Are you tired of winning?

you sometimes feel sick with anger at the position so many of us have been put in - and the stupid, stupid privilege of the women encouraging it.

Yes. Absolutely that.

But, it's over. Law clarified, end of. Had men and activists chosen to behave a lot better, we could have had discussions eight or so years back and maybe found ways of managing but it wasn't women who picked #nodebate and proved incapable of permitting anyone else to have any rights.

I always wonder what activists think is the point of starting threads like this. I mean it's a rather touching affirmation that women here make things happen, but it's not like at this point everyone's going to go 'oh good point, sod women (on a women's rights forum), we'll undo the law for you with our magic wand', is it?

You never, ever forget that moment of realisation of the sheer extent of it. There's the being overpowered but still able to struggle, within your own sex class... and then there's the absolute, utter steel helplessness of male-on-female. It's not been anything too awful for me at all, thank goodness. But the few times I've experienced it have never entirely left me.

I simply don't think of them most of the time, but they come rushing right back at me in certain situations. I encountered a male as I exited a cubicle in a mixed-sex loo I'd thought was empty ("But you were by the basins, silly! What's the problem with that, TERF?" 😡). It was absolutely visceral, an immediate, animal shock as I realised he was between me and the door, the cubicle right behind me, no one in hearing.... It was the knowledge of my absolute helplessness should he but choose to be an issue.

It's why mixed-sex toilets can never be equal: for a man, it may be undignified, but for a woman, whether or not she recognises and feels it in the way I did then, she does become secondary in the sense that, physically speaking, in that situation, he has the power in there.

That's not equality.

And my brief shock was incomparably less to what many, MANY women feel, given the horrors an appalling proportion of us have experienced. And set that against posts about "validation", and you sometimes feel sick with anger at the position so many of us have been put in - and the stupid, stupid privilege of the women encouraging it.

As I've said many times, I encountered a masturbating cross dresser - today he would be called a transwoman - in the ladies' loos in Glasgow in the late 90s.

It's not new, I didn't consent then, and I don't consent now.

On the occasion a man grabbed my throat in the street I remember the feeling of utter astonishment that I, a strong fit 19 year old could do absolutely jack shit about it

I floored a rugby-playing brute of a friend at a club because he was pissed and I tricked him. It felt amazing, and for a short while after I felt invincible (and slightly guilty - he was pretty shocked). But it was because I wanted to feel that way. I wouldn't have had a chance in hell in any other situation than that particular moment of him being off his head in prime position, and me taking my painfully slow sweet time quietly lining us both up into the absolutely perfect position for the throw while he chatted with his mate, oblivious. 😈

Fallon Fox.

I don't really need to say anything else here.

On the three occasions when I was younger on which a man threatened me with rape (literally saying in each case that that was what he planned) I succeeded in driving him off or completely incapacitating him, each time because I used a weapon he was not expecting and didn't go along with his prepared script, which, as one of them told me, was that I could "scream or try to run or give in". This is not usual, and now, being a lot older, I would be unable to do it, and it certainly wouldn't have been possible if I had relied on strength rather than low cunning, desperation and a weapon.

I think so too, and dangerous at that. Of course there are extremes, and of course there are exceptions. But the moment you consider them not just worth mentioning but expedient to mention in this debate, you give them a disproportionate weight that simply doesn't reflect reality.

I've been rereading Discworld, and last night came across that lovely scene when Errol the swamp dragon fights with (OK, it actually emerges that he's flirting with, but ignore that for the moment, everyone thinks he's fighting) the dragon-dragon that's taken over the city. Errol's much smaller and weaker than "the king", but has supercharged his little dragon body to be able to dodge and weave and misdirect (AKA: it's skill against strength). As Errol appears to gain the upper hand by outmanoeuvring an enormous wing and the crowd below cheers, Vimes (captain of the city guard and sager than most) groans.

"Why?", ask his men, "He's winning!"

"Yes," says Vimes. "But the thing is, he needs to 'win' every single time. The King only needs to win once."

The same point's made in an Angelika Jolie movie I saw (forgotten the name). An abused woman trains for years to be able to fight her stalker and kill him in a fair fight to be free of him. And she does it - but only just. As he says, at the start, laughing at her professional fighting stance: "All I need is one punch".

However good she gets at martial arts, almost all women will be in the position of Errol the dragon, or Angelika Jolie's character. Those for whom strength would level the playing-field are truly, vanishingly rare, whatever their proportionate weight or achievements in the gym. And skill doesn't level it, it just gives you a better chance.

Sad, but, I really do think, true. It's a very hard truth to accept though, and also a hard one to really, truly, meaningfully test, even in the dojo. So a happier Hollywood fiction becomes confused with reality.

Ironically the only way this model could really work would be if you could manifest The Room of Requirement.

It might not be inherently undignified in theory but in practice it definitely can appear that way.
I know some people claim we can’t spot trans women (men) as they pass so well and this may be true sometimes. But I have seen more than a few six-foot plus, 13 stone people dressed as women who have given me pause for thought.
And I would not describe their appearance as dignified.

I honestly think that a lot of us assumed that the medical profession had done due diligence. That research had been done to conclusively prove that these castrated and medicated men now had similar bodily strength to women and a similar low (sexual) offending rate. Coupled with the fact that they were known to be gay (so less of a sexual threat to women) and rarely encountered outside of certain pubs and clubs, we just didn't give it much thought.

(Obviously there were women who had been traumatised by men and alert feminists who were definitely giving it a lot of thought.)

Looks like they have toilets for "Men" and "Not Men".

The women's toilets have now become the "Not Men's" toilets.

I'll just come back to - if we are allowing access based on vulnerability then there are other equally vulnerable men who have just as valid as claim as the putative Mulvanyesque transwoman.

I think this is a very important point. I'm sure many men not identifying as women feel uncomfortable about entering certain men's toilets. That's not a licence to use the toilet they feel they "need".

There is an idea that women were happy to share with TW at some point in time, then Stonewall happened or the Christian far right happened and now the agreement no longer can apply.

Its linked with the idea that men could use the women toilets while they were transitioning, to test if they were actually trans.

Both of these rely on the idea that there is a transexual who women accepted.

Im not sure where this came from, im old and was never consulted. I remember being with my grandmother when she told a man in a dress to get out of the womens loo.

Im not saying it never happened, but the idea that it was widely supported by women is a myth. Its believed because men say it happened.

It makes no sense, because why were transexuals treated as oddities on TV if women were happy to include them in their lives? It was rare enough to make TV programmes about them, but all women instinctively knew who was genuinely trans?

Your retort is childish and petulant, the people on here have been listening to your views and have been countering them because they don't agree with them, if you can't accept that, that's on you not on us.

You have expertise?

I'll just come back to - if we are allowing access based on vulnerability then there are other equally vulnerable men who have just as valid as claim as the putative Mulvanyesque transwoman.

Either access is justified because TWAW, in which case all TW have to be included, or access is justified because of vulnerability, in which case all vulnerable men have to be included.

The venn diagram of "he's a bit vulnerable and also a bit of a woman, so he gets special womanish-people rights we don't give to other vulnerable people or to other a-bit-of-a-woman people" doesn't make sense.

No need to flounce. Just be able to prove extraordinary claims if you make them. Don’t expect people to just believe some internet random (which we all are )

I just think you are overstating the relevance of trans identifying men, when the only choices are single sex, unisex and mixed sex.

https://x.com/KateBMwriting/status/2092878631919833353

I'm not really sure why they have a sign on this particular toilet door because the design seems to be unisex, but the message reflects what is being proposed by Lambeth Council et al.

They believe that anyone should be able to use the service they need, so regardless of whether you are a man in a dress, Nigel Farage or Dwayne The Rock Johnson, you can use this toilet.

The question then goes back to @Keeptoiletssafe 's research and the compromises people are prepared to make between safety and privacy.

I don't think that an individual's experience or expertise matters. Human beings cannot change sex. The EQ2010 has been clarified. Biological males should not use single-sex spaces for biological females, and vice versa.

I accept that my views are not what the women who post on these threads on MN want to hear, so I'll keep my actual experience and previous expertise to myself for the meanwhile and leave you to it.

I suspect that TIMs outnumber women trained in martial arts.

I don’t see why what women trained in martial arts can or can’t do helps any argument. Most women aren’t trained in martial arts, so end of story.

Moat women armed with a hand gun could, in the right circumstances, shoot any man dead in an instant. But obviously most women aren’t armed with handguns either, so…

I suggest you are wrong on that. Most people are not involved in on line political debates, and everyone of them knows the difference between male and female, and they understand full well the reasons we have single sex facilities. Women especially.

The argument is won. It was always going to be won......for the reason that the whole trans agenda had been slipped in under the radar without much or any public consciousness of it at all. That has now changed. It has become an issue that most people will now have a view on. Most people are not 'identifying' themselves as trans allies or marching at Pride. They work in hairdressing salons; in the local supermarket; they are tradesmen; nurses; stay at home mothers; retirees; running catering companies; teaching in schools; gym instructors; restaurant staff.....Not everyone is a metropolitan social justice warrior or party activist.

A man and a woman in a fighting contest is not the sort of scenario most women will be confronted by. Attacks or assaults are often random and unexpected.

It is you who is attemptng to find the odd scenario in which a woman could physically disable or over-power a man - and then using it to suggest that arguments predicated on superior male strength are verging on hysterical.