If you're GC, what should trans people actually do?

If she were an athlete or wanted to be a competitive sportsperson, how would she go about that - or would she just not?

Some sports are changing or already have the categories of female and open so she could compete in the open. That is how it is already so it’s not some fictional GC world. I don’t get what’s unfair about that situation? Also I don’t get why we’re supposed to care that some male can’t compete in the women’s because they’re male yet the majority of the female population can’t because they wouldn’t be able to get a place either. If you’re short you’re not going to be a basketball player or rower etc

The notable thing about your post is your underlying, probably unconscious, attitude to women and girls.

You seem incredulous in your ‘what should trans people do’ question, yet it seems unproblematic to you that what women and girls should do is give up the rights to win their own sports, compete safely in their own sports, give up places on sports teams, not be safe in prisons, refuges, changing rooms, not have privacy or dignity or the right not to be naked around naked, and so on.

Why are you not questioning why women should have to ‘do’ all that?

Ok, I’ll bite. They could wear whatever clothes they wanted to, and do whatever they want with their own bodies. As for toilets, changing rooms, sports etc, they could use the third spaces they campaigned for. I, and I’m sure most GC women, would be right there beside them, campaigning for them

This with bells on.

Also what @Ereshkigalangcleg said - that our concerns are recognised and acknowledged and not, as we are so often are accused of being jealous of them doing woman better.

It's not my business what they do.

I believe in protecting female spaces, the rest is nothing to do with me.

I'd like to understand what someone with gender critical views thinks trans people should do.

Trans people can do whatever they like, as long as it doesn’t encroach on my right to women-only spaces.

names, pronouns, surgery, clothing, relationships, social spaces, work, sports.

I’ll call anyone by whatever name they have chosen for themselves. You can use whatever pronouns you like but you can’t insist I talk ABOUT you - i.e. not even in your presence - as “she” if you’re a he, sorry. (Oh, and I am NOT a “cis” woman, because I have no gender identity. “Woman” will do nicely. Thank you.) Mutilating surgery should be banned for all minors, as should experimental puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones - basic safeguarding, in other words. I don’t give a shiny shite what other people choose to wear. Trans people can date/have sex with any consenting adult they like. The only “social spaces” I want to keep exclusively women-only are sports, toilets, changing rooms, refuges, prisons, hospital wards, etc. As long as I get a woman health-care professional for my smear test when I ask, I really don’t care what anyone else does for a living.

How should Laverne speak about her own identity? Should Elliot not have had top surgery?

My concern is the affirming affect on vulnerable, gullible, malleable teenagers. Page looks and sounds horribly depressed, I saw an interview where Page smiled only once - when the interviewer told Page they were brave and inspiring (or somesuch), hardly an endorsement for “trans joy”. I don’t know who Cox is and don’t care enough to google.

I'd really like to understand what the world looks like for trans people if we carry GC views through to their end points.

Given that puberty “cures” the majority of gender dysphoria (80+%), I’d ban all blockers and cross-sex hormones in under-16s. I’d prefer under-18s tbh but 16 is old enough to consent to sex, contraception and marriage. In my ideal GC imaginary world there would be NO detransitioners, because NOBODY would be harried down the transition route after one or two counselling sessions. Men, however they identify, will keep out of women-only spaces, just as all good men do already, today, right now. Children would be taught that sex is binary and biological, and that it is impossible to change sex.

None of this is radical stuff, @AmaListening .

And women are quite right to distrust men (nothing to do with disliking them). Men (however they identify) commit 99% of sexual offences. And that is all the reason needed to exclude then from places where women are vulnerable.

It’s really very simple. You live your life without encroaching on the rights of others. Stop expecting us to capitulate to your demands. Stop acting as though you’re the most oppressed ever in the world. In short: see life beyond your myopic worldview.

I think broadly speaking they can do whatever they want without trying to enforce their ideology/way of being on other people.

Particularly with trans women it is extremely aggressive at the moment, like an extension of the patriarchy, biological women’s rights are to be sidelined in favour of the man who wishes to be a woman.

I find it particularly concerning that children and young adults are being so caught up in this. Rather than being told to love themselves and to be confident as a man/woman behaving however they feel naturally and dressing how they’d like…. They’re being told to reject their sex if they don’t fit in with stereotypical norms, to take damaging medications and to mutilate their bodies.

I think it’s quite dangerous and personally do not feel as safe as I once did in women’s spaces as predatory men will feign being trans to gain access.

What I would have is that gender dysphoria is seen as the medical issue it is and that people are properly assessed and supported with it.

This is the only way I can see of avoiding people who aren’t actually trans, who are being unfairly influenced by the media, from being permanently harmed. While ensuring genuine trans people get the help they need and access to services (that aren’t overwhelmed with people who shouldn’t be there).

As for toilets, use mixed gender or disabled - women shouldn’t be put at risk of sexual assault. And I’m sorry but physically in their DNA trans women are male; their bone structure, musculature, development is male and there is nothing that can change that. They shouldn’t be competing in sport against biological women because they have unfair advantage.

Quite.

A little thought experiment for the OP if they ever return... Where do they place all the transmen sex offenders? We hear every week about a new very serious violent trans woman offender and where the authorities think it is right to place them. Tumbleweed and crickets about the hordes of transmen there must be committing violent and sexual crimes.

Curious.

Thanks @Lwrenagain

The Laverne Cox question is a red herring—LC is a popular celebrity. Does it seem unfair to expect someone who looks like LC to use the men’s? Sure, but the question isn’t about LC. It’s about all the men in the world. There isn’t a separate rule for elite people that pass. If we have self-ID, any man can go into any facility any time. No thank you.

Also, I’ve admitted this seems a bit hard on LC. The thing is, and it seems ridiculous to have to say this, women are allowed to support their own rights. We aren’t morally obligated to put men’s rights ahead of our own.

You know enough about this subject to come to MN and FWR and start a thread ... but not enough to know the answers to the questions you're asking?
Try harder next time. 🙄

This is not about being gender critical at all. It is just about a dislike/distrust of men

has it occurred to you yet that you don’t understand what being gender critical means?

I think transwomen should use unisex facilities as a basic principle, for their own and everyone's safety. That said, those androphilic transwomen who genuinely do "pass" very well, have always tended to use women's bathrooms and changing rooms in practice without being noticed or registered (and since they're unlikely to pose any threat to real natal women, I'm not massively bothered by this). My main concern is that I don't want women's facilities being used by the AGP transwomen and by men who are not actually trans in any way but who have dodgy reasons for entering women's bathrooms and are chancing it because they know that in the current climate it is hard for women to challenge the presence of men without being accused of bigotry.

All our lovely husbands can't go in the women's loo either and it's also because "Keith with the bad wig won't stay out".
What's the difference? What makes the naice bloke in a dress a better fit for women's loos?
It's not disrespectful to keep him out no matter how old and kind his artificial vagina is. And we don't care how naice or old his coochie is. That's for his partner to know.

@MsRosley I agree with that in principle, but (only in my opinion) many transfolk coming through don't have GD.

I'm finding friends of mine with relatives who in their later years seem to want to wear womens clothes, I've no issue with it, but it's not because they've lived a life of hell hiding their GD etc, it seems to be related to either fetishism, breakdowns, or bandwagon mentality.

I asked one particular person I'd grown up knowing, my friends uncle, how long he'd felt he wasn't living in the right body etc and he was looking at me like I was speaking in alien. He literally just fancies dressing differently now, no shame in that, I don't disrespect how he chooses to dress at all, but he isn't seeking medical /MH support, he just wants to be a new name and use the same toilet as women.
That doesn't fill me with confidence it's GD. Absolute mind fuzz, navigating what's what these days.

I worry for those with GD for so many reasons now and this huge parade of letting bad eggs into their community with open arms, only acceptance and no due diligence, is not a wise move.

ETA I do like men. I have a son. He's awesome.

@ASGIRC

This is not about being gender critical at all. It is just about a dislike/distrust of men.

👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼👏🏼

Yes! Top of the class and a gold star for you. I don't trust men and I have good reason for that mistrust. Women's spaces are women only because I'm not the only person who have recognised that many men are a risk to women. Many of those people are men.

They should be banned from schools and urging children to transition. They should not be allowed to target schools with their ideology.

I’d like the extremes of the movement simply to recognise me as a distinct, autonomous being.

For them to ask me to accept they TWAW in order to accommodate trans people’s perception of themselves is to ask me to redefine myself as something I neither understand nor share - a gender identity.

For them to ask me to accept that TWAW to accommodate trans people’s perception of themselves is to ask me to accept my political, social & cultural recategorisation - and thereby give up certain rights that were contingent on my prior categorisation, designed to mitigate the disadvantages presented by my biology.

And to ask me to accept TW in female-only spaces is to ask me to perceive each & every TW in the image in which he perceives - or simply chooses to describe - himself; to replace my own perception of reality with his (the use of the male pronoun is important here in order to make this point).

Please think about this. If anything is negating a person’s autonomy in this whole, agonising debate, it’s this. Because this isn’t just a matter of courtesy. If it were, it’s still a huge ask - but it’s not. It’s asking women to disregard natural instinct & objective knowledge - that he’s far stronger than me; that he has the capacity to kill me - simply on an individual male’s say-so: “I say I’m a woman, therefore it’s ok.”

The last time I got into a lift with a strange man alone, I told myself I was silly to worry. He spent the journey deliberately intimidating me. Body language only, subtle… but unambiguous. Throughout that interminable period, he made sure that I knew, quite simply, that whatever happened to me next was up to him. Yes, I could try various things - struggle, try to get to the emergency stop behind him, yell. But, really, what chance would I have? He knew, & I knew, that if he, this total stranger, whose mind I couldn’t read, whose motives I could never know, wanted to hurt me - he could. If he wanted to do worse - he could. It was that simple. Up to him. Not a matter of 50:50 or even 70:30; not a case of I’d give as good as I got. He had all the power, I had, effectively, none.

Every single time that a woman enters an enclosed space with an unknown male, this is an act of faith on her part, in which she plays the odds that he won’t choose to hurt her, or worse.

And the odds may be very good, but the stakes? The stakes are bloody high.

I’ve never got into a lift alone with a man since. I live abroad, go out at night, walk home alone - I’m confident, I don’t limit myself. But why take this extra, unnecessary risk?

More than anything else, I want men in general to understand this. Most of us don’t live our lives in fear, but women must live with this unceasing, necessary awareness of our own vulnerability.

To those who say, But men are more often the victims of violence!: They’re also more likely to instigate it, & more able to resist. Women’s experience of male aggression is as prospective prey as opposed to prospective rival (however ill-matched). It’s different.

To those who say, you’re exaggerating: Look at Everyone’s Invited, & rape & femicide stats. Ask yourself how we can possibly know when a man may escalate or not.

To those who say, I couldn’t live in fear like you do: I truly don’t! I think a good analogy for this is the hazard perception test for drivers. I’ve driven across a continent & loved it, all the while continually, subconsciously alert to the parked car, the running kid, the red light. Similarly, I live my life well, but women do, instinctually, register (click!) the lone man, the (click!) dark underpass, the (3 points!) rustling bush to a degree that, I suspect, anecdotally, at least, would be unrecognisable to many men.

To those who say I’m reducing women to their biology, making victims of them, or - what was it? - fetishising female weakness?!: I don’t believe that acknowledging & accommodating the realities of biological difference is an admission of weakness or inferiority, or equivalent to defining women by their bodies. I in fact wonder if assumptions that it us say more about the preconceptions of the person interpreting it that way.

In summary - I exist, too.

Doping isn't allowed in sport. The non-binary footballer who appeared at the World Cup does not take testosterone.

If you choose to take testosterone then you do so knowing that some doors will be closed to you.

I really want so called “trans people” and their allies to stop bleating on about being the most marginalised and vulnerable in society. They will never be the opposite sex so should stop demanding GRCs (,Males)entry in to women and particularly lesbian groups or where even one woman objects and says no. They should stop demanding surgery , especially young women/ girls. I have every sympathy with people with mental illnesses and other conditions but none for this new breed of misogynists who have never shown any consideration towards actual women. Respect that no means no.

This is not about being gender critical at all. It is just about a dislike/distrust of men

No. It's about the most basic fucking risk assessment.
Males as a sex class are responsible for almost all the sexual assaults and murders with the majority of victims being female.
So ALL men stay the fuck out of all FEMALE ONLY spaces because we don't know which are the bad ones. Wearing a dress or make up or even taking hormones doesn't suddenly make a man harmless or benign, as is shown every day by TRA'S threats to women who say no.

Transmen do not pose that threat to men because they are female.

Imagine a group of men thinking it's their 'human right' to access all spaces where women and children are at their most
vulnerable. Kind of proves they are men tbh. They have the power and privilege as men to simply disregard women's sex based rights and protections on a whim whilst being applauded for it.

I think the solution is don’t take drugs if you want to compete in sports. 🙄