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?

And yet at no time did i say all women….

Cos saying ‘all’ of pretty much anything is very stupid

I bet you’d find more women on MN who care about transwomen having legal protections than you would transwomen on Reddit caring about women having the same. In fact, I know you would.

No, I’m not saying that at all. I’d be very interested to go and have a look on Reddit and the other places people have suggested, but you’ve all put me off a bit by saying everyone over there is going to threaten to rape me and set me on fire. Which is absolutely not okay either. I can’t express strongly enough that I don’t think it’s only women who are being unpleasant. Far from it, if some of you are to be believed the trans community has been far worse.

Abso-fucking-lutley

but you’ve all put me off a bit by saying everyone over there is going to threaten to rape me and set me on fire

yeah i wouldn’t go over there either 😳

The vast majority of trans women quietly go about their lives. Unfortunately, a vocal minority constantly push boundaries, demanding to be called biological women and wanting encroaching on single-sex spaces. These are the kinds of trans people that some women take issue with, to the determent of the majority of trans people.

You won’t get any of that just by having a look at what they’re saying though. Check out terfisaslur.com. It’s a collection of examples of the kind of things transwomen say about GC women, and athough it’s hideous, it’s important to see why so many of us have hardened our stances so much over the years.

'there is space for them alongside us, right?'

What specifically do you mean by this? And what do you, personally, mean by 'deny their existence'?

Male people with transgender identities are male people with transgender identities, they are not women and they are not female. So, what do you believe is their 'existence' that people have to support?

But recognising homosexuality does not involve compromising the male/female sex binary. Conflating homosexuality with non-gender-conformity misses the point that women’s sex-based rights are enshrined in law. And those sex-based rights were being adopted by some people who are not female sexed.

I am struggling to understand what I’m supposed to have empathy for in this instance.

The trans community have not lost any rights they were previously entitled to. They are protected against discrimination and harassment (as they should be).

What happened today was a clarification of the law so that the rights of women should no longer be eroded by people’s willful misinterpretation of the EA.

I get no pleasure from the fact that some trans people are upset about this, but I am pleased that there is no longer ambiguity that sex and gender (and specifically holding a GRC) cannot be conflated as a protected characteristic.

The fact remains that it’s stonewall and trans activists that have forced this issue. If they had been less militant/aggressive/uncompromising then they would not have fed the women’s grass roots opposition and the need for ongoing court cases and tribunals that have consistently rebutted their rhetoric and denial of reality.

This should be a moment for TRA’s/Stonewall to reflect but I suspect they will double down. If members of the trans community who “just want to live their best life” are angry at anyone it should be at the people and organisations who’ve been “advocating” for them using lies/rhetoric/bullying and intimidation. Put bluntly there has been no better examples of why single sex spaces are needed than TRA’s screaming in women’s faces, posing in delight in women’s toilets, vitriolic SM posts and holding placards that encourage violence against women who hold the line of sex based rights.

You cannot change sex. This is a fact and you scream TWAW/TMAN as loud as you like and it doesn’t put you on the right side of history, nor as of today the right side of the law either.

Exactly
I don’t feel sorry for them as they were trying to lay claim to a title that didn’t apply to them

I wonder whether you might have come full circle and identified the problem that you didn’t understand at the outset; sadly the nasty vocal and sometimes physically dangerous minority (as usual) has ruined the chances of a fair/reasonable outcome for everyone. It appears that the only people who can protect women and girls are women and girls. The vast majority of us used to be happy to live and let live but we don’t have that luxury anymore, hence this case (and others still on-going).

You don't get it, do you? Some trans women have no interest in a third space or competing in an open category as they need validation (that they're real women) that only competing in women's sport/using women's space brings.

Sex in law is quite rightly based on biological fact. Some men do not like this, much like some men do not like women saying no to them. As others have said on this thread, the law hasn't changed, it's just now that sex has legally been defined and as such, biology matters, not feelings.

Transgender people are not to be discriminated against. The law is very clear about this. And again, and in the UK at least, they have exactly the same rights as everyone else. If I am wrong, please tell me what rights they do not have?

To be a woman. If you suggest trans women are trans women rather than biologically a woman then that’s where you hit a snag. Personally I read enough Orwell to know that 2+2=4 (not 5) and that someone who is biologically male but identifies as a woman is not a woman. It seems many people can’t get their heads around that.

FWIW I have no problem with people being trans, but I do have a problem with anyone telling me my identity has to change because of theirs. I’m not a cis woman, I’m a woman. Trans-women need the prefix precisely because they need to explain how they are not simply a biological woman. I don’t need that prefix and I don’t like being told I’m the same as someone who grew up male. At whatever point they transitioned they still had all the experience (pros mostly but also cons) of being male and they still have the genetic advantages of being male and the choice to return to being male should they ever wish to. I have none of that because I am a woman.

Exactly, they aggressively fought for what they thought was their right and we fought for ours and we won…..the women won for once!

It’s interesting how we are all stepping around the fact that some transwomen are transgender for not such nice reasons…are we still not allowed to call that out? Do we still have to believe that all TW want to just ‘live in peace’ and ‘do no harm’???

@HoundOfTheBasketballs spend a bit of time looking through this boards past threads with examples of ‘they said it wouldn’t happen’

Gosh, I don’t know! And I guess that’s a huge part of the problem isn’t it? No one has come up with a super-inclusive, trans-friendly utopia.
I suppose it would look like acceptance of trans people without their rights infringing on women’s rights, or anyone else’s rights. More of a live and let live atmosphere. Which it sounds like a lot of women had before some trans activists got aggressive.

I’ve only recently returned to MN. Are we actually allowed to mention the AGP elephant in the room now?

The thing is, ultimately the belief in "transgender" identities is a belief that how men and women think is so significantly different that if a man thinks enough "like a woman" then he is a woman in any way that matters (or vice versa). That is sexist in two directions - firstly because it reduces the many different ways female people think and live into men's assumptions about how women think and live when they observe us from the outside, and secondly because it ignores the many ways society does treat people differently based on their sex.

So as a Feminist I can absolutely recognise that many trans identifying people are trying to escape the socially constructed roles society assigns to their physical sex, and have sympathy with that, and even recognise that men coded as feminine by society catch some of the backwash of patriachy's distain for female people, but also believe that the narrative of gender identies they have created is a false one that is ultimately just repeating and reinforcing the same gender stereotypes, and in appropriating the language of sex to wrap thes ideas of gender they are obscuring the reality of women's sex based marginalisation which does genuine harm to the Feminist movement.

Once you realise that the idea that something in the way a man thinks makes him somehow a woman is fundamentally sexist, you realise the whole idea of middle ground is flawed because all that really means is "can we agree that some men really are a bit more like women than men? can we find a compromise where we are ok with a bit of sexism because actually women really are a bit mentally all the same, aren't they?"

Just like a dog that behaves like a cat sometimes isn't any nearer to actually being a cat than any other dog, no man is "a bit more like a woman than other men". They are all just men, being men in different ways, just like we are all just women being women in different ways.

Disabled men in the gents - not safe, young men in the gents - not safe, gay men in the gents - not safe. Should they all use the ladies then?

Idk, I don’t see anything unkind in today’s ruling. It’s not about taking away rights from trans people but about protecting women. I find it particularly telling that we don’t need to define men. I believe that there should be better mental health support for transgender people because as the statistics shows more than 60% of them don’t feel happier in their new body. I also believe that you’re talking from your own experience of ‘transgender people who just want to get on with their lives’ whereas it’s simply not true otherwise there wouldn’t have been a need for the court. Open up TikTok for example to see how many trans women are on there who don’t sound peaceful at all. There are also therians who identify as cats and dogs… like fully trying to embody their inner animal. These people also deserve space and understanding. Just saying.

That’s what we have! They can be who they want to be, but they can’t have our much-needed spaces.

Some people are always going to be dicks about trans just like they mock fat women or gay men, etc. and you can’t stop that, but in the UK right now, there is a fair balance. It’s just that transpeople want more, and they want what’s ours.

Kindly, I think you have come very late to this debate. Feminists have been trying for peaceful co-existence for a while- a decade-but trans activists refused to accept anything less than complete capitulation.

I believe we are now? Someone more experienced will come and correct me if I’m wrong.

This is where I have learnt about it.