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?

Just want to share a post I made on the other thread that has been started in response to this one about what makes a woman a woman, for the people on here who've said it's dead easy to say whether somebody is a woman or not.

I wrote a paper on this when I was at uni. Basically, no matter how you define men and women you can always find one exception to the rule (for example, if you define women as people with XX chromosomes and men as people with XY chromosomes where does that leave people who are born with XY chromosomes but have the external appearance of a woman and are raised as one?). The only meaningful definition of gender/sex is one that people arrive at for themselves. Therefore if MTF transsexuals wish to define themselves as female who are we to tell them that they're not?

P.S. Did the trans person at your conference cause any problems, elephant? Did they perve on anybody or assault anybody or violate anybody in any way? I'm guessing the answer is no and I put it to you that if anybody had complained that would have been transphobia.

Well perhaps the pre-op MtF should have realised the upset and got themselves their own room. Instead by the actions of one person, the gender binary is once again reinstalled.

Thing is, it's not trans people who created the binary gender system any more than it is people born with the organs or hormones or other identifiers that mean all feminists recognise them as women created it. I can't see how either actually benefit from that system either. But, and it's a big but, to some degree, we all have to negotiate the system that assigns relative and status based on gender identity.

I don't believe it is right that society limits human beings to being feminine or masculine because these are subjective concepts, social constructs and often used to contain, control, direct and exclude. I also don't believe it is right that society limits human beings to being male or female because these aren't 100% absolutely determinable every human, and I also believe these categorisations have been and continue to be used as the rationale for containing, controlling, directing and excluding people (e.g. physical, hormonal, psychological explanations for "treating" women and men differently.)

So, unless we want to risk ridicule, isolation, exclusion and even violence (for threatening the "natural order" of things or some such!), we have to be male or female. That's an easier choice to make for some of us than for others. For those who know the label they were assigned at birth isn't right for them, even if they believe they are something other than the other label, they effectively have to opt for the other label.

There are activists in every social and political movement who aren't necessarily representative of all the people they appear to speak for. So often their existence and "way out" views are used as an excuse to conveniently dismiss the movements they are involved in. Sometimes people in those movements feel embarrassed by them. Sometimes though the Arthur Scargills and the Al Sharptons stick their necks out and say unpalatable, provocative things that at least stir thinking. But yes, some activists can appear to be self-motivated and not really care about the impact of their words and actions on others in the movement.

I can only feel despair though when I see some feminists appropriating the methodology of MRAs to demean, to dehumanise, to demonise trans people. I still can't help but think that this is a waste of our valuable time, resource, energy and creativity, leaving those who genuinely benefit from patriarchy, who represent the greatest threat to women (and to trans people as well, as an adjunct of misogyny,) continue to flourish.

Yes of course the MtoF addressed in front of them, there was no privacy at all. It is not about being threatened. Some women have no problem sleeping in a communal room with men they don't know, that is their choice. But if a woman books to sleep in a communal space that she is told is women only, I think it is fair reasonable that she can be unhappy if there turns out to be a Transgender person sleeping there with a male body and a penis.

Sorry that isn't what I meant to say. I mean that each person now has their own room, making it expensive and therefore exclusive. However perhaps this is the way to go for the future.

And I do think when you talk about gender binary there is a difference between a male and female body and the roles that society says a woman or man should play.

No-one on this thread is demonising, demeaning or dehumanising anyone.

The problem with that oil is that the organisers were trying to make it open to everyone, including the many people who had little money but were travelling from afar, so needed somewhere to stay. So while it solved the issue with the pre op MtoF, it actually excluded some people from participating at all.

And although I don't know this, given that women generally earn less than men, it probably excluded more women than men from participating.

I know it's a problem leading to exclusion, and I believe you are right in that women would be less likely to attend. Perhaps a better way to do this is to have shared accommodation, so that several women who want/need women own space is given the opportunity to do this. Or a more varied method of payment for those on a low wage/part-time work.

As I said on the other thread last night which was deleted, I think that in that case, elephants, it's about being sensitive to others. The mtf trans person I know wouldn't have dreamt of doing that pre-op. It seems rather aggressive to insist that your rights as one human should trump those of lots of others.

I agree Hump, but some MtoF do do this - although I know some don't. For example there was a well publicised case of a MtF suiing a woman's rape crisis centre because they did not want someone with a male body working there and they did not think it was appropriate. Most MtoF I hope would understand why some woman contacting a womans rape crisis centre that was advertised as being staffed totally by woman, may be unhappy to be counselled by a Transgender person with a male body.

One of the arguments for excluding gay men from serving in the military has been that non gay men will feel threatened by their presence, particularly in situations of shared sleeping, changing and toileting.

I have no doubt that a male survivor of rape could find sharing a communal shower or dormitory with men who have sex with men triggering, that they could feel threatened. I understand that that fear is very real for them and I am not dismissing that. However, I refuse to accept that the mere presence of a gay man in the situation represents a genuine risk to other men.

So, what is the answer there? Should gay men continue to be banned from military service because of the fears of some men that they pose a threat to them? Is the answer to change practical arrangements (e.g. individual shower cubicles, separate lockable sleeping rooms, etc.) for all?

Are the issues not similar with regard to trans people?

With regard to something like counselling services, I believe it is important that the client is able to develop a rapport with the counsellor for the service to have best effect. Sometimes though, this can be quite tricky. My former colleague is a counsellor who works independently and within a group setting. She is aware that some clients either directly or indirectly ask not to see her, preferring other counsellors. She is the only Black member of the team. It's a private setting so for the most part, they honour client wishes to keep their custom. On one hand, it feels instinctively wrong that clients don't wish to engage with her because they don't feel they can relate to her or she to them. On the other hand, I can also see that the therapeutic relationship won't work if the client feels this way about the counsellor.

For other clients, the fact she is Black and may have had quite a different life experience from them doesn't matter a jot. Similarly, I once worked with a pregnancy counsellor who was Lesbian, had never had sex with a man, never been nor never intended to become pregnant, but was still able to do the job well, still able to empathise with clients despite never having shared their experience.

Is it something like that with regard to a trans woman being a counsellor in a sexual abuse counselling service?

What I am trying to say is that I recognise the dilemmas and there are tensions that may need to be managed. Some of it is about one person's right to swing their fists ending at another person's nose, but there being some disagreement just how far out the nose sticks! :) I accept the dilemmas and tensions, but I don't believe they are insurmountable.

"the Gender Recognition Act made men legally women if that's what they decided they were. The 2010 Equalities Act has made it illegal for us to disagree with that or to point out that there was a prior meaning of woman that didn't rely on a man's "feeling" about himself."

This sentiment, with some small substitutions, might be used to express

"the law made immigrants legally British citizens if that's what they decided they were. The law has made it illegal for us to disagree with that or to point out that there was a prior meaning of British that didn't rely on an immigrant's "feeling" about himself."

While I don't want to impute racism to anyone, I find it unnerving how similar, structurally, these sentiments are. If you look at the second example, you can immediately see the tendentious logic. Both statements imply that a massive change that requires a significant level of effort on the changer's part, and some adjustment on the part of those around them, is as simple as announcing a feeling. It's not.

It's not easy or straightforward to become a British citizen. Similarly it is not easy or straightforward to change one's official gender. It takes years, countless bureaucratic hoops, psychiatric consultations and assessments, considerable anxiety and a willingness to live as the opposite gender for a protracted period of time in the teeth of hostility before surgery or legal changes are permitted. While I can imagine that someone who has been through the process might have been a nobend before and is still a nobend afterwards, it's absurd to imagine that a man might go through a sex change process purely to get access to 'vulnerable women', as someone suggested upthread.

That's why reducing this considerable effort to a 'feeling', or suggesting that it's being undertaken for nefarious purposes, is so offensive and hurtful. Added to the remarkable levels of violence and hatred suffered by transpeople (and it's much, much higher than against women in general) I find it odd that others who have suffered gendered violence, and had their own experiences of such minimised, should perpetuate this instead of feeling at least a bit of compassion.

KRITIQ - If vulnerable woman access counselling that is advertised to be staffed only by men, then they do have a right to not be seen by someone with a male body. i know some people don't care if they are counselled by a man or a woman. But some people do and when they choose this, this should be respected.

Our society is set up to provide separate changing areas and toilets for women and men. We are socilaised not to shower in communal showers with male strangers for example. This socialisation runs very deep and I don't think can just be ignored.

As a hospital patient who was admitted in an emergency and felt very vulnerable I felt uneasy being placed on a ward of men. I did not think they were going to attack me - they were mainly elderly very ill men. But I didn't feel comfortable with this.

Why is it in situations like this e.g. with Transgender people with male bodies in women only space, it is always women who are expected to make accommodations and just get over their feelings of unease. Why is it always women's feelings that are dismissed when they say they don't want to share a communal changing room with someone with a male body?

"If vulnerable woman access counselling that is advertised to be staffed only by men" - sorry obviously should have been women, not men.

yy Kritiq, Huge and elephant

Sorry, what do you mean?

I can see what you're saying, elephants. Out of curiosity, how would you respond to a FTM transsexual? Would you feel it more appropriate that they use the male or female changing room?

If they were pre op and so had a female body I personally wouldn't mind them using a female changing room. But I suspect FRTM may want to use a male chnaging room. I think whether that is okay or not is really up to men, I don't care either way.

OTheHugeManatee: This is close too but much better said than a post I added to one of the previous threads. It brings us to the point of asking if feminist have the desire and the ability to accept that some of the fundamental beliefs on which the political and social struggle is based on needs to be updated.

One example is the need for same sex spaces in public areas, why. Other countries have for years had shared changing and toilets, it would appear that despite crimes of a sexual assault taking place in such areas no huge moral outcry is had in other countries to revert back to single sex use. The notion of safety and privacy seem to be being used as a reason to reinforce segregation not to promote inclusion. In the same way that fear of crime often drives people off the streets and in to isolation even though statistically fewer crimes are being committed, or are being committed against a defined demographic group.

My view is that all social campaigns need to change and evolve, society changes around us, people change, aspirations change, technology changes. Repositioning to come back to the fundamentals is what counts, sometimes though those fundamentals themselves need to be updated.

So you think female space in whatever context is invaled?

sorry invalid

If I said femal only spaces were invalid elephant, I presume you would then talk about the need as you and others have done for female only medical services, swimming sessions, help and advice services, taxi companies etc.. Whic is not what the issue is, the issue is why can public spaces not be seen as "shared" and from what I see from the responses here is that it is because of fear. Yopu say you did not feel comfortable in the dorm, did you ask howe the M to F felt? Or did you assume she was enjoying the sight of women running around in their undies.

You say, why is it that women need to make the adjustment, simply it is women who are the problem in the same way that men were and are the problem in giving women equal status. It is always the dominant group that has to give ground.

"Or did you assume she was enjoying the sight of women running around in their undies."
That feels a terribly demeaning way to refer to women sharing communal sleeping areas.

You obviously do think that women's only space is not needed, I disagree. In some instances yes it will be about fear e.g. rape counselling, but in a lot of other places it is far more complex than that.

When I asked why is it women who need to ignore their feelings around sharing communal space with someone with a male body it was because I think women are often told to ignore by wider society what they want and feel. I think woman have a right to say that they do not want to share some communal space with someone with a male body.