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.

see not restricting female sporting events to women only as justifiable because to do otherwise is prejudicial?

I see that as being a very difficult problem, it all seems very cut and dried until you consider people like the South African runner Semenya, where do you go with people like that?

Then, I suppose, you have to consider the irony of professional athletes complaining that anyone else has a physical advantage.

I saw a photo a few months ago of a person who had been admitted to German as a child refugee, winning a race against children he was head and shoulders taller than, does that mean we should stop admitting child refugees?

Gender dismorphia is a mental illness and should be treated as such, not pumping people with hormones and hacking at their bits.

If I paint myself stripey and surgically attach a tail to myself, does that make me a zebra? No.

Stop this bullshit and get people some bloody counselling!

Gender self identification allows male predators access to womens spaces.

No, I've asked for an sample of this actually happening and while I've been given a link to a vile cese of a transwoman raping a man, there was no suggestion that this had happened in a woman only space. No one has come up with an actual, verifiable example of what you suggest or explained why it would be acceptable to punish a whole group of people if it did happen.

www.dailywire.com/news/5190/5-times-transgender-men-abused-women-and-children-amanda-prestigiacomo#

metro.co.uk/2017/02/05/transgender-murderer-moved-from-womens-prison-after-having-sex-with-female-inmates-6429321/

1. Provision of designated trans facilities nationwide is something I'll gladly help campaign for. Unisex toilets or toilets that are enclosed rooms like disabled toilets so properly safe, specialist prison wings, no one should have to expose themselves to risk, abuse, loss of privacy, dignity or resources properly informed and aware of the particular needs of that group.

1. The exact same respect for born women to go on having these things.

1. There is absolutely a difference between gender dysphoria and lifestyle choices, and the rights of those with gender dysphoria should not be automatically extended to or appropriated by those making lifestyle choices. That needs to be recognised and something that can be talked about without someone running to shout 'transphobia!! Shame on you!'

1. Bottom line underneath all of this: it's not about safety or where to pee. Its about the drive to eliminate the ability to name or identify ANY difference of ANY kind between someone born a woman and a male born person who chooses to take on the identity of a women. There are transactivists who will not accept unisex or trans provision because they want women's facilities to exist so they can access them and force full validation of their woman status.

This is where my gears crunch. 'lesbians enjoy blow jobs'
'biology has nothing to do with being a woman'
'female penis'
'women come in all kinds of different bodies'.

It's factually untrue and is purely and simply about removing the identity and rights of biological women for the benefit of male born people, to the detriment of female born people.

Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.

I will not be forced to say something every part of me screams out is Not True and is morally wrong. Lesbians do NOT have penises. Lesbians are NOT transphobic for not being attracted to someone with a penis and male anatomy just because that person calls themselves a woman and has that identity. Born women have rights, choices and bodily autonomy too, and were not put on this earth to enable, facilitate and compensate male born people.

Well saidRumbling

Born women have rights, choices and bodily autonomy too, and were not put on this earth to enable, facilitate and compensate male born people

I LOVE this statement and that is what is really at play here. There are loads of ways that Transgender people can be protected without eroding the rights of others but (and this crucial) THEY DON'T WANT THEM. They want to be validated at our expense.

Personally I think we need go back to the core of the movement. Mobilise more women only campaigning and fucking ignore the bearded dress wearers that want to wank to our distress.

And I say that with awareness of and sincere sympathy for the severe distress of a male born person with gender dysphoria who has grown up with those feelings, who believes they are female, who desperately wants that inclusion and wants those barriers and boundaries removed to reduce their sense of hurt and rejection.

I even understand some of the rage and hatred on social media about 'hairy bleeding slits' and anti women rhetoric, because born women were given naturally what they long for and are trying so hard to achieve, and mention of women's rights feels like 'no, you'll never be enough, you'll never do it'.

But this is not just all about transpeople. To reduce it to 'this is inclusion' is to miss almost all the bigger picture. There have to be other ways to support people with gender dysphoria and help them have the best possible lives without hurling the baby out with the bathwater.

YABVVU OP!
The Gender Identity Bill seeks to replace sex with gender as a protected characteristic, in one fell swoop invalidating women's hard fought for rights for safe spaces on the basis of their sex. Gender is a cultural social construct, which in Western culture, dictates that boys wear blue and play with guns etc and girls like pink and play with dolls. There is nothing whatsoever innate about gender, and millions of people do not conform to the stereotypes imposed on them by a binary patriarchal society. Gender dysphoria is an extreme and painful but completely understandable reaction to these stereotypical roles- a psychological illness affecting a tiny % of the population represented currently by a very vocal and very woman-hating band of transactivists.

No one can change biological sex no matter how much psychological pain they are in. It doesn't help at all to make a division between those who are identifying as woman because they are gender dysphoric and those who are opportunists- neither group are or can ever be women.
I know people who fall into both camps- as a lesbian I am probably much more likely to know 'transgendered' people than a straight person would be. I know people who are in pain and people who are just sexual fetishists. Many of the ones I know who are identifying as women have a very negative attitude towards women. There are trans people who do not say they are women- they are honest, intelligent, and mentally balanced enough to know that they cannot be women, and they do not hate women. But the rest want women to crawl away and die. If you have never put your head above the parapet among transactivists you cannot imagine the vile language, the pure hate they dish out to any (including Jenni Murray) who dare challenge their misogynistic and flawed ideology.

Kua the example you give is of consensual sex, there is no suggestion that an assault happened.

Theworldaccordingtotoads your example is a long way from a credible news source, I've spent half an hour trying to find more reliable sources, particularly for the case in Canada that seems to have the most detail but I can't find it reported anywhere else.

I even understand some of the rage and hatred on social media about 'hairy bleeding slits' and anti women rhetoric, because born women were given naturally what they long for and are trying so hard to achieve, and mention of women's rights feels like 'no, you'll never be enough, you'll never do it'.

Rumbling The rage and hatred comes from the fact that they cannot have what they, as entitled males, want from mere women- who are we to dare challenge them?. They don't have a clue what being a woman is because they are not women. They were not born in the wrong body. Womanhood isn't a set of:
feelings, behaviours, hairstyles, jobs, sports, clothes, actions, attitudes. Woman= adult human female- with hormones, chromosomes, DNA, sex organs pertaining to a the reproduction of human life. There is no science to support the idea of female/male brain.
'Feminism is the radical notion that women are human beings'- Chris Kramerae . We are still fighting for that right to be regarded as human, and because we are regarded as less than human its ok to rub us out, move us over, call us 'cis', say we 'chest feed' and that women have penises, and that lesbians should take dick (because its female)

Funnily enough you tried to shut me down by telling me I thought with my womb. My non-existent womb

Francis, that's a very interesting misrepresentation of what I said, perhaps you could read my post again?

It's not actually uncommon for people who have transitioned not to have bottom surgery and not plan to. That doesn't mean they haven't transitioned and are just wearing clothes or what was it.. a wig and padded bra??! Believe me, they still pass and they still definitely need access to safe spaces for their gender - I would argue even more than women who aren't transgender. Do you seriously all believe that a person who except for their genitalia passes as a woman, but happens to have a penis, should be made to use men's toilets for example??
And why are women suddenly playing the victim again? Why do we suddenly need special treatment?
And since when did all people with a penis become rapists? Honestly that one has been puzzling me for months.

Referring to the distinction made by the OP between two groups of trans people - which is also artificial and simplistic - but I digress:
Why should society dictate whether or not a person has radical, potentially life threatening surgery and give up the opportunity to have children?

Would you also advocate preventing women with an abnormally large clitoris and/or lesbians and bisexuals from accessing women's spaces?
How about women convicted of assault?
How about women who appear threatening to other women?
How about women who look masculine in general?
Are you advocating knicker police to peek before allowing women to access these spaces?

CopperBoomCopperBoom Thank God we've met. I thought I was almost alone on MN!

Silently I think that many oppressed groups, who aren't exclusively female, have found the language to describe and challenge their oppression, the gays, the disabled, the non-whites are all doing a grand job.

Eh? Are heterosexuals trying to redefine "gay" so it includes them? Are able bodied people redefining "disabled" and insisting they have the same concessions/support as disabled people? Are white people claiming to be black and demanding to be recognised as such by blacking up?

Actually, the answer to all those is YES - some fringe lunatics are doing those things, and people are not letting them get away with it.

But women? Tsh. We don't matter.

Woman= adult human female- with hormones, chromosomes, DNA, sex organs pertaining to a the reproduction of human life.

What about those with chromosomal abnormalities and physical abnormalities such as XXY, XXX, XO, XYY which occur in between 1in 500 and 1 in 5000 live births. This doesn't include those born with absent or atypical reproductive tracts and organs. I don't have the figures for those groups but its easy to find.

Are you seriously going to leave them without a gender because it doesn't fit your nice binary categories?

Such a shame when a nice simple argument is spoilt by facts.

And yes, I have posted this information before on other threads.

And no, I am not a member of Mermaids (had to look it up!) or a 'trans activist' or a troll. I am just someone who tries to think objectively and clearly and who values evidence and reason over hyperbole.

Wow. Just wow.

A poster on this thread just equated being trans with blacking up.

Just wow.

😳