Thank you: Debbie Hayton in the Mail

Good point. It's all about our unspoken courtesy being extended to them.

Where is the men's unspoken courtesy being extended to them?

We rubbed along ok at a societal level, before the attempted erosion of female rights and identity; which is not to deny the frictional dynamics of a cross-dressing spouse.

This reads like forced teaming and a presumption of a right to generalise.

If your almost prelapsarian scenario were true, why is the most common trope to explain transwomen's use of women's single-sex space 'for fear of the reaction of men'? Unless you mean by societal that it was then and now expected for women to budge up. Or is the unspoken part that men have never been expected to 'rub along at a societal level' and adapt their responses or behaviour to accommodate transwomen?

According to AGP research there’s a distinction between men who are aroused by wearing women’s clothing or having a female body/body parts - a vulva or vagina. Presumably some have both. For the men whose greater arousal from body parts, there’s a greater link with surgical transition.

In the wake of Hayton's articles, I've seen some people expressing sympathy on TwiX and arguing that AGP should be accommodated more,

Yup.

It's the entire purpose of the way he writes. He wants it accepted. Sanitised. Reasonable.

As I said, you are absolutely not getting the real deal.

It's a paraphilia. Not a sexual orientation. This will be the thing. Why should I not have a sexual orientation centred on myself?

This is where we're at. A man not being able to sexually gratify himself at the expensive others is distressed by it, and we need to accommodate him.

But hey, what was the OP? '

This is a real attempt at honesty'.

@RethinkingLife We rubbed along ok at a societal level, before the attempted erosion of female rights and identity; which is not to deny the frictional dynamics of a cross-dressing spouse.

And there’s different types of trans - a significant % are gay men, so not in intimate relationships with women; or in the 50s and before, shoehorned into marriage by society contrary to their sexuality. My reading of the US resorts is a combination of AGP + suppressed gay men.

It’s hardly a surprise to read of men’s contempt for women and families in the 50s. It’s fairly representative of the time.

There are just far too many men inclined to coercive control irrespective of gender or sexual orientation. That is a risk people run just for being in a relationship with a male.

I am also struggling to understand the purpose of the "cavity" while he is remaining supposedly monogamously married to a heterosexual woman. This isn't explained anywhere in the excerpt (and I sure as hell am not going to buy the book), I would be interested to hear his answer to that.

In the wake of Hayton's articles, I've seen some people expressing sympathy on TwiX and arguing that AGP should be accommodated more, as a compromise between women's rights campaigners and men with AGP. I have loosely paraphrased to protect the anonymity of an absolute daftie.

Argument: the paraphilia causes them distress and dressing as a woman socially alleviates their distress. Allowing them to wear women's clothes and use a female name at work is a reasonable accommodation to avoid discrimination. Focusing on the sexual element is wrong unless a crime has been committed.

Don't you think an experienced headteacher with a florid turn of phrase could turn that sow's ear into a silk purse?

Yup. From article 3

Debbie teaches physics at a Bristol secondary school; Stephanie — who also used to teach physics — now works for the Church of England overseeing training of the laity in her diocese. Both she and Debbie are church-going Christians.

And they still share a bedroom just not a bed, that sounds quite bleak for his wife.

I do think we have been rubbing along ok with transsexuals, and historically the practice has been tolerated and accepted.

I think you’ll find with lower numbers historically not as many women were being affected, however those women were still being expected to put up and shut up. It’s as it’s affected more women it’s become less tolerated and that’s a good thing.

I don't want to minimise the suffering of 1950s TV wives, but I do think it would have been better to enable women and children to recognise and escape from abuse than to change the rules on TV.

We may end up with a generation of public erotic cross-dressers, but I'll still feel we've won if they are known for what they are, kept away from women's spaces and the classroom, and mocked by mainstream comedians.

Ffs. What the fucking hell does he think his kids think of all this??

Something else bothers me about the article and that is the graphic description of the operation, and he talks about using a dilator once a week and how sexual sensation has returned- he doesn’t have the numbness many people report.

He is monogamously married isn’t he? His wife would have no interest in the cavity he dilates, so what is the cavity for? His sexual sensation must be all about solo activity.

It paints such a depressing picture of a man happy with his solitary, paraphelia-driven self-sex life, while his poor wife has to live a life of celibacy she didn’t choose.

I do think we have been rubbing along ok with transsexuals

The Twitter thread cited upthread and the history of women and children over the years indicates very differently. It's been fine for the men and people have never had to consider the family perspective or those of anyone else.

https://twitter.com/hatpinwoman/status/1752066291630735476

A Barbican exhibition a while back had lots of materials about Chevalier d'Eon and Casa Susanna with diaries, newsletters, and letters from men expressing their contempt and coercive control of their families. (That's how they read to me.)

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4514382/Secret-1950s-cross-dressing-community-revealed-exhibit.html

https://www.messynessychic.com/2020/04/15/found-snapshots-of-a-secret-1960s-catskills-resort-where-men-could-become-women/

DH is still teaching?!

There are two camps with regards to the 'rubbing long previously fine with transsexuals.'

And I'm sure it's largely because there weren't very many of them. So everyone's experience will be different.

But the fact remains that women weren't asked.

Those who were uncomfortable and self-excluded or were distressed and those who were fine, because it hardly ever happened and they weren't distressed by it.

But the point is, we didn't appear to have any choice.

Ah ok, got it.

i'm not sure how more upfront he could be. He's told everyone he's got autogynephilia, a sexual fetish that relies on him presenting as, and people referring to him as, a woman.

It would need a pupil, or a parent of a pupil, to sue the school for knowingly exposing their child to a sexual fetishist who is using them for gratification.

I'm not sure why it hasn't happened.

The Overton window will shift like buggery when we are watching the two sides slug that one out.

I do think we have been rubbing along ok with transsexuals, and historically the practice has been tolerated and accepted. It’s militant activism and demands for female identity and spaces that have caused the backlash.

Attempts to erase women’s rights and get access to their spaces is an ancient story, and women have never rubbed along ok with that, this is simply the current manifestation. It’s interesting that it’s happening at the same time as erosion of abortion rights and increase of prosecutions for ending pregnancy etc.

It proves that men were only pretending to respect women’s rights. It turns out we don’t have the right to our own female identity as distinct from males or to our own spaces after all. We were granted them as long as men didn’t have a use for them and went along with it to keep us quiet.

But Jan Morris was an arsehole and a misogynist and he wouldn’t have rubbed along well with women whatever his sex, he basically despised them.

Isn't it time to be out and proud. Take your whole self to work etc. As Debbie says, Debbie is not a woman. If men want to wear dresses, why not. (Though dress for teachers, the office etc should be suitable.)

Sorry, it's probably me being jaded, and not
being able to sort satire from reality sometimes, but I'm just checking this is sarcasm? (because it's not about the clothes, it's about the fact that wearing them is sexually exciting?)

Reading what hayton has to say is just like reading any trans ideology in that there are lots of suggested reasons and excuses, no real personal responsibility and nothing that stands up to any scrutiny. He uses policy, the heath services, tra when it suits him, and then blames it all when convenient.

He's had surgery, female id, used TRA to force school children to be a part of it, makes no attempt to detransition, yet implies hes a victim. He wasnt forced to do any of that he activity sort it out.

And despite claiming not to believe he is a women, just prefers to dress as one, says its really not possible to refer to him as anything other than a woman now. Hes basically saying, i know its a con, but whats done is done, and read a book about me.

The article in The Mail makes me feel uneasy and I am struggling to put my finger on what it is.

I think it reads in a certain way, appearing to be self-reflective and conscious of the impact on others, that you expect it to end with ‘and that is why I have decided to ‘detransition and have my marriage annulled to allow my wife and children to process it all and decide how they want our relationships to progress in the future’, but it didn’t end like that.

It ends with words to the effect of ‘I’ve had it all my own way all this time and I am actually happy with things like this, so it’s more convenient, less confusing for other people if I continue with having it all my own way’.

I’m sure I’ve known other people do this, acting like they are listening and taking on board what I am saying, but then summarising (wrongly) that what suits them is actually what’s best for me. It’s manipulative and profoundly self-centred.

And in many cases, women being coerced, controlled and abused into silence.

It highlights, among other things, just how very, very sad it is that activism has undermined the wonderful informal compromise that allowed most of us to just rub along with treating trans people as if they were their preferred sex.

Wonderful informal compromise?

The doctors who gave men a piece of paper saying they were legit in thinking they were the opposite sex, never asked women if they minded men pretending they were women and going into their spaces.

They took women not objecting as a 'wonderful informal compromise' when in reality, the women were more than likely petrified of saying anything as they didn't want to be thumped or beaten up.

Wonderful for men
Informal in that people didn't want to be beaten up
Compromise, for the women and girls.