If you're pro Self ID for trans people please could you explain it to me?

@LangCleg excellent post "Under self-ID, cross dressing sex offenders will have unimpeded access to all spaces where women and children are vulnerable.

This is not difficult logic to follow.

Make an argument as to why you believe this is ok? Because if you support self-ID, this is what you support. No amount of prevaricating from you can escape this. This is what you support. So tell us why it's ok. And make us believe it."

I wish someone could explain why self id is ok. Do we let doctors self id? Is a doctor anyone who thinks they are a doctor? If not, why not?

Here is my reason for being against self id. All the “it would never happen” folks - it has happened in Canada which a,ready has self id.

www.lifesitenews.com/news/sexual-predator-jailed-after-claiming-to-be-transgender-in-order-to-assault

langcleg How can you bring up Jimmy saville into the self ID debate? Fairly well documented that he was proud to be a man.
That’s exactly my point about the issue isn’t self ID although that’s what brought it to the surface. The issue is victims of abuse don’t get listened too, powerful men are protected, people like to blur lines that aren’t blurry. My point was a young Jimmy Saville should have been charged the first time he offended, put of the sex offenders register and banned from being anywhere near children (or indeed anyone). The register needs to be policed, DBS checks need to be thorough and penalties severe. None of that has anything to do with you’re attitude to a floral print. Look at Charles Bronson he has served waaaaay beyond his initial sentence because his straight up violence has been recognised. Let’s be very clear about sexual violence the same way.

I haven’t read the entire thread so apologies if this has been asked but I’d like to know why people who are for self-id are ignoring the travsecual people who are AGAINST it? What do you think of their reasons? Why are you listening to self-id people over them?

I’m so confused. Every time I think I’ve got this, I get lost again.

Separating gender from sex is good idea. Unfortunately it's relentlessly pounced on as transphobic

I’m sure I’ve seen trans people being really cross because people don’t understand the difference between gender and sex.

So if you say, hang on, only men can be transwomen. So transwomen cannot be women, is this not when a transperson will say “no “man” and “woman” are genders not sexes!”

And the argument is that gender is real and is in your brain and your brain is separate from the rest of your body that has a sex - hence the argument for self-ID because the person thinking with the brain is the one that knows what the gender is… is that it?

And if that is it, trans people/allies seem to be saying that the medical opinion is on their side - is that true?

What about s9meone who says 'I've always voted labour in the past, but can't right now because of trans women taking places on the Jo Cox leadership scheme, AWS and Lilly Madigan?

If self ID means that on hospital wards, changing facilities, toilets, showers etc 'women and any bloke who happens to feel like it' then seriously, why bother with maintaining sex segregation?

It's ridiculous to say I'm fully entitled and supported in wanting privacy from having to stand in a communal open swimming pool changing room and strip off alongside a man, unless in his head that man has made a choice that he self defines as a woman. In which case I will have the exact same subjective experience as I would do stripping off in front of any man, I'm just now committing a hate crime if I show any sign of minding about it.

It's insane. Unless you believe in 'female penises'. In which case again, why bother with sex segregation? Changing rooms aren't segregated by gender, you don't choose whether to change with the people who like knitting and wearing pink or the people who like football and fixing cars.

It's also worth asking: why do TRAs not and really emphatically not, I've seen tweets about 'die rather' want unisex facilities?

I smile, move on and concentrate on finding people who are open minded and willing to listen to my arguments

I am willing to listen to your arguments. But you're not making any. You've stated a belief set and a utopian idea but haven't responded to any questions.

Or does "Willing to listen to my arguments" just mean, "gosh you're right" without any further examination or understanding; just a superficial acceptance.

I said "ask questions" not tell you they vote UKIP. You'll give up if they ask you to explain a policy, as they're interested in trying to understand it?

Tbh, MrsMcGarry you still haven't made an argument for self id.

Yes of course. You have obviously never canvassed. Why would I waste my time on someone who is never going to agree with me because they are so sure they are correct? When told "I always vote UKIP/Tory" I smile, move on and concentrate on finding people who are open minded and willing to listen to my arguments

Well you shouldn't give up.

I do have very strong views on this. But I've had strong views on other things before and have changed my opinion when presented with compelling evidence for an alternative perspective.

And, tbh, saying "I give up" does sound like a bit of a cop out. Because I know that if someone says I'm talking nonsense and I strongly believe my position, I will defend it.

And people have told you that they don't disagree with some/much of what you are saying but that, in the real world where this is happening, we can't afford to think in 'utopian ideals'.

This is one of the most interesting genuine discussions I've yet read on self ID, where people on both sides of the debate are able to share and explain things from their POV. Thank you.

It does rather beg the question of why they aren't clamouring to be nail technicians or cleaners or secretaries or any of the other 'typically female' jobs that don't provide access to semi/fully naked, vulnerable women.

One reason would be that there are no barriers to holding those jobs: the issue the TRAs are engaging with is the few reserved sex protected/biological women only spaces because those are currently not open to TIM. (Or shouldn't be under current law.) There is a drive to break those barriers down for TIM by removing those reserved spaces and replacing it with self ID. Any man who says he is can go anywhere and do anything a biological woman can: no one may put a barrier up against it.

In one light it's inclusion and freedom of respecting self expression/ self identity.

In another light, it's inevitably providing ANY man with access to women when they are naked, vulnerable, in intimate situations, where SOME women will be embarrassed, ashamed and humiliated, unwilling and forced to either put up with it - which brings up major issues of consent, and the rights of biological women to privacy and to set their own boundaries around their bodies - or to no longer access services in which they cannot feel comfortable or safe. This will include accessing hospital wards, smear tests, toilets, swimming and gym changing rooms and many other areas. It will disproportionately affect some groups of women more than others, and the harm to those women is greater than the offense and SMALL limiting of working opportunities and areas not accessible to TIMs.

You cannot get past that the TRAs pushing this are angry about boundaries - to some extent this is about breaking them down, about not permitting there to be barriers they can't cross. Men have been livid about women being able to say no since the beginning of time; it is hard not to see the misogyny in that. See the secret, underground lesbian women's groups that have sprung up, that can't be found listed on social media or by looking at your local authority support groups, and never mention in the name of the group that they are women and lesbians, because TRAs have searched for all such groups, attacked them for being non inclusive, and as a poster said recently, the local lesbian women's group is 80% TIMS. The only way to be allowed to meet without appropriation and domination by men - and that is honestly what is happening, is to meet under the radar. Which means lesbians looking for support will struggle to find them.

You do also have to question why, knowing that these limitations are small and specific to those women who are not comfortable with accepting intimacy or private spaces involving vulnerability/nudity with a male bodied person, it is more important to overcome the woman's right to say no and legally force her compliance to submit to their presence than it is to do exactly what a large group of women are doing here - listening, picking up the nuances of the situation, trying to genuinely understand each other's views. That's what women tend to do. If someone is demanding their right to work in a refuge with the qualifications to understand why that is difficult for some of those women and will be a barrier to their benefitting from the service this prospective employee wants to provide to help them - then you have to ask yourself why that person is seeking that position. The only answer is that it''s more about their right to claim that space - rather like LMadigan is doing - than it is about any care or interest in the job itself. TRAs are putting womens refuges under a great deal of pressure about opening jobs in refuges up to transwomen because it is one of the few obvious barriers to TIMs. If you're under any illusion that they have the faintest interest or care for the women in those refuges, you may want to look at the online discussions around this campaign, which include bombarding the refuge with calls and emails to pull staff away from the women they are trying to help and to disrupt their work.

Will you use the same logic when you're canvassing and give up if people ask you questions?

Well hope away. Because when you start referring to "they", calling me naive, or homophobic, or see criticism that really isn't there, or saying that my unwillingness to argue is because I can't because obv you are right I give up.

And I have to go to my second session of the day of knocking on doors to persuade them not to reelect Tories.

I do accept that as a white middle class educated woman living in a liberal area I am safer in that shared space than most and that might influence my perception of how close we can get to my utopian ideal.

I think the word utopian used here signifies a lot. Utopian ideals aren't a lot of use in the real world when we have to create legislation that actually protects people and doesn't rely on everyone sharing one space and all being lovely to each other.

I really hope some of the earlier pro self id people come back and I hope that MrsMcGarry answers some of the questions/responds to some of the points made.

Largely because I cannot get my head around the pro self id thinking at all and I'd really like to at least understand it, even if I don't agree with it. What I find frustrating is when a statement is made and then not backed up. So questions it raises are left unanswered and points made are ignored or replied to with fluffy ideals that still don't address the very real concerns. I get you how you think it should be but what about how it is.

I can only assume that it is because people don't have an adequate response to them.

And I am also a white, middle class, educated women living in a liberal area.

Me too and it hasn't prevented me being oppressed by consequences of my biology. (mother of a disabled child who is very much not a social construct).

I think the issues are not the issues ifykwim.

OF COURSE they are the issues. Does nobody have any historical knowledge at all of how women's rights to set their own boundaries and of statutory safeguarding procedures came to be?

They came to be through indefatigable women who were demonised by the wider population - just as so-called TERFs are today - who won tiny little bits of ground at a time. Such was the opposition, their progress was painfully slow and the protections we have now took the best part of a century to achieve. A century FFS.

They came to be through many crises that abuse scandals generated, with Jimmy Savile just being the most recent example. Safeguarding obligations on orgs, businesses and institutions only came into being because the blood and suffering and abuse of thousands of women and children became public after years of cover ups. Because everyone, if ever given the choice, just turned away. Only huge scandals forced change.

And you say the issues are not the issues. Jesus. We lose what we've got and it will take another century of abused women and children and another dozen horrendous scandals to get it back.

Yes PencilsInSpace orientation rather than preference. I think if I’d have written ‘oriented away from penises’ it would have sounded weird though :)

And I am also a white, middle class, educated women living in a liberal area.

I kind of resent the implication that anyone who isn't pro self ID must be uneducated and closed minded...

everyone should have the right to define themslevss as anything

Except lesbians, apparently.

An individual lesbian who doesn't fancy an individual transwomen is no more transphobic that I am racist for admitting that actually, Idris Elba doesn't appeal to me.

Lesbian is a sexual orientation, not a preference. A lesbian is a person of the female sex who is attracted solely to other people of the female sex. Lesbians don't do men, male people or penises. Sexual orientation is a protected characteristic. To imply it's only OK on an 'individual' basis for a lesbian to not be attracted to a transwoman is deeply homophobic.