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.

Spink Sounds like the cure is more feminism, then?

FrancisCrawford, I don't know how to make this any clearer but I was told if a black member of staff said he was white I had to record it that way. If someone who was white said they were Chinese then I had to accept that even if I knew it was untrue and even if they said it wasn't true but that was how they wanted to identify I had to accept that.

You can't always tell what sex someone else is by looking at them but I wasn't given any direction about whether I had to ask them or put what I thought.

So far there havent been any coherent arguments against the system Male, Female, Unisex based on biological sex at birth.

I cant find any reports of a Trans person attacked in a public toilet.

There are multiple reports of predatory males presenting as women gaining access to safe spaces to commit sexual assault.
www.lc.org/transgender

www.torontosun.com/2014/02/15/a-sex-predators-sick-deception
''Christopher Hambrook — who claimed to be a transgender woman named Jessica — has attacked four vulnerable females between the ages of five and 53 in Montreal and Toronto over the past 12 years.''

www.washingtontimes.com/news/2016/may/14/man-who-choked-girl-in-womens-restroom-stokes-alar/
''Man who choked 8-year-old girl in women’s restroom''

Spink There's an awful lot of "mental disorders" that are actually not inherently a disorder of the person, but are caused by people's responses to the person. I struggle with trauma type issues and the effect of life experiences. My "normal" reactions to adverse circumstances have led to me being othered and labelled as "mental", which in turn has caused more mental anguish and thus more discrimination... it becomes self-perpetuating. Just musing...

Weirdly, those who I know irl who most strongly support the transgender ideology have put me in the "mental" category rather than understand I am just a person who stuff has happened to. It seems incredible they will twist reality to fit the idea that men are trapped in women's bodies (and vice versa), yet cannot wrap their heads around the idea that I'm a normal human who's suffered, not some weird freak of nature.

Anyway, you are speaking as if gender is an actual tangible thing, and some people just happen to identify with the opposite gender. It's bollox. Gender is a social construct.

You write of "variations" in the human condition as if the most common state of being is identifying with the social norms one is expected to adhere to, according to sex. But in reality, the social norms are made up. People who don't conform to expected gender roles are just people expressing their personalities and preferences. People don't have male or female personalities; they are a mix of traits that for some reason we have artificially separated into "masculine" and "feminine". Loads of us don't fit neatly into either artifical box.

I absolutely agree transgender (as you have defined it) is not a mental condition, but a consequence of a society with ridiculous made up rules about how men and women should be.

I am very heartened to hear that MH professionals are starting to understand that the problem is society, not individuals - but keeping the gender roles in place and claiming you can switch is not the answer.

I cant find any reports of a Trans person attacked in a public toilet

Probably because trans people use toilets that they feel safe in?

If transwomen used toilets that men used, what do you think might happen?

I agree with the poster earlier who said this is not our problem to solve. I also think we need to stop referring to these men are women because they wear make up or wear women's clothing. They're not women and they never will be. They can dress how they want and all the rest of it, but I don't think anyone is obliged to pretend that they are women when they are not.

I'm also surprised that autogynephilia isn't openly discussed on here. It's incredibly common and quite unsettling. Lots of these men openly admit they dress as women as it's sexually arousing. Many of them have already offended (in my eyes anyway) by stealing female relatives clothes to masturbate in. There are hundreds of forums where they discuss such matters. I don't want a man with a sexual fetish in my changing room.

transgenderreality.com/tag/autogynephilia/

Are you aware of this Iris?

genderidentitywatch.com/transwomen-sexualized-violence/

Or this? Crossdressing is a fetish.

If transwomen used toilets that men used, what do you think might happen?
Nothing, same as when women or camp men use them.

A user upthread made the claim. But didnt provide any links, and demanded links showing attacks on women in safe spaces denying they happen at all.

Please stop with the toilet stuff. It's not about that, it's so much more important.

I'm not a "not man" and I am deeply irritated that men who don't conform to what they think society expects of them think they can appropriate an existence out of which I cannot identify. That women have fought against the roles assigned to them due to their sex is hugely impressive. About time men started to do the same.

Until women are liberated from male violence, having a blurring of what a woman is means that we are in a worse position than 100 years ago in terms of our ability to analyse the situation for women.

But no, the individual needs of men are paramount. Same old, same old.

If transwomen used toilets that men used, what do you think might happen?

Nothing, go in pee in and hopefully washes hands before leaving.

Nothing, go in pee in and hopefully washes hands before leaving

So you're saying men don't attack transwomen do they?

Women keep being told that there are laws in place to stop anything untoward happening in toilets. Women are not the world's protectors. In fact, I thought that was a male gender expectation?

Women are not responsible for male violence or for what may or may not happen in the men's toilets.

Hi BBC
I think we're all variations on the human condition! & agree many of the labels we apply to ourselves & others are social constructions.
And fwiw I think mental illness labels are soc constructions too - some people find it helpful to have those labels, others really don't. Personally in my work I'm more concerned with helping people reduce the distress they feel than anything else, & there's no one way to do that..

So the toilets on the station platform had been turned into unisex ones but they were the regular set up ie. Individual toilet stalls, communal hand washing. I suspect one set of toilets had been closed to save on cleaning and the other made unisex.
On all the toilet stalls there was a sign saying pls close the door.
I went into the toilets with my two young children, a man came in. He went into the toilet and started using it without closing the door. I told him to close it, he refused, saying he had a right to be there and was just using the toilet.
I left and complained to station staff who said they had this problem a lot with the new set up.
I don't want to have men walking into a secluded private space. Unisex toilets that open straight onto public areas, fine.

A friend of mine said that a man came into her dress store a few weeks ago and tried on a dress

He said that although he was a man he had always liked dresses and stereotypically girls things and amongst his friends he was happy to indulge himself...not as often as he liked as he was a lorry driver and worked in a quite 'macho' environment

Its a shame more people arent like him and unfortunate that our society has problems with men like him existing

It seems fine to be a woman dressed in jeans and a t shirt with no makeup but not the other way

Shame

jellyfrizz But with no gender how can you be transgender?

Well you couldn't anymore than you could have religious disputes without religion, but good luck with getting rid of either.

However the post I was replying to said "The problem would be solved by challenging gender stereotypes instead of reinforcing them." and I'm suggesting that
getting rid of the stereotypes might not stop trans from existing.

I suppose it is a bit like how getting rid of racial or ethnic stereotypes won't stop races and ethnicities.

Probably because trans people use toilets that they feel safe in?

So Ami why don't we educate men to be more tolerant and not attack transwomen in the toilets then?

So you're saying men don't attack transwomen do they?

Men attacking men/transwomen is the issue here. Resolve your own problems dont put it on women .

So Ami why don't we educate men to be more tolerant and not attack transwomen in the toilets then

Or educate men not to attack anyone?

So Ami why don't we educate men to be more tolerant and not attack transwomen in the toilets then

How would those men know that the transwomen are not women in the toilets but transwomen?

Would they do a quick genital check first? Then attack them if they have a penis and aren't 'behaving as men should' or attack them if they have had surgery down there?

But I forget - transwomen can easily be recognised as 'chicks with dicks in frocks masturbating' so they must be a dead give away to men and women...

I think one of the biggest issues is that no-one seems to be able to define what it means to be a 'man' or a 'woman' beyond biology or stereotypes. I was born female and am confident that I'm now a woman. But I don't conform to all the female stereotypes. I am afraid that if some of the activists get their own way that they will make the definition of 'woman' so narrow that I, a biological female, will no longer be considered a woman.

My other concern is not about trans people at all, but if everyone is accepted as the gender they claim to identify with, and there's no implicit requirement to try and 'pass' for that gender, there is nothing to stop males who are not actually trans getting access to women's spaces. I don't have teenage children, but remember being a teenager, and I definitely knew some teenage boys who would have been tempted to take advantage of that particular loophole if it got them access to the girls' changing rooms! But if you can't challenge someone's statements, how do you prevent situations like that?

I think the world needs to become less gendered, not more. I think there needs to be more sensible discussion, not talks that ignore science (boy brain & girl brain, wtf?) or where people are shouted down as transphobic for expressing any concern with how things are developing.