New Trans thread as requested by HQs.

[oilfilledlamp]

Please forgive the intrusion but I've been out tonight and only recently got back. I wanted to respond to MadWomanintheattic earlier when she posted

"If I were an mtf trans (pre op or post op) the last place I'd want to fetch up is in a women's refuge, because of the potential for making other people feel ill at ease. But nothing is clear cut, really.

How often does this happen, really? Has there been any research into prevalence and motivation?

GarlicNutter - perhaps that is the way forward then? That we accept transpeople as a 3rd gender.

I would have no problem accepting Trans people as a 3rd gender.

Hully - what is the matter with women born women spaces in certain circumstances?

Elephants - so if they're a third gender, are they ALL a third gender, or are one group one new gender, and the other group another new gender?

And what happens about loos/changing rooms?

Why all the necessity to define by gender?

Surely the whole point is to get rid of the entire sorry debacle.

The law as it stands reinforces the binary. It's divisive as much as protective.

Hully - yes, I think so.

I quite take the point earlier in the thread that you wouldn't always know whether someone was a born woman, so in some ways this is a moot point. But all I know is, whenever I've had close female friendships or long-term all-women associations, we've ended up having very intimate discussions about our bodies, or about our experiences of sex. These are discussions I'd never have in front of men (I totally accept that other women might, but I wouldn't) and I'd feel ambivalent, at best, if I subsequently found out that I'd been sharing intimate personal information with someone whose body was actually not at all like mine.

Quite, Hathor. You'd end up with even more hoops to jump through to win the prize of being defined in some bizarre and complex hierarchy of how close you were to each end of the binary.

There's enough argument within the trans community with the limited options available at present.

Really glad to see the last two posts! Why on earth can't we acknowledge a third gender? Sure, it disrupts a lot of assumptions and prejudices - mainly patriarchal ones - and wouldn't answer the everyday questions about changing rooms, but I can't help feeling it provides clearer grounds on which to build.

So, would the third gender be for FtM or MtF? Since they identify as a different gender?

Celestina, I've had those conversations with male GBFs and think that's fairly usual. I've had them with travestis, too, in exactly the same vein. What happens seems to be that, with sexual polarity out of the transaction, everybody feels more relaxed and open.

Lets have lots. As many as people feel a need for.

"Elephants - so if they're a third gender, are they ALL a third gender, or are one group one new gender, and the other group another new gender?

And what happens about loos/changing rooms?"

I don't know hathor. And frankly if Transgender people wanted this I would be happy for them to come to some kind of agreement as long as that didn't mean Transgendered MtoF accessing women only space.

Hathor - both? No need for binaries, perhaps?

Or what Hully said!

I agree celestina - the discussion on this thread has been at least more measured, and my terse and emotive earlier contributions came from the frustration I felt about the plethora of other threads on the topic.

I do see the point about women being "required to shed decades of very strong socialisation," regarding some women only spaces like toilets and showers. However, as I think someone else mentioned, such demarcations by sex aren't the "norm" in all countries and cultures. In 1984, I encountered my first unisex loos, showers and dorms in Norway. Yes, it felt strange to me but not for Norwegians. One could argue that white British people have been "required to shed decades of very strong socialisation," to enable Black, Asian and minority ethnic people have the same rights to employment, education, housing, representation, etc. as they do. So, I feel quite queasy about applying that argument in this context, iyswim.

I agree that girls and young women will have shared many of the same experiences of growing up female, including the barriers and prejudice they faced. Of course there will be variations in those experiences - wealthy privileged girls will probably have vastly different experiences than poor ones, white girls different from Black girls, etc. There may be some contexts where one might identify as much or more with the experience of someone of the opposite sex, for example where both had the same disability, both had divorced parents, both lived in a rural area, etc. Identity, how we related to others and our experiences can be quite individual.

There also seems to be the assumption in your post (correct me if I've got that wrong though!) that because trans girls won't have the shared experience of being a girl, they will by default have had the "normal" experience of being a boy, and never have experienced any of the discrimination, abuse or disadvantage suffered by girls within a patriarchal society. I don't think we can assume that at all. Trans children can be subject to horrendous bullying and abuse for failing to conform to the gender binary - abuse from boys, from girls and from adults. Because they will probably be seen as "feminised," (as gay boys may also be), my hunch is although their experience won't be identical, they'll have more in common in terms of taunting, sexual bullying, exclusion and assaults with how girls experience growing up than how boys do.

I don't know.

But I am a bit uneasy about the main concern being MtF accessing women only spaces.

Soz, multi-tasking failure and thread moving too fast! :)

yy hathor.

I had a friend who was born a hermaphrodite, was mixed race and adopted by a white middle class family. She had no clue who she was.

As in identity or gender.

Good post at 15:05, Kritiq, and a valuable real-life example from Hully.

You just can't squeeze all humans into a tiny array of boxes. Trying to do so always results in misery.

Before WW1, it was honestly believed the upper classes were genetically distinct from the lower. This led to multiple mass abuse, as we know, and the same 'boxed' thinking led to serial atrocities against non-whites the world over. Such 'boxing' of people is fundamental to the patriarchal oppression we seek to eliminate. So it's sad to see feminists aiming to do it to others.

"There also seems to be the assumption in your post (correct me if I've got that wrong though!) that because trans girls won't have the shared experience of being a girl, they will by default have had the "normal" experience of being a boy, and never have experienced any of the discrimination, abuse or disadvantage suffered by girls within a patriarchal society. I don't think we can assume that at all. Trans children can be subject to horrendous bullying and abuse for failing to conform to the gender binary - abuse from boys, from girls and from adults. Because they will probably be seen as "feminised," (as gay boys may also be), my hunch is although their experience won't be identical, they'll have more in common in terms of taunting, sexual bullying, exclusion and assaults with how girls experience growing up than how boys do."

No I think their experience growing up is one of a boy growing up who feels or believes he is the other sex. I am sure it must be traumatic, particularly not to fit into proscribed gender roles (although neither do I actually!), but it is not the same experience as a girl growing up.

"But I am a bit uneasy about the main concern being MtF accessing women only spaces."

Hathor - I think thsi comes up all the time because apart from this issue, frankly who cares? I will always defend Transgender people being bullied and harassed, but in terms of affecting me, they have no impact on me unless they want to access women only space.

I have worked with a Transgender MtoF and judged her on the same basis as everyone else. It made no difference to me that s/he was Trans.

But if my colleague had wanted to use the communal showers in my very old fashioned leisure centre in the women's changing room, then yes this would affect me. That is why it is always raised.

I was teased with gender-specific taunts growing up, tits etc, but I wonder if my feelings and reactions were any different to someone beiong taunted for any other reason?

Or if it's all just misery?

Maybe, elephants, a man would care.

And his feelings are just as valid as a woman's.

Do you mean that if my colleague had wanted to use the female communal showers that her/his wish should be more important than the feelings of all the woman who already use the communal shower?

Because I don't agree. I actaully think too often as women we are told taht our feelings don't matter and that we should put other people first. Well I think women's feelings do matter andyes in this instance more than men's.

No, not that at all.

Just that the wishes of a man who objected to a FtM transgendered person using male communal areas should carry equal weight.