Where is the balance and how can we live respectfully with difference? Radical feminist (TERF) beliefs versus transgender beliefs.

Good grief. This thread is like being back in 2016 again. Am afraid this stuff just has no impact anymore. We are hysterical, insecure, etc. Surely someone is going to pop on and say we are funded by the far right.

Whitewavemark2

Syracute

The transgender population is such a small tiny part of the population. These threats and dangers inferred are so overblown. They are used for political gains over and over.
This hatred that is fomented endangers their lives and existence.
I follow a few transgender people on social media. More people should so they can have more empathy and gain understanding to their very real struggles.

Yes.

This is where I am in complete agreement.

I live in a part of the country which has traditionally always had a larger than average gay population, and everything in between.

I have always had gay friends and known a very few people who have transitioned.

I lived here from a teenager, until now - I nor friends or family have never, ever experienced or reported the sort of criminal act that is being talked about on these threads.

That is not to say that it doesn’t exist - of course it does and one assumes it is dealt with just as all sexual crime is dealt with. But like syracute I think it is totally overblown, and almost certainly for political reasons. . I have attempted to get the figures for the sort of criminal act being describing - of women being attacked by transitional people in a single sex space and keep being told that the % level is too small to be significant.

There are however other areas relating to transitional people like sport participation that I may accept that fairness is a factor and so must and is addressed in many sports.

As a general rule I am against division and othering in whatever form it takes. There are clearly issues that need addressing but it must be remembered that transitional people experience huge emotional and physical upheaval in their life, and as has been said a bit of empathy and less hostility is sorely needed.

I am in agreement with both Syracuse and Whitewavemark2.

Galaxy

Good grief. This thread is like being back in 2016 again. Am afraid this stuff just has no impact anymore. We are hysterical, insecure, etc. Surely someone is going to pop on and say we are funded by the far right.

That's just ridiculous!

paddyann54

As someone who personally knows several trans folk ,all without exception living the life they always felt they should ,I too think the issue caused by a small minority has been ramped up by media and for political gain
My experience of these people is that they love under the radar ,have responsible jobs ,volunteer raise children and have no intention of harming anyone
I just wish those who are stuck in the past could see the good folk I see and realise transitioning is not a new thing…it was just a hidden state like homosexuality was .
Sad that we need to show our insecurities by bringing other people down.

I support your opinions paddyann54.

Indeed twaddle being called hysterical, insecure, far right, we have heard it all before. I think most gender critical feminists just laugh now.

Wyllow3

Now, that doesn't mean that the staff couldn't be sensitive in dealing with that person..

Absolutely.

Indeed we must always prioritise the feelings of a paedophile above those of his victims. I can't begin to imagine how his victims will ever trust adults again and then for them to hear other adults lying about who he is. Just unspeakable.

Now, that doesn't mean that the staff couldn't be sensitive in dealing with that person..

Be sensitive to the convicted paedophile from a high-security men's prison, who was 6 feet tall, appeared masculine, and had to be shackled by two prison officers because he was so violent??? He should have been treated with as much sensitivity, dignity, respect and kindness as he afforded the children he sexually assaulted. Added to that, he is a racist, violent, misogynistic thug. And you seriously think he should have been treated sensitively because he thinks he's a laydeee now?

As of 2026, transgender women in England and Wales will not be placed in female prisons if they have repainted (retained) male genitalia or have been convicted of any violent or sexual offences.
Who made this decision? I thought transgender women, that is biological men, were sent to male prisons following disturbances where transgender females insisted on residence in female prisons.
Someone commented on 'people who believe in biological sex.' It is a fact, not a belief.
Far too much time wasted on the supposed rights of a tiny but very vocal minority.

Like you, Galaxy I feel as though we’ve stepped back in time. Please will people stop conflating transpeople with gay people? Sexual orientation and so-called ‘gender’ are very different things. Not all gay men are ‘feminine’, and transgenders is not an extension of gayness.

Homosexuality is about sexual orientation (ie sexual attraction to people of one’s own sex) and ‘transgender’ people, like the rest of us, can be gay, bi or straight.

Many transwomen are heterosexual men, which is why many women don’t want them in spaces where we are vulnerable or in states of undress. Some even claim to be lesbian (ie a transwoman who fancies women), and get angry when an actual lesbian (very specifically a woman who does not fancy men) refuses to have sex with them. Transwoman have gatecrashed lesbian speed dating events - reminiscent of the ‘she just needs a good seeing to’ views of old. Much of this is about power, not sexuality, and homophobia has nothing to do with it.

Objecting to transwomen in our spaces is not homophobic- it is objecting to transwomen in our spaces.

It is in fact those who claim men are women who are homphobic. If you support a movement that has ensured lesbians have to go to court so they can organise without men, you are embracing homophobia.

According to the 2021 census there are approx. 262k or 0.08% per 10000 people identifying with some sort of body dysmorphia. This will include all trans people both male and female as well as those with body dysmorphia who have not transitioned - who indeed may never do so and in fact later identify as their birth sex.

This issue has, as been argued been blown out of all sense, and to read some of the posts I can’t imagine a single community that has the level of issues you are claiming.

Yes, sex is frequently about power, nothing new in that.

And please don’t patronise us by giving a lecture on sexual orientation, trans etc. you really are teaching your grandmother etc.

I have no doubt that this is a cultural issue that will resolve over time, just as homosexuality did. Indeed I am old enough to remember openly illegal gay scenes before 1967 - to the horror of many in the community - claiming all sorts of dire consequences. Never happened did it?

I have a friend whose daughter has throughout her mid-late teenage years suffered body dysmorphia and identified as a young man, not a single person I knew made an issue of this, everyone accepted her decision and addressed her as male etc. using the appropriate pronoun although I always get muddled with “them” 😊. That young person has now reached the decision to identify as her birth sex and does so. I am certain that she would have identified as transitioning in the 2021 census. So these figures will be inaccurate I think.

I am also old enough to remember when the woman’s scene was wise enough to openly embrace difference and not other.

What happened to that wisdom?

People should be able to live their lives in peace, it doesn’t matter one fig to me if they are gay, straight, trans gender or choose to live their (adult) life as something else entirely.

So long as they are good, honest, kind and law abiding people, I couldn’t care less.

I respect other people’s rights to hold their own views and to express them, but I don’t condone discrimination of any types and so long as trans gender “rights” don’t overrule or overthrow biological female rights and safety, I’m OK with this too.

Biological sex and gender are two entirely different things.

Nobody can change the biological sex they were born in. They can, and should, be able to “adopt” a different gender and happily live their lives this way.

Whitewave you started a thread not so long ago about your concerns about what had been done to children in terms of transitioning. Have you now changed your mind.

I think gender is a social contract and frequently damaging for men and women, it is mostly a list of stereotypes. Peopke of course can present how they like, this has no impact on how single sex spaces should be organised.

Doodledog

Oh, and I absolutely do object to men and boys joining women's organisations. There are women who for various reasons don't want to be in situations where men are present, and there are plenty of organisations that cater for mixed sex groups.

I would not have been at all happy for my 13 year old daughter to go to Guide camp with boys in the tent, and if Gary decided to call himself Gladys it would not have made any difference to my objections.

Yet both our DD joined the beavers, cubs and scouts and happily shared dorms and rents when in beavers and cubs. In Scouts, when eldest DD was the o my female, she slept in a tent alone and hated it!

*only female.

Cardamom

^Now, that doesn't mean that the staff couldn't be sensitive in dealing with that person..^

Be sensitive to the convicted paedophile from a high-security men's prison, who was 6 feet tall, appeared masculine, and had to be shackled by two prison officers because he was so violent??? He should have been treated with as much sensitivity, dignity, respect and kindness as he afforded the children he sexually assaulted. Added to that, he is a racist, violent, misogynistic thug. And you seriously think he should have been treated sensitively because he thinks he's a laydeee now?

Whilst I think your tone is unbelievably disrespectful, I personally wouldn’t treat any one who committed crimes such as those committed by said person, with respect, it wouldn’t matter to me if he was a he/she/they, gay, trans or straight, “they” are a despicable disgusting vile excuse of a human being and deserve nothing!

Galaxy

I think gender is a social contract and frequently damaging for men and women, it is mostly a list of stereotypes. Peopke of course can present how they like, this has no impact on how single sex spaces should be organised.

👏👏👏👏👏

Wyllow, I knew the two men in the women’s hospital toilet were men because it was obvious. The smirk from one who responded “I’m a woman” was in truth, rather threatening. I’ve worked with abusive males and find despite long happy retirement, I still know if I’m in their presence.

Interesting that my account, my feelings are so easily dismissed . “How did you know “. I’ve lived 77 years and learned a thing or two.

Whitewavemark2

According to the 2021 census there are approx. 262k or 0.08% per 10000 people identifying with some sort of body dysmorphia. This will include all trans people both male and female as well as those with body dysmorphia who have not transitioned - who indeed may never do so and in fact later identify as their birth sex.

This issue has, as been argued been blown out of all sense, and to read some of the posts I can’t imagine a single community that has the level of issues you are claiming.

Yes, sex is frequently about power, nothing new in that.

And please don’t patronise us by giving a lecture on sexual orientation, trans etc. you really are teaching your grandmother etc.

I have no doubt that this is a cultural issue that will resolve over time, just as homosexuality did. Indeed I am old enough to remember openly illegal gay scenes before 1967 - to the horror of many in the community - claiming all sorts of dire consequences. Never happened did it?

I have a friend whose daughter has throughout her mid-late teenage years suffered body dysmorphia and identified as a young man, not a single person I knew made an issue of this, everyone accepted her decision and addressed her as male etc. using the appropriate pronoun although I always get muddled with “them” 😊. That young person has now reached the decision to identify as her birth sex and does so. I am certain that she would have identified as transitioning in the 2021 census. So these figures will be inaccurate I think.

I am also old enough to remember when the woman’s scene was wise enough to openly embrace difference and not other.

What happened to that wisdom?

Sorry, but what has your experience of the 1960s gay scene got to do with trans issues in 2026? The conflation makes no sense to me, but maybe you can explain?

I'm sorry if my post offended you, but it was intended to explain to those who don't understand the difference between sexuality and 'gender' - clearly there are many who don't. I find it patronising to be told about the fact that gays were discriminated against, as though I'm not fully aware of that, but I also understand that not everything is about me, and maybe some posters were living under a rock when it was going on.

I'm not denying gay discrimination - I just think it is irrelevant to trans issues. As I say, if you can explain the connection, I'd be very interested to hear it.

Also, the suggestion that women who fight for our right to have female spaces are somehow unfeminist (or even anti-feminist in some cases) is also offensive. When the women's movement started we were not being threatened by TRAs, we were able to call ourselves women with no ambiguity, and we could use changing rooms and showers without worrying that men would be watching. I guess what happened to the 'wisdom' that allowed men to walk all over the women's movement is that years of being told to 'be kind' meant that it took us far too long to cotton on to the implications of allowing 'the most marginalised group in society' to dominate inclusivity to the exclusion of women.

Stonewall, and its kite marks held sway for so long that people working in the public sector had to endure kafkaesque diktats about pronouns and 'gender'. I am young enough to have been working when that was going on, and it was insane.

Finally, statistics on this subject (and the numerous ones that used to rely on a simple definition of sex as male or female) are always going to be inaccurate. People move between identifying as different 'genders', and nobody is very sure what any of it means anyway. There is no register of transpeople (understandably and rightly), so nobody has any idea of how 'tiny and marginalised' they are as a group, even if we knew how 'tiny' and 'marginalised' are being defined, and how (and against which) other groups they are being compared.

In any case, self-id for demographic data has to be treated with care, particularly if it is to be used quantitatively. Not everyone will be comfortable with declaring 'gender-id' on an official form, so it is possible that those who do are in a particular subset.

Galaxy

Whitewave you started a thread not so long ago about your concerns about what had been done to children in terms of transitioning. Have you now changed your mind.

No of course not.

Hmm.

Don’t think twice about my being offended, it takes more than a bit of patronising to offend me.

I can see that this debate is going to be pretty prolonged, but suffice it to say, that we must agree to disagree on much of this subject ( not entirely, but hopefully disagree agreeably as they say), I am and have been a feminist for my entire life, but sub-sets like TERF simply do not float my boat and I frankly think them misguided and often plain wrong.
I know of one GN poster - whose child committed suicide over gender dysmorphia - so the subject always needs to be treated with a degree of empathy and intelligence.

But there you are, TERF will come and go just as so many different sub-sets have done over the millennia. That is what history teaches you.

Anecdotal testaments about trans people people and their merits, which they no doubt have, really have no bearing on those who the receiving end of threatening behaviour and sexual assault. As with any demographic trans people will encompass the good. Nevertheless, because of recent developments when all this kicked off and became a whole industry, there are those who are cynically manipulating a situation that has allowed them access to women spaces. Quite possibly that had gone on under the radar, because, as most of us accept, there were and are the "quiet" trans women who did and do not present a threat to women per se. and I think if we could wind back to those times there wouldn't have been the disquiet there has been around the issue. Not to mention all the matters that have unfairly impacted on women, sport, adapting language in a ridiculous way to accommodate the sensibilities of the few "chest feeders" "cervix holders" "birth givers" whilst simultaneous insulting women and at times describing them as a mere collection of body parts. As always, it's always gone just one way, the trans man has never been the problem. I can't recall any man stating he's been threatened by a trans man with violence or sexual assault, happy to be corrected though.

Going back to the anecdotal "if you only knew the trans people I know maybe you wouldn't react in the way you do" without a nod to any of the more worrying aspects that frame part of the argument. Trans women who have been allowed into women's spaces, such as Karen White who went on to assault female inmates when he was allowed in the women's wing of a prison. There was a case a few years ago of a woman on an all female ward who was raped by a trans woman, at the time the NHS refused to accept that could have taken place stating that there were no men on the ward and obfuscating around the fact that the trans woman was in fact a biological male. The victim's case which dragged on for a year, was taken up by Baroness Nicholson who cited this incident illustrated the dangers of allowing trans patients on female wards and that should be withdrawn. Private spaces do matter, particularly where women and girls would find themselves in a state of undress. Health clubs can have very limited curtained off cubicles, I'd always make for one of those when I took my boys when they were small into the women's changing room. Incidentally, how ridiculous to have the arbitrary age of 7, as it was then as a cut off point for no longer being able to bring a boy child into the women's, but to allow, before the ruling, a fully intact man in on the basis he identifies as a woman and I would also add, having been a member of various health clubs over the years, depending on its size, there are those quiet times when you can find yourself on your own when emerging from a shower area with just a towel around you. I worry more for younger women, particularly adolescent girls being in that sort of situation.

Jennifer Melle's case highlights the extreme end of the spectrum, the type of person who will seek recourse to identifying as a woman. A paedophile prisoner who was admitted to hospital for a urinary infection, anatomically specific to his sex. For not following due protocol in her addressing him as Mr, for her crime, whilst she was racially abused by a sexual deviant, she's suspended. What that case, along with Isla Bryson's and others, these are people who are cynically manipulating the law for their own ends. I don't believe for one moment a man who has raped a female is in the wrong body, I think the fact that he has committed that act would tell him exactly what body he's inhabiting.

Whitewavemark2

According to the 2021 census there are approx. 262k or 0.08% per 10000 people identifying with some sort of body dysmorphia. This will include all trans people both male and female as well as those with body dysmorphia who have not transitioned - who indeed may never do so and in fact later identify as their birth sex.

This issue has, as been argued been blown out of all sense, and to read some of the posts I can’t imagine a single community that has the level of issues you are claiming.

Yes, sex is frequently about power, nothing new in that.

And please don’t patronise us by giving a lecture on sexual orientation, trans etc. you really are teaching your grandmother etc.

I have no doubt that this is a cultural issue that will resolve over time, just as homosexuality did. Indeed I am old enough to remember openly illegal gay scenes before 1967 - to the horror of many in the community - claiming all sorts of dire consequences. Never happened did it?

I have a friend whose daughter has throughout her mid-late teenage years suffered body dysmorphia and identified as a young man, not a single person I knew made an issue of this, everyone accepted her decision and addressed her as male etc. using the appropriate pronoun although I always get muddled with “them” 😊. That young person has now reached the decision to identify as her birth sex and does so. I am certain that she would have identified as transitioning in the 2021 census. So these figures will be inaccurate I think.

I am also old enough to remember when the woman’s scene was wise enough to openly embrace difference and not other.

What happened to that wisdom?

👏 👏👏