I wasn’t a Birthing Person and I didn’t Chest Feed

I don't mind middle aged straight men- they're not all like Jeremy Clarkson, thank goodness. But nor do I mind transwomen, transmen, non-binary, gay, straight or queer people. In fact I thnk the huge variety and diversity of the human race is to be celebrated. Nor do I think campaignng for human rights is something to regret. Human rights are not a finite resource, others having them does not diminish mine. Rather the reverse the more people who have them the more they will be extend to others.

Can you help us understand why you seem to believe your belief systems are superior to the majority of posters

trisher

Iam64

Doodledog

trisher

So actually no one is "changing" anything just adding to the vocabulary used so that minorities can be treated with understanding and sympathy.
I do notice that the "I'm not anti-trans brigade" who were posting misinformation about protected spaces have now taken on this thread since they were called to account elsewhere.

Bollocks. Or whatever the word is nowadays.

Speaking only for myself, I left the other thread purely because I got so sick of repeating that I am not anti-trans (and you have no right to tell me what I am), but have all the concerns that I laid out time and again on that thread be ignored and met with some gaslighting nonsense. I did explain why I was leaving the thread, but as usual you obviously didn't listen to anything that does not fit your misogynist agenda.

I don't think that any of us arguing that feminism is not about moving over for men were 'called to account' on that thread, and nor are we 'a brigade'.

Anyway, this is re-hashing another thread, but I didn't want to sit back in the face of an unnecessary and inaccurate dig when you brought the other thread up.

Apologies for the long quote, one that already includes a quote.
I’m another who stopped posting on the other thread. It’s no surprise to see those posters who disagreed with trisher as ‘the anti trans brigade’ . It isn’t anti trans to want to protect women.

I'm still waiting for someone to explain to me how asking someone who doesn't want to be called a woman, who has gender dysphoria and chooses to be called a man to conform to your beliefs, that he is a woman, because you choose to believe he cannot change the sex he was born, is in anyway supporting or protecting women.
As usual the whole emphasis of this thread is upon transwomen. It is transmen the vocabulary is being introduced to deal with. Some think they remain women, but apparently not women worthy of protection or consideration.
I posted the case earlier which is probably the driving factor behind this and which has nothing to do with transwomen.

Trisher - I am another who was on the other page and answered/replied in good faith that we were open to genuine debate.

I state again, as I did on the other page, we were not a brigade and I did not read anything in the thread that was ‘trans phobic’ that is your interpretation of women expressed genuine concerns for women and children. You ran true to form with all others who champion the trans ideology that has the potential to erase women’s rights, you called us names!

I do not appreciate being misrepresented by you on this page and I ask that you desist from doing so.

Do not expect me to enter into any discussion points with you as I no longer trust you to be truly interested in any points I have to make.

The name calling originated wth people who called me misogynistic for supporting transpeople. I have no desire to eradicate anyone's rights I am and always have been an outspoken, radical left wing feminist and if you don't like that tough. Please note I'm not the one refusing to debate. I have and always will support the rights of all human beings and particularly those of minorities. The conclusion of some seems to be we are not debating with you because you disagree with us. I assume am permitted to have my own views on what and what isn't transphobic, or does your feminism demand that you remove that from me? I've never understood feminism that says I must regard other people as threatening my womanhood. I am a woman, I will remain a woman and supporting others has never interfered with that.

Trisher I respect your views and try to understand them.
We don't live far apart - perhaps we can meei up?

Difficult just now Fennel but in a month or so when I've had my second vaccination and things are more settled I'd love to.

Looking forwaed to it .
If I'm still in this world.
I think the next world is more attractive !

trisher How is it that you get to define yourself as a radical left-wing feminist, but you refuse to allow others to say that they are not anti-trans?

You say that you are not the one refusing to debate, but time and time again on the 'let's talk about feminism' thread you did not engage with others' comments, but instead came back with patronising and repetitive posts about how you are not going to ask people standing next to you about their genitals, and how we don't understand what we are talking about.

Posting words is not the same thing as debate.

In the end, several people opted out of the thread, which you seem to see as a gesture of defeat. It wasn't - it was boredom and frustration.

You say you support others, including minorities. Good for you. So do I, and so, I am sure, do the people you denigrate as transphobic. You are very fond of imposing your definitions onto others, yet here you are refusing to allow anyone to define your own feminism. Can't you see the hypocrisy here?

With reference to the topic of the thread, the change of 'breast' to 'chest' is a bit of a red herring. It is unlikely to be used very often, as there can only be a minute number of people who were born female, choose to live as men, then decide to give birth in spite of this, choose to breastfeed but prefer to have this referred to by others as chest feeding. It's fairly niche, surely?

My guess is that most midwives will never come across such a situation in the course of their career. More important (IMO) than any of this is the fact that there has been a change of policy in order to accommodate this tiny number of people, and that people are defending the time and money spent of making the policy and training people in its use when the NHS is groaning under the strain of underfunding and Covid. This is, IMO, indicative of the agenda of those who want women to be subsumed into a sub-set of men - the wishes of a tiny number of people are being put ahead of the needs of the rest.

I don't think that the words matter, but the insidious creep of this agenda is disturbing, as is the way in which anyone trying to express concerns is rounded upon. I do see this as anti-feminist, and I have as much right to that opinion as you do to yours.

Espana The roots of "Cis" go back to the Roman definition of what they saw as the two parts of Gaul. There was CisAlpine Gaul - the part which lay on the near or Roman side of the Alps (ie, Italy) and there was TransAlpine Gaul - the part which lay on the far side, across the Alps, ie all the rest . In other words, trans was across the divide, and cis was on the original side (in the case of Gaul, the trans part was far bigger than the part on the cis side).

(Gaul= the name given by the Romans to the territories where the Celtic Gauls (Latin Galli, French Gaulois) lived, including present France, Belgium, Luxemburg and parts of the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany on the west bank of the Rhine, and the Po Valley, in present Italy.)

I knew the word Cis rang a bell but hadn't connected it with CisAlpine Gaul. Thanks Elegran, I need to do my revision!

Doodledog you're probably going to hate me for this ( if you don't already) but...

Trisher can call herself a radical left-wing feminist in good faith because her opinions and activities (in researching and balancing her position on here), beliefs and posts support it.

The posts of the people who claim to be anti trans contain so much anti trans rhetoric it's hard not to suspect that they are in denial of their own attitudes.

'I'm not anti trans but...' is no different to 'I'm not racist but...'
or 'I'm not sexist but...' or 'I'm not homophobic, but...'

In all honesty, people who are genuinely not bigoted don't act in a bigoted manner, so they don't feel the need to defend their position because they are rarely attacked for it, other than by, well, bigots.

Please accept that I am not calling you or anyone else names, just using emotive words to illustrate my point. Neither am I saying that Trisher is a paragon of virtue ( I don't know her, she might be, she might not) but what I am saying is that her arguments and position hold more water and she has never posted anything even hinting at misogyny since I've been reading - which is an awful lot longer than I've been posting.

Equally, for myself I am not condemning you for your opinions or failing to recognise your (or anyone else's) fears regarding the status of natal women as it relates to trans women/men and the use of inclusive language. I just cannot empathise with them because I can find no evidence that supports them.

Because of our exchanges on this I've voluntarily spent hours reading articles, essays etc that support 'your side' - I did that out of curiosity, balance and respect for other's opinions. I'm still not buying it, but I made the effort to stay up to date and argue in a fair and informed way.

I hope this assures you that though I may challenge people, I don't disrespect them (even when I am being a cocky know it all) I uphold their right to an opinion, I just don't always agree with it.

Pointing out the transphobia in some of the posts is merely about asking people to stand back and ask themselves "am I? Could I be?" - it's not condemning anyone, least of all women.

Doodledog
trisher How is it that you get to define yourself as a radical left-wing feminist, but you refuse to allow others to say that they are not anti-trans?
You can say you are not anti-trans it doen't mean I have to agree with you. Just as if you wish you can deny that I am radical left wing or a feminist. It 's called free speech.

You say that you are not the one refusing to debate, but time and time again on the 'let's talk about feminism' thread you did not engage with others' comments, but instead came back with patronising and repetitive posts about how you are not going to ask people standing next to you about their genitals, and how we don't understand what we are talking about.

Posting words is not the same thing as debate.
Nor is insisting I didn't answer questions. I answered many things. I leave the evidence for others to read. I also asked questions about transmen and access to women's places which were never really answered.

You say you support others, including minorities. Good for you. So do I, and so, I am sure, do the people you denigrate as transphobic. You are very fond of imposing your definitions onto others, yet here you are refusing to allow anyone to define your own feminism. Can't you see the hypocrisy here?

The hypocrisy I see is insisting you support trans people then posting inflamatory and misleading information which you may believe but which can certainly be used to stoke transphobia and lead to persecution.

With reference to the topic of the thread, the change of 'breast' to 'chest' is a bit of a red herring. It is unlikely to be used very often, as there can only be a minute number of people who were born female, choose to live as men, then decide to give birth in spite of this, choose to breastfeed but prefer to have this referred to by others as chest feeding. It's fairly niche, surely?

My guess is that most midwives will never come across such a situation in the course of their career. More important (IMO) than any of this is the fact that there has been a change of policy in order to accommodate this tiny number of people, and that people are defending the time and money spent of making the policy and training people in its use when the NHS is groaning under the strain of underfunding and Covid. This is, IMO, indicative of the agenda of those who want women to be subsumed into a sub-set of men - the wishes of a tiny number of people are being put ahead of the needs of the rest.

I don't think that the words matter, but the insidious creep of this agenda is disturbing, as is the way in which anyone trying to express concerns is rounded upon. I do see this as anti-feminist, and I have as much right to that opinion as you do to yours.

Of course there will be a tiny number of people so I wonder how can this really, as some have stated, be an attempt to eradicate women?
Once again you correlate this with the demands of men. I think it has much more to do with the transman who gave birth recently and the legal precedence set. It would be much more expensive for the NHS if they were sued for not accommodating a need.

I don't think that the words matter, but the insidious creep of this agenda is disturbing, as is the way in which anyone trying to express concerns is rounded upon. I do see this as anti-feminist, and I have as much right to that opinion as you do to yours.

It isn't expressing concerns to deny that there is any need for changes or to focus entirely on one group of people whilst ignoring others. Transpeople are not just transwomen there are transmen, so how it can be a movement to eradicate women I don't know. Of course you have the right to say it is anti-feminist, but it might be more convincing if you could explain how insisting transmen must remain women is at all feminist.

Trisher I had started a comment in reply to Iam64's 19:08:51 as I was going to question why she thought you seem to believe your belief systems are superior to the majority of posters. I disagree that you do and could see nothing in your comments to justify asking you this.

However, before I posted, I checked back to see if there were any more comments since Iam64's. Having read NellG's, I'm letting my comment pass as she echoes my thoughts substantially better than I can.

doodlebug
Yep. The term 'people who menstruate' is used, so as not to offend transmen who still have ovaries.

At the risk of being accused of pedantry or possibly going off topic, I'd like to point out the misconception here (pardon the pun).

JK Rowling herself got it wrong when she wanted to equate "people who menstruate" with the word women - though I accept she was being humorous and didn't deserve the vilification she received. The originally article she first noticed the phrase in was talking about period poverty among the poor and dispossessed in third world countries. So they did mean, quite literally, "people who menstruate" and were not talking about all women.
The resulting furore I'm afraid just showed up everyone's ignorance.

*I'm not anti trans but...' is no different to 'I'm not racist but...'
or 'I'm not sexist but...' or 'I'm not homophobic, but*

Or 'I'm not internalising misogyny but. . .'?

As I'm sure you know, someone starting a statement with 'I'm not X but. . . may very well be about to say something contradictory (or they might not), but when someone is unfairly accused of being X, and they deny it, then go on to say why, in their opinion, what they think is not X, it is a different matter. Should they simply let these accusations pass without comment?

To me, a tranphobe is someone who is afraid of, or used more loosely, who is uncomfortable with someone who has transitioned from one gender to another. This, I can assure you, I am not. I have no idea how I can prove this, but it is unreasonable of you to keep dismissing me and invalidating my assertion without evidence. I could say that I know and respect transpeople, but then I would be accused of using the 'some of my best friends' argument. Against that sort of facile 'logic', it is impossible to win.

What I do feel, and I know that this is where we differ, is that there is a huge difference between sex and gender. This is recognised by the trans community, many of whom find the term 'transexual' to be offensive, seeing it as referring to only those in their community who have medically (using surgery and hormones) gone as far as they can to change their sex, as opposed to only their gender.

This difference is not taken into account by recent moves to allow anyone to declare their gender as being whatever they wish, sometimes different on one day from another. My concerns centre on the fact that men can declare themselves to be women and there can be no argument. As 'women', they can join sports teams, be transferred to women's prisons, join all-female shortlists, count in statistics that measure biological factors in terms of male or female, and can assume positions of power over vulnerable women in rape suites, domestic violence refuges or other sensitive settings. This, combined with the creeping changes in language, threatens to eradicate women as a sex, as we will become subsumed into a 'non-male' category.

This concern is nothing to do with gender, and nothing to do with those who live their lives as someone of a gender different from their birth sex. It is about the ability of men to declare themselves to be women without any attempt to change their sex, which requires medical intervention

Gender is, in my opinion, a social construct which can confine people in normative constraints that are out of kilter with their personality/persuasion/inclination (difficult to find a less loaded term, but you know what I mean). Some people find that they are unable to act within the gender norms that come naturally to them without facing abuse or rejection by those around them, so choose instead to define as a different gender so that they can behave in a way that they find more comfortable. As far as I am concerned, that is up to them, and I have every sympathy with them.

The creeping trend for changing language so that women are slowly being eradicated (womxn, chest feeding, CIS, Natal, AFAB and so on) combined with the way in which men can access women's spaces unchallenged is what concerns me. Both of these things are detrimental to women, which worries me both as a woman and as a feminist, and put together they terrify me as a mother of a daughter.

It may be that there are exemptions in law, so that if there are reasons to exclude someone in particular from a female space it can be done, but by that time it is likely to be too late to be of use to the victim of abuse, or of a violation of their dignity, safety or religious preference.

I see these issues as separate and entirely different from one another. It is not transphobic to want to protect women from those who want to use sex (as opposed to gender) as a way of changing and ultimately removing what it is to be female.

Doodledog

*I'm not anti trans but...' is no different to 'I'm not racist but...'
or 'I'm not sexist but...' or 'I'm not homophobic, but*

Or 'I'm not internalising misogyny but. . .'?

As I'm sure you know, someone starting a statement with 'I'm not X but. . . may very well be about to say something contradictory (or they might not), but when someone is unfairly accused of being X, and they deny it, then go on to say why, in their opinion, what they think is not X, it is a different matter. Should they simply let these accusations pass without comment?

To me, a tranphobe is someone who is afraid of, or used more loosely, who is uncomfortable with someone who has transitioned from one gender to another. This, I can assure you, I am not. I have no idea how I can prove this, but it is unreasonable of you to keep dismissing me and invalidating my assertion without evidence. I could say that I know and respect transpeople, but then I would be accused of using the 'some of my best friends' argument. Against that sort of facile 'logic', it is impossible to win.

What I do feel, and I know that this is where we differ, is that there is a huge difference between sex and gender. This is recognised by the trans community, many of whom find the term 'transexual' to be offensive, seeing it as referring to only those in their community who have medically (using surgery and hormones) gone as far as they can to change their sex, as opposed to only their gender.

This difference is not taken into account by recent moves to allow anyone to declare their gender as being whatever they wish, sometimes different on one day from another. My concerns centre on the fact that men can declare themselves to be women and there can be no argument. As 'women', they can join sports teams, be transferred to women's prisons, join all-female shortlists, count in statistics that measure biological factors in terms of male or female, and can assume positions of power over vulnerable women in rape suites, domestic violence refuges or other sensitive settings. This, combined with the creeping changes in language, threatens to eradicate women as a sex, as we will become subsumed into a 'non-male' category.

This concern is nothing to do with gender, and nothing to do with those who live their lives as someone of a gender different from their birth sex. It is about the ability of men to declare themselves to be women without any attempt to change their sex, which requires medical intervention

Gender is, in my opinion, a social construct which can confine people in normative constraints that are out of kilter with their personality/persuasion/inclination (difficult to find a less loaded term, but you know what I mean). Some people find that they are unable to act within the gender norms that come naturally to them without facing abuse or rejection by those around them, so choose instead to define as a different gender so that they can behave in a way that they find more comfortable. As far as I am concerned, that is up to them, and I have every sympathy with them.

The creeping trend for changing language so that women are slowly being eradicated (womxn, chest feeding, CIS, Natal, AFAB and so on) combined with the way in which men can access women's spaces unchallenged is what concerns me. Both of these things are detrimental to women, which worries me both as a woman and as a feminist, and put together they terrify me as a mother of a daughter.

It may be that there are exemptions in law, so that if there are reasons to exclude someone in particular from a female space it can be done, but by that time it is likely to be too late to be of use to the victim of abuse, or of a violation of their dignity, safety or religious preference.

I see these issues as separate and entirely different from one another. It is not transphobic to want to protect women from those who want to use sex (as opposed to gender) as a way of changing and ultimately removing what it is to be female.

I share your concerns and think they are valid and have foundation.

The problem with these threads that seem populated by many of the same folk, is that you and I, along with a few others are being manipulated into repeatedly covering the same points, then we are declared to be various things, then, rightly, we have to defend ourselves. It is so unproductive. What do you think?

Sparklefizz

It's ludicrous ..... and yet again, women and women's life experiences are being deleted.

I agree. Womanhood will soon have a different meaning too.

Actually, what does it mean to you?

What do you think?

I think that I am at the end of my tether with this 'debate'. It is impossible to discuss in any meaningful way when, as you say, we are coerced into saying the same things over and over.

I would like to see a feminism forum on here, with the proviso that only one active thread on it could be about trans issues, so that we can discuss other things that affect women without trans issues pushing them aside.

As men also have breast tissue why is ‘chest’ being introduced?

Men can’t have babies even those who feel they are women so...

and what about breast cancer which occurs in women and men...we can’t use ‘chest’ because that is something different.

Doodledog

*What do you think?*

I think that I am at the end of my tether with this 'debate'. It is impossible to discuss in any meaningful way when, as you say, we are coerced into saying the same things over and over.

I would like to see a feminism forum on here, with the proviso that only one active thread on it could be about trans issues, so that we can discuss other things that affect women without trans issues pushing them aside.

Good idea.
I asked Gransnet and they replied to say they were monitoring it. I’d like to know what their criteria is.

I agree, too. Hi jacking of threads is quite annoying. Am I allowed to use the word hi jacking or is it non pc ?
The original thread actually made me laugh because I had visions of a large wooden chest being used to stick a baby in to feed. We don’t have chest feeding here as far as I am aware but we usually follow on 10 years later than the uk so no doubt it will come.

MBHP1

Doodledog

What do you think?

I think that I am at the end of my tether with this 'debate'. It is impossible to discuss in any meaningful way when, as you say, we are coerced into saying the same things over and over.

I would like to see a feminism forum on here, with the proviso that only one active thread on it could be about trans issues, so that we can discuss other things that affect women without trans issues pushing them aside.

Good idea.
I asked Gransnet and they replied to say they were monitoring it. I’d like to know what their criteria is.

I support the need for a feminism forum and have contacted Gransnet previously about that.

The way in which trans issues have dominated any discussion with feminism or women at its core has effectively excluded discussion on women’s issues. I don’t know if it’s possible to say only one active thread on trans issues. Is it possible to exclude the introduction of trans into every discussion on feminism.

To add, I’ve reported the above comments in a bid to get Gransnet to consider this

Perhaps there could be one on "Women's issues apart from trans ones" so as to keep a space for them? Or would there then be an outcry from the trans side that they were being neglected?