I can't get my head around the phrase "Transwomen are women".

[nikkinack]

Sorry for another thread on the topic, but I was looking at my local candidates and the only female candidate is for the Green party, and she has retweeted that phrase (with the addition "Transmen are men) a couple of times today.

It seems like doublethink to me, every time I try to unpick the statement I get all messed up in the process.

So, if transwomen are women, why call them transwomen? Surely just by defining them as transwomen you are saying they are different to women? Transwomen can't insist on women using the label cis and then lay claim to the standalone word 'woman'.

So transwomen are women, ciswomen are women. The word woman applies to people of either category, but they are still separate categories within the single word, which we can't describe. We are not the same, but to state 'Transwomen are women' is to insist that we are.

I don't know how anyone who makes this statement can square all of this. It hurts my head just trying to work out what they mean.

"With respect, I don't think that it's my responsibility to solve this and provide safe haven. Why should it be?"

So what do you suggest?

Sorry, that ^^ was to WhatAreSafflowers

Gowether, I don't think trans people want trans only facilities (I mean practical ones, not things like support groups). I think some trans people want segregated facilities based on gender identity and others want unisex facilities.

I don't suggest anything. I'm telling you the line, beyond which I am not comfortable. It's not my job or responsibility to come up with the answer to the problem.

Herein lies the rub. Women suspect that the vitriol related to trans issues stems from a view that it's a woman's job to solve issues of inclusion and social cohesion.

Here's the thing. It's not my job to make everyone feel loved and included. I don't actually care if some people feel excluded from womanhood.

Your principles are noted. But that still leaves the trans-community stood outside the door asking what they should do.

Gowether, what are you proposing women who feel they can only use single sex facilities do?

There isn't any temporary solution that is going to be inclusive of everyone.

The only long term solution that will include everyone is to end communal facilities and create spaces with privacy that can be used by anyone of any sex or gender.

Again, I fail to see why it poses any problem for transwomen to use women's toilets.

But I'd be quite happy to use unisex toilets as well. Women have to queue so long for toilets anyway - another ridiculous example of gender inequality.

almondcakes That's exactly my point: there's isn't a solution that doesn't infringe on someone unless we change the whole structure of public facilities. So a solution is required. I'm not trying to force a solution - I'm saying one is required and that 'not my problem guvnor' isn't a helpful attitude, no matter how sympathetic we might all be to that. So, I'm asking the question - at this moment in time, and with an eye on current infrastructure - who is most in need of safe space?

Who is in most need of safe space? Women.

I'm with Sandor on this one. The safety of the many has to trump the safety of the few.

Gowether, I actually think we have a solution, don't we?

People who have been to a doctor and are going through the process of attempting to get a GRC are given access to some single sex spaces but not others.

The problems that have arisen in other countries have happened because they are allowing people to use spaces simply based on a personal declaration.

Women have legitimate reasons for not wanting people with penises in bathrooms and changing rooms.

All the suggestions about unisex toilets are fine. Still doesn't tackle the problem though. Male violence. In fact it allows us to ignore it. Get round it. Put it to one side. After all it's easier to blame those awkward women for not budging over.

So, in your view a transwoman not yet in a position to afford surgery, but who has made the lifestyle transition, should continue to use male facilities?

She identifies as a woman, but should use men's facilities because she is a threat to women's safety, and her safety is less important because she is fewer in number than women-born-women?

I have read this thread with total incomprehension.

And how exactly will you police that? Will post-op trans women have to produce a certificate?

Gowether, sorry, don't know what you mean by 'afford.' GRC is usually a result of treatment on the NHS.

Gowether, I am describing the situation that is in place now. It isn't hypothetical.

Not all transwomen want to/intend to have surgery. They say they have 'female penises'.

It almost reads like you assume all transwomen/transgender people want/intend to have surgery which would indicate that you might want to do a bit of further reading on the subject gowether

I do not understand the female penis concept. I can understand body dysmorphia. I can understand someone like Jackie Mcauliffe who looked like a young woman, who always looked like a girl, was bullied because she looked like a girl and who very much wanted to get rid of her penis.

I cannot understand how it is possible to say , as some transactivists do "I'm a woman, I love my penis and I'm going to use it sexually"

gowether wrote - "Trans women are a group more likely to suffer violence than just about anyone else."

The violence inflicted on transwomen by men is unacceptable and ways need to be found to get men to stop inflicting this violence.

Each year, world-wide, about 500,000 people are murdered. Of these, about 250 are trans people (about 0.05% of all murders).

Between January 2008 and September 2014, the murders of 1,612 trans people across the world were recorded by trans support groups. 1,273 murders (79% of all trans murders) occurred in Latin America, with Brazil accounting for half of that figure.

1 trans person is murdered in the UK per year.

sources include: www.transrespect-transphobia.org/uploads/downloads/2014/TDOR2014/TMM-TDOR14-map-all.pdf

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About 600 non-trans people are murdered in the UK per year.

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The Gender Identity Research and Education Society (GIRES) estimated in 2014 that about 1% of the UK population is "gender nonconforming to some degree" (transgender). GIRES estimate that there is an equal split in the numbers of transwomen and transmen. Only about 1 in 50 of these trans people, which is about 0.02% of the UK population, have "undergone transition" (post-op transsexual) - there are about 13,000 post-op transsexuals in the UK.

sources include: www.gires.org.uk/assets/Workplace/Monitoring.pdf

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The total population of the UK in 2014 was about 64.4 million. The GIRES estimate that 1% of the UK population are trans suggests that there were about 644,000 trans people in the UK in 2014.

annual risk of murder for a trans person in the UK = 1 in 644,000
annual risk of murder for a non-trans person in the UK = 1 in 106,260*

• 1 in 106,260 = 600 in (64.4 - 0.644) million = 600 in 63.756 million

These figures appear to suggest that the annual risk of murder for trans people could be 6 times lower than the annual risk of murder for non-trans people in the UK.

Would you want to be marked out as different?

Thanks for confirming my point kim

Mary, do you ever go to London? The Waterloo Bridge is built exclusively by women. Just one example.

From 1940 well after the modern era was here.

What????? Have you read/seen nothing about who does the majority of (unpaid yet essential) work in most places in the world?

like cooking cleaning around the house and raising a child?

It generates no wealth yet women who do it in a household typically have access to all that households finances and decide where it is spent. Very few of the married men i work with get anything but a certain amount of money for coffee during the week and some for when they go out for a beer and its all assigned by their wives. And their wives have what they want for their social lives and while there is no set amount like a wage the household income is still hers to distribute.

These are not oppressed women getting exploited these are the managers of the household and its budget and control who gets what, why and how much and it is rare a conversation on site about a group social event that costs money goes anywhere until the men have "asked the Mrs".

The hand that rocks the cradle and controls the money does not lack for power nor is oppressed in a relationship.

There is a video of "do and do not's for married couples from 1913" online il link and while it was written for the middle class who obviously had some wealth it shows that this image of supposed oppressed women being treated as "chattel" is nonsense.

The guy who posted it is no fan of gender feminists but the book is real and factual and written by a real scrapper of a British lady of the day who was clearly a no nonsense tough as nails type.

My disparaging comment did her a disservice as it did many others just like her but so does the attitude you have towards history and the past so do yourself a real favor and hear the words of this woman in her book because while quaint and old fashioned there is a hell of a lot to like and admire about her and those like her.

She covers everything including getting paid etc.

like me or not this is a worthwhile vid: