Trans Understanding Help

[Itsallveryconfusing]

Hello.

Please be gentle as I'm not very knowledgeable about this but I'm trying to learn.

My eyes have been opened due to the recent threads like the I am Spartacus ones. I have always been very liberal and believed that someone can be born in the wrong body when it comes to makes feeling like a woman etc. I've come to see that gender is more a social concept.

I've been speaking with DH about this who, again, is very liberal and believes in equality and is pro women rights, although his workplace is very male orientated. He's not afraid to argue against the party line that women are weaker emotionally etc. His view on trans is very much live and let live he firmly believes that if someone wants to identify as female or male then they should be allowed to, as it must be awful to feel trapped. He was shocked that my view is changing and that my views are more in standing with hard right wingers who look at equality is a dirty word.

Sorry for the essay but I'm struggling with what I know is correct in my head with the concept that people should be happy and if that makes them happy then I should respect.

And OP, however liberal your DH is, or thinks he is, he is not a woman, so women's rights and boundaries are not as relevant to him. I wonder if he'd like to go and tell a BME group how they should do anti-racism.

Transwomen get "murdered on a daily basis"?!? I think you'll find that is women, not transwomen. I agree with titchy's post above. Men- choose whatever name you like, wear what you like, I really couldn't care less. But tell me you are a woman, and insist on using women-only facilities, taking women's places on sports teams, and bullying women who have very valid reasons for needing those places/teams, and I will fight you all the way.

You can't judge an entire community of people by the terrible behaviour of one individual.

The self-determination thing is complicated, and if that comes to be the way it goes I'm sure it will have consequences, that will need to be examined. But making trans women afraid and ashamed of themselves is not the way to achieve anything.

Just because science hasn't discovered the biological reason people feel like they've been born in the wrong body doesn't mean that it's not real. Science moves forward all the time. Society moves forward and changes all the time. It wasn't that long a go that people would have been horrified to share a public toilet with a black person.

OP, how would your DH feel if a man walked into the ladies changing room at, say the swimming pool and saw you naked. He is allowed to do this because he is trans. If you complain, you will be asked to leave.

story in Seattle. Also quote from above:

Washington’s regulations even go so far to say that it is complaining women, not biological men, who should be asked to leave intimate facilities in cases of controversy over gender identity

SirVixofVixHall I honestly don't understand why we need to fight each other at all. Why can't we all work together for what we want, which is equality. If there needs to be compromises, let's make them, on both sides. I am fully aware of how likely I am as a woman to be a victim of violence, but being angry at trans women, who also need help, is not going to make my position any better. Trans women aren't the enemy.

Mermaid, you're very dismissive of the "consequences" of gender self determination. But as long as trans people's feelings about themselves are validated, that's ok. What about women's feelings? Who gives a fuck about them.

But if Georgina wants access to rape crisis centres

All people who are victims of sexual assault should have access to sexual assault services.

venusinscorpio I don't want to throw anybody under the bus. I'd just rather pick a fight with the people in power who have an influence on all of our lives than defenceless and powerless people just trying to survive.

I won't be angry at trans women for appropriating female identity and propping up a ridiculous gender binary if I can continue to have intimate safe spaces sex segregated on the grounds of biology. How's that for a compromise?

Happy for trans people to have their own facilities, as I said on another thread.

No one is ANGRY at TW as people; on an individual basis we're kind, supportive and understanding of those individuals and their struggles. We are however angry with arsehole TRAs who use the equality argument to defile women, and ironically MtT people in the process. We are angry that their arguments are being listened to and legislated for and that women are paying the price.

We will march beside you shouting for trans toilets and changing rooms - we know what oppression is and we support your opposition to it. But we will march against you demanding access to female toilets and changing rooms. Because THAT oppresses us.

I don't mean to be dismissive of women's feelings. I think all people should have a political voice and use it. Everyone should have a vote and a say. I just don't think that excluding and villifying people is justified especially if it's based on hearsay.

It depends what you count as "excluding" doesn't it?

Eh Mermaid have you heard or read much trans activist stuff? For a group of people who want to lead feminine lives and be accepted as feminine, some even claim to be more womanly than biological, you would be hard pushed to find a more aggressive, offensive, threatening bunch.

And on the issues of violence against transwomen it's not feminists, lesbians or any other kind of women that is killing them. You might want to take that issue up with men.

If you think women should accept trans women (and other opportunistic men) into certain intimate spaces without complaint, then you are being very dismissive of women's feelings.

There's a racist element too, the trans women who suffer violence are much more likely to be non-white. And poor and involved in prostitution. So are discriminated against (genuinely) in every area.

If there needs to be compromises, let's make them, on both sides

Every negotiation involves "a list of things that might be conceded" and "a list of things that will never be conceded".

For me, for example, opening up female safe spaces such as toilets and shelters to people who are biologically male is something I will never compromise on. Because transwomen commit violent crimes against women at the same rate as men (a significantly higher rate than women committing violent crime), and are physically equivalent to men (ie stronger than females) and therefore fulfil the two criteria that cause men to be excluded from female safe spaces. Yes, most transwomen are not a threat, but nor are most men. The ones who are a threat don't come with a warning label, therefore we exclude all of them.

"All people who are victims of sexual assault should have access to sexual assault services."
Of course they should. But women, who have been over the years the people who have fought and campaigned for such services should feel completely confident that there will not be a person with a penis and a beard sitting next to them when they need to access the services. A separate room and door for transwomen- fine. Same door and room? Not fine.

misskelly There's arseholes in every community of course, extremists from all walks of life should be stood up to. I'm not saying we pander to people. And we should all take up the issue of male violence together is what I mean, not that feminists are killers, I don't think that.

venusinscorpio I very much agree that people need safe spaces. I read all the time about retreats for women of colour and of certain backgrounds and I think it's a beautiful thing. I'm not saying I have all the answers on this issue, it's tricky, and there would need to be a lot of talking from both communities. But the idea of sharing a public bathroom with a trans woman doesn't bother me at all, we're all just there to pee, so why should I be worried, like a trans woman is inherently threatening, I've never had any reason to think so. I suspect here we will agree to disagree, which is ok with me. As I have previously said, everyone's voice should be heard. But I hadn't heard anyone sticking up for trans women so I wanted to be that voice.

Because transwomen commit violent crimes against women at the same rate as men

Really Sentia? I've honestly never heard that before, do you have a link to any evidence about that?

Sentia - "The ones who are a threat don't come with a warning label, therefore we exclude all of them." That's probably what was said during apartheid and segregation in the American South, albeit in relation to race and not gender.

Incidentally, should transmen not be allowed to use men's bathrooms as men might attack them? I only ever see people saying vile things about transwomen in these kind of discussions.

I do come from a different perspective since many, if not most, sexual assault centers and domestic violence shelters in the US serve women and men, including transgender people.

Research continues on why people feel uncomfortable in their bodies. Body dysmorphia expresses itself in many ways and for many reasons.

One can be sympathetic to people who have strong desires to be physically different, but since science was mentioned, science has to be objective and can't be swayed by entirely subjective testimony. Trans women say they are the same as women , they are not. Trans people say they are vulnerable, they should undoubtedly be protected, but not in women's spaces.

But you're not taking on board all the points, Mermaid. It won't just be trans women that can access female sex segregated spaces as there won't be any protection. And very many women are going to be uncomfortable with that.

Let's be clear here:
I have no fear of nor qualms about the three transgender people I know reasonably well: two born M, one F.
I know them to be decent, gentle, thoughtful, talented people.
I am glad that all three are happier now that they can express what they feel to be their true selves.
I wish I felt it possible to have a genuine conversation with any one of them about why they feel so strongly that they must 'live as' the opposite gender, in one case almost to the point of caricature (short skirts and heels on a cold wet beach? Why, just why? Everyone else was wrapped up in the entire floor stock of Mountain Warehouse).

But if an unknown person starts waving his dick around a female changing room, yep, that gives me concern, and rightly so.