How is the trans issue ever going to be resolved?

[PassportPanicFuuuck]

It seems as insoluble as the Israel/Palestine question when the two "sides" want directly opposing things. I've heard the arguments that trans people "just want to pee" and that "no-one would go through medical/surgical gender reassignment purely to abuse women", plus the mantras that "trans people exist", "trans rights are human rights" and "trans women are women" and it's quite clear that the people who believe these things fervently aren't going to change their minds any time soon.

But to a certain extent, life isn't fair. Not everyone does have equal opportunities. If you're in a gay relationship (and there's nothing wrong with that) you can't have a biological child with your partner; if you're infertile (as I am) you can't have a child at all; if you're trans (and there's nothing wrong with that either) you can't enter the spaces of the opposite sex; if you're British you don't have an automatic right to go and live in the US; if you're short and unsporty you don't have a right to be on the Olympic basketball team - and so on. All sorts of opportunities are denied people at various different points, some as a result of decisions you make (like not studying for a medical degree means I can never be a doctor) and some not (see above re. infertility), and beyond universal human rights you don't have a right - one might say "entitlement" - to an awful lot of things, much as you might keenly want them.

Like it or not, once we end up in these categories we have to accept it. Absolutely no-one is eligible to do everything or to go everywhere. However if you have made a choice - even if you consider it to be more a recognition of something innate rather than a conscious decision - it doesn't mean that you have made this choice on behalf of everyone else. If you have chosen to transition (again, you may not consider it to be a "choice") you can't dictate that everyone else ignore biology and logic and linguistic authenticity and you can't dictate that everyone else will want to celebrate your decision. No, we don't have to accept the "lady bulge", we don't have to accept child abuse under the guise of gender-affirming care and we don't have to accept men in female sports / changing rooms / organisations.

Not sure how coherently worded all the above is, but perhaps it will provoke some interesting debate.

This doesn’t even make sense.

However, this is yet another person leveraging people who are same sex attracted to pressure female people to accept male people as being female based on that male person’s philosophical belief about their identity that doesn’t reflect the material reality of their body’s sex category.

The forced teaming of the LGB really has created a false connection in some people’s mind. There is no logic or evidence that that political aims of same or both sex attracted people is the same as for those who demand male people be treated as if they are female. Yet they are used as leverage time and time again.

It does make arguments incoherent though. It also shows that some people don’t understand the difference between legitimate and illegitimate discrimination.

The “chatterling classes” are the ones wanging on about “trans rights”, it’s not a high priority for anyone else, it’s a luxury belief.

Try reading the thread before dropping in and mansplaining. Males in female change rooms and spaces AFFECTS ALL WOMEN.

I'm curious as to this "pearl clutching". Could you describe this process for the purposes of illustration. What does it mean or imply?

I'm also finding it difficult to follow the logic of suggesting that people who have been posting here for years should "re-locate" to countries where both women's rights and protections are null and void, as well as where being gay or lesbian is punishable by death? Why would we want to do that?Are you suggesting that many people who self identify as trans might actually be same sex attracted? Confused. Why would women who have self regard and concern for the rights of other women need to re-locate?

i suspect you don't really understand the issue as it has meaning to those who post on this board - or if you do it is just not coming across at all.

You come across as really ignorant. There is no homophobia in women refusing to believe that men can be women. There is plenty of homophobia in males insisting that lesbians should accept their male bodies as potential partners to give the male a gratification thrill, which is not something that a lesbian has any interest in (yes this happens, reference the immense resistance that lesbians come up against if they try to have female-only events). The homophobia of the countries you list extends to encouraging MORE transition - trans-away-the-gay so that same-sex-attracted people can more effectively pretend to be in a heterosexual relationship. So no, people with a realistic understanding of the nature of sex and gender without fantasies and irrational beliefs would not be better off there. We're fine here in a country where it has been confirmed that the law of the land is that where it actually matters, the meaning of "male" and "female" is based on biological reality not subjective and unprovable head-feelings, and that men and women with head-feelings of having a greater affinity with the stereotypes of the opposite sex are absolutely welcome to and protected from discrimination as they pretend to be the opposite sex in all the myriad of circumstances where it doesn't actually matter what sex someone is. The pretence just has to be paused when it actually matters - only sociopathic narcissists would find that an unreasonable condition. Sadly, we have plenty of those.

This Iran?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-29832690

"Clerics do, however accept the idea that a person may be trapped in a body of the wrong sex."

And even if it didn't, a lot of the most serious issues we discuss on here - men in rape crisis centres, domestic abuse shelters, prisons, women needing same sex intimate care - affect very vulnerable women who struggle to be heard.

Should no one care about these marginalised women? Clearly @NumbersGuy thinks they are worthless and unimportant, but that doesn't mean we all do.

It is also interesting to have a reminder that even though some people deliberately misspell words such as ‘pron’, ‘jrk’and ‘s*nk’, we all understand what has been meant.

It is like all those people who do just that same thing to bypass the filters we have been told to rely on. It also reminds me of when Twitter started cracking down on people calling others ‘cis’ and we still see people on twitter using ‘c*s’ to bypass twitter guidelines.

Some people do it to bypass filters, some people can’t bring themselves to use the words porn, jerk and spunk. Either way the outcome is that those reading know what has been meant. It doesn’t have to be explicit content for women to understand the nature of male people’s paraphilias such as the nature of AGPs as PassportPanicFuuuck was pointing out.

This entire discussion about filters, not visiting platforms etc was really irrelevant, except it keeps pointing out that some people will take any opportunity to tell women that they are the ones who act inappropriately. That women should just stop ‘coming across’ all these examples that are everywhere, even on mainstream media reporting of sexual offences.

Yet apparently we shouldn’t be adding to revenue streams of those ‘creating’ the content. We should just block it all. Which is really misguided advice considering we just have to read the news to know what some men are capable of, it didn’t have to be in any way explicit material which doesn’t seem to cross those poster’s minds. This degree of blocking and filtering will leave women isolated and having to purchase redacted and prefiltered new. Maybe there is a service who does this for us ?

That doesn’t even cover the instances where the content (whether explicit, not explicit or by way of threats or any form) is placed deliberately where women or girls see it or sent abusively directly to women or girls.

Those women who also want to educate themselves on whether something really is a potential issue or not, or to gain greater knowledge so they understand something better to be able to do something about it, or even discuss it coherently, should not be shamed for having or gaining that knowledge. We are not the issue. Men will do the crimes, produce the content whether we view the internet or not.

Shaming women for having that knowledge and discussing it is something that we see on MN a great deal. It is a daily occurrence.

And the concept of intersectionality has been hijacked to promote the idea that nobody really needs specific rights any more.

10-15 years ago MRAs would have been posting on this board suggesting that women have equality so the idea of 'women's rights' is anti-men, but it's difficult to capture the zeitgeist if a movement is led by grey men in suits. So much more effective to hitch your wagon to LGB rights.

Those who keep also trying to push the ‘younger generation will be better and TERFs will all die out’ narrative really also seem to be woefully misinformed. Or maybe romanticising what is happening to our children at the moment.

What has been happening is a combination of things.

Firstly there is the deliberate lowering of children’s personal boundaries, particularly for girls, by some adults telling them that boys are really girls if they say so and that any male person who wants to come into a female single sex provision should be allowed. This stupidly also includes the misinformation that female people are ‘just as strong as male people’ which has the added impact of reducing wariness because apparently female people can overpower male attackers so we don’t have to take precautions anymore. Because apparently the science is flawed.

Then there is the instruction from adults who should know better that girls should always ‘be kind’ and then also put those male people’s demands, the marginalised and vulnerable ones, before their needs.

Worse though, is the education that complaints will be treated as hateful bigotry. So no girls or women who are righteous and kind complain, only hateful ones. This is then supported by messaging from the way any girl or woman who complains is treated.

Of course, now we are seeing in court cases that very point being used against women in court. ‘No one else complained officially.’ All the while, the one person who complains experiences significant negative ramifications, including job loss.

It isn’t even complaints that receive negative ramifications. The polls show that young adults won’t even tell their families, colleagues or friends if they disagree because they fear the consequences. I have links to one poll at least where this was made very clear. I think I have also one done at one of the universities too.

But apparently we are being told that the younger generation are so very tolerant and very open minded. This is a direct contradiction to the reality of those polls. In fact, it was the older generations who were the tolerant ones and who explored opinions without negative ramifications.

It isn’t just polls though. Last year we saw just how poorly the young women at Cambridge were treated when they indicated that they didn’t want to share single sex provisions with male people. And that they didn’t believe male people could ever be female people. We see the university students who cannot even allow guest speakers to debate on campus.

How the fuck is that tolerant?

So the combination of directly lowering the personal boundaries of a generation who is also part of the group being subject to extreme pornography, and experiencing sexual abuse and assault that they will likely never bother reporting, and then the messaging that female people who don’t act as if they believe male people can be female people are hateful bigots and will deserve job loss and ostracisation is apparently to be celebrated as progressive and righteous. And those pointing out the issues with that are the problem.

Those posters who effectively say, ‘you hateful TERFs, you will all die out and the world will be a better place’ actually think that and feel righteous about it. It is really something to see posters feeling good about expressing this.

Totalitarian authoritarism is the new progressiveness apparently. As is female people having no personal boundaries or awareness that they shouldn’t just be ignoring their own discomfort. And woe behold any female person who doesn’t act as if they believe male people really are female people when that male person says so.

There really does seem to be a disconnect between what is happening and what some people believe is happening. Perhaps those who have not understood what is happening need to view and read content outside their curated bubble?

Ah, the social movement thats embraced by men and children, that mothers cannot understand.

The Gender Identity Service operated by the Tavistock Mental Health Trust has been closed down but the Trust is still operating all its other services. It's the Trust that would sued as GIDS was not a legal entity.
tavistockandportman.nhs.uk/

Ah, no evidence.

OK, continue with your factless conjecture.

Your belief that humans need to be classified according to societal expectations of femininity and masculinity ('gender fluidity') is fundamentally sexist and homophobic.

`

@Helleofabore on the issue of “women are as strong as men” I have noticed a marked increase of sections of movies and TV shows where women are depicted fighting men and coming off best when IRL unless the man is unusually small and weak that would be pretty unlikely.

Yes. This is very much the case in what I watch too. It reinforces this falsehood.

As we know, even the weakest 25% of men are stronger than 90% of women from the sports studies. And that even at 6 years old boys are stronger than girls in general.

It is bonkers thinking and it then seems to make people magically forget all the reasons male people were excluded from single sex provisions in the first place. It has not been helped when you have philosophy academics declaring women should just train harder and not settle for being weaker than men. We actually have had some posters say this on threads recently, they are repeating academics with fuck all expertise in sport and physiology.

There is a book out or about to come out where the authors are talking about this and they had no fucking idea that Caster Semenya was male and proven to have male physiology in a sports court. Yet these academic authors used Semenya as an example of female prowess!

So you don't support Trans Ideology then? Is that what you're saying? It's not surprise that you and your ilk are circumspect about your beliefs. Almost as if there is a guilty conscience.

My first thought is always that we need to stop calling it anything trans. Constantly framing this as trans issues etc keeps the ball, bias, perception firmly focused on transgender

The issue is women's rights

We all need to make that change. We are always and only ever talking about womens rights

I'm not writing a journal paper so I don't have to use academic words. I'm autistic, so it's hard enough for me to find words to accurately describe the images and concepts in my head without someone coming along to tell me that I'm too graphic or using too much slang.

Knicker theft for masturbatory purposes is a disgusting act of male sexual perversion, it's criminal theft, and the man who does it is laughably pathetic[1] and at the same time needs his hard drive looked at by the police, but one thing it isn't is sexual assault. Overusing that term risks diluting it. I was groped at eight and I remember getting the awkward talk in my teens from my mum about drying my knickers indoors and why. Whilst they exist on a continuum of shitty male behaviour, they aren't comparable adverse outcomes.

[1] The laughable patheticness is part of why I chose that particular example.

Long term I hope what changes is that society moves so far beyond gender stereotypes that men and women can wear and style themselves in whatever way they like without it being seen as women’s/men’s clothes, hairstyles, make up etc.

Then where it still matters sex can be used scientifically to keep women safe or sport fair etc.

A lot of nonsense will be on the far back burner once Putin invades ?!...........Or maybe even Trump !!

Some people do it to bypass filters, some people can’t bring themselves to use the words porn, jerk and spunk. Either way the outcome is that those reading know what has been meant. It doesn’t have to be explicit content for women to understand the nature of male people’s paraphilias such as the nature of AGPs as PassportPanicFuuuck was pointing out.

But if you oversanitise it, the message is lost. There's been a recent news story about a man in court for using a children's playground rocking horse to perform sex acts. It was mentioned on the mixed sex toilets thread. The national version of the story just said he'd performed sex acts using it. Mumnetters were expressing puzzlement as to how that's possible, because the report was sanitised so much. Interestingly, that thread also attracted "well you shouldn't be looking notice men's perversion" scolds as well. Who gains from silencing women's discussions of male sexual depravity?

A local news outlet gave enough detail to explain how that's possible. As you correctly observe, it doesn't matter whether the local news rag uses the term "anus" or "back passage" or "shit chute", you all can join the dots and make an informed decision to run a Dettol wipe over the hand grips of children's playground equipment in future. If that detail is omitted, you are left exclaiming "What? How?" and, more pertinently for a parenting site, not realising that you might wish to take Dettol wipes to the park.

It's not just about in-crowd references to cases FWR all know about. I didn't know about that paedo who ran a butcher's in Scotland, Andrew something, until this thread, snd was thinking of Gary Dean Marie. It's not just about shocking the naive into a 3D technicolour (that's literally what happens in my brain) realisation of what these men do, although that is part of it. It's also about communicating the mechanisms these men operate by so that women can make informed safeguarding decisions about themselves and their children. Men do perform sex acts on themselves in woodland, kids used to find the spank mags left lying around afterwards when playing. Now the men all have phones to look at porn with, but I bet they still masturbate in woodlands. The tree falling in a forest imagery wasn't just about the wittiness of stealing the Buddhist precursor to Schroedinger's Cat. It's important that you know where your kids are playing because of who might be nearby.

Oh my god, that's absolutely disgusting
Who would even think to do that

No guilt here. Almost as if you don't want anyone having a different opinion to you.

And you still haven't provided any evidence. No evidence therefore not true.

This seems pretty unlikely unless people stop being interested in sex.