New anti-trans legislation in North Carolina

[SlowFJH]

Of course it's been driven by the religious right wing. But it does aim to achieve what many posters here appear to advocate - namely that biological males can only use men's toilets and changing rooms etc. Biological females must only use women's toilets and changing rooms. Will it gain wider support?

One is enough to distress someone

The NHS is the fifth largest employer in the world. I am guessing that out if over 1.3 million people there could perhaps a significant number (even today - without any change to the legislation) that are or might be Trans women. Given that health care is likely to be a vocation (rather than just a job), I am guessing that they themselves would be very conscious of the risk of causing unnecessary stress to their patients. One of my good friends is an doctor of Indian origin. It is very rare nowadays (more common in the past) but there are occasions when a patient requests to be treated by a doctor of their own race. The NHS has guidelines for this and my friend is amazingly sanguine that some patients might make a request that some might find to be bigoted.

Does anyone actually know of any trans Health Care Professionals? Any genetic males (with penises, broad shoulders and hairy hands etc) trying to pass themselves off as women?

Or is this just more fear mongering?

Sluglettuce
You've hit me in the feelz now.

This thread is about the anti-trans (and anti lesbian and gay) legislation in NC.
Please feel free to start a separate thread about voyeurism. I have answered the question as to how voyeurism can / should be tackled - using the law (which can and should be continually strengthned if necessary).

Oh so you've not heard of Dr Shipman, or any of those doctors who use their positions to sexually assault their patients?

Everyone who works for the NHS has a vocation and would never do anything bad?

Women, don't worry your pretty little heads. Men know better than you!

Right, so you think that more women being assaulted, is not a problem because they can just use the law to bring the offenders to justice?

Do you know what the conviction rates are for rape and sexual assault?

Do you know what the reporting rate is?

You are a piece of work.

Women, don't worry about being sexually assaulted, you can just take your attacker to court and have your reputation, life and choices pulled apart by defence lawyers.

What are you making a fuss about, you silly little things?

What's the betting that when women claim report an assault by a man who says he's a woman, she will be accused of a malicious allegation because of her transphobia?

AskBasil
Do you (or anyone else here) actually know of any trans HCPs?

SlowFJH
There are plenty of male HCPs

Under legislation which would accept gender identity as the definition of sex, they would be free to declare themselves women and have that accepted on its own, without any hormones or surgery, as being their legal sex.

Like your friend Alex, whom even you (transphobically) don't recognise as a woman. But who claims s/he is one, so we're all supposed to accept that.

Have you not been reading what we've been saying?

Any man can declare himself to be a woman under Maria Miller's proposals. It doesn't matter what he feels like, whether he feels like a woman or not - even if he doesn't, who is to know? He can just say he does and that's it, he's a woman.

You don't see any dangers for women with this?

Or you see the dangers, but you don't give a shit about them?

I'm just trying to quantify the size of the "problem". Out of over a million employees I'm not surprised that there at least some TW HCPs. I'd be more surprised if there were none. But in exactly the same way that patients rights are protected re the race of their doctor, they could be similarly protected if someone objected to being examined or treated by a Trans Woman before it happened.

You forget Basil, that women are just collateral damage in the need for MtT to 'prove' their womaness.

And yes Slow, I know a couple. Was there a point to your question, or were you merely hoping everyone would say no so you could yell Yahtzee?

Yeah the problem with that, is that women aren't told someone is a transwoman until they're actually in the room with them.

They're told this person is a woman.

And you may be unaware of this if you are male, but women are socialised not to make a fuss, not to upset other people and to just put up with stuff.

So unlikely that your solution will prevent trauma.

But hey, it's only women's trauma, eh? A price well worth paying.

I'd say 99.99% of women, girls even, have received unwanted sexual attention - whether that is leering, cat-calling, sexual threats, touching or worse - in public places, schools, going about their every day lives, most of them before they've even hit their mid-teens and it doesn't let up until you are deemed to be 'past it', at which point you become either invisible or the butt end of MIL jokes, old biddy comments and the like. So when we say we'd rather not take a chance that men will behave in confined and intimate spaces like changing rooms, our cynicism comes from our experience of trying to go about our ordinary lives in peace.

Perhaps we should take health and safety legislation as a good parallel. Most organisations are well run and take their duty of care to their employees well. Most people are sensible and would prefer not to loose a limb at work or have a live-changing injury. However, there are some workplaces which are innately hazardous because of the nature of the work, whether that is a sheet metal plant, a chemistry lab or a construction site. Do we say, "hey, don't worry - everyone is sensible and employers can be trusted. Let's not bother with safety guards around cutting tools, or fume cupboards or protective clothing, or guard rails along scaffolding. Everything is a-OK"? No, we know that some situations are more likely to give rise to accidents, that people occasionally have a lapse of concentration, that lots of minute exposures - whilst being unlikely to cause immediate harm - could lead to a preventable occupational disease like asbestosis. So we design our workplaces to mitigate risk, to minimise preventable harm. People grumble and roll their eyes about "elf 'n' safety gorn mad", but a lot of accidents and occupational illness is prevented day to day and over the course of a year, a decade, a generation.

Same goes for women's/sex-segregated changing facilities, toilets, prisons and hospital wards - they mitigate risks, minimise preventable harm, significantly reduce assaults. And that's before you even get on to respecting women's dignity and privacy to deal with biological issues like menstruation that men do not have to content with.

Anyway, I sense this thread is great sport for you given your wilful misinterpretation and mansplaining...

You've hit me in the feelz now

God this is mortifying. OP comes across like a 45 year old man who's just discovered the internet.

Slow your debating skills are negligible. We've already given you a great example of the problem of men being able to self-identify as women - the Vancouver Rape Crisis Centre being sued by a trans woman for not employing her.

So far you have only 'conceded' that this is a fact, which let's be honest is meaningless. You haven't given your view on it though. You should get back to addressing that before employing your spluttering 'You tell me one trans HCP in NHS' meme.

I have answered the question as to how voyeurism can / should be tackled - using the law (which can and should be continually strengthned if necessary).

Isn't that what has been done in NC, though? The law has been strengthened to protect females against predatory males?

AskBasil
"Yeah the problem with that, is that women aren't told someone is a trans woman until they're actually in the room with them"

Has this ever actually happened?

Oh FFS

Nope didn't think so

Goodnight slow. You couldn't argue yourself out of a paper bag.

Great piece in yesterday's New York Times.."Transgender law makes North Carolina Pioneer in Bigotry"

...Proponents spuriouslying portraying all transgender women as rapists and voyeurs. This threat only exists in the minds of bigots...

375 posts on, you are still talking about "portraying all transgender women as rapists and voyeurs".