Just despair - HOW do some women just not get it!

It’s one thing to say we need safeguarding, and quite another for gender critical activists to claim there is “no such thing as a TW” that “it’s all a game of pretend” implying that all TW are predatory men…without exception.

Im not comfortable with the extremist views often aired on trans issues.

Yes, please explain your thinking. I'm no mathematician or statistician but even I can see that when you are talking about the percentage of male sex offenders and the percentage of those who self-identify as trans, you are dealing with a limited and known set of numbers.

Except nobody here is proposing banning TW or anything like that. What people are saying that we should not be compelled to participate in their self image (delusion?), especially to our own detriment - nor should we be compelled to share single sex spaces with them. That doesn't mean they don't exist - how ridiculous!

Comparing % [sex offenders] between trans and nontrans prisoners tells you nothing as to whether there is over or under representation of sex offenders.

Why not? Please explain.

Please explain your comment here. I feel I am missing something.

Please explain to us what these statistics mean to you.

Neither. That statistic is meaningless without a per capita calculation and a general population per capita to compare it to.

I'm not totally convinced that the number of predators in a society will always remain roughly the same. Why should that be the case? If you remove safeguarding and thereby lessen the risk of punishment, and if you encourage victim blaming and the sexualisation of children, and if you say that sex and age are just identities in someone's mind and not real things, and if you say that children can want sex with adults (Tatchell) and if on top of all that you flood society with violent pornography - it's at least possible that this will create more predators and predatory behaviours than we would expect to see if those factors were not there.

In addition, our societal response hasn’t been to ban the existence of teachers, shut down all the schools and home educate children. We all accept the risk and send our darlings off to school. So in a way, I think the reaction to the risk is OTT when it comes to TW.

Er no.

Societal response has been to put in place safeguarding processes and to have single sex spaces.

Only since the mantraing of TWAW are we now having a group of males demand the lowering of the safeguarding processes that are in place.

Or have you not realised 'our darlings' now may have a male teacher watching them in a female changing room or as one of their 'guardians' in an away from home accomodation if they declare they are a female. And that no parent is allowed to know that this is the case so they can make a decision about whether their child should be sent or not.

I mean, parents at a swimming pool in Washington had no idea a young male was watching their 'darling' girls get changed in a holiday camp because they were not told the sex of the person who was in charge of them.

Girlguiding here in the UK has decreed that no parent is to be informed the sex of any leader that is looking after their girl on a trip away.

This is not theoretical, 'our darlings' are currently subject to safeguarding loopholes such as this. You might be comfortable with it. I am not and I won't be told I am unkind, or paranoid for not being comfortable with it.

Laughing same here, science and logic need to be applied. I would also not agree with law being led by religious beliefs.

@FOJN
Approximately 15 - 20% of the male prison population have been convicted of sex offences, 60% of trans prisoners have been convicted of sex offences; either self ID encourages sexual predators to claim a trans identity for nefarious reasons, in which case self ID is a very bad idea or trans people are much more likely to be sexual predators. Which is it?

Neither because you don’t understand the statistics you are presumably quoting.
You cannot say that transpeople are more likely than non transpeople to be sex offenders unless you measure number of sex offenders on a per capita basis against the overall population. Comparing % prisoners between trans and nontrans prisoners tells you nothing as to whether there is over or under representation of sex offenders.

We don't just say, oh well there are wolves out there so let's open the doors to them and let them in.

And as I said before - the people this will harm the most in the end is normal transpeople.

It's like PIE all over again.

I attended the Welsh Labour Women's conference in Aberystwyth on Saturday. Outside the venue half a dozen lesbians were handing out leaflets under a banner saying Sex Not Gender and a suffragette flag. I stopped to chat and tell them I supported them (not that many women were brave enough to do so) and a number of Welsh Labour stalwarts got very angry and tried to have them moved by security guards. One woman came up to them and accused them of desecrating the suffragette flag, shouted at them for coopting it and accused them of betraying the women who'd marched under the flag.

One of the lesbians was able to reassure her that the flag had also been coopted by TRAs. She didn't seem to have any problem with that. These are political women, women prepared to travel for hours or stay overnight to attend a small political gathering.

But the problem is that normal safeguarding in schools is not being applied when it comes to 'trans' in the same way as is now applied to all teachers, policemen etc.

Children are being socially transitioned without the input of appropriate professionals in a way that doesn't happen for other issues. We don't say to anorexic children, yes it's absolutely fine that you don't eat and no-one else must mention that you look thin / ill / mention food to you at all and the school will positively support your not eating. There is a failure of safeguarding above all for the gender questioning children themselves. With any other issue professionals would look at the home environment and see if a sudden change in behaviour was being pushed by parents or a result of the home environment but not this issue. Much of this has been acknowledged in the Cass review and let's hope there will be some changes as a result.

There are also safeguarding issues for other children as well and these have not been considered properly nor, in many cases, different needs balanced as they would be for anything else.

See also: the proportion of transwomen sex offenders in prison.

How come > 40% of transwomen in prison are sex offenders? Either there are an astonishing number of 'wolves' suddenly, or SOs are taking advantage of a 'trans identity' to either access women or gain benefits within the system.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-42221629

But the % of men who are predatory isn’t any larger, so the fact there is a new style of sheeps clothing for a wolf to wear doesn’t mean there are more wolves out there.

When you create a way for predators to bypass safeguarding, to access victims, they will take advantage of it - that's pretty much the definition of what a predator does.

So yes, more predators will certainly use the loopholes to access victims. There may not be more 'wolves' overall, but the 'wolves' that are out there will be delighted to have been offered an open door to the sheep enclosure.

We all accept the risk and send our darlings off to school.

No, we don't 'accept the risk'. We go to great lengths to safeguard against the risk posed by predatory males in schools and everywhere else.

Except now we have a weird situation where, if a predatory male says he's trans, we drop all safeguarding. That's the issue. Trans is treated as a sacred caste that should not be subjected to safeguarding.

@Onnabugeisha

In addition, our societal response hasn’t been to ban the existence of teachers, shut down all the schools and home educate children.

No, but you can't just identify as a teacher either and walk into a classroom unchecked, can you?

Could you explain how you 'pretend to be a transwoman'? Isn't it by stating what gender you are that you are that gender? Or do you think there is any 'test' you can do to see if someone really is that gender?

Good question. Would love to have this answered.

Also, I'm not a TERF, I'm perfectly happy for female trans people to share my spaces. I'm MERF - male exclusionary. But it's not discrimination because it's all men and it's for safeguarding reasons (also privacy and dignity, but primarily safeguarding).

predatory men have often pretended to be doctors, teachers, priests, policemen, precisely to access victims

True and I agree pretending to be a TW is a new avenue. But the % of men who are predatory isn’t any larger, so the fact there is a new style of sheeps clothing for a wolf to wear doesn’t mean there are more wolves out there. In addition, our societal response hasn’t been to ban the existence of teachers, shut down all the schools and home educate children. We all accept the risk and send our darlings off to school. So in a way, I think the reaction to the risk is OTT when it comes to TW.

They also say "this is a female penis" and claim to have menstrual periods.

I agree, up to the point where these views are unquestioningly used to form the basis of laws and policies, such as prisons no longer being single-sex, no single-sex sports, etc.

I’ve recently wondered how a transsexual woman (that is, one who has gone through full transitional surgery) feels about transgender ‘women’ (affectively a man in a dress if they still have their male genitals) coming in to female spaces like toilets and changing rooms etc?

Sure. They say things like: gender is the social meaning of sex, where that means it's the collection of traits, behaviours, preferences and personality types that are socially ascribed to people who have, or are perceived to have, a given body type. Being a woman is identifying with the gender that society ascribes to women (in the sex sense).

OK, so if you have a set of personality types etc, that is actually linked to whether you are male or female? Society is correct to assume that being one sex or another means you are likely to act in a certain way, and if you act in the opposite way, that means you are (or you are like) the other sex?

Of course, and I agree. However I would love if someone would for once come and explain why Katie Dolatowski is currently in a woman's prison, having violently attacked another male inmate while serving time for sexual assault of a ten year old girl. I've yet to hear a single argument of why Katie needs to be in a women's prison that makes sense.