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.

This

And we shouldn't even try?

This is from 2023 but I suspect nothing much has changed sine then

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/oct/15/alarm-at-rise-in-use-of-mixed-sex-wards-in-nhs-england-hospitals

It would have been reported as a breach. They aren't a thing in themselves.

Sorry but you’re wrong. Sex separated toilets is the norm globally. The vast majority of countries in the world have single sex toilets.

In schools, offices, factories, even in refugee camps.

Here's a screenshot of a local ward, taken from the relevant NHS website. Along with your claim about countries that have never had single sex toilets, I'm really not sure where you are getting your information from.

Short story idea: Rip Van Winkle but about a woman who goes to sleep in 2018 and wakes up in 2025.

Well yes they are, acquaint yourself with Annex B. Women's single sex wards have included any man who says he feels like a woman. Women's single sex wards are actually only single sex if no male happens to want to be on one today.

My local hospital's transgender care policy says that women who object to a transwoman being in their sleeping space while they are ill and vulnerable should be treated the same as racists, and that any man who says he's a woman, no matter what he looks like and including if he's a convicted sex offender, gets to go on the womens ward. Staff who do't tell the female patients that the ward is all women (despite the cock and balls owner there) are threatened with a disciplinary. A woman who was raped on a hospital ward was gaslit by the hospital that there were no men on in the ward, the hospital told the police there were no men on the ward. It was only CCTV that forced them to admit the rape happened, Baroness Nicholson raised it in the House of Lords. So kind and inclusive, this ideology.

Sorry the image is showing as pending. Hopefully it will get the ok soon. (I believe Mumsnet has been having problems with TRAs posting CSA images to shut down discussions - yes, I know, but some of these men are truly vile.)

You are not transphobic because you want women to have rights.

You'd be transphobic if you wanted women to have rights but thought trans people shouldn't have any.

Both sets of people should have rights. They don't have to be the same set of rights to the same set of places or options.

I've come across some mental health wards that are 'mixed sex' on occasion but generally they have separate sleeping areas and corridors. It's only allowed "where it is in the overall best interest of the patient" - it's not standard.

I would love to know how it can ever be in the best interests of acutely mentally unwell, extremely vulnerable women to be detained on a small unit with men. I have to say, if you really believe decisions are made in the best interests of patients rather than the best interests of the budget of the local NHS trust, you're incredibly naive

Best interests are defined in Section 4 of the Mental Capacity Act, which clinicians have to adhere to.

(I imagine it's largely in cases where care has to be delivered urgently or specifically with a certain capacity of clinicians.)

This is the leading headline on BBC News, right this very minute.

"Currently the NHS guidance says trans people should be accommodated according to the way they dress, their names and their pronouns. Under the ruling this would be scrapped."

The NHS have absolutely made wards mixed sex by stealth.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce84054nqnyo

I don’t feel this way.

Trans is not a subset of human being. They don’t have pink/blue brains. They are unwell people who need help, but don’t have the right to infringe on others.

May I add, when have you ever seen a post by men like this? As in, ‘I’m on the fence about Roe v Wade philosophically but I’m feeling quite emotional about the clear impact this will have on vulnerable women’. When? Never. Because they don’t give a shit about us. They didn’t support us in the Suffragette movement (not in large numbers anyway), they didn’t support us with the feminism movement in the 1970s, and they’re not supporting us in this. The vast majority of male newsreaders and radio hosts have demanded the women explain themselves, while saying to the trans women ‘awww this must be very tough for you’

So what I’m seeing here is societal conditioning. Just think about what is best for women, and feel no guilt in standing by that.

Pay attention, if you're not familiar with Annex B you can Google it. What are called single sex wards are actually single 'gender' wards, except no one asked the patients. Patient info in my local hospital says 'you willl be cared for in a single sex bay' but actually the policy is as I stated above.

The hospital is under the impression that it is the law that transpeople have to be cared for in a ward they aligns with heir gender identity - I know because they put that in writing when I complained about it. They have been told this by Stonewall and other organisations.

Now, thanks to the Supreme Court ruling, the law is clear that sex means biological sex and providers who are offering services based on the single sex exemptions in the Equality Act need to offer that based on biological sex. Transpeople do not have the right to use single sex services provided for people of the biological sex they are not. They never had that right, and now that is clear.

Edited to add- a transwoman (ie a man) put on a women's ward would not be reported as a breach of the single sex regs. But the same man put on a women's ward bit not saying the magic words would.That's part of the problem.

I'm not disputing that. I was responding to the poster who was going to speak to her MP about the dangers of mixed sex wards. Which seems a bit pointless if that's what she's referring to, as that has now been changed.

I personally stay out of there’s kind of conversations IRL as someone is always going to get offended no matter what you say

Ahh OP, my heart goes out to you because you are a good person who is selfless and well-intentioned, and the world needs good, selfless, well-intentioned people. You have also experienced some difficult challenges (as a direct result of being female, I imagine, with all of the social expectations and pressures that brings), and have emerged on the other side which shows great strength and resilience.

Here's the thing: the world also needs people who are brave enough to speak the truth, even when it's difficult. Kindness is not lying or turning a blind eye to injustice and misrepresentation. Strength and courage - which are clearly amongst your personal qualities - mean resisting outside noise and listening to the voice inside you. Trusting it. You don't have to use it publicly or post stuff on social media, but just allowing yourself your own quiet knowing and not resisting it is a start. Seeking out others who are in alignment with it (on the Feminism and Women's Rights board here, for example) may help you to work out your position and clarify your own personal beliefs, and feel more confident in holding them. Allowing yourself to question and research and come to your own conclusions is powerful.

You matter. Women matter. It's not shameful to believe that, and you don't have to apologise for wanting the 51% of the population (who have been oppressed by the other 49% since the dawn of time) to have rights and be able to use their voices to uphold them.

Also when have you ever seen a trans rights activists even acknowledge our feelings in this, like you’re doing with theirs?

You're struggling because you don't have the courage of your convictions.

Women's struggles, and trans people's struggles are different struggles. Both exist. The solution isn't to take from one to give to the other. It's to create a third.

That's all there is to it.

Are a lot of your friends LGBT

Well you saying mixed sex wards aren't a thing seemed like you were disputing that mixed sex wards were a thing. All hospital wards have been called single sex but actually been mixed sex if people who say they are trans wanted to be on the ward for the sex they're not.

And nothing of that has been changed as yet, the NHS does not work that quickly and the capture of NHS Trusts by gender ideology has been wide and deep. Streeting said weeks ago that female nurses shouldn't have to change with males, but it's still policy that they have to in my local hospital and I'll bet good money in lots of others.

Apologies haven't read the whole thread so no doubt already been said. Trans women aren't discriminated against because they are women, they are discriminated against because they are trans. Women's rights are not trans rights.