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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Free advice line for female victims welcomes transwomen

140 replies

Liverpool52 · 06/12/2024 13:04

This popped up on my linked in feed - a free advice line which offers legal advice to women suffering sexual harassment in the workplace welcomes applications from transwomen.

That's right women being sexually harassed by men, come and discuss the details of it with men.

Free advice line for female victims welcomes transwomen
OP posts:
Datun · 06/12/2024 23:24

JanesLittleGirl · 06/12/2024 22:34

If you can't see the problem then I can't help you. I can't imagine discussing my experience of sexual violence with anyone who isn't female.

Who is pretending to be a woman, and according to this poster, will have voice training in order to try and carry it off.

Operation let them speak. Never fails

Allthegoodnamesarechosen · 06/12/2024 23:34

MrsTerryPratchett · 06/12/2024 20:15

transexual women still get the worst in terms of sex based violence

Where?

’live in hope’

Helleofabore · 07/12/2024 08:43

Thanks OP. It seems like this group has not learned anything from the report published about ERCC. Or I wonder if they will be rejected for funding unless they include male staff with gender identities etc?

Either way there will be significant issues due to women and girls (eg a 15/16 year old calling about advice at work) self excluding hearing a male voice.

Helleofabore · 07/12/2024 08:45

I see we had a midnight visitor who made some startling claims. Considering that the visitor referred to a woman on this thread as a ‘girl’, I can also say ‘midnight misogynist’ is a great fit.

Hilarious though to see that apparently voice training can make a male voice sound just like a female voice. That must be some magic place that the poster lives that they think female people cannot tell the difference.

Brefugee · 07/12/2024 10:25

This reply has been deleted

This has been deleted by MNHQ for breaking our Talk Guidelines.

GIRL? FFS are you trying to give us the impression you're one of those sassy sidekicks from some daft buddy movie? pack in with the patronising. It isn't a good look on you anyway.

and we don't care if they think they sound like a woman, if they have the "woman feelz" or any of the other gender id bollocks. (fnar fnar, i said "bollocks")

we want women's spaces and facilities to be by and for women.

i hope the watchers-but-not-posters who are still a bit on the "be kind" side are taking all this shite in. This is what you allowing for yourselves, your mums, your daughters and all other women.

MarieDeGournay · 07/12/2024 10:42

Has soConfusedByYalliThoughtThisWasaParentingSite gone? Probably off to tell everybody what awful transphobes those British moms are..

It was not only a very annoying derail, totally missing the point and obviously not having a clue about the issues that are dealt with in detail here day in day out, but it was incredibly confrontative and at times objectionable.

It was like somebody barrelling into a discussion group, shouting very loudly that they weren't discussing what she thought they should be discussing and they were all transphobes and were on the side of 'pedos' - or something, I admit I didn't quite follow that bit. But it definitely wasn't engaging openly in debate, that's for sure!

Any attempt to explain that this is a discussion group and we were set up to discuss what we are in fact discussing only caused higher-volume shouting, and then complaints that the nasty old discussion group was piling on and being [shock horror] sarcastic and so awful that the only thing to do was to flounce off, shouting loudly as you go.

A stunned silence falls on the discussion group, and then somebody says 'Sooooo... where were we?'

Brefugee · 07/12/2024 10:49

but as pp so often say - the good, factual and calm requests for clarification really shine the sunlight on the issue.

Operation let them speak is really working

Helleofabore · 07/12/2024 11:13

I suspect that Mnhq deleted them for being a PBP, or just a bog standard troll.

Helleofabore · 07/12/2024 11:14

MarieDeGournay · 07/12/2024 10:42

Has soConfusedByYalliThoughtThisWasaParentingSite gone? Probably off to tell everybody what awful transphobes those British moms are..

It was not only a very annoying derail, totally missing the point and obviously not having a clue about the issues that are dealt with in detail here day in day out, but it was incredibly confrontative and at times objectionable.

It was like somebody barrelling into a discussion group, shouting very loudly that they weren't discussing what she thought they should be discussing and they were all transphobes and were on the side of 'pedos' - or something, I admit I didn't quite follow that bit. But it definitely wasn't engaging openly in debate, that's for sure!

Any attempt to explain that this is a discussion group and we were set up to discuss what we are in fact discussing only caused higher-volume shouting, and then complaints that the nasty old discussion group was piling on and being [shock horror] sarcastic and so awful that the only thing to do was to flounce off, shouting loudly as you go.

A stunned silence falls on the discussion group, and then somebody says 'Sooooo... where were we?'

yep. What a week, eh?

PriOn1 · 07/12/2024 12:36

MrsTerryPratchett · 06/12/2024 22:02

girl they do voice training.

Don't call grown women 'girl'.

And no, not every single TW does voice training. Why on earth would you think that? IME almost none do.

I’m reminded of RMW’s admission that voice training was out, due to an appreciation of how much more effective a male voice is when in court.

Datun · 07/12/2024 14:36

So the y'all poster has been kicked off? PBP?

They weren't that confused about this being a parenting website, then were they?

borntobequiet · 07/12/2024 14:58

vibratosprigato · 06/12/2024 21:52

I can't say I have a problem with this but I appreciate why others do.

Trans women in women's prisons/sports/changing rooms/hostels etc yes I'm on board with their exclusion due to the obvious disadvantage/threat to women's privacy.

Trans women using a phone line? Not something I can get worked up about!

You may not realise it, but some men would be thrilled to hear accounts of women being sexually harassed at work. And all they’d have to do to hear them would be to claim they were trans - which pretty much any man could do, in today’s climate.

Catiette · 07/12/2024 15:19

vibratosprigato · 06/12/2024 21:52

I can't say I have a problem with this but I appreciate why others do.

Trans women in women's prisons/sports/changing rooms/hostels etc yes I'm on board with their exclusion due to the obvious disadvantage/threat to women's privacy.

Trans women using a phone line? Not something I can get worked up about!

There's an obvious disadvantage / threat to privacy here, too, though. The logic is very simple.

Consider:

Why is the advert for women only operators/counsellors? The only possible reason is the recognition that female victims of abuse may be distressed by male operators/counsellors, right? And how could they distinguish a male operator? By his voice.

So, what makes any male applicant a woman? Solely that he perceives himself as one, and may or may not have gone through a predominantly administrative process, and, in the case of a small minority, superficial physical interventions, to formalise this feeling.

What difference does that male telephone operator/counsellor's feelings / paperwork / superficial physical changes make to the woman making the phone call? How does she even know of these feelings / paperwork / changes?

Unless you're assuming that only the tiny minority of trans women with voices indistinguishable from a woman's will be accepted (which I'd assume would be arbitrarily discriminatory by law, so surely can't be the case)...

...What is the difference, to the distressed female caller, between the male voice of a man, and the male voice of a trans woman? There is none. At all. How could they possibly distinguish? Both would be equally distressing. That this is the case is acknowledged in the advert not being open to men.

Except, perhaps there are a few differences...

  1. The distressed female caller may be more likely to feel under more pressure to suppress their trauma or discomfort to prioritise the self-perception of the male speaking, at the risk of being accused of bigotry and denied further help.

  2. The distressed female caller may feel uncomfortably conscious that the male speaking is prepared to transgress female boundaries, and thereby experience the call as a secondary violation, of sorts.

Now, I think if the company is open that it employs transwomen, or men, that mitigates this somewhat, in enabling callers to make an informed choice about whether to use a helpline that comes with the risk of encountering the shock of a male voice. But I still think 1) It's electing to exclude a potentially quite significant proportion of vulnerable female victims at the expense of employees' preferences, and 2) Frankly, I cant imagine they are open about this - what crisis phoneline includes #callsmaybeansweredbytranswomen on its toilet door stickers? This, too, I imagine, may leave them vulnerable to legal attack.

TLDR: This advert is saying, "We recognise many female victims of abuse would be distressed by speaking to a male, but if that male thinks about himself in a certain way, they should set aside this distress."

newtlover · 07/12/2024 23:15

so....ALL the posts by the TW apologist have been deleted? with no explanation from MNHQ? that's kind of a shame as it was quite instructive

UtopiaPlanitia · 08/12/2024 01:43
Animated GIF

In my head, as I was reading them, I kept hearing the y’all posts in the persona of Joy Turner from My Name is Earl.

But, as always, I do welcome posters who want to discuss (and even disagree if it comes to it) but I find it harder to be bothered interacting when someone is in broadcast only mode.

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