To wonder, where will a Trans pupil sleep on my DS's Europe trip?

[VioletVaccine]

In DS's form, there is a M2F trans pupil, aged 14. For the purpose of this, I'll call her Jenny, who used to be Jack.
Jack now identifies as Jenny, and is accepted as the gender she identifies as.
I don't know (it's none of my business) whether she takes hormones or not, but she dresses, lives, and wants to be considered as a female.
The vast majority of people have been accepting and understanding of the difficulties faced.
Jenny uses the disabled or staff bathrooms, and has a separate area to change after (girls) PE.
However, when the school year travel to Europe this year, I want to make a polite enquiry as to the sleeping arrangements.
This is a 6 day trip, 6 days 5 nights.
Boys are generally in one area of the hotel during school overnight excursions, and girls in the other, with respective form tutors overseeing the pupils when lights go out.
Jenny, according to DS, will be sleeping with her female best friends.
However, despite how she feels, she still has a Penis.
Should she really be in a dorm with three other girls?
Whatever Jenny identifies as her gender, her sexuality is not necessarily geared towards the opposite sex. Maybe she could be a M2F lesbian, who is attracted to girls?

Would you want your 14 year old daughter to share a room with an anatomically correct male for a week? I wouldn't.

And similarly, should someone who believes they are female, be forced to share a dorm with 3 teenage boys she isn't friends with?

Im hoping for some thoughts on how you'd handle this, and also, how to actually broach it with DS's school without being labelled a transphobic woman, a bigot, or any of the other terms that are so commonly used when you question the logistics of a situation like this?

Thank you.

Interesting read Posie. Have I understood correctly that the author is suggesting international woman's day is exactly that. For women? Not people that purely identify as women?

I honestly don't know how I feel about that. I understand that scientifically she is correct but as someone that is striving to be treated and respected regardless
of my sex, sexual orientation and colour it leaves me uncomfortable/ hypocritical of my core beliefs.

This Jenny we are all discussing is a child. Perhaps a child in turmoil? I think it's positive that society is accepting. Yes there is a line, people have quoted individuals I have no knowledge of unfortunately but appear to want to have their cake and eat it in the gender stakes to advantage themselves, that's clearly blurring the lines for many but then there's the argument of hermaphrodites - surely they don't have to label themselves either male or female! I just don't feel comfortable dismissing those that actually want to live fully as a woman/man.

I found a School's policy on line. It's very inclusive and it is clear there are not set rules and that some situations must be dealt with on case by case basis (visits). This school does have unisex toilets so that mitigates the issue of toilet facilities. Times are clearly moving to include individuals like Jenny. Not dismissing your concerns OP, I think you have fair questions. Perhaps you should just email like Sparkling suggested.

School policy on transgender

brineleas.cheshire.sch.uk/Docs/Pols/TransgenderPolicy.pdf

It seems that there are two arguments here, and part of the problem is that they're getting conflated. Let me see:

1. The other 14 year old girls in the room might be sexually molested, assaulted, or otherwise attacked by their friend Jenny. (This is supposed to be more likely, because Jenny has a penis). Posters have cited rape statistics for this age group as an example of what they're worrying about. They talk about how teenagers, particularly teenage boys have "raging hormones" which makes them apparently more prone to being sexual predators. This one's pretty easy to refute. The source is a common misconception about rape - that anyone, particularly any man, could be a potential rapist, and that rape happens when someone is overcome with sexual attraction to another person and just can't help but attack them. If you look at the "meet the predators" studies you'll see that actually rapes are committed by a very small minority of repeat offenders who are not out of control with desire but very calculated about grooming and isolating their victims. yesmeansyesblog.wordpress.com/2009/11/12/meet-the-predators/ So her friends should have nothing to fear, even if she were the teenage boy that some people are continually misgendering her as. Great!

2. The teens will engage in consensual sexual exploration that their parents and other adults feel is inappropriate - they're too young for all that. Jenny is flagged as being more likely to engage in or encourage this sort of behaviour, because she is "really" a boy or because trans girls are supposed to be more likely to be sexual early. Fortunately neither of those things is true! And as has been pointed out many times, lesbians and bisexuals exist - I am one of them - so it's perfectly possible for a single sex environment to contain people who are sexually attracted to each other. So single sex environments really don't help prevent underage sexual activity. The only thing shown to reduce underage sex and teen pregnancy is comprehensive sex education with role modelling from parents - something we can all work on together.

Allow me to point out that both fears are being stoked by transphobia, which can be a bias even for those who try hard to avoid being unfair to other groups of people. Unconscious bias is unfortunately a pretty big deal and from experience it can be overcome but first you need to get up the courage to do more research and admit where you went wrong. It's painful. But I've seen lots of people on this thread start thinking hard about their attitudes about trans children and where they're coming from, which is great.

They might be 'misgendering' Jenny, but they're not 'mis-sexing' Jenny - Jenny is a male.

goldenapples

You missed
3) we separate by sex not gender for reasons of privacy and dignity and
4) jenny is male so shouldn't be sharing with girls.

Fixed it for you!

And of course there are some people on this thread who don't really care what the OP was asking and just want to drag everyone into a bunfight about TERF stuff and insult trans women - like Windy here!

I think those two points are absolutely not the two that have been most discussed here. How about the rights of adolescent biological females to have private space on a residential trip where they are able to discuss and be in control of their female biology/bodies (changing clothes/periods/etc.) without a biological male being present ?

"Bunfight" or stating biological facts?

Nice abuse of windy though. TERF is a misogynist slur.

Don't be silly, pointing out that biological females deserve private space free of penises (whether that penis is attached to a ladybrain or not) is mean TERFY bunfightiness. We should all endeavour to centre penises in our feminism as much as possible

Sorry, I forgot, the point of feminism is to centre trans issues. Because everything else is sorted.

Genuine question (although I suspect it won't be taken this why) but why is TERF taken as an insult if that is what you believe? I mean, I get why I think it is a word with unpleasant associations because I think trans exclusionary radical feminism is a bad thing, but if you are a rad fem who wants to exclude trans women from women's spaces, why don't you like that being mentioned?

I don't know any TERF types in real life and only encounter them on MN and so it is a bit of a mystery.

Because it's a lib-fem/man approved alternative for 'cunt' in my experience.

HermioneWeasley - I think it is a bit unfair to say that it's all down to inclusive feminists re: making the conversation about trans women.

From my PoV, it feels as if it is the TERF side who are obsessed with trans women. I've never worried about the presence of a penis in an adjacent toilet cubicle, for example, or felt as if my dignity will collapse if I can't police someone's urination practices. 90% of my conversations on the issue are on MN. But obviously you feel different.

WindyMillersProbationOfficer - but only because the attitudes feel so abusive and vile. I know people know who react in the same way to 'gender critical feminist'. But you clearly don't think that - you think the attitudes are alright. So why disown the descriptor?

Because it undermines what I stand for. I believe in feminism and will speak out against groups that undermine that.

Sometimes these groups will include

Trans
Religious groups
Males
Older people
Anyone else who might not like women that day for any given reason.

I have no problem with any group of people but it just so happens that lately the people I have found who seem to be threatening the feminist ideals I believe in are often trans. Therefore terf doesn't represent me - I'm happy for trans people to life the life they want to as long as it doesn't impact on rights of others. Same as I'd feel about any other group. The only trans rights I want to exclude are the ones that directly impact on women ( saying that i imagone there will be times when a trans woman should have rights at the expense of women, E. G. Their right to health care on a intensive care unit trumps a woman's expectation of single sex accomodation)

I am not against trans people at all. It does feel like a small minority are trying to establish themselves above women by exercising power and taking away their rights.

Because if a polite phrase is used rudely enough it becomes a rude phrase, i went to here to find some examples, the front screen is quite good
terfisaslur.com/

TERF is not an objective factual description, it is absolutely used to silence women - it is usually accompanied by "die in a fire" (which is so popular now it's been shortened to DIAF) and "TERF scum" and "kill all terfs". So yes, I object to it. I don't object to "gender critical feminist" or "woman who understands biology"

I also don't buy the argument that people who call me and my family "pakis" are just innocently commenting on what they assume to be my ethnic heritage.

Quite frankly, I don't give a shit if someone calls me a TERF. If knowing that females don't have penises makes me a TERF, then so be it. But TERF doesn't mean that any more - it means any woman who has the temerity to disagree with trans activist dogma. A man can call a woman any insult he likes, as long as he prefaces it with TERF, and will get nothing but support from trans activists and lib fems. It has become a byword for 'woman I disagree with'.

What's the trsns argument then? Serious question. Is it just about inclusion? Which is fair enough, but not at any cost.
No one can say I want to be in your gang, and you must accept me fully, regardless, because I want hto be in it. It is no longer your gang. I mean it wouldn't work in a naice mc book club.

"why is TERF taken as an insult if that is what you believe?"

I can't speak for others but my views differ from radfems' on several issues such as prostitution so you people will have to find a different acronym to beat me over the head with.

"I think it is a word with unpleasant associations because I think trans exclusionary radical feminism is a bad thing"

1. That's circular reasoning.

1. It's not a word. It's an acronym.

1. It's not a bad thing but a clear-headed recognition of basic biological facts.

I think why RadFems resent being called TERF has to do with the hatred, threats of violent death and rape that many trans and their supporters direct towards that label.

"2) The teens will engage in consensual sexual exploration that their parents and other adults feel is inappropriate - they're too young for all that. Jenny is flagged as being more likely to engage in or encourage this sort of behaviour, because she is "really" a boy or because trans girls are supposed to be more likely to be sexual early. Fortunately neither of those things is true! And as has been pointed out many times, lesbians and bisexuals exist - I am one of them - so it's perfectly possible for a single sex environment to contain people who are sexually attracted to each other. So single sex environments really don't help prevent underage sexual activity. The only thing shown to reduce underage sex and teen pregnancy is comprehensive sex education with role modelling from parents - something we can all work on together."

Actually people have said over and over again that the issue is not sexual activity per se, but rather the specific kind of sexual activity that can lead to pregnancy. This is the kind of sex for which biology rather than the-gender-someone-feels-like is supremely relevant.

And while I'm sure it has been shown that comprehensive sex education is the best thing to prevent teenage pregnancy in general, that doesn't mean that it's the best way to prevent a teenage pregnancy beginning on a holiday. (For a start, the condoms a teenage girl may have sensibly acquired thanks to some great sex education may be back at home!)

Thank you for answering honestly to everyone who did.

If you look at the "meet the predators" studies you'll see that actually rapes are committed by a very small minority of repeat offenders who are not out of control with desire but very calculated about grooming and isolating their victims

They do. You're right. And some have, in a very calculated way, identified as a woman in order to gain access to potential victims.

Why on earth would society make it easier for those predators by removing the barriers that prevent them gaining access to female safe spaces?

That is what the trans-debate is about.

As it stands, a man who looks like a man will be challenged if he enters a female space. But, if Maria Miller gets her way, anyone who looks like a man cannot be challenged if they enter a female space, because they might identify as a woman and if they do, then that challenge will be defined as a hate crime. So a calculating predator could be seen following a women into gym changing rooms, but will remain unchallenged by the staff monitoring the CCTV. And a teenage calculating predator self-identifies as a teenage girl in order to use Jenny's experience to insist that they are accommodated with their potential victims.

I appreciate it sucks to be men (and trans-woman) - because they are tarred with the same brush as predators, just because they share a biological appendage. But, every time I take a flight from an airport, I am subject to security checks, just because a few terrorists have blown planes up.

7Days. If I understand it properly the argument put forward by transactivists is something along the lines of:

• biology is a social construct
• gender identity is real
• therefore it doesn't matter what your biology is, it's how you feel/identity that makes you a man or a woman (or gender fluid, non binary etc)
• therefore a man who identifies as a woman is now a woman, he has always been a woman and his penis is a female penis.
• a man who identifies as a woman is exactly what a woman is and should therefore access services and spaces allocated to the gender with which he identifies
• pregnancy, childbirth, menstrauation, FGM are not women's issues because some women have penises and it's very triggering for you to talk about these things as women's issues. They are issues of vagina owning people.
• if I am a man who identifies as a woman and I am attracted to women, I am a lesbian. Any actual lesbians who don't want to have PIV sex with my ladydick are transphobes.

What have I missed?

Yes for me it is a matter of inclusion but not at any cost.

Sometimes people's wants/rights will clash. I think that trans activism 'trendier' than feminism these days so they are getting too many allowances made for their rights when their rights directly hinder another group. Sport is a good example - a trans person just wants to be included, but women want to compete against people in their biological league rather than males. Who wins?? - at the minute it feels like the trans person wins everytime.