I hope you will be proud of me..

[namechange62]

I'm not very educated, married to a good man, live a quiet life in a small village in the south west, have good relationships with males in my family who are good men. (Grand/Father, uncles, sons, son in law) and have strong women in my life (mother, daughter daughter's in law, nieces etc).
Just setting the scene really..

Well it all kicked off this afternoon at my house. (When I say kicked off I mean a quick argument lasting about half an hour! Not EastEnders worthy..)

I have to say I had a few. Not many because I don't really drink but ..

Somehow it was bought up about Gen Z being offended about something that my kids/and partners grew up with (ages 29-36…). A sketch in Little Britain. Somehow the conversation turned to trans stuff and eventually turned to transwomen.

Anyway I bought up the case of transwomen playing in the (WNBA? ) basketball and how some men are pretending to be women to join. Showing solidarity with the woman having to play with 6ft 10in transwomen? I've probably got details wrong but hopefully you can understand?

Well it got heated.
SIL Sort of agreed but said it's rare. I said even one transwomen taking a female space is one too many. I talked about transwomen in female toilets. How do we know who the 'safe' ones are. It got on to male violence v female violence.

My Dil who works with victims of DV agreed and was quoting statistics about calls to DV helplines rising during the world cup.

My son got very heated and did the usual whataboutery. But what about women who do the same?! Trans men in male sports? Transmen who use mens toilets/changing rooms.

I said it's very rare but he continued to get riled when I started spouting some stuff I'd read on MN.
Mediocre men who fail in mens teams taking places from women, men invading women's spaces for fetish reasons. I said do you ever enter the toilets thinking whether you are safe? (Surprise that he didn't even know what I meant? And surprised when I told him I did!). His GF then agreed with me. I said you have no skin in this game (males taking female places in sport, jobs and prizes) and never will!
He got heated and continued with the whataboutery but I held my ground.

Told him about the transwomen who invade female changing rooms (I encountered one myself) and how would he feel if his grandma had to deal with a semi naked man who was getting kicks by humiliatingly women.

SiL got it and eventually DS got it too. These are normal hardworking men.
Anyway we left it at that but both of them said they didn't know half of what I'd said.

I read a lot on this thread on MN and want to say thank you for educating me. I can't help many people to understand but I think I got 2 men today to think a bit more about it.

OP: (apart from acknowledging that I got a bit wrong) .

This feels like saying the unsayable, but did you though? Get it wrong, I mean. I thought Brittney Griner, WNBA was male from the first time I saw him. Nobody whispered in my ear, I just saw a man. People kept saying he was born female so I was very puzzled. Then I saw online a video taken by his friend with him at a pool. Trunks, no top, very very male.

For what it's worth, the Russians held him in the men's prison.

Well done OP! It is conversations like these that help open up debate and wider understanding. I was at a neighbours BBQ a couple of weeks ago and one of the men addressing the whole group described how he and his wife had seen a couple of TW at a NT property. After describing them he went on the say that he was keeping half an eye on them and if he had seen them heading into the women's loos he would have intervened. I congratulated him on this and you could feel the group relax a bit - turns out we are all in a similar place, sort of a terfing cul-de-sac!!

@ArabellaScott “discombobulating”

Totally off topic, but I do love that word being used!

Ah okay.. my kids were pointing out that GenZ (their words) would have been offended by the Fat Club sketch. And we then got on to the snowflake generation. My adult kids all work with younger people who've caused problems by being overly offended.

Brittany Griner was born female. I did immediately Google when I saw the post about 5am. That's what I got wrong.. apparently there are no transwomen playing in the WNBA. Sophie Cunningham is protesting about any transwomen playing in any female sport.
But I'm a menopausal insomniac so I'm open to be told I've got it wrong?

I call bullshit on that Google info. Sure, search engines told me that too. Google lies. So I drilled deeper, saw the video. I won't link it but you can find it.

Sophie Cunningham is protesting any men in women's sport, yes. But the WNBA is in a panic about her public protest BECAUSE of Britteny Griner. In my opinion.

I said what I said.

Ah okay.. I googled lot's but not seen any videos.. I'll keep looking.

There have been rumours about BG for years, they went into overdrive after she (for now) was arrested in Russia, and the fact that the WNBA are being so reluctant to clarify what the mean by women could mean they're protecting someone they know is not female, or it could be they're just that capture by the batshittery they don't want to define what a women is.

Try using another search engine, Google is captured too, it pays to double check anything it says, I use DuckDuckGo, mainly because I love the name.

Okay have allowed myself to get side tracked as just wanted to enjoy OP's breakthrough.

According to AI (which means it checks all available sources online) BG is said to be biologically female and that its is because of her unusual height etc., that she is thought to be a TW.

However because of this (and others I suspect)

In response to the growing national conversation surrounding fairness and the rights of female athletes, the WNBA established a leadership task force. While the task force met to discuss transgender athlete participation and eligibility definitions, it stopped short of implementing any immediate rule changes or mandating Olympic-style gene tests. League officials have stated that discussions will continue moving forward.

I wonder how far that will go!

Sorry OP, its a derail to all that you have done.

And good to know at least one family member has shown their appreciation of your stand!

No no thanks.. don't worry about a derail.
I'm still feeling proud.
I read what you read about BG and I'm still non the wiser

According to AI (which means it checks all available sources online)

FFS. I think you'll find "according to AI" is as reliable as "I read it somewhere".

Garbage in garbage out.

I am proud of you!

I had a talk about the issue with a retired doctor a couple of weeks ago. He had wondered what the trans issue is all about and I gave him an overview. He thanked me.

My DH and children used to think that it had nothing to do with us, but then a transwoman obviously got aroused simply because I said politely "No thanks" when he wanted to sell me a lottery ticket. I noticed and so did my DH. The man got aroused simply because I interacted with him. My DH then had to go alone to that shop for a couple of months. He never saw the creepy man again and so I went back.

Then my son had to share a kitchen with two transwomen when he moved into dorms, and he found them to be creepy and scary.

Even my daughter has admitted that she too is gender critical now.

Well done OP

Thank you @everyone.I shall continue the 'fight' little bit at a time..

Trans women are women. They live, work, are sexually harassed and experience vulnerability to cis male violence exactly as did women do.

Trans women using public toilets - completely open spaces containing cubicles, which anyone can walk into - does not endanger us. Predatory cis men do.

Encouraging hate against a minority, and denying who they are, has never made us safe.

If chat forums like this had existed in the 1980s/90s, do you know who would have been the focus?

Gay men.

I grew up with that. How gay men should not be allowed to use public toilets because they were all fetishists who only used them for sex, to watch straight men or commit rape there. Because being gay wasn't real. Gay men were created by abuse, reading about being gay, and/or not being patented properly. Not being allowed to be masculine by mum's who wanted a girl instead. Being gay was called a lifestyle choice. Opinion colunmists argued there was no scientific basis for gay sexuality - it was all a choice and a perversion. Harmful to children. Sound familiar?

Transphobia is the recycled, vile homophobia which destroyed so many young gay lives. And a fair amount is recycled racism as well - notably the bits about inherently aggression.

While hypersexuality is a trope recycled from racism, homophobia - and porn.

Telling women that they'll be safe going into public toilets once trans women are banned, because cis men observe a fictional social contract not to enter, is both insulting and dangerous.

Most cis men don't go into the Ladies because there are no urinals, the queues are longer and they don't want to. Not because they are noble.

But the predatory cis men who have always gone in, can now claim to be trans guys if challenged.

They not only went in when they wanted (to hide in cubicles and wait for a woman to be alone) before, they now have an excuse if caught.

Well done the anti-trans movement. Forever parroting the myths of the far right which claim Strong Men are the answer.

Men attack us in public and nothing is done. They attack us on buses, in the street, in our homes, at work, in pubs - often in front of witnesses. The idea they'd go to all the effort of transitioning so as to use public toilets is laughable, and a male idea of what sexual violence actual is.

Most men have no real clue what it's like to live with the constant threat of sexual violence. Trans women do - because they're targeted by them as well.

Men like to imagine that women have sanctuaries and safe spaces (granted by them, because they're so noble) because they don't want to hear the brutal reality of how women live. We will see absolutely no progress until that is addressed.

@TransParentlyAnnoyed “Trans women are women.”

NO, they are MEN!! What you call ‘cis’ men!!

They have NEVER been women!!

@TransParentlyAnnoyed

Humans CANNOT change sex. You know this!!

Well done OP! I'm not very good in debate (i only think of what i should have said 2 hrs after!) so IM really impressed you held your ground and might have even persuaded them!

Trans women are women.

Define a 'transwoman'.

@TransParentlyAnnoyed “Predatory cis men do.”

’Trans women’ are “predatory cis men!!”

@TransParentlyAnnoyed

What @ArabellaScott said. Define a ‘transwomen”

Well quite. I can't be one, as I'm a woman so I can't trans to the thing I am.

TPA will never give a coherent answer that doesn't involve the words men or male as there isn't one.

And they seem so ANGRY all the time that you can't actually change sex. Odd.

Very well done 62, you have done a tremendous thing, wait for the ripples in the pond, times are definitely changing. Have a look at the reaction to Manchester Pride online and it is clear to see there has been a rather large change in attitudes away from Pride being harmless fun to unacceptable fetishisation.

Also that large numbers of LGB want nothing to do with the alphabet soup that has been tacked onto it, it absolutely does not represent me as a lesbian.

I accept that some people have been gaslit and sucked into the Be Kind bullshit but potentially can be educated given time. I also accept that some people are genuinely not very bright and because a bloke in a dress calling himself Michelle told them that grass is actually purple they have to believe it because they don’t want to offend or do the critical thinking for themselves.

@TransParentlyAnnoyed

Women are biologically equipped with reproductive organs, including ovaries and a uterus, that allow them to conceive, carry, and give birth to children.

NO men, which includes ‘transwomen’ can do this!