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.

I have answered your posts about butch or androgynous women already. Perhaps you should read those and ask relevant questions.

How do we police it? I ask you, how did we always 'police' it. When have any women demanded the 'flashing of vaginas'? And you have the nerve to call me ridiculous.

If men did the decent thing and stayed out of women's spaces there would be no need to 'police' anything

And this is the 'just want to pee' point really. 'Go about their business'? Really?

And can you tell us what the female people who have needs that extend beyond the privacy of the cubicles are to do since you have blithely given away their spaces?

Female people have always used the female toilets for a whole lot more than just peeing.

Here are some of the things that I have personally used the toilets for and where I would not have wanted to have any male person in that space at the time:

-Having a pram/pushchair jammed into the door way leaving it wide open while, dealing with a tired crying infant and all the weekly shopping while dealing with a flooding period. This still happens, not every where has family toilets that are working at the time.

-Had to help my elderly mother go to the toilet when her wheel chair mean the door could not close due to space and wipe her down all while she is exposed to whoever walked by. I couldn't leave her on the toilet to push the chair out because she would fall. The disabled toilet was out of order.

-Had to clean my skirt due to leaked blood.

-Had to clean my shirt due to baby vomit / food spillage. In fact, in the past three months I have walked into female toilets a couple of times to find other women with their shirts off, standing in their bras drying their shirts. This is not unusual.

-Had to get changed between jobs and had to do it in the public space due to filthy wet floors.

Then there are the women who have come to MN to discuss having their miscarriages in toilets and one woman even discussed help to deliver a baby in the female toilet for a young woman because that baby came while waiting for the ambulance.

If you think 'going about their business' for female people stays locked in a cubicle, perhaps you have lived a privileged life or you are not a female person.

OK, so if we don't discuss it, what happens?

Women just accept that their spaces and sports are now mixed sex? That we no longer have words to describe what we are? That if a man says he is a woman we are not allowed to say no to him?

"The psychological and mental aspects of why trans people exist" aren't hugely relevant to the non trans population.

Obviously trans people should be treated with respect and dignity and have the same rights as everyone else, but the existence of male people who believe they identify as female has no bearing on what it means to be female.

I am what I am, and what I am does not change regardless of the fact that a man thinks that he is also what I am. Engaging in the pretence that he is the same as me does nothing except remove my ability to describe and discuss myself on the basis of what I am (and he is not) and advocate for my own rights.

People who believe they are Napoleon exist.
You can broaden the discussion to consider the psychological and mental aspects of why people think they're Napoleon as much as you want.
But answering that question still doesn't make them Napoleon and no one should be coerced into pretending that they are.

Why do women need to consider the psychological and mental aspects of why transgender people exist when you admit that sex doesn't change and women are asking for sex to be again prioritised over gender when sex matters?

Can you tell us what difference it will make, in your opinion, to the discussion about the rights of women and children?

For instance, do the psychological and mental aspects of a male person change their ability to harm female people with their bodies from the way any other male person can harm female people with their bodies?

Do the psychological and mental aspects of a male person change their bodies for the discussion on sports?

Can you explain what discussions knowing why trans people exist will change in your view?

Men are asked/ told not to go in women's single sex spaces.

Men are expected to adhere to this.

Men that are subsequently found in women's spaces can then be assumed to be a threat.

Like many aspects of living in a society full of diverse humans, the law is there when things go wrong but people's day to day behaviour is not that closely "policed". It's more we expect a general social standard of mutual respect and reserve the right to be suspicious of those who don't perform this.

I'm curious why so called trans allies doubt that transwomen could comply with accepted social behaviour?

@DianeAbbotsJamjars I would be interested in the explanation for this also.

How is same sex attraction commensurate with wanting to identify as a member of the opposite sex?
And how do you square the fact that so many trans identified males are heterosexual?

It has always struck me as infantilising those male people to not expect them to follow the guidelines, laws or even just the social mores that show they respect female people.

I am an Airbnb host. Trans women are welcome to stay in my home. All my trans guests have all been nice, interesting human beings. All they want is a safe, respectful place to stay in. I’m happy to provide it.

And ?

Are airB&Bs soemthing we normally have sex based varients of ?

No one is saying you shouldn't let male individuals stay at your airbnb, are they?

Erm...so what? I don't think you have understood anything on this thread tbh. 😆

By the way, you are assuming that I was a small child. I know very well that a child the size I was, and a very fit and strong child too, when I was being asked if I was a boy or girl can be considered a safety concern for smaller female adults.

You must have a very narrow life experience to have written that statement.

"A blanket man is born a man so must only enter mens toilets isnt going to fix anything."

Has this been suggested as the only space that male people who have a transgender identity can use? That would be unusual. Most feminists will also argue that third spaces should be an option too. But that feminists should not have to campaign for that resource and that no male person should use the female single sex spaces because the resource is not there.

"How do you feel about transgender women joining the Womens Institute? "anyone living as a woman may join" is their very generous approach."

That is up to the Women's Institute. Organisations should have the ability to be able to define their membership. If the Women's Institute chose to be female only, then that too should be respected.

I haven’t read both threads in full, but all I see are well-reasoned arguments as to why trans women shouldn’t be allowed in female spaces.

I would like someone who considers themselves ‘pro-trans’ and believes that all women should be inclusive to anyone now identifying as a woman, that was previously born a man, to answer this question -

Why should we?

And it really does need to be a better argument than

“because it will make them sad if you don’t”

I'm curious why so called trans allies doubt that transwomen could comply with accepted social behaviour?

It's very illuminating really.

Yes.

And it's fair to note that the commenters on this thread who have engaged with precicesly that point have been gender-critical.

The 'you're all mean girls', and 'I don't mind sharing my facilities and neither should you', and 'you're phobic and why can't you just be kind', and 'you are just like the homophobes circa Section 28' seem curiously reluctant to engage with the nuances of that discussion.

Instead, they've merely told women off, informed us we are a bunch of unreasonable, bigoted shrews, and flounced off.

If they want a genuine discussion they seem curiously resistant to having one, but #NoDebate seems to have done its job very effectively in more ways than one. If nothing else, this amply illustrates why this was such a favoured mantra.

The situation is very simple. The law is clear. Natal sex is used for same sex spaces.
The issue is people trying to change that law.
It has nothing to do with transphobia.
I can't see any policy maker stupid enough to try to change that or they will see rioting on the streets.
Over 90% of people on here do acknowledge that trans people exist and wish them no ill. But and it's a big but they are not prepared to concede to a scientific lie.
Only people who have no respect for others will push for women to be pushed aside.
Mother of transperson but also a feminist and proud of it.

Middle aged males aren't a minority group. They're the most powerful group in society.

It's not 'civilised' to remove rights, spaces and even words to describe ourselves from women.

It's not 'civilised' to expect raped women to have males in their support groups, or imprisoned women to be trapped with them, or disabled women to have no right to say no to them performing personal care. Women are actual full humans.

A man is a man and should stay out of women's spaces actually does 'fix anything' for women. If males with a trans identity don't want to use the spaces for their sex they can sort their own solutions out, instead of trying to take women's solutions away from us. I'm not their mum, I don't exist to make them happy or to 'validate' their ideas about themselves.

We have often asked people who have supported male people accessing female single sex spaces because those male people might be harmed in male spaces for both statistics and reports that show this in the UK but also for the campaigns that have run or are running that were started to encourage male people to be more accepting of all male people.

No one has ever provided evidence of the first.

And to my knowledge there is no major campaign to make male toilets a 'safe space' and welcoming for all male people, including male transgender people.

Instead... people just double down that some male people are at risk of harm in male toilets and that female people should provide the security that those male people need.

I agree that neither is ‘wrong’ but the discussion hasn’t really been about why trans people exist. In fact, a lot of FWR threads do discuss at length the psychological and mental aspects of trans ideology.

Here, however, the first thread was calling for support for a ‘pro trans’ position. Others came on to ask for further clarification on what the OP defined as being either pro or anti trans.

It went on from there from posters declaring (like one previous OP on this thread) "I’m happy for anyone to use the same toilets as me as long as they go about their business" with others asking but what happens when other women who aren’t happy want to use toilets i.e. without trans women using them?

Quite a few ‘pro trans’ posters seem focused on toilets to the point where they won’t discuss a) how do we / they define women other than by their sex? And b) if being a woman is defined by nothing other than a feeling, what are the wider implications for sport, for religious women, for changing rooms, for places where women are vulnerable such as hospitals, rape centres, prisons etc.

What I’d be interested in is hearing from the pro trans posters in relation to these two questions. But unfortunately there is rarely a clear response.

What do you think @Kissingthewookie? Would you agree that it matters how a woman is defined? This isn’t a rhetorical question because definitions matter in law and policy. For example, sport.

Edited to clarify.