That women should not be banned from Social Media for asking the question ( Thread 4)

[Langrycleg]

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.

Let’s vote with our AIBU.

@gardenbird48

Had she been sharing with girl's like she used to at camps, we would've spoken with the leaders to sort arrangements out so everybody was comfortable and informed. Very rarely that included rearranging cabins so girls whose parents didn't want them sharing were removed,

This makes me really sad. So girls who for a number of possible reasons could not share accommodation with a male were removed from their own spaces. Seriously!!!

If there is, I'm not any of those other girl's mother. It's not my responsibility to advocate for them if they have an issue sharing toilets with transgirls, it's for them and their parents to speak to the school to try and sort something out, exactly in the same way it was mine and sd's responsibility to sort it out for her.

So would you accept it if the girls parents put their foot down and said that their daughter was not going to share with your sc and would not be using other facilities? I do hope you would be prepared to work with the school to find alternative for sc.
Bearing in mind these girls have a legal right to those single sex facilities despite what Stonewall etc would prefer.

They were just moved to a different tent/cabin. They weren't removed altogether.

If that had come up, I would've suggested the other girl use toilet a, sd use toilet b. Can't imagine the school would've objected to that. It's not all or nothing.

@CorvusPurpureus

I think the general idea is that 'other girls' are non player characters, basically.

Yeah that seems to be the sad truth

If that had come up, I would've suggested the other girl use toilet a, sd use toilet b. Can't imagine the school would've objected to that. It's not all or nothing

So why wasn't toilet a good enough for your sd then?

Would have served the purpose of fulfilling a need to use thr toilet.

Woukd your SD have continued using toilet B of all the girls buggered off to toilet B?

Was it the toilet or the people in it that were the need?

@Whatwouldscullydo

If that had come up, I would've suggested the other girl use toilet a, sd use toilet b. Can't imagine the school would've objected to that. It's not all or nothing

So why wasn't toilet a good enough for your sd then?

Would have served the purpose of fulfilling a need to use thr toilet.

Woukd your SD have continued using toilet B of all the girls buggered off to toilet B?

Was it the toilet or the people in it that were the need?

Both a and b would be female toilet blocks. There would also be c, d, e, f etc, that were a free for all. It's never been about who is in the toilet, it's about what the toilet represents, and besides, my children aren't exactly known for socialising in toilets. You pee, wash your hands, then leave.

I would talk to the school and ask for the same provision that sd had when in the very early stages of transitioning - use the teacher's toilets. But luckily that's unnecessary because dd and her friends have no issue with transgirls sharing their toilets.

Do you know, Fastedbrownie that was the exact same line pushed by the LGBT Youth Scotland Guidance on how schools should accommodate children who identify as trans.

It is unlawful discrimination against the female child. The Scottish Government got delivered an Equality and Children's Rights Impact Assessment which spelled that out. They didn't want to accept it. They got legal advice which confirmed that the guidance was not legal.

As the Scottish Government minister then conceded in a statement in parliament, excluding female pupils from female-only spaces in this way is discrimination.

The female child has rights. Under the Equality Act and under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child that the UK is a signatory to. The rights of every female child sharing with your child were violated by the school. And no, I can guarantee you that not all girls were okay with this just because none of them said anything to you or your child.

I know of several cases where parents of girls in this situation raised the issue and were told to STFU about it. And I know of even more girls in this situation who kept their discomfort to themselves. They've all certainly learned at an early age whose comfort comes before their own.

I don't doubt for a second that your kid had friends who were fine sharing. But calling on election for Head Girl as proof that all girls were fine with having their right to privacy violated? Come on. That's just ridiculous. Most kids couldn't care less about these positions.

Both a and b would be female toilet blocks.

No they wouldn't. Because your stepchild is male. As you have repeatedly acknowledged.

And what did that toilet represent then?

If its just about going to the toilet and nothing about the girls in it then presumably their own toilet or the boys toilet would have served the same purpose.

Its a complete contradiction

@Whatwouldscullydo

If there is, I'm not any of those other girl's mother. It's not my responsibility to advocate for them if they have an issue sharing toilets with transgirls, it's for them and their parents to speak to the school to try and sort something out, exactly in the same way it was mine and sd's responsibility to sort it out for her

But that way of "sorting it out" relied on other people. People who weren't asked and didn't consent to be your child's vehicle of validation.

And were the other girls and their parents even consulted Fastedbrownie?

Did a letter go out to the parents to say that some boys were going to be allowed to use the girls' toilets because they were unhappy with their bodies and they wanted to be girls? Were those other girls and their parents given the opportunity to say that they didn't consent to this?

They were just moved to a different tent/cabin. They weren't removed altogether.

But this is the trouble - Fasted they were removed from a space that they were entitled to be in. They may have liked that space and the other girls in it but the presence of sc pushed them out.

It strikes me that for all your (and everyone else’s) efforts sc isn’t getting a very authentic ‘female’ experience of life. Has your sc ever been told to ‘budge over’ or ‘be kind’ or ignore your boundaries and discomfort because the feelings of this other person means that you now are excluded from your own space?

As you mentioned previously this deferential treat to sc isn’t necessarily doing them any good emotionally.

I don't think I am putting her on a pedestal, I'm just doing what any good parent would do. When your child has a need, you move heaven and earth to meet that need. I very easily could've had a severely mentally ill child who couldn't function in day to day life, but instead I have a child who is thriving in every way a person can thrive. That wouldn't have happened if I wasn't prepared to have difficult conversation with her schools etc to spell out very clearly that we need xyz, and in doing so taught my children how to advocate for their own needs and the needs of others.

You've just confirmed in any number of ways, that the 'needs of others' are meaningless to both you and your stepchild.

Raped girls and girls suffering abuse, Muslim women or girls, and indeed any number of women or girls who don't want to share with males, need to get therapy according to you.

You're asserting that every girl is fine with the presence of your step child in their space, at exactly same time as saying that if they're not, fuck it.

You're saying it's other people's job to speak up if they don't like it, and when they just did, you said tough shit.

And you're painting it as some kind of noble, caring duty of a parent.

It isn't.

You must know that good parenting isn't about conceding everything to a child. It just isn't. It creates entitled adults.

Oh course there's not a parent alive who hasn't done something just for a quiet life. But there comes a point where you know that what you are doing is counter productive.

And it must occur to you that there comes a point where telling women and girls, as an entire sex class, that the needs of men are vastly more important than the needs of all females, including those in your own family is pure misogyny.

But as Eresh says there's nothing like a bit of sunlight, to expose all this.

Girls are being taught to forego their boundaries, that the presence of males in spaces where they are naked or vulnerable, is expected, lest they be accused of bigotry. And boys whether trans or not, are learning the exact same thing.

It's never been about who is in the toilet, it's about what the toilet represents

And there it is. It's all about validation.

"I am a girl because I'm allowed to use the girls' toilets."

It's about time someone told this child that they can't change sex.

Bye Fasted I do admire your obvious loyalty and commitment to raising a step child who has obviously got complex emotional issues. It can be easy for a child with more challenges than the others to take precedence over them and I’m sure you work very hard to balance things. It does sound like they are still inadvertently experiencing a lot of male socialisation through their special and unusual status in many peoples lives.

Do you have any in depth chats with your girls on their relationship with sc?

It strikes me that for all your (and everyone else’s) efforts sc isn’t getting a very authentic ‘female’ experience of life. Has your sc ever been told to ‘budge over’ or ‘be kind’ or ignore your boundaries and discomfort because the feelings of this other person means that you now are excluded from your own space?

Precisely. It's sexism on steroids. Not only is it getting treated preferentially to all the girls, it's getting treated preferentially to all the boys too!

By it, I mean the situation, not the child.

The more I read these threads the more outraged I become about the diminishing of the rights of (non-trans) women and girls. I am absolutely bloody furious about it, to be quite honest.

We are being steamrolled by activists and campaigners lobbying for us to lose our rights via legislation they want for their own satisfaction.

I'm so fucking angry when I start thinking about it.

I wonder if the boys had been made unisex and the girls kept girls what one would have been used.

Girl's could use rhe unisex so there may well be other girls in there ,

Would that have been acceptable

When my son was five or so, he was struggling with 'big feelings' and would deliberately act up, testing boundaries, etc. What he needed was not me to give in to whatever the thing was that he was raging for - ice-cream for lunch, say - but for me to say firmly and compassionately 'no'. Kids push boundaries as a way of crying out for firm guidance and leadership. I think this continues as they grow older - they do not need to be 'affirmed' in needing icecream for lunch, they need to be given clear and accurate information 'icecream is not a suitable lunch food' - allowed to be upset, and asked what they are so upset about, given a safe, listening space to process whatever the emotions/trauma/upset is.

@SofiaMichelle

The more I read these threads the more outraged I become about the diminishing of the rights of (non-trans) women and girls. I am absolutely bloody furious about it, to be quite honest.

We are being steamrolled by activists and campaigners lobbying for us to lose our rights via legislation they want for their own satisfaction.

I'm so fucking angry when I start thinking about it.

You're right to feel angry. It is absolutely outrageous.

I feel sorry for her other daughter. Where are her boundaries?
Male HCP for her smear test OK not OK?
Male stranger sharing her room OK not Ok?
Male stranger in her communal shower OK not OK?

According to her mother she has no rights to any boundaries, poor wee soul.

At risk of being a bit me me me ( on a subject all about MY rights and the rights of all females no less!) I was thinking in hindsight I likely would have been fine with a tg in the girls toilets as a teen.

I was always the girl who wanted to include any outsider. I was always happy to hang out with my gay male friends doing make up or swapping clothes and so on (same for lesbian friends too, but that’s not relevant to males in female spaces). I always loved that the velvet underground sang so evocatively about the transwomen and transvestites (as they termed themselves then- Lou was one so he gets to use the term and I’ll respect his experience of that when referring to the people he was writing about). I always thought Nicky Wire in a skirt on stage was awesome.

As a teen my impulse would to have been thrilled to include trans girls in girlhood, and I would have assumed that extended to all areas of single sex spaces.

But I was also a survivor of repeated csa. And I had numerous problems from my female biology that made me deeply uncomfortable in my own skin at that age, as I grew up knowing women were shamed for women’s bodies.

As a teenager I wouldn’t have been able to tie together that male bodied people in female spaces would make me feel more unsafe and degrade my privacy and dignity even more than it had been. I would have been the first to think that men who want to assault me will follow me in anyways, self id won’t make any difference. As a teen I wouldn’t have been able to see the link with further eroding my safety by making girl = the boys who say they are too.

The reality is I would have very quickly and very damagingly woken up to this when faced with the boys who were stalking me sharing toilets with me, or being unable to opt out of pe because of extremely heavy flooding (as in I had several bts as a teen because of this, even after meds etc) by saying it was women’s troubles-because that would be exclusionary to tgs. I would have had no concept that it wasn’t bigoted to say no thanks to a tm male vagina or to a tg female penis (because despite my abuse I’m still stuck being straight). I wouldn’t have been able to recognise my boundaries were further being violated and eroded because I had such a poor concept of them in the first place.

I would have been that girl fawning around your sd saying she’s fabulous. Yet I would have been one of the most severely at risk by her being included in female spaces/language.

This is precisely why we have safe guarding rules. Children are not capable of deciding what’s safe for them and what’s not. I also thought the adult male boyfriend who I was consenting to have sex with loved me, and that this wasn’t abusive because I didn’t experience it as the same csa I grew up with. But in hindsight I was a child well under the age of consent and he was an adult a few years over it. Just because I thought it was normal and good and I was ok with it didn’t mean that was the case, it just took me a lot longer to recognise that due to the trauma I grew up with.

That’s why adults need to put safeguarding first. That’s why any claim of ‘the girls are all totally good with it’ is bs. Children are not capable of saying what’s safe for them and what’s not. Adults need to do that and adults must err on the side of caution always, because in hindsight tgs in female spaces would have further traumatised me in a way I wouldn’t have been able to indentify at those ages. The same way my being vulnerable to further grooming and abuse by men was a result of my csa, my being ok with tgs in girls spaces would have been a result of how traumatised I was then. It certainly isn’t something that points towards how ok these girls are with this by a long shot.

It's never been about who is in the toilet, it's about what the toilet represents,

It's so messed up. Provisions made for practical reasons due to having a female body (including the social disadvantages and risks imposed on people with those bodies) are being taken up by people who have no practical need for them beyond their emotional need to be included in anything labelled as for women and girls, and by so doing completely destroy the effectiveness of the provision.

@ArabellaScott

When my son was five or so, he was struggling with 'big feelings' and would deliberately act up, testing boundaries, etc. What he needed was not me to give in to whatever the thing was that he was raging for - ice-cream for lunch, say - but for me to say firmly and compassionately 'no'. Kids push boundaries as a way of crying out for firm guidance and leadership. I think this continues as they grow older - they do not need to be 'affirmed' in needing icecream for lunch, they need to be given clear and accurate information 'icecream is not a suitable lunch food' - allowed to be upset, and asked what they are so upset about, given a safe, listening space to process whatever the emotions/trauma/upset is.

This was not a 'big feelings' situation. You don't need to be concerned about your child mutilating their own genitals, or attempting to drown themself in the bath, or refusing to eat for days at a time because you said no to ice-cream.

Looking up Lupron side-effects is profoundly frightening.

As is the website where it simply says "This drug is obsolete."