To not really understand why some people are so upset by transwomen using public toilets?

[MyGastIsFlabbered]

I'm sorry if this offends, but I really don't understand why this is such a contentious topic. I know transwomen and they just want to pop into a cubicle, do their business and leave. I understand that there is a fear of being attacked, but I honestly think if someone is of a mind to do that they'll do it whether dressed as a woman or not.

ChocolateForAll

What I don't understand is why so many MNetters assume that trans women are wannabe sex offenders. Is there any evidence to back this up?

Trans women commit violent/sexual crimes at the same rate as men.

In the same way that not all men are rapists or violent neither are all trans women.

However a significant enough number of them are that we have segregated spaces to minimise the risk of sexual assaults in places where women are most vulnerable.

It is literally like banging your head off a brick wall.

'What I don't understand is why so many MNetters assume that trans women are wannabe sex offenders."

NOBODY HAS SAID THIS.

The problem is less with transwomen and more with the fact that if women's spaces are open to all comers, men with intent to harm women can legally enter simply by saying they are transwomen.

Why is this so hard to understand? Are people deliberately misunderstanding? I think they must be, because it's so much easier to pretend you think the nasty women won't let the poor transwomen in because they think they are all rapists - therefore the nasty women are transphobes. Rather than engaging with the ACTUAL argument which is that is dangerous for women to open up their spaces to all men, who can exploit the rules to their own advantage if they so wish.

It's really, really not difficult.

I just don't agree it is about misogyny. And I also don't think it is about the safety of women and girls. Not that that isn't important - of course it is! I want to feel safe using the loo aswell as my daughter feeling safe.
I think it is primarily about people identifying as a gender and feeling able to use the bathroom of that gender. That is the primary need for me.
I wonder if people often confuse trans issues with perversion. As they used to with gay people. Maybe that is what is concerning people - if they don't understand it is merely about using the right facility for one's own identity? Still unsure why it stirs up such strong negative reactions in people.

Toffeelatte - you are the voice of reason! It seems that you cannot mention that unisex toilets are not a problem without being accused of facilitating all manners of crime against women.

Manumission Another problem is that the Transactivists are basically agents of their own destruction. So you have a woman who is trapped in a man's body. She takes hormones, she loves as a woman for years, she has surgery. All was going just fine. Fluffy liberals like me had no problem with her whatsoever.

And now the Transactivists have announced that Fred the Rapist who likes to "be" a woman for an hour or so on a Saturday is just the same as them.

And fluffy liberals like me want to protect themselves from Fred the Rapist.

So now me and the completely unobjectionable woman who happened to be born a man are pitched on opposite sides. When actually we should be fighting Fred the Rapist. Instead he rapes us both.

For the billionty millionth time, we don't think transwomen are sex offenders. We think they are men.

In some scenarios, men pose a threat to female safety.

I struggle to understand the no transwomen in the toliets line too op.

Firstly I don't get who is going to check who does and doesn't have a penis. Of course for the vast vast majority of people it's very easy to guess what someone's genitialia look like - but there are exceptions to that.

Secondly a toliet isn't actually a safe space. They aren't policed, the reality is that anyone can wander in whenever they want.
If a man walked into a women's toliet explaining he was looking for his daughter most women would help him. He could be genuine or he could have sinister motives but there isn't anything stopping him.
Making the effort to dress as a women isn't really needed.

OP, I'm totally with you and can't quite wrap my head around the anti-trans sentiment in mumsnet. Extraordinarily unempathetic and unyielding.

Why is a bathroom different to a prison Toffee?

So safety of women and girls is less important to you than the feelings of a small minority of transwomen, hummingbirdhostage?

Seems pretty misogynistic to me.

Good try with the 'they used to treat gay people like that' argument, though.

chocolate there are plenty of examples of lesbians being bullied and called transphobic if they don't want to have TW as sexual partners. I have no idea if that account is genuine or not, but it illustrates the problem. Google "cotton ceiling" which a few other posters have mentioned.

As other posters have said, the best evidence we have is that TW (even after full surgery and hormones) retain male patterns and levels of criminality. There was a link to a YouTube video earlier on the thread about violent TW and I've added a few photos. There's certainly nothing to suggest TW are safe for women.

On the basis of men self identifying as women we have had the following: women and girls secretly filmed, women and girls sexually assaulted while staying in DV shelters, women being forced to share hospital wards with male patients, male bodied TW placed in women's prisons and getting prisoners pregnant, girls being forced out of swimming pool showers/changing room

No far fetched scenarios - all those have happened.

Hummusforbreakfast lots of times not the big cities but quite often if we drive through a village and stop for lunch the restaurant Loos will be like this, luckily I'm Not scared of the penis owners and don't view them all as potential rapists

Unisex toilets are not the answer for women.
I work in a new University building (so obv. V hot on transgender rights) which has the full door toilet corridors which keep being touted as the sensible grown-up solution. In my building, they are still male and female but in another one, they are all unisex. (I suspect a cost issue involved in our building as having unisex toilet doubles the number of sanitary bins needed).
Except they aren't a solution because not one of them has a sanitary product machine in them and there is no-where to put one. Most women have needed one of these at some point.
The only toilet in the building which has one is one of the unisex disabled ones on the ground floor and there is no way you would know this unless you already know it iyswim. It is disgraceful to me that the only place you can deal with the business of being female in an emergency bleeding situation is the unisex toilet.

I have complained btw but still no machines. Because the feelings of transwomen and fear of being seen to be transphobic are considered more important than the physical reality of being female. I will keep in kicking off about it.
Women need female toilets.

I dont understand why people lie on any mumsnet threads

Or maybe they are not liars ....just stupid

Yes, I quite agree Mumoftwo - madness.

But as most of these assaults take place at home isn't, by the same logic, there a case for keeping men out of the home?

You can choose who you share a home with. You cannot choose who you share a toilet / prison /hospital etc with.

Unisex toilets would be fine - I actually think that if there are only two toilets, then surely the sensible one to declare unisex would be the mens since it has the equipment for everyone - but I do worry that that's invading the privacy of men, who perhaps would prefer that women didn't get to wander around while their penises are out.

How about this - if you work in security, or healthcare, and you have to have intimate contact with a person - such as doing pat-downs at the airport, a man can declare himself a woman, and now, by policy, women have to perform his pat downs. It's already happening in prisons, and at airports. There are a group of men who get off on this, and they absolutely take advantage of this 'a woman is anyone who says they are' stance.

If it was you, or your child working as a security guard, and required to perform intimate searches/services to men who are doing it to get their jollies, to gain power over them (especially in the case of the prisoner/guard relationship) - does that sound like something people should be legally supported in demanding?

chocolate no I don't think being trans is the same as being a pervert. It is about not wanting to share my sex segregated space with people who are biologically male and socialised as male.

I don't think my brother or my dad are perverts but I wouldn't want to get undressed and shower in front of them. I dare say they feel the same about me.

SmrsBird
Perhaps you are like a penis magnet for the penis owners. I've been travelling through France for decades, pulling into small villages and finding cafes and restaurants etc and I've never spotted a penis.

You have a gift . You draw forth the penis and are unafraid

And in some scenarios, women pose a threat to female safety. There. Where does that get us?

I can't imagine why we've decided that trans women with no previous form for violence or aggression are the group to get our knickers in a twist about. That makes no fucking sense.

I had no issue with transwomen using the women's toilets however what I don't like is the way the rules are changing in regards to who is actually classed as a transwomen and that it is now going to self identifying so basically you can decide today you are a transwoman but tomorrow you'll be a man again etc etc. It opens the door to men just claiming to be trans to access women's only spaces for any sort of reason. There used to be a wonderful transwoman who drank in the same pub as me, she was pre-op but she lived fully as a woman and did have a Gender reassignment certificate, I couldn't see her as anything but a woman and then on the other hand there is Anna Lee. It's Anna Lee that has now woken me up to what is going on in the trans movement and the reason that I want to very definitely draw that line in the sand and say No access to women only spaces, any women only spaces including public toilets.

Nope, absolutely not Mrsglitterpants . I don't hold with the safety argument, that's all. If I felt there was ANY increased risk AND I still prioritised enabling the needs of trans people, then maybe there would be credence to your argument. But I don't

voyage

I have never seen anyone who looks like a man in the ladies, in a dress or otherwise

Or a woman who looks like a man, in a suit and tie or otherwise

I may be concentrating too hard on other things to be fair, and obviously just because i havent seen it doesnt mean its not happening