Women and men in the 80s glam rock scene all looked the same. Skin tight Lycra, makeup and bouffy, permed hair. Are they going to tell us Mötley Crüe and Poison were trans as well?
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Rule 34 innit.
At first I read that as rule 303 from Aussie film Breaker Morant.
"We caught them and we shot them under rule 303."
In my defence it's early here and I have a cat's ear obscuring my view of the screen.
You’re just a regular gay bloke, mate. Sorry about that.
Why bother with it then? Just be honest and say you're craving attention.
I'm a man (sorry) and I am trying to understand how to categorise my views. Since y'all are experts, and my attempt to reconcile my thoughts was not welcomed elsewhere on the internet, perhaps it is possible to find insight here.
A little background: I have spent my life surrounded by trans women, because every other nerd seems to transition eventually. Every time a nerd starts to grow their hair long it's a coin flip whether they're about to come out. I've known very normal trans women who live a normal life, trans women who are the most obscene sexual deviants, and every type of person. I have no preconceptions about trans women broadly, they're... just people with their idiosyncrasies like the rest of us.
I think gender is a social construct and the solution to transgender is not individual, but societal, we need to free people from the silly notion that gender means anything. Let people be people, masculine, feminine, whatever, who cares. The biological aspects of male and female deserve affordances (e.g: in medicine) but the social aspects can be done away with. Unfortunately, that's not a realistic change today, gender is deeply woven into our lives and society and so transgender people are inevitable. I accept transgender as something necessary today for some people to feel comfortable in our world. Maybe, someday, that will change.
The problem I have with transgender women (not transgender men) is that men are... men. The victims of sexual violence are women at the hands of men. Every woman has a lifetime of experiences and strategies that she lives according to for her safety. Every woman I know fears men in some capacity. Men do not fear women, I have never felt fear of a woman in my life. Allowing men into spaces reserved for women betrays everything that women have learned to keep themselves safe from men. The spaces are reserved for women because of men! How can we say trans women deserve access to spaces reserved for women while men (whether cis or not) are such a danger to women? Whether biology or socialisation or some cosmic reason beyond my understanding, male-at-birth people are so much more dangerous to female-at-birth people than female-at-birth people are.
So, to me, gender doesn't even seem that relevant in our current time, the issue is that as men we need to first build a world where women are safe from men, and only then do we earn the right to advocate for living our lives in a way that is most comfortable for us. People who want trans women to be able to live as women should be angry at men, not women, because segregated bathrooms and changing rooms and support groups are something that men are responsible for, we created the environment in which women feel safe only when surrounded by other cis women. A common point is that "trans women would be in danger if they went into men's bathrooms" but isn't that a problem for men to solve? Why are we advocating for women to carry that burden? Men might grape a trans woman in a men's bathroom so women must sacrifice their safety by allowing anyone into their spaces?
Another common argument I see from trans people is that there aren't any statistics that show trans women are dangerous, but that ignores that safety is all about making educated and informed decisions based on experiences. Arguing that women should forget about their lifetime of experiences with men and the safety strategies they've learned to deal with men, just because the man in question identifies as a woman, seems crazy. Women are often not even safe in their own home with their own man, why would the gender dysphoria of a man they don't even know make them safe? We (progressives) don't scream "not all men" at a woman when she crosses the road late at night to avoid a man, we understand why she is crossing the road, I am not offended if a woman crosses the road to avoid me. She isn't making a judgement about me personally, she doesn't know me, she's making a decision about her safety based on all men.
I'm a super liberal progressive woo woo kumbaya type and this is, like, the only subject where I think I break with the mainstream of my people. Every time I try to reconcile how I understand the subject, considering the experiences of the women in my life, I read about gender-critical feminism, and it just... seems pragmatic? And progressive? The gender-critical utopia is surely a world where everyone would be happy? The wikipedia page, at least, reads like it is obviously a progressive movement and a natural evolution of feminism. I've mostly been thinking of myself as gender critical nowadays but my question is, is that right? Are these the views of someone who is "gender critical"? is there a different category for this?
I see a lot of people say gender-critical is a dog-whistle for anti-trans, which I think is probably why I struggle to identify as gender-critical and keep searching for a better category. I do not consider myself anti-trans, I'm obviously not anti-trans, I have trans friends, I would happily date a trans person, I think trans people deserve to live a happy wonderful life on their own terms unencumbered by our silly gender binary, my personal experience of trans women has been nothing but positive... but I cannot conceive of advocating for their access to sex-segregated spaces at the expense of the safety and security of women. Maybe I just have to rip the plaster off and say I'm gender critical and deal with being called anti-trans.
A little background: I have spent my life surrounded by trans women, because every other nerd seems to transition eventually. Every time a nerd starts to grow their hair long it's a coin flip whether they're about to come out. I've known very normal trans women who live a normal life, trans women who are the most obscene sexual deviants, and every type of person. I have no preconceptions about trans women broadly, they're... just people with their idiosyncrasies like the rest of us.
I think gender is a social construct and the solution to transgender is not individual, but societal, we need to free people from the silly notion that gender means anything. Let people be people, masculine, feminine, whatever, who cares. The biological aspects of male and female deserve affordances (e.g: in medicine) but the social aspects can be done away with. Unfortunately, that's not a realistic change today, gender is deeply woven into our lives and society and so transgender people are inevitable. I accept transgender as something necessary today for some people to feel comfortable in our world. Maybe, someday, that will change.
The problem I have with transgender women (not transgender men) is that men are... men. The victims of sexual violence are women at the hands of men. Every woman has a lifetime of experiences and strategies that she lives according to for her safety. Every woman I know fears men in some capacity. Men do not fear women, I have never felt fear of a woman in my life. Allowing men into spaces reserved for women betrays everything that women have learned to keep themselves safe from men. The spaces are reserved for women because of men! How can we say trans women deserve access to spaces reserved for women while men (whether cis or not) are such a danger to women? Whether biology or socialisation or some cosmic reason beyond my understanding, male-at-birth people are so much more dangerous to female-at-birth people than female-at-birth people are.
So, to me, gender doesn't even seem that relevant in our current time, the issue is that as men we need to first build a world where women are safe from men, and only then do we earn the right to advocate for living our lives in a way that is most comfortable for us. People who want trans women to be able to live as women should be angry at men, not women, because segregated bathrooms and changing rooms and support groups are something that men are responsible for, we created the environment in which women feel safe only when surrounded by other cis women. A common point is that "trans women would be in danger if they went into men's bathrooms" but isn't that a problem for men to solve? Why are we advocating for women to carry that burden? Men might grape a trans woman in a men's bathroom so women must sacrifice their safety by allowing anyone into their spaces?
Another common argument I see from trans people is that there aren't any statistics that show trans women are dangerous, but that ignores that safety is all about making educated and informed decisions based on experiences. Arguing that women should forget about their lifetime of experiences with men and the safety strategies they've learned to deal with men, just because the man in question identifies as a woman, seems crazy. Women are often not even safe in their own home with their own man, why would the gender dysphoria of a man they don't even know make them safe? We (progressives) don't scream "not all men" at a woman when she crosses the road late at night to avoid a man, we understand why she is crossing the road, I am not offended if a woman crosses the road to avoid me. She isn't making a judgement about me personally, she doesn't know me, she's making a decision about her safety based on all men.
I'm a super liberal progressive woo woo kumbaya type and this is, like, the only subject where I think I break with the mainstream of my people. Every time I try to reconcile how I understand the subject, considering the experiences of the women in my life, I read about gender-critical feminism, and it just... seems pragmatic? And progressive? The gender-critical utopia is surely a world where everyone would be happy? The wikipedia page, at least, reads like it is obviously a progressive movement and a natural evolution of feminism. I've mostly been thinking of myself as gender critical nowadays but my question is, is that right? Are these the views of someone who is "gender critical"? is there a different category for this?
I see a lot of people say gender-critical is a dog-whistle for anti-trans, which I think is probably why I struggle to identify as gender-critical and keep searching for a better category. I do not consider myself anti-trans, I'm obviously not anti-trans, I have trans friends, I would happily date a trans person, I think trans people deserve to live a happy wonderful life on their own terms unencumbered by our silly gender binary, my personal experience of trans women has been nothing but positive... but I cannot conceive of advocating for their access to sex-segregated spaces at the expense of the safety and security of women. Maybe I just have to rip the plaster off and say I'm gender critical and deal with being called anti-trans.
Wow. So that statement by Richard O'Brien seems compassionate, kind and sensible. What in the actual duck can anybody object to about that stance?
And on another note I've read all the Harry Potter books several times, ditto the films. Genuinely what aspects have been seen as transphobic? Other than that JK wrote them?
Seems like the most massive reach ever.Welcome @manual, I'm not going to comment on all of your excellent post. But I particularly wanted to say that if anyone tries to tell you there are no statistics that say trans identifying men (TIM) are dangerous, let them know that this is not true. Over 70% of TIM in UK prisons are in prison for sexual and/or violent crimes. So the statistics would actually suggest that TIM are more dangerous than other men.
I personally don't make that particular argument. Athough I probably, as a general rule, would consider a man, who is trying to force me to agree to the lie that he is a woman and also fighting to be in a single-sex space against the law and women's boundaries, to be potentially more dangerous than other men.
But my point is that the statistics are there that TIM retain the same offending profiles as other men. And why would they not?
Another point, gender critical does not mean that you are anti-trans. It simply means that you know that sex is binary and inmutable. (Most of us actually preferred the term 'sex realist' now.) If you know that sex is binary and immutable, then certain consequences follow automatically. We do not want TIM in women's single-sex spaces not because they're trans, but because they are men. We have no problem with TIF being in women's single-sex spaces because regardless of how they identify, they are women. But this distinction is deliberately ignored by TRA.
In fact, sadly the largest growth in trans-identifying people is actually amongst girls and young women who either identify as male or, increasingly, as non-binary. However when TRAs talk about trans rights, they're talking about TIM. Of course, TIF are no threat to men in their single-sex spaces - if anything, they themselves are potentially at risk. TIF aren't fighting to play in men's sports because they're not good enough - because they're female.
There are issues with TIF because they are the group who are more likely to be on cross-sex hormones which are devastatingly ruinous to their health. They are also more likely to have unnecessary surgery - especially double masectomies. This is tragic but it's a different issue that you don't hear about because obviously men's feelings and demands take precedence.
That being said, you will be called anti-trans, a bigot, a Nazi, right-wing, racist (don't ask!). It's infuriating and incredibly frustrating but that's where we are right now. And that's why this place is like an oasis for us. For most of us this is the only place where we can vent or chat without being called hateful or being accused of transportation - particularly online.
I personally don't make that particular argument. Athough I probably, as a general rule, would consider a man, who is trying to force me to agree to the lie that he is a woman and also fighting to be in a single-sex space against the law and women's boundaries, to be potentially more dangerous than other men.
But my point is that the statistics are there that TIM retain the same offending profiles as other men. And why would they not?
Another point, gender critical does not mean that you are anti-trans. It simply means that you know that sex is binary and inmutable. (Most of us actually preferred the term 'sex realist' now.) If you know that sex is binary and immutable, then certain consequences follow automatically. We do not want TIM in women's single-sex spaces not because they're trans, but because they are men. We have no problem with TIF being in women's single-sex spaces because regardless of how they identify, they are women. But this distinction is deliberately ignored by TRA.
In fact, sadly the largest growth in trans-identifying people is actually amongst girls and young women who either identify as male or, increasingly, as non-binary. However when TRAs talk about trans rights, they're talking about TIM. Of course, TIF are no threat to men in their single-sex spaces - if anything, they themselves are potentially at risk. TIF aren't fighting to play in men's sports because they're not good enough - because they're female.
There are issues with TIF because they are the group who are more likely to be on cross-sex hormones which are devastatingly ruinous to their health. They are also more likely to have unnecessary surgery - especially double masectomies. This is tragic but it's a different issue that you don't hear about because obviously men's feelings and demands take precedence.
That being said, you will be called anti-trans, a bigot, a Nazi, right-wing, racist (don't ask!). It's infuriating and incredibly frustrating but that's where we are right now. And that's why this place is like an oasis for us. For most of us this is the only place where we can vent or chat without being called hateful or being accused of transportation - particularly online.
Hi @manual welcome, pull up a chair (I'd check for cat hair before you sit down though). Always nice to see someone new around here. I'd like to respond to your points and engage in a proper conversation but I'm currently procrastinating and I should really be getting ready for work but just know that your views are entirely normal and really what most people think (but don't always have the guts to say). I'd agree with what @Dinate says above that most of us prefer sex realist to gender critical. Mostly because the TRAs have have wilfully misinterpreted what it means (shocking I know)
Unfortunately you are going to have to reconcile yourself to becoming a far right bigot, my advice is to just embrace it. This whole movement is actually an attack on language.
It is therefore imperative that we hold the line on the language used.
It is therefore imperative that we hold the line on the language used.
Their obsession with J.K. Rowling and the screeching whenever anything Harry Potter related is coming is beyond disturbing. I really hope she has good security especially since some of these lunatics already tried showing up at her home at least once that we know of.
The way they try to destroy anyone who is even slightly linked to anything HP should really show these people up for what they are but no, we are all still expected to "be kind" and "evolve" and champion their cause???
The way they try to destroy anyone who is even slightly linked to anything HP should really show these people up for what they are but no, we are all still expected to "be kind" and "evolve" and champion their cause???
Welcome to the thread. This isn’t a female only space.
I agree with a lot of your post, but most of us object to the terms cis, (as it’s completely unnecessary and the only people who require a prefix are those who are pretending they’re something they’re not) and also the term male-at-birth (as they’re just male and will also be male-at-death!).
I don’t give a tit how someone dresses, but I do object to sharing my space with mentally ill and/or perverted men.
I totally agree that if they’re ’in danger’ in male spaces, then it’s a male problem to resolve, rather than pushing it onto women.
Re TIFs in female spaces - I’m not sure how I feel. I’ve not met one, but I imagine they’re fairly obviously female, rather than a little bloke. But if they’re in any way convincing as a bloke, they shouldn’t be putting women in an uncomfortable position by them having to wonder what sex they are.
I’m anti trans and I see no shame in it at all. I’m all for challenging gender norms and expectations but just do it, it doesn’t need a name, a cause or a celebration. What does it actually mean anyway? Transitioning from one gender norm to another? The whole topic should be erased. You’re a man or a woman and get on with it.
I think part of the reason I'm not really viewing through the lens of abuse victim, is because (at least as far as my understanding of a time period I was not alive in goes) they most likely wouldn't have considered themselves victims, or children, and nor would most of society, so from my perspective it seems irrelevant to the conversation.
It's very common (and is sadly my own story, but is also backed up by peer reviewed literature) that many victims of CSA don't realise they were victims until much later in life. I didn't realise it until I was going thru addiction recovery in my 40s and a psychotherapist literally had to tell methat what happened to me was illegal (I was 14, my abusers were mid 20s and mid 30s) and wrong. Before that I saw myself as a wild child, a bad egg, etc - exactly what you describe.
I would have thought that most people back then would have viewed a teenage prostitute as a bad egg, not a victim of abuse
No - the power imbalance and grossness of child abuse has been acknowledged for centuries. Aristophanes hanging Pericles out to dry for alleged child abuse in 5 century BC? Oscar Wilde being undone by his pedalo tendencies. The grossness of Weimar (the 'lost boys' rhapsodised by Isherwood, ewww) and the public disgust, the Nazis won a lot of votes off of that. There would not be legal ages of consent if lawmakers did not acknowledge that sex with children is wrong. It's not something that we only discovered like 10 years ago or something.
Vulnerable children often get treated like they're more mature and seasoned than they really are. This is how social services were able to characterise the grape gang victims as perpetrators of their own abuse. I was a vulnerable teen categorised this way. We shouldn't be categorising the victims of the Stonewall traffickers the same way. it's a very dangerous mindset and I encourage you to read Julie Bindel and other literature on child sexual trafficking, if you want to of course (we all have stuff we wanna read and not enough time lol
)So as not to foul up the thread I will leave it there - but it is relevant, because the medical abuse of gender-confused children relies on exactly he same abusers' trope - that children 'know who they are' and can therefore consent to treatment that a child can never fully understand and should never consent to.
The venn diagram between CSA perp lingo and trans activist lingo is huge overlap btw. Webberley is full of it. As were the doctors who transed Jazz Jennings (one of whom was on the Epstein list and visited his island by the way.) Genuinely terrifying stuff.
we are all travelling a hard road @diamondthunder peace and love to you, Friend x
Hello to our new poster. Hope you don’t mind me saying that I’ll reserve my judgement over your intentions in this thread until I’m convinced that your “Hello I’m a manly man here to give you all my manly and worldly perspective” looks a bit more… genuine. Likewise to your screed about men and sex in the Dating thread.
Whether biology or socialisation or some cosmic reason beyond my understanding, male-at-birth people are so much more dangerous to female-at-birth people than female-at-birth people are.
No need to gaze into the cosmos, fren, the answer is...testosterone.
Men are more violent than women because testosterone. Men are bigger and stronger than women because testosterone. Men are more predisposed to take risks and compete aggressively because testosterone. Men have a MUCH higher sex drive than women because testosterone.
Men aren't just more dangerous to women than women are. Men are super dangerous to other men. Men kill and maim other men all the time.
So, you say 'gender' shouldn't be relevant, I don't really care about that because the term is has been meaningless ever since the Eng Lit scholar and general midwit Judith Butler got her grubby hands on it. But sex is important, sex drives behaviours, and should always be taken into account in civil society, lawmaking and everything else.
Gender = social, changes across space and time.
Sex = biological, does not change, ever.
It's that easy. The QT academic jargon that has been built around it to obfuscate simple truth and reality and be swept away as easily as a house of cards.
Sex = biological, does not change, ever.
It's that easy. The QT academic jargon that has been built around it to obfuscate simple truth and reality and be swept away as easily as a house of cards.