In my understanding of the trans issue.

[Randomusername01]

I'm trying to work out if I'm being bigoted or not. I agree with some of the trans posts I see here but others, whilst maybe not being anti trans by mn standards definitely come across as mean and on the verge of being anti trans imo. Anyway I digress. Am I right in thinking that gender is just a feeling, constructed partly by society and partly by individual innateness. So I guess I do agree that people can self I'd their gender along whatever myriad there is. But this is separate from anatomical sex, which bar a minority of cases either fall under male with penis and female with a vagina. So you could perhaps identify with being female but anatomically you would be male? So is the problem lies in how society segregates things such as prisons, sports, changing rooms etc. By gender or otherwise?

CaligulaBlushed

One of the major language problems that I have with this is that the trans lobby are currently saying that using the wrong pronoun is 'literal violence' yet they label and use the unwanted and unnecessary term "cis" for those that are not trans.

@Dommina not at all. It's just that FWR is where I have personally read the most about this and there are lots of posters who seem very well informed and I have a lot of respect for them. I've not seen this debated much outside of FWR, that's why I suggested there might be better. No one said anything about being thick.

Sex is the biological reality of our bodies

Gender is the roles and stereotypes enforced by society due to sex.

‘Gender identity’ is an oxymoron. You cannot ‘identify’ in or out of the social expectations enforced upon you.

We are no longer talking about a small number of post-op transsexuals. Most transwomen retain fully functioning male genitalia. Many women and girls can’t or don’t want to share with them - women from certain religions, rape survivors, victims of domestic abuse. Whatever my experience, I don’t feel it’s my right to force those females to share. It’s about the boundaries of all women and their right to say ‘no’, not just what you or I might think or have experienced.

And we’re not just talking grown women here. Don’t forget the Girl Guides now accept boys who identify as girls (with fully functioning bits) and will place them in the same tent or room as your daughter overnight- and you don’t have a right to be told about it. And if your daughter at school is uncomfortable changing in front of a trans girl with a penis it is your girl who needs to leave the changing room/give up sport.

Allowing women and girls to say ‘no’ to men isn’t transphobic. Trans people deserve equal rights, but not at the expense of safeguarding girls and women.

We segregate a range of areas and issues by sex for good reasons - privacy, safety and fairness.

Saying that 'men can already rape/assault/invade if they want to' doesn't make a good reason to throw the whole baby out with the bathwater and make things considerably less safe, private and fair.

You're also arguing here for the dismantling of safeguarding, especially as it affects children.

Anyone arguing that transwomen should be allowed to compete in women's sport - you're arguing for the destruction of girls' and women's sport. Please don't make me get the statistics about the differences between men's and women's times in athletics out again (a clue: the differences are massive).

I don't even know where start with this. Clearly you have never been raped. I am a 5'7" extremely athletic, strong individual, but I could not fight off a 5'10" man of average build who tried to rape me. Bully fir you that telling a man to back off magically protects you, but it's absurd to think this would deter a sex offender such as Ian Huntley (who now identifies as a woman). Do you not think that Hollie Wells and Jessica Chapman begged him to 'back off'?

Thanks for the assumption, but in fact I have been raped. Systematically for 4 years in an abusive relationship, and once more violently by a ONS last September. Do I qualify to have an opinion now?

Of course I'm not saying that 'back off' magically solves the problem. I was making the point that I am frequently in spaces where people are freely wandering around nude, getting changed, showered, and dressed communally. I.e. the nydist/swinger/fetish scenes.

What I'm seeing is that in that in those situations, there is actually a huge amount of respect and a very good culture. As in, if a bloke asks something inappropriate I say back off. I've been taught in these communities to act with confidence and always be polite and kind. As the men are taught. If they don't back off they are told off/removed/shunned.

Basically, I have observed that when the taboo and the mystery around bodies is lifted, people act with a lot of respect. That men perhaps aren't the bogeyman people view them as.
I feel much safer in a swingers or fetish club than I do in a normal nightclub, for example.

I don't really see what Jessica and Holly have to do with gendered spaces, at all.

Aunt you are using interested to shore up your position on trans, when they are completely unrelated. The existence of intersex people does not mean sex in humans isn’t binary, it’s an anomaly. A biological anomaly. Not a feeling, not an identity and nothing to do with trans.

Yet again, no low a TRA won’t stoop to, no appropriation they won’t use.

Hiding this thread now, I am so revolted by this.

Thanks for this thread, and for the thoughtful replies. I’m still wrestling with some of the issues and arguments myself. Yet, when I’ve (knowingly) met a trans woman, I’ve felt like they’re my sister, and a woman. So it’s difficult to balance theoretical arguments with real life experience.

A pp gave an example of women suffering by being raped. A very quick google shows trans women are far more likely to suffer sexual assault, rape and physical assault statistically than cis women.

'RiverTam

I have never said you can change sex.

I have not conflated being intersex with being trans. I am acknowledging the fact that segregating people according to a binary model of sex does not make space for intersex people.

You do not speak for all intersex people and you must know that they do not all feel the same on this issue, but, like any group, exhibit a wide range of beliefs and attitudes. It is you who is wildly disrespectful to treat them as single homogenous group to shore up your own position.'

Very well said.
It's infuriating that sex definitions are frequently asked for (demanded) but any examples of grey areas or complication with definitions are shouted down as offensive and not to be talked about.

oh look Aunt has now been called a TRA. What a surprise...

The trans Umbrella is now so so wide. The Stonewall umbrella covers Transvestites and cross dressers. So are they transwomen? are you happy with someone who gets a sexual kick out off cross dressing in women spaces? Transsexuals. Yes, I can see the argument. Occasional cross dressers? No. Ridiculous!

Phillip/Pip Bunce? a man one week, a woman the next? a man when he's at his gentleman/golf club. A woman when he wants to win a prize for women. That's just taking the actual piss out of women and transwomen.
As for transwomen wanting to access cervical smears, women transplants etc. that is just begging for someone to shout 'The emperor is naked'

Male transexuals rarely face misogny because so few of them pass as women. What they do face in abundance is rampant homophobia because being a super effeminate man has always been linked to being homosexual even if the man in question is actually a heterosexual crossdresser.

Difficult? Yes. Same issues that women face? Not even remotely.

There is so much to talk about with this one - and no one’s views should be shut down if we are going to make it work.

It seems awful to label men as aggressors but unfortunately statistics show us that more aggressors are male.

Let’s face it - how many of us would not send our little boys in the toilet alone for fear of who is lurking in there? A sex offender has compulsive behaviours - some of them of we are already seeing will do anything to get in a female or w child’s space. This is just reality - and we need to not allow equality to get in the way of criminals taking advantage.

I have a transitioning male to female in my family and I can see it’s bloody awful for her right now. I have a lot of sympathy for trans women and could see myself supporting any individuals I met - and becoming friends.

Trans women in sport does bother me though - there’s going to have to be measures in place to ensure natal girls aren’t losing their potential to be successful
In sport because their places are being taken up by trans women with a physical advantage.

Sudan upthread raises a lot of the concerns that I have. I don't want a Nordic model whereby men and women can be naked around each other. My gym has a small communal changing room and I don't want to see a penis anymore than I want someone with a penis to see my naked bits. Is that my issue because it's me being uncomfortable, not the transwoman? I don't think it's because transwoman pose a sexual threat neither (although I can understand how self I'd would make rape/assault easier to facilitate if men/transwomen are predisposed that way and are able to exploit it to their criminal benefit and I think this is a valid concern). It's just the same type of prudishness that stops me bathing naked in my garden.

AuntBeastie you seem a bit confused about language.

Male and female, man and woman refer to sex.

Masculine and feminine refer to gender.

A male be feminine. A male can not be a woman. Sex change is not possible.

Some spaces are sex segregated, by biological sex. It is never appropriate for one to use the spaces reserved for the opposite sex.

If you feel transwomen, male with a feminine identity, are at risk in sex segregated prisons the answer is not to remove all sex segregation but to adress male violence.

Finally, transwomen are at no greater risk in the UK.

2.6 women a week are murdered by males.

In that statistic, transwomen are included in the males murdering women. Not as women. Because transwomen in the UK are statistically more likely to commit murder than be murdered.

@Dommina WTAF? How can you possibly be comparing bloody swingers/fetish clubs with normal, everyday life??

A very quick google shows trans women are far more likely to suffer sexual assault, rape and physical assault statistically than cis women.

Can you post links for this for the uk please? Because I keep hearing this but have yet to see anything to back it up. I've done a quick google myself but must be typing in the wrong terms or something.

segregating people according to a binary model of sex does not make space for intersex people.

Yes it does. Intersex people are either Male or female. They are NOT some weird third sex.

random hopefully without being Goadby, I think the 'prudeishness' and your being uncomfortable is your issue, though not unfounded one.

I, as I'm sure everyone is sick of hearing about, don't mind getting naked around anyone. To me it's just a body. But it would be small minded of me to assume everyone has the same level of comfort.

That's why communal changing rooms will have cubicles. In my gym, each shower is lockable and the communal changing has cubicles for example.

It's very difficult to change thinking overnight. I just can't help but think this whole new attitude of 'we won't judge you for your body, be where you are comfortsble' is a good thing.

I also think,though I may be wrong, that a large part of male bodied people behaving dangerously is societys expectation that they will behsve dangerously. If I want to show them that actually I'm not just a walking set of tits, I have to expect respect and show respect. And IMHO assuming that they are rapists is not respectful.

Segregating people by gender seems rather unworkable.

Should we provide spaces for each of the millions of genders?

Will every employer and school be required to be this?

Trans women in sport does bother me though - there’s going to have to be measures in place to ensure natal girls aren’t losing their potential to be successful

There are measures in place, aren't there? It isn't just, "here's your new birth certificate, do you fancy high jump or the 100 metres?". That was my first worry about this whole debate, but I googled it and it looks like all the sports get to place restrictions on trans competitors to equalise any biological advantage; that's a fair solution, so long as it's scientific and transparent imo.

titchy. Yes - they are not a third sex and they take great exception about being used in this way by trans rights activists.
Seems curious to me that today, when we have had many leading women at the House of Lords explaining women's point of view and the full page add in the Metro explaining the situation, that suddenly people want to come on Mumsnet and say that this whole thing isn't a problem.
Looking for an opportunity, perhaps.
It is a problem for women. Men are responsible for virtually all violence against women. I don't want them in safe spaces.

@dommina my gym has a cubicle. But that only hides the person in it, not all the naked bodies in the communal bit. So the trans ideology is that we should all be comfortable in our bodies and not mind seeing other people's (specifically opposite sexs) naked bits?

Re sports - no amount of treatment will even out this playing field: