Follow on thread III - Feeling sad and weary that feminists and trans-women are constantly pitted against one another.

When women are incarcerated the government has a responsibility to ensure their safety, within reason. Incarcerating male sex offenders in women's institutions because they have a legal right to access to women based on their self ID is a prescription for disaster.

So, the overwhelming majority of trans women who have no surgery at all? What are they?

Men with a certificate. I learnt that from whats his/her name...perfectly. So not a woman in any way, just a man with a piece of paper.

Biological sex is not important.

Oh, dear. Pregnancy, menstrauation, prostate cancer, ovarian cancer, FGM, sex-specific abortions, different heart attack symptoms between males and females, etc, etc, etc. These all seem pretty important to me.

If a transwoman looks like a woman, and has female parts (sex reassignment surgery), then she's a woman.

GRS does not give male human beings "female parts," it surgically creates the appearance of a vagina, labia and clitoris. (Which is all well and good if that's what makes a person more comfortable in their body and relives dysphoria). But it doesn't turn a male human being into a female human being. It is medically impossible to do that.

This is perhaps somewhat off topic but I must admit that it creeps me out when people talk about women as though we are a costume that can be put on by men and no one would know the difference. All evidence to the contrary.

Puresummer why are you dragging this discussion back to toilets? I am so fucking bored of discussing toilets. There are many many non-toilet situations where the exceptions in the EA could be invoked but where instead women are kind enough to admit transwomen who they know and trust on an individual basis, or admit transwomen generally as long as they seem OK, on the understanding they can assert their right to female only space, should the piss be taken.

But as we are on the topic, yes we did used to have an honour system that worked very well in toilets for about 40 years, possibly longer. Now the transactivists have fucked that up by demanding as a right what was only ever offered as a favour. The result is that women are becoming increasingly mistrustful of any male person in female-only space no matter how feminine their attire or behaviour.

So yes, it has become tremendously legally risky for any woman to challenge the presence of any male person in any female-only space. As a direct result of this the trust has gone and this is no longer an honour system but an imposed law which harms women and girls.

Yay progress

We can't look at self-ID in isolation because of the way the GRA interacts with the EA. Here are two paragraphs from the same page of recommendations in the trans equality report:

7.Within the current Parliament, the Government must bring forward proposals to update the Gender Recognition Act, in line with the principles of gender self-declaration that have been developed in other jurisdictions. In place of the present medicalised, quasi-judicial application process, an administrative process must be developed, centred on the wishes of the individual applicant, rather than on intensive analysis by doctors and lawyers. (Paragraph 45)

22.We recommend that the Equality Act be amended so that the occupational requirements provision and / or the single-sex / separate services provision shall not apply in relation to discrimination against a person whose acquired gender has been recognised under the Gender Recognition Act 2004. (Paragraph 132)

It is vital that we keep the exceptions in the EA that permit women and girls to have female-only space and it is vital that orgs can reliably use them without fear of litigation. The alternative is that the two recommendations above spell the end of sex-segregated spaces altogether.

Sex and gender are completely different things, I agree. But misgendering someone, simply because you can't understand how they feel, is not going to solve the issues that we face as women.
It is not my or any woman or girls responsibility to know how men feel.

If a transwoman looks like a woman, and has female parts (sex reassignment surgery), then she's a woman.

So, the overwhelming majority of trans women who have no surgery at all? What are they?

The problem is that you are not saying the truth and do not want to argue it, SaucySienna. They just call it sex reassignment, they do not actually transplant a vagina into a male patient. They castrate the patient and then create a cavity to provide the illusion of a vagina. I thought everyone knew that but I guess not.

Biological sex is not important

Oh. It's one of those.

SaucySienna, you are using Humpty Dumpty language rules. Also too and besides the Feminist movement for the liberation of women is not now nor ever has been an equality for men movement, what with men being the class that is oppressing women.
“When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
“The question is,” said Alice, “whether you can make words mean so many different things.”
“The question is,” said Humpty Dumpty, “which is to be master—that’s all.”

Biological sex is not important. If a transwoman looks like a woman, and has female parts (sex reassignment surgery), then she's a woman. You'd have no way of telling otherwise anyway, as long as the surgery is successful etc.

Look, I'm not going to argue the same thing over and over again. Also, bear in mind that some cis women can be very masculine, and might look like men, so be careful who you label as transwomen.

It's helpful to understand that changing sex is a legal fiction. It doesn't mean that in reality, in biological terms, a man has become a woman or vice versa.

If it helps to see what this means, in the eyes of the law a company is a legal person. This doesn't mean that GlaxoSmithKline is going to sign on for benefits in the event that it becomes unemployed, will automatically benefit from A&E treatment if it got pissed and fell over, or is entitled to turn out next polling day and cast its vote in a polling station.

Will this be another thread stuck in the land of obtuse? Maybe we'll be getting a different tag team as a change of scene. That would be nice.

Who is misgendering trans women? Is it misgendering to point out the realities of biological sex?

'Tranwomen' actually appear to commit sexual crime at a higher rate than other males.

Of course it could be that the label 'trans' is just oh so tempting for predators. One would wonder why would that possibly be...

@SaucySienna- you're now changing what you said. You initially started men, not women and transwomen. At the end of the day, if a transwoman is legally female, identifies as female and looks female, there's no issue. As pp wrote, do you think male chromosomes change to female with a GRC??

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine:

With good surgery/bone structure/makeup, transwomen can definitely pass as women.

And no, I don't believe that transwomen would commit crime at the same rate as men, considering they are not men (transwomen and cis women are probably very similar psychologically).

@SophoclesTheFox:

No, I don't believe that transwomen change biological sex when they transition. As I've already said, sex and gender are different concepts entirely.

But if a transwoman looks like a 'woman', behaves like a 'woman' (whatever that even means), and is legally a woman, then I don't see the issue. This is what I'm trying to understand. What is the problem?

If a transwoman is legally a woman, looks like a woman, and identifies as a woman, then there's no issue, as you won't even realise that they're trans

1. TIMs rarely pass
2. It is likely that TIMs commit crime at the same rate as any other male.

This is the thing. If a transwoman is going about her daily life, minding her own business, what's the problem?

I acknowledge the need to consider further protections for women, I really do, but this doesn't need to involve singling out transwomen.

@lunamoth581:

Sex and gender are completely different things, I agree. But misgendering someone, simply because you can't understand how they feel, is not going to solve the issues that we face as women.

If a transwoman is legally a woman, looks like a woman, and identifies as a woman, then there's no issue, as you won't even realise that they're trans.