New Trans thread as requested by HQs.

But Manatee - presumably he would want to change in the men's changing room in that case?

Sorry posted too sonn. If he then took off his clothes and it was a female body I would be embarassed and probably apologise.

Can I ask what FTM transexuals generally want in this scenario?

If they walked in and looked like a man I would probably first off all do a second glance as I have seen some very butch women who at first glance did look like men. If they still looked like a man I would say, do you know this is the women's changing room?

If someone answered in a female voice and said yes I know, for example then I would leave it. If they answered yes in a male sound then I would probably challenge them further and say well can you leave then as my assumption would be that they are a man.

manatee - I don't think the parallel with immigrants makes sense. I don't have the slightest bit of patriotism, and no-one has suggested that patriotism is the qualifying thing that makes me British. What makes me British is that I was born that way. Nationality may coexist with an inner identity (patriotism), or it may not. If someone else becomes British through naturalisation, that does not mean I am not allowed to say 'I am British because I was born that way'.

No-one posits that French people and German people, or Swiss and Italians, exist in a binary relationship such that one may only be one or the other. No one has suggested that, in order to 'become' Indian, I would need to dye my skin and hair, or that to become Icelandic I should become taller and blonder.

In fact ... I'm struggling to see any similarities between the two situations?

elephants - most FTM transsexuals don't have surgery to their genitals. So the 'op' in most cases consists of testosterone supplements and a double mastectomy and that's it. FTMs usually 'pack' to produce the appearance of a penis and testes when clothed, but seen naked look genitally female.

So an FTM transsexual might look utterly convincingly like a man clothed, but have no penis. If such a man walked into the female changing room, you would most likely register him as a man and wonder what he was doing in there. So I suppose what I'm curious about is: if this hypothetical transman walked into the female changing room and you thought 'Oy! Get out! You're a man!' would you feel differently about him if he then took his kecks off and you saw that he didn't in fact possess a penis?

"Or did you assume she was enjoying the sight of women running around in their undies."
That feels a terribly demeaning way to refer to women sharing communal sleeping areas.

You obviously do think that women's only space is not needed, I disagree. In some instances yes it will be about fear e.g. rape counselling, but in a lot of other places it is far more complex than that.

When I asked why is it women who need to ignore their feelings around sharing communal space with someone with a male body it was because I think women are often told to ignore by wider society what they want and feel. I think woman have a right to say that they do not want to share some communal space with someone with a male body.

If I said femal only spaces were invalid elephant, I presume you would then talk about the need as you and others have done for female only medical services, swimming sessions, help and advice services, taxi companies etc.. Whic is not what the issue is, the issue is why can public spaces not be seen as "shared" and from what I see from the responses here is that it is because of fear. Yopu say you did not feel comfortable in the dorm, did you ask howe the M to F felt? Or did you assume she was enjoying the sight of women running around in their undies.

You say, why is it that women need to make the adjustment, simply it is women who are the problem in the same way that men were and are the problem in giving women equal status. It is always the dominant group that has to give ground.

sorry invalid

So you think female space in whatever context is invaled?

OTheHugeManatee: This is close too but much better said than a post I added to one of the previous threads. It brings us to the point of asking if feminist have the desire and the ability to accept that some of the fundamental beliefs on which the political and social struggle is based on needs to be updated.

One example is the need for same sex spaces in public areas, why. Other countries have for years had shared changing and toilets, it would appear that despite crimes of a sexual assault taking place in such areas no huge moral outcry is had in other countries to revert back to single sex use. The notion of safety and privacy seem to be being used as a reason to reinforce segregation not to promote inclusion. In the same way that fear of crime often drives people off the streets and in to isolation even though statistically fewer crimes are being committed, or are being committed against a defined demographic group.

My view is that all social campaigns need to change and evolve, society changes around us, people change, aspirations change, technology changes. Repositioning to come back to the fundamentals is what counts, sometimes though those fundamentals themselves need to be updated.

If they were pre op and so had a female body I personally wouldn't mind them using a female changing room. But I suspect FRTM may want to use a male chnaging room. I think whether that is okay or not is really up to men, I don't care either way.

I can see what you're saying, elephants. Out of curiosity, how would you respond to a FTM transsexual? Would you feel it more appropriate that they use the male or female changing room?

Sorry, what do you mean?

yy Kritiq, Huge and elephant

"If vulnerable woman access counselling that is advertised to be staffed only by men" - sorry obviously should have been women, not men.

KRITIQ - If vulnerable woman access counselling that is advertised to be staffed only by men, then they do have a right to not be seen by someone with a male body. i know some people don't care if they are counselled by a man or a woman. But some people do and when they choose this, this should be respected.

Our society is set up to provide separate changing areas and toilets for women and men. We are socilaised not to shower in communal showers with male strangers for example. This socialisation runs very deep and I don't think can just be ignored.

As a hospital patient who was admitted in an emergency and felt very vulnerable I felt uneasy being placed on a ward of men. I did not think they were going to attack me - they were mainly elderly very ill men. But I didn't feel comfortable with this.

Why is it in situations like this e.g. with Transgender people with male bodies in women only space, it is always women who are expected to make accommodations and just get over their feelings of unease. Why is it always women's feelings that are dismissed when they say they don't want to share a communal changing room with someone with a male body?

"the Gender Recognition Act made men legally women if that's what they decided they were. The 2010 Equalities Act has made it illegal for us to disagree with that or to point out that there was a prior meaning of woman that didn't rely on a man's "feeling" about himself."

This sentiment, with some small substitutions, might be used to express

"the law made immigrants legally British citizens if that's what they decided they were. The law has made it illegal for us to disagree with that or to point out that there was a prior meaning of British that didn't rely on an immigrant's "feeling" about himself."

While I don't want to impute racism to anyone, I find it unnerving how similar, structurally, these sentiments are. If you look at the second example, you can immediately see the tendentious logic. Both statements imply that a massive change that requires a significant level of effort on the changer's part, and some adjustment on the part of those around them, is as simple as announcing a feeling. It's not.

It's not easy or straightforward to become a British citizen. Similarly it is not easy or straightforward to change one's official gender. It takes years, countless bureaucratic hoops, psychiatric consultations and assessments, considerable anxiety and a willingness to live as the opposite gender for a protracted period of time in the teeth of hostility before surgery or legal changes are permitted. While I can imagine that someone who has been through the process might have been a nobend before and is still a nobend afterwards, it's absurd to imagine that a man might go through a sex change process purely to get access to 'vulnerable women', as someone suggested upthread.

That's why reducing this considerable effort to a 'feeling', or suggesting that it's being undertaken for nefarious purposes, is so offensive and hurtful. Added to the remarkable levels of violence and hatred suffered by transpeople (and it's much, much higher than against women in general) I find it odd that others who have suffered gendered violence, and had their own experiences of such minimised, should perpetuate this instead of feeling at least a bit of compassion.

What I am trying to say is that I recognise the dilemmas and there are tensions that may need to be managed. Some of it is about one person's right to swing their fists ending at another person's nose, but there being some disagreement just how far out the nose sticks! :) I accept the dilemmas and tensions, but I don't believe they are insurmountable.

One of the arguments for excluding gay men from serving in the military has been that non gay men will feel threatened by their presence, particularly in situations of shared sleeping, changing and toileting.

I have no doubt that a male survivor of rape could find sharing a communal shower or dormitory with men who have sex with men triggering, that they could feel threatened. I understand that that fear is very real for them and I am not dismissing that. However, I refuse to accept that the mere presence of a gay man in the situation represents a genuine risk to other men.

So, what is the answer there? Should gay men continue to be banned from military service because of the fears of some men that they pose a threat to them? Is the answer to change practical arrangements (e.g. individual shower cubicles, separate lockable sleeping rooms, etc.) for all?

Are the issues not similar with regard to trans people?

With regard to something like counselling services, I believe it is important that the client is able to develop a rapport with the counsellor for the service to have best effect. Sometimes though, this can be quite tricky. My former colleague is a counsellor who works independently and within a group setting. She is aware that some clients either directly or indirectly ask not to see her, preferring other counsellors. She is the only Black member of the team. It's a private setting so for the most part, they honour client wishes to keep their custom. On one hand, it feels instinctively wrong that clients don't wish to engage with her because they don't feel they can relate to her or she to them. On the other hand, I can also see that the therapeutic relationship won't work if the client feels this way about the counsellor.

For other clients, the fact she is Black and may have had quite a different life experience from them doesn't matter a jot. Similarly, I once worked with a pregnancy counsellor who was Lesbian, had never had sex with a man, never been nor never intended to become pregnant, but was still able to do the job well, still able to empathise with clients despite never having shared their experience.

Is it something like that with regard to a trans woman being a counsellor in a sexual abuse counselling service?

I agree Hump, but some MtoF do do this - although I know some don't. For example there was a well publicised case of a MtF suiing a woman's rape crisis centre because they did not want someone with a male body working there and they did not think it was appropriate. Most MtoF I hope would understand why some woman contacting a womans rape crisis centre that was advertised as being staffed totally by woman, may be unhappy to be counselled by a Transgender person with a male body.

As I said on the other thread last night which was deleted, I think that in that case, elephants, it's about being sensitive to others. The mtf trans person I know wouldn't have dreamt of doing that pre-op. It seems rather aggressive to insist that your rights as one human should trump those of lots of others.

The problem with that oil is that the organisers were trying to make it open to everyone, including the many people who had little money but were travelling from afar, so needed somewhere to stay. So while it solved the issue with the pre op MtoF, it actually excluded some people from participating at all.

And although I don't know this, given that women generally earn less than men, it probably excluded more women than men from participating.

And I do think when you talk about gender binary there is a difference between a male and female body and the roles that society says a woman or man should play.