Hadley Freeman on Self ID of gender in The Guardian

We must be wary of anyone coming here from Mumsnet, it’s Feminism forums are a hornets nest of hate, bile and genuinely twisted folks twisting and converting gullible women into hating trans persons,

I'm sorry you feel that way, MissTT. I assure you, I am not "spreading hate" or "genuinely twisted" and neither do I "hate trans persons". And I don't consider the users of Gransnet to be "gullible women" AT ALL

I started this thread as I thought that there would be valuable perspectives from a different generation of women than MN, and because I wanted to raise awareness of a petition on women's rights because I felt (and feel) that debate has been deliberately stifled on this issue. No other hidden agenda, I assure you.

Sometimes people see what they want to see, rather than what is there on the page.

You are welcome to search my posting history here and on MN, where you will see I have stated my position several times on how I feel trans people should absolutely be treated with respect and welcomed in society. I'm not militant or radical in most respects.

It is purely the unintended consequences to women's and girl's rights of this proposed change in the law that I am against.

I wish you all the best.

SueDomin - Attwood has said that everything that happened in Handmaid has actually happened to women somewhere in the world. This grounding the book in reality is what's given it its strength I think.

Exactly, Amma. And we think The Handmaid's Tale is just fiction. Women need and must protect their rights before we're reduced to nothing.

For the first time in my 63 years I am politically scared.

Iam64, I don't recall any campaigns in the 70's & 80's against gay or lesbian people, either.

For anyone who thinks women - born women - are making a fuss about nothing, take a look at what transgender activists think about anyone who questions their agenda.

Warning: bad language contained within link.

manfridayuk.org/2018/05/04/manfriday-the-11th-our-very-own-art-exhibition/

Gosh I cant believe how difficult this all is , the language used sounds more like a minefield & a political debate , rather than the very personal situations of many people. And what has the 3 that left got to do with self identification? I am confused?

I don't see bile & hatred coming from my side of this: I see justified fear. Lesbians will suffer the most, they are being erased:- some transwomen (so males deciding to be women) are calling themselves 'transbians' and basically aiming to destroy lesbians' bodily autonomy 'why won't you have sex with me? This? Oh this is my lady penis. You don't like it? Bigot'. Seriously. I know some of you will think I am making this up and I so wish I were. Some transsexuals (i.e. had the ops & hormones etc) hate the trans rights ideology as much as feminists do: there was a letter from 17 of them in Saturday's Guardian saying self ID isn't the right approach. I am pro women's rights, I am not against anybody's rights - where there is a clash at least let's discuss it. Though I will stoutly defend my rights if I think anyone is encroaching on them. I will not budge up for men who think they're women. Nor should I be expected to. Thankfully this is starting to come out of the closet now and it won't go back in.

Miss TT did you live in a different 1970's and 80's than I did? My experience was that women's groups, that is feminist groups, supported and promoted the rights of lesbian women and gay men.
Spreading bile and hatred?! No.

One other issue I don't think has been discussed is the women from other cultures. Some women are not allowed to go into spaces where men are present. So do we cut off an entire group of natal women to appease the trans lobby. Many women from other cultures are oppressed anyway and this is going to make it worse.

I honestly don't believe this has been through properly at all. I also note Pink (commonly known as Prick) news have an article demanding the changes are brought in quickly. To do this will stifle debate and curtail consultation, or is that the aim?

Many women have no idea of these proposed changes, my own daughters didn't know. The press, very slow on the uptake IMO are now beginning to write about this but it is vital that women all over the country and from all different communities, faiths and none know about what their future could be if this passes.

This Canadian article is good:

www.newcenter.ca/news/2018/5/6/terfs

They are further on in this than we are. Be afraid.

Well Spontaneous, I remember my girlhood (how Victorian that sounds!) and the ladies loos were indeed our refuge then and I suspect even more so now if you believe even half of what's in the press about what goes on in young women's lives now.

Elegran it seems that it won't be possible to ask for proof of sex (which is generally called 'gender' these days, to add to the confusion). We are a country that rejects the enforced carrying of ID: I signed a life-long pledge not to do so when Labour were trying to get that one through, and it would raise issues also for more 'butch' looking women. Also you write about a man having what appears to be a working penis: how could we know? If we know that then it must be on display! Are we going to physical checks before being allowed in the loos? We've so far had an honour-based system of not using the public toilets for the other sex and this has generally worked (yes, I know about women crashing the men's at concerts etc due to horrendously long queues for the women's but that is the exception). But if we don't stop this, we will have male-bodied people so with male genitals & hormones, saying they are women and in our changing rooms in swimming pools etc. I've heard this is already happening (not likely to see it myself, I avoid swimming pools & gyms like the plague).

Margaret Atwood said 'Men fear that women will laugh at them and women fear that men will kill them'. Germaine Greer has said women don't realise how much men hate them. Do men realise how much women fear them?

This still wouldn't deter any really sad perverted soul who felt that it was worth being labelled permanently as female so as to get a glimpse of naked women, but it would rule out the macho stag-night jokers and the high-school dares ("it's just a bit of fun!")

Women who have been on a girls evening out have been harassed by men and ducked into the ladies for safety. With self I.D. the man could then say he was a woman and follow her in.

Amma54 That is the aspect that I was about to comment on. If someone still looks undeniably male (and has what appears to be a working penis)they could be challenged for being in a communal changing room or some other place where women and girls are likely to be in a state of undress. Then even if they say verbally that they self-identify as female it should be legal for the challenger to ask for the documentary evidence that the transition is official and permanent, and for it NOT to be possible for the trans person to claim they are being victimised by being asked for it. That would be moral blackmail on women not to raise a challenge.

If passports with a photograph can be changed to reflect their new status then there will be no ambiguity. And remember, they are the ones who wish to be accepted for what they do not seem to be. It is up to them to prove their validity.

This still wouldn't deter any really sad perverted soul who felt that it was worth being labelled permanently as female so as to get a glimpse of naked women, but it would rule out the macho stag-night jokers and the high-school dares ("it's just a bit of fun!")

I am also a grandmother and on the MN feminist chat. It's clear that lots of people on GN don't really get what's going on with this transgender stuff. It is not about people with gender dysphoria, struggling for years, having physically & possibly emotionally painful surgery to transition, a life time of hormones, then not being welcome. That is the old model and it's almost obsolete now.

There is a plan to change the law so that anyone can self identify as the opposite sex, get a piece of paper saying so, change their documents to reflect this and live as a person of that new sex. All the current gatekeeping will disappear. However, because it will (it is believed) be illegal and certainly unwelcome to ask for proof of this change, the result will be that anyone can do this. Yes, it applies to women 'changing' to men too, but that is not my concern. I am concerned about, amongst other things, women's and girls' dignity, privacy & safety.

Imagine this scenario: you go to the ladies in a shopping centre or anywhere. There are 2 men in there, just hanging around. They are clearly male: beards, clothes whatever identifies an adult male human. You say something like 'I think you're in the wrong place, the gents is down the corridor' and they say to you 'we identify as women. We are allowed to be here and you can't do anything about it'. What do you do?

Every cell in my body would be screaming at me 'DO NOT TAKE ANOTHER STEP INTO THIS ROOM'. So I would turn around and leave, ignoring the state of my bladder. If those men knew who I was and I could be traced, it's possible I could be found by the police and interviewed under caution for a 'hate incident'. Because those men have 'identified' as women and must be treated as such.

What would you do or tell your daughters/granddaughters to do in this situation?

Another MN poster here. I am a gran with six beautiful DGC.

I post on the feminist chat boards.

MissTT I'm sorry you don't like us MN posters but we do have a right to post here.

Self I.D. will allow penis baring men to self I.D. into

Toilets
Changing rooms
Prisons
Rape crisis centers
Domestic violence shelters
Our GP surgeries to carry out intimate examinations
Our women's groups and organisations.

It's also worth baring in mind the Trans Rights Activists want to allow children to go into the gendered space of their choice. That means our DGC could have a boy with a penis in the shower after PE lessons, sleeping in the same tent with girls in the GG and a whole myriad of other situations. Not only is that not acceptable it's a safeguarding issue.

Already many businesses are going against the EA where women's female sex is a protected characteristic and allowing intact men into our safe spaces.

I notice people have said shared spaces with ceiling to floor walls and doors could be an answer. There are multiple examples of men presenting as women entering these places and installing cameras. They are so tiny so very easily hidden.

I appreciate this (my first post on GN) is huge but there is so much more to this than I first realised. I's still learning how this will effect my daughters and granddaughter.

It's nice to 'meet' you all and I look forward to continuing to debate this and other topics.

MissTT I am not from Mumsnet, and I don't hate transgender persons. I can see that it must be a very traumatic position to feel yourself to be one thing but to appear to everyone as another, and they have my support in finding a secure place in society.

But the position they are in is not much different from that faced by women for centuries - being perfectly capable of working in ocupations traditionally considered to be "men's work" but appearing to those same men as fit only for purely domestic and child-bearing roles. Women achieved equality eventually (more or less) but without infringing men's rights, except perhaps that of beating an incalcitrant wife with a stick no thicker than a thumb.

Men were concerned that militant women might infiltrate their men-only retreats - women are now concerned that men might infiltrate their retreats. Women have rather more reason to be concerned, not about genuine trans people, (who are probably not interested), but about non-trans voyeurs, sexual pesterers and macho posturers (who are interested).

If you doubt that this is a valid concern, www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/feb/08/sexual-assault-women-crime-survey-england-wales-ons-police-figures shows that One in five women in England and Wales have experienced some type of sexual assault since the age of 16 and has some other statistics too.

Oh look Gransnet, you're all gullible women!
I'm pretty darn sure we can make up our own minds and read and post on both forums without your permission.
Why don't you pop off back to Twitter with your screenshots crying transphobia?
Miss TT? I see you.....love.

We must be wary of anyone coming here from Mumsnet, it’s Feminism forums are a hornets nest of hate, bile and genuinely twisted folks twisting and converting gullible women into hating trans persons,

Maybe it’s age, but I’ve seen this before in the. 70s and 80s with hate campaigns against the gay and lesbian community so the more wiser amongst us can see right thru the OP. Same tactics same style, just aa newer media format.

Sling your hook, you’re not welcome to spread your hate here love. Head back to MN. Stay there.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mumsnet-founder-justine-roberts-transgender-activists-try-to-curb-free-speech-on-site-z3sr3nf6q?shareToken=ade388be59ac427155003eff83c5158c

What’s happening to MN

Men of course but I wanted to contest the assertion that it is only women who are threatened and abused by men. And that the concept of safe places will do nothing to deal with the problem. There was much more hope of real change when women ran the "Reclaim the Night campaign and marched in cities.

And who commits those many murders against men, Trisher? Mostly men. It isn't women who are going round slaying men. Of course we all want to live in the Utopia you describe but human nature being what it is, that will never happen.

Let's not forget, too, that women who do commit crimes are generally sentenced more harshly than men.

Another link to the Scottish consultation paper.
consult.scotland.gov.uk/family-law/review-of-the-gender-recognition-act-2004

Read the Scottish one - at least a gives a picture of the kind of thing that is planned. There are no other comprehensive reference sources (unless I've missed them) Westminster will no doubt wait until they see the impact of the Scottish legislation before jumping in.

Elegran that’s from the Scottish consultation isn’t it? We haven’t had one yet

Most Gransnetters support transexuals in their very difficult circumstances, and appreciate how long and painful the surgical/medical transition is. With the proposals for self-identification and changing a birth certificate we are faced with a quantum leap in the length of that transition and in the amount of discomfort required to "earn" it, and crucially there will be no medical input.

There are safeguards proposed - and it is to be earnestly hoped that applicants will be required at the very least to have read and understood all the details, preferably with expert advice on hand.

A six-month cooling-off period is proposed, during which the decision can be cancelled, and after that there would be provision to cancel it ONCE. Fears of people changing back and forward frequently and thoroughly confusing the certification paper-trail are unfounded

What some people are concerned about is that it may not be taken seriously by a few. What if a teenager who is still experimenting with his/her sexuality and has a temporary same-sex "pash" commits his/herself to such a life-changing decision? What if some drunken bridegroom at a stag do is persuaded by his friends to self-certificate himself as female? What if a randy chancer self-certificates to gain access to a women's prison, a nunnery, a female hospital ward, a care home, a home for the disabled?

These possibilities, and proposed safeguards against them, are not mentioned in the consultation document I posted a link to earlier, despite that being in general a very good account of what is proposed and what happens in other countries.