To think I have solved the heart of the trans gender identity issue very simply.

[JapaneseTea]

The basic problem with the proposed bill is that it conflates two discrete groups:

People with body dismorphia who want to have surgery and live as the opposite gender.

Men who wish to identify as women but keep their genitalia, and have access as women to women's spaces.

I support fully the first group. I do not support the second group.

How can the needs of the first group be met, without women having to give access to the second group?

Working today so may not reply quickly.

How about getting rid of gender altogether. A complete sweep. A revolution. No more gender-specific clothes, stereotypes, products. Just a sex-based division.

It sounds kind of dystopic, but I honestly think it's the only way. The idea of gender is what got us into this mess in the first place.

Personally I think the trans women in the first group need to be a whole lot noisier (although I appreciate why they're not). This is not our issue to solve and it fucks me right off that yet again we are forced to manage a men's problem

Keep the first group as trans with protected rights (but no access to the opposite sex facities etc) and the second group as a lifestyle choice.

Clothes can be sex specific (bras, jock straps...). And many products today that are marketed as gender neutral ought to be sex specific (medicines).

I agree there is a lot of confusion.

*facilities

Clothes can be sex specific (bras, jock straps...). And many products today that are marketed as gender neutral ought to be sex specific (medicines).

I agree there is a lot of confusion.

Keep the first group as trans with protected rights (but no access to the opposite sex facities etc) and the second group as a lifestyle choice

Agreed but once someone has transitioned i.e. Removed the penis or added one, then access to women's spaces should be allowed.

Okay so access to women's spaces should be allowed but these transwomen should not be able to speak about experiences of being a woman.

They can speak about being trans-women but they absolutely do not have the right to speak about women's lives after they've enjoyed the privileges of life with a male-body for so long.

Even if they weren't happy with this male body and sought to change it, they still had the privilege of being identified in society as a man.

Agreed but once someone has transitioned i.e. Removed the penis or added one, then access to women's spaces should be allowed
How do you police that then?

It's difficult. What about just say a man who wants to become a woman and will have surgery to transition, he would have to live as a woman for two years before the surgery can be done. So which public toilets would he use?

I'm not totally convinced that there are two disparate groups. Now, I know someone will come along with that photo of the person with the beard who claims they want access to women's space at the weekend but you can find all kinds of folks with odd ideas on the Internet but I'm not sure that echoes what's actually happening in society.

Has anyone ever met an individual who belongs in the second group, who intends to always be in that groups, not someone who is pre-op or too poor or unwell to have surgery, is it really a big problem?

Yes I know someone in the second group, and there are cases abroad of 'women' raping women in female only refuges.

Once we've lost the legal distinction of womanhood we won't get it back.

Once we've lost the legal distinction of womanhood we won't get it back This is a really powerful statement, OP. Thank you.

I don't think it's up to you to dictate that someone must have gender reassignment surgery to really be trans. Bodily autonomy is actually quite important.

TakesThis, I agree with that so much!
Have an acquaintance who is trans, not sure what is under the clothes but she identifies as a woman and is constantly raging about womens rights etc. I admit I saw red when she patronisingly explained man-splaining to me.

I don't see how restricting people to the changing facilities of their genitals will work, unless you expect employees to check before they allow access??? I'm not the most feminine looking woman, broad shoulders, square face etc, if someone came up to me to tell me I needed proof of being a woman before I could use the toilets/changing room it wouldn't do my self esteem any good and I wouldn't want to complain for further pulling attention to how man-ish I look. But I was born female and identify with that.

Personally I don't get the issue. Make everything unisex. One of the local swimming pools (council run too) has done great with this. Individual lockable shower cubicals along with open ones, individual toilets and big area with lots of cubicals to get changed. At no point does a parent have to be unable to supervise their opposite sex child. I don't want a son purely because I don't want to wait outside the male toilets/showers/changing room wondering if he's okay alone in there with strangers. And I don't want to be that woman with her son in the women's making the women uncomfortable.

To be a woman, you must have a vagina whether you have this from birth or get it made later as part of re-assignment surgery.

If you have a penis you are not and can never be a woman. You are a man.

I for one (and I know others don't feel the same), am happy to share 'woman' if I can keep 'female'. i.e. you can keep your penis, wear a dress and call yourself a woman, but you still can't come in the protected female space unless you're biologically female.

I also agree that ideally we just need to get rid of gender, make all spaces safe for everyone and we won't have a problem.

I do worry about trans children, because when I was little I desperately wanted to be a boy because they got all the cool stuff, it was the eighties so I was just a 'tomboy', but it was only after puberty started that I accepted my femaleness, I think I could easily be labelled 'trans' if I were a child today. I also think it just widens the gender divide to say you can't do that unless you're a specific gender.

I also don't identify with what I've read in rants about how 'men who chop their penises off can't be women because they didn't grow up oppressed and under the male gaze and held back, etc' because I was lucky to not be oppressed or grow up feeling particularly objectified. I've experienced sexism, but I sometimes feel I don't reach the threshold to be allowed to claim the 'woman' label - maybe because I was such a tomboy.

I agree with making everything unisex but this needs a fundamental re-thinking of everything in our society down to sexing children at birth.

I don't think that's likely.

Children will continue to grow up identifying as boys/men and girls/women and will carry the privileges, values and assumptions that this carries. It's those assumptions/values/privileges that are the problem. A person with a penis is not inherently threatening when in the same space a person with a vagina.

When you label those people men and women and transpose on to them assumptions about strength, sexual appetite, entitlement and power, then the person with a penis becomes a threat and so separate spaces become important.

I accept female appearance - so they may not have had the op but they do dress as a woman. They are serious about it. And yes, I realise that jeans and T-shirt etc can be worn by anyone but there are more subtle things like a padded bra or wig/haircut.

If they are saying "I am a woman" but still look like a man then go in the male changing rooms. They are the ones likely to be exploiting things.

because I was lucky to not be oppressed or grow up feeling particularly objectified
Sorry Total but this kind of thinking is part of the problem. You were oppressed/objectified because you were labelled as a 'tomboy' (i.e. someone not conforming to norms). In a world without oppression or objectification of women, the idea of a 'tomboy' would not exist. Also, even though you didn't feel particularly oppressed, you said you wanted to be a boy because of the cool things boys got to do. That's oppression- girls couldn't do these things unless they stepped outside of narrowly defined gender norms and were labelled as 'tomboys'.

All girls and women are oppressed because people born with vaginas are ascribed a lower value in society than those born with a penis.

The reason I struggle with this issue is I have zero/nil experience of

Men who wish to identify as women but keep their genitalia, and have access as women to women's spaces

I have read many media reports but I am yet to see/hear anyone that experiences this in RL. I am not doubting it, its just feels remote

people get VERY HEATED, and then post a link from the newspaper

Now if some man came into the changing room at the gym. started swinging his dick about and then claimed he was a woman, hell yeah I would be annoyed. I just genuinely question how often this is occurring

whereas other gender issues such as rape, abuse, gender pay gap, sexual harassment, mansplaining..... - I see it, I hear it, I feel it and I can get angry about it

It's not two discrete groups though. Attending the gender clinic with my son (14, biologically female) he is encouraged to look at a spectrum of ways in which to become comfortable with his body and his identity. At one end of that spectrum, yes, there is hormone treatment and surgery. But neither of those things are easy or risk free or to be rushed into. And as his mother I very much support looking at other ways of my son being comfortable in his own skin. That route shouldn't be a foregone conclusion.

Do I believe my son has body dysmorphia (though I don't find that term helpful)? Yes, absolutely. Do I think he will ever identify as female? 100% not, no question in my mind. Do I actively encourage a one way route to irreversible hormones, loss of fertility and surgery? Absolutely not. Neither of those things are risk free or a magic wand or necessarily the route to happiness.

I do actually believe that is exactly the route my son will end up taking and I will support him 100% as I always have. But I think my role and his therapists' role is to ensure he can explore a full range of options. Many trans adults don't opt for full surgery.

I appreciate that as FTM it's not actually the group you are talking about, but the principle is the same I think. (Not the female only spaces principle, but the range of ways of living as trans principle.)

All the debate appears to be around MTF and I understand why (and agree with the worries), but it still raises issues for FTM which are rarely mentioned. I have lived with this for 12+ years and still find it utterly confusing at times.

The answer is a third unisex space.
Its irrrelevent if we havent experienced it or not, the risk is that predators want access to female only spaces.

Thats not just toilets and changing rooms. Gender self ID or no gender will allow racists to put on a dress and walk into the women only area of any synagogue, mosque or temple - then claim the people who object are bigots.
It will also allow violent men accesses to DV shelters.

Dont try to rely on people being decent and not doing that. Dont remove the protection we already have.
Its up to the people who demand a change in the current law to make sure their new rights dont impact ours, not the other way round,

Pragmatically you'd have thought that the best thing to do would be for the law to explicitly formalise that certain segregations are to be made by chromosome or physiology (when there is a valid reason for this), and not by whether someone is a man or a woman.

No-one is disputing whether anyone else is a man or a woman by saying "penises or neo-penises only" or "XX only" or similar. Just like the rape laws make no mention of men/women, just stipulate what bodyparts the rapist and their victim need to have.

The law can seperately allow self-identity of man/woman, and others can still of course have their ideological disputes over what makes someone a man or a woman, but this would not legally have any bearing on spaces that formally are not split by men/women.

How about getting rid of gender altogether. A complete sweep. A revolution. No more gender-specific clothes, stereotypes, products. Just a sex-based division

^^ This. The driving force behind all this appears to be men who associate 'feeling like a woman' with the wearing of dresses and make up, conveniently ignoring vast numbers of women who rarely or never wear dresses or make up and do not claim to identify as men.

What these men need to do is campaign for the right to wear dresses and make up as men if they have no intension of taking hormones or having surgery. Otherwise they need to have had a specified amount of hormone treatment before accessing women's safe spaces.

I have decided that I do not believe in 'gender' as it appears to be entirely about stereotypical male/female behviours, many of which are wholely or significantly outdated now. Just because a man or a woman dresses in a certain way, has a certain job, takes on particular domestic or child rearing tasks does not change the sex that they are, so this whole 'I identify as a woman' but I have no intention of having surgery or even hormone treatment is just bollocks really.

And while we are on stereotypes, I wonder how many of these men who identify as women have a fraught relationship with their MILs, feel responsible for taking on all wifework type tasks, or feel guilty about their work/childcare/parenting choices, like so many actual women do?