Don't know how to explain how I feel about the SC decision

[Stripeysuitcase]

Hi,

Sorry if this is the millionth post on this. I am struggling with articulating my feelings about yesterday's verdict, and I'm struggling to discuss it with friends. I am pro womens rights but also pro trans rights, and I can't see how to articulate how I feel succinctly.

To put it very briefly I think anyone should be comfortable in being who they want to be, but not at the expense of someone else's fear/discomfort around who they are. I have been sexually abused and support women's single spaces. I have also been negatively affected by working in male dominated spaces. I feel very clearly that my life would have been far easier and happier had I been born a man.

I can't explain how I feel in that being a woman is about growing up as a woman, millions of little decision I make and have made is influenced by the fact that I am and have always been a woman. That is around fear, discrimination, complexity of emotions, different biological experiences (like periods, strength, body shape) etc etc. I feel that these are mine because I'm a woman, and they can never belong or be properly understood to someone who has grown up as a man.

I don't know why this is so important to me. I feel like I have and want to validate this, to defend it, to be allowed to have my experiences and feel the fear, sadness and pain that has been - and still will be in my future - associated with being a woman.

At the same time I often work within the trans community and they are also completely valid in their experiences and probably feel the same - Not included, disadvantaged, looked down upon. For not the same reasons, but with the same effect on them.

Please, does anyone have any advice as to how to articulate this to friends, family and peers? I really struggle with my words sometimes and have a lot of social anxiety. I am terrified of having any conversations around this.

I feel like I have to pick a side. I don't want to pick a side. I want everyone to be supported in the best way and I don't know how to do that.

Also @CatsChin , which are the countries that have never had single sex facilities? Because it's not a country I've ever visited.

There’s no such thing as “cis gender”. Just thought I’d mention that.

This is a very old and worn out sound bite.

And it is telling that you find it acceptable to use it as leverage to support your claim that you think single sex toilets should be abolished.

Luckily we know from female people who have undertaken body modifications that meant that they developed male body cues that they actively seek alternative solutions. They know, from being female, that their presence may cause distress in other female people.

Your approach though seems to be very simplistic, reactive and again dismissive of the needs of female people.

Yes, I am wondering the same.

That seems like a rather large misrepresentation.

Plus all the Muslim, orthodox Jewish, and PTSD-experiencing women who would have no facilities at all, in order that PPs friends can choose from all of the facilities depending on their wishes.

#Bekind never actually means being kind to women. Once you see these self centered luxury beliefs as what they really are, men using their male privilege, you can't unsee it.

Really simple. Trans rights should be supported... this means that they get a right of their very own, a third space bathroom, a unisex sport category... it doesn't mean their rights get to trample women's rights.

And there's the veiled threat. Shut up and let men who identify as women into your spaces, or men who don't will come in and then you won't like it.

So. Very. Male.

@Stripeysuitcase I feel like I have to pick a side.

You really don't have to.

@Stripeysuitcase I don't want to pick a side.

Then don't.

@Stripeysuitcase I want everyone to be supported in the best way and I don't know how to do that.

This really isn't your responsibility. Just go live your life.

Absolutely this.

But also, I get the strong impression that the OP does know which side she wants to pick but feels guilt and shame about it being the side of women.

But they are not unisex. They are male or female.

Who else is going to want to have a third space? Disabled people, gay people, ethnic minorities, Christians, Muslims…?

@CatsChin You’re lucky, your life experiences have been blessedly easy in this regard.

When I was 16 I was raped in an alley early one morning. After the rapist let me go, I ran to the nearby bus station and into the toilets, knowing I would feel safe. 2 lovely women comforted me. I’ll never forget their kindness that day. I can’t imagine how I’d have felt if the toilet had been mixed, (as you would like it to be) and the people in there had been men.

Like you, I don’t really care who I wash my hands with, but if I want to feel safe after a man has held me down, beaten me and raped me, I’d like the ladies toilet to have just women in it. If that’s OK with you. Sorry if your male friends who wear dresses feel uncomfortable with that.

Disabled toilets are a thing...

There are religious spaces...

These don't help your argument.

All those people can campaign for a separate space if they want to sure, what's to stop them? What's that got to do with anything?

I think most people feel the same way

its great and inportant that women means women

it doesn’t mean anything negative about ordinary transpeople going about their lives. it may well be that more work needs doing to support such people. Unfortunately I don’t feel able tp contribute to that because of the hate that has been expressed towards women in that past - my contributions won’t be welcome

it does affect the activists who were disrespectful of women and dismissive of them

I have said this elsewhere and will repeat here - toilets is not where you should focus. Unisex toilets are everywhere

unisex hospital wards or changing rooms or sport are much simpler areas to discuss - don’t let people with none honourable intentions steer you to the weak part of your arguments

I feel the issue is quite clear, biological sex is a fact and therefore toilets and other amenities are sex based. I also feel this ideology has been subtle in the way I that taken over organisations and made it very difficult for those who disagree to voice their concerns without being accused of being phobic or discriminatory. I welcome the SC decision.

And yesterday there was nothing to stop him walking into any women's toilet and claiming to be a trans woman, which would have been impossible to disprove because a trans woman is just a male person who says they are a woman.

Funnily enough this didn't seem to bother you.

I think this is true. My true honest opinion is that I don't want to share. I don't want a man to 'become' a woman. Because being a woman is so much more than a man could ever understand or ever be. And I don't want to use unisex toilets if I'm on my period, or get changed in front of a man.

If I am being honest, I hate the aggression and assumption of hate that comes with the defence of trans rights over women's rights. As someone who was bullied for their looks and had an eating disorder for nearly 2 decades as a result, I hate how the physical appearance of women is the main way they are defined, and therefore someone can be a woman if they simply look like one. I am a scientist and also cannot and do not want to ignore science.

I feel though if I say these things I am transphobic. I really hate it. I hate how my friends are putting pride flags on socials media and saying that everyone is welcome and it's a sad day. I don't understand how it can get so twisted into black and white and I am so afraid of being labeled as a transphobic person of having my own quite simple sex based needs.

Ughhhh

Oh I see we are back on the “you can’t tell so we wil do what we like”

I have lost my old bingo card…

I have to agree about the deliberate manipulation of discussion to areas where it is easier to argue a case for mixed sex facilities. And I am planning on trying to arrange a meeting to speak to my MP about the issue of the potential dangers of mixed sex hospital wards.

There are no mixed sex hospitals wards. It has to be reported if it happens. What do you mean?

@CatsChin Then why do you care who your friends wash their hands with???
All toilets have cubicles so their privacy will be intact in women’s toilets if they are trans men. Biological women are not going to attack and rape them and if someone stops them using a toilet correct for their sex, then they can report it as a crime.

Well said.

This is classic female socialisation. I can't help but notice that the vast majority of men don't tie themselves up in knots about this. The original intention of the law was clarified yesterday. Not to the exclusion of trans rights. In fact they went out of their way to say this!

So women are allowed their single sex spaces. So what? Women are so often tasked with smoothing everything over, being emotional regulators, making everything better. But this isn't for us to do this time.

Stonewall have a lot to answer for. If they hadn't have deliberately gaslit everyone this wouldn't be a thing. So we don't have to make everything better after the mess they made.

What do you mean, there are no mixed sex hospital wards? I was a patient on one recently!