Aren't transpeople still a tiny minority?

I live in London and in my local area we definitely have a dearth of public facilities. Toilets in our local park are mixed - I use them without thinking during the day and wouldnt use the in the dark same as with single sex toilets, mainly because I dont think that rapists who are likely to attack me in the dark care about such petty things as toilet signs.

I live in London and in my local area we definitely have a dearth of public facilities. Toilets in our local park are mixed - I use them without thinking during the day and wouldnt use the in the dark same as with single sex toilets, mainly because I dont think that rapists who are likely to attack me in the dark care about such petty things as toilet signs.

A couple of dozen people in a northern town is a minority issue.....Now just because you have once seen one - doesnt not make it a minority issue.

What is not a minority issue is that we are all unsafe due to poor policing, we are all more at risk because services have been removed, our kids are less safe because safeguarding and verification and cash has been moved out of social services and children services. Trans people are really not a problem. The fact that we dont have any money to maintain a safe society is however an issue. The fact that people are so worried about transpeople but not the fact that we have unsafe staffing for hospitals that impacts everyone - is essentially pointing to this issue being a moral panic.

We can talk about the question of toilets and changing rooms - but the reality is that there are barely any toilets or changing rooms left anywhere regardless of gender because there is no cash.

We can talk about the use of public toilets - but lets be clear public toilets as in actually public are as rare as unicorns and frankly the discussion as to whether a unicorn is male or female is pretty much a minority issue. How many public facilities are currently left in our cities. How are they maintained? Can anyone find them etc etc etc.

Trans people didnt ruin our public toilets - austerity did

I would be interested in a survey of trans people on the matter.

The point of the post is whether it's a marginal issue. It is. Whilst one may worry about lots of things at once - I assume that you worry more about the frequent sexual assaults on women in hospitals and old people's homes due to inadequate staffing and will vote accordingly as clearly that is more of a mainstream issue.

The point of the post is whether it's a marginal issue. It is. Whilst one may worry about lots of things at once - I assume that you worry more about the frequent sexual assaults on women in hospitals and old people's homes due to inadequate staffing and will vote accordingly as clearly that is more of a mainstream issue.

It won't be an issue here because everyone swimming is trans, so all the men are changing in the women's and all the women are changing in the men's.

No, I come on here to remind people that most trans people are ordinary people. They aren't writing about terfs dying in grease fires or in prison after raping children. They aren't TRAs demanding access to women's sports or prizes.

I want to say, there is a middle ground here.

I am perfectly happy that women care about their rights. I want them to do that without demonising trans people or using vitriol. It doesn't help.

In order to affect change people need to listen and understand each other's position.

We cannot police the way people want to present, the names they want to use.

We can get to a healthier place where trans people acknowledge that they are not a natal woman or man, they are a trans woman or man, and that is an ok and valid thing to be, but it is different, and therefore it's important to accept that some women in particular are uncomfortable sharing intimate or restricted spaces with them.

We need to get to a place where trans people are fighting for 3rd spaces and trans-specific activities like the trans swimming my adult child attends.

That does require women to move away from the perverts/misogynists/sexists/bullshit rhetoric around transpeople too, as it perpetuates that polarisation of positions and isn't actually true for the majority. I am not trans so I have no understanding of what that might feel like, just as much as you might argue that a male person cannot know what it feels like to be female. None of us has a shared experience.

I want to get to a position of saying 'trans people are going to be mentally healthier if they aren't overly invested in "being perceived as" the other sex and "having the perceived privileges" of the other sex. In return, they deserve respect, dedicated spaces and dignity'.

Saying it's all bullshit and if I stand up for ordinary transpeople who are just living life while trying not to intrude into women's spaces I am "all hail the male" and "fawning" doesn't help in striving towards that position.

MulderandBambi I am also concerned about hospitals but mainly that NHS trusts have no cash to employ anyone. That hospitals fall below safety standards full stop. That waiting times are still so long that UK cancer survival rates are so poor they are behind comparable European countries.

Really? You think so?

We've literally been suggesting this for the last 10 years.

It's met with 'transphobia!', it's 'outing' etc etc etc.

I don't hate your son. At all. And actually, my frustration isn't with your son. It is with you.

On an anonymous forum, you refer to your son as your daughter. You lie. It is you who is muddying the waters.

You come on here to tell women off for caring about their rights because of your special child.

No.

I don't care if all your son does is 'cooking food and vacuuming' (interesting choice of activities). He is not a woman.

He can wear whatever he likes as far as I'm concerned.

No it's not a 'complex social issue '. Humans can't change sex. You pretending they can may help your son feel better, but it's fucking over women and society in the process.

Yes, that's where they also need to start listening. My experience of transpeople I know through my young person is that they aren't the radical fringe on transReddit.

Part of the problem is that it's the activists fighting amongst each other whilst the majority are far less radical and less bothered on either side. If we just started routinely building 3rd spaces and scheduling specifically trans-inclusive sessions where necessary I strongly suspect most trans people would breathe a sigh of relief.

It is a minority issue as the chances of any one of us coming across this issue is unlikely. It is a minority issue because there are very few trans people. Yes, it animates a lot of debate - but it is minor for us - because we will be very unlikely to mean a trans person. It is minor statistically not because of whether or not a single trans person is a source of danger - but because statistically you are unlikely to come across them. The point of comparing stats in terms of prison stats is to show that it is a minority issue across a wide population. Actually it is everyone else misunderstanding stats and not me.

Now there is a question as to whether philosophically once one is in - all are in....one may debate that. But this is a philosophical rather than practical issue. And practically speaking - it is a minority issue. Now I am an academic and I love nothing more than debating philosophical, abstract and highly irrelevant issues but if we are being practical and talking about relevance - yes, it is a minority topic that has been highjacked by the daily mail and span out of all proportion.

@MulderandBambi what is most unsafe is having no toilets.

What is most unsafe is having no facilities - we as a society have completely given up on the public and the collective. That is what is unsafe. We have left our public services to rot to the point where everyone is unsafe all the time. Trans people or not really doesnt tip the balance either way. If there is no police - we are all unsafe. If there are no children services - we are all unsafe. If there are no toitels - we are all unsafe.

You do know that mixed sex spaces, including toilets, are much less safe than seperate sex ones, right?

There are some potential interpretation issues with this.

We are comparing a group of 200 transwomen with a group of 10s of 1000s of men. If we get 50 more sex offenders in the trans group it will have a dramatic impact on the percentage of sex offenders in the trans group. If the same happens with the male group, it will scarcely change the percentage. For this reason, It is not viable to compare percentages with such widely differing bases.

Also we need to understand that the numbers relating to people in custody simply show us who is being caught and convicted. They don’t necessarily give us a true picture of who is more likely to commit a sexual offense. Another way to look a this would be be to calculate the proportion of transwoman sex offenders as a percentage of the overall transwoman population but I don’t think we have that figure.

We need to remember that these figures don’t tell us anything about who offended but wasn’t caught or anyone who received non-custodial sentences.

A couple of dozen people in a northern town is a minority issue.....Now just because you have once seen one - doesnt not make it a minority issue.

What is not a minority issue is that we are all unsafe due to poor policing, we are all more at risk because services have been removed, our kids are less safe because safeguarding and verification and cash has been moved out of social services and children services. Trans people are really not a problem. The fact that we dont have any money to maintain a safe society is however an issue. The fact that people are so worried about transpeople but not the fact that we have unsafe staffing for hospitals that impacts everyone - is essentially pointing to this issue being a moral panic.

We can talk about the question of toilets and changing rooms - but the reality is that there are barely any toilets or changing rooms left anywhere regardless of gender because there is no cash.

We can talk about the use of public toilets - but lets be clear public toilets as in actually public are as rare as unicorns and frankly the discussion as to whether a unicorn is male or female is pretty much a minority issue. How many public facilities are currently left in our cities. How are they maintained? Can anyone find them etc etc etc.

Trans people didnt ruin our public toilets - austerity did