Are we a cult?

[CyclingSam]

I keep reading that sex realists, of which I am one, are a cult. Perhaps a genderist could be so kind as to explain what a cult is, and why we qualify. Sometimes one of us calls them a cult too. Who has a better case, hmmm?

Again, why do you think there is increased harassment of gender non conforming women?

Do you think that back in the 80s everyone thought that all the women with short hair were men, but they just let them use the toilets anyway?

If the way for a woman to be promoted is to be gender non-conforming, why the distinct absence of butch lesbians in positions of power? Could it be that people don't actually think they are men and are just homophobic and sexist? I have certainly seen homophobic sexist on-line bullying of Akua Reindorf over the last few days.

Where is the disadvantage in being recognised as your sex?

The 'threat' thing won't hold water because if it did minor males would have their own loos. Consistency matters.

Your sex isn't private information - it's clearly visible to anyone who encounters you.

And as a function of living in society we reveal personal details all day long - if we use an accessible toilet it implies we have a disability; when we use a bus pass we reveal our age. There are many situations where we have to declare pregnancy.

Only trans women & male children are more advantaged for using female loos.

but by allowing men with the characteristic of gender-reassignment in, you've made it clear that the proportionate means to a legitimate aim didn't exist - as they are no longer single sex. And before you bring children into this again, young children are always considered differently to adults, in pretty much every situation.

So we're back to entirely unisex.

There is a legitimate aim in providing single sex toilets being privacy, dignity and safety of people in a state of undress. Allowing children 8 or under to accompany their parent of the opposite sex in the facilities of their parent's sex does not invalidate that legitimate aim

Allowing an adult to use the facilities of the opposite sex does invalidate that legitimate aim

I'm confused. Boys under 8 are not a threat. Please could you explain your point.

I have minor males. The threat thing absolutely does hold, that's why when very young they go with a parent, and when a bit older they go in the mens (ideally with their brother) and I keep close to the exit and watch to make sure they come out in a normal amount of time.

This is the best we can do. There is no facility option that improves it - unisex is as dangerous as sending them in the men's alone, and bringing a 13 year old boy into the women's isn't fair on 13 year old girls.

You'll note at schools, where this is reasonably possible, they do have separate toilets for children and adults, boys and girls.

Interestingly, in the case where a minor male might be the threat - ie, to minor females, in for example a primary school setting - they do indeed have their own toilets.

The disadvantage, might be that there are more cubicles in the women's toilets or that they are cleaner and that it is discriminatory to allow all women to use the toilets but only some men.

But, you are missing the more relevant point which is that the toilets would just be mixed sex and nobody would have grounds to exclude anyone else.

'Boys under 8' is an objective description. Gender is a completely subjective concept which will mean different things to different people.

It is difficult to justify and organise spaces based on sex, then allow both sexes to use it.

To allow a subset of men to use women's facilities, they need to be defined. The obvious definitions are having a GRC or the PC of GR.

To obtain a GRC, men have to have a diagnosis of GD and identification in their desired gender, to be protected under the PC of GR, men can be proposing to undergo GR.

How would admitting men under these criteria come anywhere close to maintaining the purpose of SSE?

Imagine using an exception for boys 8 and under as an excuse to be allowed in the opposite sex toilet

I know!

Take a step back and it's so weird and sad how desperate these people are to find some way - any way - that the letter of the law can be read in such a way as to undermine what is absolutely clearly the spirit of the law.

Pro tip: the law is not supposed to be a cryptic crossword clue. If you have to put this much effort into finding a way to read the law that says what you think it should say, your belief about what it should say is probably just wrong.

And let us not forget, aaaaaaaalll this effort is bring deployed simply to find a crack they can leverage to checks notes make sure men who claim to be women get to pee on the same bit of ceramic a female person has previously peed or will pee upon.

How closely did you read the ruling?
Justice Swift, in a very judge-y way, mused, 'in principle', in response to a point made in the GLP submission:
I consider there would, in principle, be scope for a strong argument that a rule or practice that permitted trans women to use the “female” lavatory but required other biological men to use the male lavatory would comprise different but not less favourable treatment on grounds of sex. [61]

But went on to say immediately that if transwomen were permitted to use the toilet marked 'female',
For the purposes of the EA 2010 the lavatory would be mixed-sex
and therefore under workplace regs etc, would not provide the mandated biological-women-only facilities.
In other words, he entertained the notion, and then quickly knocked it on the head as complying practically with EA2010.

Throughout the ruling, Justice Swift made some very pragmatic real-world remarks about single sex facilities:

35 the submission goes, regulation 20 requires no more than the provision of facilities and says nothing as to the manner in which those facilities should be used. I do not accept this submission. First, it places form over substance, disregarding the obvious purpose of regulations 20 –21 and 24 The obvious albeit unspoken premise of regulation 20 is the provision of private space for each sex for reasons of conventional decency.

38 An employer would not comply with the obligation under regulation 20 (to make sufficient provision in separate rooms containing lavatories provided for men and women, respectively) if he permitted the room for women to be used by some men and vice versa. That would go against the purpose of the regulation.

37 It is clear from this that the objective of regulation 20 is that men and women should use conveniences in separate rooms, not together in the same room

and this comment
40 The notion that an employer or anyone else is required to “police” the use of a lavatory, person by person and day by day, reveals the application of a “logic” so strict that it is divorced from reality and from any sensible model of human behaviour.

backs up the fact that once a facility is designated according to biological sex, not gender ID, the onus is on the individual to respect that designation and use the appropriate facilities.
All this talk of genital inspections or toilet police is misplaced- none of that nonsense is necessary if everybody follows the' sensible model of human behaviour' whereby biological males use the men's, biological females use the women's.

@TransParentlyAnnoyed

"Trans men being included in any form of health are messaging elicits howls of rage on here. Tampons being provided in the Gents too".

Trans men are rarely mentioned on here, mainly because they are women, but mostly because the TRAs could give a fuck about them until recently when they have used them as a politcal gotcha.

As for your trans son being gay and no gay wanting to date him, that would be because gay men don't date women.

@MarieDeGournay - I love it St Gertie the Great, we can sic her on 'em.

I don't think GC beliefs are cultish, they're based in reality however a lot of online spaces such this one do display some "culty" elements although I hate that word, but it makes it harder for people to use unless you fully subscribed to the "rules" rather than it being a truly diverse space such as:

• A very us Vs them mentality to the point that a political disagreement can be perceived as being not GC and therefore moved to the "then" category. Examples I'm thinking of is it people take issue with a policy that will achieve some GC goals but also be unfavourable for women can be met with "oh so you support PBs then" even if the poster clearly doesn't. It doesn't seem popular to be GC in principal but wary of alignment with bio essentialists. Minor tactical disagreements being so black and white is common in high pressure groups. Conformity to dogma where someone will be accused of being "pro child sterilisation" for having minor technical disagreements about how PBs should be reduced for example isn't akin to heresy but you'd think so.

• us and then also tends to veer into someone must be a man, must be a TRA instead of possibly another GC woman who doesn't adopt group think 100% but people are so keen for an us Vs them fight on here you'll often see people pick on someone before another "in" member has to clarify that said poster isn't a TRA etc

-Brigading is becoming common as it does on other forums where people are radicalised because it shuts down open conversation. Fear of being dogpiled, publicly shamed, or banned forces members to self-censor nuance our of their posts and to prove ongoing loyalty, users often adopt increasingly hardline language to avoid triggering internal suspicion.

-Suspicion of outsiders is repeated often on here and justified.

-when peaking became a common way to describe becoming more of aware of this issue it started to feel testimonial

-constant mentions of purity spirals and purity testing. Any feminist who isn't publicly GC enough has failed the purity test and gets called a dick panderer or a handmaiden but be publicly GC and abusive or sexist or whatever else and anyone pointing that out is purity spiralling. The cognitive dissonance is heavy on this one.

-The in group slang above also acts like a thought terminating cliche to shut down engaging and label someone as an outsider without engagement not with the substance of their posts while using in group slang that isn't obvious to a casual reader to signal group loyalty and subscription to the group

-Rise of distrust of any outside reporting. Like yes do we need to trade carefully to know who a perpetrator do a from is? Sure, but when people will blindly trust anonymous forum rather than simply widening their own media consumption to find sources they trust it's leaning to cult like thinking as though the media as a whole is corrupted by the "enemy group"

Genuine question - do you think there is an overlap between the women who post on the feminism board of mumsnet and those who cause “the harassment and violence which (your son has ) suffered for being trans”? The likelihood that any women I know would harass or use violence is literally zero and most sane people think that is unacceptable to cause misery to another human being . I would love you to consider that perhaps many of us think it’s equally unacceptable that gender confused girls are sent down a path of potential puberty blockers/ cross sex hormones that may leave then incontinent, infertile, with potential loss of orgasm / pain on intercourse, impacts on their bone health etc etc. That many of us parents / health professionals/ educated women might think we do need to consider such factors as social contagion ( to which girls are especially vulnerable ) ,mental health issues and or ND ( seeing as stats from the Tavistock gave a good indication of some of the common factors presenting in girls wishing to transition) and that some girls spend a lot of time online and perhaps feel they have far more meaningful friendships online then they ever do in real life. That a young girl in her teens wanting to transition might have rather different issues to an adult male in his 50’s who has been married and had children. These are not just “theories” but it’s going to take a long time to try and correct the myths created by those who have been overly invested in “trans affirmation” of children . I have had three friends in their 20’s/30’s and even 40’s who have realised they are actually same same sex attracted ( not surprising considering we grew up in the 70’s and 80’s) but I’ve yet to meet or hear about any woman who decided to transition in her 50’s. Perhaps we need to equip parents of gender confused children with the skills to question their children’s beliefs and offer them the support of well trained staff who understand actual evidence rather than myths?

-Brigading is becoming common as it does on other forums where people are radicalised because it shuts down open conversation. Fear of being dogpiled, publicly shamed, or banned forces members to self-censor nuance our of their posts and to prove ongoing loyalty, users often adopt increasingly hardline language to avoid triggering internal suspicion

Here we're generally anonymous and name-changing often is common. We have no power to get other users banned, and dogpiling is just a risk where you might be one voice against many, many other users. Robust debate has always been a feature of the feminism boards, but, generally actually pretty polite compared to AIBU.

I don't recognise having to prove on-going loyalty TBH, or this 'internal suspicion' as there's no 'internal' to be had here - it's all public and open to anyone who feels like pitching in.

GC is a doomsday cult, that's rich coming from someone who endorses medicalization of youth that leads to infertility.
Try and imagine a world where WPATH held sway, where Self ID down to 14 years of age was a reality (as is the case in Germany) and think about the medical and social effects.
Tampons in men's toilets, if that isn't proof of cult thinking, I'm not sure what is.
To elevate temperamental preference over the hard reality of biological sex.
The list goes on.
It took just two males in the US college female volleyball league to wreak havoc.
No mate, the cult label on GCs is not gonna hold.
You've already immolated language with your pretend reality, you don't get to call those outside your cult as in another cult.

Not this nonsense again. For a start, we're not "making toilets single sex spaces", by usage, custom and the actual law of the land they already are, and always have been. All you have to do is obey that law, do what we always did until the entitled toddlers showed up and started screaming "I want, I want, I want" and we can return to having secure single sex spaces again, safe in the knowledge that "good men stay out, so bad men stand out". And, as one of those gender non conforming women you seem to be suddenly so concerned about, I am/would be absolutely fine with being challenged about my sex in a single sex space (not just toilets, why do you always make it about toilets?). Back in the day when I was narrow hipped enough for this to actually happen we just laughed and said something like "but.. I am a Laydee!!" and the vocal register alone was enough to dispel all concern. I would rather be asked than cause a woman to be afraid in one of the very few places she should feel safe. I'm not traumatised about being asked to verify my sex because it actually is my sex - I'm not larping as something I'm not and requiring women to lie in order to validate my delusions.

It's fairly obvious that brigading is a tactic used on many forums now, it's not random. It's multiple posters all dogpiling on one user within a short amount of time to overwhelm the conversation, make it impossible for a poster to respond to everyone or to respond quickly leading to dog piling of posts that someone has "disappeared" etc and often the multiple posters are asking the exact same question and making strawman accusations and aren't waiting for a user to respond to the same question/ accusations that's already been asked by a previous poster in order to goad a reaction, which leads to dog pile reporting which leads to a ban. Robust debate usually involves actually reading, engaging and responding in good faith whereas the brigading tactic becoming common on X or MN was popular amongst MRAs and isn't at all akin to robust debate.

Name changing is also starting to rouse suspicion on here even though it should be a common feature. Name changing means people can't easily validate it someone is in the good or bad team.

I think you make some valid points. And there are phrases common on FWR I will not use exactly because they can act as thought terminating slogans like TWAW.

However, I think you also need to consider the "eternal now" of the internet.

The type of contribution that receives short shrift in 2026 would have been dealt with much more softly a few years ago.

The thing is - we've done all this so many times before. And we are also human.

And it is beyond insulting when some wide eyed "hey have you tought about..." poster turns up having not made even the slightest effort to read other posts, search the topic to see what may have been said before, and then expects to be treated with kid gloves while they spout sexist shite yet again, and ends up huffing off because they weren't given the dignified respect they think they deserve.

I've done that. Pages and pages of it. I'll link back any time I need to.

But I personally am done with letting these people set the terms of the debate.

This is about women and women's rights, in the original female sense of the word.

The impact on the identities and feelings of trans people, while no doubt very important to those people, are ultimately just a sideshow. They are not the most important people on the planet, they are just people, the good and the bad. And some of what they want for their own reasons is just not good for female people.

It is only TRActivists, TRAllies and yes, the useful #bekind fools who haven;t had the courage or the curiosity to think fully through what they support who believe that solving trans feelings of upset has to be a pre-requisite to women having rights and protections.

They are welcome to believe that, but I am not going to let them drag the focus away from the half of humanity that is female. And if that means dismissing their lovely ideas and deep deep empathy for trans people's sadness without cushioning them in pages and pages of gently expressed disagreement, so be it.

I'm curious how you can think it may be advantageous!

Anyway

• 100 or so years of single-sex loos - works great, no "bodily scrutiny"
• people like yourself argue for male access - understandable anxiety and consequent "bodily scrutiny"
• GC feminists argue we should go back to the way things were
• people like yourself cite "bodily scrutiny" as an argument against this

The definition of irony.

We can't get actually disruptive posters blocked - this isn't twitter, mass reporting (which would generally require some kind of co-ordination - which just doesn't exist on MN - there are no private forums here) doesn't auto-silence people.

And on a forum you can't control how many people are interested - again, there's no co-ordinated effort, just a lot of women with opinions. Personally, I've only seen posters accused of plopping when they've plopped (OK, maybe one person jumps the gun - but we're not a hive mind!)

If someone says something a lot of people want to ask questions about, then they're going to get a lot of responses. This is the reality of public forums.