Is it possible to be a feminist and also have some empathy for transgender people today?

[HoundOfTheBasketballs]

I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert here but everything feels incredibly polarised. Like, either you’re with us or you’re against us.
Is there no middle ground in this debate?
I am, and always have been a feminist, but I know and like people who are trans and non-binary. I can’t be the only person feeling confused and conflicted, can I?

I was thinking a hint of 'Clockwork Orange' especially with the keenness of the 're-education'!!

What tou want is all very nice and fluffy and kind and I agree with it in as far as it goes . I don't have a problem listening and being supportive of young people experimenting with their identity. As long as we understand that being trans or non binary is a lot like being a goth or new romantic or punk was in the past . It is about how you present yourself as an expression of how you feel. It is not however ' what you are'. When it comes to sex, these two things ( how you feel and what you are) are absolutely not the same. You cannot change the physical state of being male or female or erase it ( as in non binary). These states have real medical and physical differences and ignoring them can have serious consequences. We do young people no favours in participating in this fantasy that we can actually change our sex or that it dies not exist .

I will also add is that as an adult female I feel obliged to protect very young females from mutilating themselves before they are old enough to properly understand the consequences. This is something adults need to do for children ,- protect them from taking irrevocable actions that will hurt them.

Taking hormones to stop puberty and undergoing operations to remove breasts absolutely should not be allowed before adulthood. I am not sure what part of that is being unkind or treating them badly. I see this as protection in the same way as I see protecting children from sex,drugs and alcohol use

Well if the teens say so... 🤔😬

I don't know why we bother with the Supreme Court. We should just defer to the teens, they know everything😂

Hard agree.

I don't know any teens who know or care about mumsnet

have teens got less cool or something?

Every teen ever has thought that about the older generations since time immemorial. I’d be concerned if they didn’t!

However, more of them are waking up to the fact trans activism in its latest form is anything but progressive!

I am a feminist and believe female spaces should be for biologically female women only - changing rooms, sports teams, prisons etc. I also have a trans friend and work with a number of people who are trans, mostly female to male but also male to female. I can respect their choices without compromising my own beliefs. Fortunately in real life I have never met anyone who is biologically male who has expressed any interest in gaining access to female only spaces. I misgendered a friend once in front of them (complete slip of the tongue), and felt truly awful about it, because I care about them and wouldn't want to hurt them. But in general I am not overly attentive to pronouns. Certainly don't state my own.

You are not the only confused one, don't worry. They are too, remaining firmly confused. So you can be confused together.

Of course they do! Famously so! 😎

I don't think feminism ever means we have a lack of empathy. Nearly everyone you meet would have empathy towards trans people.

I’m happy to be corrected here if I’m wrong, but couldn’t you equally argue that in the past, gay people were called mentally ill? So it’s also possible that feelings around gender and gender identity are as valid as those around sexual preference?

Teens are now analysing and responding to Mumsnet. Truth.😘

@HoundOfTheBasketballs

The Equality Act 2010 is 15 years old and consolidates earlier legal provisions including the Sex Discrimination Act 1975 which used a biological definition of sex.

This judgement interprets the law rather than changing it. This means that at all times sex in the Equality Act has meant biological sex. That is to say that from 2010 to today woman, man and sex in the EA has meant biological sex.

Every single policy, initiative, campaign, guidance, lobbying, website, statement, speech etc that stated woman for equality purposes meant something other than biology was misstating the law and was potentially discriminatory towards women.

How reasonable is it to expect women who have faced a 15 year systematic and at times aggressive campaign to unlawfully misstate and remove our legal protections to look for the middle ground?

Where is our apology?

Feminism is about the rights of one sex class, females.

The right-wing accusation is a funny one because every single GC woman I know is a leftie.

Agree with this .

And that’s precisely what this judgement should help enable - by underlining that, in equalities law, that there is a clear, coherent and consistent difference between a woman and a trans woman. (Which of course was always blindingly obvious to most, because otherwise what on earth were trans people transitioning from or to?)

As I see it, living as a trans woman means living knowing that you are biologically male but wish you weren’t, and a good and just society is able to make you feel more comfortable in that by, for example, using the pronouns you prefer, accepting you dressing in traditionally women's clothing, letting you live free from abuse and discrimination, etc. And indeed offering you medical interventions should you wish for them.

After all that, it may well be that this person passes in such a way that they can also use, for eg, female toilets and changing rooms without challenge, and indeed navigate the world with most people thinking they are female.

But they are male. They always were, and always will be. And that’s fine and beautiful.

This is not, and should never have been twisted into claims that trans people don’t have a right to exist, or even a right to thrive, to live without fear and discrimination. What they don’t have a right to do is claim discrimination on the basis of a sex which is not theirs.

(As an aside, the whole thing will hopefully get more people realise how blindingly backwards it is to use sexist language like ‘identify as a woman).

But no one is saying they must go away?! We are saying they are not women.

I sae a post tofay in Facebook by someone decaying this terrible injustice because of all the "women" who have had vaginoplasty and present as "feminine" who will now be in a very dangerous position. And how now, if these same "women" are raped, they can't access support.

I had a quick look and it appears that most likely, fewer than 100 such surgeries happen each year. And there are around 9000 GRCs that have been issued. The maths is not hard. This poster is horrified by the "risk" these women face with zero actual time spent looking at where the risk is, ans who is actually most at risk. It's infuriating.

Maybe you have a point here. In regards to people being noisily non-binary, noisily vegan or noisily sending their children to grammar schools.
Perhaps there is an argument that if people went about their gender choices a little less overtly then they would not come in for so much criticism.
As I’ve said, there’s room for change on all sides of the argument.

We've been suggesting a middle ground since the dawn of time. Nothing is good enough.

If you don't capitulate to their view of the world; that sex is movable, that humans can change sex, that no one can tell someone's sex, that man and woman are undefinable internal feelings, that sex doesn't matter at all, you are against them.

All we want is to stop the conflation of sex and gender, in language and in law. We recognise that women are oppressed because of our sex, we recognise that women are most at danger from men, and we assert that in some situations sex segregation is needed to protect fairness, safety and dignity. Sex matters and it should not be conflated with any other protected characteristic.

Thankfully, today the Supreme Court agreed.

Trans people haven't lost any rights today, it feels like that because they have been lied to by the likes of Stonewall who espoused the law as they wished it to be, not what it actually is.

Single sex services are what they say on the tin. Just like a disabled male or an atheist male or a retired male don't have access to female single sex spaces neither do males protected by gender reassignment.

I have empathy for young women who are not only going through the physical puberty but also coping with a ridiculously appearance-focussed world with every-more-rigid sex stereotypes and who decide to take refuge in an invented gender.
The point here which is important is that the abstract "young woman" in this example is choosing to adopt an invented gender. NB choosing not to be of their natural gender.
It must be illogical to consider that choice as being equal to a natal sex. It means that the result of that choice is closer to a choice about hair colour.
(Hmm, Kylie, do you think I would have more fun if I went blond?

The names have been changed to protect the innocent.

What does the ideal middle ground look like to you and your daughter?

Thank you. I like this analogy. I think it would be helpful for there to be similar levels of tolerance towards trans people as there is to different religions.
Although there is still a lot of work to do there as well.

Now, what was that famous JK quote?
You know ..... the one that started the hate campaign against her.
Death threats too.
Ooh, you know, its on the tip of my tongue.....didn't it essentially something like this🤔