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

You are blaming women for men’s actions here.

That’s appalling.

Being rude (or simply honest) about someone’s appearance is not related to someone else committing a violent act. Go talk to those actually doling out violence.

If a white person walked down the street with blackface, would you be kind and smile politely, or would you think it was pretty awful of them and perhaps even challenge them? Would you think ‘each to their own’ or would you go home and express your disgust to your family? Because men pretending to be women is precisely the same thing.

I know where you're coming from but I'm not sure it's quite the same. I'm all for men wearing makeup or more "feminine" clothing - as long as they don't claim that makes them into women.

I used to like that about Eddie Izzard, that he could wear more feminine coded stuff while being clear that he was male (those were the days).

My daughter has a gay male friend who is very fond of makeup, glitter and sparkles, but is definitely male.

Seeing someone on the street, you wouldn't necessarily know whether they are trans or gender non-conforming. (Although in some cases it's obvious, but not always.)

Some people believe that they have a medical condition or brain difference which means they were born the sex they identify as, despite an apparently normal opposite sex body. They do not accept the general medical consensus that this can't happen.

I had a LOT of snash for using 'folk' on here, years back.

It's common Scottish usage, fwiw.

Agree with this.

I'm all for gender non conformity. In men and women.

Longing for the days when men could wear nail polish and eyeliner and long hair and it be no big deal.

God yes to non-conforming. If I had my way, men would mainly be prancing around looking like the dandy highwayman 🤣. Though maybe only the beautiful men 🤣

@Rollingpinofdoom I’m not going to join blue sky or go into a Reddit to discuss what people should and shouldn’t do because I’m not already conversing with them. I feel comfortable with talking to the women here and learning from them and sharing how I feel also. This is the area of the internet where I feel I can ask questions and get decent answers on the whole. When I first joined MN when I was very young I struggled to write due to dyslexia and complete lack of education. A few posters were quite mean to me, so I decided to learn how to read properly and write properly, when I came back years later i felt very thankful for the Mumsnet posters who did show me respect despite me being a bit slow and because of that it’s where i feel safest posting. That said, i have done my share of protecting women, I’ve helped women leave abusive men, I’ve taken in children and looked after them until they were able to be placed back with their parents. I am not asking anybody to be kind, I’m simply explaining how I feel that comments that dehumanise people, especially those who are riddled with trauma as many TW are, or are a group known to be neurodivergent in lots of cases, that they’re vulnerable and whilst many a bastard man has used the guise of dressing like a woman, slurs of any kind are going to embolden those already filled with hate and anger. It’s a slippery slope in my opinion and of course, it can differ from other people’s. It’s what makes conversation so good. We can learn or we can ignore entirely, but I’m entitled to say how I feel as everyone else is.

You are, but when you complain about women “mocking” men whilst ignoring the vitriol spewed by those men, you can see why that grates a bit on people.

This seems a very disingenuous take on what I’m saying. I’m not blaming women, I’m saying that the language we use to describe people can dehumanise them and it doesn’t take much for a man with a predisposition for violence to justify hurting someone. I don’t think TW are the only people this applies to, I think it’s anyone that people who have a violent nature can see as beneath them, problematic or deserving of hate that are left vulnerable to those people. I’m not telling women to be kind or anything of the sort. I’m saying that I personally worry that words have a profound impact. We have seen people become victims of violence for 100s of reasons and we do discuss any minority group in a dehumanising way that could be a slippery slope. Of course the only persons fault it is would be the perpetrator but I’d never want my words to be the reason someone completely unhinged justifies an act of violence.

So if a man says women deserve to be raped with a splintery rolling pin for stating they deserve single sex spaces is that more heinous or less heinous than a woman saying a man will never be a woman? Or if a man says he’s a woman because he can be fucked and that’s all a woman is. Andrea Chu said that. So is thst more or less dehumanising than stating TIM are men?

Men pretending to be women isn’t about your feelings though. They’re not trying to insult you. Blackface is done with the intention of causing great distress to black people, it’s an act of hate against black people.
Transwomen are most likely very mentally unwell and desperately trying to cope with something. If you go to the doctor and say you think you were born in the wrong body, they suggest you wear the clothes of the opposite sex and have therapy, then finalise it with surgery. If you go the doctor as a white person and say you feel you should have been born black, they're not going to suggest you put on blackface. Thankfully.
i understand the comparison, women are the worst treated humans in the world and for men to decide they’re feeling like a woman internally, it does sting a bit. They’ve not our lived fears or experiences, but I can’t imagine men (the cross dressing/fetishists aside) choosing to live in dresses and have surgery and endless medication, have their penises removed, they’re likely not doing that in the way a racist would, to humiliate and hurt. If I’m wrong and every single man who has struggled with internal homophobia, or who has suffered with their identity is solely doing this to hurt women then I genuinely would apologise to you, but I just don’t think most are doing it to upset you, not to say some won’t be by the way, but most won’t. So I can’t in good faith agree with your comparison.

if a man threatens a woman with rape in any event he should be in prison.

Adam Ant in his heyday 🔥 🔥

But any man who demands to use female spaces is hurting women aren’t they? Any man who claims womanhood is not about biology but his feelings damages women. Any man who demands women call him “she” hurts women. A TIM told rape victims who asked for single sex spaces told them they needed to “reframe their trauma”. A woman was raped on a NHS ward but told that was not possible as there was no man on the ward. There was though, he just claimed to be a woman so was let onto a female ward. How is that not hurting women?

how is wearing womanface any less offensive than blackface?

I agree with what you have said in the first part of your post here and yes they harm women.

I believe that the intent behind woman and black face are what stops them being comparable. Blackface is about black people. Woman face is about the man wearing it and even if you are offended by it and it is damaging it’s not always done with the same intent blackface is done. It may be just as awful and seem as though women’s faces are being mocked with the over exaggerated features such as eye makeup or lipstick, but I just don’t think they come from the same place.

I apologise if my posts have offended you or upset you. Not at all my intention and I’m still learning from these boards. I can only give my opinion and if that doesn’t align with yours it’s not to cause you annoyance, I just see it differently.

So a man wearing womanface does not mean to mock and degrade women, but a man wearing blackface is mocking and degrading black people. Why are they different? Both are punching down on an oppressed group. When a man claims to be a woman, how is that not degrading women?

Men have oppressed and still are oppressing women for centuries. For a man to then turn round and state he is a woman now because he “feels like a woman”, and demand access to women’s singles sex spaces mocks women’s struggles to be recognised as people that have taken centuries to even get where we are.
Did you know marital rape was only criminalised in the 1980s. Women could not get a mortgage alone until the 1980s. Where were all these TIM then? How many men claim to be women in Afghanistan do you think?

Okay, but men are not a minority group.

Some of them absolutely are mocking women, though. Have you not heard of 'sissy porn'? Do you not understand what transvestic fetishism is?

I think it was 1992 or 1993 marital rape was made illegal in the uk.

This is totally the wrong place to try and discuss because apart from the usual suspects, none of us are trans. So we have no experience of thinking you can change sex. And cant imagine how you could.

And of course the usual suspects are using the thread to attack women's sex based rights.

So apart from rehearsing all the usual FWR tropes which are about how you cant change sex, how does this help OP?

The question was, how can someone believe that you can change sex. This is what she wanted to know, even understand.

If we are all GC we dont know so cant answer.

It just becomes another thread where we can say all the things we can think of as to how a man cant become a woman.

As I said yesterday I am starting to think there should be a MN forum about Trans Ideology. Then those who want to discuss it can.

And maybe a question like this could be answered there.

I am sorry OP hasn't come back, but hope she is feeling better today. And maybe just as well she hasn't.

So even later. That’s not exactly helping your case here is it…..

so women have only recently been recognised as people in their own right, and now men decide they want to take away women’s rights, and your only concern is the language women use in saying no? Really?

And I have said that some absolutely are mocking women and some are from a place and a mental health issue. That’s the difference, blackface is coming solely from the place of hate. Womanface seems to have more reasons behind it.

and men aren’t a minority group, but ones who choose to have their penis removed and take hormones are. That’s all I am saying.

So? A man on hormones who has chopped his Willy off is still a man. So still not a minority. Still part of the oppressing class.

Of course it’s not my only concern, I have plenty of them. Most though have been ignored to give this one particular concern of mine centre stage. If feels less like a conversation and more of a pile on at this point.

Just because I care about women’s rights and spaces and their rights it doesn’t mean I can’t also care about the small minority of mentally unwell men who could also be victim to male violence because of how they present.

Im more than capable to care about more than one issue. I put children and women first always. But just because I won’t prioritise a TW it doesn’t mean I can’t still care about their safety.