of "bi" to drop the problematic inclusion of sex rather than gender? (Postmodernism is ageing me rapidly and I forget.)

www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5221125-terfs-are-not-the-problem?reply=140307284&utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share

I think we're ontae 'pansexual' noo.

I looked up UK cases of stealth sex (this really needs a rebrand). Interestingly, convictions seem to involve trans identifying females manipulating women into thinking they are men. Prosthetic penises are mentioned.

When women consent to intercourse with a man, they expect it to involve an actual human penis. They have not agreed to be penetrated by a foreign object of unknown origin.

I really shouldn't have to explain why this is wrong.

My (lesbian)daughter was reading this thread over my shoulder, and was deeply disturbed by Butters' posts - she was also chatting to a friend online, and told her what Butters was saying, and hey presto daughters' friend was peaked!

Well done Butters, and thank you for your sterling work for the cause. 🤘

Operation Let Them Speak.

It never fails.

Hence the scenario that I invited BH to comment on upthread.

I see BH refers to Transphobia, which is the fear of people who are trans, but then doesn't describe people who are in fear but people who disagree with him.

Transphobia doesn't fit in the scenario and the label gender critical doesn't fit either.
I think 'believers of sex', or 'pro science' would be a better fit.