Help me make sense of how I feel? Transgender person in the loo.

[ScottishLottie]

I think of myself as very liberal - very 'live and let live', love is love and people should be absolutely free to be whomever they want to be.

Went into our local city on Fri last week and noticed a higher amount of transgender folk (specifically man to woman), socialising in the area. "Good on them!" I thought. Love living and working in a society where they're able to do this. I was actually interested and looked up why there might have been so many more trans people around and apparently there's some sort of 'First Friday' trans event whereby trans people congregate in trans-friendly bars and restaurants in the area on the first Friday of the month.

Fast forward to the next night and I was in the city again, having taken by 15 yr old DD and her friend to the theatre.

On coming out of the theatre, she needed the loo before we left, so her and the friend went in and I waited outside. As I was waiting, a transgender woman (quite a big, strong, butch-looking person underneath the dress and the makeup) entered the female bathroom and I had a completely visceral reaction. I was horrified that DD and friend were in a space where they might be a bit more vulnerable and they should be absolutely safe in a female-only environment.

Nothing happened of course, but I was surprised and ashamed that I felt the way I did.

What is the reason behind this? Why do I have opinions and feelings that I wasn't aware of? I feel awful but want to understand why I felt this way?

It's only a word.

Words need to mean something so that we can communicate, educate, legislate. We were not meant to take the Humpty Dumpty quote as a model for conversation. It is supposed to be ridiculous.

When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.

Absolutely this!

And notice the lack of evidence being presented by those who support male access to female single sex spaces. Just emotional manipulation and reasoning.

It doesn't to me. I know what I mean when I say woman.

What I don't like is seeing is this on both sides of the debate. Like my last post, it's an obsession with saying the 'right' thing. In some ways, you insisting I call someone a man because that's how you see them when I don't perceive them that way is very similar.

It doesn't feel right to me to call them men. Maybe you see them that way, but I don't. They're not like me, but they're not men either. I'm satisfied that they're as good as a woman to all intents and purposes. Definitely not someone I'd send into the men's toilet.

I'm thinking of people I know in real life and it's really hard for me to call someone I have welcomed into my life as a woman a man. I don't want to do that.

I appreciate we won't agree but there's my view on it.

Not phobic at all, just fucking annoyed at how womens rights are being diminished for this small number of men who believe they can do whatever they want because they "feel like women".

It doesn't feel right to me to call them men.

Perhaps. That doesn't make them women though.

Just the same way Steph On Knee is a six year old girl because he feels that way.

So if they aren't men or women what are they?

Do you think that about any other physical characteristics - like height, eye colour, age, race, skin cour, disability?

Well, eye colour, for example, you can change now. If someone changed their eye colour from brown to blue and said they had always wanted blue eyes from birth, I'd be thinking ok well you're blue eyed then. They certainly look blue! It would be a bit odd sending them through a door marked Brown Eyes Only with blue eyes.

How could a man know that what they 'feel' is at a woman feels?

I agree with this. They don't. How could they?

But whatever they do feel, it's not for me to tell them otherwise. I don't know how they feel. If that's what they tell me and they're happier living their life as a woman would, I don't have a problem with that. It's not my business to have a problem with.

@PaillettenBedeckt it just doesn’t make sense to me linguistically nevermind the rest. So an infant is born, and to your way of thinking, you’d tell that infant, who is developing their understanding of language and how to define the world around them, that those trans women are women… that infant doesn’t know that there are nuances to how you see that person. They only know that you’re applying the same word to that person as you would to any other female. How does that child then grow up knowing and understanding there are innate differences between two things that you’ve told them there whole life are the same?

Well, eye colour, for example, you can change now. If someone changed their eye colour from brown to blue and said they had always wanted blue eyes from birth, I'd be thinking ok well you're blue eyed then. They certainly look blue! It would be a bit odd sending them through a door marked Brown Eyes Only with blue eyes.

You are confusing artificially changing something with feeling overriding fact. If I, with manifestly blue eyes, go into the 'brown eyed' door, because of my feelings inside, what then?

And what about my other examples? Can I 'feel' Asian if I am Caucasian? Can I 'feel' six foot if I'm four foot? Can I 'feel' blind if I'm perfectly sighted? Can I 'feel' six years old if I'm fifty?

If you don't accept any of those, why accept this?

I've been in same situation OP. With my daughter and her friend in a public toilet when a 6"4 trans woman came in.
I felt incredibly protective of the girls. The fact that the person may have identified as a woman and was wearing make up didn't change the fact that he was clearly a man.

I felt the same when a large man went into the men’s toilets where my primary school age boys were. It’s a natural reaction to men and their potential to abuse unfortunately.

There are plenty of men who identify as being 6 foot. I certainly don't accept that. They wish!

You are confusing artificially changing something with feeling overriding fact. If I, with manifestly blue eyes, go into the 'brown eyed' door, because of my feelings inside, what then?

Good point. That's actually the more accurate analogy.

And we all know that their identification is nonsense and no one takes it seriously.

So once again, why is this different?

And what about my other examples?

Can I 'feel' Asian if I am Caucasian?Can I 'feel' blind if I'm perfectly sighted? Can I 'feel' six years old if I'm fifty?

In the same way Rachel Dolezal feels that she is black.

Sorry, I spelled Stefonknee's name wrong.

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/stefonknee-wolschtt-transgender-father-leaves-family-in-toronto-to-start-new-life-as-a-sixyearold-girl-a6769051.html

But whatever they do feel, it's not for me to tell them otherwise. I don't know how they feel. If that's what they tell me and they're happier living their life as a woman would, I don't have a problem with that. It's not my business to have a problem with.

That's up to you how you see it, obviously. I do have a problem with it, in that I don't see these males as women in any sense. So when they impose their belief on me and I am expected to validate it, even to my own detriment, it certainly is my business.

Men in dresses are men, irrespective of their feelings, irrespective of their claims to be something other. Your amygdala is alerting your body to the presence of danger - females as a sex class are vulnerable to males as a sex class and your amygdala senses danger in the presence of (unknown) adult males. We can learn to tune in to our instincts and understand that the fear, the unease, the ‘ick’ is telling us something very important - perhaps something with life-saving import. The gr00ming and brainwashing western societies have been subjected to by the TQ+ lobby has made women in particular very fearful of calling out dangerous male behaviour. I’m a Gen Xer and everyone used to know that the bloke in a frock was a p3rvert. Easy access to internet p0rn has fuelled both f3tishistic behaviour and a widespread attempt to normalise p4raphilias. Please look up the Blanchard autogynephilia typology, and f3tishes about humiliation, micturition, menstruation, defecation, exhibitionism...because these are the men who want to come into the ladies loos. With you, with your daughter, with your mum. Tell your daughter not to trust boys who consume porn - those lads are being gr00med to hate women. Most of all, trust your instincts. ‘The Gift of Fear’ is a must-read.

If that's what they tell me and they're happier living their life as a woman would, I don't have a problem with that. It's not my business to have a problem with.

You are free to believe whatever the hell you want.

However, thinking of a poor unfortunate woman locked in a prison cell with them - it would be their business to have a problem with it. No?

You don’t like your privacy or that of your daughter being violated. That’s normal

If they aren't like you and they aren't men, do you think it would be better for language to clearly reflect this and to allow women to retain own of issues that affect them and their own identities.

Even pronouns are about eroding this ability. They aren't neutral.

I personally would be much happier if we went down the third way for this reason. Including for pronouns (though not the clumsy they/their route).

But this isn't acceptable because the whole point is about taking over what it means to be women because that gives power that going for a third way does not.

@Rumbledethumps I was reading a Reddit trans thread just now linked from another MN thread and there was a poster on that called "sissypissywoman"

"It's just a word" has to be the most unaware response ever.

'Child' is just a word.
'Disabled' is just a word.
'Abused' is just a word.
'Murder' is just a word.

Words have meanings. If they didn't, the legal system would be in tatters.

'Illegal' is just a word, therefore, by the definition it is just a word with no meaning, we could all do what the fuck we liked without consequence.

Fuck sake.