What has JK Rowling said or done that’s transphobic

And as a woman, my mind is entirely at rest that one cannot infer offending rates in the general trans-woman population from the composition of the prison population

What data would you accept then? Arrest rates? Even if the trans status of arrested people were routinely collected and published, surely you would then just say that an arrest isn't a proof of guilt.

The difference is that a trans woman has a persistent recognition of herself as female despite having been born with male-typical anatomy. That is the entire phenomenon we have been discussing.

As for why she might use different spaces from men: she does not necessarily “need” separate space in some absolute sense. But we live in a society where men and women are sometimes separated in facilities and activities largely for social, cultural, privacy or practical reasons.

In those contexts, there may be good reasons for a trans woman to use the women’s space — because of dignity, transition status, vulnerability, presentation, risk of being outed or harassed, and because the purpose of the space may be better served that way than by requiring her to use the men’s.

You cannot answer every one of those questions simply by saying “male at birth, therefore male space” and treating everything else as irrelevant.

The difference is that a trans woman has a persistent recognition of herself as female despite having been born with male-typical anatomy. That is the entire phenomenon we have been discussing.

As for why she might use different spaces from men: she does not necessarily “need” separate space in some absolute sense. But we live in a society where men and women are sometimes separated in facilities and activities largely for social, cultural, privacy or practical reasons.

In those contexts, there may be good reasons for a trans woman to use the women’s space — because of dignity, transition status, vulnerability, presentation, risk of being outed or harassed, and because the purpose of the space may be better served that way than by requiring her to use the men’s.

You cannot answer every one of those questions simply by saying “male at birth, therefore male space” and treating everything else as irrelevant.

The difference is that a trans woman has a persistent recognition of herself as female despite having been born with male-typical anatomy. That is the entire phenomenon we have been discussing.

As for why she might use different spaces from men: she does not necessarily “need” separate space in some absolute sense. But we live in a society where men and women are sometimes separated in facilities and activities largely for social, cultural, privacy or practical reasons.

In those contexts, there may be good reasons for a trans woman to use the women’s space — because of dignity, transition status, vulnerability, presentation, risk of being outed or harassed, and because the purpose of the space may be better served that way than by requiring her to use the men’s.

You cannot answer every one of those questions simply by saying “male at birth, therefore male space” and treating everything else as irrelevant.

The difference is that a trans woman has a persistent recognition of herself as female despite having been born with male-typical anatomy. That is the entire phenomenon we have been discussing.

As for why she might use different spaces from men: she does not necessarily “need” separate space in some absolute sense. But we live in a society where men and women are sometimes separated in facilities and activities largely for social, cultural, privacy or practical reasons.

In those contexts, there may be good reasons for a trans woman to use the women’s space — because of dignity, transition status, vulnerability, presentation, risk of being outed or harassed, and because the purpose of the space may be better served that way than by requiring her to use the men’s.

You cannot answer every one of those questions simply by saying “male at birth, therefore male space” and treating everything else as irrelevant.

I'm not sure you'd be saying this if you were a victim of sexual and physical violence by a man.

I wouldn't police anything. Sex segregation is a product of social convention - it is about the social and cultural aspects of sex, not about gametes and genitals.

What is the difference between a man and a trans identifying man?

Why do they need space away from each other?

I wouldn't police anything. Sex segregation is a product of social convention - it is about the social and cultural aspects of sex, not about gametes and genitals.

I wouldn't police anything. Sex segregation is a product of social convention - it is about the social and cultural aspects of sex, not about gametes and genitals.

If you want my views on policy, the bottom line is that I don’t think policing access to toilets, swimming pools, sports competitions, knitting associations, etc. on the basis of the presumed shape of someone’s genitals has anything to do with safeguarding or preventing sexual and gender-based violence.

Sex segregation is largely a product of social and cultural convention, and I’m not opposed to it. But there is no obvious reason why that has to translate into a rigid anatomy-at-birth rule in every context, or why trans people should therefore be excluded as a matter of principle.

You can acknowledge that bodies sometimes matter — for example in healthcare — without turning sex segregation into a kind of anatomical fundamentalism. I don’t see a coherent logical argument or convincing evidence base for applying that kind of rigid rule across every social context in which services or facilities happen to be divided into male and female.

You know what I would like? If you would stop calling me a ‘TRA’ and positioning me in opposition to ‘women’ and to what ‘women think’. I am a woman — not one standing outside Parliament with a placard, just someone who thinks and writes about this kind of stuff and enjoys chatting on Mumsnet.

And as a woman, my mind is entirely at rest that one cannot infer offending rates in the general trans-woman population from the composition of the prison population

Thing is, if you aren't going to consider the needs of sex relevant, what is the coherent logical argument that segregate is still necessary, but by gender?

In what situations do you think sex doesn't matter, but gender matters enough to justify not just people tending to choose pink or blue, but there being actual segregation by gender?

And how would you "police" it? Personality inspections?

If you want my views on policy, the bottom line is that I don’t think policing access to toilets, swimming pools, sports competitions, knitting associations, etc. on the basis of the presumed shape of someone’s genitals has anything to do with safeguarding or preventing sexual and gender-based violence.

Sex segregation is largely a product of social and cultural convention, and I’m not opposed to it. But there is no obvious reason why that has to translate into a rigid anatomy-at-birth rule in every context, or why trans people should therefore be excluded as a matter of principle.

You can acknowledge that bodies sometimes matter — for example in healthcare — without turning sex segregation into a kind of anatomical fundamentalism. I don’t see a coherent logical argument or convincing evidence base for applying that kind of rigid rule across every social context in which services or facilities happen to be divided into male and female.

You know, I'd have so much more trust in TRAs if they would just say "yeah, the prison stats are concerning. I do firmly believe TWAW and I expect when we look at it it will prove to be explainable, but we should look into that properly if only so we can put women's minds at rest".

They don't see how handwaving away hard questions actually weakens their support.

You want to remove sex in safeguarding.

The largest indicator in perpetrators of violence and sexual is being male. There is nothing about transition that changes a person's sex.

The surgery a man has, the drugs he takes, his build are not part of safeguarding. Its his sex that matters. Thats not a matter of opinion, thats the truth.

You are coming to safeguarding from the wrong way - you want to remove sex then ask us to justify why it should be included. Its you who needs to justify why you want to remove sex from safeguarding.

I don’t think you understand that different kinds of data answer different kinds of questions.

Individual descriptions are entirely appropriate evidence for understanding subjective experience. If you want to know what a particular phenomenon feels like to people who experience it- first-person accounts are directly relevant. When similar descriptions recur across many people and are also reflected in clinical literature, they can help characterise a recognised psychological or medical phenomenon.

What individual accounts cannot do is establish prevalence or comparative population rates.

So I can reasonably say, “this is how trans people consistently describe the experience of being trans,” because personal accounts are evidence about experience.

I cannot say, however,m, “30% of trans people experience severe gender dysphoria” on the basis of collecting individual testimonies from people who describe severe dysphoria. To make that claim, I would need data capable of estimating the proportion in the wider trans population.

Similarly , personal testimonies can establish that trans people sometimes offend and provide evidence of how that is experienced at a personal level . It cannot establish the rate of offending among trans people as a population, or show that this rate is higher than in another population, unless you have an appropriate denominator and representative or otherwise valid population-level data.

That isn’t “picking and choosing” evidence. It is basic methodology: the evidence has to be capable of answering the question being asked.

The problem is the assumption in “it will be the same for every group”. You don’t know that from prison statistics. in fact we know that different groups do not pass through the criminal justice system in identical ways. Criminal justice data show well-documented disproportionalities and biases, especially by ethnicity. Different populations can differ in detection, policing, prosecution, offence profile, sentencing, previous convictions and routes into custody. The characteristics of people who have reached prison cannot simply be treated as the offending rate of the wider population.

And I have never disputed that some trans women commit sexual offences, or that sex differences may be relevant to some behavioural differences. Hormonal differences in particular , can evidently affect behaviour.

What I dispute is the much larger inference that is being drawn from that.
There are three separate claims here:

1. Some trans women commit sexual offences.
2. Trans women as a population commit sexual offences at a disproportionate rate.
3. Therefore blanket sex segregation based on birth sex is a necessary and proportionate safeguarding response.

The first is obviously true. It does not establish the second, and even if the second were established, it does not justify the third.

im also troubled by the implication that behavioural differences should be viewed as biologically fixed- to me that seems to justify naturalising sexual violence as an inevitable consequence of male biology.

Sexual offending is a complex behaviour with biological, psychological, developmental and social determinants.

I support better data collection from trans / gender diverse populations.

I don't think any of your claims about safeguarding are rational, or evidence based.

But on this thread you are quite comfortable extrapolating trans people's individual descriptions to some sort of hand wavy "theory of trans" and on that basis making claims for trans womens inclusion in the female peopulation at least lingustically and socially.

So given that you will base population level decisions on anecdote when it suits you, I don't think you have a leg to stand on picking and choosing which sources are relevant to the wider population and which are not.