to NOT think women's rights are being attacked?

[MissPrimaryCrafts]

Wanted to namechange in case this turns into a bloodbath but new users not being accepted so we'll see how it goes!

I realise this could be a bit provocative but I'm not looking for an argument, I just genuinely am finding it hard to understand the other side of this so would genuinely like a polite dicussion so I can understand better. Apologies in advance if it sparks natiness in replies

The issue being transphobia and womens rights...I've seen a lot of talk in threads recently about how 'anyone standing up for women is apparantly and transphobe and TERF' and that women are losing their rights and I just don't see how.

I assume the main issue is with allowing trans women into female only spaces, and people feeling like it's no longer really a 'female only' space as men could just say they're a woman and be allowed in?

I understand this as being a problem...but only to an extent. Firstly I feel like I wonder how much more access this would actually give men? Like honestly, if a man is going to go a commit a crime against a woman, is seeing a 'women only' sign on a changing room door really going to stop him? Is he really going to pretend to identify as a woman to enter the space, or is he just going to enter the space? Does allowing trans women really change things?

Also, if that IS your issue with allowing trans people into female only spaces, then your issue isn't with trans women, it's with men. If you're worried about men entering the space by 'pretending' to be trans, then the potential problems are because of men, not because of trans women. So surely there are better ways to address our issues with men committing crimes than to make sure trans women are excluded from certain spaces? Aren't there other ways we as a society can address the prevalence of crimes against women?

Of course - this is all if you 'believe' that being trans is a real thing, I'm aware many people don't think it's real and I think that's a separate issue. But if you think trans people do 'exist'/it is a real thing, but you want to bar them from female only spaces, I just wonder why? What do you think of the above?

Sorry this is an essay!

Shame the OP never came back.

Why would we expect men to sort out this issue? Or transwomen to do it alone?

Tranwomen should lead it, campaign for it, use the funds held by Stonewall to pay for it. Tranwomen shouldn't shut it down as a solution.
Most women would support them. But why should women who still have huge disadvantages because of our sex stop focusing on those problems and disadvantages and start focusing on someone else's problems instead. Tranwomen tell us they are women but then seem amazed that men are threatening and dangerous and scarry. If they were women this wouldn't be news to them - it isn't news to us because it has been the back ground to our while lives.

"And yet the poll shows an overwhelming majority believe it is an issue. And funnily enough the last thread about whether this should be discussed on AiBU also showed a very clear majority."

I do wonder how many in the current YANBU 15% were misled by the double-negative...

@NotBadConsidering

Plenty of trans people have shown empathy with women and women’s rights. But there are plenty who haven’t, and they won’t be won round by “be kind”. They just need to be told no. You can’t have women’s spaces. If transwomen are the sort of people who can’t take no for an answer from women and can’t already see how it might affect women in their lives, then it’s not my job to convince them. It’s not the job of anyone to counsel them into being better more empathetic humans while all their mates call women bitches and T*rfs.

You may think you are helping your cause. Many would disagree. Not on MN but in real life

”Your” cause? Don’t you mean our cause?

My cause is to protect women's spaces, and if that means supporting transwomen in getting their own safe spaces, I would.

Stonewall isn't campaigning for a third space because Stonewall wants anyone who wants to be considered a woman to have that gender identity validated everywhere, at all times, by all people, in all spaces, without exception, even if they have done, and intend to do, absolutely nothing to feminise their bodies or presentation in any way.

In Stonewall's ideal world, Mike Tyson should be able to wake up tomorrow, decide he is a woman and immediately get complete and total acceptance into any female space including athletics, prisons and rape crisis centres. And anyone who objected, or suggested a third space might be more appropriate, would be a hateful transphobe, on a par with homophobes who oppose same sex marriage.

And like I’ve said, supporting yes, but not organising it. As Runningupthecurtains says:

But why should women who still have huge disadvantages because of our sex stop focusing on those problems and disadvantages and start focusing on someone else's problems instead?

Passive aggression. Really?

By all means, continue with your hectoring, scolding tone to women who actually believe in the benefit of third spaces. Seems fairly counter-intuitive but that's up to you.

I have answered all of these questions up thread. You don't listen, so things don't change.

@BaronMunchausen

"And yet the poll shows an overwhelming majority believe it is an issue. And funnily enough the last thread about whether this should be discussed on AiBU also showed a very clear majority."

I do wonder how many in the current YANBU 15% were misled by the double-negative...

Oh come on!

Your desperation is really showing now. We may be women but we're not stupid!

Most women think the OP's premise is unreasonable, get over it!

This is about protecting the rights of women and girls. It’s not about sorting out trans rights, whatever rights they think they don’t have. That’s for trans people to sort out.

I wholeheartedly agree. The issue here is the implied stance of TRAs, which seems to be that women are the problem to be sorted out. Okay, let's accuse them of denying trans folks' right to exist and reducing women to their anatomy only, whilst simultaneously erasing the definition of 'woman' and reducing them to 'people wot have cervixes'.

Oh, my. The projection and doublethink required to maintain such a position was once as much the stuff of satire as 'Woman: adult human female' was uncontroversial.

As the old maxim goes, 'your right to swing your first ends where my nose starts'.

@YetAnotherSpartacus

Shame the OP never came back.

Too busy screenshotting.

*Transgender people have mothers.

This attitude alienates them from listening to how women's rights are being damaged.*

You mean trans people who should listen? The ones that wholly believe in trans ideology don't listen. Women trying to get them to listen is futile. No argument is good enough to get them to see the damage they are doing. Male person with their dick hanging out in the womens section in a hot tub next to a little girl? Girl shouldn't look and didn't happen anyway or should have stayed home or naked genitals is fine. Rapist in womens prison and female prisoners get assaulted? Down to prison system, but judge says male people's feelings count more than womens safety. Middleaged weightlifter in womens team? It is only one (actually 9 to date) or they won't win gold anyway or they are lifting less than when they were younger or there is a women who is also good.

No. No is a complete sentence and I have run out of sympathy for these people as a whole (but still think the transpeople I know are sweet).

There has been far too much engagement as it is. Look at sport. Males want to compete in women’s sport. Instead of saying “no, women’s sport is for women - females - only. End of discussion” there has been a ridiculous amount of time, energy and resources spent on demonstrating that males have a physical advantage. Top scientists like Emma Hilton, Ross Tucker, and others have had to go and actually do the leg work, funded by organisations like World Rugby, to put down on paper the most basic of human perceptions that any child can tell you: that males are stronger than females. Something that has been known since the dawn of human existence.

It’s outrageous. The amount of physical and emotional energy that has gone into it, simply because “no” wasn’t enough. And you think the same sort of engagement should happen with women’s spaces? What’s going to happen? What IS happening? All sorts of bullshit ideas that get bandied around that mixed sex spaces are totally fine.

So now a whole lot of physical and emotional energy needs to be put into “proving” that we segregate by sex for good reasons, the same as all the waste of energy sports research.

No. The answer is no. Keep things singles sex. Go away and sort out your own spaces. Do your own research. Don’t put the onus on women or supporters of women to prove the bloody obvious.

Why are there no trans organisations campaigning for third safe spaces?
Why are many trans organisations and Stonewall actively campaigning to have the single sex exemptions in the Equality Act removed?
I thnk chickeny head that the lack of desire for third spaces comes from the trans community and not women.

And to follow on from my post, what has happens after all the research into sport shows advantage? Transwomen have still successfully managed to continue into women’s sport! Hubbard is still going to the Olympics. Many rugby organisations have chosen to ignore World Rugby’s findings. It doesn’t matter how much you engage, even if you say no before, kindly discuss it, follow the correct procedures, get the best possible research, best intentions to solve the problem, it’s still never enough.

Guaranteed that even if women and women’s organisations threw themselves wholeheartedly into campaigning for 3rd spaces, at the neglect of active women’s issues, it would still end up being fruitless, just like the attempt to do things right with sport did.

@Peppallama

The real question is why can't men be accepting and tolerant of feminine presenting men in THEIR spaces? Why do ours have to be invaded to appease men (either trans women or traditionally presenting men)

Exactly!!!

Some vocal men have long moaned about why the women who have worked hard for years to set up refuges, rape crisis centres etc for women haven't done the same for men. Now some vocal transwomen and trans allies are having a moan about such exclusive carrying on.

Does it never occur to any of them that they could set up refuges and crisis centres themselves? Because honestly, the way things are at present, it doesn't look as if women are going to have a lot of spare capacity after supporting their own.

Don't be waiting for women to do the work they should be doing themselves.

Why haven't you come back to the thread @MissPrimaryCrafts ?

Women's rights are always under attack. There isn't a period of time in history where our rights, safety and freedoms haven't been threatened by men.

It is not transphobic to want biological males to keep out of women's spaces. I totally support a third space- not for women to sort out though.

It's not transphobic when specifying that I want to see a female doctor, to expect an adult human female, a woman, not a transwoman.

It's not transphobic to say that biological males should not be competing in women's sport.

@YetAnotherSpartacus

Shame the OP never came back.

OP was only here for screenshots.

OP came back a couple of times with a name change but it was the same disingenuous "but we don't padlock doors on the ladies' room" nonsense.

Imagine being in a prison with a female face and body with breasts with hundreds of males. This has happened before and is a lot more dangerous than having 1 or 2 transgender people in a women’s prison.
@toocold54 male violence is not women's problem to solve. If transwomen are not safe in the male estate, then a third space needs to be found.

@DdraigGoch

Imagine being in a prison with a female face and body with breasts with hundreds of males. This has happened before and is a lot more dangerous than having 1 or 2 transgender people in a women’s prison. *@toocold54* male violence is not women's problem to solve. If transwomen are not safe in the male estate, then a third space needs to be found.

It’s weird they never think…

Imagine having a female face, body (with breasts) AND a vagina AND having smaller muscle mass and strength and having to share your space with males…

Because that is what is being forced on females in prisons with trans women.

Why don’t they care about females? Especially females in prison who are already statistically the most vulnerable and abused in our society?

Don't understand: why would the OP want screenshots? Anyway, this thread has really helped clarify my own thinking on this.

Surely if we are trying to genuinely protect woman by sex anything we do to help secure safe, separate and equal spaces for transwomen is in our own interest

Women! Why aren’t you wiping men’s arses more? You inconsiderate witches

@MareofBeasttown

Don't understand: why would the OP want screenshots? Anyway, this thread has really helped clarify my own thinking on this.

Sometimes people come onto threads like this, set up a new user name, say something outlandish/transphobic (or goad someone into not wording something politely) then screenshot it and post it on Twitter before the mods have had a chance to delete it, and then claim the MN is a hotbed of intolerance even though 99% of the posts have been polite well reasoned ones.