Times article - Men ‘should accept trans women in changing rooms’

• that should say

if females who have taken hormones and or had surgery to look like men

if you look like a man you should be prepared to be challenged when you use women's spaces. if females who have taken hormones and or had surgery choose to use women's spaces, which they are perfectly entitled to do, they need to be prepared to explain why they're there.

Men like Larry are full of shit with their "What's the problem with unisex changing?" schtick. They know perfectly well what the problem is. In parallel situations where men are actually at risk of rape - notably prisons - men are absolutely obsessive and terrified about it. Think of the million and one 'jokes' about dropping the soap in a prison shower.

What men like Larry actually mean is:

1. unisex changing rooms are only a problem for women, so I don't care
2. Being sexually available to men is what women is for.

What men like Larry never mean is:
It would be fine for me to be put at risk of rape.

That's an interesting map. I wonder how much is influenced by what is perceived as counting as sexual violence. I can imagine it might be different in Italy and Sweden, for example.

I've got a radical idea that worked just fine for millennia, although I know that these days it's more or less unsayable. Everyone could just leave their bodies with the sex organs that they had to start with. Men who aggressively assert themselves to be women are exactly the men that women need to avoid, so they could stay in the mens. Men who have deep seated psychological issues that lead them to believe they are actually female could have psychological help to deal with those feelings. They might still want to dress in traditionally women's clothes and that's fine. But they're still men, so again they could stay in the mens, because they're men. And we could change men's behaviour so that young women don't feel traumatised by being young women, and then they wouldn't want surgery either, although they could of course dress as masculine as they wish. And the changing room and toilets could remain segregated.

But it's going to be on some women to sort out surely?

What about women who need to change separately for religious purposes? If they see what appears to be a man in the female changing room is it going to help that there might be a chance that they are biologically female?

Larrygryls-
No transman is capable of raping a man though that’s the issue. Maybe some men are less bothered by trans men in their spaces because they are not capable of being a sexual predator towards the biological men there. Women do not have that luxury.

if women feel comfortable to challenge male people in women's single sex spaces, then the reality is that some females who feel compelled to comply with masculine stereotypes, if they have had surgery and taken hormones so they have male pattern baldness and a beard, are going to get challenged.

again, people are at liberty to make decisions that make their own lives more complicated. I don't have to sort it out for them.

those females need to make their peace with deceiving men in male single sex spaces or campaigning for third spaces, or getting challenged in the ladies and having to explain themselves.

this is between those females and men, it's not for me to sort out.

I've no doubt that a transman who passes, with a beard and tattoos, might make you look twice and provoke an initial feeling of discomfort. But the rationalisation is that you know they are female and therefore do not present a threat.

It isn't only about threat though is it? I've heard lots of people on here say that their father/brother/friend isn't a threat but they still don't want to get changed in front of them.

I would still view a person who looked male as a man. I wouldn't look at them or react to them as a woman. I guess if it happens then I will have to consider not going to the gym or swimming.

Not much else I can do is there?

Me too EnormousDormouse!

It's odd that I feel my rights as a woman are actually better protected living in a ME country (& of course there is a huge amount of work to be done), but, well, this is where we are now.

One advantage of living in a Muslim country is that I KNOW that my gym changing is single sex. I can also attend mixed or women's only classes, and use machines in the mixed or women only area.
Yes, work to be done in other areas but it is refreshing not to have to deal with pomo/ queer theory bullshit. (Trans is not a thing here- homosexuality is illegal BUT widely accepted and tolerated if not deliberatively provocative (jail only for 'public scandal') - we all know where the gay bars are)

Different cultures have different priorities. Modesty is clearly a UK requirement. The reason Germans strip naked and shower properly before entering an indoor swimming pool is hygiene. It is considered extremely discourteous, selfish and disgusting not to do so. If I'm perfectly honest, even after all this time, I still feel a little grossed out that UK swimming pools do not have this requirement and that everyone just goes in the water dirty.

As cleanliness is considered paramount, all showers are strictly single-sex and also typically have shower cubicles for those who do not wish to shower naked with strangers. It's considered preferable for someone to go into a cubicle to shower properly than for them to keep their swimming costume on and just wash their arms and legs. And I witnessed quite a few people complaining to those/about those who don't wash properly and of course adults typically tell off kids who don't. There are signs up everywhere stating this as a requirement.

As this is a part of my upbringing, I had a few embarrassing incidents when I first came to Scotland and used the swimming pool. I didn't use to wear my glasses in the pool and simply assumed the signs on the walls at the Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh were asking patrons to shower properly. So I walked in there stark naked with my costume in one hand and shower gel in the other many, many times. Lots of stares and mutterings but everyone far too polite (or shocked or grossed out) to complain. Went back after my swim fully dressed wearing my glasses one day and saw the signs on the walls actually said NO NUDE SHOWERING.

And yes, Germany has a strong naturist movement, but it is strictly limited in space and entirely voluntary. My parents dragged us to naturist beaches, I went to mixed-sex saunas and naked indoor swimming sessions in my late teens/early twenties but I would not have tolerated a mixed-sex changing room, not even back then. And society as a whole would react with loud protests if single-sex spaces like that became mixed-sex. That's because naturists are a minority and all Germans expect their privacy to be respected and insist on sex segregation.

“The problem is men. If trans women are afraid of being assaulted by men, and women are afraid of being assaulted by men, then education needs to happen around men.”

Exactly, exactly, exactly.

And if transwomen suddenly think men aren't a threat, let's hear on what urgent basis they have to dismantle sex segregation.

Meghan Murphy quoted in the article hits the nail dead on the head:

“The problem is men. If trans women are afraid of being assaulted by men, and women are afraid of being assaulted by men, then education needs to happen around men.”

Sing it, sister!

@larrygrylls - I have played mixed-sex team sports in many countries around Europe (France/Germany/Sweden/Holland/Czech Republic/Spain/Luxembourg) and there are ALWAYS separate changing rooms for the two sexes. I don't believe for one minute unisex changing rooms are commonplace on the continent....

But outwardly, if they have a beard and/or have had phalloplasty they would look male in many ways.

That would make me uncomfortable I think. I wouldn't look at them and think oh it's ok they were born female.

That means you are being influenced by superficial stereotypes.

I've no doubt that a transman who passes, with a beard and tattoos, might make you look twice and provoke an initial feeling of discomfort. But the rationalisation is that you know they are female and therefore do not present a threat. Their appearance of being male, does not correlate to the statistic of male violence.

Likewise with the few transwomen who might pass. They present exactly the same threat as any man, and any transwomen who don't pass.

Otherwise you're buying into the illogical premise that changing your appearance changes your sex.

beard and/or have had phalloplasty

Wait, so a woman with lots of facial hair would be the same as a man to you?

I disagree that changing one’s body makes one not their sex. I have had mastectomies. I am sterile. I am still female.

I see trans men as still female but with manipulated bodies from hormones or surgery. I don’t think they should be in the male spaces. Just as trans women - even post op ones - should not be in the female spaces.

Again, perhaps third spaces are suitable but that is not my fight - my fight is to keep trans women and men out of female spaces - to keep them sex-segregated.

It's also a requirement in all the Swedish pools I've been to, but we do have single sex communal changing rooms at least. (I use the female disabled as I'm far too British to strip off in front of anyone.)

it's not a requirement to strip naked in Germany; it's a requirement to shower, and you have to walk through the shower rooms to get to the pool.

I would hate that.

I bet a lot of German women and girls self-exclude from that - and incomers from other cultures.

I should have mentioned that the communal shower rooms also have shower cubicles which people who don't want to get naked. And you are not obliged to strip naked. I never do: I keep my swimsuit on in those shower rooms. I don't think there is any stigma for not stripping, and if there is, I don't care.

I don't think German women self exclude. They are used to it from a very young age. You see women, old young, small kids, even (very) young boys in there. They grow up with it. The

All German women strip completely naked in the showers, young and old, and they shower thoroughly and wash their hair, then put their swimsuits back on

It's also a requirement in all the Swedish pools I've been to, but we do have single sex communal changing rooms at least. (I use the female disabled as I'm far too British to strip off in front of anyone.)

FeministCat

I understand that they were born female.

But outwardly, if they have a beard and/or have had phalloplasty they would look male in many ways.

That would make me uncomfortable I think. I wouldn't look at them and think oh it's ok they were born female.

I'm afraid that's wishful thinking, Larry. I spent the best part of my childhood and teenage years in a country where attitudes to nudity are more open, and I encountered ogling and lewd comments as soon I developed breasts.

Yep. See account below.

@Larry: The most progressive societies with regard to sexual integration are probably The Netherlands and Scandinavia. They (again probably) have the least leering, ogling etc. On the other hand, sexually segregated societies (think Saudi Arabia, Pakistan etc) have horribly misogynistic cultures.

Let's talk about Germany again, which I often hear praised for its "progressive" stance on nudty. Yes, you have lots of nude beaches in germany, nude lakes, nude areas of beaches and lakes. I've been to a few but I wasn't nude. You've got his whole FKK culture, with lots of people being naturists. Heck, my next door neighbour were FKK, a lovely middle aged couple who had very high hedges around their garden but whom I have never in all the years seen naked. They know it's a private matter.
Anyway, Germans are said to be so "open" and *progressive" about nudity, right?
Once my daughter, early 20's and quite pretty in an exotic, dark skinned way, went with her then boyfriend to a mixed sauna in a very lovely and rather posh leisure centre (I'm saying this to show that it the clientele was presumably well situated, not uneducated thugs).
They were both naked. She said that the other men were ogling her quite openly and in such a way that she felt awful, and they left early.

She will never again go to a mixed sauna. We sometimes went to a female-only sauna.