Transman tries to join female and non-binary space

I perhaps live in a bit of a bubble, but I can’t imagine any male space I know batting an eyelid at transwomen being present. Transwomen in male toilets happens sometimes and it’s a non-event. I think most men recognise transwomen as fellow men who have every right to male spaces. The fear is largely self-created or political.

Er, not me, mate. I am an atheist and a human adult female.

But do tell me how you arrived on this planet.

@MissScarletInTheBallroom - that makes a LOT of sense.

I've said this a few times, but I often think that the hole they're trying to fill is the one created by the collapse of organised religion.

(Disclaimer: I had a broken night and have had too much coffee already this morning.)

For over a millennium, most people in the western world believed that God created the world, that Jesus was sent to take away the sins of the world and was crucified and then rose from the dead, something about the Holy Spirit, and that there is an afterlife. Another thing Christian doctrine does is place humans above animals in the pecking order, because man was created in God's image. Religion was hugely significant to most people's lives, from a day to day basis with people being baptised, married and buried in their parish, to the whole community turning out every Sunday to worship. At a political level, numerous wars have been fought over religion, including the question of which is the "right" version of Christianity. My own ancestors left their homeland and came to the UK with nothing but the clothes they stood up in because they were persecuted for being the wrong kind of Christians and didn't want to convert to Catholicism. Their cultural identity was so strong that their descendants continued to educate their children in their native language for another 200 years despite the fact that nobody in their family had lived outside of East London for several generations.

Now organised religion has largely collapsed in the western world, or at least its power has been greatly reduced, and left wingers and intellectuals in particular seem to think that belief in a deity is deeply unfashionable and regressive.

BUT, if God does not exist and humans were not created in God's image, where does that leave us? No better than animals, really. We have just evolved, by chance, to create more sophisticated societies than the ones animals have, and it was us, and not God, who decided that we are superior to other species. When we die, that's it, if we are not cremated then our bodies rot away and all that is left is some bones buried in the earth. And during our short time on earth, we have lost that sense of structure and community that came from centering our lives around the church.

The TLDR version is that belief in gender identity theory is largely for people who think they are too clever to believe in God, but cannot accept that their lives have no deeper meaning than those of other animal species. This is why they accept without question that the words "male" and "female" relate strictly to reproductive sex in all other species, but in humans and humans alone these words relate to identity.

What they don't seem to realise is that they have just created a new religion and are trying to force others to adopt it in much the same way that powerful people in all other mainstream religions have tried to force everyone to adopt their belief system since the dawn of time.

I don't know.

I sometimes think we've managed to create a generation of young people who are so deeply orthodox, doctrinaire, and conservative. What they are conservative about is progressivism and pseudo-marxist transhuman garbage, so they don't realize they are so reactionary, they think they are being forward thinking and open. But they are anything but.

I also find so many young people seem almost entirely lacking in a deeper sense of meaning in their lives, and real connection. A lot of what they do seems to be trying to fill a hole.

That is a very interesting observation @TempestTost - the transman I know best is scholarly, lively minded, exactly like any other scholarly and lively minded woman in her interactions, despite the name and the beard.

What can be done to make young girls feel safe just as they are? Why have the ridiculous stereotypes, that in my schooldays were seen as ridiculous stereotypes, gained such a grip on this generation? Is it all coming from the on-line world?

Most of the transmen I meet seem, to me, to be very typically female in their social persona or manner.

Not stereotypical - like mnot into gossip, "female" topics like fashion, etc. In that sense they may skew to a more masculine stereotype.

But very relational, feelings kinds of people. I spent half my adult years working in mainly male sectors, and they did not behave the way men tend to, even though they would probably have said they didn't fit in with feminine norms.

Years ago, before gender as we know it now was a thing, I spent a lovely evening chatting to a transman friend of a friend at a party.

My male partner wasn't usually jealous but got a right cob on, and I couldn't work out why. After the event he said we were too intimate, chatting 'like women do'.

The trans man may have passed physically but didn't pass socially. My partner had picked up on a difference in their communication style (whether biological, from socialisation or a mixture of both) from how most men would talk. I found that really interesting, and I can see why that might make it really difficult for trans men to socialise with men. It could be really lonely.

Still doesn't make it women's problem to solve though.

Agree.

This has been very thought provoking. While on one hand I very much feel that as trans men are female they should retain the ability to enter women's spaces, we have to look at what that means for the individuals involved.

If I went to a women's anything group, it would be because I wanted female fellowship and freedom from the male gaze for a while. Anyone there that I read as male would change that dynamic.

As trans men have gone out of their way to be read as male, I cant help feeling that if the result of their appearing male is that women don't want them in women's spaces, there needs to be some personal responsibility taken for that. Otherwise this just feels like another stick to beat women with - we're not being nice enough. Why aren't men being criticised for not wanting to hang out with Freddie and similar others?

Also, I would be very worried about potentially misgendering them in public by inviting this 'man' to join the group - there no way I would attempt to guess the gender of an indeterminate stranger these days and I expect I'm not alone in that. And i would be worried that I might not speak for the other women there - they might have had their own reasons for not inviting the 'man' that i don't have the right to override.

I personally wouldn't be prepared to take on all that mental and emotional load out of altruism towards a stranger. And if you think this makes me a big meany (because how very dare a woman actually centre herself) 🤷‍♀️ sorry but I've got my own problems.

Those are examples of people objecting to Frankie and to her sense of personal entitlement, using her own words and actions as the reasons they would find it hard to welcome her. Maybe they should welcome her, but they aren't saying anything about their attitude to any other woman.

Most of us react to our fellow humans on a case by case basis, not as a lump.

Transmen are women, but they carry patriarchal oppression and the assumptions it grows from around with them in the way they present.

Many women don't care for patriarchal oppression, whoever is bringing it along. If someone makes a great effort to display a particular view not just of the world in general but specifically of women, they have to accept that women might not like what they are saying about them.

I don't think those quotes are saying what you think they are saying. Many of the same posters have also said that trans men are women so should be generally accepted in groups like this.

What they are pointing out is that individuals like Freddy are being extraordinarily inconsistent, and often entitles, expecting to be seen as women or men depending on their own whim, sometimes with the expectation that others will just affirm them in the right way at the right time. ANd if you get it wrong you are denigrated as a bigot.

It's not a reasonable expectation and it should not be a surprise that a lot of women balk at it and have had enough of the childishness from grown adults.

I just made a post where I gave multiple examples of people arguing that, because you questioned whether that was ever stated on this thread. I'm not sure what would have prompted me to comment against such sentiments had they not actually been expressed.

I've also already made clear that I don't expect any individual to pick up the responsibility of caring for a mentally ill person. I just don't agree with the rhetoric stating that trans-identified women ought to be excluded from female only spaces simply by virtue of that identity, nor the lack of nuance and understanding regarding why such an identity arises or the personal characteristics of what is a varied group of women.

For the second time you are comparing men violating female single sex space to a situation where no such violation has occurred. A trans-identified woman is still a woman, a trans-identified man will never be and should never access female only space. The only criteria to being a woman is being born female. Obviously a social group can exclude on whatever basis they wish, but general female single space will always be for all females regardless of identity.

Objection to sharing a facility with a trans-identified female is no more logical than objecting to sharing a space with a woman with certain political or religious views. I would not personally want to be friends with a far right evangelical Christian, but that does not give me the right to deny her access to female single sex space. It is no different for trans-identification. Either one believes in sex, which is fact, or one believes in gender as the TRAs do.

Again I question a bit the oughts and the shoulds slipping in.

Some women will be fine with this. Some women will not be. Both positions are fine if you respect a woman's right to their own feelings, perspectives and needs.

Once women are told they 'ought' to welcome a group into their space regardless of their feelings and own thoughts because it is 'right' that they should overcome those feelings for a higher purpose, it's no different really to a male rape crisis leader insisting that women must reframe their trauma for that higher purpose. As Datun has said so well; it's the boot on the neck but just a chat about where it should be placed.

It's also necessary that those coming into women's groups take the same responsibility to do so with consideration for the women they are joining, and not to slide into carer/ recipient of care roles, however unintentionally.

I didn't see where you linked to that.

I think visibly severely mentally ill people are often unwelcome in social settings, partly for the protection of other people who need to preserve their own mental stability, which may be more fragile than they let people at large know.

Whether they 'ought' to be unwelcome I don't know. I'm not sure that ordinary social settings are necessarily going to be easy for them to cope with, and they are not entitled to expect other people, who have their own needs and difficulties, and are at the thing, whatever it is, to do an activity they have chosen. to provide the unwell with extra supports.

You haven't demonstrated how sex specific body dysmorphia is related to stereotypes. It can be, but in some cases it isn't clear where that link is or what the cause is. Again, I've already stated that mutilating the mentally ill is not the solution and they require actual mental health care. But that doesn't mean the underlying cause can be simply ascribed to a single factor. Almost no mental illness is so cut and dry like that, most are complex and multifactorial in nature.

The discussion wasn't about whether an individual should be compelled to seek out the company of a trans-identified woman. It was about whether that woman ought to be inherently unwelcome in female spaces, which was a position that was advocated here, as I demonstrated.

No, mental illness still depends on stereotypes. Anorexia as much as trans identification. The only way to recover is to stop going along with it. And ultimately that is a job for the person with the illness and for their therapists.

A woman calling herself a transman is of course still a woman and entitled to be in women's single-sex spaces, but just as people with experience of anorexics might not seek out their company, likewise with the trans identified.

Anyway this is quite a tangent so I apologise to the OP. But my main point on this thread has always been that trans-identified females should be welcome in female single sex space. To suggest otherwise is to align oneself to TRAs, frankly.

That ignores the body dysmorphia aspect of the mental illness where distress is related to their sex physically i.e. distress by the presence of breasts, their genitalia etc. In many trans-identified people there is rejection of gender stereotypes by attempting to identify out of them, and the desire to change their body physically to match that identity then follows... but not always. Body dysmorphia is sometimes the predominant symptom. It doesn't follow that the right thing to do is for doctors to mutilate their healthy body any more than it would for another body dysmorphic condition such as anorexia or BIID. But it does point to a more complex pattern than being based on gender stereotypes in all scenarios.

Personally, I know trans-identified women who absolutely do not despise women nor use gender stereotypes to define themselves. There was a highly informative AMA thread here several months ago from a young trans-identified female who clearly could not be described in such a way. Again, blanket statements that treat a complex condition as if it has a single cause and explanation are unhelpful and inaccurate.

Trans identification is upholding and promoting sex-role stereotypes. It's the only thing it can do. It is what it is.

And sex-role stereotypes express no respect for men or, particularly, for women.

Yes - hence my initial comment.

• Entitlement attitude. Don’t want to be a woman but want to turn up at women’s events. Sorry but just why?

• So why the hell call yourself a man when you still want to access all things women? Attention seeking bollocks.

• I suspect a lot of Frankie's discomfort ... comes from the fact that she knows she does not really belong at this group.. She's gone through huge health sacrifices to #become a man', realised other men don't want to be her friends and is now trying to get back into women's groups to make female friends

• If you're 'a man' go and join a male walking group?

• If you want to be accepted by men, dressing as a man, taking hormones to gain facial hair and more generally demanding to be treated like a man you shouldn't then access female spaces because you prefer them.

• If this individual wants to opt out of womanhood then why the fuck do they need to attend a women’s hiking group?

• If you want to be a fucking man, go and try your luck there and see if they embrace you as one of their own.

• So why would a transman want to go to a female only meet up. They've decided they're a man.

• They've rejected womanhood effectively. But then want to be in the very spaces they've effectively shunned in favour of wanting to be a man.

Trans-identified people will always have bodies belonging to their actual sex, and some actually do recognise and accept this. There are trans-identified females who would benefit from single sex space, particularly considering the high rates of prior sexual abuse and trauma as causative factors for attempting to identify out of womanhood.

I think there is a difference between saying that specific views and behaviours are unwelcome, which is absolutely fair, and that a woman is unwelcome only because she is trans-identified. How does that speak to women and girls struggling with their identity? Those who already feel in some way excluded from womanhood? How does it speak to women considering detransition? It only seems to encourage people to ignore the truth of their sex and further commit to the insanity and mistruth of being able to 'transition' to another sex.

I also think it is unfair to characterise all trans-identified females as despising women or upholding stereotypes. Sadly many do, but not all, and blanket statements are unhelpful.

Has anyone on this thread said trans-identified females (aka transmen) should be automatically unwelcome in female spaces?

There's been resistance to being pushed into a carer role, there's been a wariness around the honesty of people who apparently despise women and show a commitment to upholding sex-role stereotypes, but also, on the whole, a preparedness to give a woman in that situation a chance to join a group on the same basis as any other woman.