Is this a safe place to ask a question without being flamed?

Do I feel threatened if there is a penis in the cubicle next to me when I have a wee?

Well if I'm in cubicle and a man enters the one next to me wees and leaves I probably wouldn't know so it wouldn't bother me.
But if walks by me I would (probably) know then it might worry me.
If I was in a cubicle with the door wedged open by the buggy because there isn't enough space to take the buggy in (there never is) so anyone passing can get an eyeful while I wipe myself it would definitely bother me - but my buggy days are long behind me.
If like many women have done I could hear very obviously male 'sounds' of enjoyment emanating from the cubicle next to me I would be very concerned.
If I was washing bloody pants at the sink (thanks peri-menopausal flooding) then a man next to me would bother me.

It highlights the difference between men and women when men say they 'just want to wee' in the ladies because women know we do so much more than 'just wee' in toilets ohh and unlike men who can pop said penis out through a zip fastening we have to either drop or lift our lower garments when we do 'just wee'.

But the reason toilets are always the example used by TWs seeking to enter women's spaces is because they are to a degree separate spaces, but the are also the thin end of the wedge so if we say OK to toilets changing rooms with naked bodies follow (see references to the group of nurses or to Leah Thomas in the female changing room) then it's hospital wards and DV shelters and somehow we ended up with penises in female prison cells. Once we blur the line and say some men can access some women's spaces it becomes almost impossible to say which men and which spaces.

Invisible Women, by Caroline Criado Perez. A book, but also a blog for bite sized reading and keeping more up to date than a print version can. https://newsletter.carolinecriadoperez.com/

Not strictly about either trans issues or feminism but gets right to the root of why feminism is needed, and why so much of female daily experience is rooted in the female body. And living in a world which ignores that body.

Experiences that can kill us because car safety tests don't use female crash dummies, because policewomen's stab vests are designed for policemen, because medical trials see female hormonal cycles (and blood test reference levels, and liver processing speed, and immune system difference, and everyrhing else) as a 'complication' to be ignored or eliminated rather than as fundamentally important to our treatment.

I suspect that the muddle in your head relates to the fact that you accept, without question, that 'being trans' makes someone the sex they feel they are.
I suggest It is difficult to appreciate the views expressed here if you start off with that foundational belief as your premise.

I'd say that reading list relates to the essential conflict at the heart of the trans concept and how that impacts upon women and girls and children in general.

'Being Trans' is not like being gay ( which just means being same sex attracted) - 'trans' is the framing device or term given to people who, for whatever reason , prefer or feel the need to present as the opposite sex. It doesn't change their sex. It does not make men women.

I think so much of my confusion is caught up in the stereotyped view of what it is to be a woman that thoughts on important issues are mixed up

We swim.in these sterotypes from birth (additional book recommendation, Gina Rippon'sThe Gendered Brain) so it can take a bit of unpicking.

See, for example, the suggestion by a PP that 'living as a woman' involves wearing women's clothing. I spend at least 90% of my waking hours in jeans, trainers and T-shirt. The jeans are 'women's jeans' because I have a woman's body - with narrow waist and large hips and thighs (which, infuriatingly means I'm usually also stuck with less durable fabric and shit pockets). The trainers are 'women's trainers because I have women's feet - typically we have narrower feet, higher arches, different toe proportions. The T-shirt is a T-shirt, but if I need to wear a coat over it it will be a 'women's coat' because it needs space for breasts and doesn’t need space for a man's larger shoulders. What 'women's clothes' should a transwoman - with a male body - wear in order to 'live as a woman'?

For the feminist understanding of 'what is a woman', it might help to think about what characteristics and life experiences you share with other women (except transmen) and with transwomen but don't share with other men. Are there any that are universal? Are there any that aren't sterotypes? Then think about what you share with all other women (including trransmen) but not with any men (including transwomen).

@StrumpersPlunkett

Regarding feminism, I would recommend the classic text, what I consider to be the Bible for feminists, and that is The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir. It's all in there, but it is a very long read! So you might prefer to start with The Female Eunuch by Germaine Greer - another classic.

I hope you do choose to read The Second Sex. It will change the way you see EVERYTHING.

For more general texts that don't touch in any way on "trans" you could try something like "Misogynies" by Joan Smith, who wrote it in the late 80s. She and many others (Julie Bindel included) often wrote about the issue as it pertained to attitudes apparent in the UK around the time of the Yorkshire Ripper killings in the late 70s.

And then there's more academic-type old-school feminism like Andrea Dworkin and others. Forgive me, it's a long time since I read any "feminist texts" as such but this was the sort of thing we were reading back in the day. Germaine Greer Female Eunuch (and she does mention those she refers to as "Pantomime Dames"). Overall, 2nd wave feminism is what you're looking for.

Oh, and NOT bloody Judith (or Pseudith as I like to call her) Butler. The woman is not a feminist by any stretch.

You cannot beat Germaine Greer for a straight down the line assessment of what it means to be a woman; to be female.

OP in addition to the excellent books recommend above you also might want to check out this one

sheila-jeffreys.com/book/gender-hurts/

And if you look on YouTube you will find some very interesting videos of Helen Joyce speaking on the subject.

Also this is a good website for a feminist analysis of transgenderism and womanhood.

thenewbacklash.blogspot.com/?m=1

Argh when I have tried to look at these things on line it is all from polarised perspectives.

Some people believe a woman is just an idea in someone's head, or a set of stereotypical mannerisms, feelings, or presentations; whereas most others realise that a woman is an adult human female. As simple as that.

Gender and 'gender identity', especially, is a post modernistic social construct; a made up set of prescriptions.

Sex is biology and the body and all that flows from that.

Do I feel that someone I know - who has now been living as a woman longer than she ever lived as a man, should be able to use female pronouns and spaces? - Yes

What does it mean to " live as a woman"? How can someone live as a woman when they are not a woman? A woman is an adult human female - with the biology that reflects that. How one dresses, wears one's hair etc has nothing essential to do with being a woman.

How many women are assaulted by men presenting as men in women only spaces?

It is not so much about the potential for assault as the need for privacy and dignity for women and girls. We have single sex spaces in the sorts of situations in which the body, nakedness, undress, biological function are heightened or central. Most women feel uncomfortable, at least, around strange men when in such situations.

It matters not how someone identifies; they remain the sex they are. People instinctively pick up on clues as they relate to sex.

For me, it's where women are 'allowed' to have boundaries and equality even when men find this limits their freedoms of gender expression.

As you say, just because one woman is fine to get undressed next to a man doesn't mean that other women want to or even are able to. If men are permitted to identify into female spaces then what do we do re facilities for those women excluded then from any space at all in order to give those men the freedom of self expression and self fulfilment? How is that equality of respect and treatment? Shouldn't those spaces be gate kept for women and additional alternatives provided for those who do not want to use sex based spaces? And if necessary this enforced so that men who do not respect women cannot just forcibly remove their access and equality in society from them on the grounds that they're more oppressed so just matter more?

You say not all men with trans or queer identities are abusers. Well obviously not. But the fact remains that some are, and by the MoJ's own figures, we're not talking about low percentages either. Women and girls have been assaulted and raped through experimenting with putting freedom of men's self expression over women's right to a man-free space. How many women is it ok to see harmed before we consider putting female safety ahead of men's self expression? How many court cases have come up regarding a male with trans identity being assaulted and harmed in the men's single sex space in comparison as to how many men have to be proven to be significantly harmed before women have to be inconvenienced? Because I can't think of one case. This is unequal on a sexed basis, not a gender one.

Another question that I often consider: is it a birth given, sex based requirement upon those born female to be a resource for males of any identity? If a man wishes to be in a female only changing room with females undressing, and is unhappy about tolerating a mixed sex space where the females undressing have consented and instead requires that females have to choose between taking their clothes off with him regardless of their disability, culture, faith, beliefs, trauma, feelings, privacy, dignity, or just being excluded from that provision? How is he not requiring that those women accept and submit to being used by him as the price of having access to society?

How is that just not insane male dominance?

If he wishes to undress with women (with no option of refusing consent to him, or right to be consulted), to pee next door to women with their knickers down, to give a woman a post rape exam because she asked for no men but he has a certificate that gives him special rights over her, to be locked up in a prison with women.... where is an appropriate place to put a line in using women? What's the difference between using a woman's body (because no other part of her is relevant or of interest) for validation, to listen and experience her body in a state of vulnerability and distress, to experience her feelings of possible fear and distress or anger, and to actually use that body by touching and assaulting it?

Where is the line where women get to say to men 'I'm a person, not your walking therapeutic resource'?

I am absolutely for others being able to name themselves as they like, dress as they like, live as they like, but not to enforce and compel non consenting others to participate. And this requires additional inclusive spaces alongside spaces that remain female only, and therefore are actually inclusive of all females. Mixed sex 'women's spaces' only work inclusively for men on a sex class basis.

Material Girls by Kathleen Stock
Trans by Helen Joyce
Time to Think by Hannah Barnes

As regards what "living as a woman" is, since several posters have disputed this is possible... I would say a man who wants to be regarded as a woman, uses a woman's name, and dresses in a way typically considered female.

I'm sure he does both of those things. Yet he still lives and breathes as a man. And, to the day he dies, always will.

In reply to your final question - there are lots of trans people who agree with you. As with most sectors of society, the vast majority of trans people are sane, nice, normal, rational. It's the very loud, manipulative, misogynistic crowd who get the attention but they do not speak for all trans people. You could look them up on Twitter, follow them, converse with them.

The problem is, you can, as JKR always does, say until you are blue in the face that you are not anti trans rights, but pro women's rights. And that will unleash the misogynistic fury of SM onto you.

Like you, I feel live and let live about trans rights so long as they don't decimate very hard won, fragile rights that women have had for barely a handful of decades (and in many legal instances, far fewer years that that) in the entire history of humankind.

I think most of us started out at a similar place to you, I have a trans woman in my family who transitioned 25+ yrs ago, who is clearly a traumatised, gay man rather than an AGP - so was similarly conflicted.

Unfortunately the current movement has used these transexuals as a Trojan horse, casting aside any good will women may have felt around these less threatening men.

I can only feel my relative is safe through knowing them, as I do my DH or you do you colleague. Other women will not be able to differentiate between them and the new wave of trans women, nor should they have to.

Therefore access to any men isn't possible. I would openly support a push for a gender neutral addition (not replacement) or for the male toilets to be reconfigured so the cubicles are gender neutral and come first, with a door to the male only urinal area. There are solutions that don't take from women, we just need to keep the discussion about needs rather than wants.

Terrific post.

I feel that I am being pushed to be pro or anti trans rights. For me it is a much more nuanced discussion.

I think this is a false dichotomy. Very few GC feminists are anti-trans rights, if by trans rights we mean that trans people should have the same human rights as everyone else.

The issue is the demands that trans rights activists are making, namely that trans people should have more rights than everyone else, for example the right to decide which toilets and changing rooms they use, and which sports categories they play in. The rights they are demanding clash with women's rights - the right to single-sex spaces where appropriate, and to far, single-sex sports.

Do I feel that people with body dis-morphia should be supported and treated well?

Yes, in the sense that there may be psychological help that will avoid them proceeding down a medical route, with all the problems that brings - this is particularly the case for youngsters, most of whom seem to grow out of their gender distress after puberty.

Do I feel that all people who identify as trans are sexual predators?

No. Many of them, probably the majority, genuinely just want to get on with their lives. But as a group, they seem to commit sexual offences at a higher rate than non-trans people.

Do I feel threatened if there is a penis in the cubicle next to me when I have a wee?

I do. Or at the very least, I feel uncomfortable about it, knowing that he might be a danger to me. Or that he might be doing what other posters have said, eg looking for used tampons in the sanbins, masturbating at the thought of being in a woman's space etc.

Do I feel that someone I know - who has now been living as a woman longer than she ever lived as a man, should be able to use female pronouns and spaces?

I think such a person can request it, but does not have the right to demand it of others. I would comply for someone I knew well, or a colleague at work, or a customer at work - the last two partly because I'd probably get into trouble and possibly lose my job if I didnt.

As regards what "living as a woman" is, since several posters have disputed this is possible... I would say a man who wants to be regarded as a woman, uses a woman's name, and dresses in a way typically considered female.

’Living as a man’ or ‘living as a woman’.

This phrase was first used, I believe , by doctors who were going to perform uro-genital surgery as a condition to proceed. Certainly this was the case with a friend of mine who was applying to the NHS for such procedures in the 1980’s.( I am going to use ‘him’ because he hadn’t transitioned, also I don’t remember much demand for pronoun changes) He had to ‘live as a woman’ for two years, although no one really seemed to know what this meant. It seemed to entail wearing a skirt ( although many of his female acquaintance were generally in trousers or jeans) , a bit of badly applied slap (men’s skin is different from women’s , and does not take foundation well, leaving aside the beard issue) and in his case , a wig , because he had male pattern baldness. It didn’t entail any change in his relationship with his girlfriend or their living arrangements or household responsibilities which were oddly traditional compared to many of his circle. I don’t remember about the name change, because everyone had always referred to him and addressed him by his surname and that didn’t change.He was unemployed, though I don’t know any exclusively female jobs anyway (several exclusively male ones at that time, though).

Anyway, it was convincing enough for the médics, so the procedure went ahead. Now a prominent trans activist, although doesn’t seem happier or more contented. I don’t know whether living as a TRA counts as ‘living as a woman’, because the pivot of their existences seems to be the trans part, not the woman part of the definition.

The girlfriend became very unwell, and has been dead for many years.

It sounds like a lot of what you worry about as a trans ally would be solved by:

1. more acceptance that TW are not W, but are in fact TW and should be as protected from discrimination and harrassment by the law as any other group (Good news! They are!)

2. third spaces so that trans people, non-binary identifying people and their allies can all go there to pee in peace etc, without depriving people who want/need/prefer to retain single sex spaces of those spaces.

Unfortunately that's transphobic apparently.

Do I feel threatened if there is a penis in the cubicle next to me when I have a wee?

Possibly, if it's erect and the transwoman it's attached to is masturbating because he's excited by the sound of me weeing, and there is no-one else in the loos. Not impossible, not unprecedented. There's a reason women campaigned for women-only lavatory facilities.