A message from a trans friend. International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia .....

[Biber]

Apparently today is the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia...

I shall do my part, so here are a few things that might help others to understand better.

Everyone has to go to the toilet at some point. I think even for many non-trans people, public toilets are often only used as a last resort (has anyone ever actually been inside a "nice" public toilet?). This is also the case for trans people. No one uses them unless the really have to. Trans people aren't thinking about what's down there on other people or anything like that (only perverts are). Trans people just want to avoid making a stinking mess in their underwear, without having to prove what they themselves have (or haven't got) down there (i.e. some dignity would be nice). No one should feel uncomfortable doing their business and everyone is entitled to privacy. That applies to both trans and non-trans people. If someone does make you feel uncomfortable through their actions (not by how they dress or present themselves), then you should do something about it, because you in fact are likely not the only one who will be uncomfortable.
In short, why aren't all public toilets individual and completely private? Do spare a thought for those of us with more generalised anxiety disorders...

There are some people who are quite happy to include trans people once they have fully transitioned, i.e. undergone surgery. That's great, we just need to tell our doctors and the trust who is going to fund the surgery and the surgeons and the hospital where we will be having the surgery that they all need to bloody well hurry up so that we can have the surgery and be finally be included. Don't they realise that if we have to wait another year, we are going to continue to be excluded? That some people will still deny us the right to use certain facilities (the loo in some cases)? Forget the fact that it would be great to have the surgery as soon as possible so that we can be comfortable with ourselves and get on with our lives... So, trans people are being "temporarily excluded" because they cannot speed up a system (that they themselves so badly want to speed up), which is already under-resourced and overwhelmed saving people's lives.
Oh, and btw, trans people are aware that it isn't the surgery that finally makes them the other sex/gender. They know they are more likely to see a properly funded and resourced NHS under the Tories than they are to ever have children once they have had the surgery; that it's all a sort of compromise/this is the best that can be done with your body. But until or unless huge advances are made in medicine and surgery, this is the best that can be achieved for now. Well, it is better than nothing. After all, it hasn't even been 100 years yet since the first sex reassignment surgery was performed.

Of course, that is assuming all transgender people can have surgery, or even want surgery. As surprising as it may sound, transgender people come in all sorts - old and young, short and tall, all sorts of ethnicities, cool, boring, fun, smart, stupid... Oh, and they also differ in terms of their gender identities and presentation (the clue is after all in the term). Some of them might just not be very conventional in terms of their presentation and behaviour, have no interest in taking hormones, and definitely do not want surgery. Others will go all the way and do it so well that you will doubt they are telling the truth about them being trans, even as they shove a copy of their birth certificate and their baby pictures in your face. A lot of people are somewhere inbetween. One does have to wonder how a single term can be used to describe such a diverse range of people! With that in mind, I propose we rename it to "gender-diverse" (like "neuro-diverse"), because "diverse" seems like such a good word at the moment, right?

Trans people exist. Always have, always will. Everywhere. If you have a friend who is trans and is happy to speak to you about it and answer any questions you have, then do speak to them about it. This is important. Why? Because not all trans people are so happy or willing to talk about it. Why? Because how many times do you have to explain the same things over and over again to people who will, despite their best intentions, never really get it? To a society that at present, partly excludes you at best, and at worst tries to kill you. A society where your rights and existence are denied, where people don't believe you, and you spend a long time waiting in uncertainty. Speaking of uncertainty, trans people have one thing to thank covid-19 for: every single person in the world now knows what it is like to have their live on hold for a long period of time, faced with uncertainties in a situation far beyond their control, in a system that is not prepared to deal with them. Now you all have an understanding of what it is like emotionally to be trans (though without the gender bit), and I'm sorry because I would not have wished that even on my worst enemies (ok, well maybe for a few weeks at most for the worst of the worst).

And with that, I bid you all a happy International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia!

For the past 8 months my college has been allowing men to just use the women's shower whenever they feel like it, which forces me to wait until almost 1.30-2.00am to avoid them, or use my friend's private room almost on the other end of campus. Most of the time the men aren't even using the restroom, they are just in there "hanging out what's the big deal I'm gender neutral I swear". I've repeatedly complained to community living and title IX but all that happened is I was required to meet with the equal opportunity advisor about how I should be more inclusive. I can't do it anymore and I'm actively pursuing how to live off campus next year as a sophmore, but I'm afraid I won't be able to.

www.noconflicttheysaid.org/post/men-in-the-women-s-showers-on-campus

Thoughts?

BoredOutofMyMind

Is that a list of the top poorly reasoned trans activist talking points, handily gathered together so we can knock them down one by one?

Thank you, very considerate.

@Tibtom

He has been told to "fuck off back to the ladies" or called a "transgender bitch" more than once.

I am not sure this is a reaction to feminine/masculine males. Transideology has been creeping out into MSM and public knowledge and people don't like it. They don't like the demands for everything to be centred on transwomen, the demand people lie, women in their space, the thought they may be tricked into sleeping with someone of the wrong sex, or photos of violent or paedophilic men in the newpaper being referred to as 'she', being expected to kowtow to someone else belief system. No debate means they feel this has been imposed on them without consent. This is just as likely to be a reaction against transideology as feminine men.

Well yes. Exactly. Hence my comment about trans women (trans ideology is a better word but I haven't slept so words get lost) not just being harmful to women. Instead of being allowed to "pee in peace" my 14 year old DS is accused of being female and told to go 'back' to female spaces. And it's because he looks 'feminine' that he is told that. Men/boys at school pushing back and he's been caught in the crossfire as it were. If I go back when I was a teen 20 years ago none of my long haired male friends were ever told to leave the men's toilets. So something has changed.
(16 year old DS1 has never had the same issue. He's also never had long hair, and is more 'masculine' looking.)

It's encouraging people to the most regressive and reductive gender stereotypes. Men can't have delicate features and long hair; they must be women.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

For the past 8 months my college has been allowing men to just use the women's shower whenever they feel like it, which forces me to wait until almost 1.30-2.00am to avoid them, or use my friend's private room almost on the other end of campus. Most of the time the men aren't even using the restroom, they are just in there "hanging out what's the big deal I'm gender neutral I swear". I've repeatedly complained to community living and title IX but all that happened is I was required to meet with the equal opportunity advisor about how I should be more inclusive. I can't do it anymore and I'm actively pursuing how to live off campus next year as a sophmore, but I'm afraid I won't be able to.

www.noconflicttheysaid.org/post/men-in-the-women-s-showers-on-campus

Thoughts?

This is really shocking and upsetting

Sex is the legal term based on how its defined in the country

My mind is boggled at this. What does this mean?

Sex is a biological fact, and (barring a small number of differences of sexual development, previously known as intersex) it has not and does not vary across the entirety of humanity back to the dawn of time and across every culture and civilisation we’ve ever had.

I’m just not sure what you want to achieve by pretending that sex is something that is created by laws, rather than being a fundamental fact about human existence, and actually the reason that humans (and all other mammals) continue to exist at all...

Gender roles certainly do vary quite a lot, but amazingly, the vast majority of cultures manage to work out which half of humanity generally get the shitty end of the stick. If sex is variable, how do you imagine that happens?

What did people do before we had segregation?They had communal toilets with no cubicles.

Yes. In many places outside the UK, they still do. Let's discuss what happens there.

This is a thread from a man on twitter who has been outside the west, and who is not under any delusions about what happens to women without protections.

twitter.com/Gurdur/status/1328740724024766466?s=19

4/ My personal POV on this is muchly formed by toilets. Third World village communal toilets. It's the village communal toilets in the Third World, where women and girls get raped. IOW, villages need segregated toilets to keep women and girls safe.

6/n Any such village communal toilet is usually one or two squat-type installations (i.e. no seat), in a narrow concete "cubicle", with one entrance/exit. NO door, no windows, NO roof. Are we clear? Very basic, no door, no running-water tap, no flush.

t.co/ZfeOFIa52P

7/n "Communal" means it gets used by everyone, i.e. this is the one toilet for everyone in the village. "Communal" means in essence "public". Every public toilet-block anywhere is a communal toilet.
If you wonder why I spell things this basic out, it'll become clear soon.

8/n Would-be rapists haunt areas where girls & women are vulnerable. That means alone, unprepared, no-one else around, vulnerable. This includes toilets. Public or private: Michelle Martinez was convicted of sexually assaulting a young girl in a bathroom in a private home9/n The risk of using a common "bush toilet" (i.e. a pit in the ground with a couple of branches across it for a seat) or a village communal toilet can be high. But don't take my word for it, instead: Bangladesh, when using a toilet requires courage:

t.co/raZcUFDeOh

9/n The risk of using a common "bush toilet" (i.e. a pit in the ground with a couple of branches across it for a seat) or a village communal toilet can be high. But don't take my word for it, instead: Bangladesh, when using a toilet requires courage:

t.co/raZcUFDeOh

10/n Bihar, India. When rape gets "caused" by lack of [private] toilets in the home (if you ask me, it's rapists who cause rape, but reducing vulnerability is a necessity, so sex-segregated communal toilets are needed, if private ones not possible).
t.co/rLO3iLOyC6

Article.

Most of the cases of rape of women and girls in India's Bihar state occur when they go out to defecate in the open, police and social activists say.

Some 85% of the rural households in the state, one of India's poorest, have no access to a toilet, a study says.

(continues)

There have been a number of recent cases where women and girls have been raped in Bihar after they stepped out of their homes to defecate:

On 5 May, an 11-year-old girl was raped in Mai village in Jehanabad district when she was going to the field at night

On 28 April, a young girl was abducted and raped when she had gone out to defecate in an open field in Kalapur village in Naubatpur, 35km (21 miles) from the state capital, Patna

On 24 April, another girl was raped in similar circumstances on a farm in Chaunniya village in Sheikhpura district. She told the police that two villagers had followed and raped her. One of them has been arrested.

Senior police official Arvind Pandey told the BBC that such cases happen every month in Bihar.

"They take place when women step out to defecate early in the morning and late evening. It is a very worrisome trend."

Mr Pandey said that about 400 women would have "escaped" rape last year if they had toilets in their homes.

A recent study by global health organisation Population Service International (PSI) and Monitor Delloitte, done in collaboration with Water for People, said that Bihar hadIndia's poorest sanitation indicators with 85% rural households having no access to toilets.

The report added that 49% of the households that did not have a toilet wanted one for "safety and security".

Some 45% wanted a toilet for "convenience", while 4% wanted one for "privacy".

Continues: www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-22460871.amp

People go to toilets to use the toilet and then leave. They dont hang around waiting to attack people.

Having addressed that this is not the case in other parts of the world, where women are raped by men when they go to the toilet, I have a question for you.

Do you think there something special about male people who live in the UK that means they would never loiter around looking for women and girls on their own going to the toilet?

While you think about that, the rest of us will be reading this.

A transgender woman threatened to stab a 10-year-old girl’s mother during a terrifying sexual assault in the female toilets of a Morrison’s supermarket. Katie Dolatowski, 18, admitted grabbing the youngster by her face and forcing her into the cubicle before demanding she take her trousers off at the store in Fife, Scotland, on 4 March. She carried out a similar attack just weeks earlier, on 8 February, when another young girl using the toilet at an Asda store in Halbeath spotted Dolatowski using a mobile phone to spy on her over the partition wall.

Read more: metro.co.uk/2019/03/16/transgender-woman-18-sexually-assaulted-girl-10-morrisons-toilet-8914577/?ito=cbshare

@DrSbaitso

It's encouraging people to the most regressive and reductive gender stereotypes. Men can't have delicate features and long hair; they must be women.

This.

Just an example, I've seen Bowie in his prime described as being closeted trans. Just fuck off. Bowie wasn't closeted anything.

Most of the men I've been in relationships with have had a penchant for a bit of makeup and/or the occasional dress (it's a music thing, think Manic Street Preachers/goth stuff). They weren't trans and they didn't think they were women. They just liked to wear makeup and dresses sometimes.

I'd hate to be young today. It's so constrained and pigeonholed. If you're a bloke who wants to slap on a bit of eyeliner you're expected to question your 'gender' and if you don't others will. You can't simply be a bloke who likes to wear eyeliner.

Do you think there something special about male people who live in the UK that means they would never loiter around looking for women and girls on their own going to the toilet?

I think it's racist to assume that foreign men are more likely to rape than UK men.

@Helleofabore

Not sure how many old tropes you can fit into one post their bored.

Its your brains that chose gender and not body parts

I think you will find this is transphobic. We are told there is no ‘choice’ about it.

Sex is the legal term based on how its defined in the country.

No. Sex is the arrangement of your body around one of either two reproductive functions. These functions are to produce either large gametes or small gametes, whether that happens or not. Your are either female or male whatever country you live in. And we are also told that biology is no longer being denied.

We need to get rid of gender stereotypes.

Yes. Feminists have been saying this for a very long time. Yet, trans activism requires stereotypes to remain. How else are trans people defined? How can someone be non-binary if everyone else isn’t ‘binary’.

All this hate towards men and transwomen.
Lets talk about the fact that women can be violent too.

98% of all sex crimes are perpetrated by MALES however they identify. The statistics don’t lie. And MALES are overwhelmingly committing violent crime too. That is why males are excluded from female’s toilets.

Most of you would have shared a toilet with a transperson without even realising.

Another common fallacy that is all too often wheeled out. Of course, women notice males. Very few males who transition would go undetected.

And how very transphobic of you to also imply that males need to adjust their appearance in any way to be a transwoman!!

In the UK there are no laws against which toilets you can use.

Under the EA2010, males can be excluded from single sex spaces if there is reasonable expectation that the facilities are needed to be restricted to women. The recent JR case indicated that this is yet untested in law.

What did people do before we had segregation? when? In the past, females were expected not to travel further than a quick trip home to be able to go to the toilet there. Read up on the urinary leash. Then female toilets came into being. For females and all their toilet needs.

They had communal toilets with no cubicles.

What? Yes, you are right. People squatted in the fields as needed. Yet, even the romans had segregated facilities!

If anyone is going to attack anyone a door with women only or men only on it wont stop them.

We keep hearing this. So why then are transitioned males claiming they are safer in the female toilets? Seems like you cannot have it both ways. If it not safer, they should use the toilet for their sex.

People go to toilets to use the toilet and then leave. They dont hang around waiting to attack people.

Really? So again, no need to use the female toilets. They are safe to use the male toilets and considering 90% of transitioned males retain their penises, it is probably more efficient to use the urinal compared to a cubicle toilet.

In the meantime, you also might like to read up on the number of times females are attacked by males in ‘unisex’ toilets and in female toilets. And while you are at it, please check out the videos uploaded on pornhub and onlyfans of transitioned males performing sex acts in female toilets. It is there on the internet and apparently a fast growing porn category. Meaning it is completely useless to deny it happens and will continue.

And also check out the videos of women being caught by cameras planted by voyeuristic males. Or just read the news about them. There is constantly males being charged with planting cameras in female toilets and change rooms.

Would be interested to hear your thoughts on this post @Boredoutmymind as someone has taken the time to provide considered and thoughtful responses to your points. It would be refreshing for them to be acknowledged and discussed rather than disappearing like OP seems to have done (bar their NC fail return post!)

I agree. Let's see what Boredoutmymind thinks.

P.S. for anyone who missed it, in one US university, a woman is using the shower at 2am to avoid the men who are also being allowed to use it and she went on to say...

Most of the time the men aren't even using the restroom, they are just in there "hanging out what's the big deal I'm gender neutral I swear"

continues:
www.noconflicttheysaid.org/post/men-in-the-women-s-showers-on-campus

Seems men in the West don't just use the facilities and leave!

@Wrongsideofhistorymyarse

Do you think there something special about male people who live in the UK that means they would never loiter around looking for women and girls on their own going to the toilet?

I think it's racist to assume that foreign men are more likely to rape than UK men.

I think that poster was making the point that rules around sex segregated toilets are the only reason we don't have attacks in toilets to anywhere near the same level.

This might have been your point too; I'm not clear from your post.

Most of the time the men aren't even using the restroom, they are just in there "hanging out what's the big deal I'm gender neutral I swear"

It's really shitty that women are being subjected to this.

But an entirely predictable development.

Yes it is DrS. I was also musing in my head about certain international charities that don't seem to acknowledge that women in the UK are at risk from men, just like women in other countries.

As a transwoman (non transitioned)I am horrified to have been lumped in with men who dress and masterbate in female toilets.
I am really upset and find it hard to believe that it has come this.

The size of the Trans " umbrella " is ridiculous.
These men are sexual perverts not transwomen.

When I was a teen, decades ago now I started to present as female, rightly or wrongly on occasions I did use female toilets.
A different time and different attitudes of course. At the time I believe I "passed " very easily I generally had my sister with me so maybe that helped in some way.

I guess if I was noticed I was very kindly tolerated as a genuine transwoman, I don't think an ulterior motive was really considered back then ?

Now however decades later attitudes are rightly different because of this stupid idea that someone just has to say they id as female even though they continue to dress, act and present fully as men !!

I would never dream of using the ladies now, I recognise the fear that could cause, how uncomfortable the other users would feel.
Mother nature has not been kind to me, despite my best efforts I look like a man in a dress, and so I generally hide away these days.

I am not a pervert

@Imasoulman, I believe you and I'm very sure women have nothing to fear from you. But as you say, the problem is the steady erosion of sex-based rights which also removes women's protections against those male people who are predatory and violent, even as they believe themselves to be transwomen, as many do.

I don't know how long ago you were a teen, but assuming it was more than ten or so years ago, yes, you probably were accepted as a genuine trans woman because we didn't have this discourse going on that seeks to "redefine woman" to include violent, intact male people, to remove sex as a protected characteristic, to bully gay people and claim they could change their preferences, and to cry hate and bigotry when women object (or, indeed, to tell them to choke on lady dicks).

You are a victim in this too and that's terrible. Blame this particular branch of the trans rights lobby.

@Imasoulman I would never dream of using the ladies now, I recognise the fear that could cause, how uncomfortable the other users would feel. I am both sorry and happy that you have come to see that!

Mother nature has not been kind to me, despite my best efforts I look like a man in a dress, and so I generally hide away these days. And only sorry for that! You shouldn't need to feel that way.

Maybe reach out to other transwomen who feel the same and make a fuss! Tell men and Stonewall and TRAs that you are not a pervert, tell men and Stonewall and TRAs that you are pissed off that their actions mean that you have 'been lumped in with men who dress and masterbate in female toilets.'

But don't continue to tell women, because we aren't the cause, we are the effect!

There's not a woman here who wouldn't support you if you joined us in that action.

@Helleofabore @stonecat - thanks both, I will settle down for a read of those.

This thread has shown me how naive I’ve been on this matter - as in it hasn’t really registered with me. I haven’t worked for a few years for long-term health reasons, so there have been no workplace inclusivity missives to be involved with. My social circle is very small as I’m mainly at home.

I don’t know any trans people. I think in my head I’d just squared it off as thinking good on them, it must be really hard to feel that you have been born in the wrong body and that it takes a huge amount of courage to go through the process of transitioning. My only experience of “knowing” someone was at college in the 80’s where a lecturer started MtF transitioning one term. I’d imagine an environment with college-aged kids was not an easy place to do that, but it was pre-Internet etc and, actually, it appeared that the vast majority of people thought it was brave (very unusual, definitely a talking point, but brave).

I had no idea how far the umbrella had widened today. I had no idea that there is no requirement to even dress as a woman, start hormone therapy etc - that the simple assertion of identifying as a female was enough. I also wasn’t aware of anything around being non-binary etc.

It’s really opened my eyes, and I’ve obviously got a lot more to read to understand things properly. With the very little I’ve gleaned via this thread, it’s left me feeling that none of this is helpful for those who are fully transitioning - it’s turning things into a complete minefield for them. And as to what I’ve read regarding the situation regarding lesbians, I’ve read that with absolute bloody horror.

I find the thought of not being an inclusive and tolerant person difficult, it goes against my natural instincts. But from what I’ve read so far, I’m not feeling very inclusive at all - which is a very strange feeling. And what a minefield for kids growing up today.

Off to read those threads now - thanks again.

@ImasoulmanI am so sorry that people such as you, who just want to get on with their lives are being hurt by the fallout of all of this.

We should be natural allies, but the inclusion of those who we have real reason to be afraid of has driven a wedge between us.

We, as women, can’t unpick this we’re the victims along with you, but when we fight back we are invalidate, threatened, de-platformed, and silenced.

There are TRA/ MRA elements within the T umbrella who hate women and want to see us pushed back into to submissive and subservient roles, and recently they have been controlling the agenda.

I don’t know how we fix it but I hope that we can.

Imasoulman
I do have sympathy for you, and others in the same situation, but I have been in both changing rooms and the Ladies when a transwoman has come in, (twenty years ago) and even though this was a rare occurrence, and the person was trying to fit in, it made me really uncomfortable. It would have made my elderly mother leave the loo or changing room, and I know that my young teenage daughters would panic if there was a male person in their space. So women then may have treated you with kindness, but even then there would have been women who did, like me, feel unhappy about it but also not want to hurt anyone’s feelings or have the stress of challenging an unknown person who might get aggressive.
I know that might be upsetting for you to hear, and I have no wish to hurt you, but most women have never liked male people in their spaces, and not challenging should not be taken as not minding.

@Imasoulman I believe you. This thing hurts women and people with gender dysphoria.

I find the thought of not being an inclusive and tolerant person difficult, it goes against my natural instincts

I used to feel like this, but then i realised that trans activist demands prioritise mainly white men over women and girls. Women and girls lose sporting opportunities, lose access to single sex spaces, lose work and educational opportunities, lose the right to define their own sexual attraction and boundaries, lose the ability to take part in public life, lose clear health messaging. Many of the women and girls impacted the most by this are those from ethnic minorities, or are particulary vulnerable.