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!

@Skybluepinkgiraffe

Embarrassing, but useful, *@MilesOfSand*

Good point.

@unwuthering

You made an assumption based on OP's thoughts. I merely pointed out they are not exclusive to young people.

Actually, you made an assumption that I made an assumption. I saw it was (seemingly) a one post thread and did a quick AS, before wasting my time on a one thread poster, on a well-covered elsewhere topic, and saw the OP states elsewhere she is 27.

Thanks for explaining

I also care about the corruption of data.

Police record crime by 'self identified gender' not sex (pop over to the petitions board if you would lik eto sign one to change this).

Women commit so few violent or sexual crimes that just a few men identifying as women skew these statistics significantly.

Then if there is a headline 'large increase in female sexual crime' the solution to that is massively different if the crime is by actual women, or men saying they are women (or transwomen, who, depending on your point of view, may or may not be men saying they are women).

@WendyYourExcellency - I interpreted @ghostyslovesheets post as agreeing with you,

Ie - 'do these women have the same experiences as me'?
"You're right, I highly doubt it'

@SlipperyDippery

Insisting on specific events to prove your point is the same as those who keep showing horrific events from groups as ISIS to justify the exclusion of all Muslims from a country. It is exactly the same methodology

It’s not remotely the same because we segregate sex and allowing male people into female spaces erodes that segregation. We don’t segregate Muslims out of the country*

*not saying our immigration policy isn’t racist but that’s a separate argument. We don’t have a policy of no Muslims in the UK in the same way we have a no men allowed in women’s changing rooms policy

You still have people campaigning for it and Trump did impose a ban on visas that was based on the logic I am stating above.

You keep using isolated events (mainly from the US and sometimes UK) too

And I care about trust in the police and the press.

Recently a woman reported being attacked by a man in Dulwich.

The police then tweeted they had arrested the woman responsible for the attack.

If the woman who was attacked is certain she was attacked by a man, how can I have any confidence the police have got the right person?

If the police are looking for a male criminal who they know is a transwoman, how should they accurately descibe them to the population to get them to help look?

Agree with everything about language, what defines a woman and the difference between sex and gender.

I am not shy. I will sunbath topless. My waxer is a charming gay vegan bloke. However I was in female changing room with the mirrors in the corridor outside . There was a middle aged bloke sat there watching the women look in half dressed in mirrors. Clearly he was with his wife and had plonked himself down bored. Still made me want to say “ fuck off out mate”. I don’t want a man there. Even one that looks more like a woman.

You keep using isolated events (mainly from the US and sometimes UK) too

I haven’t mentioned any events on any thread, but out of interest how many “isolated events” are acceptable to you? How many instances of women being made to feel unsafe, or actually being unsafe, as an “isolated event” will you tolerate before engaging with the issue? What’s your acceptable level of collateral damage?

@SlipperyDippery

You keep using isolated events (mainly from the US and sometimes UK) too

I haven’t mentioned any events on any thread, but out of interest how many “isolated events” are acceptable to you? How many instances of women being made to feel unsafe, or actually being unsafe, as an “isolated event” will you tolerate before engaging with the issue? What’s your acceptable level of collateral damage?

This is what I refer to when I say the discussion can lead nowhere. Apparently the only danger for women are trans people. Otherwsie they would be 100% safe. We can tolerate all kinds of risk all the time for everybody, except the possibility of a transperson misbehaving in a mixed space.

That men are violent. That women and children who are physically vulnerable need protection from them. That putting on a dress does not prevent a man from attacking and raping women. That men need to deal with male violence because it harms men too.
Your comment likening this to Muslims is highly offensive by the way.

One in five women have been then victim of sexual assault or rape, if they are alone in a space confronted with someone who looks masculine, has the physique of a man, towers over them like a man and sounds like a man, then he doesn't actually need to assault her himself to do damage to her. Trauma is real, why the fuck should 20% of all women give up socialising or going to the gym or swimming because they know they can't use the facilities when they get there in case someone encroaches on that space who makes them freeze with panic, all in the name of validating a mans feelings of femininity.

It's sad when women are so happy to give away women's safeguarding because they don't feel that they need it. No one is all women, no one owns those rights and can give them away, if you don't need them I'm happy for you, but other women do. Women's rights are for all of the female sex to feel safe, feeling safe is as important as being safe.

Men dressed as women wanting to work in refuges is so counterproductive to the recovery of the service users, I cannot comprehend why anyone who isn't a total narcissist would even want to do that. I would love to work in domestic abuse, it's something I have been looking into but if there was something about me that I couldn't change that would be damaging to an already abused woman or child then I would not want to do that. If the most helpful thing I could do was stay away then that is exactly what I would want to do.

We can tolerate all kinds of risk all the time for everybody

No we don't. That's why we keep men out of female spaces.

@HunterHearstHelmsley

I honestly wouldn't mind a post op trans women in women only spaces. I do not want penises in those spaces. That's not unreasonable.

I feel the same. The stigma of a recognisably male person entering a female toilet is what keeps us safe, it helps deter predators from our single-sex spaces. If they don't have a penis, and have had the facial surgery required to not look male, I don't mind.

If a woman is raped, and she asks for a female medical examiner to take care of her, should she reasonably expect to have a trans woman do those assessments?

If a person claiming to be trans wanted to use the female changing room of say a gym, there is nothing stopped them going in and watching women dress. I would say it's more this women would worry about happening.

@Avocadowoman

I also care about the corruption of data.

Police record crime by 'self identified gender' not sex (pop over to the petitions board if you would lik eto sign one to change this).

Women commit so few violent or sexual crimes that just a few men identifying as women skew these statistics significantly.

Then if there is a headline 'large increase in female sexual crime' the solution to that is massively different if the crime is by actual women, or men saying they are women (or transwomen, who, depending on your point of view, may or may not be men saying they are women).

Have you got a link to the potion? Would like to sign and share.

Petition that should say, sorry.

MissPrimaryCrafts

Late to the show but

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.

But transwomen are men!

And yes female rights are under attack.
Female only spaces
Female prisons
Female Sports
the re-writing of female hygiene products.
The removal of the term breast feeding and other terms.
Female penises
that lesbians must have sex with transwomen or they are transphobic.

and these are just a few.

One in five women have been then victim of sexual assault or rape, if they are alone in a space confronted with someone who looks masculine, has the physique of a man, towers over them like a man and sounds like a man, then he doesn't actually need to assault her himself to do damage to her

@camaleon

Do you accept this as being an issue? Or do victims of sexual assault just have to get over it?

It is obviously harmful to trans women to be excluded from women’s spaces. Therefore we need to have a constructive and respectful conversation about striking a fair balance between the sometimes conflicting needs of trans women and natal women. Do you agree, or do you think I’m transphobic for not accepting that trans women’s rights align entirely with other women’s rights?

[quote DontDrinkDontSmokeWhatDoIDo]@WendyYourExcellency* - I interpreted *@ghostyslovesheets post as agreeing with you,

Ie - 'do these women have the same experiences as me'?
"You're right, I highly doubt it'[/quote]
Yes, apologies @ghostyslovesheets and thanks @DontDrinkDontSmokeWhatDoIDo!

@camaleon

I totally agree with you. I believe this 'debate' has been framed in a way (are transwomen women?) that is really unhelpful and leads to confrontation between different groups with their own interest. A lot of it is dominated by hidden religious interests. Many of those behind this are scandalized about 'mixed' areas in many environments and are using the trans issue to pursue their agendas of keeping segregated sex spaces. I have nothing about that agenda, but it should not be disguised with one theme only. It is not a coincidence that this debate is particularly heated in the UK were Victorian attitudes to things such as nudity are very pronounced. The way this has been framed there is no way it is going to find solutions that protect the rights of transpeople in any reasonable way. Women's rights are under attack only if we continue this sterile discussion instead of finding a better way of listening and addressing the real life issues at stake.

Eh? What are talking about? I just want my eight year old dd to be able to get unchanged in a swimming changing room with out having a mans penis flapping about next to her.

Why is that so hard to grasp?

And I don't follow religion. Is that the new thing now? GC women are religious nutters

This is exactly as simple as you say, OP. I don’t want men in women-only spaces. Whether they imagine they’re women or not, it makes no difference.

There are other important problems. Teenaged girls trying to escape becoming women in a violent porn-soaked world. Children being taught they must comply with outdated gender stereotypes (so if a boy likes pink he ‘must be’ a girl etc). Men taking women’s sport trophies. Etc etc.

But it all stems from men demanding the right to ignore women's boundaries and be accepted in our spaces.

The clue here is that this is all about the erasure of biological females - the problems there are with the term 'woman' aren't mirrored by similar problems about 'men' as a term. The body shop talk about menstruators as a group, but have no problem having a 'Men' product range. Go figure.

Women have had to fight, for hundreds of years, for their rights. It feels like men, now that women have these rights, are changing tack and taking them away by stealth. They cannot remove the right for women to have a sex-protected space, but then if they campaign for men to be able to call themselves women when it suits them, and use any previously sex-protected space, isn't that the next best thing?

I feel sorry for genuine trans women who have become caught up in this in recent years. Somewhere along the way the trans community has been infiltrated by those who understand that 'give trans rights' is less sinister sounding than 'remove women's rights' but amounts to the same thing.

"Not likely to". I've not RTFT but they already have done.
We have had multiple sexual assaults of female prisoners by male prisoners in prison on the basis of those male prisoners self-identifying their way in and this was just confirmed to be legal in a judicial review.
I don't see how anyone can view that as anything other than women's rights to dignity, privacy and safety being removed. I just don't.

And I don't follow religion. Is that the new thing now? GC women are religious nutters

Yes - trans activism says that gender critical feminism is in end with the conservative religious right. It’s genuinely laughable.