AIBU to ask what you think should happen with Trans men?

[Akiddleydiveytoo]

OK, I know this is an emotive subject that people feel passionately about so I'm prepared to don my hard hat here in anticipation of the backlash I'm likely to receive. I'm genuinely not trying to be goady though - I am genuinely interested in trying to understand people's opinions on this.

Since the Supreme Court ruling last week there has been lots of discussion about trans women and the impact that the ruling has on their rights to access female only spaces. There has been less debate, however, on the impact that this ruling has on trans men. Surely, if it is ruled that trans women are men, then it follows that trans men are women and should, therefore use women's facilities.

Is this really what women want? A post op trans man who had undergone full gender reassignment surgery would, to ask intents and purpose have a male presenting body complete with muscles, body hair and penis. Would women really be comfortable sharing facilities with such a person. Similarly, should a post op trans woman with breasts and a vagina be forced to share facilities with biological men?

I fully understand and support the need for women to have female only safe spaces and disagree wholeheartedly with trans women competing against biological women in sports due to their genetic advantage but I'm not sure the SC ruling of last week is really the 'triumph' that women's rights activists claim it to be as it presents as many questions as it does answers. I also fear that this judgement will result in single sex spaces being lost altogether as service providers, unable (or unwilling) to comply with all of the legalities and complexities involved, just get rid of single sex provisions in favour of unisex/ gender neutral facilities.

As I said, I've seen lots of debate about this over the last week but, for me, I still have a ton of unanswered questions so I was just wondering what others opinions are.

Because disabled people had to fight for those spaces - and we already typically have to share them with the baby change facility (parents not having to fight for that, we've done work there for you)..

Adding another load of people who are expected to use the same space means its even harder for disabled people to go out and about and do things. You may be lucky in your area that there are plenty of facilities but that isn't the case everywhere, its already demeaning that we have to go and ask for a key because the disabled facilities are misused so frequently.

Yes, we can buy a RADAR key, but again, most places fit the RADAR lock incorrectly on purpose, so that it can be opened with the venues own key even if it is locked by someone using their personal key. It is easier for the venue to do this than use a screwdriver to open the lock as designed, in case of emergency.

So now you have to ask for permission to use the toilet, like a bloody child, and someone could march in on you at any moment with their own key. The more people using the space, the higher that risk is.

The solution is to provide more accessible facilities that are stand-alone, unisex, and get rid of the frankly stupid system of mens toilets with a urinal, womens toilets with a row of cubicles, and find a set up that lets everyone pee without feeling unsafe.

There are endless videos of transmen describing the terrible complications they are suffering whilst also saying that they don't have any regrets. They can't say anything negative otherwise they get abuse from the trans community for not following the party line.

Where does it end though? 780,000* women and girls are sexually assaulted by men every year. I think that's 780,000 too many, they shouldn't be collateral damage - it's not siding with men though to say that the answer therefore is to lock all men indoors where they can't hurt anyone, due to the actions of some men.

I am not siding with people like Katie at all when I say that, statistically speaking, the risk is extremely low. I am just not taking one person's abhorrent behaviour and tarring the whole community with the same brush.

*something like that, anyway.

Well it reduces by removing opportunity.

Men who identify as trans have opportunity to harm women and girls if they are given access to single sex toilets and changing rooms.

The fact that women and girls might be harmed anyway is never a sensible way to approach safeguarding.

So what would you rather, men get to be where they like or there be less risk to women and children?

I know which side I'm on.

So? My point is, and has only ever been, that phalloplasty for GA exists. This is the only point I was making because a pp accused another of "lying".

The claim was that phalloplasty gives you a functioning penis. It doesn't.

We haven't got onto the fact that trans identifying men are extremely easy to track down and convict by virtue of their distinctive appearance, while only around 3% of reported rapes ever get as far prosecution, and of those prosecutions only 2/3 are convicted.

Trying to overplay the threat that trans women present by selectively presenting data that lets cis men off the hook is not the win for women and feminism that many imagine it is.

There aren't many 6ft 4 women, with size 12 shoes. It's a fantasy that transwomen pass amongst us unseen.

So you don't think the ability to urinate through it standing up is "functioning"? I don't think anyone has claimed fully functioning (i.e. including the ability to ejaculate) - I certainly haven't.

For your argument to be consistent, you'd have to remove opportunity from all spaces where women are at equal or higher risk from men. Because I would rather there be less risk to women and children, but to achieve that I'd need to ban men from public transport, workplaces, pubs and clubs, the home... It makes absolutely no sense to me to focus on toilets and changing rooms and clutch our pearls over the risk to women and girls there, if we're not also seeking to restrict male access to all spaces where women are vulnerable.

I know which side I'm on, too.

We also haven't got to the fact that many trans identified men have been given more lenient sentences than other offending men because it would be cruel to send them to prison or because they claim that their crimes were due to their struggles with coming to terms with being trans.

That's irrelevant to the data itself, though I agree that it's an absolute travesty.

Some of these men only identify as trans after being arrested so they would be as easy or difficult to identify as any other man.

I have a colleague who is a transman, colleague always uses the female toilets and has done for the 4 years since starting at my workplace. Colleague has had top surgery and takes male hormones, uses male pronouns and a male name. That said, the colleague is short and still looks effeminate despite facial hair. I expect my colleague feels too intimidated to use the mens which is why the colleague still uses the women’s toilets. When we’ve had work functions at pubs and restaurants colleagues uses the women’s toilets there too. Personally I don’t have an issue with it as I still consider the colleague to be female.

I'd quite like it if they're not cumming in the cubicle next to me! 😳 (Apparently, this is a thing/fetish! Who knew? Everyday's a school day on MN! 😂 )

I had a row with a friend today about this, she is firmly on the TWAW camp and I am firmly not. It’s really not women’s problem what trans men do now. If they are so masculine that they pass for men then they will use the men’s toilets unchallenged as they always have done, that’s up to men to challenge.

i will say though that my old dogs vet was a transman, I only knew because we’d been there for so long that we knew him before he transitioned, he wouldn’t have passed for a female at all unless you knew (but he was a tall, broad female before he transitioned). But I definitely would look twice if he walked into a female space. I’m sure he will continue to use the male toilet and I hope that he’s living peacefully, he was a lovely, kind man.

That's not how risks are calculated. It’s a classic misuse of statistics, and misleading and logically flawed to use percentage increases from extremely small numbers to make any kind of argument. Statistically speaking, your big scary percentages reflect tiny changes in real-world impact, don't indicate meaningful trends and can easily be written off as natural variability in small datasets.

The data are also completely irrelevant without base population sizes for both parties.

Yes it's clear, you for reasons only known to you, disagree with equality for women as set out by the Equality Act which was introduced to give equality to all people with a protected characteristic including women. The Equality Act specifically recognised that women need single sex provisions to keep us safe.

The highest court in the land has determined that the law has been misapplied for years and we know that women and children have been harmed.

The government has confirmed that the outcome of the judgements means that single sex spaces should exclude men, including trans women and that it agrees with the judgement.

But no matter, you think that despite all of this that the wishes of men who identify as transwomen is more important than the safety and dignity of women and girls in respect of those spaces.

You have not said whether you are a woman or whether you a man who identifies as trans. I hold women who let other women down under particular contempt.

We do need to try to reduce all violence against women and girls. We have the law in place and clarified to reduce the occurrence of this wrt to toilets and changing rooms but you think the law is wrong even though you know there is a risk of VAWG as a direct result.

That' s pretty vile.

Trans men are women, they can and should be able to access female only facilities, because they're female.

Trans women are men, and there are male facilities for men.

No matter how anyone 'identifies' sex is binary and no amount of body modification alters that fact.

Born female, die female.
Born male, die male.

I agree additional accessible loos is the answer!

They are great.

I do think mens and women’s are useful from a volume and hygiene point of view. Men are frankly filthy creatures 😂

And sorry about your radar issue! Where are you? We don’t have radar here. I have only seen it once in a public park out of hours.

That's a good point and not something I'd considered when others have presented that same prison data to me today. I still wouldn't legislate or create policy from this baseline, just like we don't assume all men are rapists and construct society from there.

I would however not countenance any change of gender between prosecution and conviction, or while in prison. I can't believe that loophole exists. I also would hold trans women convicted of sexual offences to the same standards as men, with identical sentencing arrangement.

when I say that, statistically speaking, the risk is extremely low.

You’ve changed your stance, you just said ‘there is no statistical evidence to support any risk to any woman in spaces like changing rooms and toilets, from trans women’.

See what happens when you try to minimise the risk to women? You have to backtrack immediately.

Agreed. It's actually quite chilling to see women and girls essentially designated as cannon fodder to the feelings of men.

The Mum of one of Dolatowki's victims (I use that name but I'm sure he's changed it again and horrifyingly, one of the amendments to the GRR to stop convicted sex offenders from obtaining a GRC was voted down) is, somewhat unsurprisingly, very supportive of the recent judgement -

https://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/14674350/trans-paedo-supermarket-toilet-ruling/

And unsurprisingly, Dolatowski was all for the GRR -

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/04/11/katie-dolatowski-trans-paedophile-nicola-sturgeon-gender/

We don't assume all men are rapists but we do recognise that 98% of sexual assaults are carried out by men which is one reason for single sex spaces.

We also don't assume that all teachers are peadophiles but we still DBS them all and expect them to follow safeguarding rules.