Is the trans lobby a force for good for XX women?

[PosieReturningParker]

I'll set out my stall for any new posters or visitors to this topic.

Transgender individuals, I'm sure, have a very tough time, suicide rates are high (although there's no conclusive reasons as to why, some are compounded with other mental health issues, some need validation, sometimes transition doesn't provide answers and so on, it's hugely complex). We owe it to the individuals and those close to them to find out why.

Bottom line transgender individuals deserve the same human rights and respect as all human beings.

The trans lobby does not represent most transgender people who want to live their lives in peace and happiness, without harm.

Here's some things to be aware of:

If there's a trans child at school who wishes to change in the opposite sex changing room, if your child feels uncomfortable your child will be asked to move.

There are numerous support groups for women whose husbands transition late in life due to a high rate of misogynistic mental/physical abuse once these men decide they want to be/are trans.

A transwoman without any surgery can compete as a woman at the olympics, there are already late transitioned trans in women's college teams in the USA.

At the moment in parliament a trans bill is about to go through that legally recognises transwomen as women, woman becomes meaningless. So diversity in companies that require women to be employed can employ a transwoman, refuge and rape crisis centres will have to accept transwomen. Transwomen will have access to all women's space.

Remember transwoman can be someone who simply says I'm a woman, self identity.

It's worthwhile noting that sexual and violent crime rates do not alter with transition, studies in both Europe and USA confirm this. Studies also show transgender women commit sexual violence 6% more than men, according to a Californian study of inmates.

Children who are not taught about homosexuality will/can be taught about transgender at primary school.

Now you know.

Feminists are routinely being silenced with accusations of bigotry or transphobia for asking that women only safe spaces remain for women only, obviously if transwomen are recognised legally as women there won't be any.

Are the trans lobby hell bent on erasing women?

True, but rape is a crime that by definition can only be a male crime. Using US statistics for UK discussion is kind of misleading. The sentencing 'success' difference is that men are three times more sentenced for crimes. I took account of that in the 85%.

Mitigation v aggravation isn't the point, but the fact that women's mitigations are better received and more likely to be successful in reducing likelihood of custodial sentences is problematic in that female' agency is reduced by treating female criminals as subservient to situations, but men as responsible, however the point is that irrespective of the reasons, its true that if men were sentenced as women are, population in men's prisons would go down dramatically (with a lead time of course) as pretty bright says.

If three transwomen double female sex offenders we can see how small the numbers are.

You go to court more often if you plead guilty less. Perhaps women are less likely to plead guilty when they have committed a crime?

Slugseat..if they had been tried in a 'female' way, they would be less likely to get a custodial sentence.

if only 3 transwomen who had committed sexual offences were incarcerated in women's prisons, it would double the number of 'women' in custody for sexual offences

I imagine that there are already three transgender women in male prison for sexual offences (approx 240 in total, remember) - when the law changes, their transfer from male to female prison will render the statistics meaningless for years!

Not really a derail. If it exposes sentencing inequalities, then not good for XXers, if equalised up, but neutral if equalised down.

I don't agree that shared spaces are coming about because of transgendered men or women. Mixed sex spaces are just more common as more men get involved in childcare and we move away from the very prudish 50s.

I think there are more wins for society as a whole of lower brutalising of men, and more vocal transgender conversations might assist that, however I think it's more.likely that more female involvement in society's decision making will be better for transwomen, rather than the other way around.

I don't agree that shared spaces are coming about because of transgendered men or women. Mixed sex spaces are just more common as more men get involved in childcare and we move away from the very prudish 50s.

Nothing wrong with shared spaces alongside segragated ones.

The issue is that trans-activists are insisting on their right to access the segragated space, rather than the shared space. It will be illegal to exclude self-identifying trans-women from womens safe spaces - including rape crisis centres as well as toilets and changing facilities.

It's not prudish for a sexual assault victim to feel vulnerable in a closed, unmonitored environment with a person who possesses a similar weapon to the one that they have previously been assaulted with.

Are you agreeing, but only with penis off,?

To be clear, I think that people who have had gender reassigment surgery should be considered differently from those people who have self-identified but have not taken any steps to medically reassign. (Anna Lee, Claire Darbyshire et al)

The odd thing here is that if men feel a bit of 'by the grace of god' about safety via a transgender thought process, it might hasten change, in managing areas where women feel vulberable, eg my favourite thought experiment is to wonder what the world would be like if all been had to go out a few times in'extreme women" wear..dresses, heels etc , and perhaps more acceptance of cross gender behaviour might dissolve some misunderstandings and increase awareness, which could be good.

I agree that it's risky to allow transwomen automatic access to segregated space in some senses, and too risky in rape crisis centres. The risk of just shoving a dress on and demanding access is too much.. But then men could do this now, if they were passable, and don't seem to much..

It is a tough one.

I agree with that actually, there have to be 'proper' steps for areas segregated for areas other than convenience. I do feel for people who genuinely feel too many steps outside society even though all they want to do is be an accepted woman, but I agree an either fucked up man, or calculated man who wants a new strategy, opening up men in dresses as equal access feels too risky.

Mind you looking at the crime stats, there is more risk from a female criminal anyway, so it's still confusing!

Mind you looking at the crime stats, there is more risk from a female criminal anyway, so it's still confusing!

The nature of the crime is different. While it is true that the risk that a biological woman would steal perfume from my unattended handbag is higher than a trans-woman doing that; the chance of the woman committing a violent or sexual offence against me is far greater than of the biological woman doing so.

There are regular incidents in which men hide in female toilets in order to commit offences, and where men are challenged while hiding there - imagine a world where they don't have to hide, and can't be challenged.

Its not really though, stats-wise, as you are highly unlikely, statistically, to meet a transwoman in your segregated space when you are there, and if the risk of crime is the same as in the general population, then it is also extremely unlikely that the one you meet is a criminally minded one at all, let alone a violent or sex offender. I would guess that statistically you are more likely to meet a woman committed of a violent crime than a transwoman committed of a violent crime.

That said, of course I know that if you are in either situation, stats don't matter!

'More risk tha I thought.. ' should be.

Men might commit more crime, but that doesn't mean every individual man is likely to.be a criminal, it is much more likely that a man you meet is not a criminal. In fact I am very against the magnifying of fear of any type. Most people are good, you can't get away from that!

Men might commit more crime, but that doesn't mean every individual man is likely to.be a criminal, it is much more likely that a man you meet is not a criminal.

If I meet a man in a safe female space i.e. where he should not be - is it statistically more likely that he is there to prey on women, or there because he is a transwoman? Or, is it most likely that he is niether and just there because, well.....why would he be there?

"Its not really though, stats-wise, as you are highly unlikely, statistically, to meet a transwoman in your segregated space when you are there, and if the risk of crime is the same as in the general population, then it is also extremely unlikely that the one you meet is a criminally minded one at all, let alone a violent or sex offender. I would guess that statistically you are more likely to meet a woman committed of a violent crime than a transwoman committed of a violent crime."

Trans women commit crime at the same rate as men, not the "general population".

Allowing men into women's spaces therefore increases the risk of violent crimes being committed in those spaces whether those men identify as women or not.

There have been many cases of men dressing as a woman to gain access to toilets and changing rooms so that they can commit acts of voyeurism. Luckily, some were caught because women reported them before they could do anything. Will that be possible if they had every right to be in those spaces under some bathroom law? In some cases, they won't even need to attempt to look like a woman to be allowed full access.

Why should the rights of a vocal minority of 0.3% of the male population take priority over women's safety?

Also, as people keep saying on these threads, with respect to spaces like changing rooms, we aren't worried about meeting a trans woman. We are worried about meeting a man wearing a dress to access women for sexual gratification.
I think that's a really important point and needs to be repeated in this debate. Trans people (& allies) are naturally defensive as there are others out there who really do seek to harm trans people in some way. And so people who believe what slugs has posted don't always get heard. It makes the debate hard because emotions are high on both sides which means we're not always listening to each other.

I get this. The trouble I have is that statistically, 0.02% of 0.3% of the population committing crime, and a lower percentage commuting sexual crime is getting numbers down into the double figures. Compare this to the number of toilets in the land and the likelihood of it happening

The trouble I have is that statistically, 0.02% of 0.3% of the population committing crime, and a lower percentage commuting sexual crime is getting numbers down into the double figures.

But thats not accurate. Because it's not 0.02% of just the 0.3% of men who are trans-women. It's 0.02% of the whole male population - who will ALL be given legal access to the safe spaces when the law is changed because there is no way of distinguishing trans-women from men.

If a woman is in a changing room, toilet, women's refuge or whatever and three men walk in - even men who look like men in jeans and beards - there is nothing she can do or say under the proposed laws.

Because they might be transwomen.

The woman can't even ask if they are transwomen or call for someone to check as even asking would be transphobic and as bad legally as questioning the right of a black women to come in there.

Transwomen don't have to look like a woman or dress like one - whatever that means. They just have to feel like one.

This isn't the whole objection to abolishing the right of privacy for women, but it's an important one.

Just saw this on Facebook. So you're not a feminist if you don't blindly accept that anyone with a penis who states they are a woman automatically gets to be one matadornetwork.com/life/6-things-every-feminist-support/

So is womenness separating itself from the female body? Its odd that in the 80s when women adopted male characteristics at work it was both negative and positive 'ball breaker' language, but when men feel a bit female, its like 'redefine law, politics and social policy' is that the frustration?

To be honest, though I can see the interesting sci fi ideas of a future where gender is different from your body and there is a puberty way-station where you can pick your gender irrespective of your body, it seems that the gender role of pregnancy is a little too fixed to needing what is now considered a female body.

As i said somewhere, I prefer people being OK with wide differences and behaviours within existing genders to defining non-neaderthal as female irrespective of body type, and non-'fluffy girly/straightened hair. Empathetic make up' as male irrespective of body shape..

I would hate the l7s and hole's of the future to feel that they should say 'my body is female, but I must be trans male because I'm not a Cosmo woman' that to me is much more sinister, dangerous and mysoginistic than not being comfortable with transwomen.