Calm debate vs the name calling type

[MoonOnStick]

I'm actually having a non-name calling and no-slanging-match debate with people on Instagram 😂.

Don't get me wrong, one of them is building up to it I think, but so far it's actually been a civilised if slightly charged conversation between TRA women and, well, me. Plenty of patronising comments towards me.

I've given up hiding my GC status on social media, but the moment the name calling begins I'm out. And I'm grateful for this community to help me formulate my debate in less wishy washy tones and try to move conversations away from sharing toilets!

That said, I got ratioed to an astonishing extent on Reddit the other day on a work-related forum. Which is always disturbing given it's a public sector employer we are all apparently in....

Are there other places to have civilised conversations?

No recommendations (LinkedIn perhaps?) but well done!

I don't think rational and reasonable debate is possible or productive tbh but good for you for being brave on IG and hopefully swaying some minds! Personally I like to read what the women on here have to say and I occasionally pop along to trans Reddit to see what they're talking about. I don't see the point in engaging though. The stats and data speak for themselves and the majority of the population know this and the government, sporting bodies and institutions are being dragged kicking and screaming to that realisation. It's just a matter of time before "trans" is no longer the in vogue teenage trend/mid life crisis.

Well done, I think just seeing normal people making calm gender realist points is useful for non-partisan ‘be kind’ bystanders to see. Substack seems like a place with more civilised debate than most

Well done for raising your head above the parapet. When reason, facts and the law are not on your side then abuse becomes the only resort to try to impose your arguments on others so threats are inevitable.
So stay safe in the workplace.

Well done. Keep in mind that the person you're engaging with is not necessarily your "target" but instead it's the onlooker who has doubts/uncertainties who might be motivated to do some thinking for themself.

I think LinkedIn is captured - or at least publicly people will be TRA and not GC. I don't really dare to link it to anything they identifies my name and employer given the history of some TRA in contacting them. Whilst I'm doing nothing wrong, I choose to avoid difficult conversations at work 😁

Excellent point. And one I'll bear in mind.

It's been useful to watch the DARVO in action on these sorts of conversations. Coming from here (and the wider debate of much wiser women on the front line of the SC / ET rigsmaroles) I'm also armed with actual knowledge about things like DSDs, criminal statistics, policies, and general options.

Interested to know what the person you’re debating with has. I’d gander a guess at:

feelings
be kind
what about the men
intersex exists

@EweSurname bingo! Also,

Cis men can just walk into the loo now and say they are transmen
Transwomen are vulnerable
And poor Castor Semenya.

Can't all those be valid points too - as well as being "gender realist"? Trying to see both sides & being kind are, I think, strengths not weaknesses ...

The SC ruling has caused more confusion than clarity.
My lovely lovely friend who is a transwoman is heartbroken.
The Supreme Court are transphobes and we're not going to stop using the women's toilets.

Are you familiar with the Post SC Ruling Bingo Card, OP? I think you'll probably have a full card soon!

Well done for standing up for your opinions and beliefs [I think I need a SC ruling to decide whether they are 'opinions' or 'beliefs'

I use a little piece of reversing* when the emotive 'have you no sympathy for these poor poor lovely lovely transwomen who can no longer pee/play footie/call themselves women/use women's changing rooms' etc., card is played -
I suggest we need more light and less heat in the discussion, so let's take the heat out of the discussion and stick to basics and facts.. like human sex being binary and immutable for instance...

The reversal of the 'more light and less heat' mantra is very satisfying😏

• [reversing is the R in DARVO, which means 'deny, attack, reverse victim and offender'- I always put in the explanation of DARVO because when I was a rookie on here, it kept cropping up and I didn't know what it meant!]

No.

Be kind is used to shut down conversation and funnily enough is only ever said to women. Both men and women are entitled to their single sex spaces. Allowing men into the ladies spaces and vice versa is not kind to the rest of the people using that single sex space.

Men entering women's single sex spaces is a problem for men to manage not for women to police. Men shouldn't be entering them at all. Including trans identifying men, who are after all men and have the men's, mixed sex or 3rd spaces to use.

Why are transwomen in the men's single sex space more vulnerable than women are when a man enters a woman's single sex space?

Castor Semenya is frequently flagged as a person with a DSD, except the explanation is usually that Castor is a woman. Except Castor has a male DSD and is not a biological woman.

If trans men are men and so called cis men are men why is the problem only with the latter? What’s the difference - it’s obvious to most it’s due to their sex. So if sex matters in the case of trans men then why should it be totally ignored when it comes to trans women?

Very good point. Even politicians and other people in positions of influence may be reading and starting to question their position or their party's. Something persuaded Wes Streeting to go against many loud voices in his party (thank god). It may have been genuine conviction that he was wrong before, it may have been looking at opinion polls, or some combination, but the drip drip effect of people here and on social media doggedly making the same obvious, common sense points again and again has clearly had an effect.

I think the key word here is 'valid', EleanorMc67.

It is indeed a great strength to be kind, but when huge social changes are being made based on points that are NOT valid - like that men can become women and vice versa - kindness has to take a back seat to fact.

The Supreme Court, for instance, had to look at the facts and make a ruling about what the meaning of the word 'woman' is. They did so in detail, over 88 pages, and used facts and analysis of language use and common sense to come to the conclusion that a man is not a woman in the meaning of equality law.

Millions of people around the UK and the world probably went 'Duh! we knew that!' but trans campaigners went for the emotional reaction that it's not fair, we've been using women's toilets/playing women's sports/using women's changing rooms and now some bunch of transphobes in the 'so-called Supreme Court' are telling us we can't do that any more, now we are literally even more marginalised... and so on.

It isn't the job of legislators and lawyers and judges to be kind to transpeople, their job is to be just.

And as women, our job isn't to be kind to transpeople, it's to be honest and factual.

I think some of them are valid, but some people only see them one way.

eg

feelings - no one cares about women’s feelings and men’s are prioritised. See recent reporting of men not allowed to play in women’s sports

kindness - no one considers whether allowing men to be in women’s spaces in kind to women. Consideration is only given to whether it benefits men

what about the men - see above

intersex exists - yes (although it’s DSDs, not intersex). This is true in an of itself but does not mean that sex isn’t a spectrum, and has nothing to do with trans people.

I really am up for taking into account other people’s views but the things I mentioned are easily debunked and I don’t find them compelling arguments.

The other problem with "being kind" is that it's used against you later. I've seen it said many times that "nobody ever misgenders me! Therefore you really can't tell if someone is trans. Therefore it's unenforceable to have single sex spaces without genital inspections. Therefore let's just keep saying that TWAW".

I’m trying to keep my cool but some of the things that I’ve recently been confronted with have made my blood boil. But being angry isn’t going to change peoples minds.

My daughter (21) was visibly shocked this morning when I told her that I don’t believe it’s possible for people to change sex. The thing is that she is very afraid of men and toxic masculinity but the TRA have convinced her that men taking hormones turns them into shrinking wall flowers who just want to be left alone. It’s so indoctrinated.

I'm not sure what you mean, but I know for sure that us trans men only matter in such debates when we can be used as a gotcha by TRAs. The rest of the time, they don't care one bit about us.

New bingo call:

How does trans people having rights removed make you safer?
Rights aren't pie.

I always wonder why it never occurs to these empathetic allies that the ruling will properly protect trans-identified female people who start transitioning into transmen, but get pregnant before they lose their opportunity to do so. (Or, like Friend of MN Freddie, deliberately get pregnant and give birth to a child after getting a GRC so they can say men also give birth.) Women’s rights involve not being discriminated against due to our female bodies and reproductive capability, so transmen can be protected both as female people and as trans people.

Why do all the “allies” overlook transmen until they think they can use them as a gotcha about butch women in the ladies’ loo? It’s almost as though this was actually a men’s rights movement or something…

Don’t get discouraged if you have aggressive people enter the comments, there are a lot of fake chat bot posts designed to stir up arguments at the moment

There’s a growing pro-women contingent on LinkedIn. I started with Tanya de Grunwald and worked from there. I now have some very interesting women in my connections.

Completely agree with this. Years ago when I was searching for sanity in a completely insane world I discovered Mumsnet and it was such a relief to find people who still believed in reality. For people who haven't discovered MN and who aren't on X it's so useful to see a sane perspective, that humans can't change sex, and that women's rights do matter.

Well done for spreading sanity OP.

Aaasand now they are name calling. Apparently I'm not bright, I literally can't define what a woman is, trans women are women, and some diatribe about chromosomes not being important.

Knew it couldn't last.