Are these stupid questions?

Told to give up advantage not increase disadvantage.

That depends on what side of the equation you are on.

Women would have seen it as men giving up advantage.

Men would have seen it as increasing disadvantage.

Not a false equivalence at all.

Knicknackpaddyflak

I think my difficulty is that within this group there are those who are genuine and therefore have genuine distress, dysphoria etc and also those who are in it as a way to get a kick, exhibitionism etc.

That seemingly is an impossible question to solve.

Well, men weren't asked to give up anything, they were told to.

Told to give up advantage not increase disadvantage.

You made a false equivalence as you well know.

If you feel that men are benefitting from self ID because men are identifying as women then women must also be benefitting by identifying as men.

Red herring I think? The (debatable) benefits to this small group of women doesn't change the massive negative impacts to all women of self ID. It's also not equitable in terms of the negative impact on men.

The equality part is a red herring. You can only see this as women having to give up privilege for equality if you agree that TW are an as yet unrecognised, (and sometimes by TRAs even framed as a disabled) form of women.

TW are men. This is a fact, however distressing for some. Do we, as a society, encode into law that people may legally choose to be included in a societal group and have equal access to all their resources when they do not in reality have the characteristic of the group? Or do we say that society has groups in need of specific resources to meet the needs of the group that must be protected?

Are we going to let people opt in to BAME provisions? Disabled provisions and benefits? Children's provisions, benefits and services? Particularly when the given grounds for inclusion are mental health based (distress, suicidality, dysphoria if refused) and include large numbers of those who wish access through sexual motivations? And have no care or interest for the negative impacts their inclusion will inevitably cause?

What matters in society more? Fair and just provisions for actual, real needs based on our limited resources, or not thwarting individuals' personal preferences?

Men being asked to give up some of their privilege because women got employment rights

Well, men weren't asked to give up anything, they were told to.

If I was to identify as a man (and self-id was in place) I'd have no extra rights. So how do transmen benefit? What rights do men give up to transmen?

I was meaning that trans men (who are born women) will benefit as much as trans women (born men) will benefit. So by recognition, being treated as a man, accessing male spaces etc.

If you feel that men are benefitting from self ID because men are identifying as women then women must also be benefitting by identifying as men.

Obviously only those identifying as trans will benefit and not the natal members of either sex.

This. Why can't there be reasonable solutions that protect trans people but allow females to keep their own spaces?

Because tra do not want reasonable solutions, they want to put women in our place, which is submissive and subservient.

It is not about rights, but validation.

Exactly. Transgender people already have the same human rights as everyone else, so there is no comparison with other groups being recognised and being given equal human rights, because trans people already have those rights.

Because the aim of the movement is to remove sex segregation.

This is at the heart of it, and they occasionally admit to this. On a Newsnight discussion, transwoman Helen Belcher was asked if she'd accept a unisex space, as an alternative to using women's toilets/changing rooms etc. She said no, as she is a woman, she should be treated the same as any other woman.

Men being asked to give up some of their privilege because women got employment rights is not the same thing as women being told they must give up some of their protections.

I'm not sure that we can view it solely as women giving up their rights because of course their are trans men who are benefitting too by this recognition.
I'm not convinced by that. If I was to identify as a man (and self-id was in place) I'd have no extra rights. So how do transmen benefit? What rights do men give up to transmen?

Why can't there be reasonable solutions that protect trans people but allow females to keep their own spaces?

Because the aim of the movement is to remove sex segregation.

It is not about rights, but validation.

I think that is the central problem.

I suffer discrimination because I am observed to be female and need particular services because of the practical consequences of being female. It has sod all to do with identity.

Stonewall style trans activism is all about validation of identity.

The compromise line is unfair: essentially what is meant by it is women must be prepared to give up some rights in the name of kindness and fairness.

No. They really mustn't. It's not about kindness, it's about plain right and wrong. It's about facts. It's about not removing rights from women to give to men no matter how distressed or loud or threatening those men get.

The 2004 GRA has already been pushed from 'a tiny amount of fully transitioned transsexual women will be granted a legal fiction to get around some marriage and pension issues' to 'there's no such thing as biological women and women are no longer allowed any space or service or meeting away from men'. ANY ground given will be an immediate standing point for the next landgrab from women.

I don't know. I think I see it more as Funkyfunkybeat12. It's about how their rights are implemented.

I'm not sure that we can view it solely as women giving up their rights because of course their are trans men who are benefitting too by this recognition.

There is nothing in it for women.

More tellingly, the people who are insisting on being women have zero interest in or care for women's perspectives, needs, best interests or concerns, which tells you exactly how skin deep it goes.

Raise this with a TRA, and if they'll discuss it as opposed to shrieking names as you and immediately banning you from the right to oxygen for daring to question, you'll be told that your 'privilege' as a woman means you owe everything women have, immediately, to men, and if you were a decent, right thinking woman you'd focus all your attention and resources on meeting their needs. They essentially mean if you have a uterus you are less than human and your only worth is in providing and nurturing your betters.

Fuck That.

I agree Weetabix.

I think the main difference here though is that women aren't so much being asked to move over as pretend they don't exist.

So it would be like me arguing that not only should I be able to use a disabled parking space, but that all accommodation of disability on the basis of practical need is phobic.

The practical response to trans people feeling they can't access toilets is to establish the barriers they face and find out ways to overcome them. However that is not the problem that TRAs are trying to solve.

Trans people already have rights and protections in law as we all do so TRAs have framed their demands as rights because they know anyone questioning that will look bad and the TRAs can be seen as an oppressed group in a civil liberties "fight"

You are right. There is a right against discrimination, rights to life, freedom from torture, right to privacy and rights of safety and dignity. There is not, as far as I am aware, a right to be in other people's spaces or to take on rights granted to a different group. So, arguably you could say that trans women have a right not to have to change with natal males (privacy, safety, dignity), but that right can be met by having e.g. third spaces where needed, or single contained cubicles. It doesn't mean a right to be in women's spaces.

Same with sports, prisons etc. As long as the state can show that it is protecting the rights of trans people, trans people cannot insist that this takes a particular form. The important factor is that they are safe, have privacy etc.

It is not about rights, but validation.

The warm glow of being inclusive, no doubt. It''s all about the giving, not the receiving.

It was brought very sharply into focus for me a while back when a poster, it might have been Sweary G, said it's not about rights it's about demands.

Trans people already have rights and protections in law as we all do so TRAs have framed their demands as rights because they know anyone questioning that will look bad and the TRAs can be seen as an oppressed group in a civil liberties "fight".

Once you realise it's demands not rights it becomes much easier to see that not all demands are justified or legitimate.

I think that some people in those groups would argue that they did lose out though.

Realistically men did lose out when women were able to compete equally in the workplace eg become the MD rather than than the secretary.

And the same with all of the other categories. People had to move over and share a previous exclusive space with others.

Arguably this didn't necessarily benefit those doing the moving over but equality has benefits to society as a whole.

Isn't this the same though when any minority group is given rights?

So what was the benefit to men when women were given rights?

The benefit to white British people when BME people gained rights?

To able bodied people when people with disabilities gained rights?

I don't know that you can view it in a "what's in it for me" way.

No but you can argue that in the above groups, nobody lost anything. Men are still quite comfortable now women are allowed to have bank accounts. White people haven't suffered because Asian people are allowed to apply for the same jobs as them. Able bodied people aren't disadvantaged by wheelchair ramps.

This is more like disability funding being reduced even further because it's got to buy equipment for transabled people, who identify as paraplegic...