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.

Or perhaps it is a day to day issue precisely because many of us do know people who identify as trans?

I think what you're trying to say is not all trans people are abusive? I wholeheartedly agree. The abuse and boundary pushing is not inherent to having a trans identity. Unfortunately the ideology currently pushed by the loudest most aggressive TRAs and endorsed by far too many in mainstream media, big corporations, the charity sector, MPs etc absolutely does centre on the subjugation of women. This has the effect of making a trans identity a magnet for abusive males.

I also wholeheartedly agree with your concern for transmen. Most feminists feel the same, because, obviously, we see sex not gender ID. You may think us witches but note that your perfectly logical opinions on safety in contact sports would be dismissed as "terf rhetoric" were you to air them in various other parts of the internet.

I do think women on this board should take responsibility and do some really basic research before being tempted to call anyone out.

There have been several instances of strong muscular women being mistakenly ID as transwomen.

It does everyone a disservice. I disagree with @Christinapple on almost everything on this issue except this.

People think they are gatekeepers but they are actually reinforcing harmful stereotypes about what it is to be female.

The Ilona Maher thread wasn't a call out but it did demonstrate very neatly the ignorance around the sex based rules in rugby. If you think you are holding up women's rights in sport then you should know or find out what that sport does to uphold them itself before you start doubting and telling people about you doubting.

Such a good point.

One of my kids was continually miss-sexed until puberty made him suddenly look male.

He didn't care. Ever. Because I'd taught him girls and boys are of equal value so it never felt an insult.

All the cutesy euphemisms and coy little made up words that the current iteration of trans ideology is so fond of mask the deep homophobia, misogyny and sexism at its heart.

@BearOnABlanket

Aside from the self serving performative faux concern for women when they think it helps get them what they want, it doesn't surprise me that TRAs may genuinely overestimate the distress women (original female meaning) feel at being mistaken for men, because they are primed to think of how distressed trans people are to be misgendered.

For trans people, misgendering is basically an existential crisis. Because their gender identity rests entirely on being accepted for something they are physically are not, they cannot prove their gender, only insist on it, and at heart they know that if someone does not believe in gender of the mind, to that person the trans person will continue to be the sex they actually are.

Whereas a person misidentified as the opposite sex knows 100% they are the sex they are. No one needs to agree or affirm that. So if their sex is mistaken they can confidently say so with no psychological need to convince, insist or enforce their own statement of faith onto their challenger.

No but I would really like to ban males coming here and trying to control what women are allowed to talk about

TheNimbleTiger I’ve never known a group of people so obsessed with another group as mumsnetters are with transgender people.

Tell us you know nothing about Mumsnet without stating you know nothing about Mumsnet!

Some of you may have seen posts on other threads by somebody with a very long username that I forget, who addressed us as 'yall', and scolded us for deviating from discussing parenting all the time, because if it's called Mumsnet it must be just a parenting site right?

There are so many talk topics on MN, including being a parent🙃but this particular topic is Feminism and Women's Rights. We discuss important issues concerning Feminism and Women's Rights, and one of the biggies is people who are not women appropriating our rights.

That's not obsession, that's Current Affairs, TheNimbleTiger.

It makes you think that they know nothing about the totality of Mumsnet and Mumsnetters, and only access the FWR part to give us terfs a drive-by scolding and then disappear.

I think @TheNimbleTiger should stay and educate him/her/themself.

Op, why would you start a thread on here to change the rules where HQ will have no idea about it? The place to do that is in direct contact with HQ, or on site stuff.

Unless, of course, your intention has nothing to do with that, and everything to do with winding women up.

I don’t think it’s the day to day issue you think it is.

You must have missed the 76 children identifying as trans in one school.

Perhaps you should get out more.

https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/2314157/school-in-brighton-has-76-children-who-are-gender-fluid-or-don-t-identify-with-their-birth-gender

I'm pleased OP started the thread because it gives intelligent and well educated biological woman an opportunity to express the reasons of why men who feel they can steal women's rights, dignity and opportunities is an enormous issue in society. Before I discovered Mumsnet I felt very alone in my view because the media and so much information I could find seemed to believe the madness that men can be women if they choose to be, penis removal not even required.

Mumsnet gave me hope for the future and confidence that I wasn't completely mad because that was what the world was telling me. These threads come up in Google searches and I think they are invaluable for people to see well reason discussions on why transwomen are not women and should not be taking away the rights of real women.

I don't like that I may be challenged in a ladies loo because I am tall and don't dress in a particularly feminine way, but I would rather be challenged than allow men to take over all our spaces with no challenge.

I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of you have never met a trans person in your life and the actually have on impact at all on your day to day life.

A woman doesn’t have to be impacted day to day. A trans identifying male could have caused enough trauma during a single incident that she will remember it for the rest of her life. That’s what happened to me. And I’m guessing that the vast majority of posters here have been affected in some way by the harmful effects of GI.

I’ve met several - all either exhibiting behaviours that made me question their mental state (I feel a bit sorry for those) or the more sickening ones exhibiting a fetish, such as wearing outfits to deliberately accidentally display their lacy knickers. It’s not transphobia to say I don’t want to be anywhere near these men, and I don’t want young women and girls near these men either.

Incidentslly I have only met two trans identifying women, both of whom were survivors of horrific sexual assaults. However given that a significant percentage of women will have been through similar, that may be coincidental.

I used to ‘be kind’ then I got educated!

... I am tall and don't dress in a particularly feminine way, but I would rather be challenged ...

This, and PPs who've said similar. I used to live in a country where women are usually much smaller than me, and where 'trans women' are a significant media presence. I was always being asked if I'm a man. Unsurprisingly, this did not make me doubt my own sex, far less my very existence. I found it quite funny.

Obviously, a man trying to convince the world and himself that he's a woman would be less relaxed about it. Oh dear, poor him 😏 Why would such a man not chuckle and say "Yes, I am"? Well, that's his problem of his own making., innit. It's not my job to prop up his misguided self-image.

I cannot believe I missed another drive by scolding!
Please come back and tell us how to do feminism and women's rights properly.

I would hazard a guess that the vast majority of you have never met a trans person in your life and the actually have on impact at all on your day to day life.

That's a very shallow perspective.

I believe every woman (original female meaning) in the world is affected if society decides the thing that makes us women is not the fact of our bodies but some ineffable womanliness of mind that can exist in either sex.

Firstly, because it's incredibly sexist. It takes us right back to "girls naturally prefer to support than win. Women naturally prefer low paid caring jobs and raising children to high paid leadership. The female mind is emotional not logical. Women aren't sexually agressive, they need to be dominated" and all the other self-serving myths men created around us to justify treating us like resources not people.

Secondly, because in changing the definition of woman to be something men can achieve, it pushes many women who don't recognise themselves in this new idea of the woman-in-the-mind out of womanhood, leaving them without the language to describe themselves or make sense of their sexed experiences, and without the right to access the woman-only supports that were supposed to be there for people like them (female) to mitigate the challenges that come with being female.

Thirdly, because it breaks the connection between women-only resources and the male behaviour and male privilege that mean we need them, meaning over time it becomes harder and harder to justify why woman-only resources should exist at all.

Not to mention that some of us are also concerned about the impact of gender ideology on trans people. It's not all rainbows and glitter, it's ultimately selling people a fantasy they can never achieve, putting them at odds with reality and with the world's perception of them. By encouraging them to stake their mental health on everyone around them agreeing with their personal definitions of man, woman etc, they are put into a precarious, vulnerable and beseiged state of mind where they are constantly having to police themselves and others, never relaxed.

And that's the lucky ones, without even getting into the medical consequences and the risk of being sucked into abusive subcultures or relationships.

But yeah, no impact on my day to day life so why should I care, right?

If nobody ever stood up for injustice, lying and cheating unless it directly impacted them, biological women as a class would be even more fucked than we are now.

So thankfully, many woman think differently to you.

Also - you do realise that speaking up about the bigger issues this touches on, in real life often results in women being sacked, doxed and threatened with violence, don't you? So the reason you see it more here is because it's a safe space?

Remember when women went over to Reddit and enforced their rules and views to destroy other groups' spaces and ability to discuss things of importance to them?

Remember when there was a gender critical subreddit? It got banned due to mass reporting by trans rights activists, despite ones linking to pictures of dead women men found sexually attractive, among other awful things, being fine to exist there.

No.

The harm is being done to women because men play act as being women.
It’s tough that some women are being mistaken but it wouldn’t even have crossed the minds of anyone until men chose to identify as something they can never be. It’s transW own fault and sadly some women get caught in the backlash.
Ilona Maher is clearly a woman. And a magnificent rugby player - and - dancer!

I find it very distasteful, yet unsurprising, that TRAs are using a masculine looking woman as a gotcha to try to shut other women up.

No thank you @Christinapple

If males stayed out of women's sport this wouldn't happen.

If sporting bodies did the right thing and insisted on a universal one off cheek swab to confirm eligibility for female only sport, this wouldn't happen.

Until males stop appropriating things for women we will continue to call out harms to women.

So Chris wants to ban women talking among themselves about things that are important to them (like fair sport and women's human rights).

There's already a country where exactly that rule is in force, so somewhere to move to OP if you want to ban women having free speech, perhaps?

The whole point of mumsnet is allowing women to talk about whatever is important to them so the answer here is no.

Poor OP. Are those pesky women still talking about stuff that offend you? How very dare they.

If only you were not obliged to hang out on MN and see those conversations.

Oh wait.

MN posters are not obsessed with trans issues - just protective of women’s rights!! ‘Do you know transpeople’ isn’t a gotcha - many of us do know (and love) our transpeople.
It’s not ‘just’ toilets either. ‘Toilets’ is just as important as any other issue that affects women and girls.
As for sport, would it be fair to allow some events to include transpeople and not others? It’s not always about being hurt (vitally important though that is) it’s about fairness. Even one transwoman in a sporting event/competition means that it denies a place to a biological woman.
And not a ‘day to day issue’???
It very much is

The you're all sooooo obsessed schtick that you're coming out with here is itself a classic keyboard warrior tactic.

I really resent genderism for making me question the sex of people I see in the media.

Absolutely this. The FT had an article at the weekend "The FT's 25 most influential women of 2024". Immediately I'm thinking which one is the bloke. Surprisingly, I don't think any are (although I haven't read it all yet). But what a pity I can't just read an article celebrating the achievements of my own sex without questioning whether they really are all women. Yes, it is genderism's fault that this is even a question.

The FT is more grounded in reality than most of the media.