Is it actually possible to be a feminist and completely embrace trans rights?

Can I take the thread at a slight tangent and ask if anyone knows the origin of the term "transphobic"? Is it simply that "transist" (following from racist, ageist etc) sounds a bit weird / close to "transistor"? Or because labelling someone phobic suggests that their discomfort (whether that's at sharing a changing room with a man, or finding that the hot lesbian you were hoping to sleep with has a penis) is irrational?

Have just read the rest of the thread and agree with all who are saying that - as implausible as it seems to anyone who hasn't had the unfortunate task of already learning about all this stuff - violent criminals with fully intact male bodies are already pushing for and in some case succeeding in being places in women's prisons.

I have heard a trans man - who had been to prison for a nonviolent crime when they presented as a woman - talk on a panel about the need for "third space" prisons. I thought this was really interesting, as they were less interested in validation and more interested in safety, whereas for the male-bodied trans criminals who push to be placed in women's prisons, safety 9for themselves) is obviously not an issue, but validation is.

I'm completely on board with embracing trans rights. Everyone, however they present, is entitled to rights.

What I'm not on board with is prioritising trans rights at the expense of women's rights, which is what is happening now. I'm also not on board with being forced to publicly state my agreement to things I know not to be true - that penises are female, and so on.

Not a rape case, but the Tara Hudson case was interesting. She was sentenced for assault - so much, so widely reported on the BBC and in the Guardian, complete with pictures of her looking very feminine. What wasn't so widely reported was that this was her 8th conviction for a violent offence, the offence in question being headbutting a barman when he refused to serve her because she was drunk (leaving him needing extensive dental surgery). What was not reported at all (in fact arguably the press were being deliberately misleading and kept referring to her as "having had surgery" which as it transpired was only fake breasts) was that she still had a penis, which she used to anally penetrate men as part of her job as a prostitute (the screenshots were widely circulated on social media.

On the strength of the "frail blonde looking frightened" pictures in the press, a petition was started which successfully got her transferred to a women's prison.

On her release she gave an interview to the BBC (in which she towered over the male reporter interviewing her). Again, the spin in the interview was that her human rights had been violated by keeping her segregated from other prisoners while in prison - she wasn't being treated like other women. This is a "woman" who must be about 5'10", on her 8th conviction for violent assault, with a fully functioning penis - damn right the prison governer was right to keep her segregated. But in the brave new world the trans-activists want to launch us into, I'm not sure he'd be legally allowed to do so.

So it really isn't an obscure very unlikely hypothetical possibility - it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that "Davina" Ayrton (convicted of raping a 15 year old girl and of possessing thousands of images of the sexual abuse of children, images in the most severe category) could try to bring a case to say his human rights were being infringed by being kept in a men's prison. (It'll be a cold day in hell before I call Davina Ayrton anything other than "he")

Just to be abundantly clear, I am in no way suggesting that Danielle Muscato is a sexual predator. I do think they're a big fat misogynist though.

that just doesn't sound plausible does it, we will have to make separate provision for people who are not biologically women but identify as female

That's not what the activists are fighting for though. They don't want their own space, they want to be in the women's space.

Under the existing GRA, it was very tough to acquire a new gender devil, and I agree that women and girls are at very little risk from it. It's worked well.

But TG activists have argued that it's humiliating to have to have a doctor and a lawyer assign them a new gender. Which is where the new self-identification proposals come in. And under those, as I posted above, anyone can just say they're whatever gender they like.

If you google voyeurism in mixed cubicle changing rooms in swimming pools, there are numerous recent prosecutions of men using their phones under or over doors. Allowing those self-same men access to single sex changing rooms is putting women and girls at massive risk.

It is not troublesome to acquire a new gender under the proposed legislation. This is a woman in America. To acquire her new gender, s/he has done nothing to change appearance, clothing or anything else, beyond insisting people use female pronouns and call her Danielle.

It seems insane but if the GRA is updated, this could happen here. And women wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it.

devilinmyshoes - read the response to the trans enquiry. The UK government response.

that just doesn't sound plausible does it, we will have to make separate provision for people who are not biologically women but identify as female

incidentally when they evaluate people for gender affirming surgery in prison they already make sure they aren't doing it to gain access to the women’s prison for sexual predatory reasons - in California anyway, hopefully most places

Rapist being sentenced in court.
"I'm a woman."
Female prison it is then.

If the proposed changes to gender recognition happen there will be no trouble.
"I'm a woman"
"Oh ok then, in you come."
Cue changing room of naked women and girls looking startled as say, Boris Johnston walks in.

Why would anyone want to do that though? It's easy enough to enact violence against women and girls and get away with it. Why put yourself through the trouble of acquiring a whole new gender?

I'm totally up for throwing out gender stereotypes. I'm not supportive of a trans supportive Trojan horse which increases risk for women and female children.

It was a horrible horrible thing to force people into a gender, John Money's studies showed this. I'm glad things are changing. But I remain confused by pretty much all of it.

Because somewhere along the line sex has been replaced by gender.

What I don't understand is if it was considered necessary for laws to be written that give people the right to have another person of the same biological sex do intimate exams and perform personal care how it can just be thrown out without any discussion?

How can it be necessary to have segregated by sex changing rooms, refuges, prisons, bathrooms and then it isn't?

How can it be considered transphobic for someone to not want to have sex with someone of the opposite biological sex from his/her preference? Sexual attraction for the majority of people is specific to the other person being a specific biological sex. I'm not bisexual but I'm fairly certain if I was and I thought I was about to have sex with a man and then found out I was in bed with a woman I wouldn't think "oh well, whatever."

It's like being Alice where the laws are being changed by the White Queen.

“There's no use trying,” she said: “one can't believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven't had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”.

I know that a patient can refuse treatment from any HCP for any reason, but if they do so on discriminatory grounds would they get another? I didn't think that was the case unless it was wanting someone of the same sex. So if I don't want to be treated by a black doctor then I won't be but I don't get to demand a white one. Am I mistaken?

But, and is this really a straw man? How can you uphold rights of trans people to work without accepting there may be occasions when you encounter one in this sort of scenario? The right to a chaperone is enshrined but nobody can offer an inviolable right to access any HCP of the biological sex of your choice at your convenience.

I get the objections I really do, I just don't see how it isn't already covered by existing measures. Other than patients not feeling they have sufficient power to advocate for themselves which is a bigger problem in itself.

In NHS clinics and wards, there simply often isn't an alternative HCP available. So the 'just ask for someone else to do your smear' argument doesn't really hold water I don't think. Also, if you've waited weeks for an appointment sand taken time off work etc, do you really want to have to do the same again to come back another time? Or would you just get on with it and then feel violated? Or would you leave and not bother to come back because you'd been made to feel like a bigot? Or would you ask for someone female and have to wait for them to become available, thus holding everyone else who was waiting up?
It isn't as simple as just ask for someone else

Polari, Matilda?

Matilda I think you mean polari. It's kind of intermingled with cockney rhyming slang, carney, butchers back slang,and other forms of slang that were meant to throw off the authorities.
I can invision lesbian culture being forced underground again.

Buffy - "And more complex still in this truth-power relationship is that males with penises aren't being asked to accept this truth about 'straight' transwomen in quite such a... personal and bodily way. IYSWIM?"

Oh, I do indeed see what you mean! It's a case of asking "cui bono, (or if not exactly "benefiting") whose lives in contrast get to trundle on entirely unaffected by this brave new world, and who gets the fuzzy end of the lollipop yet again..."

I've forgotten the name of it - but what was that "language" that was used in the 40s and 50s whereby gay men could recognise one another and interact in a time when homosexuality was illegal? I'm seeing parallels with your imagined world.

Uh no, I don't agree with those recommendations! Is this thread helping you answer the question in your subject line?

I'm just finding it very difficult to reconcile various of my own conflicting beliefs about things.