Study finds massive rise in sexual offences in Target gender neutral changing rooms

There is a good chance that none or very few of the Target predators were technically trans people (or at least not the dysphoric kind). It's just that the law has provided a loophole for predators and the umbrella of what constitutes trans cast so wide.

Just wanted to post this again because it is exactly what I feel.

Thanks Debbie6666 - agree, I've used similar stats before and media reports are just not an accurate way of doing this. **Capnhaddock - this is no tinfoil hat, or saying that voyeurism hasn't increased (it might have) but that due to the attention on Target, media reports are not very helpful in this context.

To put it another way - media reports of sexual harassment by male celebrities would have gone up a lot this year Vs last. However this doesn't mean that celebrity harassment has increased, but that #metoo media attention has made past victims come forward and women who are being harassed now are also much more likely to (a) raise a complaint and (b) have this covered in the media.

This report doesn't help anyone's case.

Mmm i wonder how many of us have reported to the police or made a complaint to management about being perved over

How do you even go about this

I felt he was looking at me in a sexual way we know when it’s happening but put it in words it can so easily be dismissed and women are sadly used to having their feelings/fears questioned and dismissed

Then we know our feelings are not as valid as males it’s history and it’s still what happens today

For a start Target did not switch to gender neutral fitting rooms over night. Many stores have had them for years, IIRC the announcement was more inline with the final few converting rather than an overnight refit.

Second, you don't get meaningful crime stats from google and media reports. You get them from the courts and judicial system, and having been involved in the collection of crime stats i can assure you even those are not accurate.

Finally the author of this report is hardly and unbiased source, but rather a prominent anti trans campaigner with a very strong bias.

Women suddenly starting reporting, no doubt, when they hadn't dared to before, because they felt so validated by having their spaces colonised by upskirters?

Hang on - there is a pretty big other factor here. They have not had access to actual reports of assualts at Target, but instead to MEDIA REPORTS of assaults at Target. Gender neutral changing rooms got Target a lot of attention, and a lot of scepticism, from some very vocal areas of the press. This is also quite likely to be a reason for reporting additional assualts (nor does the study check which assualts were in any way connected to changing rooms).

Personally I don't love the idea of, for example, middle aged men being able to take a photo of teenage girls trying on swimsuits, but this isn't meaningful evidence of harm.

I don’t doubt there are

The fact is they are all male and shouldn’t be in female only spaces

Enthusiasm I'm sure there are actually.
There's a Facebook page/group called "this never happens" and I'm sure there are many examples on there of transwomen committing offenses against women in women only spaces.

Had a discussion at work that got heated

The comment that really fucked me off (by a man) was that the there are no reports in the UK of a trans person attacking a women in women’s only space

Right so we have to wait to be attacked because how many of us would report being pervered over

Ffs

Maybe you can be a genuine trans person and a pervert too

Male, Female and Unisex spaces are all the only way forward to keep girls and women feeling safe

There is a good chance that none or very few of the Target predators were technically trans people (or at least not the dysphoric kind). It's just that the law has provided a loophole for predators and the umbrella of what constitutes trans cast so wide.

Indeed. Its not necessarily about trans people at all. Its just about allowing male people access to female areas. Fullstop, regardless of what kind of male person.

The whole point is that people don't think trans people are a threat, but people who are can now access women's spaces.

It seems that this business of Target's share price dropping because of their changing rooms policy is fake news from Breitbart:

www.snopes.com/targets-stock-transgender-bathroom-policy/

It's still a bad idea though, even if Breitbart are against it.

Yes to empathy being key. And actually there are plenty of non-passing TIMs out there who don't enter woman-only spaces because they are able to empathise with women and because they don't want to frighten or distress us.

The issue here isn't really about whether people are trans. It's about whether they are entitled rapey knobheads.

Any time someone argues that the rules that are designed to protect women/children are too strict what they're telling you is that if those rules were not in place they'd do exactly the things that the rules are designed to prevent, imo.

AngryAttackKittens
That's the key isn't it? People with empathy, people with children, ie women, are mainly the ones that get this.

We don't bat an eyelid at all the onerous safeguarding rules around children. But suddenly, we are meant to suspend everything that we know and agree that the label 'trans' and self ID means we can suspend all of that as there is some kind of magic that ensures that no pervert, sexual fetishist, paedophile etc will EVER take advantage of self ID.

Exactly, if your response to "no" is "why not?" or "how dare you!" then all you're doing is proving that the person who just told you to gtfo was right not to trust you.

At the end of the day, males who think their right to validate themselves by crossing women's boundaries should override women's right to safety or comfort are exactly the kind of males we don't want in our changing rooms.

My best friend worked at a preschool for a while and there were all kinds of rules about how she was and was not allowed to interact with the kids. She didn't rage or sulk, because she's a parent too and knows very well why those rules exist.

Wrappedup - yes exactly. I volunteer in a school and there are many safeguarding rules in place, for example volunteers are not allowed to take children to the toilet. I don’t get offended and assume this means the school is saying all volunteers are paedophiles. The policy is there to protect children because otherwise some sexual predators could use it as a way to access children.

Ovahere No one sensible claims that it’s insulting to all parents if we have safeguarding measures in school and children’s clubs. The implication is not that all parents are abusers but that some are and so we need to collectively manage the risk. That means the freedom of innocent harmless people is curtailed in some small ways to protect others. We do this because we recognise that the harm, the distress, the chaos caused by sexual predators, the after effects of abuse, are a bad thing for individuals and for society. We want to avoid this harm.

Argh! Sorry. I have reported the above and asked for it to be deleted. I didn't mean to paste the whole thread. Just:

There is a good chance that none or very few of the Target predators were technically trans people (or at least not the dysphoric kind). It's just that the law has provided a loophole for predators and the umbrella of what constitutes trans cast so wide.

This is a really important point.

Thanks for highlighting this OP.

Like let's think this through. What do people mostly buy at Target? House stuff, cleaning supplies, food, etc. Clothes, but more for women and kids than for men. Other than electronic good most of the stuff they sell is aimed clearly at female consumers.

How many female consumers are OK with potentially putting themselves in danger just to appear right on? What about if it's their children instead of themselves?