Active discussions

Please or to access all these features

Talk
AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To think that the "concern" coming from trans rights activists towards butch women is false?

31 replies

ArcheryAnnie · 06/08/2025 12:14

Ever since the Supreme Court ruling clarifying the law around same-sex spaces such as loos, there's been a rash of claims by trans rights activists that butch (or otherwise gender nonconforming) women are now getting harassed in women's loos for not looking appropriately feminine. This claim was repeated last night on Radio 4's "In Touch" programme.

Except I don't believe it for a second. No TRA or ally ever gave a single shiny shit about butch women until the Supreme Court judgement, and I simply don't believe there's been an uptick of challenges to actual women using women's loos - and if there were, they wouldn't be to butch women, since there's generally very few points of similarity in the appearance of butch women with men who are attempting to present in a feminised way.

AIBU to be extremely sceptical of these claims, and to believe it's a very late-stage, piss-poor attempt to convince women that having single-sex spaces will be bad for them?

OP posts:
Tiredofwhataboutery · 06/08/2025 12:35

I’d agree with you. I think, rather selfishly, they use others as a shield/ cause because the reality is middle aged men wearing fetish gear and invading women’s spaces is at best unsavoury. Gay people, intersex/ DSDs, trans men, butch women, children, they all get centred within the cause whenever it suits whether they want to be or not.

Genuinely I’m sure there are TRAs disappointed that there hasn’t been the promised spate of teen suicides following treatment guidelines changing hasn’t materialised.

I think the cause is desperate for someone brave and true to rally around as there seems to have been a lot of unpleasant chaps who make the papers and seem to cause a lot of reverse ferreting.

Sad times. 😉

CowPooSummer · 06/08/2025 12:34

I’m a large masculine looking woman. I’ve never been challenged in public loos at all.
I have been called sir several times though, but by 20-30 year olds who I think assume I’m a transman. I always laugh it off.

Youdontseehow · 06/08/2025 12:32

Yeah, very convenient and I don’t believe it. A “butch” woman is just that - a woman. Women generally don’t fear being sexually assaulted by lesbians/butch women - they fear men. It’s not that complicated .

YorkshirePuddingsGreatestFan · 06/08/2025 12:30

If masculine looking women are being challenged in female spaces, it just confirms that women are uncomfortable with biological males being in female spaces.

If women were happy with males using their female spaces, nobody would be getting challenged.

It's no different to the "you don't look disabled" police when disabled people don't have an obvious disability.

LarkspurLane · 06/08/2025 12:28

YANBU.
I'd be interested if there are stories from women who have supposedly challenged "butch" women rather than vaguer stories about how it is suddenly happening.

EmpressaurusKitty · 06/08/2025 12:25

YANBU. We know TRAs don’t care about the comfort or safety of women except on their own terms, or things wouldn’t be where they are now.