Wanting to discuss trans people with non gender critical folks

[Taztoy]

I’ve been on another thread - and other threads - and I’d like to talk to anyone who believes that trans women are women and trans men are men.

I don’t understand how that works and I’ve tried on other threads to get engagement , and it hasn’t worked.

so. I’m starting a thread.

I promise I am asking genuinely and I really do want to debate.

I don’t understand how I can tell if a trans woman is genuine.

I don’t understand how the laws could be written to make it work.

I don’t understand how it works as it competes with sex based rights.

I will probably regret starting this but I’d really like to understand

From my experience, there are 3 types of TWAW believers :

• the batshit crazy, "Sophie Molly" is an excellent example, or Webberley
• the raging misogynists, Andrea Long Chu and his ilk, who define women as only objects to be f* m. This broadly corresponds to AGPs but not only. Some who are not AGPs despise women enough to be in this category despite not being Trans themselves.
• the SJW point earners. They don't really believe but it's so important for them to adhere to the ideology, whether it be to score points for political / power reasons (see Nancy Kelley who'd never have dated a TW) or because it's a way to make them feel good about themselves (see Isla Bubba) that they cling to it and sometimes manage a successful brainwashing. Peter Tatchell is also a good example, he knows all along that Fred Wallace isn't a woman.

Okay, if you’d genuinely like debate can I please explain how it was explained to me? I’m not saying this is right or wrong, this is just how it was explained to me by a trans person:

You know how you know you’re a woman? And that feeling goes beyond how you dress and where you go to the toilet? You just know you’re a woman? Some people have that certainty but aren’t in the body that aligns with what they’re certain they are. Imagine you were still absolutely you but tomorrow woke in a man’s body. You get up, find a feminine outfit, groom yourself according to womanly beauty standards. But you’d be in a man’s body. For trans people they can often have that realisation, but for them it’s not quite so abrupt, it’s something they realise as they come to a point in their life where they feel certain about who they are. So they dress etc according to the gender they feel deep down they are.

As for your question of how do you know of people are genuine: you can’t. Just like you can’t know that anyone you meet and tells you their story isn’t fabricating who they are. It’s up to us to decide whether we choose to take people earnestly and at face value or if we are critical of what we believe cannot be decided in that way.

These are not my opinions, just how it was explained to me and I’m trying to answer OPs original question.

You do realise that sex based rights include everyone, no matter how they identify? So a man who identifies s a woman still has the same sex based rights as all other men?

My view has always been and will never change, that a trans man only ‘thinks’ he knows what its like to be female, from whatever they have learnt about them socially. The fact that they have never had our levels or hormones and whatnot, means they can never truly experience being a female, same with trans men. I feel for them, I believe they have missed an important step in life where they accept who they are.

It’s not something you can work through using logic because it’s based on feelings. Like religion.
So I wouldn’t try to persuade a religious person that gods are an invention of the mind. They don’t want to know. But I would resist someone trying to use their faith to affect what other people do. Like forcing them to believe in their god or for trans rights activists forcing women to accept men in women’s spaces.

Amen

@TransParentlyAnnoyed you say “A few cis men seem to have tried to gain access to female prisons”, but then say we must believe people when they tell us who they are. Are you saying we should not have believed these men? Why? Why are they not trans? They said they were trans so according to you we should believe them.

@Taztoymy experiences of male behaviour aren't the same as yours, but my father was awful, a violent, bullying man, and by the age of about 13 I was terrified of men and the feeling persisted for years. Female only spaces helped me cope, and still do.

We've got to a position, somehow, where it's been decided that people who lie about what sex they are need special legal protections. I don't really understand how we got here or why none of the adults in the room stood up and said no. But here we are.

I think for things as they stand now, social media has a lot to answer for. I think a lot of people enjoy a bit of safely anonymous misogynistic bullying, and this topic allows they to do it whilst also patting themselves on the back for being morally superior. I think men hate women far more than most women realise, I think a lot of women are naive as to the true nature of a lot of men, and I think we have been too willing to ignore the sexual element of lying about what sex you are. I have even heard the pro trans bullshit from my own mother, who just left me reeling when she jumped at the chance to tell me she didn't have a problem with men in female only spaces. This is the woman who stayed in an abusive marriage for 25 years.

I don't think people who say twaw actually believe it. They know it isn't true.

You aren't alone in feeling this way @Taztoy

They may be gay, bi, ace, pan or trans. Or have a disability you don't understand because you can't see it and haven't experienced it.

ace, pan or 'trans' how many more words can we make up for absolute nonsense, where does it end?

Why should anyone take any of it seriously, they're all products of imagination, there not 'disabilities', they're self inflicted fancy's, and maybe it's time these fantasists started to do the listening. They can't live a life indulging in their self absorbed fantasies, reality is a shared common existence , it isn't created a billion times over everyday by individuals 'lived experience'.

And there is never an explanation from any of the TRAs as to why the logical endpoint of their faith is that 'males should be allowed to use females' sex-based rights'.
Why why why can't this male-based, powerful, wealthy, middle class, often white, lobby fight for more third/fourth/different/extra spaces, instead of insisting on using female rights and spaces?
Their huge power is evidenced by the fact that their faith has been supported at government level and in multi-national corporations in many countries the world over. They are, by their very success, blatant evidence of the power of the patriarchy. If they were in good faith, they would use that power and money in a less aggressively misogynist way.

I think this would be a good conversation to have but this isn’t the best place to have it. As you can see.

But I say I’m Queen Cleopatra reborn @TransParentlyAnnoyed… so why doesn’t that fit your ethos? Trans people are, quite simply, who they say they are?
can other people say, well “I say I’m X, and you just have to accept that despite all the evidence to the contrary” ?

Why? People are having a civilised discussion. We have a mix of TRA and GC. No one is being mean or rude.

@Conversationalcheddar
If you woke up tomorrow in a man's body, and once over the shock decided to go swimming to clear your head, would you take your male body into the female changing rooms, knowing that other women might find that alarming & scary?

What do you think is wrong with the responses?

If they say they're trans, they're genuine

Taztoy, please don't feel you need to say sorry. The thread poses a very valid question (which no TRA will be able to answer with any logic, because you're right -there is none) . You have nothing to apologise for. I remember some of your posting history and it sounds like you're very vulnerable at the moment so please look after yourself.

I think the issue, cognitively, seems to come from a sincere and profoundly held belief that everything you and I understand to be established scientific fact - that sex is chromosomally defined and immutable - is out of date/disproven/fallacious. To many hardened gender ideologues they believe that we are factually wrong and are the ‘flat earthers’.

It’s part of some sort of counter factual cultural movement that seems to gained traction both prior to and as a response to covid - things like vaccine cynicism, erosion of respect for expertise in medicine etc. IMHO social media drives it too because an entire generation seems to believe that memes on tiktok and insta are more reliable sources than textbooks and reports written by experts. My trans DD genuinely believes that I grew her wrong, that science will (can) enable the 3d printing of a dna matched phallus that could be attached without risk of tissue rejection for example. She will no more readily hear that her understanding of science is wrong than a devout Christian or Muslim would countenance the idea that God/Allah does not exist.

They are lead by faith, misinformation, and a belief that as humankind has been wrong before (eg in believing that the earth is flat) that there is no such thing as permanent fact.

@Taztoy I know this doesn’t really answer your question as I am as gender ideology atheistic as you are (for similar reasons) but I truly believe we cannot actually bridge our understanding with theirs - there is no middle ground when we both hold what we understand to be fact-based truths.

But @TransParentlyAnnoyed said some men pretended to be trans. How do we know who is “truly trans” and who is pretending? What is the benchmark or criteria?

Does this apply to other things people claim about themselves? Or is 'trans' a special case and if so, why?

Surely it is though, because TRAs are always visiting the board, yet at the same time, it probably felt a bit safer for the OP to post here than, say, joining a TRA reddit/other social media platform, because at least some here know her posting history (as per her post above, she was raped).

Ok, so trans-identified males can fight for their own trans spaces/sports/prison wings etc. They already have the same human rights as everyone else, male and female. Quite rightly. And they have their 'extra' rights against discrimination on the basis of gender reassignment under the EA. So if they want even more than that, they can argue their case honestly, on the basis of being genuinely trans-identified, but not of course on the basis of being women. Because they're not.

Some people identify as/powerfully believe they are x, y, z, lots of words and theories and concepts that matter deeply to them - great. Crack on. Have fun. Whatever.

The issue is when they require their inner self expression to override other people's needs, rights, beliefs and concepts. Such as to express their sense of being a 'woman' (in a biologically male body) by using a women's single sex space, which harms and excludes actual women.

That's where the crunch comes, that is the issue. That other people's freedoms and needs and rights put boundaries up against the absolute expression of inner self and personal beliefs.

And that's where you get the real issues within this belief which is basically that 'trans' is a different and higher caste of human with more rights than lesser sorts of humans. And then it gets really ugly because they start explaining away why lesser sorts of humans don't matter, that it's ok to harm and use them with lots of justification and trashy 'science', and lots of double standard thinking about minimizing and dismissing those harms while valuing the more important person in ways they cannot extend to others. (Their sense of self matters, other people's sense of self is disposable. Their sense of safety and comfort matters, but other people's sense of self is selfish and should be overriden. Etc etc etc.) It's one of the main hallmarks of abusive behaviour, it's basic stuff, all part of the 'you must never hurt me, but if you annoy and provoke me then it's justifiable for me to hurt you' kind of stuff women run into in DV all the time. And once the justifying starts, the lid comes off and the racism, sexism and homophobia and ageism then goes berserk. And in many cases, sociopathy and from many men activists, extreme sexually violent ideation follows. It is not a belief set compatible with social equality and respect for others, that's the crunch point.

Hide this thread Taz, you've been through enough, and you're only going to be told again in depth why to someone who is a strong believer in this higher caste why they feel you don't matter and should not be entitled to safety, happiness or equality with a man. Thankfully the law exists to protect you and other groups from those who believe things like this.

And that’s no problem. If people believe themselves to be ‘trans’, that’s their prerogative.

But men are not ‘genuinely’ women because they say so. We should be pushing back hard on this utter nonsense.

I know youve said this isnt your opinion. But its exactly why we need people who do believe this to come and explain.

Because when I say "I just know that I'm a woman" I mean that I'm an adult human female. Which is something a man never can be. So what do they mean by "woman" because its a different meaning to me. If they mean some kind of inner essence, pink brain, loves sparkly stuff etc etc then im not a woman and theres no word left for me.