Women’s Aid considers employing self-declared transwomen [i.e. men] in women's shelters

I like the idea of an open letter.

Ereshkigal An open letter is a marvellous idea.

Maybe someone could start a thread here so we can all add our input to the final letter?

They don't even want (thing), they just want women not to have it

I think there's 3 types.

There's a small number of narcissistic TIMs looking for validation at any cost to others (NATALT)

There's a large number of old-fashioned misogynists who think women make a lot of fuss about nothing and should get back in their box

And there's an unknown number of sex offenders who want to offend more easily

They don't even want (thing), they just want women not to have it.

YY^

They don't even want (thing), they just want women not to have it.

We might have to rebuild refuges with the rule that they are only for 'people previously known as women'. This would capture all the XX vagina people including TIFs but exclude men and TIFs.

They wouldn't let that happen. It would be like a lightning rod for them. Because they are domineering men who care only about themselves.

Yet as a society we know this. We know it from all the men who have gone to great lengths to seek out victims under the guise of being pillars of the community. It's appalling how much common sense has seemingly gone out of the window around this one subject.

Exactly. Scout leaders, football coaches, priests, doctors. Why do people think that this would be any different?

People say 'but you wouldn't pretend to be trans if you weren't, just to get access to women'. But the point is that with self id, you don't have to 'pretend to be trans', you can just declare 'I'm a woman' and it is so.

And anyway it's a fucking disgrace to expect women to be fine with being helped after their rape by someone who has a penis and is obviously a man. What, and if they aren't comfortable with it they are 'transphobic'?

Fuck off.

*exclude men and TIMs

We might have to rebuild refuges with the rule that they are only for 'people previously known as women'. This would capture all the XX vagina people including TIFs but exclude men and TIFs.

I'm only half joking

We could maybe write them an open letter and try to get it published in the press?

This takes the biscuit. How to we make our collective voices heard with the folks at WA?

Why would (presumably government) funding be pulled from something that provides a service and relies on exemptions specifically given in the Equalities Act? Is it that they have to (regularly?) prove that the exemption is validly applied?

I know it's already been mentioned, but in a way I'm glad this has been highlighted. If nothing else to move on from toilets and m&s changing rooms. The arguments for those seem to rely on the need for sex segregation at all. That's probably why TRA keep talking about them.

But in situations where sex segregation is obviously needed, the debate changes. The focus does move from the rights of MIT to those of women. It is so difficult for the likes of India w and Kellie m, who lets face it don't pass, to insist that they are more vulnerable than these women. And questions why they need to be in these spaces at all.

abusive men like to get victims to talk about their abuse

Yes

And a survivor of abuse, pre-gaslit and with her boundaries all over the place, is in a very vulnerable position with respect to a 'therapist' using the therapeutic relationship to groom her for further sexual abuse. It's not talked about much but it happens.

It's sexy cosplaying, basically. Which, hey, if that's what you want then there's a place just for you! It's called ComicCon, so how about buggering off over there and leaving women alone?

That would be the most generous interpretation. The less generous one is that women's violated responses are vital to the enjoyment for many/most of these people.

I can't imagine a more perfect job for a predator than counsellor/residential coordinator at a rape crisis org or a refuge. The most vulnerable set of women and girls you could find, served up on a plate by people who've already shown that they don't have the backbone to stop you preying on those women/girls.

Yet as a society we know this. We know it from all the men who have gone to great lengths to seek out victims under the guise of being pillars of the community. It's appalling how much common sense has seemingly gone out of the window around this one subject.

It makes me laugh when trans rights are compared to gay rights.

Gay rights: I want the right to be able to have sex with whoever I want without being criminalised, I want the right to marry whoever I want, I want the right to have the same job opportunities as others and not be discriminated against just because I am attracted to people of the same sex, I want access to the same health care as everyone else and be treated the same as others. None of this impacts on anyone else, I just want the same human rights as everyone else in the eyes of the law.

Trans rights: I want the right to use which ever loo or changing room I want depending on how I identify that day, I want the right to choose to go to a female prison even if I am a sex offender with a working penis, I the right want to take roles that were specifically earmarked for women for various reasons, I want the right to tell women that they cannot talk about reproductive issues because that doesn't centre me, I want the right to work in a rape crisis centre with women who have been assaulted by penises just like my own. I am aware that all of these things may have a negative impact on women and the rights that they have fought for for so long, but I don't care.

Funny how few of this wave of TRAs want to be delivery drivers, florists, accountants, management consultants, professors of physics, shop assistants.

They want to be rape counsellors, nurses, bra fitters. Or "trans journalists" in the media where the only story you ever have to cover is telling women to STFU.

I suspect that one of the reasons that this nonsense has spread so far online is because most of these people do not have jobs at all, don't have much of a real social life, and so spend 16 hours a day online reading and writing utter guff. Most ordinary people just don't have time for that.

The insistence on being in a space where women are vulnerable and they know they're not welcome shows exactly why we don't want them there. A decent person would back off at the first suggestion that their presence wouldn't be helpful, if helping people was the goal. It isn't, obviously.

I can't imagine a more perfect job for a predator than counsellor/residential coordinator at a rape crisis org or a refuge. The most vulnerable set of women and girls you could find, served up on a plate by people who've already shown that they don't have the backbone to stop you preying on those women/girls.

I know from experience that abusive men like to get victims to talk about their abuse.

Just all those women who sacrificed so much to give us rights that so many of us are gift wrapping up to hand back to the most aggressive of men.

History repeats itself but it's a mistake to think it always comes in exactly the same guise.

Yes. It's nothing that other women before us haven't seen before.

I just find it ironic that all this is going on alongside celebrating 100 years of the suffragette movement.

If this happens then surely the next step for self declared trans women is to demand assess to positions where they can counsel young girls who have been victims of trauma and abuse.

YY. This is I think what some of these men want. This is why we should be allowed to question their motives.

And obviously, the MRA/TRAs, who are alsoTIMs, have no desire to 'pass'. They want women to know that they are really men because that's not about acceptance, that's about fear and intimidation.

Yes very good point. It seems a lot like a postmodern version of raping and pillaging. History repeats itself but it's a mistake to think it always comes in exactly the same guise.