Always been GC, but now afraid I'm becoming transphobic

[HouseOfGuineaPigs]

I've always been gender critical and 100% in support of safe spaces for natal women only. I'm completely comfortable with being gender critical. But I'm concerned I've crossed a line into becoming a full on bigot, which is something I don't want to be. Due to my own background of mental health and trauma issues I follow pages on this issue on Facebook. I just saw one with a graphic post saying Using Preferred Pronouns Is Suicide Prevention and it made me want to scream and throw things.

I've been suicidal, I've attempted. I've battled see harm and self destructive behaviours since childhood. I should be sympathetic about the struggles people are having . But I feel manipulated seeing posts like that one. I use preferred names when I'm addressing trans persons. I am kind to them, I don't mention their issues. I treat them the same as anyone else. I will call a bloke Sue even if his real name is Bob, it feels odd, but I will do it to be respectful . But calling a he a she is a step too far. I would either use their name or use they.

Why do I feel so strongly that I'm being manipulated ? None of the trans people I know have abused me in any way. They haven't infringed on my boundaries . I have 2 trans friends, another who is non binary and 2 acquaintances. They have all been decent .

I just feel resentful that I'm being made to feel responsible for someone not taking their life because I don't affirm their identity ?

I'm horrible aren't I ? Please sort my head out !

The sound of reality biting…..😂

I completely agree. The reality being that you write incoherent, inaccurate, nonsense posts that don't even manage to be grammatically correct.

What are you talking about? The “women and girls act 1995”????

Yes it does. It promotes a misogynist ideology that pregnancy is not the sole provenance of the female sex, and that men can get pregnant. Which they can't. It is a misogynistic, sexist ideological act.

You falsely believe the concept of 'woman' is some sort of never changing set in stone 'fact' when all it is is a socially constructed word based on cultural associations.

"Falsely"? Some of it is socially constructed and moveable. But most of it isn't. There's a lot about womahood that really is set in stone, in biological reality.

There is no society that doesn't have a separate word for "woman" and "man". People can quibble about the exact differences and how each society decides to organise people around those differences, but they do all know there are differences.

Watch your quantifiers.

I see the post I was replying to has been deleted.

It was yet another poster who seems to think that saying "No" to genderist beliefs about sex must mean a person "Hates" trans people.

But "anti-" doesn't mean hate, "anti-" is just against.

So I am anti-trans like I am anti-sexist, anti-racist and anti-Brexist.

Not Anti- the people, but Anti- their beliefs and very much Anti- having those beliefs imposed into our linguistic, historic, legal and social understanding of women and of women's needs.

Saying "no, I sm against this" is not "hate".

I disagree strongly with the fundamental beliefs of genderism. I think it is a sexist belief system that marginalises female people's voices, rewrites our history and denies our own experiences and our understanding of our own lives.

But that doesn't mean I "hate" trans people or their allies. I just think they are wrong.

And I see that many are well meaning.

But they are pushing a dangerous ideology.

And I think that needs to be said plainly and robustly not defanged by gentle language to accommodate their feelings.

I think what is maybe being missed with this "language is socially constructed" argument is that - yes, it is, but language is used to represent reality, as well as in some ways contributing to constructing it.

If you change the definition of "woman" meaning one of the two sex categories, to mean including its mutually exclusive opposite, men, and say that's OK because "socially constructed", the fact is the female sex category will still exist, and will still require a name and indeed will still always be named, because that is relevant to people's reality. Especially people who actually are in that category, live the reality that that sex category is oppressed by/loses out to the other one (males). And people who are sexually attracted to only one sex, which is most people. And for numerous other reasons like discussing sexed differences in medical contexts, sporting categories and so on.

If you successfully redefine "woman" to mean the ludicrously pointless "anyone who says they're a woman", there will still be actual women and they will still fight for their rights. And even those who are not feminists will join them in needed a word for what they are, and that will happen. It;s a battle you can't win, it's authoritarian, anti-reality and orwellian.

Yes, language changes, yes it's a social construct, but understanding that is not the same as pushing to change the definition of a word to include its opposite for political reasons. Language change tends to be a process of gradually shifting meanings that are adopted and promoted by younger/disempowered/countercultural groups and resisted by the older/empowered/establishment groups in what is arguably a natural process that involves a tension, but allows language to change gradually enough that it remains cohesive and generally understood.

That is not what's happening with trying to redefine a category as including its opposite.

Not I.

Weird. Sad Times :/

But a useful way to start a contentious thread the night before another trinunal starts?

Sooo...In case anyone wants to mull over their GC views over a live tribunal case, feel free to join us here, following Kelly vs Leonardo UK. Warning: it's quite devastating seeing the effect on Ms Kelly : https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5416903-kelly-v-leonardo-employment-tribunal-29th-september-10am?reply=147462629

@WhatterySquash

I think they think if we don't have the words we won't notice the difference and magically all sexism (in which I include MVAWG and male on female sexual agression) will stop happening, and even people who have hitherto been very clear on who has female bodies and who has male and found themselves very able to act differently to those people because of that will magically forget all that overnight because someone told them those people don't count as women now.

It really is like they think sexism and male sexual and social encrouchment on female (not necessarily innate but certainly deeply socialised) is some intellectual exercise that blindly follows the words "women" and "men" around regardless of which actual people those words happen to point at.

I quite agree with that, but my point was not around "passing" but around "testosterone". If you have a beard as a transman, you're taking it. And if you're also breastfeeding, you're poisoning your baby. Sorry but I won't be a bystander to that in a breastfeeding group of all places. Otherwise I'm very happy with transmen in women's spaces.

I have a completely different perspective on the topic to you @HouseOfGuineaPigs (fab name by the way!). However, I think for me, the topic is irrelevant and our different perspectives are irrelevant.

I also have suicide attempts in my past and suicidal tendencies (thankfully not at the moment). In addition to abuse. I know this road isn't linear and that a dip came come at us completely unexpectedly. So you have my sympathy.

The part of your post that resonated was 'it made me want to scream and throw things.' I don't know what sort of help you need to address that response. And god help us, there is little available on the NHS. But I do think you need some help, to deal with it or to help you work out why that was your response. Is there any help available to you?

Some posters on this thread sound like TRAs who have realised that they can no longer use trans identifying women to browbeat women into kowtowing to TWAW, and are now attempting to say we’re all big anti women meanies for not calling trans identifying women men, ergo we are personally responsible for all of the trans struggles ever 🙄

This.

I agree, @LoftyRobin- this Act has obviously passed me by, could you link to any information about it or the link on legislation.gov.uk please?

Rubbish. It's actually very simple. Human beings can't change sex and those saying they can are telling lies.

Knowing and understanding this is not akin to racism in any way. In fact, you could argue the opposite. Racism relies on telling and believing lies about a certain race of people.

Add to this that the worst "pronoun" offenders are transwomen - mostly middle aged white men and you begin to see who is, in fact, the oppressor class here. Clue: it's NOT GC women.

The suicide narrative is junk science. Just as the trans women victim statistics are also junk science and gaslighting.

Wear your transphobia as a badge of honour. It’s almost like being labelled anti nazi in 1930s germany. It only means you support free speech, womens right to safe spaces and fair sport, and best of all that you are skeptical to unrestricted mutilation of troubled youths based on shaky and biased new junkscience.

I wish there would be some kind of tribunal later on to hold all those accountable who enabled the witchhunts of gender criticals and for those who enabled the mutilations etc.

There's no such act however the women's and girls act is the common name for the criminal law ammendment act 1885. I think @LoftyRobin good mixed up, its easy enough to do I mean she's only 110 years out 🤭

👏 🤣

That is a weird AI comment, that the Act “reflected a desire to control juvenile sexualities” by raising the age of consent to 16 😬

So you can’t show me the article then? Ok. So people being called by the correct sex pronouns are not losing any human rights then?

So @LoftyRobin and @Howseitgoin you both seem to be saying woman is an abstract concept that no one can accurately define. So how do trans identified males know they are women if no one can say what a woman is?

@Howseitgoin 'Woman', theoretically for most people has biological associations however in practice socially we usually don't know the reproductive traits of a person but determine whether they are a woman or man based on stereotypical associations hence a 'woman' factually can be a person with either biological or stereotypical associations. Now you might say as I'm sure you will 'but stereotypes are wrong' but that's irrelevant to the fact that stereotypes are overwhelmingly used to determine gender.

No.

'Woman' factually for all people has biological associations. It is the correct word for an adult human female. Not for a man, or a dog, or a tree.

This is not based on stereotypes, although many societies at various times have linked a variety of stereotypes to the sexes. Feminists reject the imposition of sex-based stereotypes. Most of us also reject race- class- age- faith- nationality- etc etc etc based stereotypes.

And since stereotypes are, as you correctly point out, used to determine gender, we reject gender too.

Sex is real. Gender is a fantasy illusion..

That is pretty grim, if that kind of activist biased language is found often enough in the wild to bias AI.

Or being deliberately introduced into training datasets.

Agree, Flirts, suggest it’s a bit of both.

What was it again that PIE didn't do?