What do you think the trans debate will look like in 10 years?

[Roxietrees]

Around 3 years ago I would have called myself a trans ally and fully supportive of trans rights. However over the last 6 months my opinion has changed and I have done more and more research and reading mainly into the impact of trans women on women’s rights and lesbian rights. I’m now firmly of the belief that trans activists are erasing women’s hard fought for rights and threatening the validity and even existence of lesbians. This fills me with rage and i don’t think I’m alone in this shift in opinion (as the recent Supreme Court ruling demonstrated). I read somewhere that there has been quite a large downturn in support for trans rights over the last year. Once again it seems men are in control and, what pisses me off the most is on the many occasions trans activists have assaulted women’s rights activists the police do fuck all about it. For fear of looking transphobic maybe? A year ago I’d have said that in 10 years society would be a fully accepting place for trans people. Now I don’t think so. There appears to be (thankfully) more and more backlash against trans ideology and I think we may be heading for a very different society to what I originally thought. What do you think the trans debate will look like in 10 years?

Also women being allowed to gather together without men.

You only have to look at the current "Lesbian march" thread in the Feminism section to see the bullying tactics that TRAs use...

Thank god those days are going.

I hope that in 10 years we will be more tolerant of trans people. But crucially I hope that they will be more tolerant of us women and accept that their rights don't trump ours. I'd like to see a reset where kids are not running the show, responsible adults are in charge in terms of making healthy choices on behalf of children but equally a greater acceptance of others as long as those rights don't have significant impacts upon others.

It's not just trans though. People have become far too scared of talking about anything to do with race too for fear of being labelled racist. The world isn't a black or white place (no pun intended) and it's important to have respectful nuanced conversations about tricky issues. It's important to listen to other view points rather than seek to be right. Unfortunately I don't think that is going to happen with online media. Instead things will become more polarised.

Your post makes me sad for a number of reasons. That you think it’s better for someone to turn themselves into a medical patient for life, and/or require them to demand otherwise see them for what they aren’t, rather than to challenge or even ignore sexist stereotypes (that aren’t even universal in the UK).

And that you haven’t a care for all the women who aren’t happy about males in their groups or spaces - the ones that self-exclude and the ones that keep quiet for fear of being branded mean, unkind, a bigot, a transphobe. You don’t care about excluding them.

In all, you really aren’t the nice, kind, inclusive, progressive person you think you are.

I don't think it's 'better'. I just (a) don't judge people for what they do with their life and their body and (b) like I said don't blame people for not fighting stereotypes when most people don't and society punishes people who step out of the box. The people I see actively fighting stereotypes and pushing back on what men and women should or shouldn't do is the (very queer) community I'm part of. I had to have a 20 minute conversation with my aunt about the fact I don't shave my pits and isn't that disgusting and unhygienic. None of my mates give a shit. My brother got wolf whistled at and harassed for wearing a sparkly pink hat in the small town we're in. He was able to have fun with it where I live.

There's also no empirical evidence that trans people are unsafe. They have been using spaces and facilities since forever without issue. Someone being unhappy doesn't trump someone else's right to go somewhere.

What is ironic is that transwomen seem to think that being a woman = breasts, long hair, makeup and dresses. You can't get much more stereotypical than that.

Someone being unhappy doesn't trump someone else's right to go somewhere.

Well, equally, someone being unhappy doesn't trump someone else's rights to single sex spaces and provisions.

There's also no empirical evidence that trans people are unsafe. They have been using spaces and facilities since forever without issue.

Really?
The people who have harassed, assaulted and raped women and girls in supposedly single sex spaces were who, exactly? Other women?

I'd hope in 10years they'll be some high profile men who'll make skirts, dresses and makeup a man thing.

Just as long hair is no longer a female thing, that was driven by musicians and footballers.

If men want change in other areas it needs to be driven by high profile men.

Well, most women have breasts. Most women have long hair. Most women at least some make up sometimes. Most men do not have breasts, wear make up or have long hair. That's just true. So if you want long hair and make up and breasts, it makes sense that someone would think 'I must be a woman'. Especially if they are an effeminate man and society has been telling them they're not real men since forever. There are plenty of transwomen I know though that don't wear a lot of make up and are pretty much always in trousers and a t-shirt.

I'm not saying that stereotypes are a good thing. What I'm saying is that certain behaviours, looks, hobbies, objects etc have been very strictly designated male and female for a long time, and I don't see why trans people should be any different or be blamed for absorbing those expectations and going along with them the same as everyone else. When I see more hairy legs and pits out in the park this summer then I'll believe that we're getting past stereotypes.

Single sex spaces aren't something until the supreme court ruling that have ever existed in law. Trans people have always had the right to access spaces appropriate for them, and service providers of more sensitive areas have always had the right to use discretion, including turning people away if necessary. The law also doesn't compel places to exclude trans people thankfully. It would be totally unenforcable without invasive medical testing anyway. My friend owns a pub and will not be excluding trans people from the loos. My women's hiking group will continue to welcome our trans members. Nothing anyone can do to stop that. 🤷🏼

Um, we already have that. Have had for a very long time indeed. I think you don’t understand the issue. In fact the whole trans debate was suggesting things about women’s lives that we all know not to be true, ie that femininity is a fixed thing - long hair and make up etc when we all know how different we women are and yet no one is no more a woman or female because they dress up than a woman with short hair and wears men’s shorts. We’re all feminine because we’re women. Simples.

Single sex spaces aren't something until the supreme court ruling that have ever existed in law.

We prefer the actual law here @FruityCider , not pretendy Stonewall law.

That is simply untrue about the law @FruityCider. your posting misinformation that would make Trump blush.

And of course your hiking group can exist. It just can’t call itself a women’s group if it allows in males.

Just because you choose to buy into someone else’s delusions doesn’t mean the rest of us have to pretend that male people aren’t male, and as such are a threat to women and girls. You know, I think, full well than predators, abusers and resist don’t go around with a sign on their head. You will also know them men who ID as trans are over represented as sex offenders in the male rising population, while 95% of violent crime and 98% of sexual crime is committed by men, however they identify.

I don’t know why you would think male people invading and colonising female spaces is fine.

I don't know how old you are, @FruityCider , but those of us who grew up in the 80s were very familiar with men in makeup and even dresses. Boy George was clearly a boy. Phil Oakey looked great in dramatic eye makeup.

Kurt Cobain sometimes wore a dress on stage in the 90s, nobody thought he was a woman.

Gender stereotypes in terms of appearance have become more entrenched again, it seems, but hopefully this changes and people aren't encouraged to think they're really the opposite sex just because of what they want to wear.

That with the benefit of hindsight people will wonder why gender-based identifies were lumped together with sexuality-based ones.

So basically why did the LGB part of the phrase expand to try and include all the other letters? Sexuality and identity are different concepts, and to try and put them all together in one cohesive whole is conceptually unsound.

Yes there are a million reasons why sex matters not gender.

There becomes no point in even having single sex anything, if a bloke in a dress can rock up, and the same vice versa a woman rocking into men facilities because she's in jeans n docs.

Single sex should be just that.

The only logical answer to that is the gender thing is driven for some by a sexual fetish.

As are women.

The '80s is a long time ago especially for teens.
I don't think anyone ever really copied Boy George or Elvis in his glittery jumpsuits.

But rockers collectively have made long hair a male fashion.

Maybe it needs a subculture to break the mould. But maybe men just don't want to break the mould.

The community you refer to are not fighting stereotypes at all, they are using them, embedding them, enhancing them, promoting them!!!

I find it astounding that you cant see that

The children you refer to, who I have worked with many, transpose their distress about their sex to any other thing.

Lets say they have distress about having 2 legs, they want to chop one off, lets say they say they are fat and want weight loss surgery or to starve themselves.

You as a parent you validate that?

No we dont.

Yes, in the 80;s. People could do that. Gender was much less of a concept. Annie Lennox and the new romantics were all the rage.

Have a look at the childrens clothes aisle in the supermarket now. It is almost all girls like sparkly stuff and boys like trucks and dinosaurs. We have gone back a long way on this.

You seem to think trans people exist in a vacuum where their choices only affect them.

And if they had created some imaginary new names for the type of people they believe themselves to be, a new group to encompass and name as a separate identity group whatever it is that they do not believe people of their actual sex can / are allowed to be, you might have a point.

But they didn't. They have taken words that already named a group of people who exist in their own right independently of whatever the trans person believes they see in them, people whose reality is not as an avatar of whatever the trans person projects onto them but actual real complete thinking, feeling, experiencing sentient individuals with their own identities and inner lives that exist entirely separate from the trans person's projection of whatever a man or a women is, and based on nothing more than their beliefs about what men or women are or are not allowed to enjoy, do or think, beliefs that you yourself ackonwledge are not true, claim to have a more valid view of what those people are than that of the people themselves.

It really is not ok to do this. I am sure your friends are lovely but it is not ok to allow their internalised sexism to become the measure of what a man or especially a woman is, what we need and what it is or is not fair to exclude the opposite sex from.

It astounds me that you seem to think it's reasonable to bascially say "yes I know sexism is wrong but it's really hard to fight it so as long as the sexism is being done by nice people who would otherwise be sad then it's something we should accomodate".

Yes, your friends matter but women's voices, identity and needs matter as well. We are not simply costumes and backdrops for people who have trouble accepting themselves.

Single sex spaces aren't something until the supreme court ruling that have ever existed in law.

That is flat out wrong. The SC merely clarified laws that already existed.

Trans people have always had the right to access spaces appropriate for them

Yes. And when there are different spaces provided for men and women, the SC have clarified that the appropriate space for trans people is the one for people of their sex.

You seem to believe there is something meaningfully different about trans people, not just in their own self image but out there in the real world. Something that is also meaningful and recognisable not just to the trans person but to other people as well, a material and empirical difference between trans people and others of their sex such that what is appropriate for everyone else is not apropriate for them. Not just not desirable for them but actually objectively not appropriate for them.

Can you explain to me what that is?

What is different between men who claim to be women and all the other lovely men who are no risk to anyone, that it is only the men who claim to be women that you consider to be appriopriate for women's spaces?

Can you explain to me why the self image of men who claim to be women based on something they claim to see in common between themselves and women should be more relevant than the self image of women who do not recognise whatever it is the men who claim to be women believe they have in common?

Can you even explain what I should be able to recogise in myself as a woman and also in men who claim to be women?

Can you explain why it is so wrong that female people, who have been oppressed, disempowered, overlooked, belittled, exploited and abused by others who see that they are female, and whose self understanding is shaped from birth by that experience and by the understanding of what "woman" is within our society in ways that people who have male bodies is not, should have spaces and protections, a political voice and cultural recognition of our existence, our history and our challenges?

The law also doesn't compel places to exclude trans people thankfully. It would be totally unenforcable without invasive medical testing anyway...Nothing anyone can do to stop that.

I'm sorry, I don't understand this. Why is medical testing required? Trans people know they are trans. They know their sex.

Are you suggesting that trans people will carry on selfishly violating and thereby destroying single sex spaces even knowing now that it is not appropriate for them to be there, simply because they want to? Even knowing now that many women in particular do experience trans women's presence in their woman-only spaces under the pretext of some sort of common "womanny sentiments" not an act of solidarity and shared sisterhood but as an extremeely male-gendered act of intrusion and abusive power play, they will continue to do this?

You really believe that the only way to make trans people behave like respectful human beings is to have to enforce it on them?

I mean, wow. For someone who claims to like trans people you don't seem to have a very high opinion of their integrity!

Do you feel the same about all laws? If we can't active enforce a law at all times at or before the point of the offense occuring there's no point in having that law? Rape is hard to prevent and hard to prove. Maybe that should be legal too? How about racism?

Incidentally, when you speak of enforcement I'm not sure you understand who is committing the offense. A trans woman in a women-only space is not automatically at legal fault (moral yes, but not legal). If he leaves when challanged with no fuss it's unlikely to go anywhere.

It's the service provider who may be at fault, either of direct sex discrimination against men (having a "woman only" space is illegal due to sex discrimination against men unless it meets the EA exemption rules) or indirect sex discrimination against women if it can be shown that their "woman and men who want to be there too" policy is disproportionately disadvantaging women (female people).

The only reason the trans woman himself might find himself foul of the law in a women-only space, service or activity is if he does not leave when asked or if he makes a repeated pattern of it, in which case he may be breaking laws against voyeurism, indecent exposure, harrassment and suchlike. These are not laws that have anything to do with being trans, these are just laws that have to do with treating our fellow humans with respect and decency and apply to everyone. The "crime" is not in being trans, but in being a man knowingly entering women's spaces and refusing to leave or acting in ways that causing distress within.

My friend owns a pub and will not be excluding trans people from the loos. My women's hiking group will continue to welcome our trans members.

Your friend and your group are on dodgy ground - as above it they are likely falling foul of the law by discriminating by sex without the protection of an EA exemption.

I'm sorry to go on as I'm sure you are a nice person and feel piled on, but you have unwittingly signed up to suppot a very toxic way of thinking about men and women and some very toxic views about whether women (female people) have any right to say who we are and what we need, so these things need to be said.

Women are important, the voices, rights, needs and experiences of the female sex do matter, and we can't just hand wave it away and be gentle to you just because you are probably doing it with fine and noble intentions.

In 10 years the debates will hopefully about how to best support detransitioners and how much compensation young people who were swept into this without proper checks should get.

@FruityCider you clearly think of yourself as kind, empathetic and by default assuming the best of people. And I’m sure that is how you treat people in “queer” spaces.

But there are two different of “anti-trans” perspectives and you are clearly only hearing and responding to one of them: the social conservative (Trumpian) position that gender=sex and people should conform to the norms of femininity/masculinity applied to them.

Why not engage with the other perspective: feminists who are critical of patriarchy, harmful gender norms, and real evidenced impact on women’s rights.

You say you’re not that interested but you obviously are a bit or you wouldn’t be on here telling everyone to just “be nice”. So open your mind and engage honestly, justify your position logically rather than building strawmen and telling feminists that we’re all big meanies.

Also @FruityCider

“There is no empirical evidence that trans people are unsafe”

There is endless empirical evidence that male people are unsafe and zero evidence that trans-identifying males are any different.

What makes you think that this one sub-group of males is less violent than the rest?