Please can someone who thinks that TWAW..

Hey Teddy

I will join you in the campaign for third spaces, but only after single sex spaces are being enshrined in law. There are only so many hours in the day so I am prioritising woman and children and once that’s ticked off the list, more third spaces (and increased tolerance for GNC people in the facility of their birth sex) will move up a spot.

Hopefully we’ll get the women and children bit sorted in our lifetimes, huh?

When people say TWAW, what they are really saying is "females are not allowed to be recognised as themselves, distinct from males, on their own terms, ever'

This is the rub and I think can be distinguishing feature of trans allies. I think there are many trans allies that do recognise the need to be able to categorise by sex. I think there are others (some of whom are using 'trans rights' as a vehicle for eroding sex based rights) who want to wipe out all female based rights/ further oppression of females.

I expect the former are the majority and the forceful minority mange to create diversions when sensible thoughtful discussions could take place

My comment about the unintended consequences is that I'm assuming the notion of self ID came from a good place. That it was intended to help trans gender people to live their life as a person of their chosen sex.

The unintended consequence, as I see it, is that this deregulation then allows for any pervert to walk into a female changing room with the sole intention of looking at women and girls, or raping them, or exposing themselves.

Just catching up with this thread, so someone might have already said this, but the number of genuine, dysphoric trans people is tiny - the 5000 who currently have a GRC is about it. The number of perverts who might take advantage of this is huge.

When the number of people who are likely to abuse a law is so much greater than the number of people it is likely to help, then is it a good law? Especially considering that genuinely dysphoric trans people can already get a GRC under the current law.

I still don't see who the change in the law is going to help. Dysphoric people can already get a GRC. Nobody else needs one. Perverts will abuse self ID.

Men's toilets - they all have urinals and single person cubicles.

A natural 'gender neutral' toilet.

Sorted.

@MsBeaujangles

Thank you for explaining that.

I'm glad I joined in here today because things are becoming clearer.

It's important to be able to ask questions and get things explained and clarified without being shouted down or insulted.

I don't agree with women's spaces being eroded or taken over. Equally I don't agree with trans people being pushed out of society either. I hope that a way can be found that does both.

Women and girls should not be used as shields to protect men from other men.

THIS.

The answer is never going to be that a trans woman uses the men's facilities.

I don't agree with that statement either. Who says? I think it's more reasonable for them to use the men's than the women's personally if it comes down to that. You make a lot of assumptions.

The answer is never going to be that a trans woman uses the men's facilities.

Why not?

There is a chap called Hope who dresses in female clothes, uses the men's and there is never a problem.

If there is a problem, it is up to men to sort out. Not women.

If there is an attack, then call the police and report it.

Women and girls should not be used as shields to protect men from other men.

It don’t matter what we do
More will still be demanded from us
The word women has been erased all on the say so of men

Is my 8yo supposed to do that by herself, though?
No I am talking about me. Only me.

If I saw what looks like a man in a female toilet how can I challenge him if a someone who looks like a man is allowed in there because he was born a woman?

That's only me that I am talking about. And I am disabled for the record.

The born as argument doesn't work when you include trans men into it. It only works when you focus on trans women and I can't see any rules being brought in that only deal with trans women.

I agree with separate cubicles or with 3rd spaces but then clearly lots don't. The answer is never going to be that a trans woman uses the men's facilities.

BrownPaperTeddy - I sometimes think of the argument like the curate's egg (1)

All females are cells in that egg, one big mass of different cells doing different things, but all still egg cells.

The curate's egg concept means that that the TW cell that gets in, may be the smallest % of the overall female cells now, but it still makes the egg inedible. The TW cell may seem a bit like the female cells, but it is actually very different and therefore totally changes the balance of the overall egg.

(1) www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/163300.html
NB. And - of course - I am not saying TW are rotten or bad or anything, it is simply an analogy.

Teddy

In the past there has been a lot of support on this board for third spaces. I expect there still is, however, third spaces are often shouted down by people claiming to advocate for trans rights. They claim that this it 'othering' and excluding trans people from the facilities they feel comfortable in.

Many posters have given up trying to make a case for third spaces, instead deciding to focus on protecting sex based spaces. Others feel that this is not the board for discussing trans rights as it is board designated to women and girls and there are plenty of other places where these can be discussed and by discuss them we are directing attention away from women and girls.

There needs to be third space, not a shared space because when you try to define who can use a single sex space you boil the argument down to a trans man is a woman who therefore can use a woman only space.

Yes. A third space. As most people here are advocating should be constructed. Not "all toilets are unisex".

Women only spaces for women and men only spaces for men. Third single floor to ceiling door spaces for trans people.

It would be who looks like a woman surely? If I saw what looked like a man in there I'd challenge him. I wouldn't ask for a DNA test or a look in his trousers to see if he could or couldn't be in there

What is the difference between a man dressed as a man, and a man dressed as a woman?

Apart from clothes?

Are you saying that you would be more at risk if you challenged a man dressed as a woman? But you would be happy to challenge a man dressed as a man?

I had this experience a few weeks back, I walked out. A man had misread the sign. nothing untoward. But I am not hanging about in a toilet with a man - no matter what he is identifying as.

Stands up and applauds Barracker.

That is a fabulous post.

I tend to focus on the practical implications on threads like this, but you are right about the massive political implications.

What we're talking about here is nothing less that the Stalinist removal of the language needed to talk about the single most consistently oppressed group in all of history and across all cultures. We cannot name our oppression if we cannot name ourselves.

If I saw what looked like a man in there I'd challenge him.

Is my 8yo supposed to do that by herself, though? How about my 12yo? How about my colleage, permanently on crutches? My 94yo Nan? My sister with her toddler in tow? This is what hardened my stance on sharing facilities - I can and will defend myself if necessary, and god knows I train hard enough to do that, but these women and girls can't. Even if cubicles are floor to ceiling, there's still a risk in closed-off but communal areas. The crux of safeguarding is to minimise risk - and while we can #notallmen and #notallTW til we're blue in the face, the fact remains that (to steal a phrase I saw elsewhere) #AnyIsTooMany. That's why we have sex segregation for intimate areas now. Self-id just sweeps all that away.

Go and fight for a third unisex space for trans people and leave my rights alone.

Isn't that exactly what the fight should be though?

There needs to be third space, not a shared space because when you try to define who can use a single sex space you boil the argument down to a trans man is a woman who therefore can use a woman only space.

Which makes no sense to me.

The TWAW lobby tell us that the word 'woman' no longer means adult human female, because male people have claimed it from us.

No problem, they say, be nice, share. You be you, they say, this doesn't change who you are. Woman DOESN'T mean XX, ovaries, people who didn't get the vote, they say. That's a different thing altogether. Woman means something about feelings and presentation and identity and unquestionable declarations, and people with penises, too.

Ok, say I. Even if I accept that, the word isn't useful to me now, because it doesn't fit me now. Its like you cut some extra keys to my front door for yourself and your friends, and now having my original key is of no use. I need to change the locks and start over.

I'd like to know, then what I am now, what word I use now for the XX people that isn't as confusing as 'woman' apparently is. There are 3.7 billion of us born this way, what's our word when I want to talk about me, and us, in a way that acknowledges how different we are from the others? Not identity, but hard, unchangeable biology?

Oh easy! They say. What's the topic of conversation? Menstruation? You can be menstruators. Pregnancy? You are gestators, or people-who-can-get-pregnant.

No. What's the word, to talk about the entire group whenever I want to talk about us, regardless of the topic? Like, when I want to talk about the difference between us and the others when it comes to rape, and to voting rights, and to representation, and to health risks, and to criminality, and to all things? What's the word for all of us that I am allowed to have to do that?

You can't have one. You can't do that. You can't talk about that half of humanity. About ALL the group. About yourselves. No word for the XX people who gave birth to us all. No word for the largest oppressed common group in the history of humankind. You don't get a name any more.

There are infinite words available to men who like dresses, or who feel feminine. One can be invented that perfectly describes them. The reason 'woman' is the goal is BECAUSE it means adult human female. Whatever word adult human females come up with becomes the goal.

When people say TWAW, what they are really saying is "females are not allowed to be recognised as themselves, distinct from males, on their own terms, ever'

Sport is also an easy one - it has to be segregated by biology. If it isn't, there literally ceases to be any point to having women's sport. I suppose women's sport could maybe continue as part of the paralympics, for people with Y chromosome deficiency or some such. But that would be a pretty bonkers "solution" to a non-problem with an obvious answer, which is that sporting ability is about biology, so biologically male people don't get to compete in women's sport.

If a transwoman really cares about playing competitive sport at the highest levels, then the option still exists for her to defer starting cross sex-hormones and play men's sport - see the link to footballer Jaiyah Saelua that I posted upthread. It is then up to men's sporting bodies to uphold her right to privacy and dignity by providing suitable changing facilities. It is not women's problem.

I'm sick and tired of the stupid, disingenuous arguments that end up with giving men the legal right to use women's spaces and services.

Exactly.

I think it would be very wrong to expect a trans person to use facilities designated for their biological sex.
I think it would be very wrong to expect person of one sex to share sex specific facilities with people of the opposite sex.

@MsBeaujangles

Thank you. This is my belief too and I've never seen it reflected on these threads. All I've seen is the biological/birth sex argument which I just cannot reconcile with.

Well said. They do.

Go and fight for a third unisex space for trans people and leave my rights alone.

I'm sick and tired of the stupid, disingenuous arguments that end up with giving men the legal right to use women's spaces and services.

99.5% of the time we are right in our judgment though. Probably even more. That's generous.

but in every day life we rely more on the social construct of male and female

do we?

Well up until now how have we decided who goes into the women's toilet?

It would be who looks like a woman surely? If I saw what looked like a man in there I'd challenge him. I wouldn't ask for a DNA test or a look in his trousers to see if he could or couldn't be in there.

That's what I meant. We tend to go on appearance rather than on biology in our day to day lives.