Could we ban "transvestigating" threads on here?

[Christinapple]

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5225715-ilona-maher

This one for example. Transvestigating is an informal term given to when people play detective and try to determine if a given person (usually a woman) is transgender or not from how they look e.g. photos.

I've seen it more than a few times on Twitter anytime a woman who is tall or muscular or "masculine looking" appears. Quite often, women are wrongly mistaken for being trans.

As well as being transphobic, IMO this harms all women and reinforces stereotypes of what men/women should look like. And the idea of obsessing over people's appearances like this just doesn't sit well with me.

So many great and insightful posts.

And even though it may or may not have been said before, posting it again and again is so useful for those reading it for the first time. Sadly though, some posters will not read them with the view to understanding the points because they are too heavily invested in not understanding the posts.

But many others will read them Helleofabore - such as these most recent posts by Garlic and MissScarlett. It will be like a light switching on. It was so for me years ago, thanks to Datun Lang Ova and many other women here.

An analogy.

You are a carer struggling on UC. You set up a suppprt group for people in a similar situation.

It's so nice sometimes to be with people who get it, who you can take the brave mask off in front of and say "someday it's shit and I wish it was over" and know they understand where that comes from and don't judge or try to hand wave it away and tell you you don't really feel that. People who you can talk and joke about the grim stuff like dealing with incontinence without feeling like they are disgusted or like you are betraying your loved ones dignity.

Your group sometimes gets small charity grants which you decide as a group how to spend. Sometimes it might be a carers event for the group and their cared for person to enjoy and sometimes you use it to support an individual member with respite care or equipment.

It's important to you. You get a lot of strength from talking with people in a similar position, people who understand your challenges without you having to constantly explain them. You try to be the same support for others.

One day you discover one of your members is not a carer and is quite wealthy. This is a person you have given your own time to suppprt when they were having a bad day emotionally, and who has accepted charity from the group.

The person says they found this group so supportive, it really feels like a place they belong and it's important to them. Ok they may not be a carer on UC but they feel the challenges they have are pretty much the same, and putting the emphasis on trivia like caring and money challenges over the deeper commonalities they feel really hurts them. They don't see why you are angry - they are still the same person aren't they?

Do you think "oh well, they were here for a long time and we didn't realise so it's fine, let's just make this a general emotional spport group" or do you feel used and deceived?

Will you be more suspicious of new joiners in future?

The rest of the world has been watching. They are concerned enough that they are now regularly raising the alarm.

I mean...really?? I think the "rest of the world" might have other priorities they're concentrating on right now. War, invasion, political chaos, disease and death spring to mind for a start.

My friends in other countries are envious of us here on Terf Island. Their governments have introduced anti-women legislation by stealth. They are angry. No one drew attention to the issues because no one knew about them. We have very vocal women's rights campaigners here in the UK who don't let these issues slide under the radar. I am hugely proud of that.

@Garlicwest 🌹🌹

Where is all the video footage of women shouting ‘transphobic’ abuse? Or women throwing soup over transpeople?
Or telling transpeople to die in a grease fire? Or brandishing baseball bats at them? I haven’t seen it.
Plenty of evidence of nasty, vicious TRAs- though I think for many, it’s an excuse to ‘hit out’ at women. Maybe because of a difficult experience with mum or a girl once dared to say no.
Or just plain ol’ misogyny.

Women have to frequently risk assess; it’s second nature.
Most women have found themselves subject to unwelcome male behaviour: from the male gaze to a full on punch for refusing sex, to sexual assault. That’s without considering who are the majority of victims of domestic abuse and murder. 2-3 women die EVERY week at the hands of men. Why aren’t more people outraged by this statistic????

Crime inflicted upon transpeople is, thankfully rare. I wouldn’t want it to be any other way. But please BH; listen to your audience. You cannot seriously be more scared of us than we are of men. Just not credible.

And it’s appalling that the murder of young Brianna is used as a weapon in the trans argument. This must be horrendous for her family every time.
The vile perpetrators had a list of victims.

Loving the dog pics- my dog is snoring away near me; mummy’s boy 🐶

There are none so blind as those who will not see.

It's all a load of bollocks.

Basically Stonewall UK and other similar organisations write reports about the rise in "transphobia" in the UK which are not based on any real facts or evidence, and present them to EU and EU adjacent DEI committees who say, "Oh no! How terrible!" and take them as gospel without bothering to fucking fact check.

I wonder how many cushy well paid jobs depend on trans rights being under threat.

Absolutely!

There is a particular style of posting where grey rock may not be the best solution. Where leaving those posts unaddressed leaves new readers with unchallenged thoughts. Instead, having posters post from as many different aspects as we can provides many different view points for people reading about this for the first time to consider.

Having a full view of what is being discussed is always a good thing. It allows fuller knowledge to be gained from the interactions. Cutting though the rhetoric devices and cognitive distortions we see being used means people can access the information and learn to read beyond what some posters want others to focus on. The emotion. Because without the emotional pleas, there is nothing to support the arguments at all. The evidence is lacking so emotion is what they rely on.

And to add, that in the very act of posting also allows people to achieve greater clarity to their own thoughts. That they can discuss how things fit or don’t fit in their perception.

If a point of discussion cannot still stand strong after being discussed (or ripped apart as some would say), then it was not strong to start with. And if a person who holds the view does not learn something, even something that strengthens their view, from seeing that interaction then maybe they don’t have the capacity to learn from it. And capacity includes many things from conscious and sub-conscious elements which may be a physical condition or an ideological view.

What some people refer to as dog piling is often just women discussing an aspect of someone’s posts that they don’t like being discussed. It is often used as a mischaracterisation of what is happening because they don’t like being disagreed with. They want people to post gently and with sympathy because that is what others have led them to believe is what they should only ever expect in constructive discourse.

Whereas there is so much to gain from the posts being dismissed as hateful or unpleasant.

Re 'stealth' and sexual relationships - there is no 'human right' to have sex with whomever one pleases.

It may seem terribly sad for some people if one is forced to disclose one's sex before a sexual relationship, but to deliberately deceive a partner is illegal.

Sex must be based on consent and consent must be informed.

I posted CPS guidance on sex by deception on the other thread. Here it is again.

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

Sex must be based on consent and consent must be informed.

Yes. This from the Pelicot case is absolutely chilling:
Many former and current partners of the defendants have undergone tests to see if they too had been drugged like Gisèle.

oh but you are playing and so you can knock it the fuck off.

Define "hate crimes"

How many women are killed each week in the UK (and worldwide, the numbers are consistent) by a partner, ex-partner or family member. It is 2 you drama queen. How many trans people have been killed in the UK simply for being trans?

Trans people live in fear, my fanny. They cause fear. We have seen them masked up shouting at women (who are on the whole smaller and quieter) we have seen them punching elderly women who had the temerity to speak (and not even say "tw are men" but simply to talk about women's rights).

We see you. We (and the lurkers) see your utter bullshit. And we are calling you on it. Give. Us. The. Reliable. Statistics.

Well said Empress 👏

I too have asked for a definition of what constitutes ‘hate crime’, nothing has been posted. Others have asked and been told to do their own research.

But many of us know already that a hate element can be misgendering or putting up a sticker someone disagrees with. And as you say, compared to what? Female people don’t have the protection against misogyny.

It has been pointed out but every time the poster uses this point we need to point it out again. The cycle continues and this cycle has been pushed by the poster who tries to claim support from hate crime stats despite having the weakness of the stats pointed out and never providing a clear definition used by the CPS.

So, the repeated claims of ‘but hate crimes’ can be considered a false flag.

Insinuations that trans women who spend years pursuing treatment in order to address lifelong dysphoria, do not disclose their medical history and then 'go stealth' in order to escape a life of constant, direct transphobic abuse are actually secretly doing so in order to gain access to vulnerable women are incredibly offensive.

Eh? Well stop trying to access women in places where they are vulnerable then.

It's not rocket surgery.

A hate crime is any crime which is considered to have been motivated by race, religion, disability, sexual orientation or transgender identity.

That means that a transphobic slur sprayed on a trans person's front door is a hate crime but the rape and murder of a woman which is motivated by misogyny is not.

“Insinuations that trans women who spend years pursuing treatment in order to address lifelong dysphoria, do not disclose their medical history and then 'go stealth' in order to escape a life of constant, direct transphobic abuse are actually secretly doing so in order to gain access to vulnerable women are incredibly offensive.”

How about :

Insinuations that [some] trans women who spend years pursuing treatment in order to address lifelong dysphoria, do not disclose their medical history and then 'go stealth' in order to escape a life of constant, direct transphobic abuse are actually secretly doing so in order to gain access to vulnerable women are incredibly offensive are accurate and robust safeguarding should mean all male people are excluded from female single sex spaces regardless of their transition status. Male people who require safe spaces for themselves should campaign for them to ensure they are provided for.

Yes. But the person who is using hate crime statistics to support their argument should be answering the requests for clarification.

That they don’t is a good indication that they know this is a very weak argument. I expect they keep using it because it reads as an emotive soundbite to those new to the discussion.

But it's why it's so dishonest to say that trans people are more likely to be a victim of a hate crime than women. Because there is no such thing as a hate crime on the basis that someone is a woman.

Yes. Absolutely. There is no comparison.

It falls at the first glance as any argument as to why any male person should have access to female single sex spaces, doesn’t it?

It is all part of the emotional manipulation that has become the standard tactic. It is dishonest to try to use it in the way we have seen it used.

What's usually meant by ‘transphobic abuse’ is being identified and treated as your sex.

It's astonishing, isn't it, that recognition of the truth is counted abusive.

We advise women in Relationships that, if you want to see who a man really is, tell him No. Vanishingly few (female) women lose their shit on being disagreed with: instead we try to debate, explain, see the other point of view.

Reasonable men do the same, but a far higher proportion of them treat disagreement as a personal attack, especially if their opponent is a woman. Many men believe they're entitled to female compliance. Male entitlement has no interest in other points of view; it requires obedience.

Over and over again, we see 'trans rights' looking exactly like male entitlement. It's a singularly masculine response to disagreement, coming from a cohort who insist on their femininity!

And abuse?? 🙄 'Trans people' do suffer real abuse: there are trans-specific insults; they're affected by homophobic bigotry and violence. But if they were really to be treated as women, they'd have to get used to a whole lot worse. It's a battle to get any crime against a woman taken seriously. Sexist name-calling, harassment, personal insults, professional devaluation, unsuitable healthcare and more (so many more) are woven into the fabric of daily life.

Can you imagine the gales of laughter if women reported abuse whenever someone disagreed with us about ourselves? Officer, that person pushed me and called me a cow! It's a hate crime, aggravated assault!

Police forces around the UK regularly agree that misogyny should be added to the list of legally-protected characteristics, glance at the size of the problem and quietly push it to the back shelf. Meanwhile, men calling themselves women are legally protected from facts they dislike. Make it make sense ...

Bleating on about how life is so hard being trans and ignoring the far more real dangers that women face is a loud and clear statement that Butters isn't a woman. If Butters truly believed Butters was a woman then Butters wouldn't be here willy waving that trans people are so hard done by because people won't play make believe with them.

A transwoman worries that a woman will call them a man, women worry that the transwoman will assault and possibly kill them. A transwoman in the UK is far more likely to be a murderer than a murder victim after all

There has also been an appeal to experience based on having a group of ‘transphobic’ people yell abuse as a sign of marginalisation and the need for some male people to access female single sex spaces. One thing I have noticed is that this has been carefully enough worded that a reader may believe this must have been feminists protesting.

No one should be experiencing abuse such as being surrounded by a group and having abuse yelled at them.

However, let us look at a couple of things. Firstly, if stating biological facts and that male people should stay out of female single sex spaces has been categorised as abuse (as has been done recently by this poster, in my interpretation) then this needs to be clear from the start.

However, let us look at the symmetrical point to that. Female people, ie the definition of women and girls, experience this regularly now. At our meetings, conferences and events. I have been subject to male people with transgender identities yelling abuse directly at me within about a metre or so that included calling me a Nazi and other untrue and vile things. Twice. I know women who have experienced this many times. All because we wanted to meet and talk.

And guess what, the police were there standing watching. No hate crime arrests, because the police deemed it a protest. Even the illegal noise makers of various types - all ignored.

So why do male people feel they should be protected by a female single sex space when the very people they are insisting on allowing them entry are people abused directly by groups of those male people who demand access?

It really is siloed thinking and it lacks coherency when the full context is viewed.

And the constant repetition of that experience being strong evidence for access to female single sex spaces is very weak when viewed in this full context. I know there are quite a few of us on FWR who have direct experience of this behaviour, yet our experience is dismissed by the poster who tries to use this pony to access female single sex spaces.

Hence, the only way to protect female people is to reinstate the robust safeguarding measures of no male people at all (over around 8yrs old). It is then fairly based on sex and sex only.

But remember, we have posters telling us (not just one) that it is abusive to use the term ‘male person’ even when the very heart of the discussion is highly relevant to this precise and accurate term being used. That in itself is an abusive tactic as well.

So butters reason that they need access to women's private spaces is because they've been subjected to transphobia?

Despite nobody knowing they're trans?

The wonders of TRA/GI logic Datun.

I expect I'm not unusual in knowing that the person walking behind me is male even if I haven't actually seen them or heard them talk.