Why is anti-trans so important?

[Elizabethbd]

So, I will preface this with saying that I’m not in the UK, and my country does not yet have the kind of anti-trans debate as there is in the English speaking world.

So, I have a hard time understanding why this is such an important question to many women.

Surely there are women’s issues that affect a larger part of society.

I’m thinking rape and violence towards women, homelesness, sex trafficking and honour killings. Why are these issues not more important and worthy of attention, as they affect so many more women than those who come into contact with trans women (or men)?

Haven’t had a quality flounce in a while. I’m giving this one 5/10. The petulance and ‘one rule for me, another for the’ is pretty good but the phrasing lacks originality

Ok, will stop calling people ignorant 🙏

It's not about education, it's about empathy.

It's great that you were helped by a trans woman.

But some other women were raped by trans women.

And some other women were raped by a man and then told they couldn't have any counselling unless they accepted trans women being part of that counselling.

Seriously look at your own posts

"This is such an ignorant and honestly stupid outlook. So, because of “John,” pretending to be trans, we diminish the rights of all genuine transwomen? Transwomen who have spent years becoming who they want to be? Because people like you think the whole thing occurs over the course of two days and is just a case of buying a dress, a wig, and shaving a moustache? Why is it ok to make such generalised assumptions about one group of people, and not another?"

In just one post

You insulted me, in response to a post where I wasn't insulting any posters

then

You assumed John was pretending to be trans,

You assumed I thought someone being trans just happened overnight.

You assumed that genuine trans people take years transitioning.

You assumed transwomen need to buy wigs and dresses in order to be a transwoman

You assumed an awful lot in one post.

Sorry that my rape experience has disappointed you.

we all know that you know that's not what she said

It's certainly disappointing that a rape survivor couldn't understand why some survivors would be triggered by even just a male voice. Why, if they called a 'woman-only' survivors helpline they may be distressed that the voice on the other end was undeniably male, because said hotline had previously declared that 'transwomen are women'. Actually it's disappointing that so many people struggle to understand how damaging something like that can be to victims, regardless of their personal history.

@deadpantrashcan

Genuine question: do you think the main thing that makes men and women different is that we simply think differently?

It's not even primarily about overt violence, it is more about the instinctive need for privacy and dignity that accompanies sex. Males, no matter how they present, or whether they are heterosexual or homosexual will always be 'other' .

In spite of all the paltitudes about not 'othering' people.....the fact is there are differences between people; differences between groupings of people; and differnces between cultures. 'Difference' and therefore a degree of 'otherness' will always be with us.

Single sex spaces, categories and services exist because of the recognition of this, at the level of biological sex.

I think deadpantrashcan has a narrow view of 'trans', that is outdated.

The question of 'pretending to be trans' is completely irrelevant. There is no way to know what is going on in somebody's head or to decide whether somebody is 'genuine'. In the last census, a third of trans people who declared a gender described themselves as neither male nor female, so by definition aren't trying to pass as the opposite sex.

You can't accommodate trans people with services that ask people to choose one of two genders, or by gate keeping who can use a gendered sevice.

All you have is the choice of single sex and mixed sex services.

Apart from imagining that transition needs to involve anything more than saying 'I've transitioned' and (possibly) going online and paying £5 for a certificate, there has a been an assumption by a few posters that transwomen are gay men. Some of them may be, but many are not.

@Eolhc1990, apart from this thread, and Paddy's Podcast, you might check out the long-running gender critical in Ireland thread on Craicnet to get some idea of how assiduous the Irish media have been in suppressing reporting and discussion.

BTW I haven't been raped, and I still think my experiences as a woman are meaningful enough to want to talk about them clearly as based in sex, and to want to share experiences and support other women, without having to tiptoe around words and pretend these things could also be experiences of men just because those men claim to believe they are also women.

So with all empathy and horror for those this has happened to, there are lesser reasons than rape that are still entirely reasonable reasons to say no to the appropriation and trivialisation of womanhood by men.

Women matter. We matter just as much as men and we don't need to have suffered the worst from men to earn the right to differentiate ourselves from men.

I was AGREEING that it is ridiculous to pretend to be trans. Fuck this.

I guess I do. I’ll take my outdated self out. Enjoy.

I think it’s clear we’re all very disappointed.

Outside his own head, what's the difference between a man pretending to be a woman, and a man pretending to be a man pretending to be a woman? Why is the measure of whether a woman is reasonable to object to his presence as a man in her reality based on his personal self image in his?

That’s how I read it 🤷‍♀️

And it is possible that I was using an ironic aside to agree with you. Rather than fucking this, maybe try to understand the use of humour in discussion.

Also the specific crimes of indecent exposure and voyeurism which are much more common in men, and seem to be precursors to more serious offences.

These crimes are difficult to evidence, and disappear completely when a man is legally allowed to be in a place where either he or women can be undressed.

You can address this with single sex facilities, but not with facilities that allow anyone to use any space depending on their level of comfort.

Right sorry folks, I have a job to get to. So I’m genuinely out. It’s going nowhere. Wishing you all the best with your debates, it’s been great 🤘

@deadpantrashcan this was your first post on the thread

in your second post you told a poster that they had a stupid and ignorant outlook and referred to them as ‘people like you’

I get that you have had a bit of a bruising time on the thread, but I would suggest that you could reconsider the way you engage with people if you don’t enjoy being engaged with in a similar way

Thanks for dropping by. I hope you've learned this is not the simple #bekind situation that you may have assumed, and that whether ultimately it's enough for you or not, women have genuine reasons not to consider a man's self image as a woman to be something that justifies treating him as interchangeable with women.

Glad to see that you have learned a bit from the thread.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jun/15/trans-australian-uk-britain-tolerance

I think this article is a good example of a more up to date concept of trans.

The writer is a new father in a heterosexual relationship. He sometimes likes to wear dresses when he goes to clubs and describes his gender as 'liminal'.

He isn't 'pretending', but his understanding of 'trans' is a long way from what was imagined by the drafters of the 2004 GRA.

It makes no difference with regard to men not being admitted into women's spaces. It does make a difference if it skews the crime figures of ' trans women'

No, 'bathroom' in Hiberno-English means the room with a bath in it.
It's 'seomra folctha' in Irish [Gaelic].

We use 'Toilet', or 'leithreas' in Irish.
They are very clearly distinguished in both our languages.

So the use of 'bathroom' instead of 'toilet' is as out of place in Ireland as it is in England.

I wasn't asking about how many had had their penis and testicles removed. @FeistyCat stated that most trans women do nothing towards using any types of treatments or procedures and I'd like to see the stats on that because I'm interested. This is a very stat and evidence based forum so I think my request is relevant. It would be incredibly interesting if true.