Feel like I'm shouting into a void.

Primary and secondary age girls grappling with menstruation need a single sex space where they know no boys are timing them in the cubicle, listening for the rustle of cellophane coming off a fresh tampon or for the lid of the little bin going. They don't want to be caught rinsing a mooncup at the basin, either.

That seems perfectly obvious to me. Other girls' presence is embarassing enough.

Why have schools and vulnerable children been made the frontline of this battle? The possible answers are open to some sinister interpretation.

So sorry to hear this HerRoyalFattyness. Your friends should be supporting you about your rape. You do have Mumsnet and you would be very welcome on Spinster too (where there are no restrictions on what you can say).

That friend who says "...we can't base planning on the idea that people might break the law."

Do they lock their house and their car on exiting? Why?

My kids are ASD. One of them will be really vulnerable to this, so I completely hear you. It bemuses me that the Tavi are all, gosh, we have no idea why so many autistic girls are on our lists now!

Are they for fucking real? I could give them a list this minute on why. It's blindingly obvious to anyone who knows a damn thing about ASD in women.

And any friend who is more worried about getting her woke card stamped than she is being sensitive to your experience of rape is no loss. What an absolute donkey she is.

An autistic zebra! Who says you don't fit in?

Some people you wouldn't want to fit in with. Your ex friends being a prime example. And they say people with autism lack empathy.

that means mental health issue.

I agree. It's obvious, but these days we're supposed to pretend it's natural variation, like being gay.

Yeah, all the "woke" people I know are "comfortable with unisex spaces and don't see the issue if you're in a cubicle"

I find this hard to understand. I like and spend a lot of time with men. I used to be in a job where in some contents I shared a tent with men and was often the only women. None of that bothered me. I don't, generally speaking, feel a lot of fear about men.

I still strongly prefer single sex spaces in some contexts. I'm willing to grant that some of those preferences may have a strong cultural component, but I don't think that is true of all of them. Sex differences are a material reality that has real impact on people and the sense of privacy is important.

That was a vile message that was posted you OP, absolutely vile and lacking in empathy - whoever said this is a naked hatred of women is correct.

And people should never use the threat of suicide like that - and completely misleading stats - to get what they want. That one's n the abuser's handbook. Along with emotional blackmail.

(Glad you told them to go fuck themselves!)

Hey HerRoyalFattyness solidarity, and sorry to hear you're going through a shit time right now. Hope you're finding the support here useful.

I'm guessing from your description of your circumstances, this might be challenging to do, but if you can find a meet up locally to you 'offline' it might be helpful.

The people I've met as a result of connecting here helped me remember that the majority of people don't think like this. And getting it off your chest with people who are familiar with the debate is also incredibly cathartic.

And what's lovely is that local meets are made up of women with so many perspectives, political, experience, age, etc. It's OK to disagree on things.

Unlike the cult-ish rules of the online world, women from all backgrounds are coming together on this issue.

The 47% stat is a lie.

There was a survey done of a small group of trans-identified people, of whom 47% said they'd considered suicide at some stage. These are people who believe they are trapped in the wrong body. They are unhappy that others don't see them as they want to be seen. It's a distressing situation, and one you might expect to result in desperate thoughts.

She doesn’t get why anyone would feel the need to wash hands or pee out of earshot of men.

No, but she can't dictate how you feel. It might not convince the person you are arguing against but for other readers it lays out clearly that it's about prioritising the feelings of male people over female people.

GoosesGeeses

The question of the starting point is impoprtant because we really can't think things like this through unless we can start from the beginning. To me, the logical starting place with toilets, change rooms, etc is, why do are they sex segregated at all? And we might not all agree about that, I know people who think they shouldn't be, but at least you can pinpoint where you differ, and agree to disagree, or try to understand the other perspective. Heck, you might even be able to say, let's see if we can find some empirical evidence to lend weight to one side or the other.

I've begun to feel like people are no longer able to have discussions like this, not just that they aren't willing, but that they aren't up to it. I have a friend who posts stupid stats about rans and other things, or even real stats but doesn't know when they can be applied and when they can't. (I think that this is a lot of the reason why people are so aggressive and rude. They have no capacity to really discuss.) But you can't really talk to her about it, it's not fruitful. I find myself wondering, were people always like this, or is it new? Because if its just how people are I can't help but think the idea of liberal democracy may be doomed.

I’ve said before, erosion of privacy generally is a big issue feeding into a lot of problems right now.

“ This is why I emphasise arguments of privacy and dignity“

She doesn’t get why anyone would feel the need to wash hands or pee out of earshot of men.

Sending you a very unmumsnetty hug my love. Your tribe are here.

peaktrans.org

Trigger warning though x

I have a friend who “acknowledges the difficulties” for victims but still thinks all this change is great. She said “we can’t base planning on the idea that people might break the law”.

This is why I emphasise arguments of privacy and dignity, it's harder to argue against because they are literally saying that male feelings are more important than women's and it doesn't sound quite so woke.

The most rational core of what they are saying, I think is, to what extent can individuals personal experiences dictate or direct public policy on rights issues for others. In itself that is a reasonable question that doesn't mean individuals experiences don't matter

The issue I have with this is that my individual experience is by no means unique (see for example, the OP!) and in fact is horrifyingly common. It’s a very real issue for a huge amount of women. So it’s not about my own personal lived experience trumping the rights of lots of others or dictating public policy on rights. In reality it’s about a huge section of societys lived experience of being frightened/abused/hurt dictating public policy. I also think as a starting point it totally overlooks the fact that currently it is by rights my (ie a woman’s) protected space. So really, the argument - as far as I see it anyway- is should the current public policy protecting the rights of a big and vulnerable group be overturned by new public policy to protect a much smaller vulnerable group.

But all of this is separate from the OPs ‘friends’ being nought but oxygen thieves for expressing themselves in the way they did to someone they know has suffered in the way she has. Does NOT help their cause though.

Sending hugs

There's a growing movement of people who are wanting to debate this. A young girl going on Jeremy Vine show, who's detransitioning and debating what's been happening. It's going mainstream and people are beginning to be able to debate.
Many many young girls are transistioning and it definitely could do with being discussed.
Most still discuss it anonymously on here and twitter for above reasons.

'What is a woman?' is asked of politicians quite regularly now, by different people who aren't collaborating.

I am sorry they did this to you.
If they understood anything about the dangers of social contagion they would not repeat the lies transition advocates use to market their submit, or die, mythology.