Anti-Transgendered thread in Chat

[countessmarkyabitch]

Started off as a vague question about what makes you feel like a woman, lots of people started mentioning transwomen, naturally. Has now turned into some posters stating that transwomen are just men and shouldn't be allowed use female things like toilets and rape crisis, pretty much anything.

I find this really offensive and have stopped engaging. My personal feminism encompasses women who were born in male bodies, and supports their struggle to be recognised as women. I also think they need the protection and help of feminists as a particularly at risk group.

Is this an unusual stance? Does anyone agree with me?

I agree with OP. If a man has changed...and is now a woman...he's not a he but a she.

Hubert, have you ever heard of the "cotton ceiling"?

Yes I have, and no I wouldn't discount a trans sexual partner. (I think I know what the cotton ceiling is! That's right isn't it?)

cailin Could you source please? I could find that stat for New York but not the UK (I only made a quick search so apologies)

If that's the case, I accept that's an issue. But I think there's a lot of reasons why that is - cost and availability for one.

However many would argue that a fully transition MtoF should still be prevented from accessing womens facilities. Placing these people in a catch 22. Where are they supposed to go?

What if he hasn't changed MrsTawdry? As in, he still has a penis and testicles, etc but just wears skirts, dresses and make up?

So do you believe Hubert, that lesbians who refuse to have sex with transwomen who still have male genitalia are bigots?

Where were all these men clamouring to take on the female experience 100 years ago, before we could vote?

What, when it would have been even more frowned upon? When there would have been no way of a transition anyway?

Our uni LGBT officer and a very good friend of mine is transitioning to male. I totally support his rights to use the toilets and services he feels most comfortable in, and the same goes for any transperson.

What I don't understand is whose rights are more important? The community of transpeople, or one or two women who feel uncomfortable. How do we decide whose rights trump who?

Also, what do you want transpeople to do? Is it that you want them to stop using womens spaces, stop trying to be feminists or stop being trans in general? I'm struggling to understand people's opinions on this one.

In an ideal world, no one would be judged and placed in society by their gender. Unfortunately, thats where we're at right now, so is it unreasonable of transpeople to want to belong to the opposite gender's 'assigned role', if for nothing else but to fit in as they feel they were born into the wrong biological sex.

My personal feeling is that just as, as many have said, we can't be expected to fight harder for the rights of transpeople, transpeople cant can't be expected to fight alone for a breakdown of the traditional gender roles based on alloted biological sex.

But I do agree that transpeople who tell women not to discuss menstruation eetc as womens issues are out of line... But only in the same way anyone telling anyone else what they can and cant talk about is out of line, its rude and ignorant.

Hubert the cotton ceiling is to do with transwomen who still have penises wanting to be accepted as sexual partners by lesbians. Lesbians who are not prepared to entertain them as sexual partners are considered transphobic.

Again this is a view held by some trans people (and indeed some lesbians!).

I read a blogpost linked on here once where a young lesbian said that she would not engage in any more sexual or romantic relationships until she had worked through her transphobia, given that she didn't want to have sex with a woman with a penis.

cailin how are transexual people trying to redefine your life? How are they telling you your experiences mean nothing?

I only ask out of genuine interest,as as a woman myself who has experienced a lot of the negative aspects of being a woman, I've never experienced the above so don't know much about it.

cailindana No not at all, anyone can refuse to have sex with anyone they don't want to.
If penis isn't your think, then go for vaginas.
If tall people just don't float your boat, sleep with short people.

A woman has absolute final say on who she sleeps with. Period.

"I totally support his rights to use the toilets and services he feels most comfortable in, and the same goes for any transperson. "

Shouldn't he be in the gents?

And FWIW I would be happy to have a transman in the bogs with me! But because men are the ones who are dangerous (NAMALT obv) we have a situation where everyone who might be at risk from a certain type of man, piling into the ladies!

Can't we sort out the violent men please?

There's a a lot of opinions here and on other sites that remind me of how people once saw gay people.

I read a blogpost linked on here once where a young lesbian said that she would not engage in any more sexual or romantic relationships until she had worked through her transphobia, given that she didn't want to have sex with a woman with a penis.

You know, people used to just get drunk, like each other and maybe have sex.
It wasn't some sort of project

** If anybody had a problem with you not accepting them as a sexual partner, they need to work through that issue.

Accepting everybody as equal does not mean I should accept everybody into my vagina.

Shocked than anybody could think otherwise.

I disagree Hubert ! Accept them into your vagina immediately !

And FWIW I would be happy to have a transman in the bogs with me! But because men are the ones who are dangerous (NAMALT obv) we have a situation where everyone who might be at risk from a certain type of man, piling into the ladies!

So because of that 'certain type of man' that whole group of people should be ostracised.

Because the risk is there people should be banned?

A bit like that theme park where single men can't go alone anymore because they might be a paedophile?

Fine! I love you all! In you get!

this gives a good overview Grays.

Basically transwomen (not transmen, generally, I wonder why that is?) want to stop women from discussing anything that suggests that transwomen aren't entitled to decide exactly what constitutes women's rights. They've forced the cancellation of conferences, glitterbombed Germaine Greer, issued death threats and rape threats (ironic) etc.

But it's not funny.

Women being told they are bigots because they want to choose to have sex with is not funny.

No, Hubert. The vocal transactivist position is that lesbians must sleep with transwomen, and if they don't they're bigots. That is the "cotton ceiling," ie the very unfair way that lesbians actually choose their sexual partners rather than lying down and opening their legs whenever a transwoman says they have to.

There is extreme misogyny among the vocal transactivist movement. There is some very very dark psychological shit going on there.

Some transwomen I think that should be cailin. There are plenty of transwomen who are getting on with their lives and not involved in all of this and more again who disagree with what the activists you mention are doing.

Grays different people will have different problems with different aspects of what different people have said.

I've got no problems with the toilet thing but a huge problem with the idea that there is no such thing as sex, only gender. For example.

I agree Pilchard. The problem is, it is the vocal minority who are creating the culture and who are pushing through legislation, who are issuing death and rape threats and who are preventing women from meeting to discuss these issues. The radfem conference mentioned in the New Yorker article had to be held in secret - these people are dangerous.

The community of transpeople, or one or two women who feel uncomfortable.

Pretty sure if you went out in the street and did a poll, and asked 1,000 women whether they would be prepared to share an intimate space (changing room, whatever) with someone who has a penis in the same way they do with people who are penis-less, it wouldn't be "one or two" who were "uncomfortable".

Two women are killed in the UK every week my someone with a penis. Isn't the current stat for women who have been sexually assaulted by someone with a penis about one in four? I think it's a lot more than "one or two".

And "uncomfortable" is not a good word when you are talking, for a substantial number of women, about being "traumatised".