I know this has been done to death... transactivism v feminism

[Lo24]

I know, I know...

It's just no matter what I read or who I talk to I still can't find an answer that makes sense to me.

I'm happy for anyone to be whoever they want. I don't believe the blue brain/pink brain crap (science doesn't support it) but I still support anyone who feels they need to transionition (fully or otherwise).

It seems so awful that (amoung other human rights violations) Trump is removing laws that protect trans kids. But the argument (the only one I see thrown over the Internet, bashing radical feminists) is the idea anyone who feels like a woman is one, whether or not they transion in any form.

I have 4 young girls. I don't want them left at risk because teachers can not challenge boys who follow them into the toilets because that would be transphobia. If they ever have to (god forbid) access female prisons, dv shelters, psychiatric hospital I want them to have protected female only space.

Yet mention this to transactivists and it's transphobic and makes me a radical feminist. I don't particularly care about the rad fem argument that trans renforces general roles, or that it's body dismorphia and should be treatment by mental health professionals, I don't care for Germaine Greer's stance on the 'issue'. So I don't have a radical stance on this. I just don't want female rights protection eroded. I'm sure any trans person who has transioned in some form won't pose a risk, but if anyone who terms themselves a woman must be allowed access to female only spaces then that protects predatory men from being challenged also. But I can't say that or I get accused of accusing trans people of being predators. Ahhh!!!!

Anyone know the answer? Is there any form or transgender activism that recognises that eroding female protections doesn't help trans women either? Or any literature by anyone trans that gives a better argument than the 'everyone who says they are a woman is one and if you don't agree you are a bigot' line of thought. Help!

Did you look at the link twix? 600 girls told their rights don't matter, in a Girls' school, because 1 boy's demands. Do you think this is fair?

And there's the problem mrstwix, some of us still believe in biology rather than someone elses fantasy. Because no woman has a penis. And it's impossible to change your DNA.

Perhaps instead of buying into a delusion we should be saying dress as you please, call yourself whatever you fancy but your sex is your sex.

But they are not women. Biologically. Facts matter. They can wear what they want, live how they like and should be protected from attack and discrimination but they are not and never will be women.

A transwoman is a woman to me too, if a transwomen is a biological male who has transioned medically or is living as a woman. It's not like anybody checks up someone's skirt before they enter the bathroom. It's the ta's definitions that anyone who identifies as a woman is one, including those who don't alter appearance, name, hormones and keep their working penises (peni?) and that no one can challenge that because that makes them a bigot yadda yadda stuff that's the problem because that means any male can temporarily claim to be a woman to follow girls into bathrooms to harass them or to sleep in with the girls on school trips or to laugh at them in sex ed classes. And yes ofcourse girls are at risk from sexual assault by other girls (as males are also at risk of sexual assault by females too) but that doesn't mean we can just turn a blind eye to any man being allowed into female areas or the likes of men who have raped women being locked up in women's prisions because they now claim they are trans

On another note miranda Yardley's twitter list of who she follows & who follows her is enlightening, so so many talking about regretting gender changes, using termonology like in recovery from gender confusion- like it's the new anaroxia...

Glen your last paragraph is correct. And I'm not sold on the idea that there is confusion between gender & biological sex. One is how we are born and the other is a social construct. The idea there's confusion over that is a bit like science Darwin verses creationism.

Lo
If a transwoman is a woman, then please define 'woman'

Predatory men will not magically obtain access to women's bathrooms by allowing transwomen in there. Men who want to assault women aren't going to be put off by a picture of lady on the door which tells them to keep out. They aren't vampires, only able to cross the threshold if they're 'allowed' in. If a predatory man wants to assault a woman in a public bathroom, he will go in and do it. Being able to say 'you aren't allowed in here' will not protect you from that any more than him being able to say 'but I'm a transwoman so I can' will compromise your safety. It's a false argument.

I do not know of any credible sources that say there is a problem with men (MEN, not transwomen) gaining access to public bathrooms on this pretext, and I do not know of any credible sources that say women are at risk of assault from transwomen. (The link provided to the Family Research Council in the post above does NOT count - they are a deeply conservative, pro-choice, pro-hetero-nuclear family organisation - not a credible source).

Prisons are a slightly trickier issue, I'll concede that, but the public bathroom hoo-hah is a made up problem.

MercyMyJewels

How would you define 'woman'? Because I bet it's not as easy as you think...

I don't think there is a set definition of women either, it's certainly not biological sex because there are other cultures where it's the females who hunt and gather and males who remain to nature infants, so have a different social construction of gender than western ideas. I was just meaning if I'm out with girl friends and meet another group I don't go around checking under everooney skirts before we head off to the bathroom. I don't assume anyone who is a trans woman is entering women's bathroom to assault women-which seems to be the set response to challenging ta's- I think the bigger problem is the males who don't transion in any shape or form yet claim they are women because that just let's any male anywhere claim for 5 minutes they are a woman to enter women's bathrooms or changing rooms or similar.

Sexually assault is a broad term croker, which includes sexual harassment, and a group of teen boys who know fine well they can turn round and say hey you can't do anything we're transwomen and follow teen girls into bathrooms to laugh and tease and look over the toilet doors and ping bra straps and other sexual harassment absolutely is a distinct possibility that is a serious threat to females and one teachers then have their hands tied on if the accepted termecology if trans is anyone who identifies with the other gender.

Woman: An adult human female

Female: Of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilised by male gametes.

Dictionaries are wonderful things

Oh and I'm saying that as a teacher who worked in specialist secure units that delt with boys with who were convicted of sexual assualt/abuse

"Predatory men will not magically obtain access to women's bathrooms by allowing transwomen in there."

They will though, Croker.

So anyone with XX chromosomes who is infertile isn't a woman? I forget who said dictionaries are where language goes to die...

So eloquent Mercy - love it and also love dictionaries

Mercy- sorry I didn't reply sooner about the school links. I'm trying to answer everything.

I don't think they handled it right. But I'm not sure they were 100% wrong either. If the school is an all girls school it seems unusual to have accepted a child (as a girl pressumabley) and not therefore assume she will use the girls toilet facilities. I haven't ever been in an all girls school but wouldn't all toilets just be all girls? Other than teachers ones and I wouldn't want any child being forced into using those. Maybe there should have been a much bigger discussion about it beforehand, I don't know what to think really. It's not ok that they disregarded the girls feelings, but equally a coed school could feel sickened eating in a cafeteria with a child with cp who made a mess eating because of their disability and it wouldn't be ok to expect that child eat in a different room. I'm just not sure what I think on this one sorry

Croker
Of or denoting the sex that can bear offspring or produce eggs, distinguished biologically by the production of gametes (ova) which can be fertilised by male gametes.

• just because there is a medical problem does not mean that an infertile woman is not a woman. However there's fuck all chance of fertility if you have cock intact is there?

Pressumabley an all girls school wouldnt force an intersex child to use a different bathroom unless they asked to?

And re definit ions isn't chromosomes a bit misleading because arn't there several different combinations if you look at the mutations (for want of a better term)

I like Yardley's writing so far.

Infertile women are still of the sex that bears children, even if they as individuals can't.

Yes bev that's the bigger stuff to worry about. I just automaticly look at it from my little girls pov within growing up within school

Lo24 Hmmm. The wider issue you're describing, I can see your point on. I'm still not sure that this is really happening anywhere though, is it? Is there a wave of silly teenage boys crying 'transgender' in order to get into the girls' changing room?

I think the problem is that it's far more likely that a female-presenting transwoman will be assaulted for using the men's bathroom than that men will declare themselves momentarily transgender in order to be allowed into women's spaces. And that most people who claim otherwise, or who worry about hypothetical male-presenting transwomen (who are these people? they only seem to exist in conversations like this one) actually don't really like the idea of 'trans' at all. You obviously aren't one of those people, but there's a lot of them on this thread already, and I think it's in response to a very widespread tendency to delegitimise transgenderism that people will tend to howl down the complex issue you raise. I don't know what the answer is, but I am deeply sympathetic to the urge not to allow transphobes to hijack the issue and roll back the progress that's been made in recent years.

I think we need to get away form this bizarre idea that it is all about who uses what toilet. It is a far bigger issue than that.

There are a lot of times and places where we are segregated by our sex Note - sex, not gender. Sex, in all its biological glory. Why is that? Because it was recognised that there are times and places where this would put women in serious peril or at a disadvantage or uncomfortable. Let's take the obvious ones:

Prisons are segregated by sex because women prisoners (who are largely imprisoned for non-violent crimes) would be at extreme risk from the male prison population (a great many of whom have been imprisoned for violent crimes).

Hospital wards are segregated because sick people deserve dignity and being in a near-constant state of undress does not make you feel comfortable around strangers. Being on an all-female ward can address some of that. Being on a mixed-ward can be stressful, and stress delays healing/recuperation. The NHS still has some mixed wards that it is trying to make single-sex because it recognises that that is how patients need it to be. Should they stop, and just mix us all in the same ward?

Sport is segregated by sex because your average man is bigger, stronger faster etc. than your average female. And the same comparison holds true for elite sportsmen/sportswomen. If sport was not segregated, no woman would ever win again. So what would be the point in taking up the sport at all?

There are times when women are extremely vulnerable, e.g. when fleeing domestic violence. These women need to be made to feel safe, and an all-female refuge goes a long way towards that.

Sex and gender are two different things. Sex is the biology that makes women smaller, weaker, menstruating, childbearing. Gender is the way you are viewed and treated by your society based on expectations of stereotypes you had no hand in shaping (and damned few conform to anyway) - so women are seen as frivolous, caring, bitchy and a whole load of other things which all add up to being less important than men. And being less important, all our hard-won rights are less important so we can just shut the fuck up about them. And unfortunately part of our gender is that we have been trained from birth to be nice to others, put their feelings before our own, share, be NICE. Which makes it quite difficult for a lot of women to say 'hold on a minute, something's not right here' - and so our gender conditioning is turned against us as a weapon.

The problem we are facing is that most people don't realise what a broad church claims the label of transgenderism. We should have guessed when the term 'transexual' disappeared and was replaced by 'transgender'. A transexual commits to being a woman - hormones, surgery, living as a woman. Transgender? Maybe - but maybe not. 80% of transwomen have a functioning penis. Some transactivists claim to be transwomen whilst presenting as men - I'm looking at you, Danielle Muscato. Yes, you read that right - beardy bloke in a suit and tie is a woman. Or there's Drummond who considers he's 'widening the bandwidth of how to be a woman'.

So, Maria Miller wants people to be legally women (on female wards, in women's prisons, competing in the Women's 100m race) based on their gender identity - 'feeling like a woman'. They will not be able to be excluded from female spaces, to do so would be illegal. So how many people are going to feel able to challenge an obvious male (e.g. Danielle and Alex) demanding access to a female-only space? And would that obvious male have to be transgender anyway? All they have to do is say they are - no proof is going to be required. Just their say-so. So we will be in the situation where any male, trans or no, can demand access to a female space - and he cannot be challenged.

Now I could be wrong (I'm not!) but this is just handing over female spaces, not just to transwomen, but also to predatory men. Or teenage boys who feel like havin' a laffff (we've only got to say we're trans bruv, they can't do a thing about it hahahahah). So effectively there will be no female spaces any more. Not one. And as for the transwomen - predators get off on the powerlessness of their prey. I could well imagine they'd get an extra frisson of power out of preying on a transwoman.

If this services.parliament.uk/bills/2016-17/genderidentityprotectedcharacteristic.html Bill ever becomes law we will feel the full force of unexpected consequences. Not men. Just women and transwomen.

It's a false argument.

No, it isn't - you are assuming that sexual predators are all premeditated, i.e. not opportunists, which is absolutely not the case.