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?

But all the trans women who aren’t interested in competitive sport, there is space for them alongside us, right?

Yes in the same way that men can take a space beside us. But every single women’s space, whether it’s a lesbian walking group, a women’s recreational cycling club or the Women’s Institute who has let trans identified men into it has changed its reason for existing - to give women a space to be around other women. And do you know what? All those women who needed that single sex space then leave.

Never heard these cases

Women need protecting from men and trans women are men.

I know some trans identifying men (can I use that phrase without getting by deleted?).
I have a huge amount of sympathy for them. They are young, probably are high functioning, academic males with autism. They are critical in academic areas in their lives, but seem to have fallen hook, line and sinker for the idea that the solution for their discomfort with personal relations, sex, their still growing bodies, is that they can become women. Real women. Who have periods, breastfeed and of course (theoretically) access women’s spaces and sports. I believe they are simultaneously manipulated and manipulating. They are organising their lives around obtaining hormones from the most ready source available, and at the expense of safety and rites of passage of growing up.
This verdict is incredibly important for these young people. They believe that anyone saying ‘slow down, it’s not possible to change sex’ is a terrifying bigot.
I have high hopes that this SC verdict will make the boundaries clearer for them, make it harder for the group think to manipulate them into believing that taking hormones will ‘cure’ them of their unhappiness, and start to rebuild the boundaries that many young people need to feel safe.

Women need protecting from all men no matter what their gender identity. Transwomen do not offend at lower rates than other men. So they are not nicer or safer. Their gender identify seems to have little practical observable impact on their behaviours

Yes.

HTH.

There are situations in which society has recognised that women need protection from men, or privacy from the male gaze. That is why we have women's refuges, prison cells, hospital wards and changing rooms.

And trans women are male.They offend at the same rate as males, and within the prison population the rate of violent sexual offending is higher amongst trans women prisoners than it is among male prisoners.

I am middle ground.
I have an adult trans daughter.
She is vulnerable and autistic like so many trans people.
I personally think it is ok to acknowledge that she is a trans female not a bio female and that therefore she has slightly different needs - for example, she will need prostate screening.
It's absolutely ok to acknowledge she is not a bio female. I actually think it's mentally healthier to acknowledge that she was once a boy rather than try to erase that beautiful boy from ever having existed. My personal preference would be for her ID documents to state bio sex M, gender identity F.

Neither of us would want to attend settings where she isn't welcome. I guess women's groups will have to more clearly specify if they are for bio women only, or bio and self-identifying women, which means people can self- exclude more easily on both sides.

There's no need to call her a man, that's hurtful. She does no harm. We both know it's the reality but I guess it's a bit like calling someone fat to their face, or ugly. One can secretly acknowledge the reality but be polite enough not to express it in a hurtful way.

I’m not unpleasant towards anyone who isn’t unpleasant to me. I am happy to have men alongside me. I have a lovely male partner, friends and family members. Men can be excellent feminist allies. But they aren’t women.

@Springeeyhere is a whole thread of “things that never happen” which is actual examples of all the things people say won’t happen

just because you haven’t come across them doesn’t make them unreal

It’s bloody obvious why so many teen girls are opting for non binary and trans.

women are second class citizens in this society and it becomes very very obvious at that point. I wanted to be a boy as a teen because I was told girls were not allowed to play football and had to be nice and feminine.

if someone had offered me the opportunity to play football and do woodwork and be academic just at the cost of my breasts being cut off I’d have taken it like a shot.

I still don't understand how this verdict stops transpeople from getting on with their lives.

Women need protecting against some men. The men are mostly not trans men for obvs reasons

It’s only like saying someone is fat to their face if you say it to someone’s face. This is generalised, not personal. They are men, and we’re entitled to have clear language to advocate for our own rights as women.

@HoundOfTheBasketballs , where is your confusion?

Transwomen deserve to live their lives free from persecution and discrimination. I think the vast majority of women here feel that way.

Transwomen do not deserve to be in women's single sex spaces or take women's places in shelters, prisons, hospital wards, on shortlists.

Thank you. No, I don’t think any of the trans women I know would demand these things. They acknowledge changing rooms and toilets are contentious issues and they want to find an answer that accommodates everyone. I think this is part of the reason I struggle. The issues I see people get so angry about online don’t seem to come up where I am in the real world. But I also know how important it is not to dismiss people’s views because they aren’t my own lived experience.
I have no experience of transwomen in rape crisis centres, prisons or competitive sport. Just of people trying to live their lives peacefully and not be called freaks or other horrible names, which is something I have witnessed.

I’m afraid I’m struggle because historically it’s all been very simple, everyone knew what sex in the Equality Act meant. Trans identifying men have ridden roughshod over women’s rights, it’s always been and continues to be about them. You’ve only got to listen to the radio today to see nothing has changed.

I’m sick to death of hearing men come on the radio talking about how they live as a woman, how they are under threat from other men. If they had done what women have had to do and continue to have to do which is fight for our rights they I would have empathy. Instead they’ve just expected women to budge up and shut up, typical male behaviour.

'non-binary' is a product of social contagion, nothing more.

I'm not sure when we stopped being allowed to say that people's beliefs are nonsensical or we somehow have to accept everyone's 'truth'. It's deeply annoying at best and gaslighting on an epic scale at worst.

In Fife, Lennon/Katie Dolatowski committed the crime of voyeurism against a 12 yr old girl who was using the women's toilets in a Dunfermline supermarket bathroom. Before that case could be heard, Dolatowski attempted to rape a 10 yr old in the toilets of Morrisons' supermarket in Kirkcaldy, Fife.

The victim escaped by punching Dolatowski in "her" testicles.

Dolatowski was remanded in the women's prison estate before being tagged and released.

Came to public attention again when the residents of a women's hostel complained that a male sex offender had been discharged to their residence.

Dolatowski has since committed other crimes and has been in both the male and female prison estate.

I remember the details because I live in Fife.

I can find links if necessary.

exactly this! I don’t get what’s so confusing??

plus if TW are getting grief in the street for example I’d guarantee it’s from other men. Women for very obvious reasons don’t tend to hurl abuse at random men because we like to keep ourselves safe

@HoundOfTheBasketballs I don’t want to belittle their choices or undermine their feelings

I'm not so sure. I do feel that this obsession with somehing very new called 'gender' is closely analogous to anorexia, and that feeling - that it was imperative that the sufferer stop eating and that choice - to starve, possibly to death, has to be undermined if the sufferer is going to recover. Treating a mental illness by accepting the distorted view of reality that comes from it as true or real is not good for anyone.

Without the other factor in gender identity, which is the porn-driven fantasies of some older men.

Well quite, they can't be quietly non binary can they, as they rely on other people buying into their 'belief' that they are neither male or female.
Should gender critical people feel that this dismissal of their belief by people insisting they're recognised as non-binary is "callous"?

Trans woman in Gents not safe, in Ladies safe but ostracised. Trans man in Gents, in cubicle, trans man in Ladies looked at askance.

The supermarket attack was the e case of Katie Dolatowski who sexually assaulted a girl in the toilets in Scotland. MN won’t let me link it for some reason, but easy to find on Google.

I won’t post the others as the evidence is links posted by transwomen of the actual videos they’ve taken. Vile stuff.

Edit: Sorry that was to @WearyAuldWumman

Yes. It would. This is the sort of thing I mean. And I totally get that a lot of the people who are loudly and vocally against this are trans rights activists. I’m absolutely not for a minute suggesting that it is just feminists who aren’t seeking a middle ground here.