Talking to non GC people

Reader’s Note:

This is illogical.

Creating a law that says to be recognised as being ‘genuine’ transgender status someone has to undergo brutal body medications and will likely be a medical patient on various drugs for life is indeed coercing people to undergo those medical procedures.

Because to have their belief recognised as being valid, people will most definitely undergo these procedures. We know from detransitioners that they will do this.

This legal enforcement is absolutely cruel.

What is ironic is that what some people regard as ‘extremist’ feminists actually agree here (very broadly) that these extreme body modifications should not enforced for a GRC.

From the feminist side, this is because it makes no difference. A male person is a male person and no amount of body modification will change that.

Having a law that requires this modification is forcing people to undergo it to feel valid. As another issue it can also mean achieving certification that allows a predator to access the resources that predator wants access to. And no, this is not arguing that all male people with transgender identities are predators. It is pointing out that it still allows a safeguarding loophole that can be utilised by predators.

“because post-transition trans women look just like women (like the ones I posted upthread here too), are no danger to anyone, and no one bats an eyelid.”

Reader’s note:

There is absolutely no evidence that this is true. None.

There is no evidence that says that a male person at any stage of transition will not commit sexual offences against a female person. There is also evidence that male people even with breast enhancement, surgical castration and taking exogenous estrogen can be violent towards women. And because they have a physical advantage, will cause greater injury than a female on female violent attack.

However, physical safety is not the only consideration for safeguarding
principles to remain strong and exclude all male people from female single sex provisions.

I will copy and paste from up thread.

There are numerous harms.
Harms include:

-Rape and sexual assault.

-Violence.

-Sexual abuse that is not rape or sexual assault.

-Sexual abuse that also includes solo sexual acts or using the experience in future sexual acts.

-Any other abuse that may include verbal abuse, intimidation in any way etc, this includes inappropriate questions and comments.

-A male person's presence where female people need privacy and dignity.

-A male person's presence where female people need to feel safe from any male person's presence (over the age of about 8 years old).

-Female people self-excluding knowing that there may be a male person accessing that provision.

-Female people not having the freedom to discuss the issues that cause them distress, concern, or that they need to talk about because a male person is present.

-Female children (and female adults) learning to have no or too low personal boundaries because they have been taught that male people are female people and that they should ignore and overcome feelings of discomfort.

Narrowing the discussion to sex and violence offences does not remove these other harms from consideration for female single sex provisions and many of the above are directly applicable to toilet provision as well as, of course, other single sex provision.

Expecting people with transgender identities to undergo extreme body modifications that are likely to be life limiting and potentially life shortening to be considered transgender or to achieve legal certification that they can access opposite sex single sex provisions or to change material reality, fits the definition of ‘extremist’.

'No bad actor would take all the hormones and make himself look so feminine and have a mastectomy and grow his hair and look SO much like a biological woman simply for the purposes of using the women's loos and changing rooms!'

Reader’s note:

Of course he would. Throughout history there are examples of male people doing many things people would believe improbable to achieve their end goal of being accepted as what they are materially are not, or getting access to the resources that achieve their sexual goals.

This argument has always been fallacious for so many reasons. Yet it is still used.

It is also manipulative in that it presents this action as both an act that deserves the reward of access to the label ‘woman’ and what that gives the person and it asks the listener to put aside very well learned lessons about how abusive male people behave. This is about declaring something that is well known, some people will do extraordinary things to achieve their goals even such degrees of self harm is not to be believed about a specific group of male people. The aim is to lower people’s boundaries.

You want a 'middle ground' but you are not understanding that it is simply....not....possible.

The only middle ground is third spaces. That, is the only middle ground. Your fantasy of a 'middle ground' is an unworkable pipe dream. If you had paid any attention to the feminists in this section you would have worked that out long ago.

The crux of the problem that the Be Kinders and Politicians are still trying to figure out.

It's just like the NI and Brexit issue. You can't just do what you want.

It's not about GC women being mean. The whole framing GC as mean is misogyny in its own right.

Men can't become women. This matters. You can 'socially transition' but you can't erase history, change biology or ignore legal frameworks because they don't suit your agenda. This isn't GC women's fault or bigotry for pointing this out.

You can't middle ground this. It's impossible.

genuine medical and social transition

Meaningless.

I agree. I don’t believe there is one male person who will ‘pass’ 100% of the time to 100% of people.

It is a myth, in my opinion. Yet we are constantly derided that the ‘we can always tell’ is false when it comes to male body cues. I don’t believe it is false. The ‘we’ is, of course, referring to the world’s population, not to a few people on the internet with no contact with someone.

It might be recognising the proportion of a person’s hands, their gait, their posture, noticing where their elbow is, seeing their knees, seeing their ears and their ear placement, the space between their eyes, the position of their eyes. There are so many different cues.

And, @SoftBalletShoes , hormones also don't change the male voice (if you google you will see male vocal cords are formed differently from females, so they need operations on their vocal cords, and even that doesn't give them a truly female voice), so how do you propose to balance the right of a rape survivor who would literally drop to the floor in fear when they hear a male voice in the ladies vs that male voiced but on hormones male? Whose rights matter more? Have you forgotten that bit about voice?

You want a 'middle ground' but you are not understanding that it is simply....not....possible.

The only middle ground is third spaces. That, is the only middle ground. Your fantasy of a 'middle ground' is an unworkable pipe dream. If you had paid any attention to the feminists in this section you would have worked that out long ago. Your fantasy is an unworkable pipe dream. You can't change male height. Male strength. Male lived experience. Or male voice.

You can't make it legal. It's literally against trans people's human rights to make anything, any right, dependent on medicalisation. The State itself would be breaching human rights conventions if it introduced any text subjecting any right to medical procedures. It literally isn't allowed to do it.

It's not about what anyone wants. It's about what the State itself is allowed to do or not do.

How do you propose I do that? I can't. GC women can't. It's also not in their interests to. Maybe someone could get off their arse and campaign for it.

How do you propose the government do that anyway? It's not something they can legally do. Oh wait, you mean you have got the faintest foggiest idea what the fuck you are talking about when you come on here woke scolding?!

Perhaps go away and do your research about why this isn't possible as an option and get back to us all in your superior wisdom.

Your arrogance really stinks. You assume you have this magic solution that no one else here might have considered. You assume we are all ignorant. You prejudge us as bigots and motivated by bigotry.

You don't get to lecture us like this. Go and educate yourself.

Just no. The answer is always no.

That's good in theory but even with hormones they are still demonstrably male.

And they've never had the lived experience of growing from a girl and getting periods and being sexually objectified while walking in public. They have male lived experience. And were born with and will always have, Male Privilege. Taking hormones won't change their 6'2 height or their strength, or their lack of any lived experience as a girl or woman.

Why? Why should a democratic society have laws that impose falsehoods over material reality?

Why should it be legislated that some people’s philosophical belief about themselves that doesn’t reflect material reality is to be observed as if it is everyone’s material reality?

I started watching a TV movie the other day. We get introduced to a woman as she's driving her car. Pretty woman, nothing out of the ordinary.

As soon as she left the car and started walking, I went, "Eh? That's a transwoman." Checked the actress, and yup, sure enough.

I have more anecdotes like this one, including real life ones.

Transwomen don't pass anywhere as well as TRAs like to believe. I'd say it's the very lucky transwoman who passes at all some of the time, let alone always.

Josh transitioned at primary school. He now goes by the name Sophie. No one at high school knows the past. Sophie is stealth.

On what planet should Sophie be allowed to share changing facilities with his peers?

Scenario 1
Sophie turns 14 and he starts getting facial hair and his voice drops and he shoots up at height. All the girls are unhappy about the arrangements and make a complaint. I can't tell them anything but just get on with it, because they are being transphobic to complain.

Scenario 2
Sophie turns 14 and detransitions. The girls now dealing with Josh become upset because Josh saw them naked in year 7.

Scenario 3 is just Josh transitioning at high school when everyone knows.

Just what the fuck does this teach kids? How does any of this respect the privacy and dignity of the girls?

So make it legal. Trans folk need to compromise, too. They're not the only ones with rights. Imo, if they want to use women's spaces, they have to have undergone a genuine medical and social transition, supervised and certified by a doctor, to include a full course of hormone treatment, and the GRC should be dependent on that.

Nobody would be forcing anyone to undergo treatment. Trans women would be perfectly welcome to not transition physically and continue using the men's.

RedToothBrush mentioned it, but it bears repeating: making a right dependent on invasive medical procedures is illegal because it infriges on the individual's human rights. Even the obtention of a GRC cannot be dependent on hormones or surgeries.

So either it's ALL transwomen (since all can obtain a GRC), or it's NO transwomen at all. Any in-between solution is outright illegal.

Photos on the internet are not real life. Notice the way how many of them have to pose in unnatural positions in an attempt to hide their male body cues for a start.

In uncurated and software adjustable real life, there will be female people who will correctly identify the sex of even the male who has undergone the most extreme body modification. Even from puberty.

In addition, as those male people age, their genetics will change their bodies using their genetic coding and so their features will change with age following that coding. Meaning they will likely have to have further surgeries if that is possible.

putting up photos of male people in this way is meaningless. They are male people still. Likely with extreme body modification to achieve a particular appearance.

I do not want to get undressed in front of a man I'm not in a sexual relationship with. Any male. Even a man I've previously had a relationship with or my son; men I trust and respect.

There are men in my life who identify as trans. One in particular that I know, I do think is lovely. I know he wouldn't harm me. I've known him since he was ten. We helped him with various things as he grew up into a 6'3" strapping bloke.

And that's just it. I will never be able to put my past knowledge aside and see him as female, with all the kindness and love and best intentions in the world. Simply because he's a male. And will be no matter how many hormones or how much surgery he has. Because I know, and it still matters to me in terms of my own privacy and dignity.

The idea of having to share a changing room and get dressed in front of him is horrendous. I feel embarrassed and shamed and undignified because he's male and I'm female. If there were other women in the room, how would I feel about staying silent about it? I wouldnt feel happy. I'd feel like I'd violated them and withheld information which would change their consent if they knew.

And I will always know this. This isn't bigoted. This is a natural instinct designed to protect us combined with socialisation. Asking us to override these feelings and distress us in the process is not ok. I'm sorry but you can't switch this off. More so if you have had a traumatic sex related experience.

There are plenty of situations where women and girls are being asked to put aside this knowledge and get their kit off. There is absolutely no way to stealth hide your sexed body in these scenarios. All this guff about passing is fucking irrelevant in these cases. The court cases we are seeing ALL have people who are openly trans. So why do we persist with this idea that somehow transwomen are people unknown to you and you don't know their trans status?!

Faked photoshopped pics with filters are at best a shit argument. At worse they are a dishonest representation to, once again, deflect from the points that women make about their actual lives and lived experience.

This isn't a theoretical lesson in morality and ideological purity. This is about (oh shit the irony klaxon just got fixed and is going off) practical every day scenarios which women have to deal with in their actual lives. God forbid women get to actually talk about this and have it recognised.

“the hormone treatment turns men effectively into women for all practical purposes like safety. It dampens sex drive and gets rid of much muscle, replacing it with fat. (This is according to the "Feminising Therapy" page of The Mayo Clinic, which is the world's no. 1 hospital.)”

This is egregious misinformation and it should be removed from that site. We know from the sports studies and the sports testing regimen, plus from reading reports from clinicians that testosterone suppression effects (without removing the testes) is unreliable. Even on a regular consistent dosage.

And we also know other things from the sports studies.

Firstly, even the weakest 25% of male people have more strength than 90% of female people. Therefore, they most definitely are a significant risk to female people.

Secondly, that the loss of muscle mass is only from male people who deliberately stop any activity that will sustain their muscle mass. It is a deliberate act. Muscle mass can also be retained with training if that male person wanted to. And regained. So no, a male person choosing to change his physical profile is not evidence that reducing testosterone ‘weakens’ male people. It simply proves that male people can use different methods of changing their body’s appearance.

It is also why the international sporting organisations have now excluded male people with suppressed testosterone competing as female people. The science was conclusive and that wrong decision by those sporting federations has been reversed. Sadly, there are people still spreading these out dated theories.

Thirdly, weakened male people still have significant other physical advantages that will never be removed and are based on their male physiology. So weakened muscle mass becomes somewhat irrelevant.

Leverage from skeletal differences, bone density, twitch muscle proportions, hand size, hip alignment and posture are just some of the other advantages that will contribute to male person being able to overpower a female person. These are also noticeable in boys vs girls from 6 or 7 years old.

The sports evidence thread upthread has these studies and papers linked up on it. The science is already proven. This information you have written about muscle mass is false. Please stop spreading misinformation.

Testosterone suppression does not mean a male person is committing sex offences. Sexual abuse and sexual assaults do not require a working penis. A poster once posted a study that also showed that castrated men still were very capable of sexual violence, sometimes due to frustration, I will see if I can find it.

We know though that male people even have eunuch fetishes and fantasies and there are people actively discussing doing surgeries on themselves or on each other. This is one of the known male paraphilias and there have been at least one eunuch fetishist involve at senior advisory level with WPATH.

So no, fewer erections and weakening themselves does not make them women. It also has fuck all effect in reducing safety issues.

Also, how can redistributing fat and reducing testosterone be considered changing sex? Being male is hard coded into every cell and is unchangable. Dr Robert Winston stated this very clearly on UK national TV. Many other medical experts have said the same thing.

If those were definitive changes, an ill male person who is undergoing treatment for disease where testosterone is suppressed would be eligible to be considered a female person.

Thanks though, your points also highlight the inherent and significant misogyny in those who consider these aspects as changing sex. Because you have described female people as just weakened, suppressed testosterone male people amongst other things. Such as female people also having a low male libido and male sexual intercourse behaviour- without prostrate and penis.

This means the female aex category that is not unique, but accessible to the entire world population if they chose these methods. The very opposite of unique and distinct. And the very opposite of definable.

This is misogyny in action.

Please stop spreading misinformation, even information being wrongly given by sites with seeming medical authority.

Again, the law fucking sucks mate. This as a 'workable solution' has been defined as a none starter. What you think is bloody irrelevant.

And it's not about 'pleasing' anyone. It's about lawful protections you aren't allowed to pick and choose because it suits a trans agenda. Women have legal rights to protection from harm and to their dignity and privacy.

Until these are recognised and considered in any strategy then women will continue to say 'fuck this shit', not because they are 'anti trans' but because their legal rights and protections are being ignored and ridden over rough shot to please males.

It's not about being nice. It's about the fucking law.

You see nothing reductive in a definition and opinion made by YOU, which is deliberately ignoring all the difference points of reference and experiences of a bunch of women on this thread who you are actively telling have opinions that don't count and definitions you don't agree with and present evidence you have don't like...

... and you think you aren't being reductive.

Oh dear, the irony klaxon just broke.

Hello Clever Clogs giving it the 'the GC are being dicks because they don't accept x'.

I do not agree with self-ID and I think that a completed transition should be required to get a GC. By that I mostly mean a completed hormonal and social transition. Doesn't have to be surgery.

Well it's tough shit what you think on this, because courts have ruled that you can't make a distinction like this - you can't make transition dependant on medicalisation so that argument there is stone cold dead. It's irrelevant. It's regarded as a human rights related issue. So instead of complaining that GC women are the problem, actually know and understand why we are at where we are.

The GC lobby won't have it, but the hormone treatment turns men effectively into women for all practical purposes like safety.

The GC lobby won't have made up nonsense that has no scientific basis. 'All practical purposes' my arse. That's a definition that's doing some heavy lifting. It's not what the data says. Who says what 'all practical purposes' means anyway. Frankly it's not going to change shit relating to dignity and privacy related issues for starters. Now one of the practical reasons I've wanted to have access to single sex provision has been related to outdoor sport. As part of this there was a group I was interested in which focused on the barriers women faced and what was putting them off.

They had a talk and it was about how the socialisation of men in outdoor sport was so off-putting. They are more macho and want to take more risks whereas women are more cooperative and collaborative and like to learn at a different pace. One of the reasons for this isn't to do with aggression. It's to do with physical size and strength - for example, women have to learn skills much more than rely on brute strength. Taking hormones doesn't stop a man still being 6'1 and all the equipment being designed for them nor does it stop their reach and ability to paddle in a different way to women. It doesn't make it harder to carry a boat by yourself...

Then there's the other issues. Child care and periods and menopause. All of which create unique barriers that women have that men don't. The talk went on at length about the impact of this and how women didn't feel comfortable talking about these issues around men and how it affected confidence. There's a lot of elements regarding bodily dignity and privacy here as the subject is highly personal to many women in terms of their lives experience of this. No hormones change your inner biology and make men have periods or go through menopause and how this affects muscle strength and bone strength in women. Frankly a man in this conversation is an intruder and an observer with the best will and the most amazing drugs on offer.

And of course at the end of this talk along came a man to demonstrate how he'd completely missed the point of the majority of points covered in the previous 30 mins by declaring "can transwomen join", which killed off all other questions and made everyone listening disappear at speed. It was fascinating to watch.

So in terms of 'all practical reasons' the fact that this is being defined by individuals who place no value on any of this, and dismiss it as not a practical reason for the purposes of their argument really says a lot about who is making those judgements. It's not women.

What you see in these conversations is the repeated pivot by trans activists to safety together with a blackmail element.

So we talk about toilets and TRAs throw a hissy fit about how very dare you talk about safety because that's not fair to my gentle mate, who wouldn't hurt a fly. Thus a) dismissing the lived experience of any women with trauma around men and lived experience of any woman who has had a negative experience with a transwoman relating to safety (which we know is happening and we know isn't being reported for various reasons) and b) choses to ignore the dignity and privacy elements for women.

TRAs DO NOT want to talk about b. They have the argument that it breeches the privacy and dignity of transwomen to force them to use the mens, but they do not want to reflect on the impact to privacy and dignity of women caused by males entering their spaces. It's a one sided conversation in a debate which is about equality and how everyone has a right to privacy and dignity.

In these conversations, you see it time and again. Whenever this is pointed out and women start talking about the importance of b, you see a deliberate pivot by TRAs to return to 'how very dare you talk about how transwomen are a threat to safety', because it shifts the conversation. It's a deflection and distraction technique.

Women should be making decisions about what is important to them and what the weasel phrase 'all practical reasons' means, because it's reflective of their lives experience and how it differs from what males see and value.

Every single time I have the conversation about 'well why do women need single sex stuff' and I talk about how it's been useful and really beneficial to me, every single person who has gruffly and indignantly tried to trip me up with it, has gone "you know what you actually have a point there, that's fair and worthwhile" and this is what pisses me off. They don't think about it and it's not something they'd us but it's something of value to others and they get benefits from it. Once they know and have visibility of this, they shift in opinion. But they are happy to throw away stuff they don't know about because it's not on their radar. Worst still they often don't want to have conversations that reveal this type of women's stakeholder position because those conversations in themselves they've already prejudged to be 'transphobic' rather than merely woman centric, because they are a bunch of dicks - often literally a bunch of dicks.

So perhaps for once, get off the pot and actually LISTEN to women rather than trying to blame women for legal issues that are nothing to do with them and to reasons why 'for all practical reasons' is a weasel phrase defined by men for men and not reflective of the world of lived experiences that women have.

Still men. Also wondering about the use of filters.

because post-transition trans women look just like women

Lol, no they most certainly do not! They may take 'titty skittles' and grow 'tits', but they will still have male jawbone, adams apple and male voice. As well as male gait (which means walk, and stance/way of standing) because of the position of the male pelvic bone which affects movement.

This has already been explained to you, and faked photos really don't prove your point.

We know she only looked up the word for breast implants after her mistake was pointed out to her...

And even then, the term is Breast Augmentation. Not Mammoplasty.