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.

Oh God not this again. We ALL have trans friends, I work in media, I have friends from every group you could imagine.

But that doesn’t mean I’m going to give away all my rights to transwomen, does it?

Exactly. Talk about bad actors. They are on this thread. Pretending to be the reasonable face of TRA and trying to normalise ‘cis’.

Who has been monitoring changing rooms and where is the evidence?

How do we know that no one is being harmed? How do we know how women feel? Has anyone actually done any research on this?

Not forgetting either that men coming into women's spaces isn't all that common yet but it may become more and more common. It's easy when there's little data and little backstory of a new situation in society to say "well the data doesn't support this theory".

We all know deep down that men in women's changing rooms is wrong, however they identify.

What about if I identify as a child now so I'm allowed to back to school and change in the kids changing rooms?

What if a man were to do that? Do we just open up every changing room everywhere and say anyone can go anywhere?

Why have we bothered to date to have changing rooms at all, if everything was just fine and there was never a problem???

It’s not one attack. There are hundreds of cases. And here is one study of statistics:

“MtF transitioners were over 6 times more likely to be convicted of an offence than female comparators and 18 times more likely to be convicted of a violent offence.
The study provides strong evidence that policy makers cannot safely assume (a) that transwomen’s offending patterns, including violent offending, will be significantly different than those of the general male population or (b) that they will be similar to those of the general female population.”

https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/18973/pdf/

No, actually. It does look like that, but I just did some digging. A more robust dataset is the GP Patient Survey, which estimates that between 0.65% and 0.76% of England and Wales' population is trans. That would give us, at the upper end, a total trans population of 395,200. We have no idea of the split between trans men and trans women because the only effort to find out was a really bad question in a census, but it's split pretty evenly in America - there's 3% difference between trans women and trans men over there, with slightly more trans women. So if we assume slightly more than half of that trans-identifying population identify as women, that would give us about 209,000 trans women.

Taking that back to your prison chart, 92 prisoners for sexual offences out of population of 209,000 would give us a 440 trans women perpetrators per million figure. I can't remember what the smoking gun chart had to say in terms of the per million figure for men, but if we base it on 15,000 male convicts (see below for maths), it gives us 460 men per million. About the same, not more.

But that assumes that every trans woman and every man are arrested, prosecuted and convicted for their crimes. We don't have the figures for trans women because the data aren't reported accurately or consistently. There's more information out there for men.

Only around 3% of reported rapes in the UK result in prosecution.

Around 64% of that 3% result in conviction and imprisonment.

There are currently around 15,665 people in prison for sexual offences, and nearly all are men - let's assume 15,000, for a round number.

Not all of those men are in for rape — some will be for other sexual offences.

Let’s conservatively assume 30% of sexual offence prisoners are in for rape.

30% of 15,000 = 4,500 rapists in prison.

64% of rape prosecutions result in conviction - 4500/0.64 gives us 7,031 prosecutions.

3% of rapes lead to prosecution - 7,031/0.03 gives us 234,367 rapes in the UK, against a prison population of 4,500 rapists.

We need to take into account the fact that the vast majority of rapes go unreported. Only about 16 - 18% of women report their rapes. If only 16% report it, that means there are actually 1.4m rapes a year, against our 4,500 prison population. If 18% report, there's 1.1m rapes, against 4,500 prisoners.

Most rapists are multiple offenders. If we assume 2 or 3 rapes per offender, which the figures we have in the UK can reinforce, that's somewhere between 470,000 and 585,000 rapists in the UK, against a population of 4,500 male rapists in prison.

False accusations of rape haven't been factored in and probs should have been, but this is fag packet stuff. It should be noted that the lower estimate of individual male rapists is greater than the total number of estimated trans women in the UK.

And it's just rape. Not all sexual assault. I could run the numbers for that if you like but honestly - without reflecting the wider story around each data point used in the chart, it's junk. Selective use of data to over-emphasise the risk trans women present, and under-emphasis the risk that men present.

Thanks for making me run this exercise. It's reminded me who the real threat to women is.

No one's talking about giving away any of your rights, let alone all of them.

Thanks for making me run this exercise. It's reminded me who the real threat to women is.

That would be men, however they identify

So what do you want?

Transmen are women so of course they're welcome in women's spaces. They're also covered by the protected characteristic of sex, so can still access pregnancy care and file for maternity and sex discrimination. Furthermore, they have the protected characteristic of gender so can't be discriminated against there either.

Unlike transwomen, transmen actually have a decent shot at passing, so if they're confident wnough to use the mens, then they will continue to without much trouble. So they're very well off in this, in that they don't pose a threat to women or men, being female.
Also, I quite fancy me a masculine woman! So no complaints here!

Yes, the the threat to women is men. And transwomen are biological men.

Taken from Sex Matters/.Gov

Thanks for making me run this exercise. It's reminded me who the realthreat to women is.

It’s obviously not men. I know two men and they are lovely.

You're a liar or misinformed. transwomen are men and therefore can and do rape.

Thanks for making me run this exercise. It's reminded me who the real threat to women is.

Yes. Men. However they 'identify'.

“MtF transitioners were over 6 times more likely to be convicted of an offence than female comparators and 18 times more likely to be convicted of a violent offence.
The study provides strong evidence that policy makers cannot safely assume (a) that transwomen’s offending patterns, including violent offending, will be significantly different than those of the general male population or (b) that they will be similar to those of the general female population.”

That data stacks up and aligns with the very boring maths I did on the prison population chart - the crime rate of trans women seems to be determined by their biological sex, not adopted gender.

And thank you for pointing it out to me. I remain completely unconvinced that women are at significant risk from trans women in toilets. If you dig into the stats, 0.01% of sexual assaults in London between 2013 and 2023 were in toilets. (https://chatgpt.com/c/6808f112-cd2c-8005-906b-bc08b74b6214)

I need to think about changing rooms... My brain is fried from prison maths.

The whole "you have no right to worry about anything except a full on attack" is disingenuous and belittling.

It is not solely about the risk of a full on penetrative rape and murder. It is about the erosion of boundaries and invasion of spaces that underpins and helps to build a society in which women's right to refuse gets worn down over just about everything. We know from all the bathroom trophy pictures online that a lot of men are getting a kick out of transgressing the boundaries; many have spoken of how they get off on hearing women urinating and recording it, largely because they know it is intrusive and not consensual. They, like our friends on here, think that because they're not actually physically attacking anyone (although that has happened too) that they are not predators or creeps or doing anything objectionable. A full on attack is the only thing a woman is allowed to object to, but we are not allowed to notice or prevent anything that leads up to it... and when it does happen, it is easier to dismiss as insignificant because boundaries, safeguards and consent have been diminished already.

It is insiduous and quite gaslighty. When men have followed me and harassed me on busy streets in broad daylight, no, I have not been worried that they would rape me there and then. But it is still a dominance move, a reminder of what they could do if the circumstances were different, an intimidation that bleeds over into other things... and yet, the whole time, I am the unreasonable one because they have not physically attacked me and that is the only thing I am allowed to object to. But I also cannot safeguard against it...

How many angels on the head of a pin. That seems to be where this is heading with all the ifs but and wherefores about an actual biological fact.

Born male = man
Born female = woman.

No more pins and angels, it's done now.

Bloozie

SwordOfOmens has provided you with the stats.

Why are you choosing to ignore them?

Women cannot rape women.

Transwomen can and have raped women.

Ergo, statistically, women are safer in women only spaces.

My DH has never and would never sexually assault anyone.
He should not be in women only spaces, simply because he is not a woman
Who is/isn't a threat is not really the point, we should not have to risk assess each person we allow in women only spaces.

Quite.

And as many have said, the bar is not set at 'as long as women don't get raped it's all good'.

There's just the simple basic right to say, "No, men. You're not welcome here. This is just for women." Without threats of violence and intimidation in return.

Obviously never seen that twitter thread which is literally full of trans identifying males, wanking in women's toilets.

Happy to welcome any transman into women's facilities any time hth

This is a lie.

Trans women have been breaking the law by entering single sex spaces for women.

What you are advocating for , is that they continue to do so.

This is despite the fact that women say NO.

This is despite the fact that young girls have been sexually assaulted as a result of trans women being in these spaces.

Women's rights to single sex spaces are not yours to give a way and a man who identifies as a trans woman who does so will be breaking the law if they do so.

There’s no such thing as a ‘trans man’.….they are women.

Just as there’s no such thing as a ‘trans woman’….they are men.