Matthew d'Ancona in the Guardian - 3rd spaces as the solution

I've come back to thin because it's interesting a DM you don't seem to be foaming at the mouth.

I'm also Irish and I think you've been more than a little disingenuous in your comments on this thread stillscreaming. The population in Ireland is much smaller than the U.K., the trans population therefore is much smaller (see the numbers applying for a GRC) and in general we don't have a significant number of transgender individuals with a high profile, many of whom, it would seem, aim to appear frequently in the media solely in order to make inflammatory statements with the aim of denying women the right to speak/discuss issues that directly affect them, as would seem to be the case in the U.K.

(For full disclosure, I spend half my time in London and half in Ireland).

Ireland doesn't have the trans women you describe but neither does the UK. What the UK does have is a very loud Twitter argument going on between numerous anonymous individuals. Great amounts of bile are spilled on a regular basis but we don't know between whom. There is one group who tweet inflammatory things at trans people and another group, who may or may not be trans, who tweet back equally inflammatory things. For every 'chest feeder', there is a 'real women have breast' and for every 'kill all TERFS' there is a 'trains should be crucified'. There is a lot of sound and fury but I'm not sure what it signifies or who it's coming from. It's as likely to be 4chan as anyone else.

No one is shy about importing American hate either, bloggers who shouldn't be allowed a crayon, never mind access to the Internet and right wing religious fundamentalists are both putting the 'mental' into the argument.

I've gone looking for the TRAs and I can't find a group bigger than MN fem chat and they seem to be, about as spread out in their ideologies as the MN folks. Some are frothing with anger and some, less so. Either way, neither group could possibly account for the amount of tweeting that takes place.

I'm more concerned about crime statistics, prison segregation, womens refuges, sports participation, scholarships, political participation and the ability of women to meet as a group to discuss issues concerning our female biology without accusations of transphobia. I also find the discourse around the supposed 'cotton ceiling' disturbing and homophobic but I accept I'm not directly affected by that.

Most of that stuff, I'd ask you to do your own research around. With the normal proviso about being careful about your sources. Many things are repeated on MN that aren't fact. Some things have a grain of truth in them but still aren't actually truthful. I'm sure you can see for yourself that you have a small group of women, who've had a lot of press coverage and a fair bit of media attention, who are claiming to be censored. They also claim to be interested in debate but show very little interest in chatting with women with different views. There are a lot of contradictions about.

The cotton ceiling thing is disturbing and homophobic, I and many of the lesbians I know are really pissed of that the only time we get mentioned by this subset of 'feminists' is to use us as a battering ram for trans people, it feels really homophobic to us.

?

I don't think anyone believes that trans people don't exist.

Clearly they do - we have "old school" trans-sexuals posting on these boards, through to people like whatsit gender neutral topshop guy in the papers.

None of these people are imaginary. The trans umbrella is v v big now - anyone who self IDs as trans is trans, and certainly the idea that you have to be mentally ill to be trans is both hideously outdated and, I would suggest, insulting to the trans community, many of whom state very clearly that being trans is not a mental health problem.

"Transgenderism" is the whole lot, cross dressers and all, btw. Check out Stonewall for a definition.

Third spaces: I've seen single-occupant self-contained loos, and in some cases they've been designated for a single sex despite being single-occupant! An immediate way to make more loos available to all would be to pass a law to require that all single-occupant loos be unisex. It's a matter of changing signs and ordering some sanitary bins. All new buildings could be required to have some single-occupant loos designed in, with a minimum quota based on number of people in the building on top of the existing quota for cubicle-farm loos. More loos is always good.

Spoonless. Transvestic fetishism is listed as a paraphilia in the DSM5. We know what cross dressers are. We know gender dysphoria exists as a psychological condition. I'm not sure what your point is.

In reality a lot of us long ago came to the conclusion that current transactivism is an organised effort by sexual predators to invade women's spaces and gain access to potential victims. I think it's quite a steep hill to climb to persuade people like D'Ancona and even Hadley Freeman that that is the case.

Just so we're clear, transgenderism is a poorly understood and scantily objectively substantiated phenomenon so it doesn't exist and psychiatrists who believe in it cannot be trusted, but autogynephilia-masquerading-as-transgenderism, which is a poorly understood and extremely scantily objectively substantiated phenomenon, does exist and psychiatrists who believe in it must be trustworthy ?

Yes?

Right?

@stillscreaming Actually, NI has its own jurisdiction and, being on the mainland, there's nothing I can do to persuade Stormont to change. What I and others did achieve for NI women was lobbying Westminster MPs to vote 'aye' to NHS England to pay for NI women's terminations, so my abortion funding money only has to pay for flights and accommodation.

You call me a feminist with scare quotes, well, I ask who has done more for women? The woman who chips in month after month to pay for Irish women to have abortions, or the woman who trolls forums telling worried women that they are bigots?

Bloody hell, we've a generation of teenagers (girls and boys) struggling with sexual harassment and consent and we now have self absorbed narcissistic adults going into schools dismantling all the safeguarding and assertiveness work that's ever happened and telling them that one person's demands trump all children's reservations, their instincts, their wishes and their right to consent all funded by the fools in the DfE & the NHS .

IKR? Decades upon decades of knowledge, most of which was gained in the wake of dealing with crisis and scandal, binned. And all our institutions, supposed to know better, are folding like cheap tents. Why must we wait for the next scandal before we say er, no - we know not to do this.

Will it last?

She'll flounce to a different thread, so no.

And I wish you happiness in your third space.

No thanks, the third space needs to be for the 1%, not the vast majority. That's called common sense.

And....

Flounce.

Will it last?

Toilets aren't segregated by "gender" they are segregated by sex. For good reasons. The biggest of them is that gender is a social construct and "transgender" identified males are just as male as any other man.

You see it's all going along fine, robust but there is some exchange of ideas and then the ranting just overflows, like a Mount Vesuvius of mouth foam.

Anyway, here's the contact details:

cambridgeanalytica.org

And I wish you happiness in your third space.

I'm also Irish and I think you've been more than a little disingenuous in your comments on this thread stillscreaming. The population in Ireland is much smaller than the U.K., the trans population therefore is much smaller (see the numbers applying for a GRC) and in general we don't have a significant number of transgender individuals with a high profile, many of whom, it would seem, aim to appear frequently in the media solely in order to make inflammatory statements with the aim of denying women the right to speak/discuss issues that directly affect them, as would seem to be the case in the U.K.

I would also agree that the population is also more conservative outside of the big cities with a lower level of general awareness of the issues concerning women's rights/rights of transgender people and the issue of self ID.

To be honest the issues around toilets are not one I can get particularly exercised by, although I do understand the concerns that have been raised by others. I'm more concerned about crime statistics, prison segregation, womens refuges, sports participation, scholarships, political participation and the ability of women to meet as a group to discuss issues concerning our female biology without accusations of transphobia. I also find the discourse around the supposed 'cotton ceiling' disturbing and homophobic but I accept I'm not directly affected by that.

Thing is, Stillscreaming, when the only way you can square the circle of feminists not agreeing with you is to believe that we’re lying about the positions we hold and the activism we’ve done and the things that we want, then that might work for you. But it’s not a very compelling argument for the women you’re talking to, who know we are not lying about our own beliefs and our own experiences.

I mean, I don’t know how I could prove to you that I’ve reported a good few comments to MN for transphobia previously (they get deleted, fyi). So you’re free to say “don’t believe you!” if you like, but that’s not going to do much to convince me, is it?

What a nasty piece of work.

Teen girls are vulnerable enough to creepy men without being told that the ONE place that they can get away should be cancelled.

This is the NORM - this is what teenage girls DO. The fact that you express utter disbelief when a woman mentions it makes me wonder where exactly you grew up, how on earth you managed to navigate your teenage years.

Aggression?

I think that anyone who comes on a women's website and says that teenage girls are incompetent when it comes to understanding how to protect themselves from creepy men is an out and out misogynist.

And that's all there is to it.

An absolutely revolting and tone deaf comment and link.

A link which didn't back up what you were saying by the way.

I think you don't really give a toss about the privacy, comfort or even safety of teens, do you. All you care about is getting what you want.

The extremists on this thread, those who keep saying that trans women are men and shouldn't be allowed their legal right to use single gender space.

Oh, get a fucking grip. 99.9% of the population think that TIMs are men.

Most of the TIMs think that, too - or at least, they understand themselves to be males in retreat from manhood. Opinion differs how the needs of these male refugees from manhood should be best accommodated within society - here, the majority voice is right up to the point women's rights are compromised and no further.

The only extremist here is you, along with your rag tag bunch of aggressive males and pomo-addled cultists. You're not just wrong: you're outright delusional.

That’s not an extremist position. That wasn’t even a remotely controversial position a few years ago.

To deny someone their legal right to use the loo of their legal gender is extreamist. Are you trying to claim that had t happened?

@ OlennasWimple

Try going back and reading my post again, I don't think you've got the full run of what I was saying.

The extremists on this thread, those who keep saying that trans women are men

That’s not an extremist position. That wasn’t even a remotely controversial position a few years ago.

“Trans women deserve violence and harm” is extremist. “Trans women are biologically male” is a statement of fact.