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.

I'm a 46-year old woman. Bring on your particular contempt.

And your understanding of the Supreme Court ruling is flawed. The ruling introduces a legal framework that permits, but does not require, the exclusion of trans women from female spaces.

Organisations and service providers are now legally permitted to restrict access to single-sex spaces to biological women, but not required to.

I don't believe the law is wrong. I think the ruling is logical and balanced. To bring me round to agreement with you and release me from the shackles of your contempt, you'd need to provide evidence that women and girls are being assaulted by trans women (not men) in single sex toilets and changing rooms. Because I can't find any data at all to support that position, and the only data I've seen on here relates to men in unisex facilities, which doesn't prove a thing.

And your understanding of the Supreme Court ruling is flawed. The ruling introduces a legal framework that permits, but does not require, the exclusion of trans women from female spaces

This is incorrect. The Equality Act permits but does not mandate single sex spaces but if there is a single sex space all persons of the opposite sex are excluded.

It is the single sex space that is optional not whether you can exclude people of the opposite sex from them.

There is also separate legislation that requires single sex spaces in some circumstances eg school toilets for over 8s and workplace changing rooms if employees are required to change clothes

I haven't changed my stance at all. There IS no statistical evidence to support transwomen being a risk to women in spaces like changing rooms and toilets.

I suppose you could read this as me believing there is zero risk. I suppose my statement was sloppy in that regard. But then you'd open yourself up to me giving you a list of how risky things like getting out of bed, opening cans of beans and sneezing are. It's a stupid conversation, and a daft 'gotcha' to try and trap me in.

I'm not backtracking anywhere. I'm just not going to accept one vile attack in a loo as statistical evidence for a risk because statistically, it is insignificant.

Which, to just cut off your next 'gotcha' attempt, doesn't mean that it wasn't extremely significant to the two girls involved.

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.

That's been part of the problem though.

To make those decisions, you'd have to...

a) admit that there are some 'bad players' and that's not even been allowed to be considered or spoken about ('acceptance without exception')

And

b) TW are the most marginalised and vulnerable group in society (apparently) and, until last Wednesday, also women. You'd have to consider them to be men to subject them to the same sentencing arrangements as other men. Otherwise, they are vulnerable and traumatised women who need protecting from the big nasty men in prison who might hurt them.

It's also worth noting that TW have been able to request and access things like cosmetics and hair accessories in prison to allow them to express their gender identity, whilst women have been denied sanitary protection and then mocked for leaking during the same timeframe. I mean, if there was ever any doubt who the real women were...

And it's this obfuscation, blurring of the lines, and these loopholes that is exactly why the ruling was necessary and made.

(And it's also why people arguing about the definition of 'functional' and what sort of penises TM have is largely irrelevant, IMO. Especially as the ruling made it clear that TM can also be excluded from women's spaces if they pass so convincingly that a woman would be unlikely to tell them apart from a man).

See replies to others regarding prosecution and conviction rates for rapes by men - 97% never get as far as prosecution, let alone anywhere near prison.

That chart is junk data, a selective presentation of facts that, in order to exaggerate the risk trans women present, deliberately ignores the bigger picture around convictions for male violence to diminish the risk that the population responsible for 98% of all sexual assaults presents to women. Slow hand clap for the feminists. What a win.

So are you saying there are fewer than 48,000 transwomen?

Trans identified men are part of the 98% of men committing sexual assault

No one can make you use pronouns you don't want to

cis is not a pronoun by the way - it's an adjective

As I've said, I 100% support the ruling (though not many people's interpretation of it) and I sincerely hope that it brings to an end every bit of nonsense you highlight here. It's disgusting.

I'm not a trans activist. I do believe there are bad actors, I also believe that in a well-meaning attempt to protect what IS a vulnerable population, the pendulum swung way too far and women's rights were trampled on.

But I also have a very good trans man friend, and I've worked with a trans woman for years. They're not bad actors, they just want to be able to pee in the same toilets they've peed in for the last 20+ years, and live a dignified life without being footballs in a culture war. I really don't think it's impossible to balance my rights as a woman with theirs - but if we don't take the heat out of the 'debate' and come out of our trenches, I really do fear for their safety and mental health.

RADAR NKS is a national scheme, used by the majority of accessible toilets across the country. The organisation that started them (Royal Association for Disability and Rehab) is now Disability Rights UK. You wouldn't notice it unless you use the toilet and need the key, it just looks like a lock and big chunky key (rather than a Yale type key).

And your understanding of the Supreme Court ruling is flawed. The ruling introduces a legal framework that permits, but does not require, the exclusion of trans women from female spaces.

TW can no longer access a space advertised as being for women only.

If a space is open to women and TW, then it can be advertised as such.

Eg my friend sent me a link to a women's festival a few years ago. The advertising was all come along for a man free weekend, no men here! Just lots of lovely women doing lots of lovely womanly things! Bring your friends along because - no men!

In the small print at the bottom, it said it was open to all self identifying women (which, I felt actually excluded me as I am a woman - I don't identify as one and, at that point I wasn't sure if it was actually an event specifically aimed at TW!) Anyway, my friend and I didn't go because we weren't sure.

In future, someone could hold a similar event but, if it were advertised as an all women/no men event, it would have to be for biological women only. There would be nothing to stop someone organising an event for women and TW. They just couldn't call it 'women only'.

I was referring to the policing of language. You can't police mine, a trans person can't police yours.

But well done for trying, pet.

Women’s toilets to be used by women only, men’s changed to universal.

According to your figures, 92 of the 98% are.

But ok.

Actually, it's not 98% of men is it. We should be accurate. It's 98% of RAPES.

Ok so say there isn't a threat( which I don't believe) then can't it just be enough that women feel uncomfortable with men in their spaces. Can't it just be enough that we simply don't want men in our women's toilets,changing rooms and so on Instead of the onus being on women to prove that trans women ( men) are a danger

Yes why do we have to live a ‘threat’ to say I don’t want men in places I feel vulnerable?

can’t we just say that?

I mean men kill us, rape us, abuse us, cat call and harass us for just being out in public but even if you dispute that why is it not enough for women to just say NO

Prove not live

Ok Chuck.

What do you mean by ‘literally no evidence’?

If you have followed this issue at all you will have seen selfies of transwomen in women’s toilets, often posted with crowing messages, sometimes visibility aroused or even exposed.

You can debate risk all you like, but that is literal evidence that this happens.

You can’t have missed a US member of congress doing this recently. It was across the news.

If you haven’t followed this issue at all, then I’m not sure what you are doing telling others that their views are ill informed.

97% of all reported rapes including those by men with a trans identity.
Do believe that transwomen are prosecuted and convicted at a higher rate than other men?
You can try and twist the facts all you like but you can't change them. Men who claim to have a trans identity are more likely to be sexual predators than the average male, the question that should be asked is why that is, is it because sexually predatory men have realised that falsely claiming a trans identity will get them easier access to women and girls plus an easier time in jail on the trans wings (my personal belief) or are they just more dangerous than the average male(unlikely)?
Hopefully now that all males are now going to be excluded from all women's single sex spaces and that all access pass for anyone who claims to be trans has been revoked we will see fewer cases of prison onset gender dismorphia

Ah the old ‘my lovely TW male friend has been using women’s toilets without giving any thought to whether women wanted them there or understanding that because they’re male, theyre not going to get challenged because women are generally very wary of upsetting men’ arguments

Exactly, because men's comfort and wants will always come first

This is the problem though.

Many of us have known transpeople over the years. And many of us have known them to be decent people.

But the reality is that your colleague should never have been in the female toilets in the first place. (I'm less concerned about TM using men's toilets for all the reasons previously stated and, if men don't like it - well that's their battle to fight tbh!)

Your colleague might not have been out threatening women in the streets but he was more than happy to reap the benefits provided by those who did knowing that he was male and knowing that many women didn't want him there.

There have been many TW who have never used women's toilets out of respect for women.

And, yes, we have all known that we have used toilets alongside trans identifying men over the years without issue but aggressive TRAs have spoilt it for everyone (including people like.your colleague). And, unfortunately, very few of them stood up.to he counted against it.

There is no debate anymore and for the right reasons not for the TRA reasons. The heat will die down. The new guidance will be issued by the summer. Hopefully organisations will move to be more genuinely trans inclusive rather than expecting women to shut up and move over. Unfortunately, that is what Stonewall et al could and should have been campaigning for all along. That is the normal and acceptance society should have been striving for. But the movement became overrun with fetishists, misogynists and men with an unhealthy interest in tampons and showing 10 year old girls how to insert them and there have been many victims of those men along the way.

All the trans rhetoric around 'existence' needs to die down too. They do exist. But they haven't changed sex. That is all.

I’ve explained how increases are calculated.

Unfortunately crimes by transwomen are recorded as by women, so your statistics are no good to us. You seem fine with that though, eh?

I haven't changed my stance at all. There IS no statistical evidence to support transwomen being a risk to women in spaces like changing rooms and toilets.

They pose a greater risk to women than the general male poplulation proven by the MOJ crime figures.

It doesn't really matter where they're committing those offences, does it?

I don't have the source to hand but crimes of voyeurism are more prevalent in mixed sex spaces generally (eg communal swimming pool changing rooms). So it just makes sense to keep all men out of women's spaces however they identify.