Transgender hate crimes recorded by police go up 81%

[Rob Ray]

Alternatively you can go for a position where lifelong dysmorphia is real and so is choice in the expression of gender somewhere on a general spectrum.

I'd actually argue the main incompatibility seems to be within the "gender critical" position, which seeks to embrace both the idea of eliminating gender tropes (criticising people presenting as women as a regression into stereotype) and essentialism (highlighting "innate and unchangeable" features of womanhood that are then characterised as being under threat from The Trans Agenda).

 

[SpookyFrank]

I'd actually argue the main incompatibility seems to be within the "gender critical" position, which seeks to embrace both the idea of eliminating gender tropes (criticising people presenting as women as a regression into stereotype) and essentialism (highlighting "innate and unchangeable" features of womanhood that are then characterised as being under threat from The Trans Agenda).

The gender critical position isn't really a position, it's a post-hoc rationalisation of anti-trans bigotry. There's no requirement for it to actually make any sense.

 

[Rob Ray]

I'd sort of agree, certainly in terms of the mainstream moral panic where you get that half-understood mashup of whatever seems to fit the moment, but it definitely draws from deeper theoretical currents for its critiques as well, particularly the twin poles of trans-exclusionary radical feminism and the conservatively-minded wing's reifing of the gender binary.

 

[smokedout]

The trans rights movement is actually an alliance of two opposing positions. One argues that gender is innate, and the other argues that we can choose our gender.

This isn't true at all. Many, probably most trans people, would say that they experienced their gender identity as innate, in much the same way people experience sexuality. It's not something chosen or which can be changed regardless of what combination of social and biological factors may lie behind it. And believe me in decades past many trans people did try to change it, people wanted to be 'cured' in a society in which life as an out trans person was pretty unlivable. It didn't work though, which is why so many older trans people didn't come out until their late middle ages when the stress of denial became too much - or they ceased giving a fuck what people thought of them.

There are also those who have not experienced gender dysphoria, or who do not wish for medical intervention, or whose experience of gender is more fluid, or who may reject the binary altogether whether for personal or political reasons, or a combination of both. For a long time this was a source of tension within the trans community which eventually became resolved by broad consensus that it doesn't really matter how someone comes to be trans, or what their experience of transness is - people's gender identities and personal experience of gender should be respected and acknowledged.

There is no true transsexual at the top of some hierachy, but instead gender identity is complex and deeply personal and should not require a checklist of often medicalised categories to be accepted as valid. Not all gay people necessarily believe they were born that way either, that doesn't mean the gay rights movements was based on opposing positions. It's about where someone is now, not some unknowable theorising about how they got there.

 

[Jimmy Don't]

There is no true transsexual at the top of some hierachy, but instead gender identity is complex and deeply personal and should not require a checklist of often medicalised categories to be accepted as valid. Not all gay people necessarily believe they were born that way either, that doesn't mean the gay rights movements was based on opposing positions. It's about where someone is now, not some unknowable theorising about how they got there.

But the Rowling versus the Scottish Hate Crime bill seems to be about whether it's a crime to call a person born with male reproductive organs a man. From my limited knowledge and I'm very willing to be educated, happy to call anyone by anything they want, that's seems just to be a fact, just science. Her motivations for labouring the point seem questionable, particularly the stuff arround bathrooms etc, though sports less so

 

[Jimmy Don't]

NB Jimmy Don't - I would be considered Jewish even if I didn't practice, not every religion functions like Christianity. Plenty of antisemitism is directed towards high profile non-practicing Jews, for example.

Considered by whom though? I don't consider Christians to be born either, it's a social construct. It's not like being visibily black, or preferring to have sex with men, or women, or both.

 

[smokedout]

But the Rowling versus the Scottish Hate Crime bill seems to be about whether it's a crime to call a person born with male reproductive organs a man. From my limited knowledge and I'm very willing to be educated, happy to call anyone by anything they want, that's seems just to be a fact, just science. Her motivations for labouring the point seem questionable, particularly the stuff arround bathrooms etc, though sports less so

But it's not a crime, and she knows it. There may be circumstances if you relentlessly targetted an individual trans person with abuse then misgendering could form part of a charge, although it's unlikely it would be enough on its own. But that already applies under harassment laws. What might be a crime under these laws is calling all trans people perverts or paedophiles, issuing threats of violence or calling for trans people's elimination, and there are plenty of JKR's followers who regularly do this. This, along with the opportunity to present the more moderate voices as victims of some terrible (and yet non existent) censorship, is why the gender critical movement is fighting this so hard.

FWIW I'm not a bit fan of hate speech laws. They frequently end up being weaponised against the people they were supposed to help - see the mass reporting of Humza Yusef yesterday for a speech he made criticising lack of diversity in senior roles or some of the more dubious targetting of Muslims by police on the recent Palestine protests for examples. Having said that there were howls of outrage when laws against religious and racial hatred were introduced along with claims this would no longer allow people to discuss immigration or criticise religions and none of that really happened. The threshold for prosecution is high, and the new law in Scotland has more protections for free speech than previous anti hate laws.

 

[Jimmy Don't]

But it's not a crime, and she knows it. There may be circumstances if you relentlessly targetted an individual trans person with abuse then misgendering could form part of a charge, although it's unlikely it would be enough on its own. But that already applies under harassment laws. What might be a crime under these laws is calling all trans people perverts or paedophiles, issuing threats of violence or calling for trans people's elimination, and there are plenty of JKR's followers who regularly do this. This, along with the opportunity to present the more moderate voices as victims of some terrible (and yet non existent) censorship, is why the gender critical movement is fighting this so hard.

FWIW I'm not a bit fan of hate speech laws. They frequently end up being weaponised against the people they were supposed to help - see the mass reporting of Humza Yusef yesterday for a speech he made criticising lack of diversity in senior roles or some of the more dubious targetting of Muslims by police on the recent Palestine protests for examples. Having said that there were howls of outrage when laws against religious and racial hatred were introduced along with claims this would no longer allow people to discuss immigration or criticise religions and none of that really happened. The threshold for prosecution is high, and the new law in Scotland has more protections for free speech than previous anti hate laws.

Cheers for explaining. Bit of an education since I first posted on this thread, but still not sure where I land on it all. Not that that is important to be fair, but social media has pushed it into my face, so here we are.

 

[hitmouse]

Check out the Podcast, The witch trials of JK rolling. This will give you a lot of background. And from what I gleaned from it she has said nothing hateful. This whole new law thing and whether she will fall foul of it, is a media circus.

If you've got the time to delve into it, I remember the Contrapoints video on the Witch Trials of JK Rowling being worth a watch for... well, a counterpoint, I suppose. It's two hours, which is a bit of a commitment, but I imagine the podcast series probably takes a bit more than five minutes to listen to as well. You can just stick it on in the background and treat it like a podcast if you want.

The trans rights movement is actually an alliance of two opposing positions. One argues that gender is innate, and the other argues that we can choose our gender.

I mean, there's something to this, but I think it's more like... you can't read someone's politics off their trans status, any more than you can from any other aspect of their identity, so it's a bit like saying that the gay rights movement is an alliance of opposing positions because it'll inevitably involve gay socialists alongside gay liberals, gay tories and so on. But with the added catch-22 that more liberal, status-quo-compatible trans arguments tend to get more widely circulated because of course they do, and they then get pointed at as being proof that transness is inherently neoliberal or whatever from the TERF/GC crowd. (None of this is my original analysis btw, I'm recycling it from someone else who did a better job of explaining it... might've been that old Leeds Falling Star text, maybe?)

Considered by whom though? I don't consider Christians to be born either, it's a social construct. It's not like being visibily black, or preferring to have sex with men, or women, or both.

Thing is though, being black or white is a social construct, just like the idea of your sexual preference being an important part of your identity is. An ancient Greek might have enjoyed having sex with men, but that wouldn't have made him gay or bi in the sense we understand them today, because they thought about sexuality in a different way, just as they might've interacted with people from the African continent without understanding them as being black in the same way we would.

 

[cesare]

If you've got the time to delve into it, I remember the Contrapoints video on the Witch Trials of JK Rowling being worth a watch for... well, a counterpoint, I suppose. It's two hours, which is a bit of a commitment, but I imagine the podcast series probably takes a bit more than five minutes to listen to as well. You can just stick it on in the background and treat it like a podcast if you want.

I mean, there's something to this, but I think it's more like... you can't read someone's politics off their trans status, any more than you can from any other aspect of their identity, so it's a bit like saying that the gay rights movement is an alliance of opposing positions because it'll inevitably involve gay socialists alongside gay liberals, gay tories and so on. But with the added catch-22 that more liberal, status-quo-compatible trans arguments tend to get more widely circulated because of course they do, and they then get pointed at as being proof that transness is inherently neoliberal or whatever from the TERF/GC crowd. (None of this is my original analysis btw, I'm recycling it from someone else who did a better job of explaining it... might've been that old Leeds Falling Star text, maybe?)

Thing is though, being black or white is a social construct, just like the idea of your sexual preference being an important part of your identity is. An ancient Greek might have enjoyed having sex with men, but that wouldn't have made him gay or bi in the sense we understand them today, because they thought about sexuality in a different way, just as they might've interacted with people from the African continent without understanding them as being black in the same way we would.

It's definitely worth watching the contrapoints video.

 

[muscovyduck]

I also endorse the contrapoints video

 

[Jimmy Don't]

I also endorse the contrapoints video

Won't play for me on work computer.

Did some Googling an it appears about 0.5% of the UK population believe they are different sex to the one they were born as. That amount of people can't be much of threat to anyone, surely? Caveat being, that I'm not a woman in a changing room with a man or ex-man, with his penis out. But there's so few transgender people that can't happen often. But then I suppose if it does, one person who was man (is a man?) in a changing room for women, has an effect on multiple women in there at the same time, even if they have no ill intent?

 

[danny la rouge]

Really thought people had got beyond this kind of attitude.

 

[Cloo]

Did some Googling an it appears about 0.5% of the UK population believe they are different sex to the one they were born as. That amount of people can't be much of threat to anyone, surely? Caveat being, that I'm not a woman in a changing room with a man or ex-man, with his penis out. But there's so few transgender people that can't happen often. But then I suppose if it does, one person who was man (is a man?) in a changing room for women, has an effect on multiple women in there at the same time, even if they have no ill intent?

This, for me, is the absolutely key thing.

How can 0.5% of the population being made literally into an electoral issue be anything but gross discrimination and victimisation?

Assuming you could effectively ban people from using changing or toilet facilities that align with their gender identity - there is no way or earth there are enough assaults by trans women or men just dressed as women in these spaces for there to be any observable statistical impact on assualts on women. The GCs will hit you with 'Oh, just because you can't stop one kind of assault/a few assaults you just say don't try to stop ANY!' - but really, will it stop any? If a person is set on abusing women or kids... that's already illegal. They do it anyway. If a bloke gets a kick out of assaulting women while dressed as a woman - he'll do it anyway. If a man dresses as a woman in order to make it easier to assault them in a single sex space - do you honestly think 'Oh I can't go into a toilet dressed as a woman, I won't assault any women'?! He'll either keep on doing it, or he'll assault women elsewhere, it's not like single-sex spaces are the only places in which men can assault women, or even the majority of places where women are assaulted.

Not to mention the assaults that will happen to butch lesbians, tall or otherwise not-typically-feminine cis women in single-sex spaces and the police time wasted from being called out by gender policing morons who think those women 'shouldn't be in the ladies'

None of this makes any sense and enforcing laws like this (how exactly?) does fuck all to keep women safe.

 

[Rob Ray]

Really thought people had got beyond this kind of attitude.

Most of the population doesn't spend much time thinking about it, and when they do it's usually via seeing some sort of hackle-raising piece in a right-wing outlet. My folks haven't ever (knowingly) met a trans person in the places they frequent afaik, so virtually the entire spread of conversation and knowledge they have about it comes from a mix of vague memories from their more broadly sociable years in the 1970s/80s, frothing bullshit in The Times, and their two leftie sons going "er no that's bollocks" when they regurgitate it back to us.

 

[Jimmy Don't]

Really thought people had got beyond this kind of attitude.

I'm on just forming an opinion as it's appeared all over my Twitter. My awareness before that was virtually nil, none of this is in my world. But neither was disability until I had a child with Autism, so much like that I had to blunder into a world where people had a load of experience and I obviously didn't. I might be a little less delicate here as it's clearly not the same as something that effects your own child, but the complete lack of knowledge is the same.

 

[krtek a houby]

Really thought people had got beyond this kind of attitude.

You'd think so, but it appears as trans people become more confident and visible, the phobes will will be making themselves louder.

(Not directed at those who are still learning about trans life/issues etc)

 

[ddraig]

I'm on just forming an opinion as it's appeared all over my Twitter. My awareness before that was virtually nil, none of this is in my world. But neither was disability until I had a child with Autism, so much like that I had to blunder into a world where people had a load of experience and I obviously didn't. I might be a little less delicate here as it's clearly not the same as something that effects your own child, but the complete lack of knowledge is the same.

Read the threads then

 

[Jimmy Don't]

You'd think so, but it appears as trans people become more confident and visible, the phobes will will be making themselves louder.

(Not directed at those who are still learning about trans life/issues etc)

I appreciate your last line. When I first discovered my son was autistic, and people asked for us to be thrown out of restaurants when he melted down, when I left toddler sessions with people staring at me horrified when he screeched, drew blood from my face by scratching me, and writhed and struggled so much I could barely get get him out of there, it took a long while before I realised they just didn't know anything about what was happening. They weren't awful nasty people, it was literally all alien to them.

 

[danny la rouge]

Most of the population doesn't spend much time thinking about it, and when they do it's usually via seeing some sort of hackle-raising piece in a right-wing outlet. My folks haven't ever (knowingly) met a trans person in the places they frequent afaik, so virtually the entire spread of conversation and knowledge they have about it comes from a mix of vague memories from their more broadly sociable years in the 1970s/80s, frothing bullshit in The Times, and their two leftie sons going "er no that's bollocks" when they regurgitate it back to us.

Yes, that’s fair. I was assuming that people who post on Urban might be further down the road of self education by 2024 than the general population “out there”. But of course that’s just a generalisation and individuals are not an average.

I’m not someone who thinks vilifying people who are on a learning journey is helpful, so I apologise to Jimmy Don't for my impatience.

 

[danny la rouge]

Read the threads then

I’m not sure that will be helpful either: many of these threads unfolding in real time were depressing for everyone. I’m not sure how good it would be for anyone’s mental health to compress them!

Probably a concise explainer webpage would be more useful. Not that I know of one off hand.

 

[danny la rouge]

This, for me, is the absolutely key thing.

How can 0.5% of the population being made literally into an electoral issue be anything but gross discrimination and victimisation?

Assuming you could effectively ban people from using changing or toilet facilities that align with their gender identity - there is no way or earth there are enough assaults by trans women or men just dressed as women in these spaces for there to be any observable statistical impact on assualts on women. The GCs will hit you with 'Oh, just because you can't stop one kind of assault/a few assaults you just say don't try to stop ANY!' - but really, will it stop any? If a person is set on abusing women or kids... that's already illegal. They do it anyway. If a bloke gets a kick out of assaulting women while dressed as a woman - he'll do it anyway. If a man dresses as a woman in order to make it easier to assault them in a single sex space - do you honestly think 'Oh I can't go into a toilet dressed as a woman, I won't assault any women'?! He'll either keep on doing it, or he'll assault women elsewhere, it's not like single-sex spaces are the only places in which men can assault women, or even the majority of places where women are assaulted.

Not to mention the assaults that will happen to butch lesbians, tall or otherwise not-typically-feminine cis women in single-sex spaces and the police time wasted from being called out by gender policing morons who think those women 'shouldn't be in the ladies'

None of this makes any sense and enforcing laws like this (how exactly?) does fuck all to keep women safe.

That’s what I should have said.

 

[two sheds]

I’m not sure that will be helpful either: many of these threads unfolding in real time were depressing for everyone. I’m not sure how good it would be for anyone’s mental health to compress them!

Probably a concise explainer webpage would be more useful. Not that I know of one off hand.

smokedout ?

 

[danny la rouge]

I appreciate your last line. When I first discovered my son was autistic, and people asked for us to be thrown out of restaurants when he melted down, when I left toddler sessions with people staring at me horrified when he screeched, drew blood from my face by scratching me, and writhed and struggled so much I could barely get get him out of there, it took a long while before I realised they just didn't know anything about what was happening. They weren't awful nasty people, it was literally all alien to them.

This is an excellent analogy and a good place to start from.

 

[Jimmy Don't]

Yes, that’s fair. I was assuming that people who post on Urban might be further down the road of self education by 2024 than the general population “out there”. But of course that’s just a generalisation and individuals are not an average.

I’m not someone who thinks vilifying people who are on a learning journey is helpful, so I apologise to Jimmy Don't for my impatience.

No apology necessary Danny.

 

[Jimmy Don't]

Yes, that’s fair. I was assuming that people who post on Urban might be further down the road of self education by 2024 than the general population “out there”. But of course that’s just a generalisation and individuals are not an average.

I don't think that's an unfair assumption, but for me, the only place I'd seen this stuff discussed before it flooded my Twitter was here and the threads were such a bunfight, I never looked at them again.

 

[smokedout]

This, for me, is the absolutely key thing.

How can 0.5% of the population being made literally into an electoral issue be anything but gross discrimination and victimisation?

Assuming you could effectively ban people from using changing or toilet facilities that align with their gender identity - there is no way or earth there are enough assaults by trans women or men just dressed as women in these spaces for there to be any observable statistical impact on assualts on women. The GCs will hit you with 'Oh, just because you can't stop one kind of assault/a few assaults you just say don't try to stop ANY!' - but really, will it stop any? If a person is set on abusing women or kids... that's already illegal. They do it anyway. If a bloke gets a kick out of assaulting women while dressed as a woman - he'll do it anyway. If a man dresses as a woman in order to make it easier to assault them in a single sex space - do you honestly think 'Oh I can't go into a toilet dressed as a woman, I won't assault any women'?! He'll either keep on doing it, or he'll assault women elsewhere, it's not like single-sex spaces are the only places in which men can assault women, or even the majority of places where women are assaulted.

Not to mention the assaults that will happen to butch lesbians, tall or otherwise not-typically-feminine cis women in single-sex spaces and the police time wasted from being called out by gender policing morons who think those women 'shouldn't be in the ladies'

None of this makes any sense and enforcing laws like this (how exactly?) does fuck all to keep women safe.

Based on the census around half of that 0.5% were assigned female at birth and only 0.1% identified themselves as trans women. For various reasons I suspect it's a little higher than that but not much. In decades of trans women routinely using women's toilets and changing rooms, which they have been despite claims this is all new, there has only been one sexual assault reported committed by a trans woman in a woman's space in the UK - and that by a very damaged teenager and I doubt stricter criteria to enter the toilets would have stopped them.

The growth in the number of people identifying as trans has largely been down to trans men and often afab non binary people. According to the census the number of trans women has barely risen at all to estimated numbers 20 years ago - and all those trans women used women's toilets and changing rooms back then, as did some gender fluid people depending on presentation. When it comes to communal areas without cubicles the absence of any reports of trans women walking round naked, both then and now, points to the fact that trans women self exclude from those spaces - which in the days of everyone carrying a camera around with them should probably be phased out anyway.

I think that's why a lot of this is so difficult to take in. I can understand some of the anxieties around prisons, refuges and sports, although the situation is far more nunaced than often presented. But when it comes to toilets and changing rooms this has literally been happening people's whole lives with barely a murmour of objection and suddenly it's now the most terrible thing in the world with the very existence of women under threat.

If trans women were banned from all women's spaces tomorrow most women would barely even notice - it would certainly do nothing to bring down rates of sexual offending. And yet the cost to trans people, intersex people and gender nonconforming people would be vast, as would the cost to a lot of women if toilets and changing rooms began to be policed, whether formally or informally, on the basis of perceived visible femininity. Their only answer to this seems to be we can always tell, which apart from being fucking untrue, it only takes 1% of people to get it wrong 1% of the time to make any androgynous or masculine appearing cis woman's life a nightmare.

 

[danny la rouge]

A couple of Scottish organisations supporting survivors of violence against women have commented on this.

“There is no rape crisis service in Scotland that requires a gender recognition certificate. Where services are available to women only, women are not required to provide ‘proof’ of their sex. All rape crisis services in Scotland are inclusive of transwomen and have been for 15 years. In those 15 years, there has not been a single incident of anyone abusing this.” (Rape Crisis Scotland).

News | Rape Crisis Scotland statement on the open letter to Special Rapporteur on Violence Against Women and Girls

www.rapecrisisscotland.org.uk

“Scottish Women’s Aid (SWA) believes the oppression of trans women is a women’s
issue.”

“As a women's organisation, SWA works to be inclusive of trans women in all areas of our work.“

https://womensaid.scot/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/SWA-position-on-trans-women.pdf

 

[TopCat]

Really thought people had got beyond this kind of attitude.

Bigotry abounds.

 

[smokedout]

smokedout ?

I can't really think of anywhere that summarises and rebuts the main gender critical arguments. Most of the more grassroots trans sites are pretty much concentrating on firefighting whatever that day's attack is although Trans Safety Network do some good work, and Trans Writes features the work of trans writers. Assigned Media and Erin Reed are good US news sources but not so relevant to the UK.

I'd echo the recommendations for Contrapoints, who is good on gender and trans issues, as well as being accessible and quite entertaining, although there's a certain time commitment involved. Julia Serano's Whipping Girl is also worth a read and I haven't got round to reading it yet but I've seen reports of people softening their position after reading Shon Faye's The Transgender Issue.

There isn't really anywhere equivalent to the various Gender Critical websites because contrary to claims, trans people aren't an ideology, they are just a bunch of people who happen to share a characteristic who tbh never stop arguing. Like most marginalised groups they probably lean left and most would likely agree that trans people exist and identities should be respected but even that's not universal - there are gender critical trans people (unfortunately). As to discussions on what is a woman or the complex interplay between sex and gender under patriarchy then you could fill a library with texts going back decades, but again there are no universalist positions.

Most of what is claimed to be gender ideology is based on either gender criticals finding the most extreme viewpoints and claiming that is what all trans people think or commonly just making assumptions that if you believe this then you must also believe that - like claims that if you think it's okay for a trans woman to refer to herself as a lesbian then you must think that lesbians who don't want to sleep with trans people are transphobic, or if you support trans healthcare for minors in some instances then you must think that every gender nonconforming child should be medically transed. Err no, nuance is possible, for some of us at least.