New Trans thread as requested by HQs.

Of course you don't have to have a shared identity to feel compassion.

And apols if it sounded like that was what I meant. My focus was on deliberate 'othering', to an even greater extent than now exists, building even greater and insurmountable (literal and metaphorical) walls between human beings. And creating an environment where even trans that 'pass' (and have been happily using gendered facilities for some time) won't be allowed to, and will be forced to use the 'third' space.

My comment re compassion just meant that it wasn't a very compassionate idea to think a 'third' sex with facilities was going to fly. I mean, really, mtf and ftm, pre and post op, non op, people who are in some sense revolted and triggered by their own genitalia, all herded together in one happy melee, without a herd of red blooded born men waiting outside the door to teach them a lesson or two? Because the 'real' binary human beings won't have them in the same room?

Introducing a third sex won't get rid of the binary in the sense that will be in any way useful for the people at either end of it. It will make those positions even more polarised. How long before caster semenya gets told she has to use the third sex changing rooms? How long before we are all jumping through even more ridiculously polarised gendered behaviour, just so that somewhere along the line someone doesn't rule that we aren't feminine enough to use the ladies?

But I don't feel intimidated by trans people. I just have a different identity. You could just as easily argue that transwomen have a fear of men and refuse to integrate with them. It is equally ridiculous because transwomen are not claiming to be women primarily out of fear and I am not claiming to be different from transwomen primarily out ofear.

You seem to feel that because your analogy has some similarities, it is therefore appropriate.

There is no legal segregation in the UK of black and white people, so people who are attempting to decide who is black and white for the purposes of segregating people have a particular issue which most people disagree with.

But there is segregation of men and women. Most people do not disagree with that. So it isn't similar to racism to maintain separate areas for men and women, and to do that we have to actually have a definition of male and female.

"Why do they need to come to a group for women who want to discuss something not related to trans bodies?"

Er because... there's a little more to being a woman than how your body got to be the shape it was? (with apologies to Weightwatchers et al)

I don't have G breasts and it would make no difference to me whatsoever if you wanted to set up such a group. Why would it?

OHM, the same could be said for transwomen. Why do they need to come to a group for women who want to discuss something not related to trans bodies? Why don't they just have coffees with their mates? Either it is a triviality and we should both stop wanting things, or neither of us should.

ps (and sorry for all the multiple posts), I have never felt the urge to discuss my cervix with anyone else in all my life. Occasionally it's been necessary to discuss it with medical practitioners.

OTheHuge

No, I don't think you're pretending anything. The little old lady who wouldn't rent her house to "blacks" wasn't pretending either. She genuinely felt intimidated by them. That still doesn't mean the law should have backed her up. She should have been made to feel protected, as far as possible, but her neighbours shouldn't all have been bussed out and white ones brought in just to make her comfortable.

I want to discuss my body with people who have the same type of body as me as well. So, only women with breasts above G may join, and mind, they have to be original G+, no boob jobs allowed. If they're too pert though, they're out. Gotta have a decent degree of droop.

Where do you stop with segregation anyway? To me, legal definitions will do to be going on with. I don't particularly mind whether the woman I'm talking to had periods when she was 13, as long as she's a woman now. She definitely won't have had all the same life experiences as I have, that's guaranteed. Some of them will match, some won't.

Oh wait, this point has already been made about a dozen times on this thread alone...

Yes, but do you really need a whole 'space' for discussing your cervix, where transwomen are expressly denied entry? Lots of women just manage ok just meeting their mates over coffee or whatever, don't they?

If there is an issue of prejudice towards transwomen promoted by cis women, that is between them.

It isn't analagous with other women.

It is like blaming atheists for Christian attacks on Muslims.

Well yes, and that is the issue being presented here. Spaces for women who are not trans is being compared to a desire for racism.

So do you think that if I want to discuss or do specific things to do with my cervix, or to do with breastfeeding with other people that have the same body as me, I am asking for something equivalent to the BNP or the KKK?

Do you genuinely think I am pretending to feel a certain way about my body just to promote transphobia?

I don't "consider myself cis" either, and don't like the term especially, but it was appropriate in context, IMO. I originally just put "women" there but felt it needed to be clarified.

MG, well presumably it has the same impact on me as it does on transwomen.

I feel I have a certain identity. I want to be in spaces with people with only that identity.

A transwoman feels she has a certain identity. She wants to be in spaces with people with only that identity.

It either has an important impact on both of us or neither of us. Either both of us should have the right to have group spaces solely for a group we identify with or neither of us should and all segregated spaces should be stopped.

Either way, it has nothing to do with integration of ethnic groups. Trans rights don't create more gender integration. We are still segregated; it is just that the definition of who is in each group has changed.

They might want to discuss how they are under siege from terrorist Muslamics.

Oh wait. They do. EDL, BNP etc

White people may want to discuss their experience of living as a white person in multicultural Britain in 2012.

Should that be allowed?

The kkk wouldn't agree with you, Sea

As far as I know Hully, and I'm not an expert, but under the GRA they go in front of a panel, and they don't have to have changed their genitals that I can see in the statute.

But someone else may know better than me.

But I'm not talking about cis women. I don't know any women who consider themselves cis.

How are the two things comparable? White people don't have any things in common that they might need to discuss or do in a solely white situation. What could those things possibly be?

But I might want to discuss things about my body with people who other people who have the same kind of body.

But then we just go around in circles because people will deny that any such thing as a female body exists.

Can trangendered individuals have their sex changed under the law without altering their genitals? (probs something I should know)

But you're not pretending anything, are you? I can see that you feel that there are some people legally identified as women who you don't accept are women, but how does that actually affect you in any way?

(Unless you were a rape victim or similar who wants to be in a space with born women only - I totally understand that. But you still wouldn't be pretending anything.)

And the law says that transgendered individuals become their new sex under the GRA.

No this one.

yy, own spaces perhaps while a way forward is groped towards.

The law. It segregates me in various situations, hospitals and so on, with other members of an identity group. It decides who is and is not a member of that group.

I think we had reached the point where we were saying that perhaps everyone could have their own spaces (or was that the other thread?!)

It's the argument that cis-women have the right not to share space with transgender women because it makes them feel bad. Powell's argument was that his constituents had the right not to be surrounded by black neighbours because it made them feel bad. He was wrong... and I think, though am not totally convinced, that the first argument is wrong too. It's "they can't come here because I don't want them to", not a sound practical reason why they ought not to be allowed to. Does that not make sense?

"Why should I pretend to have an identity that I don't have?"

I just don't understand this - who is asking you to pretend to have an identity you don't have?