Gender Self Identification debate continued

[PoochSmooch]

Continuation of the thread from here

Hamlet fair, what if the law mandated that toilets were single-occupancy rooms, with shared hand-washing facilities (or a sink in the room) maintaining privacy for everyone? Also, why would it bother you to know that you were peeing next to someone of another gender? If you are not being forced to look at their privates (would be unpleasant for a lot of people) does it really matter, we all have unisex toilets at home and manage without too much trouble.

I can choose who I admit to my home. And where is the money coming from for all these luxury toilets?

What about changing rooms? What about hospital wards? Women's shelters?

A toilet is not just a toilet if access to it is the beginning of access to all spaces.

MissBax I suppose 'nothing' and 'everything' depending on context. If you refer to someone as 'a real Jew' it connotes very different things to calling someone 'a real Christian' for example. I can't think of any contexts though that you couldn't just sub in 'x is Jewish' for 'x is a Jew'. Although as a remark there's nothing 'always' wrong with 'a Jew'

(Sorry, back to the thread, if people want to discuss that though I'll happily start a new thread)

I saw someone say recently (on this subject - bet it was this thread now and I look silly!!) that the speed that the semantics around this change, they have a new sympathy for older people who are unintentionally racist! I can certainly see where that comes from - I had forgotten "trans*" already, for eg!!

(By the way, I think the reason "a Jew" is not considered okay is that it's an ethnicity as well as a religion)

"although if I turn out to be wrong I'll be right their campaigning for better safeguards for women."

For women? Or men-turned-into-women? How would you delineate at that point?

Vestal: "But you absolutely cannot believe that you are a woman despite having a male body. Acknowledging that bodies with penises are male is transphobic."

Oh god. I don't even know where to begin on this.

What I find bizarre on this is that so many other people can't see it. People have well and truly drunk the kool aid. It's like living with a bunch of people who genuinely think black is white, and keep shouting: Define white then! Define black! You can't, can you!

It's hardly 'luxury' toilets haha lots of new buildings have these types of facilities, and many current facilities can be modified (my university SU did just that, and they're hardly rolling in money).

Again with changing rooms, have more cubicles (that would be great, a lot of people don't want to see other people naked or be naked around them regardless of their gender).

Hospital wards I suppose are a little trickier, but again, there's very few reasons you'd actually be naked in front of other patients or need to see them naked, and you have privacy curtains. I imagine that most trans people would be as reluctant to bare-all to other patients you or I.

Once again, if someone is doing something inappropriate in these places, that is quite often a crime, regardless of their gender identity. If you noticed a woman creeping on you in a changing room, or being sexually suggestive in a hospital ward, you'd be within your rights to request that she be removed for indecency...regardless of whether or not she had a vagina.

Women's shelters you have 2 issues. 1 is that 'a man' is taking a space away from 'a woman', the second that a worker may be a man and trigger women.

The first thing I accept that I can't answer in a way that will be acceptable to you, because I view trans women as women.

The second, a person applying for a job has to go through an application process and an interview. They then will be accepted or rejected for that job, if they 'pass' so poorly that every person they help would know they were a man, then it's likely they would be found to be 'unsuitable' for that position. They would then have to prove that was because they were trans, which wouldn't even necessarily be the case.

Also, Loops, it's not really about the toilets. As HamletsSister says it's about women's shelters, women's wards, women's prisons, women's sports, PE changing rooms in schools...a whole range of stuff where it's important for females to have their own space and not to have biological males intruding. Surely you can't think it's acceptable for a violent male sex offender to announce he identifies as female and then be transferred to a women's prison?

So...I'm joining the debate.

And I'm sure some people remember my old username.

I'm trans. Transsexual. That seems to be the term that's not used much now and transgender is the word that's banded about.

Had surgery. I haven't got my GRC yet because I couldn't afford it - but I know that I could get it. TBH - I haven't ever had a need to show it.

I have read and participated in a lot of the debates on here and I think this article sums up a lot about what I think.

www.newstatesman.com/politics/economy/2017/07/why-chris-grayling-jeremy-corbyns-secret-weapon

I do think there are a lot of issues. I think the Government thinks it's trying to do the right thing but I do think there is a lot to discuss and I hope that some MPs - I can think of a few - will be brave enough to raise them.

I went through a hell of a lot to get where I am. Struggled and it took time. But I got a diagnosis, got HRT and had surgery. It took a very long time.

I know a lot about the processes and bureaucracy involved.

I think that just 'saying you are a woman' is meaningless.

I think there are a lot of issues and that article raises them.

Sorry, we cross-posted then - but the prison and the PE changing rooms examples are key ones. Oh, and sports of course. Trans females beating the shit out of female boxers - lovely.

Welcome, Orlantino - are you Orlando as was? And a couple of other names before that. Congratulations on your surgery.

By the way, I think you've linked to the wrong article - that one's about housing.

hackmum

Yes, I've had a few names...

www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2017/07/jeremy-corbyn-right-trans-people-should-be-allowed-self-identify-their-gender

I just don't see how a trans woman is a woman. They can dress, walk, think, move, simper, giggle and have surgery as much as they want, they are not a woman.

At least those who have gone down the current route requiring diagnosis and treatment have put in the effort. But new legislation will make it easy for anyone to go anywhere.

However, I am looking forward to taking up my ancestral seat in the Lords....do you think it is retrospective? Can we go back and claim what we have lost through being women by saying that we felt male at the time and now want that acknowledged?

I would like to go to Eton, join the Bullingdon Club and become a Bishop. I felt male at the time, so why not?

I also don't understand why urinals are not built to accommodate my male vagina and their poor design leads to me pissing all over my foot.

Sorry, I realise I accidentally called you orlantino instead of orlantina. And you were kim something before that (sorry, can't remember what exactly!) Well, I'm glad things are working out for you.

The Helen Lewis article is a good one.

loops I once thought the same re single stall unisex facilities. But then I realised not all women liked them, and they are not possible to install everywhere. And then, as Hamlets says, what about

My gym communal changing room - no cubicles at all
My office showers - male dominated industry
Rape crisis centres
Refuges for women fleeing abusive relationships
Homeless hostels
Spas
Womens sports
Awards to encourage young women into STEM subjects
Representation on company boards
Effect on recording of victims and perpretators of crime [e.g. there were 39,000 male sexual offenders in 2015, and 2,000 female. That's 94% of offenders who are male. A transwoman would be counted as "female" in these stats)

etc
etc

The toilets are a tiny part of this and generally a derail, if I'm honest.
" we just want to pee!" As Rebecca Reilly Cooper pointed out on twitter
Men will hide in septic tanks covered in feces in order to spy on women; you better believe they'll happily claim to identify as a woman

cross posted with everybody

Orlantina - I think I have a fair idea who you are :) shocked that you don't have your grc yet!

If we do need to make the process simpler, I would support removing (or at least reducing) the cost. There's no way it actually costs as much as it does for just the admin of producing it?!

And that removes a barrier for transpeople on lower incomes, so is surely progress?

One of the issues I've seen is that articles by transactivists such as Roz Kaveney dismiss / don't address the concerns. There are concerns but they are ignored.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jul/25/theresa-may-something-positive-trans-people-about-time

Loops, feminism is the movement for the liberation of women. And when the term was invented, woman meant a person with a vulva who most likely also had ovaries and an uterus.
Early feminists knew, because there was no option to escape the fact, that they were oppressed because of their actual bodies, not some gender identity in their heads.

You cannot be in favour of abolishing women's rights and still be a feminist. Simple as that. It is in the definition.

Women fought long and hard for relative safety from male violence, and for equality in the workplace. All this, you take away by supporting gender identities as the deciding factor.

As you support self-identification, you can of course try to self-identify as feminist, and see who believes it.

I, for one, do not.

And Jane Fae in the Independent trying to reassure people

www.independent.co.uk/voices/gender-identity-law-legislation-trans-transgender-rights-lgbt-legal-confirmation-a7859376.html

Disagreeing with this ideology can often depend upon how much you are on social media. Or which bit.

If you engage with transactivists, however mild, you really get it.

I don't often post what I read because I don't want to be accused of sensationalism. Or cheap shots.

But the body of examples is so overwhelming. I could post thousands.

All from TRAs.

Women being threatened, actually threatened with self identification and what that will enable them to do.

Women being told that sexual orientation doesn't exist. Even if they have been raped and are triggered by penis, they need to work through it. Whether they are lesbians or straight. (See cotton ceiling).

Abortion and miscarriage is cissexist. And privileged.

Feminism should centre transwomen more than cis women because cis women are privileged by being born into their status while transwomen have to earn it.

Women's biology by its very nature is cissexist.

Women should donate their wombs for some new (science-fiction) medical procedure that makes men pregnant.

Penises are not only female organs. They are simply an enlarged version of a clitoris.

More and more. All the same.

Anyone can accuse these people of beong outliers and not representative. But if they're not representative, I'm not hearing from anyone else who is.

And besides, it is these people who will be in your bathroom.

Isn't it interesting the contrast between the Helen Lewis article and the Jane Fae article? Helen attempts to see things from both sides, and to explain the pros and the cons of both viewpoints.

Jane Fae just makes snidey comments about cis privilege, makes no attempt to even acknowledge women's concerns and signs off with calling people who disagree bigots.

To me, that says it all about who is doing the critical analysis here, and who is doing the guilt tripping and dog whistling.

I remember you orlantina Glad you got to have the op and hope you are doing okay.

I was very concerned however to see that the equalities select committee recommended a change in the law which would mean that you could only lawfully exclude a natal male with a GRC if you could prove that being born male conferred an advantage on that individual in the sport in question, which of course would be much more difficult to apply on a case by case basis.

It also places the burden of proof on the women.
Why doesn't the male have to prove his maleness doesn't give him an advantage?
I suspect this will be used to de facto ban women from winning any sports contests. I mean, on a general basis, you'd just have to compare the best five women in the sport to the best five men and see whether there's a difference. I expect that for all those sports currently separated by sex you would find that males have an advantage over women, and a quite obvious one. That's why those sports are separated by sex in the first place.

But if a male claims that he, individually, is just able to beat any woman because he trained so hard and is so generally awesome and that it has nothing to do with his sex ... how can one disprove that?
If people refuse to see the obvious, trying to prove anything to them is quite pointless.