Woman

Doodledog

Are you seriously coming back to this thread as though your past post to GSM never happened?

I stand by that post Doodledog.

It is flat out discrimination to say you are scared of a trans person.

Lets face facts. CIS men are a threat. Trans women aren't.

Homophobia isn't a phobia. It is bigotry. Trans fear isn't real. It is bigotry.

So yes. Say CLEARLY what you want. You all like to ask questions and expect an answer so I'm doing the same.

What do you want? Be clear.

Doodledog

Doodledog

I don't believe that transwomen are men, although I do believe that they will always be male when it comes to biology, health and statistics. I think there should be changes to vocabulary so that we can discuss transwomen in a way that is sensitive to their wish to be seen as women whilst also, without value judgement, recognising that biologically they are male. I do not think that we should do this by eradicating vocabulary that recognises women as a separate sex, however.

I also believe that there are men who will pass themselves off as transwomen if there are not clear rules to ensure that they do not. I am more concerned about men doing this in order to gain access to vulnerable women than I am about men getting onto boards (they dominate those anyway), but I am also very worried about the way in which health and legal statistics are being altered in ways that hide so-called 'natal' women, and I resent having to use terms like 'so-called 'natal' women' to talk about women.

I don't know how many more times I can say those things. I have said them in as many different ways as I can for what must be years now on these threads.

For avoidance of doubt, this is the post you said you did not understand, trisher. Would you please, without using dubious analogies or diversions explain just what you don't understand?

What do you not understand about the above, trisher?

Mollygo - I think the point is that transactivists want the term chest to be used...so it is not transphobic. chestfeeders not breastfeeders.

With men and women who are moving from one gender to another, and having surgery and taking hormones the situation is more complex. If they have had the full surgery and men no longer have a penis and testicles and women have also been provided with that apparatus, then they should be able to use the facilities associated with the sex they identify with.
If I say to someone you can't do "A" which is something they feel essential to their well being unless you do "B" I am making that process compulsory. You may feel you are not doing so M0nica but then an awful lot of restrictive and inhumane practices are put into operation because someone thought it was OK to do so.

I'm still waiting for someone to tell me how I'm losing out, or how a miniscule proportion of transpeople will substantally change anything apart from making the language more inclusive, which to my mind is a good thing.

I was reading one of the accounts on the websites of people who say they are feminists and oppose trans rights. I notice that when they are shouted down or challenged by people at student venues they describe those people as trans activists, with no evidence whatsoever. I think they are probably just young people with trans and non-binary friends and relations, who recognise that this is actually to do with the people they love and care for just living as positive and productive life as possible, so they are just speaking up for, and with, them. They aren't trans activists they re just living in the real world.

Are you seriously coming back to this thread as though your past post to GSM never happened?

Why don't you all state clearly in bullet points what you DON'T want?

Places you think trans women should not be able to go. None of this airy fairy 'women only spaces' mullarkey. Named places.

Things you don't want them to be able to do.

You are right Doodledog. Distraction is the name of the game. There are serious far reaching decisions we need to discuss as a society that aren't being made. Either on threads such as this where posters gish gallop away from the subject matter until we all leave in confusion. Or in the wider media where a statement that isn't 100% in favour of the TRA's demands invites accusations of transphobia and hate speech. As I'm typing this, an article in our local newspaper on line about a transwoman self medicationing has an army of supporters crushing every posters comment that doesn't follow the expected trans narrative. Comments are being deleted in real time and accusations are flying. Talk of posters being sued. How on earth did we all get here?

There is clearly passion on both sides and genuine concerns need to be expressed. One of my concerns is that, as with Stonewall quietly misleading and changing policies of hundreds of organisations, laws are made that affect women and suddenly its is too late. Women will loose out. Women are loosing out.

I certainly wasn't advocating compulsory surgery. The thought never entered my mind, until you accused me of it trisher

What is more I have gone back to my 'get back to basics' post and nothing is said there that could possibly be construed as suggesting compulsory surgery.

Your fevered imagination is running away with you.

Doodledog

I don't believe that transwomen are men, although I do believe that they will always be male when it comes to biology, health and statistics. I think there should be changes to vocabulary so that we can discuss transwomen in a way that is sensitive to their wish to be seen as women whilst also, without value judgement, recognising that biologically they are male. I do not think that we should do this by eradicating vocabulary that recognises women as a separate sex, however.

I also believe that there are men who will pass themselves off as transwomen if there are not clear rules to ensure that they do not. I am more concerned about men doing this in order to gain access to vulnerable women than I am about men getting onto boards (they dominate those anyway), but I am also very worried about the way in which health and legal statistics are being altered in ways that hide so-called 'natal' women, and I resent having to use terms like 'so-called 'natal' women' to talk about women.

I don't know how many more times I can say those things. I have said them in as many different ways as I can for what must be years now on these threads.

For avoidance of doubt, this is the post you said you did not understand, trisher. Would you please, without using dubious analogies or diversions explain just what you don't understand?

trisher

Doodledog M0nica posted and you agreed with her. I actually found it the most shocking thing I have seen posted. Compulsory surgery? Really?
It's incomprehensible and doesn't fit with any sort of democratic beliefs I know and it certainly isn't feminist.

I was agreeing with the last bit M0nica's post, where she talks about give and take, and suggests that the majority should not be dictated to by a small and vocal minority, which are things that I have been saying all along.

The quote facility on here is very primitive, and I didn't cut and paste the relevant bit, but if you have bothered to read my posts you would be aware of my thoughts, and you ignored the post I asked you to comment on, so I can't help thinking that this is another diversionary tactic.

For the record, of course I am not advocating compulsory surgery ?. I don't think that M0nica was either, incidentally, She seemed to me to be making the point that there is a difference between people who have fully transitioned and those who haven't, and is going out of her way to say that those who have should be accepted as women, but I'm sure she can speak for herself.

Would you please now comment on my post - the one you said you didn't understand, or are you retracting that now?

For anyone who hasn't been put off by all the diversionary tactics, bare-faced slurs and so on, and is still reading this thread Here is a story that illustrates how farcical the demands of the TRA lobby can be.

Germanshepherdsmum

Of course it’s goading trisher. It’s a repetition of what you said some days ago for the sole purpose of picking a fight. Who are you to tell me what feelings I may and may not confide on GN? I don’t require patronising ‘explanations’ from you or anyone else.

If either Gagajo or I cared to Gsm we could report your post for being transphobic. We haven't. We believe in free speech even when that speech is discriminatory and biased. We try to help anyone posting such things, but as far as GN is concerned if you think it's acceptable I could report it and we could find out.

Of course it’s goading trisher. It’s a repetition of what you said some days ago for the sole purpose of picking a fight. Who are you to tell me what feelings I may and may not confide on GN? I don’t require patronising ‘explanations’ from you or anyone else.

Explaining? How was that disgraceful post explaining anything? It was false equivalence and deliberately incendiary.

To suggest that GagaJo was trying to ‘help’ is patronising and disingenuous. GSM doesn’t need help not to be racist - she wasn’t being racist.

I think that GSM deserves an apology for that post. It is a serious accusation, and like the Godwin’s Law attempt, such an accusation is the last refuge of the desperate who know they are losing an argument.

Transmen can call themselves what they like - breast feeder etc.
Mothers who want to be called mothers should be allowed to be called that “so staff in any organisation should understand that”
What women are objecting to is the fact that they are being discriminated against and their preference is being ruled out by the desires of those who want all women to be called breastfeeders.

Doodledog M0nica posted and you agreed with her. I actually found it the most shocking thing I have seen posted. Compulsory surgery? Really?
It's incomprehensible and doesn't fit with any sort of democratic beliefs I know and it certainly isn't feminist.

Gsm it isn't "goading" it's simply explaining something I have already used as an example of why you shouldn't use such terms. I'm sorry if you are upset by transwomen, but it really isn't their fault and pointing out how bias and discrimination are expressed is actually trying to help you.

Oldwoman70 Those terms can be used if the person involved wishes. If the breastfeeder is a transman they should be allowed to use the terms they wish, so staff in any organisation should understand that.

Thank you Doodledog. I follow this thread with increasing disbelief that certain posters claim to be feminists. Does a true feminist dredge up a statement of a genuine fear made by a woman to other women some days ago, when the argument has long since moved on, in order to twist that statement into a ridiculous analogy and attack me for what I confided to other women? I think not. This is goading, pure and simple.

trisher said "you may ask others to use the terms you prefer, you cannot insist that others use those words about themselves if they find them unacceptable" - yet you seem happy that the terms "pregnant women" or "breastfeeding woman" should not be used.

As I have said previously, when in a communal dressing room most women are discreet and stand with their back to the room if a transwoman openly displays their male genitals in that situation one has to wonder why they choose to do that. Once again I ask you - do you not consider women and children should be protected from that?

Thanks Doodledog and Rosie51.
GJ that was unbelievable!

Cross posted, Rosie51.

I am speaking for GSM here, so I apologise if I am out of line, GSM, but her comment isn’t about race, so your analogy doesn’t hold water.

You have brought race into it, nobody else. You just just as easily have said ‘seeing a cat dressed as a dog’ or ‘a young person dressed as an old one’ if you wanted to pretend that GSM’s comment could be extrapolated to anything else (which you can’t reasonably do, as it is her phobia, not yours), but instead you chose as contentious a comparison as you could, to try to make GSM look bad.

If you can’t add anything useful of your own to the discussion, at least try not to score points by using fallacious argument.

GagaJo if I self identify as a black person despite my obvious more stereotypically "white" complexion ( I actually do have black ancestry but it doesn't "show" and it's irrelevant to this issue) would you really think me the best advocate for black people's issues? Do you think that despite growing up "white" I'd be accepted as the authority as to what it's like to be a black person? Would you agree with me taking an obviously black person's place on a committee, focus group etc or would you be saying the black person should be taking the position? Now apply that logic to sex issues. We can all do the substitution equation.

Germanshepherdsmum

Quite simply, whether logical or not, seeing an obviously intact man dressed/made up as a woman, or a person very obviously male dressed/made up as a woman in an all female space would frighten me.

If this statement were changed to ethnicity:

Quite simply, whether logical or not, seeing an obviously black person dressed/made up as a white person, in an all white space would frighten me.

Can you SEE how horrifically offensive that is? I'm sure there are many white people that are afraid of black people. It doesn't make it right.

I apologise to others for using this analogy, but really. This arguing is becoming SO offensive that if the topic weren't gender, it would have LONG since been deleted by GNHQ.

Trisher great words.
Allowing women to be put at risk of attack or into a state of fear in what are supposed to be safe spaces for them, by those transwomen who ID or selfID with the intention of harming others is inhumane. Men and (women) having the right to say natal women have no right to object because it’s transphobic, is dictatorial.

Finding a way round the problem, whilst that attitude exists and is supported by some men some women and some trans, is unworkable.
So I agree with your vocabulary even if not with your usage. Since I haven’t ever said I thought transwomen should have surgery there’s another area of agreement.
Wow!

As to whether or not you are Mary Poppins, well she’s a fantasy figure who could make things happen by clicking her fingers, so I’m not quite sure how you see yourself.

I think you are responding to M0nica's post and not mine, trisher.