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?

maybe I am oversimplifying but it seems to come down to

• gender critical women think trans women are not in fact women. But their own group which has different needs.
• trans community and supporters think they really are women and part of the same group and want to be treated as a woman and not a different trans woman group

I think todays ruling puts us more in the first camp.all the while the law doesn’t say you are the same as a woman I can’t see the trans community will be happy .

Thanks. I’m going to assume you’re being genuine here and not condescending. I know what you mean. I’m also an atheist, a dog-lover, a parent and many other things. It’s possible to be many things. We are, after all, complex individuals. I do however, sometimes feel like being a feminist and a trans ally are mutually exclusive. I’m glad you don’t think that.

Ahh, so you don't give a ... about your own kids. Just great that.

Unisex toilets are not the answer. They are proven to be less safe for women than single sex toilets. Women should not be made actually less safe to make men feel safer.
The answer is: single sex toilets and a gender neutral single occupancy facility for anyone not able or wishing to use the appropriate sexed toilet.

Actually a lot of kids laugh at the whole trans thing these days. It’s very much out of fashion. And before you ask, no I don’t condone making fun of people.

Ally is now a meaningless word. What does trans ally mean exactly?

Ah you’ve made the fatal error of assuming everyone on mumsnet is a mum

im infertile

You can say anything you like. But if you suggest to transwomen that you'd like to support them finding a solution to where they should pee and work out in safety but that the solution isn't going to be full access to womens spaces, they will call you a cunt. Give it a go, and report back?

Why can’t I say, “I want to be safe, but I want you to be happy and safe too. How can we work towards that together?”

you can absolutely do that, and people may join you and others may not

I'm sorry you live in a time where transition has been presented as a remedy for whatever troubles your autistic child. I'm also a parent to autistic adult children and I have watched many of their friends transition - many of whom suffered from pre-existing mental health conditions. I just wanted to acknowledge how difficult it is as a parent to navigate these issues when the whole of western society appears to have embraced this ideology as the answer to a multitude of different problems young people face and cast any dissent as bigotry.

However, it is not a neutral act to adopt a female identity as a male. It has real world material consequences for women and girls and therefore my empathy and tolerance cannot extend to 'playing along' (using wrong sex pronouns, accepting males in female changing rooms, prisons, refuges and sports) just because many trans people mean no harm and are vulnerable too.

No-one on this thread that I’ve seen so far. But from another current thread on this board:

All of them - no matter what they call themselves, what they wear or have chopped off/added, they’re only ever men in dresses*
*nearly always shit dresses
**Dark lipstick and choker almost mandatory

That, to me, is unkind and unnecessary.

I think you can.

I can feel empathy for individual people who identify as trans, and who are probably fucked up and/or confused, but not for the movement which seems to expect women to step aside in order for men to get their kicks from cosplaying as women.

Where is the “prejudice” in @ChazsBrilliantAttitude post?

Er, not where I teach

Still with the exaggeration 😒

Of course it’s possible to have empathy for transgender people. Transgender people exist in fact, as does biological sex. Transgender people are far more likely to have their rights respected if what being transgender actually is, is more properly defined. To insist that a biological man is actually a woman (or a biological woman is actually a man) just entrenches the belief the person insisting on this must either be mentally ill, or evil and manipulative and trying to invade women’s or men’s spaces. You cannot and do not protect anybody by denying reality, you simply give fodder to those who wish to deny the possibility of your existence altogether.

Transgender women are transgender women, they are not women. Most of the time, the distinction shouldn’t make a difference to the way women and transgender women are treated, but sometimes it should. It is patently ridiculous to pretend transgender women have the same medical needs as women. It is obviously unfair to women to insist that the only thing that makes a woman a woman is that they say that’s how they identify themselves.

We tried that and were shut down because we were excluding, othering and/or denighing their existence 🙄 (read what jk_rowling actually said and the TRA response as an example)
With TRAs it's all about their wants and demands and sod everyone else.
Women are not a support group we are not here to make things better for everyone else. If men want support then they need to look to themselves and other men not women it's not our job.

Wouldn’t it have been lovely if transwomen had said all that too instead of muscling in on womens spaces and acting as though womens feelings and safety were of no importance. Except they didn’t did they, because transwomen are men and bring their male entitlement with them wherever they choose to go.

Persecuting trans women openly by suggesting it dangerous for them to go to the loo

My two aren't cringing.

Well that’s a small sample. Here I am a lot of kids think it’s an attention seeking trend and they want no part of it so it’s not a universal given that young people are all pro trans.

I think they are mutually exclusive. It takes about 5 seconds of critical thinking to realise that if you can't define woman, you can't be a feminist. If you believe womanhood is a 'feeling', you deny the sex based oppression of women for generations. If you don't see the performative manifestations of womanhood as misogynistic and regressive, you are not a feminist.

That is not to say that 'trans' people should be subject to active mistreatment. But we should call out the delusions and provide help and support. Just as with any other mental illness.

You don't need to be a hand-wringing sympathiser just because twitter says you do.

It is not 'man bashing' to state facts.

Of course these crimes are not committed by all men, or even by most men but they are committed by some men (far, far more often than by women) .
As we can't tell which men will commit crimes, all men are kept out of spaces where women are vulnerable - thats basic safeguarding. Good men understand that.

The kindness is only ever expected to flow one way though, no? Transwomen can wish that terfs die on a grease fire or threaten to rape them with a baseball bat and they get very little pushback but calling a man in a dress a man in a dress is the big problem?