I can't get my head around the phrase "Transwomen are women".

Why then Kim do some reject other toilet arrangements? I have read case after case where organisation have been sued for offering an alternative single use toilet for a trans person to use, rather than a woman's toilet. If it was only about safety, then surely that would be an acceptable solution?

I haven't come across any of this except in discussions on here. Most of the transactivists sound completely bonkers.

vesuvia sorry but there is so much in your post I don't agree with. Just thinking about the every day, run of the mill men in my life , gay and straight, if I showed them the utter nonsense being promulgated by transactivists they would react with a mixture of shock/laughter/disbelief and ultimately dismissal of it as nonsense. They would not be aligning themselves with these men.

From what I have seen from these online spats it is not patriarchy supporting this (mentally insert my very white, very straight, very conservative husband in that role- no, he'd be astonished) but as Ubik says left wingers - the "I'm more right on you no matter how ridiculous I sound " brigade.

Talking of patriarch Clarkson has been in the news again. Do you think he would agree with any of the guff about women with penises and men with vaginas?

Sandor - that blog is very interesting. It did remind me of a comment I heard on here several years ago (wish I could remember who said it): "right wing men want women to be the private property of individual men, left wing men want women to be the collective property of all men." (Should I say "NAMALT" at this point?)

These spats are not just on twitter and facebook. They are impacting on some girls and women all over Britain.

Vesuvia

What I take from Twitter spats ( have been following the outrage at Tim Lott's Guardian column) is that it's not the patriarchy that is demanding I uncritically accept trans-activist arguments about gender identity - it's young left wing men and women.

applauds vesuvia

StillLostAtTheStation wrote - "isn't a lot of it just the same few people endlessly wittering on and backing each other up to the interest of probably almost no-one else?"

The content and outcome of short-term spats on twitter or in the blogosphere may seem irrelevant or a minority interest, but could the twitter arguments and blog postings be battles in a patriarchal war about and against women? A war against women that is much more about fighting (mostly radical) feminists than about helping transwomen. A war to continue patriarchal oppression of billions of non-trans women, using transwomen as both ammunition and shield. A war in which the winner will influence future legislation worldwide about all aspects of women's lives. It has already affected legislation in many countries, including the UK.

Whichever side of the argument a person wants to support, that's her business, but I hope each person will at least give serious consideration to the likelihood that, eventually, the impact will be felt much more widely. This won't just affect a few transwomen and feminist non-trans women. The outcome will probably significantly change how all non-trans women and all transwomen live their lives. What is more important than that?

I think the fights between trans activists and (mostly radical) feminists stem from the laws on equality that have been passed by various governments in the past 15 years. One of the reasons why radical feminists are protesting is because they hoped that equality legislation would improve rights for transwomen but not reduce rights for non-trans women. This has not always happened and some transwomen's rights are improving at the expense of non-trans women. (The position of non-trans men, at the top of the social hierarchy, is not affected by this legislation, and they have the privilege of heckling from the sidelines).

I think the reason these arguments are happening is because patriarchy hates non-trans women, particularly feminists. Patriarchy needs gender to survive and radical feminists want to abolish the social construction of gender. For centuries, we've had gender role, now it's about gender identity too, with transwomen being used by patriarchy to attack feminists. Patriarchy hates transwomen too, but for different reasons.

Patriarchy has given us a post-modern world where gender (identity) is said to be an innate feeling that trumps or even negates biology, a biology that has been used to oppress non-trans women for thousands of years. Abolishing biology will not liberate women from oppression, it will just remove evidence of that oppression.

Agreed archery - and I don't think there should be male prison guards in women's prisons anyway!

And techgirl mentioned that there are male-bodied people in prisons already - the guards.

First of all, this is a relatively recent thing - 20 years? Before then it was all women prison officers in women's prisons, and there was then and are now plenty of people who think that male guards for women prisoners is a bad idea.

Second, although male guards with access to women prisoners is bad enough, being a guard is a different thing than being a prisoner. Guards don't sleep in the same locked rooms as the women prisoners. Guards don't use the same showers and loos as the women prisoners. Guards don't spend every minute of their waking life with the women prisoners. Guards have something to lose when they misbehave - their careers, their professional standing, their freedom - where prisoners don't.

There are prisoners who committed violent crimes as men, and then identified as women once they were convicted, and went to women's prisons. This hasn't gone well, eg in the case of Paris Green (convicted of murder after torturing an old man to death over a bag of chips), who was moved to a different women's prison after having sex (I say "having sex", but we don't know if it was consensual or not) with women prisoners.

I also loved playing with dolls. Seriously, it's a no brainer. Kids are all different and all the same. All of my boys have enjoyed playing with dolls, pushchairs, etc. None of them was into cars.

To add to the argument about tree climbing, I didn't really enjoy this though my sister did, however I was interested in playing football at play time in primary school, and I suppose I was about 9 when I was joining in with the boys and was told off very badly by the dinner ladies for getting involved.

'It's for the boys', 'you'll get hurt', 'it's a rough game', 'stop being so naughty' - they were awful. I wasn't allowed to play, at all. I tried to protest but was made to feel like I had done something really terrible. So I gave up. This was in about 1982.

So as a person who was born female I now have a label attached that says 'ciswoman'? Oh thanks for that, whoever thought of it. Who knew, that was exactly what I needed.

Does that mean that people who are born male but later become female are known as 'transgender women' and 'cismen'?

I don't like any sort of label, being on the autistic spectrum I very much dislike the term 'aspie' as well, and any attempt by anyone, including those who identify with that term, to define 'us' as a group.

Everyone is different - to me, the sex you are is simply a matter of your biological features. Nothing more, nothing to do with preferences or personality.

I do not see the point of the labels. It just seems like a stupid, divisive game made up by angry people to try and prove something.

I am just a little sceptical about the number of tree-climbing banning going on. I'm assuming most posters were not born pre 1914. I honestly have never come across this or for that matter any one child, parent or toy shop assistant telling a girl she can't be a pirate or anything else
And wearing a dress is no bar to climbing trees.

Just to take one example at random, I have seen, in my DS's old primary, a mother pull her reception-age daughter from the climbing frame, with the words "stop that - you're not a boy".

Ditto in Primark, a small boy not allowed to choose dark purple sunglasses because they are "for girls". (Not even pink - deep purple!)

Just because you don't see it or haven't experienced it doesn't mean it doesn't happen, even in the 21st goddamn century.

Thank you, Onetwothreeoops. I don't like it as an explanation, but it's the only one I can come up with. Getting rid of "gender" seems like so much the obvious solution to this problem for everybody (except those who genuinely have dysmorphia, obviously), that there must be something else going on here.

Countess individual lockable cubicles seem like the obvious answer to the toilet/changing room problem.

Sandor - I only got about half way down (she starts off simple, then really stops pulling her punches!) - but that really is a good primer for anyone asking about the issues isn't it!

I followed her link to a gender neutral parenting blog, where there was a girl who wanted a mohawk, and her mum thought about it, consulted with her partner, and then got out the clippers, and life has gone (probably couldn't do it here, she'd be sent home from school for an inappropriate haircut - as would a boy).

It seems a stark contrast to the mother in the other link who took that to mean her daughter was trans.

' FloraFox Tue 10-Mar-15 21:09:58

The toilet issue is about validation, not safety IMO.'

I don't actually think that's true for a lot of transwomen. I have a trans friend who gets very stressed by the whole toilet thing. If you're living as a woman but you know you don't 100% pass, what do you do - disappear into the men's and give your trans status away to anyone who knows you, or risk going into the ladies' and make women uncomfortable and potentially even get reported?
It's even worse for swimming pool changing rooms as without the armour of feminine clothes the male body is far more exposed, so she simply doesn't go swimming despite really wanting to.

I find it quite challenging with all the anti-feminist transactivist stuff going on, to remember the ordinary trans people who have dysmorphia, are not interested in politics and who are just trying to get through the day, but they are out there.

Hey Still we will convert you yet

They converted me. . Give in to your feelings, Stil...

I don't use twitter and facebook either and it seems the vocal trans community get vitriolic on there. Unfortunately there's evidence (greens and lib dems) that the lawmakers and politicians are listening to them, not us. Sandor, Flora and Lovecat, I agree with every word (now).

whatlifestylechoice you have written exactly how I feel about this. I find it very confusing that this is how this (apparently small) group want to change the world around them. The only conclusion I can reach is that it's coming from a place of anger, but it still baffles me.

The public at large may be unaware of the fact that Fallon Fox devotes his ample free time to the posting of anti-gay screeds online which center on the “unfairness” of lesbian women declining relations with males like himself who are transgender. Those unexposed to transgender politics may be shocked to learn that Fallon Fox publicly promotes the creation of an online “registry” of women, modeled on one operated by the “Men’s Rights” group affiliated with Elliot Rodger, that would list the names of every lesbian, feminist, and woman who recognizes that biological sex exists (!) so that men like Fallon Fox can target them for god knows what.

This has actually given me shivers. And possibly goes some way to explaining a problem I was musing on this morning.

In theory, the feminist belief that gender is a social construct should be enormously appreciated by transexuals. Because if gender as a social construct is accepted, then that paves the way for everything being open to everybody. Little boys can wear frilly dresses and have tea parties, little girls can play war and climb trees. Men and women can wear whatever they fancy and live how they choose without being mocked or abused for their choices. No one has to go through the pain of transitioning, no one has to mourn their "lost girlhoods", no one risks violence for wearing make-up or a dress. In theory, deconstructing gender is a win-win situation for both feminists and transexuals.

So why don't (some) transexuals want this? Why are they, in fact, so strongly opposed to this and react with extreme anger and violence to this proposition?

Just living as a woman and doing 'womanly things' (whatever the fuck they are) are obviously not enough for them. No, the world at large must acknowledge that they are women and bow down to their vision of themselves. Which is often that they are better 'women' than biological women. They are superior to biological women.

They actually hate biological women.

It's probably of interest to the parents of these girls.
www.sportsgrid.com/ncaa-football/this-transgender-basketball-player-plays-on-a-womens-college-team/

It's probably also of interest to the opponents of this person.
gendertrender.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/fallon-fox-why-hormones-dont-make-a-woman/

All of this TERF stuff is news to me.I am fairly certain I am not a radical feminist.

I started off being shocked and taken aback but isn't a lot of it just the same few people endlessly wittering on and backing each other up to the interest of probably almost no-one else?

Ubik there are so many quotable bits aren't there? Some astonishing Humpty Dumpty speak.