Dear Bromponaut

[Pale Rider]

Re:

I got close to a spat with one of @AuroraSaab's crew on Mumsnet.

You cannot debate these people....

Thanks for making this near spat so easy to find, to help us calibrate our sympathy.

Trying as best I can to look at this objectively

I have no view on the strict legality of convicted male felon Sarah Jane Baker telling an approving crowd at Trafalgar Square to punch a TERF in the fucking face, though will admit to a bias against that sort of thing despite being a fan of free speech. It sounds like you are too! However,

Would the law treat a ‘TERF’ so leniently?

Contrast the determination and alacrity with which the law pursues ‘misgenderers’, ‘deadnamers’ and ‘transphobes’ with the rather more relaxed attitude it has displayed towards Baker.

That's a rhetorical question, as I note you're completely neutral.

there was clearly some confusion

Sympathetic, even, for us poor confused peeps.

I hold no brief for Ms Baker and am neutral as to her motivations here. Those on the GC side might be better focussing on real issues rather than tilting at windmills.

Though I don't agree with trans rights activists that words are violence, I'm not sure the likes of Baker are such an imaginary enemy. Pray continue.

I've no intention of getting down in the weeds over who, in the GC etc debate is right though I think both sides need to be a lot more careful about who they ally themselves with.

I'd love to see the case for Kellie-Jay Keen, one of the women I'm pretty sure you think needs to be more careful, being an "ally" of the Hitler crowd. Coming from someone with your forensic acumen and exacting standards for the truth, I trust it's conclusive.

I've no bias either way

I'm not taking sides.

No of course not. Your objectivity is fabled.

You have no reason to accuse me of bias and I'm asking you to withdraw it.

Funny how you and your ilk seem to think just because you can't put two and two together, we can't either.

I hope 'ilk' doesn't trigger you.

What's shocked me is the prevalence of Gender Critical Feminists/TERFs with the accompanying lack of understanding of trans issues.

I'm in equal parts fascinated and horrified by the extent to which GC feminism/TERF attitudes about Transwomen prevail here.

Firestarter and other 'martyrs' chose their course.

Those are from a different thread, nothing to do with Baker. I've personally been fascinated and horrified by your lack of understanding on how women, never mind children, are impacted by trans issues. 'Firestarter' was cute though. Sign the letter?

No, probably too strident.

Sincerely,
Someone who can read


PS. Dear AuroraSaab,

What's the appeal of being on Mumsnet to you? I've never visited it so I don't know what it's appeal for anyone other than mum's would be.

My surprise that you've never even visited aside, that's not much of an improvement on your first draft. Some of us (though not, I'd venture to guess, Bromptonaut), are interested in what a wider range of women than our immediate circle have to say; and a great deal of the site is not mum- or even parent-specific. In any case,

I'm not there for kinks/kicks and resent your implication that I am.

the privacy of a man's search history is sacrosanct.

[Pale Rider]

You cannot debate these people....

I wonder how you'd fare debating someone like Margot.

New to this...

Phrases like "questioning a trans person's existence" or "denying a trans person's right to exist" crop up a lot in this debate.

This is emotional manipulation.

I have not seen anybody denying that trans people exist or have the right to exist.

As far as I'm concerned, trans people are welcome to exist anywhere they like, except in spaces, services and sports which are supposed to be reserved for the exclusive use of the opposite sex. Since most of western society is not segregated by sex, that's a whole lot of places for trans people to exist.

I do accept that for some trans people, if the choice is between using spaces for their own biological sex or self excluding altogether, they will choose to self exclude. And that is not really a free choice if the alternative is genuinely unthinkable for them. But by exactly the same logic, for some women, if the choice is between using spaces which are supposedly for women but include members of the opposite biological sex or self excluding altogether, they will also choose to self exclude. (For example, practising Muslim women whose faith does not allow them to be in a state of undress in the presence of male strangers, or women who are survivors of rape or sexual assault and will find the presence of a male bodied person in a space where they do not expect to see one extremely traumatic.)

The thing is, there is a double standard here. We are told that trans people must absolutely be allowed to use spaces for the opposite sex if they feel these spaces better align with their gender identity, and that it is unthinkable to put them in a situation where they are not allowed to use spaces for the opposite sex, feel unable to use spaces for their own sex, and are therefore forced to self exclude. But when women make it clear that if biological males are allowed into women's single sex spaces they will feel unable to use them, they are told that self excluding is a choice they have made.

There is also a double standard in respect of language, in that the same people who accuse us of denying the existence of trans people do not believe that female people should be allowed to have any words to describe themselves as a biological sex class which includes all female people and excludes all male people. Trans women refer to themselves as women, and increasingly as female. We are informed that the word for us is "cis women", but there are two problems with this term. Firstly, it requires us to describe ourselves using the terminology of an ideology we do not believe in, and accept the positioning of ourselves as powerful and privileged when many of us are anything but. Secondly, this term excludes female people who identify as trans men or non binary, meaning that it is not a word to collectively describe all female people. When we point this out we are snottily told that they do not want to be included. But they are included in the group of people we are trying to describe and discuss, whether they want to be or not.

We are, it appears, not allowed to have a word to enable us to describe and discuss that group, because it offends some people. And then in contexts when we really must describe and discuss that group (such as healthcare), we are referred to as people with cervixes and menstruators and bodies with vaginas and all these other dehumanising terms which reduce us to body parts and bodily functions. The fact that this may offend us is neither here nor there. Again, the double standard is at play here. Another term which increasingly gets bandied about is AFAB ("assigned female at birth"). This one does the job of correctly identifying the group of people we want to talk about, but again requires us to pretend that we accept the completely ideological notion of having been assigned something at birth, which many of us find ridiculous. I would almost be inclined to accept this one if only to have a clear term to describe all female people, but experience suggests that the moment this term becomes widely used, trans women will start using it to refer to themselves, no doubt on the basis that they were assigned a female gender identity at birth. So it would almost instantly become useless anyway.

So if trans people must be allowed to use any space they want and refer to themselves however they want and have the rest of society refer to them and ourselves the way they want, but female people are no longer allowed to have any spaces or sports for themselves, or a word for themselves, or to be offended about any words used to describe them, whose existence is being denied here? Trans people's? Or women's?

Bromptonaut, your crew are exhausting, from arguing every jot and tittle to wear down your opponents, to apoplexy at the slightest "misrepresentation" (whilst being happy to dish it out), to a complete inability to recognise actual nuance. The Twunt Chronicles alone are spectacularly telling about how much you just don't get.

Doubtless you consider yourself a reasonable man.

"Meet me in the middle," says the unjust man. You take a step towards him, he takes a step back. "Meet me in the middle," says the unjust man.

I don't suppose you'd be a fan of Dame Katy. Archived links as the great Dame is forever getting in hot water with the X.

• We have the science
• Paperclip
• Chair poverty
• 3 piece suite
• Sit down
• Squirrelly
• Trans canine community