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?

What is the point you are trying to make with this question?

I do know some Trans women. I also know that some men will go to great lengths to get access to vulnerable people, it’s why safeguarding measures are put into place.

We do CRB checks on teachers, nursery workers etc because there are people (usually men) who will go through years of training and education, create entire fake personalities and life stories in order to become a teacher/nurse/priest/doctor/social worker/scouts leader….specifically to gain access to vulnerable groups. Do you really think, if the option to forgo all that hard work, slip a dress on and say ‘I identify as a woman’ is available that those men won’t take advantage of it?

We then go back to the question you didn’t actually answer which is ‘How do we tell the difference between a Trans Woman and a pervert in a dress taking advantage?’

The previous social contract was that TW were TW; some autogynephiles, some traditional transsexuals. And that women were women.

Autogynephiles have never been accepted any where in women’s spaces.

Some traditional transsexual TW who were respectful have been allowed in women’s only spaces on a case by case basis with the express permission of women in that scenario. Presumed access was never the status quo.

ok. Thanks for the clarification. That makes much more sense.

It’s been posted here repeatedly, try looking for it. It isn’t going to fit your narrative though so I doubt you’ll acknowledge it.

There's none so blind as those who will not see.

Been scanning through and still can’t find it. Could you repost.

I know a few transwomen and, on a personal level, I’d have no issue with the gay ones who obviously have some kind of genuine dysphasia going on, being in the same loo as me, for example.

But, the fact is, the other women in that space don’t know them or know they’re safe, so they need to stay out to avoid causing any distress. And because women deserve privacy away from men obviously.

The couple of transwomen I know who blatantly have a fetish, well I wouldn’t trust them an inch, and with good reason.

For anyone who wants to know what should be considered for evaluating risk of this sub group of males to show that they have a risk level not less than any other male in the UK of committing sex crime, have a read through the statistics for males who have transgender identities who commit sex crimes in the UK

Firstly, This was a question answered earlier this year:

https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2024-12-16/20298.

Question from Rebecca Paul (MP Reigate): To ask the Secretary of State for Justice, with reference to the HMPPS Offender Equalities Annual Report 2023-2024, published on 28 November 2024, how many of the 50 transgender prisoners who reported their legal gender as female were convicted of a sexual offence.

Answer from Sir Richard Dakin (MP Scunthorpe): 23 December 2024
Of the 245 transgender prisoners who reported their legal gender as male (i.e. those who now identify as women, non-binary or gender-fluid) on 31 March 2024, 151 were convicted of a sexual offence. This includes both contact and non-contact sexual offences. Offence data was not available for 1 individual.

Of the 50 transgender prisoners who reported their legal gender as female on 31 March 2024, the number convicted of a sexual offence is five or fewer. We do not provide exact data for such small sample sizes as it risks identification of individuals. This approach is in line with our standards on data disclosure.

To put this into perspective with what we already knew from FOI information. I posted the information to a regular poster from FWR on another thread, who did not acknowledge the information at all, so it seems sticking the info here is appropriate:

Here is data from the MoJ

Here is an FOI request from 30 April 2024

https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/populationoftransgenderoffend/response/2641337/attach/html/7/FOI%20240322022%20Annex%20A.xlsx.html

Up to the 31st March 2023, the MoJ stated that of the 88 male transgender prisoners with one or more sexual offences.

The breakdown was
48 rapes,
0 attempted rapes,
10 Sexual assault or attempted sexual assault,
13 causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity,
0 indecent assault or gross indecency
6 sexual activity with a child under 16
0 other
77 listed here.... BUT there is a total of 88 in the total so there is 11 crimes not noted.

Possessing or making indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of child has not been recorded in this FOI.

However, there is are further discrepancies in the data of the following when you look at TOTAL NUMBER OF TRANSGENDER PRISONERS SENTENCED FOR A PRINCIPAL SEXUAL OFFENCE.

1 causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity
3 rapes
2 sexual activity with a child under 16
3 Sexual assault or attempted sexual assault,
This equals 9 additional... however the sum for TOTAL NUMBER OF TRANSGENDER PRISONERS SENTENCED FOR A PRINCIPAL SEXUAL OFFENCE is 99.

Therefore 2 more sex crimes have been hidden from this data.

There were 203 males who were declared as transgender in the prison at the time.

There were 24 NB who were not segregated into male and female. What is key here, is that THIS IS NON-GRC HOLDERS. And we all know that males holding GRCs have increased and they are excluded from this data. NO female people with transgender identities were sentenced to a principal sexual offence. There were 41 female people with transgender identities in UK prisons at that time.
As a comparison, I have stats that say as of April 2019 that the general male MoJ data for male sex offenders was just 16.8% of the male prison population.

And there were 3.3% of female people in UK prisons were sex offenders.

I will leave you to do your own sums. But... even using the figure of 88/203 is 43.3%. (And that doesn't include making or possessing indecent photographs of a child remember.)

By the way this exercise was done in 2021. And I checked this data myself from the data source and it was correct at the time. So, it will give some back ground to the above.

The ones that say that in the March/April 2021 data collection period, the MoJ stated that of the 97 transgender prisoners with one or more sexual offences.

The breakdown was
40 rapes,
8 attempted rapes,
31 possessing or making indecent photographs or pseudo photographs of child,
32 Sexual assault or attempted sexual assault,
20 causing or inciting a child under 16 to engage in sexual activity,
10 indecent assault or gross indecency
9 sexual activity with a child under 16
27 other
The 97 sex offender transgender prisons collected 177 sentences between them.

And that according to that FOI 197 prisoners are transgender.

This is why NO SUB GROUP OF MALE PEOPLE SHOULD BE EXEMPT FROM RISK ASSESSMENT. This group of male people still retain the same male pattern of committing sex and violent crime.

Literally just posted you the link https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/population_of_transgender_offend/response/2641337/attach/html/7/FOI%20240322022%20Annex%20A.xlsx.html

Seriously? It's been reposted at least twice.

I'm cracking up at the thought that regressive transactivism is in any way "enlightened" or some new kind of feminism! What on earth is "enlightened" about pretending that reality doesn't exist, or that some men are women because they believe that "woman" means a set of regressive pink "feminine" stereotypes most actual feminists chucked away decades ago. It's embarrassing and backwards.

It's not "progressive", intelligent OR enlightened. It's falling for a misogynist movement that very nearly destroyed more than half a century of social progress and equality. Anyone supporting such backwards ideas is the one living in the past. Here we have an entirely male-centred movement which prioritises male wishes and fantasies over material female needs, which the facts will show are indeed still necessary unless you're incredibly sheltered and privileged. It's glaringly obvious patriarchy and misogyny - if you understand what those are - and some very unenlightened people claim that this is a special new kind of "feminism". LOL.

You've been had. Some of us remember when this anti-feminist backlash started in earnest - what we've seen in recent years is the culmination of that.
Same old same old shit as patriarchy and misogyny always are, just in a different outfit. Those who are as ignorant of the past as some seem proud to be are condemned to repeat it. I've got no time at all for women pandering to this - you're the equivalent of those who stood against the right of women to get the vote. You might "identify" as a feminist, but it doesn't mean you are one.

And if your kids are "cringing" then I'm afraid they've been very badly educated. Frankly, I'm cringing, like much of Generation X, at their lack of critical thinking and historical illiteracy, as well as their clear lack of understanding over where their rights came from and exactly why we needed them. And those of any adults who have helped propagate such ignorant, backwards views in their kids. They'll end up with fewer rights than their grandmothers if you got your way. Not exactly progress...

Perhaps you should teach better then! All the gen zs I know think it’s all bollocks. But that’s because they’ve been taught to think critically and for themselves. And presumably biology!

Some of the stuff on Twitter, pre the pandemic, was truly shocking. Women who spoke up getting pms with terrible threats of extreme sexual violence. A Jack the Ripper level of violence, it was really scary.
So coming into this a decade later, well your post seems slightly disingenuous for a woman calling herself a feminist. You talk about both sides as if it is equivalent, the violence and threat. As if there are men out there who alter their daily lives, who live in fear of women killing them.
I was put on a blocklist because I followed and liked tweets by people like Julie Bindel and Magdalen. My real name is very identifiable, and my children were small. I was genuinely scared that some nutter might turn up at my door.
There really is no comparison between the way women have been terrorised for speaking out, and women calling male transpeople men.
The large, young man who punched a sixty year old woman in Scotland at a demo for instance, a woman who then was penalised in court for refusing to refer to him as “she”. The persecution of JK Rowling, amongst others. Women being arrested.
Have you really not been aware of any of this ?

Don’t worry, they’re cringing but it’s trans bullshit there cringing at. It’s very much a fad that’s had its time amongst the kids for the most part.

Statistics can be found on page 3 of this document.

https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18973/pdf/

I think the punching incident was at Hyde Park, could be wrong though. And she had her compensation reduced for using the word he in court. I wonder if post today she could ask for the rest of it.

Thank goodness for that!

It is raining statistics! I love it!

All show one thing though.... there is no evidence that any male person with a transgender identity is less of a risk of committing sex offences than the general male population.

I think lots of people are going to have strong cases for compensation following today’s ruling. All those people fired and hounded through the courts for not bowing down to gender ideology could soon be quids in.

Yes it was, organised by Venice Allan, (who I spied standing next to Maya Forstarter outside the Supreme Court today.)

Laughing at the idea that adult women should obey schoolchildren at all times, lest we cause them to ‘cringe’ I was embarrassed by my (rather cool) parents. All my children have gone through phases where they lived in terror of being seen out with their mum. Teenage perma-embarrassment is a silly, tedious (for us, painful for them), natural developmental stage.

The trans women I know are just people, trying to get on and live their lives in peace. They want to be happy and safe and they want women to also be happy and safe.

But if they make themselves happy and safe in women’s spaces, they are preventing many women who are rightfully there from being happy and safe, aren’t they?

Why should their wishes be allowed to undermine women’s needs and rights?

Quite. If you're not making your kids cringe, you're really not doing it right

Spend a bit of time on any trans redit forum infact any trans forum and you'll find that it's the majority who behave this way unfortunately.
Look at your own language usage, things like "denighing their existence" used when all we are doing is stating the fact that transwomen are different from women. We are not the ones denighing anyone's existence, it's transwomen who are not only denighing women's existence by insisting that they are us, that we are nothing but a feeling in a man's head and must never be referred to as women but cis women (I'm not a subsect of my own sex class) but they've actively embarked on a campaign to eradicate every reference to women and only women from all medical literature, information and services

You are not helping trans people by insisting we should believe things we know to be untrue. It forces us to check the stats which is why we know transwomen are much more likely to be in prison for rape and sexual assault than other males.

No one here has said transwomen as a general group are just out to attack women - but we are saying they are male with male strength and size. And alarmingly the MOJ stats suggest they are a greater risk to women than other males.