To ask if there are any groups of reasonably minded women & trans women trying to meet each other 1/2 way and sort this whole sorry mess out?

[Smiledwiththerisingsun]

I have been mostly on the side of the TERFS (trying to explain reality to fuckwits) until recently.

But the issue of trans rights trampling all over women's rights has been discussed in the mainstream media now & I think people get it.

I'm just wondering how we can reach an amicable conclusion?

I have a couple of friends with trans or non binary kids. They are lovely. And I wouldn't mind sharing a bathroom with them.

They are not the same as a male rapist saying "I'm a woman put me in a female prison"

Surely we can treat the two situations differently?

There needs to be more kindness on both sides.

Anyone agree?

But you can't discuss with TRAs. They don't want debate, they want submission. The fair solution would be to add unisex toilets, but the TRAs don't want that, because they use the female toilets and the women and girls in there to validate them. This cannot happen in an unisex toilet. Second no one ever add unisex toilets. They just change the female toilets into unisex, while the male toilets remain single sex. As if we didn't have long enough queues already.

We don't need to 'be kind' to one another. We need to recognise that the real issue is male entitlement and male violence.

Women need safe spaces because men are a threat. Not all, maybe not even many, but enough that its a recognised and acknowledged issue. That's why we have separate spaces in places where we're vulnerable, changing clothes, dealing with intimate hygiene. That's why we have separate hospital wards. That's why we have to right to ask for medical staff of our own sex. It's not pandering; its acknowledging that women are frightened by men, and with good reason.

And, there's the issue. We're being asked to surrender those spaces, that acknowledgement. Alongside it, we're being asked to agree to changes in the law that remove protections for issues related to our sex - a biological reality that we can do nothing about. That, in fact, removes acknowledgement of that biological reality even existing.

Do we need to improve inclusion, tolerance and understanding of trans individuals. Yes, I believe we do. Whyever and to whatever degree Trans individuals feel they need to be who they are, there's no doubt it must be a complicated and difficult process, and our society doesn't work as it should.

But he changes that need to be made can't come at the cost of vital and hardwon protections for others.

The fight should be:

How do end male violence?
Until then, how do we create spaces so all groups who need protection have it?

I've yet to see anyone - here or otherwise - say that they don't believe there's a need for that conversation.

Completely without nuance as to the systemic reasons women end up in prison. Poverty, abuse, addiction, generations of societal neglect. It isn't a case of just blithely deciding not to commit crime because prison is awful. It's being trapped in a system that disadvantages you before you're even born.

This.

There's decades of proper peer-reviewed sociological & criminology research to suggest that many (if not most) women are in prisoned because of the effects of being a victim of abuse, or the effects of poverty, and so on. The figures of women imprisoned for non-payment of the TV License is scandalous.

Aren't lots of women in prison for non payment of TV licensing?

Actually no. 30% of all female convictions are for tv license evasion but the result is being asked to pay for a license or face a fine which is structured in manageable instalments. It takes a lot of non payment to end up going to jail, I think only something like 5 women did in 2018.

But nonetheless the profile of women who are incarcerated is rather different to men in terms of types of crime, mental health status.

I don’t know any woman who actually refers to herself as a ‘TERF’. The word is a slur.

I do it, but it's partly tongue in cheek and partly because I have complex mh issues which result in me tending to identify with slurs used against me.

Never seen anyone else doing it entirely seriously though.

I agree. I'm concerned that men who identify as men can find loopholes to get access and abuse me. But i also think those same men would find ways to do that anyway. They're rapists, its who they are.

I'm also very worried that women who are trans, are more vulnerable than women who aren't trans by not being protected and by having a bigger target on their back. Surely, as women, we should want to protect all women from rape and abuse. If someone born a man, has gender surgery, has a vagina, has breasts, has had hormone treatment, then is forced to use mens changing rooms, then she is very vulnerable isn't she. I dont want her to be raped either.

I think what we really need to be addressing is the actual rapists, right from teaching kids that if a boy is mean to you he likes you, to letting men off with a warning for flashing their dick at women or worse. We're fighting other women over who gets to be protected when we should really be fighting the people who we need protection from.
It's the same with the young boys in womens changing rooms argument. Bringing the boys into the womens changing rooms is encroaching on womens privacy, but the boys aren't safe in the mens changing rooms. Trans women aren't safe in the mens changing rooms. But the problem isn't the trans women or the young boys. It's the rapists.

I'm also very worried that women who are trans, are more vulnerable than women who aren't trans by not being protected and by having a bigger target on their back

In the uk trans people are the safest demographic.

2 women a week are murdered .

Yes! We have held how many days of trans remembrance for the zero transwomen killed in the UK?

And how many for the women killed?

The vulnerability of trans people is, in the UK, unsupported by facts.

As has been evidenced across many threads here and elsewhere.

And also of course why is it down to women to absorb malw violence.

What incentive do men have to sort it when women bail them out all the time

@Smiledwiththerisingsun

I have been mostly on the side of the TERFS (trying to explain reality to fuckwits) until recently.

But the issue of trans rights trampling all over women's rights has been discussed in the mainstream media now & I think people get it.

I'm just wondering how we can reach an amicable conclusion?

I have a couple of friends with trans or non binary kids. They are lovely. And I wouldn't mind sharing a bathroom with them.

They are not the same as a male rapist saying "I'm a woman put me in a female prison"

Surely we can treat the two situations differently?

There needs to be more kindness on both sides.

Anyone agree?

I’m sick of my identity as a woman being called into question by people who were born with male privilege. They are the ones who reduced womanhood down to having a uterus (or not) so they could negate the ones that do.

"I'm also very worried that women who are trans, are more vulnerable than women who aren't trans by not being protected and by having a bigger target on their back. Surely, as women, we should want to protect all women from rape and abuse. If someone born a man, has gender surgery, has a vagina, has breasts, has had hormone treatment, then is forced to use mens changing rooms, then she is very vulnerable isn't she. I dont want her to be raped either.*

You mean men? You think a certain demographic of men are more vulnerable to sexual assault than women?

I'm also very worried that women who are trans, are more vulnerable than women who aren't trans by not being protected and by having a bigger target on their back. Surely, as women, we should want to protect all women from rape and abuse. If someone born a man, has gender surgery, has a vagina, has breasts, has had hormone treatment, then is forced to use mens changing rooms, then she is very vulnerable isn't she. I dont want her to be raped either.

This is not up to women to solve. The problem is male violence and female-only facilities are not 'vulnerable to male violence' facilities. They're single sex to protect women - not people born male.

People born men are less vulnerable to physical violence/rape from other men, than women are, because of sexual dimorphism. Men are, in general, physically larger and stronger than women. In the US that is 9% taller and 16.5% heavier. This gives men a huge physical advantage over women.

The presence of testosterone through puberty means a trans woman is likely to be taller, heavier and stronger than a woman.

It's a bit like Caster Semenya. She has been raised as female and with lacking the external genitalia of a man. However, genetically, there's a Y chromosome there, thus elevated levels of testosterone relative to women, which is why there is so much controversy over her competing alongside genetically women. She has a physical advantage which is atypical to that of biologically, genetically typical women.

I'm also very worried that women who are trans, are more vulnerable than women who aren't trans

Women who aren't trans???!!!! We are WOMAN. 52% of the population! We are not non men or non trans.

Males do not belong in the female category.
Women= adult human female.

I totally agree with you. There needs to be some central ground. I’m not sure here’s the place for it (but equally, where is?)

Repeating this:

I'm also very worried that women who are trans, are more vulnerable than women who aren't trans

Women who aren't trans???!!!! We are WOMAN. 52% of the population! We are not non men or non trans.

Males do not belong in the female category.
Women= adult human female.

My husband is lovely, I know a lot of men who are lovely, but I wouldn't expect other women to share toilet facilities with them. Female spaces are for females, not men, that is where the line must be drawn. It's not women's problem that trans women do not feel safe or included in men's spaces.

I'm also very worried that women who are trans, are more vulnerable than women who aren't trans

Very worried that male "women" are more vulnerable than female "women".

Me, I reckon females with dysphoria are more vulnerable than males with dysphoria, regardless of how any of them identify.

@contrmary But I honestly couldn't give two fucks whether a transwoman rapist is housed in a women's prison. Prison is meant to be scary, threatening, somewhere horrible that you'd never want to end up in. Filling it up with male sex offenders who claim they are women sounds like it would help get the message across.

Gosh. Where to begin? I see lots of posters have already picked up on this. I think all I can add to the excellent points already made is that exposure to increased risk of sexual assault is not a normal consequence of lawful detention. Neither is the risk of rape and consequent pregnancy that would wholly be absent were male prisoners excluded from the female estate.

If you believe that women in prison should be exposed to risk of sexual assault and pregnancy as part of their punishment (i.e. that this should be a normal consequence of lawful detention), then you need to campaign to change the sentencing guidelines to include these as part of punishments that are available and can be imposed by the court.

Until you have successfully campaigned for punishment to include sexual assault and rape, I suggest that male prisoners should be excluded from the female estate.

You might also like to consider what comparable sentencing options you will campaign for for men in prison? Otherwise you risk being discriminatory against women in prison and I am sure you wouldn't want that.

No OP I completely disagree wth your post. There does not need to be an "amicable conclusion" - women, sadly, will need to keep fighting for their rights not to be eroded by the work of the trans lobby. A bit of high-level discussion in some areas of the media is not sufficient.

The Rohypnol effect: "Women need to be protected but trans people also need to be protected. I have no idea how you square this circle but I don't want trans people to suffer being another group condemned to male violence."

Let's try that again in words that mean something: "Women need to be protected but some men also need to be protected. I have no idea how you square this circle but I don't want some men to suffer being another group condemned to male violence."

I'm very kind, you ask for kindness on both sides. I'm kind enough to really feel for men who suffer male violence for dressing and living in a way that makes them feel happy. I'd be willing to lobby for an end to male violence towards GNC males and for male facilities to be safe places for all men. My kindness however does not mean supporting the illogical idea that if men can't be non-violent, we take males who might be victims of it into female-only spaces, which are necessary and have always been necessary to give women safety and dignity.

@Godimabitch it's a very small percentage of them who have "a vagina". Well, strictly speaking, none of them have an actual vagina, but I know what you mean. This isn't really an issue about people who look identical to women having to use the men's changing rooms. And front orifice or not, they are still bigger and stronger than women, and presumably rather less tempting to the average rapist. I'm not saying they should be forced into the men's, by the way. I'm on team "third space" for those who won't use the men's.

I think other posters have already addressed the "men will rape you anyway" argument... But really, let it sink in, that is what you are saying. Men will rape you anyway, so why try to stop them? Men will rape your daughter anyway, so why try to stop them? Hey ho, boys will be boys. Why do we even have single sex spaces in the first place? I don't think you truly mean this, but please let the implications sink in.

[quote KeepPrisonsSingleSex]**@contrmary* But I honestly couldn't give two fucks whether a transwoman rapist is housed in a women's prison. Prison is meant to be scary, threatening, somewhere horrible that you'd never want to end up in. Filling it up with male sex offenders who claim they are women sounds like it would help get the message across.*

Gosh. Where to begin? I see lots of posters have already picked up on this. I think all I can add to the excellent points already made is that exposure to increased risk of sexual assault is not a normal consequence of lawful detention. Neither is the risk of rape and consequent pregnancy that would wholly be absent were male prisoners excluded from the female estate.

If you believe that women in prison should be exposed to risk of sexual assault and pregnancy as part of their punishment (i.e. that this should be a normal consequence of lawful detention), then you need to campaign to change the sentencing guidelines to include these as part of punishments that are available and can be imposed by the court.

Until you have successfully campaigned for punishment to include sexual assault and rape, I suggest that male prisoners should be excluded from the female estate.

You might also like to consider what comparable sentencing options you will campaign for for men in prison? Otherwise you risk being discriminatory against women in prison and I am sure you wouldn't want that.[/quote]
THIS

@DimidDavilby

I agree with you OP but the virulent transphobes on here never will. I honestly do not think that womens rights figure very high on their agenda, they just really hate trans people. You can see that from the way they merrily get into bed with the far right.

Mumsnetters usually look for evidence - so can you point out the virulent transphobes?

OP what is a "reasonably minded woman?"