The Transphobia Thread

People seem desperate to talk about trans issues on almost every other thread.

So here’s a thread just for you. Knock yourselves out.

 

I have a trans male friend who went all the way with hormones and surgery. He has moved up north, so I don't see much of him any more, but occassionally bump into him at festivals where he dances in all male performance groups. Yes, he's a Morris dancer!

He deserves the respect his courage and honesty dictates.

I also meet up occassionally with a trans woman with whom I share some mutual friends, though it is usually just the two of us that get together. We are not friends as such, we don't keep in regular touch, but just get together at certain events we both attend.

I feel that the biggest problem with the modern trans lobby is that it doesn't represent even the majority of trans people, and appears to be most aggressively represented by non trans people who appear to be using it to further their own cause. This is borne out by the majority of trans people I know.

They have been of the 'not shove it in the faces of other people' point of view, where as the modern trans lobby appear to foment antaganism by insisting that women be re-defined to include men, and that some elements of biology be ignored, despite what we learned at university.

These brave people deserve to be respected, and I believe that generally they are. They do not, in my opinion, deserve the risk of having hatred stirred up towards them by activists who are more akin to post modernist anarchists, do not share their trans nature, in many cases, and who will drop the cause for anothrr at a moments' notice.

 

Magnificent words. Good to hear them.

 

I’m sad to see you nodding in agreement here Skyla.

This aggressive ‘trans lobby’ is mostly a figment of anti-trans imagination, deliberately misunderstanding simple issues of healthcare, like gynae provision for trans men, pretending this eradicates women. The impression anti-trans people want to give is of an hysterical, science defying mob trying to impose their beliefs. Straight out of the playbook against gay rights and even #MeToo.

Sure some trans folk and others get upset with this baiting, but Trans folk are no existential or direct threat to women and people should be wise to the misdirection going on here.

 

My only contribution to this thread:
The trans issue is a gift to the anti-woke brigade, who love it when two sections of society who both get the shitttty end of the stick go to war with each other; just like with anti-Semitism, the Tories can taunt the Labour party with Rosie Duffield, knowing that their rank and file are filled with antediluvian attitudes to wimmin, to gays, to trans, to Muslims, to people of colour. Nothing makes them happier than when any of these are having a go at each other.

I can totally agree with trans people having access to facilities of their choosing. I can also totally agree with women wanting to feel safe. As such it is an insoluble problem unless we have facilities/institutions that can segregate between male, female, trans male, and trans female, which is ridiculous. So I will take the cowards way out and not express an opinion, and not give those who would happily go back to the fifties an opportunity to label me as one thing or another.

 

Negative attitudes always hide in plain sight under the cover of reasonableness.

The 1970s Sure I’m all for women’s rights, but these bra-burning extremists just hate men!

The 1990s Sure people can be gay if they want, but some act like it ought to be compulsory. They’ll be demanding they can get married and raise kids next and present this like it’s completely normal!

 

That would appear to be off topic. If you want to start a gay rights thread, please go ahead and do so

 

I think you have just illustrated the point that was being made.

It is not a good thing to pressure or lay guilt on those with ideas that do not agree with your own.

I think it would be a good thing to reflect on: that you are sad because other people disagree with you, even though their messages reflected only sympathy and empathy.

 

This cursed country .
If only we could be more progressive like Hungary or Pakistan

I find it bizarre that the same people saying stuff like " us men need to sort our **** out regarding
the ladies" but then are in agreement that as long as someone with a penis identifies as a woman
or something else then that person can shower with other women.
If you were born with a penis and genuinely cared about woman but identified as non binary
or whatever then you would understand and use the urinals in the Gents.
But hey . I'm a fash gammon.
But I'm not a mysogonist.

 

Davy, Davy, Davy. Do you really think trans women with penises are showering on a regular basis with women?

I think trans women, given the struggles they have had with their bodies, would be very unlikely to seek public showering with other women. They would be the more likely be the victim of violence or prurient interest.

The implication is that either many trans women are sexual predators or that men can simply dress as a female and then predate. The latter course has always been open to men, but doesn’t appear common.

This is fear mongering.

 

Ahhh, but it is a fact that men calling themselves ladies have sexually assaulted women in prison.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.th...ho-sexually-assaulted-inmates-jailed-for-life

Why do you dismiss this risk to women so easily? Do you not think it will become more common place as law makes it easier to do? Sexual abuse/assault ranges from indecent exposure to rape. In America recently, is it not possible that a convicted sex offender who didn't even dress as a woman, gave himself permission to deliberately expose himself to women and children, making the argiment that he had every right to be there, and continued exposing himself. Is your response to that, "no worries, it doesn't happen very often."

Why do you dismiss the concerns of Rosie Duffield so callously, and infer she is a right wing transphobe?

Why do you not think that you telling women that being accosted by a man dressed as a woman, and no other transitional credentials, is a risk you are willing for them to take, because you vote Labour. That is the only possible interpretation I can see for your comments.

How can you justify such misogynyst views, when the other day you were complaining about the deadly misogyny of 30,000,000 men?

You created this thread with the intention of discussing this topic. Try to answer these very fair questions, for a person who has expressed your views.

You have failed to address the negative side of your opinion so far, because 'off thread' but now you have your thread, let us know what you think.

Please take time to answer these questions.

Perhaps you could also let us know of your own experiences with trans people, as some of us have done above, so we can understand how their experiences have affected you.

 

It's a knotty issue and it's difficult to have a good discussion about it because entire lines of discussion are shut down due to bad faith arguments on both sides.

This arena is definitely one of those where having a discussion based on the pure science becomes very difficult, because there are those who label any scientist asking certain questions as transphobic.

On the other hand, you have the bad faith **** stirrers who like to deliberately blur lines based on fear about what someone might do. But you can't let that dictate policy; the correct way to handle malfeasance is with civil or criminal penalties.

Easiest answer is probably unisex bathrooms, entirely composed of cubicles for all (no urinals). That's really no different to the bathrooms in every single house, when you think about it.

 

Good comments.

But I would say that fear of something happening when statistically it is inevitable that it will happen has driven us to pre-empt tragedy since we started forming societies.

Why do we want to prevent murder? When only 0.001% of people in the country are murdered every year? Because as a society, we know murder is wrong and we do not want it to happen at all. We do not dismiss it as being incredibly rare. We should not dismiss assaults on women that are being made possible, and more likely, because people are being prevented from debating such issues.

I am yet to hear an argument from any person that wishes to keep all trans women out of female spaces. Even the most vociferous of 'TERFs' do not seem to be making such a draconian argument. What they do not want, as seen in their eye, is such an erosion of law that allows what is to all intents and purposes a man, being able to place himself into traditional safe spaces by doing nothing more than invoking said law, to say 'I am a woman, and legally I am permitted to be in this space that women consider to be a refuge from men.'

So its not just toilets and changing rooms., but womens prisons, where sexual assaults by women with penises have occurred, women's refuges, women's wards, womens swimming sessions, etc. Where women seek comfort knowing they will not become the subject of male attention.

There is also the psychological and social undermining of women, which is more the beef that women like Rosie Duffield have with the trans lobby. The Lancet, the top Internationally renowned medical journal, recently referred on its cover to 'bodies with vaginas', using it instead of the word 'women' ("Historically, the anatomy and physiology of bodies with vaginas have been neglected.”). This is not simply a case of a desire to use their own choice of language and live and let live. When women have sought to demonstrate that it is actually the case that the trans lobby are seeking to redefine what a woman is, they have ended up with spectacular results that prove beyond doubt that there is an attack on women and their traditional identity, based on biological fact. To describe a woman as a human adult female is transphobic. To say only women have a cervix is transphobic. Yet women are being told, even by political leaders, that to say these things is wrong. That is how skewed the argument is against women's points of view.

It is not fear mongering to say these things. It is not transphobic to say them. It is a fair argument that should not be dismissed by being shouted down. Particularly not by bodies with penises who dismiss it as insignificant.

Nor should the risks to women, both born and trans, from predatory men be ignored, just because they are rare, or because they are idealogically inconvenient.

IMHO

 

Hooter, I don’t have misogynist views. This is why no one talks to you, this need you have for accusatory posts.

I’m on Twitter too. I’m fully aware of the case. It’s a terrible case, but the ultimate problem here is not transgender, but prisons. No one is safe in a UK prison. Vulnerable young men have to live with rapists and murderers. The UK treats this like a joke, don’t bend over in the showers.

Prisoners should be safe. The denial of liberty is the punishment, not sexual assault.

This reprehensible individual was not safe with anyone, had also predated males. As the article notes, offending history was not taken into account. She/he should have been segregated.

There are bad men, there are bad women, bad trans people. Nothing about one case says that trans people are any more likely to commit such assaults.

Like @Arakel says, this is a knotty problem, one that challenges how we arrange things. That’s a job for reason, not stirring fears for transparently party political and personal ends.

 

At this point I decided to take the dog for a walk

 

It was a quote tbf.

 

I'm a bit surprised by the 'lesbian with a penis' comment. I was under the obviously mistaken impression that 'biological males' who identify as 'non-male', decide to dress in what is viewed as 'female attire', wear make up but choose to retain their penises were primarily attracted to others with the same self-identification and/or 'non-feminine' males.
Whatever, there is no doubt that there are aggressive sexual predators amongst all groups, whether 'male males' against females or other males, 'female females' against other females, and apparently 'non-op' trans against, I assume, other trans people as well as 'female females' and 'male males'. I'm not sure how the organisation of public lavatories/ showers in gyms etc can really address the issue, which needs considering at root. What is the personality defect that drives any of these groups to believe they have the right to force their sexual predation on anyone else in any situation? It seems to me to be all part of the same problem as the recent murders of Sarah Everard and Sabina Nessa.

 

I am not stirring fears. I am suggesting they be taken seriously, and the whole issue is far wider than one repellant man taking advantage of women in a prison.

You are clearly doing everything you can to dismiss these genuine women's problems by demonising the fact that they are even raised, and are clearly avoiding the concerns of women like Rosie Duffield and those who are horrified that they cannot speak on the issue without being threatened and assaulted with abuse and, in her own words, misogyny.

The moment you dismiss them any act of assault or abuse as rare, or because it could equally have happened to a man (despite that it actually happened to multiple women placed in prison with the individual), you make it clear that your self perception is flawed.

The excuses you make, coming from any man, are deeply misogynystic, and saying it can't be, because YOU don't think you are a misogynyst, is redundant.

People can see for themselves, by the language you use and the dismissive arguments you make about women's concerns, the nature of your attitude to women. The fact that you cannot recognise it in yourself is par for the course with misogynysts, the majority of whom would, like yourself, would also be in denial.

Meanwhile, I haven't said a single thing that could label me anti-trans, and have friends who would vouch for that. Yet you continue to try to smear me.

Show me one thing I said that makes me a transphobe. Call me anti the current marxist trans-lobby, because I am. But you have noghing to pin on me to say I am transphobic.

 

I think there is some confusion between transvestism and being transgender.

Transvestism:

The practice of wearing clothes usually associated with the opposite sex, as a form of self-expression, usually by a heterosexual (= not gay) man who sometimes wears women's clothes, make-up, jewellery, etc.

Transgender:

denoting or relating to a person whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex.

I don't think any truly transgender person is a threat to their identified gender, no more than anyone else is anyway.

Being a transvestite is completely different and does not give you the right to be treated as the gender you are choosing to dress as.

Obviously it is very difficult to tell the difference and I can understand why people are wary of giving cart blanch access to facilities for anyone who just self identifies as a different gender.

I think that is the challenge. But just dismissing the needs and the rights of transgender people is not the answer imho.

 

I think the law is clear that transvestism is not gender change and that no protection under the equality act is offered for it.

The law does allow though for individuals who have not yet transitioned to be considered trans. This is because gender reassignment is a long process and resources for it are often unavailable. Individuals could spend a decade in transition, but living in their preferred gender.

It is this distinction that has allowed the fears that men who want to abuse women can simply stick on a frock and no one can challenge them, which of course is not only unlikely, but has in any case been open to men throughout history.

The law also does not prevent women from creating women only spaces.

 

Sorry Skyla, only just read this.

Please can you ask Moose to stop posting to imply I am transphobic. It may have escaped your attention, but he started this thread with the express intention of implying exactly that. Hence the title: Transphobia Thread, rather than Transexual Thread. It extends from another thread where he brought up cervixes and wished to avoid questions put to him on the subject. Read his OP again with that in mind.

Please can you also ask him to stop calling me and my behaviour misogynystic, seeing as that too has been the case in recent days.

In calling him a misogynyst, I am giving back to him as good as I get, so please be aware of that.

The difference is, clearly, when he does it to me, I take it on the chin, but when I do it to him, he makes complaints.

As I say. Moose is complaining about his own behaviour, and he is drawing the mods into it to save his embarrasment at what he has said.
I assume he complained here as well.

This is not a flame war. I am once again pointing out a tactic being used ad-nauseum on the forum to shut out opinions that do not agree with Moose.

I will not call him a misogynyst, or anything else, unless he sets the precedent. Or would you prefer me to make a complaint?

 

Sorry, lesbian with a penis was my short hand for male sexual pervert calling himself a woman with the express intention of using the law to facilitate him causing sexual harm to others by invading their safe spaces. I could probably have legitimately got misogynyst in there as well, but didn't want to upset any misogynysts.

I do appologise if that wasn't clear. I used the shorter phrase as an ironic way of avoiding smearing trans sexuals by associating them with people like that.

 

Hooter, I’ve no doubt you have no prejudice towards any trans person you meet.

You do have a problem with self-identification though, have concerns this makes women vulnerable and cry ‘misogynist’ with anyone who disagrees. Well a recent Government consultation found 70% of the public agreed with self-identification. Are they all misogynists?

You’ve named the abusers here as ‘male sexual perverts’. How are they the responsibility of trans people? They are criminals and trans people shouldn’t have their rights judged in connection to them.

And without question always linking trans rights to this group of abusers is fearful, phobic, even if you are not personally so.

You need to come in less hot and ready to accuse. You might find your way to some debate and solutions.

But call me names and I’ll call the mods in every time. This section isn’t going to be ruined again.

 

This is not the concern of women or of myself, who challenge the motivations of the modern trans lobby. Not in any way.

If men have been doing this for so long anyway, how can anyone say to women that it is not an issue that they should be concerned about.

It has, as Moose points out here, got nothing to do with trans people. It is entirely to do with men taking advantage of every chink in the law or normalising of men being allowed in women's spaces.

I say again. The fears have nothing to do with trans gender people.

The modern, marxist trans gender lobby however, anyone who reads up on them will know this is the truth of it, want any person to be considered and treated as whatever sex they want to be on any particular day, and these 'rights' are what they are campaigning for.

They rely on their 'good' cause, just as BLM have done, to gain popular support from people who only casually understand their underlying cause. That is why Kier Starmer finds himself saying it is wrong to say only women have cervixes. That phrase is just a test to expose the fact that the trans lobby is not trying to ensure safe access to toilets for trans people, but to redefine what a woman is.

Why else say that it is not only women that have cervixes? What good does it serve a trans woman or man to to say such a thing? It brings no physical or tangible advantage, only massive political gains.

Women, you are no longer women. Men, you are no longer men. In which case, no more safe spaces for something that does not exist.

That is the concern about where this is going, and feminists, and decidedly left wing ones at that, are still waiting for the rest of us to wake up and smell the coffee.

 

Are you not aware that the cervix issue is because trans men, fully transitioned, may still have a cervix? They therefore still need cervical health care. Fully transitioned, they are not women, something you purport to agree with and respect.

That’s all it is. It’s not about redefining women.

If anyone insists that the trans man with a cervix is a woman, then clearly they don’t agree with the law.

 

Question: do people believe that having the ultimate desire to fully transition surgically is the only permissible definition of 'transgender'? What about 'genetic males' who appear to live, dress & behave in a manner indistinguishable from 'females', have absolutely no sexual or romantic interest in 'genetic females' but don't want to fully transition for various reasons? A family member has known such a person since school days, was their ('genetically male') partner's 'best man' at a 'celebration' they had a few years ago, whilst his own wife is now good friends with the 'trans' person. Where would such people fit in to any 'scheme of things'? It seems to me much more complex than some people appreciate.

 

I think it is purely a state of mind.

A transgender person feels that the body they were born into does not reflect the gender they really are.

Whether they actually change physical gender or not should be immaterial imho.

 

I think it is very complex. We don’t generally know what the desire to live as a different gender arises from nor do we entirely understand gender. It does seem as if there are natural reasons, some genetic, some hormonal etc. This is not surprising as developing humans are all the same very early on in foetal development.

It makes me laugh when people thunder that women are XX and men XY simple, when it’s anything but. There are at least a couple of dozen genetic variations/expressions recognised including some intersex expressions.

 

Yes. The physical aspect is simply impossible. We don't have the scientific or medical capability to change a man's body into a woman's body. The best we can do is make it look like one, which is not the same thing.

So yes, it should be immaterial. This is very much a mental issue and should be examined as such.

 

I'll take you on your word then. It will be nice to get some answers from you, rather than unfounded accusations and insults.

As is clear from my posts. I have no problem with self identification unless it is by men seeking to put themselves into women's safe places with the intention of taking advantage. I have no problem with it if it is a genuine person with only the intention of participating in society.

That is why I find your condemnation of my point of view so perplexing.

Rosie Duffoeld has similar views. Could you tell me your view of her experience at the hands of m********s in the Labour party.

I have asked politely a number of times now.