To have got into a debate with a man about anyone ‘self identifying as a woman’ being allowed to volunteer or reside in many women’s refuges

[unexplaining]

I’m currently in Vancouver and was looking for somewhere to volunteer over Christmas. A man at the desk of a tourist attraction I was visiting kindly offered to help me find somewhere when I mentioned this to him in passing as it was quiet and he had a computer. I’d say he, like me, was in his 30s.

We got onto a women’s refuge page and the first thing it said on the volunteer page was that ‘anyone self identifying as female’ was welcome to volunteer. I immediately said, almost automatically, that’s not okay with me in a women’s shelter, and explained why (as I do below, regarding women’s safe spaces at their most vulnerable, and that almost all of them are fleeing males.)

He then told me how he wasn’t sure about how it was in England, but Vancouver was a tolerant place, and did I have any transgender friends, as he did. He encouraged me to meet and talk to transgender people, and, unprompted, told me of an LGBT street in town where I could do so. He said it was proven that transgender people, when scanned, had ‘women’s brains’ and that the idea that washrooms (as loos are called here) were vulnerable to those looking to prey on women was completely disproven nonsense.

To me this has nothing to do with tolerance and everything about women’s safe spaces. 99.9% of shelter residents are surely fleeing from men?

I pointed out that anyone can self identify as female according to the site’s very loose definition - he was having none of it and according to him, no eg MRA people exploit this and there have been zero incidences of violence or threat to women by transgender people in women’s spaces. Apparently this included England and the United States, as well as Canada.

When I got home I looked through the shelters and for many of them, the doors are open not just to volunteers but residents at many of the shelters:

www.thebloomgroup.org/our-work/women-children/
“52 women-only beds; must be 19 years and older and self-identify as a woman”

dewc.ca
Founded in 1978, DEWC is one of the few safe spaces within the Downtown Eastside exclusively for self-identified women and their children.

Volunteer application form for this shelter:
atira.bc.ca/volunteer-application
Applicant
I identify my gender as:

I identify my pronouns as:
she/her/hers
he/his/him
they/them/theirs

www.govolunteer.ca/centres/vancouver/wish-drop-volunteer
wish-vancouver.net/volunteer-opportunities/
POSITION DESCRIPTION:
Our self-identified female volunteers, 19 and over, perform a variety of tasks

Obviously trans people need refuge if they are subject to domestic abuse but AIBU to be concerned this impinges on women in their most vulnerable spaces?

He remained pleasant but insistent and more than a little patronising, ‘encouraging’ me to think about tolerance etc. I have no more thoughts about trans people than I do anyone else in any other part of life, but when the issue intrudes on women’s spaces I care. (This includes women’s sport though I didn’t mention that). I think he thinks I’m some kind of mad bigot and would probably use the word ‘transphobic’ about me.

I will likely bump into him again and don’t know what to say.
Also please put me right if IBU.

Catia Freitas, a survivor of domestic abuse, about the importance of women only space for her recovery at a WPUK meeting in May.

I think a lot of people just can't get their head around the idea that a man would want to be seen as a woman for anything other than genuine reasons

we hear about all the turmoil that is experienced because of being 'born in the wrong body' etc and so the transgender person is able to fit themselves into the category of victim, a person who is at a disadvantage and who is vulnerable and needs help.

once established in that category, once they have framed themselves as victims and vulnerable people, it is easier for transwomen to get others to view them only through that lens

Because of this we miss the fact that this allows an excellent opportunity for misogynistic predators to abuse women

l i don't get why people are shouting and screaming to demand access to spaces that actually they have always had access to.

There are two big changes that have totally altered the landscape

Stonewall changed the definition of trans (in around 2015) from the old skool transsexuals with dysphoria to a definition that means ‚‘anyone who says they are‘

The U.K. is following Canada in considering legal self ID, so you legally can become the ‚‘opposite sex‘ if you say you are. No medical or legal gatekeeping.

It doesn’t take a genius to work out the consequences of legally enforcing the right of anyone who fancies it to use women only facilities.

We aren’t that worried about the transsexuals, we are bloody furious about opening the floodgates to weirdos who get their sexual kicks from violating boundaries. Women’s boundaries.

Stonewall changed the definition of trans (in around 2015) from the old skool transsexuals with dysphoria to a definition that means ‚‘anyone who says they are‘

I've been looking into this a bit recently and it turns out the umbrella has been spread very wide for rather a long time. The activists just kept it quiet in order to plug their 'it's just harmless little old me' line, when lobbying for legal change.

This image is from 1994. Note the inclusion of crossdressers, transvestic fetishists and transvestites.

"Who is trans?" is turning into a creepy version of that "You get a car!" Oprah meme...

If anyone still thinks this means transsexuals who have had surgery, this is one transwoman who moved into a women's hostel in Canada:

goo.gl/images/qsrthC

The vast majority of transwomen choose to keep their penis,

It also doesn't just mean that transwomen (however broad the definition) can enter a women's refuge, self-ID means that any male can do so.

I remember reading about when women's refuges were first established in the UK. The most dangerous time for an abused women is when she leaves her partner - That is by far when he is most likely to murder her and it took refuges some time to work out how to best manage that risk.

Apparently, there was disagreement between different refuges on whether it was appropriate for adult males to be able to visit refuges e.g. male friends or other male relatives of women living there. One woman reported that an abusive ex-partner using this loophole to gain access to the refuge where she worked and kidnap his ex-girlfriend. The following day her sliced up body was dumped on the steps of the refuge,

We already know what men who commit domestic violence are like, we already know how risky it is for women when they leave and we already know the lengths men will go to hunt down and kill their ex-partners. We have already learnt these lessons. We need to ensure that refuges can feel confident to say 'no' without feeling they will be taken to court, lose funding or be targeted for abuse and negative publicity.

If transactivists were concerned about domestic abuse of transwomen they would set up their own shelters but it isn't about that, it is about validation and removing female-only safe spaces.

We need to ensure that refuges can feel confident to say 'no' without feeling they will be taken to court, lose funding or be targeted for abuse and negative publicity

This. A lot of this is indirect drip drip drip erosion of the social contract and respect for women's rights.

YANBU.

Whether you agree with his views or not, he is representing an organisation and shouldn’t be using the hours he is paid for to endorse controversial political opinions and peddle dubious facts. He should not have patronised or belittled a customer.

Report him to his employer. His only response should have been “Okay, let’s find somewhere more suitable.

I must say I think this is made up as gender critical women tend to be fully aware of the situation in Canada and know about Danielle Muscato, for example.

But this man is not a gender critical woman so that is irrelevant.

I meant the OP.

Thank you all for the replies - I’m reading and rereading and hope I have this eloquence if ‘challenged’ again. I am also interested in hearing the experience of those who have worked in refuges so thank you for sharing your contributions.

I find it bizarre people think I would fabricate this - what would my motive be?! Please do elaborate. Hopefully as implied, though not explicit, in my OP, his denial that MRA types and instances of violence were a problem was prompted by my recall that there were, though I could of course not remember specifics. I know enough about the issue, which I last read about probably the best part of a year ago in feminism chat, to recall that there have been incidences of violence (another prison case comes to mind that I don’t think has been mentioned here) and when I mentioned MRAs I had the image of Muscato in my mind though I couldn’t remember his name. It’s not a debate I ever really expected to have, not least with a man, so I posted here to check that I wasn’t off base - I was worried about asking someone else from Vancouver in case this is just the status quo here and I am again made to subtly feel I am some sort of ignorant bigot - and also I did in my last couple of sentences appeal for ‘what to say to him’ when next I see him, if he brings it up, and I have been very well equipped to do so by this thread, not to mention educated beyond what I’d hoped. Though I knew about Muscato I actually wasn’t aware of the Canadian predator.

As for why he helped me - he mentioned a charity drive at the attraction, which prompted me to ask about soup kitchens etc on Christmas Day, and he immediately started googling organisations that were familiar to him, having grown up in Vancouver. I’d already done a quick search in the days prior and not having his local knowledge, what he came up with and the speed he came up with things was actually very helpful, and he started writing out a list of suggestions for me, which was nice of him. He is a helpful type and I have bumped into him before in passing but it has just been general chit chat. Likely I was still thinking about the cyclist trans thread in one of the more mainstream sections of the site, which is why things were at the forefront of my mind and I spontaneously made the comment that lead to his. Again I don’t understand what my motives for fabricating this would be? I really would be curious to know why someone thinks a person would invent a post such as this.

i don't get why people are shouting and screaming to demand access to spaces that actually they have always had access to.

Those who always had access are transsexual people - those medically diagnosed and transitioning in one way or another. Figures of 400 a year receiving Gender Recognition Certificates show it's not a big number.

Those who seek access now are transgender....this includes cross dressers, fetishists etc.. and essentially any biological male who wants to. Stonewall numbers this in the hundreds of thousands.

Whilst I accept some TRAs claim to be transsexual, on the whole those shouting and objecting are self identifying transgender with ulterior motives. I find TS people to be on the whole generally respectful hence why in the past the honour system meant they were tolerated.

I find it bizarre people think I would fabricate this - what would my motive be?! Please do elaborate

Some people might have thought you fabricated the story in order to have a gender critical thread in AIBU, because they think threads like this should only be in feminism so nobody has to see them.

Others might have thought you were a TRA hoping for 'transphobic' responses that could be screenshotted and shared on twitter.

Even if either of these were true, I see no harm in posting information here because whatever peoples' views I think everyone should at least be aware of what's happening so they can make their own mind up.

If you're in Vancouver, why not get in touch with Vancouver Rape Relief?

Whilst I accept some TRAs claim to be transsexual, on the whole those shouting and objecting are self identifying transgender with ulterior motives.

Sorry to disabuse you of this cosy notion but you really need to look at the major old skool transsexual players who pushed through the GRA 'under the radar' in the first place. Have a look at the history of Press for Change, Beaumont Society, Stephen Whittle, Christine Burns, Roz Kaveney et al.

I've been reading the memoirs that Christine Burns gave away free one weekend a few months ago on Amazon. There was much hoo-ha in 'the community' over terminology in the 1990s. TS were those who had medical treatment, TG were those who didn't bother with any of that. TG included what we used to call cross dressers / tv. Press for Change were instrumental in the UK in the adoption of the term 'trans' on its own, so tv/crossdressers would not be excluded. They just kept it quiet that that's what they meant.

If you're bored one afternoon over christmas, have a trawl through the <a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/19990420024314/www.pfc.org.uk:80/pfclists/download/index.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">PFC mailing list archives. You'll need winzip or 7zip or something to unpack the downloads because they're in a funny format but they're quite fascinating.

I'm currently trawling through the forum discussions from February 1998 when they were discussing the consultation on proposed changes to the Sex Discrimination Act to explicitly include trans discrimination as a type of sex discrimination.

They consulted trans orgs but not women, of course.

The govt's proposals were all based around an assumption of a medical pathway and provided lots of exceptions (some of which were sensible, some batshit IMHO). An org called the gender trust responded by saying protection from discrimination shouldn't be based on medical treatment or diagnosis and there shouldn't be any exceptions. Stephen Whittle called this response 'amazing'.

One TS person questioned the gender trust's submission, basically saying, doesn't this just let all the knicker fetishists in the ladies? There was then a giant shitstorm on the forum and the outcome was that PFC reaffirmed their inclusive stance of supporting all trans people not just TS.

This was 20 years ago and 6 years before the GRA.

Much more recently, a handful of TS wrote an excellent open letter to The Times, condemning the threats towards women and the silencing from TRAs. That was great, but none of the 'old skool TS activists' were signatories.

None of them have said a dicky bird.

always gets deleted my MN but I'm old fashioned,if it's got a dick its not female , simples

by MN

Then have a look at what Sarah Brown did as a Cambridge City Councillor when the ink on the Equality Act was barely dry:

Councillor Brown proposed a number of amendments to strengthen the protection for transgender employees and service users. Other members of the committee expressed support for the proposal, although it was noted additional notice about the amendment would have aided the debate. The Head of Strategy and Partnership advised the committee of a number of proposed amendments to address the concerns raised. The Scrutiny Committee endorsed the following amendments by 5 votes to 0;

· Insert into “Employment Practices” section - We will not exclude transgender people from positions, which require a gender-appropriate candidate.

· Insert into the “Valuing our customers – delivering services” section - transgender people will not be excluded from gender-appropriate single sex/sex segregated facilities operated by the council

We know Sarah has had surgery because Sarah is fond of telling people to <a class="break-all" href="http://web.archive.org/web/20140601195217/www.cambridge-news.co.uk/News/Cambridge-politician-Sarah-Brown-reveals-mental-health-crisis-as-she-tells-blogger-to-suck-my-formaldehyde-pickled-balls-20140529065800.htm" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">'suck my formaldehyde pickled balls' (why Sarah is keeping them in a jar is beyond me )

Cambridge City Council only repaired the damage Brown did this year, thanks to the valiant efforts of Ann Sinnott.

PencilsInSpace

You are an absolute star for providing all that information. I don't think anyone is left in any doubt as to the motivation of these people. The secret and vehement inclusion of men who fetishise women has seen to that.