feminism or transphobia?

[giraffezoo]

Long time lurker of this forum, first time poster.

I have read through many of the threads on here and I have to say there are lots of views that I find quite shocking.

There almost seems to be two sides of the ‘gender critical’ movement on here that I can see.

The first seems quite reasonable. They wish to have protections in place for women and their rights. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree (e.g. trans folk in toilets, transgender prisoners etc) they are stating a view based on safety and women’s rights.

The second bunch are the ones who I find myself disagreeing with, and who post things that I personally consider as transphobic. Some examples of this would be: refusing to use someone’s pronouns or citing being transgender as a mental illness which needs to be cured.

I feel that the first group are genuinely feminists who are concerned with women’s rights, and feel as though they need to speak out on their own concerns. The second group are masquerading under the pretence of feminism to say hateful or controversial things.

I am interested to hear other views on this point (and I’m sure there will be a lot here who don’t agree with me!)

The trouble with the idea of being kind by using someone's preferred pronouns is that the TW don't think people are being kind, they get to believe that no one sees they're trans. A post on another site ( sorry can't find the thread to attach it) a TW's coworker used she/her all the time, one day they used he by mistake, the TW was very distressed because they'd believed their coworker really saw them as a woman, they were now wondering how many people were doing pronouns out of politeness.

Real women fought for the right to wear what they want (eg trousers) and be their own person as opposed to just the property of their husband.

And yet now we have ‘progressive’ women ironically trying to put us back into the box of heel, tight dress, makeup and lingerie make us a woman.

Most women I see in my day to day are wearing no makeup and normal clothes. Trans ideology fetishises womanhood in my opinion. Our local trans male walks around our area in a leopard print dress up to his arse, stilettos and fishnets when the other mums are doing the school run in leggings and a parka. You can’t tell me it’s not a sexual fetish.

It's also easy to do that if you are genuinely intelligent.

It's hilarious you think her posts must therefore be "AI" 😂

I use ai a lot in my work. It’s the sentence formatting, punctuation choices, variation. It’s just a feeling because i see it a lot.
either way, whatever she used to get there - her brain or ai - she was incredibly wrong about what i meant

Claiming you need to be on medication/have surgery to be trans is transphobia according to some. Just so you know.

I didnt mention meds/surgery anyway. My point is that men should be able to wear dresses if they want. But they are still men. They shouldn't have to claim to be TW in order to be "allowed" by society to wear them. My son wears some things from the women's section. He's still a man. They aren't women's clothes when he wears them, they are his.

Some of us find men putting on womanface just as objectionable as white people blacking up.

My problem with using preferred pronouns is that the ultimate outcome is misinformation in the reporting of ...

Men's crimes
Men's predatory behaviour in women's spaces
Men's demands on women

Reporting this as 'she' completely distorts what's actually happening

Right the lemon problem.
i think it’s condescending to say if you think you can be a woman then ill be a lemon/shark/tree/insert stupid noun here.
im not comparing women to lemons. Youre comparing someone’s real pain about their body and place in their world to waking up and deciding to be a lemon.

As a country, we have a very liberal dress code. Men have been crossdressing in public for years.

What people wear becomes a problem when it obviously and inappropriately sexual, and when men expect people to treat them as women because of what they wear.

Clothes can't be 'just clothes' and anyone can wear anything at any time, and so important that they change who we are. TRA seems to want clothes to be both simultaneously.

Seriously? You believe men who dress as a sexist chariacture of a woman deserve to have that rewarded with the social nicety of using their preferred female language and pretending we do see them as women, while women who object to that view of womanhood being made a meaningful way to define "a woman" deserve to be branded as bigots and haters?

I mean, can you even see how sexist you are being here? You are basically saying that women objecting to men being sexist are a bigger issue than men being sexist, and if we all just let them men get on with being sexist there's no problem.

We are not objecting to it, but many transphobic people will that's my point. There are places worldwide, even probably in the UK, where a man could risk getting beaten up for going out dressed as a woman. I would call that attack transphobic

No, because as my quote explained I'm not interested in the hostile pile on. And as you see, I haven't asked YOU to accept my beliefs. Just to accept other feminists see things differently,

Yes. Skewed data.

We know that men commit 99% of sexual crimes.

We also know that some police forces and courts have recorded sex crimes committed by men who call themselves women as female crimes.

The problems with this are quite clear.

The issues surrounding 'transgenderism' go beyond the matter of being bothered about what a particular individual does.....and take on far wider societal repercusssions, with which many people are right to be concerned.

This is the stuff of ethics and politics. Of course, not everyone is politically inclined; indeed most people are absorbed in their own individual life and concerns and those of their family and friends - with little bandwidth for larger political or ethical considerations. But having an interest in the wider ethical or political implications of something is not 'hate'.

Please attack the argument instead of the poster or other evasive measures! I've come across the "lot of words" as an excuse to avoid difficult questions in my posts before, but not the Chat GPT one! I never use it for writing, because I don't need to (and I think it's ethically dubious in most contexts, including this one - you're presenting something as your own creation which isn't... but recognise this is a bit of a privileged perspective, as I'm lucky that writing's a strength for me). Amyway, clues it's not GPT: italics, a lack of robotic fluidity (I bloody hope!), far greater strength of feeling, clumsy repetition, and an absence of the most painful tells. Even I avoid the agonised alliterative lists of three!

More to the point - I really hope you've responded more meaningfully to my post following this one.

To be continued, between swapping seats and ordering food...!

What is happening here is a discussion and an analysis of arguments and points. There is only so far you can travel with saying " but some people, disagree with you". Let's get down to the nitty gritty of that disagreement. That is the purpose of a discussion forum.

What do you disagree with?

You just seem to come here and pronounce that everyone is hateful, but don’t engage with what is actually being discussed.

It’s boring.

I engaged seriously with lemongate. I appreciate your thoughts on this pertinent matter 😜😂

Oh my god, not this again. Check 2 pages back, I mentioned many times that preferred pronouns are optional in social conversation. No one should be forced to use preferred pronouns (and in legal/institutional settings only sex should be used, transwomen are men in law). I said it very clearly MANY times so don't jump down sprouting lies like "you believe people should be forced to use preferred pronouns" or "you believe transwomen should be allowed in women's spaces)"

I also said transwomen are men MANY times.

I don't know how I can be any clearer. I am actually stunned by the lies being made about me.

Don't you understand that the very concept of 'transphobia' itself is being rejected and critiqued?

Right. And my point is that if society accepted that anyone can wear whatever clothes they want (provided they are appropriate for the time and place) then that "transphobia" wouldn't exist because they'd just be men in clothes.

But think about this. Really think about why this makes you so angry.

Your reaction to the lemon comparison is that it is impossible, ridiculous, to believe a human can be a lemon. So it's stupid and offsensive to use that as a comparison.

You don't have that reaction to men believing they can be women though. Why not? Why is a male person believing they are "really" a female person more reasonable? At the end of the day is equally as meaningless and impossible. The "woman" he believes himself to be is just as imaginary as the lemon would be.

The difference is that you, for some reason, believe the category of "women" to be somehow more fluid and subjective than the category of lemon. Somewhere deep in your subconscious, you don't think women matter enough to be defined as something solid and meaningful and distinct. Assuming you are a woman (that's not a dig BTW, just recognition that I don't know either way) that is very sad.

Us rejecting it on here doesn't mean it ceases to exist in the world. I'm just acknowledging it exists.

No it’s because I don’t know anyone who seriously has pain and suffering about wanting to be Lemon. I know plenty who do about wanting to change their gender. Idk I just feel it’s mocking. If it’s not intended that way then fine but I feel it comes across like that

A phobia is an irrational fear. Nothing irrational about fearing men's behaviour.

Also, yes they should not turn up at work dressed as Little Bo Peep with frilly knickers showing. Call me transphobic if you want but when that happened to me it hardened my stance and that was about 15 years ago.