Paris Lees article on toilets in Guardian today

I have difficulty articulating my thoughts in writing or speech so I don't post on these threads but I am nodding my head in agreement with you.

Anyway, I am posting today. Having followed Thursday's commons debate, I find PL's articlE sinister. It's a signal to all MPS that they are bring watched by the TRAS and if they dare utter anything that can be (mis)construed as as against trans equality they will ensure your name appears in the national press with a transphobic label slapped on it. It worries me greatly that so few MPS are going to be willing to open that can of worms.

The Trojan horse analogy really hits the nail on the head for me.

The comments under the article are all saying the same. Taking issue with the casual dismissal of women's concerns.

I see this time after time. No one seems to agree with the trans-ideology.

I don't understand the huge disconnect between what women are thinking and what is happening.

Newspapers are in it for the money. So why risk alienating your readers?

I have recently been reading lots of sights and articles about trans issues ajd feminism and I agree with everyone on here whole heartedly.

I am a scientist and believe sex cannot be changed its a biological aspect and because of that women need to be protected because we are vulnerable and at risk from men.

We have fought hard for these rights and to be equal and treated with respect and to know have a male try to redefine what it is to be a woman and take our safe places away is disgusting and dangerous.

Toilet issue may seem small in the grand scheme of things but it is a slipper slope. If wr allow transwomen with penises into womens toilets (safe space) then where do we draw the line?

Also the silencing of womens opinions on a matter so important is wrong. We have every right if not more right to talk about and discuss what it is to be a woman and what women want and need.

That's because they are better at being women than us, YetAnother, obviously. We have been doing it wrong all this time, and we are only at the bottom of the pecking order because we aren't very good.

I think it is much more sinister than that. Men have had the power to define women and they do so, not because it is (so much) about being better than us, but because they want us defined in ways that suit their own ends. Men have historically wanted women to be chaste in public (so that children are 'theirs') and whores in private (to meet their sexual demands) - hence the virgin / whore identity binary. They have defined women as nurturing, sexy, good at housework, etc. because it suits them and their needs. (Please excuse generalisations and culturally specific references in this instance). This is a result of the power of men (patriarchy) and their definitions seek to reproduce patriarchy and their power. Transwomen may appropriate our bodies to the best of their ability, but I don't think many give up the phallus (symbolic representation of the penis) and the power. TRA transwomen want to keep the power to define women / femininity / the condition of being female because they want us to live in their image and for their ends. They want women to be clean-shaven, giggly, sexy and all about the beauty industry because accepting that as a definition of 'woman' puts them in the centre and any dissenting born woman at the periphery - they are 'more female' than us and we are the outsiders. They are demonstrating quite clearly that they have the power to do this because they have never really given up their phallus / make power. If men expect us to suck cock they expect us to suck phallus. Most TRAs don't give a fuck about women beyond seeing us as things to meet their ends / needs / desires. They are a trojan horse, attacking us from inside.

Paris's total argument for why gender neutral toilets are safe for women is because Paris says so

And there is nothing masculine, or reflective of male privilege or centuries of men telling women 'how it is' in that /sarcasm.

Tramswomen are speaking for trans and for women, yet women are not allowed to comment on trans (unless they parrot the transwomen) and we are increasingly not allowed to comment on women either (lest we offend transwomen). But then, women have a long history of being silenced - just think of the shrew's bridle.

This sums it up for me. With apologies to those parents on here struggling with trans identifying children (and I do feel for you) I can't help but think that the vast majority of transwomen don't really get what it is like to be a woman beyond the surface of the body. My feeling is that many TRAs really just want a female form / body to be their own doll to dress up. I wonder that too with actual body dysmorphia. In other words, do those males who look in the mirror and feel horror that they have a male physical form (a mental illness in my view), want a woman's body, or do they want to be / think they are women beyond the body? Someone (a male) put it to me thus 'they have won the genetic lottery, do they understand what it is really like on the other side and do they really, really want this'?

Leaving aside the issue of the impossibility of knowing what it is to be a 'true woman', do these individuals want the baggage that comes with the body, including the vulnerability, sexist assumptions, etc? Do they really identify with women beyond the body in terms of women's histories, issues, etc. Do they really get it? Do they really, really want it, with all of its oppressions and second-class status? Frankly, I've not seen many that do. What I have seen, for the most part, and with a few exceptions, is a bunch of individuals going around in women's clothes actively being part of the problem. They demand access to women's spaces and even women's bodies (cotton ceiling) ... but they don't show any real allegiances with women. In fact, in demanding our silence, they act like men and collude with men (or the patriarchy, if that is less universalising). Put another way, if trans media watch really 'got it', they'd sit back and shut up, because this is what women do and what they expect and want women to do - and they want to be women, right?.

I am embarrassed for both Lees and The Guardian. Seriously!

The BTL seems to be telling them both where to shove it.

Why are nearly all the examples given in the article American? Apart from Caroline Flint's. voyeurism example from a UK university, and the last example about a lesbian woman in Hull (which is disputed by MacDonalds who say she was being disruptive).

What Paris Lees has written is all about the safety of trans individuals in women's toilets. Paris's total argument for why gender neutral toilets are safe for women is because Paris says so.

I couldn't care less if a transwoman uses the women's or the gender neutral toilets. I do care if it becomes enshrined in law that any man who simply self identifies as a woman can legally be in the women's toilets and I would be guilty of a hate crime if I objected.