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.

Ah, I see that the idea of brain shrinkage factoring into this debate came, unreferenced, from @Helleofabore

That’s ironic, as she repeatedly hounded me for references yesterday, then failed to acknowledge the ones supplied.

I completely understand your strength of feeling. But I have a massive issue with this not being our problem. Equality is everyone's problem. If different groups just take care of themselves, the protected characteristics that cover smaller amounts of people or that cover those most able to fight will just get kicked to the kerb, and we'll be back where we were decades ago. That is unthinkable, especially because none of us need reminding of the time when we were near the bottom of the heap.

Are you saying that only transwomen who have full gender reassignment surgery are proper transwomen so deserve to be treated like women? So those that either have not had it yet, cannot afford it or don’t want it should be treated as men? It’s an incredibly risky procedure and I can totally understand why many transwomen do not want to have it done. So for those that do not want to take the risk they are fine to be treated as men yes? But those who have the surgery like your friend should be treated as women? Is that the point?

You do know that asking a transwoman if they have had surgery is classed as very transphobic as your identity as a woman (or man) is not meant to be dependent on what genitalia you have or don’t have. So you can’t ask that. So we’re once again back to how do we establish which transwomen should be treated as women and which as men. Or is it just on someone’s say so no matter how they look?

What is the difference between your friend and a male person without a gender identity who has lost their 'willy' due to injury or disease and may be similarly weakened?

Because why should one male be in the female toilets and not the other male person?

'They are far more likely to be abused in the Gents than to do anyone harm when going for a pee in the Ladies.'

If there is a safety issue in the UK in male toilets, there needs to be a campaign to address that. No one should be unsafe in the single sex toilets. However, you declaring that they will not cause 'harm' in the female toilets is really just you dismissing the needs of female people. Because any male entering the female toilets has the potential to cause harm just by being there.

That seems to be the fact that you keep either ignoring or dismissing.

So, you keep reverting to emotional manipulation to convince others that your male friend should be allowed access into any designated single sex space that your male friend should never had access to in the first place. And now that the court has ruled to clarify an existing law, not a new law, women are now being subjected to any emotionally laden argument that people think will be convincing as to why they or their friends should be excluded from having to follow the law in the country they live in.

Here is the thing though, it isn't just about safety.

It is about privacy. Female people use female toilets for a very wide range of purposes other than just 'peeing'.

You’ve really misunderstood the ruling here

Trans people ARE protected in law. That was made very clear. They’re protected as trans people rather than as say women if they’re a TW.

So you accept that it would be distressing to share a space with a man? Thats EXACTLY the point - women don’t want to share their spaces with men including your TW friend who is a man. Your friend being “girly” is neither here nor there. They’re a man. Why should women have to share cells, strip searched and share changing rooms with him?

they are overall far more likely to be a victim of crime

Do you have a source for this?

Also they’re almost always victims of male violence. It’s not women’s problem to solve male on male violence

Transwomen are men. Better get used to this fact

Yes exactly, trans people and TRA simply spent years misinterpreting the law. They were NEVER entitled to women’s spaces. Nothing has been taken off them, it’s just been given back to the women it belongs to

No it is really not women's problem to act as shields for other people because of poor male behaviour.

Women have more than enough on their plate dealing with the impact of bad male behaviour on themselves. It should certainly not be incumbent on them to shield others.

I was not the person who introduced brain shrinkage into this thread at all.

You continue to show that you are in bad faith and frankly seem to be entrenched in righteous thinking. Have you gone back by the way and seen what we are all referring to?

You know. The male barrister you were emotionally defending by demonising a woman using the correct conventions of the English language who declared on national TV that they effectively negated the consent of their sex partner through sex by deception. And you were on this thread doubling down on defending that male barrister. Did you see it?

Yes, we already know that hormones impact human brains and can make changes.

And yes, adolescents on hormone treatment will have brains that will correspond with other adolescents on the same hormone treatment.

What does it matter what that female police officer sees or doesn't see? If that female police officer, or any female in any role, does not consent to touching a male person and is then having to touch a male person, they have had their consent negated. Or having to see a male person naked.

There should be no 'shades of grey' when it comes to consent. What are you missing here?

And no. Sorry. Full reassignment is irrelevant. It obviously means something to you, but you are here dismissing the needs of female people who understand that it changes nothing.

What the actual fuck? I just reread this.

So you equate a female's need for not having to either visually or physically search a male person with 'nothing to see here'? or what was it 'nothing you might not want to see'?

A male person has plenty of other body cues other than a penis. And the majority of those do not change with the removal of a penis. It really is irrelevant to the issue of excluding all male people whether a male person still has a penis or not. They are male. They have not changed sex at all. Without a penis they are simply a male person without a penis.

You have all the sympathy in the world for your friend. Great. So you should as they are your friend. But you are making it very clear now that you dismiss anyone else's needs. You seem to have little understanding of consent and perhaps you don't understand female people's trauma reactions.

I don't need to provide you with a source, because there are so many sources, you can easily find one for yourself.

I am bemused when people are so aggressively triumphalist so early in a process. I don't think you realise that this now needs to wash through the legal system. People seem to think that Pandora's box has been well and truly shut, but this needs further legislation - for eample, to determine the penalty if someone trans uses the incorrect loo. Will they get a fine? A criminal record? Be put on the register?? The box has been opened, not shut. Even the senior civil servant who led the team working on the Equality Act says the purpose of the act has now changed, in the way I described in an earlier post. That will need revision - and will likely be weakend, eroding all our rights. This is not finished and done, so I don't have to get used to this just yet.

Sorry, I did not see this. Bakker’s abstract was a summary of her conference presentation. Her work and the work if others is progressing steadily

Since you can't back any of this up for the laypeople at the back...

PS These are good studies in good journals. You are trying to pick holes in them. Why not accept that experts find them sound?

Criticising a study because it doesn’t get results that rise to the levels of proof demanded by people who approach them with bias is not scientific. When that thinking gains traction, you get RFK as Health Secretary of the US.

PPS My message above is for @Helleofabore and @JandamiHash

Oh. I think we fully understand that there is a long way to go. You are effectively telling granny to suck eggs with this post.

Many of the people who have been posting to you have been actively engaged with campaigning for years. I think we have a very good understanding of how we got to this situation and that much work is still to be done. It does not diminish at all the sheer relief that the Supreme Court has finally clarified the law that so many groups had deliberately misrepresented for so long. It does not diminish at all the sheer relief of hearing a court state clearly that transwomen are men according too the EA.

And it does not diminish at all the relief to also hear the court state clearly that to allow any male person into a single sex space designated for female people would be giving that group of male people additional privileges compared to female people.

Finally, @Helleofabore , @JandamiHash and others, if you are at all serious and not just venting, I am sure you can find Dr Julie Bakker’s email at University of Liege by googling her. Her research profile says she is happy to share copies of her work.

Or is that less satisfying than deliberately misunderstanding it?

Considering the level of discourse I can live with this. Anyone with a genuine interest in Dr Bakker’s work can contact her

No. I was and continue to criticise your statement that you attempted to support using those studies.

I pointed out that you made a definitive statement from weak conclusions in two studies. A statement you then walked back as being you speaking 'informally' and then going into discussions about 'shades of grey'.

The studies themselves, as I have said, can only be used as they are, as a springboard to further studies. And Bakker has continued to do further studies, and even still admits that much more is needed to understand what is really happening. Pointing out where studies may not have controlled for issues that may significantly weaken the results is not unfair criticism.

I would suggest that your own approach to the studies comes from a bias from seeing your posts on this thread. So if you are attempting to accuse others of being biased, perhaps you understand if we consider that hypocritical.

You don't care about women, and you don't understand what happened on Wednesday. We get it.

But some of us have been in the trenches for years, and do understand what happened on Wednesday.

There will be no further legislation, the legislation hasn't changed. This is about businesses and public bodies correctly applying the law. The only 'revision' will be to policies which, it is now clear, do not comply with the Equality Act, so that they do comply with the Equality Act.

No one rights have been eroded,no one's existence has been denied, no one is being put on a register, no one is being rounded up into camps, no one is being forcibly detransitioned, or any of the other ridiculous lies which are flying around trans Reddit.

Ahhh yes. Smoke and mirrors approach.

If you have something to say then say it out loud so everyone can hear/see it as this is a discussion forum. We shouldn't have to contact study authors to find out if you are talking truthfully or out of your backside.

Mutilating a penis doesn’t make someone a woman. It doesn’t mean they can’t cause harm or create discomfort and it certainly doesn’t make them women

They are far more likely to be abused in the Gents than to do anyone harm when going for a pee in the Ladies.

You may not see a man in the ladies toilets as harmful but lots of people do.
And even if this was true - why is it women’s problem to solve? Womens spaces aren’t a safe house for frightened men

That's the actual problem - increasing levels of male on female violence. This is the biggie.

Of which transwomen are a part of because they’re men

we have diminished the rights of a tiny group of people to gain very, very little

This is simply untrue. Women have gained everything. We gain a lot. I’ve posted on MN about how my 11yo DD is a boxer. Do you know how relieved I feel to know she’ll never have to compete against a man?

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

Wow if wearing a frock is all it takes to turn off the “male violence” tap can we start legislating to make all men wear frocks? It will be a much safer world and so easy too!

We have picked on a small group because we can't get at the masses. A threat? Hardly.

Why the fuck should 50% of the population have their rights and spaces eroded for such a small group?

Gender is social construct. How do trans brains know in Greek that their occupier will be falling hook line and sinker for sexist social constructs?

Did you not realise that the vast majority of TW do not have “bottom surgery”? They have fully working penises, and many even take no hormones. Why should a female police officer be subjected to the unsafe and indigo dying process of strip searching man based on his feelings? Even “seasoned professionals” are only used to strip searching the sex they are part of, why should their rights to that working environment change?