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?

Op. Men sexually attack women. Women do not sexually attack women except in the very rarest of circumstances. Men who identify as women retain male patterns of sexual offending. Many men who identify as women are heterosexual men who have a fetish about dressing as a woman (known as AGP) You are right to feel deeply concerned that a male was in the toilets with your daughter. Don't override your instincts for the sake of being kind.

Another poster posted this article on MN a year or so ago. Says it all really.

https://www.feministcurrent.com/2019/04/10/i-supported-trans-ideology-until-i-couldnt-anymore

I suppose because this person looked like a man and instinctively as a woman you are protective against this. Also why was this person in the ladies, were there no other gender neutral toilets? All of the other hundreds of trans people clearly
didnt feel the need to do it. So perhaps there was a reason you had a bad feeling about this particular person.

Were they just going about their business having using the loo? You've probably shared the loo with other transgender people and not noticed it. Just let people go about their business if they are not affecting you.

No need to say more really.

you had the same reaction as if a man had walked into a safe space for females. There is a world of difference between a true trans woman and men being able to live out their fetishes (without being a drag queen) under the trans banner and invade these spaces.

But they are affecting people. Female people don't want to be in the position of being in a toilet space with male people where they have the expectation that it is a single sex space. If this was a unisex or 'gender neutral' toilet, there would be no expectation.

Shaming female people for reacting when a male enters their space is an act of misogyny.

You have nothing to be ashamed of.
Your daughter was in female toilet where she's vulnerable just by the very nature of having to remove clothing to go to toilet.
Of course you are going to think that way it's a natural reaction

Hahaha
You really don’t notice that someone is transgender. It’s so bloody obviously despite how much makeup they apply because obviously that’s what’s makes someone a woman.

But I genuinely want to embrace all walks of life and for people to live as their mist authentic selves. So if someone who was born a man wants to live as a woman, I have no issues

It's admirable that you have no issues, except that you clearly do have a bit of an issue with this, as your reaction tells you. You're trying to overrride your natural instincts, those instincts that are there to protect you. Why should this man's wish to pretend to be a woman have to impact on your (and all other women's) private spaces? It's ok to not want that. It's ok to recognise that he's a man and not really a woman, and as such he should be in the mens toilets.

I’m not sure why you’re so surprised. It’s very normal to feel unhappy about men being in private girls and women’s spaces, especially when the girls are in vulnerable situations (like going to the loo) and they are children.

Any male walking into the ladies knows that he will provoke that reaction, op.

I'm not saying that's the main reason he went in there, how can we know. But he chose to go in there knowing that's how you'd feel about it.

Make your own conclusions

Had something almost the same the other day. You'll see in a sec why it was almost but DD and I had the same 'snap' reaction.

Female changing rooms of local gym. Someone started talking on the phone (not allowed mobiles but anyway). Their voice was really deep and sounded like a man. DD and I both at the same time (as we were changing into swimming costumes), snapped our heads up in the direction of the sound instantly worried a man was in the ladies. We had an automatic visceral reaction. Turns out it was a swimming coach we have seen before who is a woman but a very butch one with a really deep voice, but it made us both realise that we have a genuine automatic reaction of alarm to the chance of a man being in our single sex space.

Well there are two ways of thinking aren't there?

The first is that you are happy to be welcoming and inclusive unless it directly affects you - hardly a new phenomenon, people are hypocritical all the time "yes we desperately need to build new houses but not in my town" "yes of course we should welcome immigrants but surely they'd be happier in big cities with their community and not my naice local school" etc.

The second is that you are happy to support the rights and welfare of a marginalised group unless it conflicts with or negatively affects the rights and welfare of another marginalised group. Again not exactly a new phenomena - is it okay for men of a religious group to refuse to shake hands with a woman in a business situation? Should young/religious/vulnerable/any woman have to share a changing space with someone with a penis who identifies as a woman? How about a prison cell? A transwoman might be at risk if they went to a male prison, but a woman might be at risk from them if they went to a female prison. What about if the crime they are arrested for is rape, does that make a difference? What if they still have a penis?

The fact that there is a lot of grey around the trans "issue" is why it's so hard to "solve" and arouses such strong feelings on both sides.

I suppose the best way for you to work out your position is to envision various scenarios and work out whether you approve/disapprove of them generally or only if they are ones that might actually negatively affect you or your dd or other members of your family.
E.g you might not care about trans women in sport because nobody in yo family is into sport
But how would you feel about a trans woman winning a "women in business" award that you were one of the other shortlisted for?
You might not care about the prison issue because you can't imagine anyone you know ever going to prison
But how would you feel if your dd got raped but had to refer to her rapist as "she" in court?

Basically, are you being an "I'm all right Jack" hypocrite or is this your conscience trying to bypass social conditioning to "be nice" and telling you "actually something about this isn't right...."

I feel the same. I would like to be accepting but I do not want men in female spaces.

Toilets have been segregated since forever to protect women’s dignity and comfort.
Most men also feel this too, and also prefer their own toilets being segregated by sex.

The reason you feel uncomfortable is cognitive dissonance- you want to think “right-on”, but you know the truth. The shame is because you are recruiting your daughter into the same lie as you, when you know better. A part of you knows you have really let her down.

By the way, has anyone yet produced the statistics or the anecdotal evidence that in the UK, male people with transgender identities are being attacked at a greater rate than any other male group when they are using the male toilets?

And has anyone produced the campaign resulting from this evidence that tells male people to be welcoming to non-conforming male people in male single sex spaces? I mean, if it is such a significant issue that these male people have to use female single sex spaces, surely the evidence of the issue is now available. right?

Men present a risk to women. That's a very unfortunate fact of life.

Women need single sex spaces for safety.

Men who choose to use women's single sex spaces either don't care that they will upset, scare, disturb or terrify women - or they do care.

And yet she noticed all the transgender people hanging around the town centre the evening before... Because, and I know this comes as a shock to some people, but we can actually tell what sex someone is regardless of their clothing, hairstyle and makeup.

Let me rephrase that - women are entitled to single sex spaces for privacy, dignity and safety.

It's written into the Equality Act. It's pretty basic stuff.

Because your common sense kicked in.

(And women in particular are very good at noticing what sex someone is - its a built in instinct we have to protect ourselves)

We have a situation where the state sanctions cross dressing males (some of whom do so as a fetish and admit this themselves) being in spaces designed for females only for our safety & dignity.

This juxtaposed against the trial of the rapists of Gisele Pelicot is bound to make any one feel uncomfortable. Why would a group of cross dressing males be less likely to want to harm us than that poor woman’s neighbours. Paraphilic behaviors like public cross dressing makes those males MORE likely to engage in harmful behaviours than other males as demonstrated by data compiled on the ratio of trans women sex offenders in prison v the rest of the male population.

Yet we’re meant to ignore this and are called bigots for natural/ fact based instincts.

And in spite of all this Labour will not make the necessary amendments to the Equality Act to protect women and girls 😢. Shame on them.

you had the same reaction as if a man had walked into a safe space for females.

A man did.

I mean, there is a whole porn category of men in women's spaces, OP, you are aware of this?

Yes, many of these men are wearing wigs and skirts/dresses. They're still men.