Thread 2 - Is anyone else on here pro-trans

[tinydaisies]

I was really enjoying the 1st thread, hopefully it's ok to have a follow on so we can continue debating

Thread 1: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5115405-to-ask-if-anyone-else-on-mn-is-not-anti-trans

Hopefully this isn't a TAAT.

TIMs don't want third spaces. They want to violate women's spaces. That's the whole point.

Violate? What dreadful language to use.

Both the male and female changing rooms at gyms/studios I use are trans inclusive, and welcoming, and nobody has had a problem with that.

I think that the fear mongering about trans woman is scarily similar to that of old homophobic propaganda.

@macaroniandcheeze I don't recall gay man demanding access to every single single-sex space for women and girls.

When there's a female-only space and a male decides to disregard this boundary and impose himself anyway, how is this not a violation?

With the greatest of respect , have you asked every single person who uses the gym? If I saw a trans women, fully intact, getting changed near me I would be out of the changing room very fast. I just don’t want to see a person’s penis in the changing room and no matter how much I try and ‘be kind’ I would feel uncomfortable. I struggle enough getting changed in front of other biological woman let along a biological man. I don’t see how I can override that with kindness

Can we also talk about anti-catholicism???

I was really shocked to hear a friend openly saying they don't believe that the Eucharist is literally the body and blood of Jesus. She said others can believe what they want but it's just bread and wine to her.

Would you agree that saying this out loud is open hatred of Catholics and deliberately offensive to them? If not, why not?

You have absolutely no idea whether anyone has a problem with that.

Well, nobody dares to say they have a problem with that.

Not to mention those who don't use those gyms and studios because they do have a problem with that policy - so of course you don't see them because they're not there.

The only sex that loses out is the female sex as ever.

Young girls thinking they're men are in danger, and in no way will they ever prosper against real men so noone gives them a second thought.

Men pretending they're women are in no way vulnerable and will only benefit from being able to compete against actual women.

When there's a female-only space and a male decides to disregard this boundary and impose himself anyway, how is this not a violation?

Nice use of inflammatory language there.

You mean a trans woman, of course. None of us who use these shared spaces, from the male or female changing areas, considers it a violation.

Are trans women at the gym using the male changing room or is it just not welcoming enough! Give us a break

So silly 🤣

Why are they campaigning in third world countries for single sex toilets then?

Im not sure what your point is here. Because there has been bigotry in the past, women should just accept men into their spaces, despite the clear safeguarding risks? Is that it?

My point is that when I see a style of rhetoric that reminds me of past demonisation and bigotry, I tend to question what's really behind it.

I'll accept there is potentially a safeguarding risk. What I don't know is just how significant and imminent a risk that really is, and how much it's being inflated by those whose motives are more driven by bigotry and/or stoking political divisions for personal gain than anything else. Is every transwoman a predator just itching for the chance to assault someone in a woman's-only space? Or is it only one in a million? Or is it somewhere in between? I don't know and I'm not sure anyone actually knows.

I appreciate that as I'm a bloke I don't have as much skin in this game which is why over the last few years I've spent way more time listening than speaking on this topic. I'm happy to accept that my evaluation of those risks is not going to be the same as a woman's and so my opinion about transwomen's entry into women's-only spaces is not as important.

But at the same time the trans people I've met and know seem a million miles away from the ugly stereotypes that are bandied about. Just like the anti-gay stereotypes I saw in the 80s didn't match up with the gay people I knew.

Quite.

Years ago, if I went into a women's changing room and there was a man innocently changing, I'd assume he made a mistake and could tell him he was in the wrong place. If there was a man behaving inappropriately in there, I could skip that step and go directly to complain and have him removed.

Now I can't trust that it would be taken seriously. I can't get changed in front of men. And that includes any man who isn't an intimate partner - male friends, my brother, whoever. I do not want them to see my unclothed body. So if I go into a gym changing room and there is a man there, I'm not going back to that gym. Ever.

So of course the women who stick around don't have a problem with it. All the others are gone.

As for risk, there are lots of groups of men who might be at higher risk in male spaces.

Yes, that’s something I’ve been wondering about for a while.
How is, say, a very feminine gay man saver in men’s toilets than a transwoman?

This quote from @HowardTJMoon
"Just like thinking about the "Backs against the wall, lads, the poof's coming through" about a slightly effeminate lad in my class makes me curl my lip now and wish I'd said something then."

Is genuinely helpful. It is similar to how a lot of men in my circle feel. I do see where they are coming from, and it is important to be kind where possible. But at the same time it really irritates me because of course, they didn't say anything at the time. That would have meant confronting other men/boys their own size and possibly putting themselves at risk. It is much easier to confront women face to face, or anyone online because you don't have to be brave. They aren't going to hit you. Fine if its confronting actual harmful behaviour. But lots of men wind up overcompensating for their previous cowardness/weakness by excessively policing what women say, how women talk about men coming into their spaces while they are undressed.

It doesn't make you the good guy. It doesn't make you brave. It doesn't wipe away the weakness you showed when you let your school friends mock effeminate/gay boys and did nothing.

Yes, no-one know so best to keep women's female only spaces sacred. AGP seems a common driver of a lot of men who dress up as women. It's a fetish and women should not suffer to accommodate male fetishism.

This with bloody bells on. Im in a walking group and we arranged some walks for women only because, in the words of our female leader, some women are nervous about joining a mixed sex group. I asked if it would be absolutely biological female only. I was informed by the same woman of the following.
If someone signs up for a female walk they're a woman and that's that.
We don't know how much surgery or hormones a person has had so we don't know whether they've become a woman yet so we'll just accept that they are. Ffs they'll never be a woman.
We should always be kind.
I had my arse handed to me on a plate. The whole point of the walks was to welcome women who wanted to socialise and get fitter after divorce, bereavement etc. To make them feel welcome and safe because they don't have to walk on eggshells or feel uncomfortable around obviously male persons. Even then we cannot be assured that there won't be a bloody man there because a man who says he's a woman can,as always, go any flaming where he wants

They’re not female changing rooms are they, though? If they’re open to non-female people?
And are you sure nobody has a problem with that?

@HowardTJMoon In fact it's a double weakness because you are requiring women/girls to be put in shameful/degrading or embarrassing situations to assuage your own feelings of shame at your past behaviour. And we can't speak up because you didn't want to.

Did your gym ever have members who were Orthodox Jewish or Muslim? Or female survivors of DV or SA? If so, I think you'll find they're not coming to the gym any more. They've been excluded.

@biscuitandcake you think you can read people's minds? That's amazing! What am I thinking right now?

Quite. So busy throwing themselves on the ground for MEN to walk all over them, they don't give a thought to supporting actual women.

Yep. Like the Hampstead swimming ponds.
Men now have a choice of 3 out of 3. Some women now have none.

It's factual language.