Please can someone who thinks that TWAW..

Lass's example of Blair White is a useful one to illustrate that the issue isn't actually one of passing, but of legal right to challenge people entering spaces. (I've watched quite a few of Blair White's videos and she comes across as entertaining and engaging and the sort of person I'd probably be interested to spend an evening with in RL - and I don't have a problem with calling her "she", both out of courtesy and because in interviews I've seen, she seems genuinely interested in, and prepared to listen to women's views).

Because the thing is I wouldn't have a problem with Blair White in the ladies' toilets (in fact, I may well have encountered, without knowing, transwomen who pass). I would however have a huge problem with Pippa Bunce in the open-plan, communal women's changing rooms and showers at my workplace gym.

And self ID legislation, if brought in, would mean that I had no grounds whatsoever on which to object to Pippa's presence.

Therefore the argument must follow that a trans man is allowed to work in a woman's refuge or rape crisis centre, because they are female regardless of their exterior appearance. So a person with a beard, who calls themselves Brian can work in a woman's refuge because when they were born they were called Daphne?

They are female but are aping looking male through drugs and possibly surgery. No one has a right to work in a female refuge or rape crises centre as it’s the female victims that are important here and i’d have to wonder at any TM on T with a beard and male sounding voive etc - who kicked up a fuss about the right to work in these places.

Actually these male aping TM who make these arguements about them having to use female loos, etc if it’s sex that’s the clincher really piss me off. They seem to get some kick out of belittling women’s/girl’s understandable discomfort about having to share female spaces with males.

Thanks Old Crone!

MsBeaujangles

My posts also very rarely get responded to. I think my posts are often more moderate/conciliatory/questioning than most.

I don't think this abusive, I expect they get overlooked because the don't strike a chord or resonate or interest other posters.

My reason for not responding to your posts is often because I am in complete agreement with what you've said and I've nothing more to add. There are lots of reasons for not responding to posts.

@poshme

I agree. I think the biggest issue here is that of self ID. To me it is utterly bizarre that anyone could not see the potential.unintended consequences.

I think a male presenting, testoterone-filled, beardy woman would traumatise women in a rape crisis centre, yes. That is a muddy area.

And this is where the "you can't change your sex. You are your natal sex" argument loses me. While most of the arguments discuss the issue of trans women accessing female spaces I see a problem of trans men accessing female spaces too. Because I don't want a male looking person in the ladies changing room.

Yet following the natal sex argument a trans man is a woman and so therefore I have no argument because you can't change your sex therefore they are a woman????

I chose to only have a female conduct my smear test. In walks "Brian" who used to be Daphne and my argument would be what?

Bertrand I would be fascinated to see the answer you would get to your OP if you asked on Twitter.
Maybe ask stonewall for a start.

@fermatstheorum your 1% post is spot on.

I need to memorise that and say it to my friends who think I'm being anti-trans.

Two things that are entirely unrelated are being lumped together as 'woman'. A woman is defined by biology. Having a feminine gender identity doesn't make you a woman, it makes you feminine.

^^This. Gender is not sex.

I read this "you can't tell what's in someone's pants" and "are we going to have a genital inspection? " a lot and it bothers me.
In Rats explanation, what it seems to be saying is that people can fool you anyway, so why even try to have safeguards.
So, because a man might succeed in sneaking by into a female place, or tricking women into thinking he is one, there's just no point in differentiating between male/female?
It's a bit..creepy tbh.
It's totally possible I have been in a hospital wards or a changing room with someone who was male and I thought they were female. That doesn't mean that you tear down the basic structure of single sex provision and make every place unisex!
Somebody might have shoplifted from my shop, but I'm not going to leave it unlocked and put up a sign saying help yourself.
As women we have to protect ourselves from men-men in general. Not transmenwomennonbinarywhatsit specifically, just men. We KNOW this.

I feel bad for transpeople who find using their own sex facilities uncomfortable . I'm a nice person. If a transman feels more comfortable in the men's, and they can "get one past" the men in there who "don't know what's in their pants". Fine. But I doubt they are going to want to be sent to a male prison.
And if the transwomen don't feel safe in mens places, that needs addressing. By men. Because making everything unisex is not what women want. It's not what most men want either.

In these instances all that I can see is that they would be harassed and therefore the statement made by the OP that they do want trans people to live peacefully and unharassed is unrealistic.

Then the answer is to deal with those doing the harassing.

I am on the fence on this subject. No of course I don't want abusive men, in any sense of the term, allowed unhindered into women's spaces

But then if we say that trans men and trans women use the spaces of their own biological or natal sex I can't see how that even begins to work

As women we may still have a person who appears very male ie dresses male, looks like a man, has a beard etc coming into the ladies toilet or changing room? I find that very odd

Equally a trans woman has to use the men's toilet? Even though no one would even give them a second look if they passed them in the street?

In these instances all that I can see is that they would be harassed and therefore the statement made by the OP that they do want trans people to live peacefully and unharassed is unrealistic

I think you have some fair points there. The going to the loo is a bit of a red herring and a side issue.(personally I would much prefer if all loos in public buildings and offices were floor to ceiling cubicles opening out to an open area than the horrible flimsy partition affairs most single sex loos have)

I suppose this comes down to how well they pass- Buck Angel for example would get no odd looks in a male loo but I doubt any woman would think he should be in the ladies. Blair White on the other hand (as far as I can tell from YouTube) looks like a woman even with no make up , hair hidden under a beannie and wearing masculine clothes.

Mind you at least one of these examples is no help to support TWAW as Blaire White doesn't take that stance. She agrees she is biologically male and refers to herself as a trans woman.

Well I hope you are not switched off by me.

I can't believe that the 'genital policing' argument exists in good faith.

Very few things are 'policed' in the way people use this phrase in trans discussions.

Other than international travel, I can't think of when I am required to evidence specific attributes which permit me to engage in restricted activities. Whilst I could be asked to show proof of age (buying alcohol), or evidence of qualification to drive (having a driving licence) this rarely happens.

It is not difficult to understand that 'not being able to tell' what is in a person's pants need, in any way, restrict having rules that are based on 'what is in people's pants'. The onus is on each person to follow the rules according to which genitals they have.

You are asking us to be nicer about how we state our beliefs. That rankles a bit, to be honest.
I am not asking for anyone to do anything. You must all do and behave how you judge best.

What you can't control is another person's reaction to your behaviour.

If that person switches off and refuses to engage because they are upset by your behaviour how has that advanced your cause?

We can discuss until the cows come home the biological definition of sex.

But irl how will this be applied?

The only way is that some sort of sex police will examine us before allowing us into the toilet.

I haven't got to the end of the thread, but I'd like to thank RatRolyPoly for giving it a go.

Room full of people, I pick out all the women. Truth is I don't know what's in their pants or what chromosomes they have, you might say I do because someone's dog always barks at their brothers or some such, but the bare truth is that I don't.

Same room of people, I ask people to tell me whether or not they're a woman. Those declaring themselves women may or may not be the same people I thought were women, and whilst they certainly know better than I do what's in their pants, we're not going to be asking them to prove it any time soon.

I once said on here (got quoted on the BBC too, preens) that I'm fully in favour of transwomen being treated without discrimination and in a dignified way in the 99% of cases where biological sex doesn't matter - it's the 1% where it does that I'm worried about.

And in a sense, that 1% boils down to the small number of situations where it becomes apparent or matters what is in the person's pants (or where, given what we know about how people view their own bodily autonomy, it ought to be apparent to the trans person that even if they pass this is one of those situations where it matters to the other person).

So - communal changing rooms where people get naked.

Overnight accommodation, whether shared voluntarily (e.g. sleeper berths), compulsorily (closed psych wards, prisons), or somewhere in between (e.g. homeless shelters, where women aren't compelled to stay, but don't exactly have a choice about alternative accommodation).

Medical examinations of genitals/breasts, where, if you have an ounce of empathy and compassion (surely a pre-requisite in an HCP), you'd realise that a woman would feel very differently about the situation if she realised you had a penis under your surgical scrubs (and in fairness, she may well realise, because you may well not pass as well as you think you do).

(There is also the further issue of discrimination, and affirmative action to overcome discrimination, and whether one thinks that discrimination has its roots in recognising people as biologically female, or as conforming to gender stereotypes. Or, TL:DR Pippa Bunce. But that's probably for another post once I've read the rest of the thread.)

@brownpaperteddy
You said that you want everyone treated with respect and be able to live their lives & if we don't allow self ID how can they do that.

At the moment, in order for a person to change their gender formally (including having their birth certificate changed) they can do so. Yes, it takes time. Yes, it means filling in a long & complicated form. Yes, it may feel intrusive. Yes, it means living as your preferred gender for 2 years and being able to prove that. But it is possible.

Personally I think that if a person is going to change their birth certificate it should be difficult. You are effectively re-writing history. Re-writing a biological fact. Trans people complain that complete strangers make decisions about them, that the form is long. Well, government forms are. Applying for benefits is complicated, and decisions get made by people who don't know you. And that's 'just' for claiming some money.

If self ID is allowed, then all a person will gave to do is declare that they are the opposite gender and intend to live in that gender. Yes, a legal process, but very easy.

There are people who have changed gender who now want old criminal convictions to be erased from their record. So that when they apply for jobs working with vulnerable people & children no one will know that in the past they raped someone when they were a man. There is a court case about to happen involving this.

So. If you were a man who had a previous sexual offending history, which you'd like to be deleted, what can you do? If self ID happens, you could declare you are a woman. Maybe you then apply to have your 'male' conviction of rape removed under your right to privacy laws. So you now have a clean criminal record.

'It'll never happen' is what TRAs will say.

Like a person with a penis being put in a women's prison and then assaulting the women there. They said that would never happen. It just did.

Predatory men will go out of their way to be able to assault & rape women and children. Self-ID would be a gift to them.

Absinthe

The girls who said something along the lines of: "It's not my place to tell people they are wrong or apply boundaries'

Aaaargh; she's been female socialised good and proper. I'd worry about her

I think a male presenting, testoterone-filled, beardy woman would traumatise women in a rape crisis centre, yes. That is a muddy area. I think that I'd assume that women would be senstive to that and wouldn't seek to traumatise other women. I might be wrong about that

Sorry - thread has moved on a bit, but the video is painful isn't it crackpots?

It shows that no one actually believes that TWAW but many people have been socially conditioned to think it's correct to perpetuate this lie, but not equivalent ones.

The question is how this happened and why.

“you have to acknowledge that "woman" in everyday life is not used to describe those with the confirmed characteristic of being of the female sex. It just isn't.”

Why do I have to acknowledge this? I use ‘women’ in everyday life to describe those people of the female sex. I know who they are. Everyone does. There may be people who ‘pass’, and who I wrongly describe as ‘woman’. That doesn’t mean that the definition now includes them though. That just means they have managed to be miscategorised.

If your room of people had a bar in it, the bartender knows not to serve those under 18 because we can tell from lots of visual and auditory cues about the rough age of people. If the bartender isn’t sure, she will ask for ID. This works well. And age is actually a spectrum and much more difficult to determine accurately that the simple binary of sex. Yet it is still perfectly possible. Of course there will be those that manage to hoodwink the bartender. Just like there are those who ‘pass’. That will alsways be the case. But it is still illegal to serve them. And it doesn’t mean that the definition of being 18 now includes them.

"We" do not use the word women to mean anything other than women. Adult human females.
YOU have decided that "we" mean anyone that says that they are a woman.

But it's never enough.
TWATW becomes TWAW becomes TWAFemale becomes rapists in female prisons and here I am being told I don't know with any certainty that my husband and son are male, or myself or my daughter are female.

If there’s a room full of 1000 people, the number of women and number of men in that room is a fixed fact before I enter the room, and is n + 1 after I enter the room. What I perceive has nothing to do with it.

If your definition of 'woman' allows a male bodied convicted rapist on to a psychiatric ward you need to have a rethink.

And I agree with this.
The whole issue of self ID is an enormous mess. Clearly, other than outside of an academic argument, it doesn't work on any practical level.

But nor, as far as I can see, does the argument that your natal sex defines you forever in a world where we allow people to live as the opposite sex.

Developing the argument. A trans woman should not be allowed to work in a woman's refuge or rape crisis centre because they are male, no matter their exterior appearance.

Therefore the argument must follow that a trans man is allowed to work in a woman's refuge or rape crisis centre, because they are female regardless of their exterior appearance. So a person with a beard, who calls themselves Brian can work in a woman's refuge because when they were born they were called Daphne?

This is where I get lost. As a woman I wouldn't be comfortable with that. I wouldn't want a man in that situation yet this "man" isn't a man. He's a woman.

How can this be avoided unless we argue that trans women are men, because they were born male, and trans men are men, because despite being born female they identify as male?