AIBU to think women should not be banned from Social media for asking the question

[Angryresister]

Many women have been suspended from sm for asking the question:
“Do you believe that male sexed people should be allowed access to changing rooms and showers for female sexed people and teenagers?”
Seems like a perfectly reasonable question which we should be allowed to ask

@littlbrowndog

Indeed.

As many sports, scholarships, prizes, competitions for women and girls now include anyone who identifies as a woman or girl

As do many organisations and groups set up to support women specifically. I am thinking here of the Jo Cox Women in Leadership Programme.

[quote Fembot123]@BrumBoo, I worked with a transgender woman and I had her in mind when I originally posted but as I said I’ve learnt a lot and I see why people are angry with Stonewall and the broadening definitions.[/quote]
Yes, this probably isn't about your friend, it is about males in general and how behaviour does not necessarily change with transition. And it is about safeguarding.

If you were unaware of the extent of the impact of these changes to the definitions, you may not be aware of the other impacts such as women and girl's sports, their employment opportunities (transwomen being employed in Women's officer roles, or other roles set up under the provision of ensuring females had access after so long of being subject to sexist employment practices), health issues and how they are discussed, and the more deeper issues of single sex spaces.

@ListeningQuietly

Exactly where I was a couple of years ago. @Fembot123, I also would have been yelling TWAW and should be allowed to use whatever toilet they please a couple of years ago. I also really just wanted to believe that rapists wouldn't care for IDing as a woman to do so, and that most trans people were ones that went through a huge amount to be women. I was wrong. The truth of the situation is much darker, messed up and complicated than that. Gender and sex need to be kept separate, we can do that without being transphobic.

Smileyaxolotl1

Thank you for posting that picture. Fembot this is who I was talking about who I was not about to risk deletion for.

The problem with ‘trans women are women’ is that while it might seem fine as a positive affirming, polite slogan, it’s disastrous as an official policy because it relies on there being no clear definition of ‘woman’. You can’t fight for the rights of an amorphous blob. ‘Be kind’ is not a substitute for sex based analysis.

quagars thanks. That'll teach me to RTFT!

Fair play to you, @Fembot123

This is why it's so important to discuss this issue. Because what's actually happening is being hidden under the 'old' definitions a lot of people are still thinking in terms of.

And the erasure of the word woman in health charities

Prostrate cancer men -clearly linked

Cervical cancer- cervix owner.

Link from Janice turner in the times

Grr

Omg. Sorry never showed first time

That said they've a set of clearly defined policies that say what you can and can't say/do with regards to debating things and those posters who have been banned have clearly breached that policy.

And Women are being banned who haven't contravened that policy. I won't link but if you look the 'Sam Barber' twitter account has done a very comprehensive list of ppl who've been banned and the reason given v the 'guilty' tweet(s). It's very clear from the numerous examples that ppl, almost all Women, are being unfairly shut down.

[quote BrumBoo]@ListeningQuietly

Exactly where I was a couple of years ago. @Fembot123, I also would have been yelling TWAW and should be allowed to use whatever toilet they please a couple of years ago. I also really just wanted to believe that rapists wouldn't care for IDing as a woman to do so, and that most trans people were ones that went through a huge amount to be women. I was wrong. The truth of the situation is much darker, messed up and complicated than that. Gender and sex need to be kept separate, we can do that without being transphobic.[/quote]
This is where I was a year ago. A liberal feminist, TWAW, be kind woman. Until I got into arguments with TRA and was told to 'educate myself' and I did. Wow it was eye-opening. Thanks to the Velvet Chronicle link on Emelia Decaudin - one of the things that peaked me.

@littlbrowndog

And the erasure of the word woman in health charities

Prostrate cancer men -clearly linked

Cervical cancer- cervix owner.

Link from Janice turner in the times

Cervix owner?! FFS, that is ridiculous.

while it might seem fine as a positive affirming, polite slogan, it’s disastrous as an official policy

It is disastrous when the ambiguity about who is a women is played out in a legal sense. The word 'woman' or 'women' is used in laws and now they might include people who the law was never intended to protect. And in fact, allows people who have had the benefit of not being oppressed as a women to then take advantage of systems and laws set up to progress women.

I shocks me every time I see it played out.

Including silencing women who protest they want to a female health professional for any procedure when transwomen can be included in that selection. And the woman can be called a transphobe for saying, 'No, I want someone who is the same sex'.

There is so many impacts that people don't think about because it doesn't effect them but when they start realising, and realising laws are being changed or misinterpreted, it is a shock.

I was upset because an autism charity was encouraging girls and women to take up cervical smears but used the phrase 'autistic people with a cervix' rather than autistic women and girls.

Given that autistic people, by definition, struggle to varying degrees with language I find this particularly appalling. Autistic girls could literally miss out on essential health screening because of a fear of using the word woman or girl. Clear language is essential.

I say that as the mother of an autistic girl.

Just in case you are still struggling with the concept of what a transwoman can be below is a picture of Alex Drummond who says he is a ‘she’ .

My natural instinct was to write off Alex Drummond as an outlier - you can find anyone who does anything on the internet - but both Alex Drummond and Pips Bunce have advised or represented LGBT organisations like Stonewall. They aren’t on the fringe.

I support their right not to suffer prejudice as trans people, but I really don’t understand how their lives or needs are supposed to overlap with mine.

Emelia Decaudin who took a female's political position (albeit they were voted in). I won't mention the 'stiff' er, competition(?)

I think it's worth mentioning that there's evidence that unisex spaces are more risky for women than single-sex spaces.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/sexual-assault-unisex-changing-rooms-sunday-times-women-risk-a8519086.html

If we go with the self-id approach, everywhere becomes de facto unisex.

Stonewall have actually campaigned to make everything unisex, by removing the single sex exemptions from the Equality Act, which would ban separate women's and men's anything.

If Stonewall get their way, it's actually not transwomen - it's every male because there are no women's spaces anymore.

Women's sport would be illegal. Women in prison would be put in the same estate as men. Asking for a female doctor or nurse for intimate care would get you in trouble.

My natural instinct was to write off Alex Drummond as an outlier - you can find anyone who does anything on the internet - but both Alex Drummond and Pips Bunce have advised or represented LGBT organisations like Stonewall. They aren’t on the fringe.

And I think there is one similar (ie. either presents with beard etc, or does identifies in or out of being a woman like Bunce) in Scottish politics if I remember correctly. Which is fine except they are there as women, not as a male.

@Winesalot

Emelia Decaudin who took a female's political position (albeit they were voted in). I won't mention the 'stiff' er, competition(?)

The rules that were changed to allow "Emilia" to get that space on the ballot were written by Eleanor Roosevelt

to ensure that Women adult human females, with XX chromosomes
could be elected to represent other women

it is such a sad indictment of Identity politics
that the work of Eleanor Roosevelt was destroyed by the Democrat party.

Gay people didn't expect anyone else to pretend they were straight and re define straight people as "cis-straight" and deny reality.

Most gay people had no such expectations.

A very small minority of homosexual males preferred to live "as women" and to be considered straight women for sexual purposes.

This is why T has historically been tacked onto LGB. Don't swallow the retcon.

There is also the fact of the glaring cognitive dissonance in journalistic reporting on actions taken by males who are referred to as female. As I've heard said, women are hard wired to be aware of men. If a man is continually referred to as "she" not as a matter of courtesy in conversation or respect, but as reported fact, there is a form of gaslighting that occurs. I see something clearly, you are telling something else. There is a discomfort. I think politeness and respect is important, but it is different to mis-stating commonly accepted norms.

Fembot, thanks for keeping on. I shouldn't assume everyone has the same knowledge as everyone else. (Cough but this was why it's important to define your terms!)

I've been on these boards for years and it almost goes without saying that many women are sympathetic to those with gender dysphoria. The self-id movement is lobbying to have gender dysphoria totally separate to gender identity, so it's just how you feel, and you can (already) simply change your gender on eg gas bill, driving licence.

The bottom line is, women as a class are and have been throughout history discriminated against/disadvantaged/ at risk of violence because of their physical sex, not their gender expression. I'll be as kind as I can but I'm not going to pretend that's not true.