Sending love to trans people on MN and beyond

[cassandre]

This isn't an AIBU. I just wanted to send love to trans people, in the UK especially, and to other members of the LGBTQIA+ community.

This hasn't been the easiest week for trans people, but there are a lot of us out there who accept you for who you are. We have your backs and we believe that eventually, tolerance and compassion will win.💖💖💖

Love from a longtime MNer and trans-inclusive feminist.

Do you think that people being excluded from any space that others need to exclude them from, based on legitimate criteria, is humiliating?

I mean, we all know men who we think wouldn’t be a threat to women in womens toilets and other safe spaces. I would hope all the men in my life wouldn’t be a threat to women. But the fact is we just don’t ever know, no matter how outlandish it seems that a trusted friend or family member could be a threat, and that’s why sex specific places exist.

The fact that a man would enter a woman’s safe space in the first place is concerning tbh, even if they think they aren’t a man. It doesn’t inspire confidence that they’ll take no for an answer. No matter how feminine they look or how gentle they appear, i’d rather men who don’t accept the word no are kept out of places where women and children are vulnerable.

Still going with the emotional manipulation then?

No rights have been 'wiped away'. Your friend never had the right to use women's spaces, and if he thought otherwise he needs to take that up with Stonewall, not with women. We did not and do not consent to our spaces being open to any man who thinks he knows what it is to be a woman, because 'woman' isn't an idea, it's a biological reality.

It is not 'humiliating' a man to say he is a man, it's a fact not a judgement on your personality. If your friend doesn't want to use the spaces designated for his sex he needs to find the solution, because taking our stuff without asking wasn't it and I'm not his mum here to solve his problems with other men.

I would be amazed if no women have ever clocked your friend - just because no one said so, didn't mean they didn't. Women are socialised to #bekind, and are afraid of angering men. Men have different pelvises to women so they walk and stand differently, even their skin is different - it's not just height and clothes and the stuff that can be changed by plastic surgery. It even if he 'passes' he's still not entitled to be in women's spaces.

Happily, transpeople are not 'overall far more likely to be a victim of crime'. They're the safest demographic in the country, far far safer than women. Transpeople are overrepresented in reported hate crimes, for the simple reason that hate crimes against women aren't recorded.

Transpeople exist, and have exactly the same rights as everyone else. They don't have extra privileges that others don't have. Which is as it should be.

Well it must considering that trans brains are different. When forming in term how does the brain know its occupier is going to subscribe to sexist social construct in a few years time?

Im asking you as an academic scientist.

Yes people deserve equal respect, absolutely. Which is why women should be respected as women and men - including TW - should be respected as men. What makes TW women to the point we have to blindly accept delusion and lies? That’s not equal in my book. That’s shitting all over the hard fought for rights of women, because you put on a frock and claim you “feel like a woman”. Why should we just say “OK then”?

Firstly, I am not a neuroscientist and never claimed to be. Secondly, AFAIK not even the neuroscientists know the answer to this very big question. That’s why research is ongoing.

What’s a woman?

PS It is an open question whether the brain ‘knows ahead of time’ or changes in response to its owner’s development. And a big one

It is an AUBU and you are

How can 'feminists' not support women?

I think people reckon that sympathising with those who experience dysphoria means we should also pander to their delusions and budge up in our private spaces. One can exist without the other

And why is it for actual women to budge up and make room for them when we don’t want to?

You ARE pushing men onto women with this attitude. There are plenty of women who don’t “look female” - they’re still women. Using a woman’s bathroom, changing room, group or safe space isn’t a prize for being the most feminine looking person in the room, it’s a necessary facility and it’s sex segregated for a reason

not to mention, toilets are only the thin end of the wedge

Are woman's brain is only smaller than a man's brain if she is shorter than the man in question. As men on average are taller than women then yes, on average women's brains are smaller.

Men and women of equal height have brains of equal size. Therefore the size of the brain has nothing to do with neither sex nor gender.

I’d also be the first to sign a petition for 3rd spaces. But TW don’t want that - they’re want to be validated by using women’s spaces

There is no new law. Only clarification of what words mean.

No one likes to get a body search by a police officer but why should a female police officer have to search your friend? Doesn't the female police officer have rights too?

A threat? For someone who no longer has a willy to point in anyone's direction? And who has been weakened by hormone therapy?? My word. They are far more likely to be abused in the Gents than to do anyone harm when going for a pee in the Ladies. And why? Because this is an ineffectual scratching away at the huge problem of male violence on women. That's the actual problem - increasing levels of male on female violence. This is the biggie. We are proportionately barely safer for this ruling, but we have diminished the rights of a tiny group of people to gain very, very little. Male violence is the problem and it is infinitely less likely to come from a man in a frock in comparison to the regular male population. We have picked on a small group because we can't get at the masses. A threat? Hardly.

You’re talking about one person. There’s no way this can work on a case by case basis - that one can come in with the women, that one can’t. It’s unworkable.

Why can’t you grasp that if all it takes for men to access women’s spaces is to “put on a frock”, then all men can do just that?
And have done 🤷🏻‍♀️

The Stanford article linked by @fiorenza is good.

It points out that some brain regions are bigger in males and some are bigger in females, as I have been saying, and also that the biggest discrepancies are in brain regions with high concentrations of sex hormones.

It makes the further point that male and female brains work differently. This is what fMRI detects. Some of the research I cited upthread said that the brains of transgender youth have more marked functional differences from their biological sex than structural differences

VAWG is the problem and the reason all of this was necessary is that we have to be able to define women and girls before violence against us can be dealt with. How can you have effective strategies against male violence if anybody can be male? How can women suffer from male violence if males ARE women? Do you see? It’s not about trans people. It’s about sex based rights.

They don't even need a frock. All they have to do, if questioned, is say 'I identify as a woman'.

I don’t think you read the PPs post properly. She didn’t say your friend was a threat. In fact she said the actual opposite. But not all transwomen have surgery. Not all transwomen take hormones. So where is the line? Your friend can come in. Can transwomen come in who take hormones but don’t have surgery? How do you go about proving that?

The simple fact is (and has been said many many times before) you cannot tell which men are bad and which ones are good. Same goes for transwomen unfortunately. So this is why there has to be a blanket ban.

It used to be that most women would ignore (or not even notice) a normal looking transwomen in the female toilets. But if someone looked a bit “off” they could report it or challenge it. Then came the activism for trans rights saying that anyone who claims they are a woman is one and that’s final. So you can now be a totally valid transwoman with a beard, no hormones and doing absolutely nothing to your appearance and still meant be allowed in women’s loos etc. This is where it all started to go wrong. That’s when women started getting accused of being transphobic for not wanting men in their spaces! Quite frankly your friend should be just as annoyed at those people as women are!

Some obviously gay men are at serious risk in men’s toilets due to homophobia. But we don’t allow them in the women’s toilets to keep them safe. My husband is lovely and hates having to go in some men’s toilets if he needs to use a cubicle. They stink. Often don’t lock. No loo roll. Should I allow him into the women’s? I promise you he’s lovely and not a threat.

My friend was brutally raped. She struggles with the presence of any man she doesn't know/trust and to encounter one in an intimate space would be extremely traumatic for her.

Its not about how much of a threat your friend is, plenty of men are not threats. But the fact that they are a man and therefore women's spaces are not theirs to enter.

If this male person is not safe in male spaces, because of the actions of other men - that should never women's problem to deal with.

A threat? For someone who no longer has a willy to point in anyone's direction? And who has been weakened by hormone therapy??

Yet most transwomen keep their penis. And the weakening effect of oestrogen certainly doesn't reverse the huge strength advantages conferred by male puberty.
And that's before we even get into the recent trend for self-ID, when someone might have been on hormones for five minutes, or not at all. Look at Eddie Izzard.

What do you imagine that female police officer would see? I have a feeling that a lot of people cannot imagine the shades of grey down below involved - I have no visual myself. But there is nothing there to upset a seasoned professional - nothing you might not want to see. This is why there is so much wrong here - there are so many shades of grey and everyone has a different idea in their head. But with full reassignment it is at least easy to imagine what isn't there.