Be Kind 2.0 and the "Persuasive TRA"

[BridgetPhillipsonIsACowardlyJobsworth]

This is a spinoff from another thread so as not to derail the original.

I thought it would be helpful to have a separate thread to discuss, and document, a phenomenon I have been seeing more regularly recently: the Persuasive TRA.

It occurred to me, after a few posters noted that the recent U-turns by a couple of politicians, and the wheedling TRA responses to the EHRC guidance, were akin to an abuser changing tactics and also asking us to "help" them in the new single-sex regime, that the whole thing is starting to pan out exactly as an abusive relationship often does. When is the most dangerous time for a woman in an abusive relationship? Normally, when she is leaving.

Well, women are leaving the abusive relationship with non-reality that men forced upon us some 15 years ago, and I would argue that now might be our most dangerous/difficult moment.

This is what I posted on the other thread:

I'm starting to see a bit more of what I am calling (in my own head) "Persuasive TRA." Now that they have lost everything that they bullied women for, some activists seem to be changing tack. Women must now fix the situation that TRAs have found themselves in. It seems to pivot on a sort of Be Kind 2.0.

I think women who have been in the game long enough will see through it, but we should be watchful. Stonewall is pivoting, activists are pivoting, and they will be preying on women's socialized kindness: watch for the destination and be on your guard.

I have read several posters on different threads appealing to everyone (women) to help calm trans-identified people's (men's) fears about what this new reality will look like, what it will mean for them (the men) now that they can't just do whatever they want anymore. What about the men's toilets? Are they safe? Where will they go? (Who will fix this problem?)

Well, apparently it is a problem that women can fix, if they just take a moment to think about it. Trans-identified men will be unsafe in the men's, so women need to join the fight to give these men something of their own.

Notice the pivot? The pleading? If you just... If you weren't so.... It can be different if you just... Sound familiar? To any woman who is in, or has escaped from, an abusive relationship, this will be all too familiar.

This is Be Kind 2.0. It's very similar to the original, except that instead of being forced to enjoy our abuse, we are being asked to fix it. And the "Persuasive TRAs" seem to be mobilizing, from what I have seen.

It won't start in the middle (with the women); it will start at the top (infiltrating government, think tanks, charities, etc.) and the bottom (schools). But they will use women to get this moving. Why not? It worked so well last time. And I believe that organizations like Stonewall will be leading the charge: the campaign can be something like Safe Spaces for Trans+ : All of Us Together.

If anyone else has seen this in action, it might be useful to keep a record of it here.

I imagine this thread will eventually be taken over by activists, but, until then, I would be interested in your thoughts.

I'm beginning to think that TPA is not in the UK which is why they don't have any experience of single sex communal changing rooms & toilets.

Do they also disagree with brainwashing and transitioning children then?
"Merry Christmas. Your child is not a girl/boy" sort of thing?

Over and over again we have been told "trans people exist" as though that in itself means we have to rearrange society for their convenience.

But now, apparently "an is is not an ought". Bit of an own goal, really.

I've heard interviews in podcasts where the discussion has defined this movement as 'a pornography category/fetish agitating to be seen as a civil rights movement', and I think that's an apt description. Also, I don't see why taxpayers should spend time renovating existing spaces or building 4th spaces to accommodate this.

People should realise that there are consequences to every choice they make and I think that we, as a society, have become too accustomed to giving special exceptions/accommodations to the groups that shout the loudest instead of to groups who genuinely do need special accommodations to participate fully in civic life, such as those with physical and mental disabilities.

No it hasn't. And you're not doing your son any favours by escalating the drama.

Agreed. And on this thread, and other similar ones, I'm left unclear what sex the 'son' actually is. But perhaps that's the idea...

Assuming the 'son' even exists.

I believe a very unhappy daughter may well do.

Imagine what the same amount of government and employers' effort and will over the past 15 years could have done for disabled people's access to public life!

The Disability Discrimination Act has been in effect since 1995 and I still see shops and restaurants etc that are designed in such a way that people in wheelchairs can't enter unaided or use the facilities if they do manage to enter the building. The railway and bus networks are incredibly difficult for people with disabilities to use. Also, I've come across employers giving curt negative responses to requests for reasonable accommodations that would have allowed someone to remain in work rather than have to give up their job.

But then again the Sex Discrimination Act was given effect in 1975 and we're still dealing with employers and service providers being sexist.

It's just such a conundrum, isn't it? No wonder that book Invisible Women had to be written.

I think it doesn't matter.

What happened to the child is awful either way.

Schools, parents and society need to be brave and tackle the increase in pornified misogyny that is flooding popular culture.

Supporting the sexist fantasy that some people are in an intangible way "really" the opposite sex and if the rest of the world would only play along with that everything would be ok is doing some very vulnerable people a terrible terrible wrong, and that is true whatever sex they are.

It's not just our skins and our arguments they want to wear, it's our history, too. A TW I know plasters stuff all over social media for anniversaries relating to women's suffrage, talking about what 'we' have been through to get where we are today. If a white person tried to appropriate black history like that, there would be hell to pay! And they can't even see the irony of celebrating women's historical fight for rights when they're among those trying to take those rights away!

I haven't seen that I'm afraid, but I don't listen to a lot of podcasts.

It is not for women and girls to endure what they may feel is harassment and indignity and an invasion of their privacy to appease and validate a male who believes they are the oppose sex on the basis that they have suffered sexual abuse, trauma and harassment themselves. They should go to therapy instead of expecting others to go through what they have to enable trans identity.

The same also applies to women who believe they are men though the impact of this is perhaps not quite as significant.

Basically the trauma of your child is not for us to fix.

No, it's yours to enable. That's my point.

We have no safe spaces. Protesting trans people using locked cubicles alongside us, in fully public spaces, is not virtuous, or saving anyone.

All the terf movement has accomplished is a massive increase in anti-trans violence. But then, it was meant to.

(Oh wait, I forgot! It also stopped a few trans women chatting to their mates while making sandwiches in the WI. Upsetting thousands of women in the process. What an amazing victory that was.)

Evidence for this upturn in anti trans violence please?

That's not all the "terf movement" has accomplished. Don't forget the SC judgment.

Oh please, don't be ridiculous.

Women have the right to single sex spaces. They have the right to defend them against men who want to take them away.

If you let your child believe that society would go along with the pretence that they are a woman, that women's spaces belonged to him - you were absolutely wrong to do so. I'm sure that's hard to come to terms with, but that's not our problem.

You wrote a cheque that you expected the rest of us to cash. But you didn't even ask before you did that. That's coming back to bite you now.

@TheKeatingFive the posters son is female

Are they? I'm confused about the reference then. Are they saying trans identified females are the subject of violence? From who?

Well done for paying attention - he's a trans guy.

Women have single-sex faclities containing cubicles. Completely public ones, which have always been deeply unsafe because of their remoteness.

And now, they'll have Toilet Police and far more gender-neutral cubicles.

Your belief that I somehow made my child trans is just ignorance. And a frankly rubbish defence to my explanation of how anti-trans activism has affected him.

Without that activism, his life would have been so much better.

Why do you think there's been so much opposition to the terf movement? The crowds at trans Pride events are mainly cis people, reacting with horror to how much violence and harassment their trans relatives, friends and colleagues have experienced.

I didn't say you made your child trans.

I said if you told them that the world would all pretend that they were the opposite sex, that was wrong of you to do so. You don't get to force people into colluding with lies.

And I sick to the back teeth of people like you implying that there is anything wrong with women standing up for their legal rights to single sex spaces. It is a disgraceful position to take. How dare you.

The reason why militant TRAs have gotten as far as they have is because the world is unfortunately deeply misogynistic. Far too many people think that men's demands are more important than women's rights, women's needs, women's dignity. And I will be calling out this bullshit anywhere I see it.

@TransParentlyAnnoyedLots of trans-identified males treat the trans-identified females just like men have always treated women. The misogyny lives on beyond the gender swap. Current thread on reddit written by trans-identified females:

I feel at times that some trans women literally only bring up trans guys to use that line about "big burly bearded guys" having to use the women's bathroom as an argument in bathroom ban threads.
Just feels so underhanded and tokenistic.

I didn't feel that supported by the biggest local charity as it was pretty much run by trans women for trans women and there was even a few resignations from the management because one of the leaders said they actively dislike transmasc people.

Thank you for this! I remember when the SC ruling came out and I was seeing posts from trans women I know irl saying "I don't want to hear anything from trans men about how this affects them" (implying it doesn't) I was gutted.

I think the worst experience is being a recently turned middle age trans guy next to this boomer trans lady leader lecturing me on the Patriarchy as if I haven't LIVED through it my whole life. All while she herself promotes toxic masculine and sexist stereo types when it comes to transition which guess what counts as drum roll please Patriarchy!

honestly, same. i feel so guilty about it every time i think "okay, protect the dolls, but what about the rest of us?". like conventionally attractive, skinny, white, western trans women who can afford a bunch of e and surgeries are the only kind of trans person that exists?

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1tqjf3q/icantbelieveihavetosaythisbuttrans/

It's not the first thread making those complaints, and it won't be the last. We had a trans-identified female used to post on here and she agreed that this, in general, is their behaviour.

We are far more concerned for the welfare of these women and girls, including women like your daughter, than many of the trans-identified males are. Men gonna men, even after a gender swap. It just shows how ridiculous this whole ideology is.

I’m a long time supporter of gay marriage equality etc. A gay man called me online a Terf, as it happens I know his real name, he’s lecturing in the UK and we are both Irish, another gay man, English, I was friends with on that same website told me how uncomfortable he was with the the whole trans issues, he said he didn’t agree and could see it causing a backlash down the line … At work abroad, I live on the continent, yet another gay man, young, realised one day I was a feminist, he was such a coward he said he refused to discuss/debate anything trans, he said to my face that I was a Terf.

This last +/- 10 years have been difficult, Irish women won abortion rights, then we were beyond happy, to have been the first country to vote for gay marriage equality. Suddenly we were attacked on female safe spaces. Totally blindsided. Ireland is still totally captured. It’s very upsetting. .

So, NO. Won’t be supporting men on ANY aspect of transsexuals whinging now. I have ZERO sympathy for them. I’ll not be fooled to “be kind”. In fact I’m raging.

I’ve a lot of sympathy for the lesbian girls who believe they are males. I know of two such delusional women, early twenties, via my children. I’m not allowed speak on this ….