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.

PrettyBrightFireflies Tue 08-Mar-16 23:03:53
sallying - I appreciate you may not have read the whole thread, but just to warn you that your post may well be deleted due to your misgendering of a trans-girl.

I don't know whether you are being serious or sarcastic, but yes I have followed the thread since it started.
If you are going to allow children to decide what sex they want to be, you may as well abandon all segregation of the sexes. There would be nothing to stop mischievous boys deciding to become girls for a term so that they could use girls' changing rooms for a laugh.

Why does there need to be a debate?

At the moment a group of a very few people are having influence on changing what defines being a woman/girl and this should not be pandered to

Yes look at the trans issues and how life for trans people can be better better how we can be more accepting

But it is a separate issue from women's issues

A few years ago this would not have even raised much of a discussion but now trans activists are having such an influence people start the think we'll maybe they do have a case maybe they are right get the message over enough and views change and this is what they have successfully done

sallying I was highlighting that irrespective of what you believe, we currently live in an culture where saying it may result in you being silenced. I don't agree with it, but the reality is that even MN are deleting comments that refer to trans-gender people by their biological sex.

If you are going to allow children to decide what sex they want to be, you may as well abandon all segregation of the sexes.

The current position being taken by many, including some Local Authorities, seems to be that segregation has never been by sex, it has always been by gender and therefore, the possession of a penis is not a factor in deciding where a person showers, sleeps or carries out other personal care.

Thank you for clarifying that Pretty.
What a weird world we are living in.

I was on a huge website for lefty women it was navel gazing and dreadful with no direction and pretty much sums up why the left routinely eats itself and a transwoman an undecided extremely male transwoman came on it. Firstly she cracked an hilarious joke if you frequent working men's clubs and like Chubby brown about women to ingratiate herself. This was met with a frosty reception. She constantly called women "girls" think Gail Tilsley's mothers voice as that how I heard her voice in my head and said that us girls must stick together and this was a joke. I asked if she self identified as a woman, this question alone called more hysteria than I've encountered since attending a five star concert at eleven.
So I was called a bigot and a transphobe. Nina had a short time on this Facebook group as she frequently spoke in a "male voice" and joked about tying women up and leaving them on the radiator. A moderator also wrote to me to say that Nina sounding male but she felt she couldn't share with the other 20,000 members. She also started many threads which just begged for validation, a weird amount of photos of herself. She's not the first TW I've met who seemed to hate women.

This demand the transwomen occupy women's space and police it for supposed bigotry is very frightening.

One minute we are a sex oppressed by our genitals and then men want that space and so our genitals are nothing, no issue and to be ignored.

Fucking male privilege.

I wrote a huge long (boring) post last night and forgot to post it. This morning I will be more concise.

Q: Should anyone be forced to share intimate space with people that are so fundamentally different as to make one feel uncomfortable / threatened / vulnerable / violated?

A: YES: biological women and girls should be forced to do this but MTT should not:

you are a transactivist who hates biological women and does not want them to have rights to privacy or protection

B: YES: transfolk should be forced to do this but biological women should not

you support women's rights and are unsympathetic to transpeople

C: NO: there should be a third option which allows consenting adults who mutually agree to share a third space and feel comfortable in each others' presence. Children who are too young to meaningfully consent to surrender their rights to privacy should have their rights protected until they are of an age (adult) to waive their right to be segregated by sex. People who do not waive their right to be segregated by sex should continue to have that right protected.

Congratulations! You are invested in sensitive solutions which do not trample anyone's rights! (But you are probably a hateful TERF bigot who should DIAF and no-one should listen to you etc etc)

Unfortunately much of trans activisim is about male privilege

The thing is they can't see it or rather do not wish to as they then have to accept that they are not female

HLC yep, so simple, so reasonable, so obvious!

If only TA were fighting for the right to safety and dignity, rather than the right to be agreed with.

PosieReturningParker

I think I may have been on the same site if the responses by the Transwoman are anything to go by.
I asked what I believed to be a reasonable, non- accusatory question (Do you think trans folk should disclose their biological gender to a sexual partner before intercourse?) and the venom spewed at me was unreal.
"Christ, who let the CISsie in?"
"No, should they fuck, we have a right to sleep with whatever sex people we want" (yes, don't we all?) and the delightful,
"Do you want to fling your menstrual blood at me to prove you're a real woman?!"

I bowed out because there was no debate, it was "this is my opinion, fuck you and fuck yours"

It's sad when the people who campaign loudest for acceptance and tolerance, are the least tolerant and accepting themselves.

Re: "Who let the CISsie in?"... isn't that discrimination on the basis of someone's gender identity? Or is that allowed because mine are aligned, so I have 'CIS privilege'

If i'd held a narrow view, and my response to her questioning me on it was, "Who let the tranny in", I'd lose my job.

C: NO: there should be a third option which allows consenting adults who mutually agree to share a third space and feel comfortable in each others' presence. Children who are too young to meaningfully consent to surrender their rights to privacy should have their rights protected until they are of an age (adult) to waive their right to be segregated by sex. People who do not waive their right to be segregated by sex should continue to have that right protected.

this is the lovely answer, but when there is no money to rebuild, people are trying to find solutions using only 2 rooms

What EnthusiasmDisturbed said

Unfortunately much of trans activisim is about male privilege

Trans activism is mostly about male privilege dressed up as female, but with no thought care or concern about biological women and the invasion of the essence of who they are

As ever when males speak and demand, you have some women who will jump to it and bend over backwards to comply, and will become the flying monkeys that insist we all must do so too. Its like a badly drawn version of the metaphorical female harem. They're not interested in putting their energy into rights for women. They're about what men want.

If biological women don't want to accept Mr Penis who now wants to identify as a woman, and has also benefitted from male privilege for years I might add, the trans activist thing being a further example of the arrogance that believes your expectations needs and wants must transcend those of biological women, then we should be left alone.

As it is, the subject is being beaten to death with a huge stick in "you will comply or else" fashion

Im so glad to see women standing up for themselves and actually saying "no thanks". Our rights aren't even in place yet after years of struggle, and now we're being told we MUST accept what trans activists want? No thank you.

P.24

uktrans.info/attachments/article/11/Transgender_Guidance_booklet%20a4.pdf

So again, no need to consider anyone's feelings other than the trans child's?

It's a small point, but surely there can be no pretence that segregated spaces are about gender rather than biological sex?

Male toilets usually contain urinals, female toilets sanitary disposal. In the same way disabled toilets are designed to be accessible and have facilities to make thinks easier for those with a physical difference.

Segregated changing rooms exist to allow privacy to avoid exposing parts of your body (that society has taboos about) to the opposite sex.

Totally aside: I'm not happy that The Turbulent Term of Tyke Tyler is co-opted onto the children's reading list of the Cornwall guidance posted by Posie above. TT wants to break out of gender roles, not to try to become a person of the opposite sex (which is impossible).

Brighton and Hove Council even refer to 'gender assigned at birth'.

Aren't Brighton and Hove Council run by the Green party? Who - whatever their respective merits on other political issues - are a bit misogynist on this issue?

This thread has turned into something more than the original question which is fine by the way but a little circular. Would be good to know the School's position.

For the record I disregard those that show little empathy for a child. Life is not so black and white. Comparisons were made to highlight equality for all, not just women. I'm shocked that a child's identity has no place in our society to some.

Good luck OP.

I'm shocked that a child's identity has no place in our society to some

..and I'm shocked that so many adults feel an appropriate response to a child who wishes to dress differently/play with different toys/talk about different topics/behave differently from the 'norms' society currently associates with his/her sex, is to tell him/her that he/she must therefore 'really' be the other sex. Because that's the only way those choices could possibly be ok. And then say that this is somehow breaking down - rather than building up - gender boundaries.

YY ^ multivac - exactly this!

Let's not pretend these children can not think and feel for themselves, particularly those approaching adulthood.

If your child said they are not comfortable with the sex they were assigned with at birth would you dismiss them? Maybe it is a mental health issue but is there proof of this? I've not seen it. Surely it would compound the issue if they are told they must comply with genetalia given to them. This is a massive topic that requires empathy, particularly when it concerns a child and more and more are coming out as trans.

It's a grey area that in my opinion can not be brushed under the carpet as a phase. How much longer can it be ignored without society thinking about long term integration. Please don't mistake my views with someone that just wants to try out being a girl so that they can get in their friends knickers, I'm sickened at the constant reference to sex. It's an emotional issue for most that requires counselling, hormones and possibly operations. Only then should a school engage and treat them accordingly.

Did anyone pick up my question how we are to treat hermaphrodites. What box do they go in if they refuse to be labelled male OR female. It's not so bloody black and white.

Maryz A colleague with whom I was discussing this also raised the subject of boarding schools; how are they handling the trans issue? Are they? Does anyone on this thread have any experience/knowledge?

Surely it would compound the issue if they are told they must comply with genetalia given to them

Could you explain to me, precisely how I am 'complying with genitalia given to me', right now?

The guideline I also referred to was a school who suggested visits would be on a case by case basis. My understanding of this is that with no external governance the parents and pupils concerned would have to provide consent, I don't see an issue with this and don't agree it sets a national presidence.