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.

I use "claiming to be women" as the most objective wording. "Pretending," to me, carries too much of a bad faith claim, when we know many actually believe in it. Conversely, "men who believe they are women" is a statement that can't be confirmed from the outside and doesn't cover the very same bad faith actors.

True. But losing your job is a big risk in some places. and men have made it be so. The wheel is turning but realistically, are most of us as brave as Kathleen Stock, Sandie Peggie Etc? We'd like to think we are, but let's be honest here. I cam see Lins' point there.

I would say "Men who claim to be women" or "Men who say they are women". It needs to be blunt to get through.

It needs to include the accurate sex , whichever way you cut the rest of it.

This is the problem. Most women fear speaking out publicly. The inability to speak out freely is itself a disadvantage for women

It’s so damn hard!!

Claiming is a better word, thanks!

I'm sticking with pretending. You can claim things you're entitled to, a lottery win, an inheritance etc.

Pretence is always false.

I agree with you now!!

The word "pretend" strongly implies a conscious act of make-believe, acting, or deception.

The word "claim" implies an assertion of a right, a belief, or a fact that has not been universally proven or accepted.

Well done OP
TRAs have to keep reciting the mantra of TW are women because if they don't keep it up, their whole world will collapse, especially if they have trans-identifying friends and family.

I had a conversation with a friend's cousin who asked me about toilets (always toilets first isn't it?) and where did I expect TW to go? I answered 'the mens' loos of course' I was told I was wrong and that TW would be subject to great harm if they used mens' facilities. I answered that other men probably wouldn't care; because isn't this male loo etiquette? Do what you have to do, don't hang around and don't look at other men??

This person didn't stop to consider biological women at all.
I was getting really frustrated- I cannot understand how people can think like this. It is absolutely misogyny.

I decided to leave it there before my blood pressure shot through the roof.

@Shedmistress had it right. “Just use ‘men’.

If there are really people who actually believe it (which I struggle to accept) then that can only be as a result of society allowing that belief to propagate for too long...

by there being a sensitivity towards language, and a cohort of (primarily) men who have bullied others into a way of behaving, so the concept that you could change sex began to take ground.

Before that there would have been almost universal acceptance that a man can not become a woman - look more like one - yes / mirror the habits of women a bit closer - yes / dress more like a woman - yes / take part more in activities traditionally undertaken by women - yes - but be a woman, no.

But this period of manipulating language and emotion has been responsible for people believing that there are no boundaries - if you say it loud enough, if you say it long enough and if you drown out any other noise, then you can be what you want...

so, how do we re-balance society?

by putting it back in perspective, by telling the truth, by using language clearly to express what is actually happening.

so, a 'trans woman' is a man pretending to be a woman - rebalances that perspective

• there is a clarity that they are still a man - sex is immutable
• people know what pretence is - a temporary pretending means mirroring / looking like / showing stereotypical signals etc.
• everyone knows that it is not real
• it is known to be a veneer - a child pretending to be a dog during the day, at night, for 4 weeks in a row - is known to still be a child... there is no belief that anything underneath has changed, just that a thin veil has been drawn across to pretend to be like something else
• there is no longer a belief that they are actually the pretended item - no belief that the man is now a woman.

It is a very non-emotive way of expressing what is actually happening... it puts it back into perspective - that this is something being done by the person as an act, but that it is not real - so no-one else has to go along with it... we can acknowledge that the pretence for some is more real than for others - they get into role much more (sadly even to the point of body mutilation - which must therefore be a point of mental health issues as that is taking pretence too far), but at a simpler level one person might put on a skirt but keep the beard, another will pretend more thoroughly and do more to look like their pretence.

Is it rude - no, because it is accurately describing what is happening - the only way to see that as rude would be if there were any truth to it and we know that there can be no truth, because a man can not become a woman - not even by 1% - they remain a man, just now a slightly different shape man.

we need to start back from basics - from biology, from reality - not from a perspective where what is allowed is still being dictated by the few who are manipulative. If we are told that some truly believe in it and therefore we must honour that belief / be sensitive etc. the response must be no - we are about rebalancing back to truth - while it might hurt to be told that you are delusional / pretending / that your belief can not ever be real or accurate - how much ruder, less sensitive would it be to promulgate a falsehood which has been shown to harm so many (esp. women, but also youngsters who get sucked in) - sometimes the truth is brutally honest, but never is the truth the wrong thing to support.

And the reality is that we know that there isn't a full belief in being able to change sex - apart from anything else, why is there self-reference as 'trans women' - because there is an unwritten / unspoken acceptance that they are not women - but what they want to be is the equivalent of / have access to / have the rights to pretend to be women.

so, actually I think we do no favours by anything other than gentle, non-emotive language which accurately reflects what is going on... and I think that a man pretending to be a woman is the most accurate way I know of explaining what is happening...

You are so articulate, thank you!

A big thing i have a problem with with is empathy. This word has lost its original meaning. I have an educational background in Latin and Ancient Greek, so it really irritates me. The pathos bit is suffering. Fine. But 'em' is in, and 'sym' with.

So I can have empathy with someone who has had a life experience I have had, e.g. stood on a plug, failed an exam as I have lived it, am in it, and sympathy with something I could imagine happening and feel sorry for because it is unpleasant but have not been in.

I can therefore as a woman, have no empathy with these men pretending to be women as regards their 'feminine' experience, as they have none, and i do. But I could empathise if they stood on a plug.

I could have sympathy, and indeed did, in my younger more naive years, (I was part of a protest against Germaine Greer at my University College, much to my adult shame now I know better) with these men.

But that ship left the harbour under full sail many years ago.