Is it actually possible to be a feminist and completely embrace trans rights?

[BertrandRussell]

Because I am beginning to think that i will never be able to say anything about trans issues without being accused of being transphobic.

It seems to me that in some cases trans rights are just incompatible with women's rights. Obviously then, someone has to step aside- and if I want the ones stepping aside to be transwomen then I am being, I suppose, transphobic.

So has the time come for feminists to say to trans women "I support you to live the life you want to. I will stand up to and with you against people who abuse you and are violent to you. I will call you what you want to be called. I will defend your employment rights, your right to housing and any other "social" service. I will defend your right to appropriate medical treatment. In fact, I will defend you and support you in anything up to the point where your rights conflict with and take precedence over the rights of women. From that point, my allegiance is with women.

If this causes you to call me transphobic so be it. I will continue to support you up to that point regardless."

I also see that the committee is consulting with Mermaids. Which women's groups, if any, are they consulting with? Does anyone know? Or is it all being dictated by Mermaids?

I know but if a chaperone or an alternative HCP isn't a good enough solution what do you propose?

The point is that if the recommendations of the transgender equality report become law, a woman who only wants to be treated by a woman will not be able to refuse a transwoman- even if she presents as male

But you can refuse anyone, and should be offered and can always request a chaperone, whatever the gender of the HCP

Is this report the final version Bertand? This report now has my full attention

Where did you get the idea that you can't refuse any given HCP?

I saw this recently, and it sums up my feelings on this whole subject - we must be kind, but not at the expense of the truth

You'll like this, Bertrand

Devil, the problem is the trans woman HCP's belief that they are a woman will be allowed to trump the right of the woman patient to believe that they are not. I'm sure we wouldn't get to the scenario of the treatment being forced on the woman, but what if the transwoman then claimed they'd been discriminated against? Would the trust be opening themselves up to legal action? how would that be dealt with?

I understand that the parallel at the moment is that someone with, erm, unpleasant views on race could be allowed to request treatment from someone of the same race, but it will probably go down in their notes as being difficult or obstructive. Would the same happen with women requesting a born-female HCP?

hah, x-post with Buffy who makes a wider point and makes it better. I'm oppressed by that

"Where did you get the idea that you can't refuse any given HCP?"

Of course you can. And the vulnerable, the scared, the frail and the very elderly find that really easy..

If those recommendations become law, then a woman's request for another woman to bring her a bedpan and wipe her bottom could theoretically result in her getting a 6 foot bearded person with a penis......and there is nothing she could do about it because that person identifies as a woman. I accept that this is unlikely- but I don't want it to be even theoretically possible

"I don't understand what is wanted here!"

For women to be able to say that they do not want someone with a male body to be dealing with their intimate care without being treated like a bigot, and without the law backing up that view.

Buffy - when you wrote "or the idea of gender as innate will be dominant, and supported by neuroscientific studies designed to demonstrate this, in the way that other social forces like racism and sexism have been, in the past 'proved' by scientific studies." That's the crux of the matter, and what makes it scary. (I used to joke with my students that if they wanted a one-sentence sound-bite, it was that in essence Bacon said "knowledge gives you power", Foucault says "power lets you define what counts as knowledge".)

But fortunately I think there is a very powerful counterforce to social construction of this brave new world, and that's actually sexual attraction, hence the wider implications of the "cotton ceiling" than simply its rapey overtones. I'm afraid I'm going to be lazy and C&P what I put on another thread:

even if one were to concede your claim that the cotton ceiling is a political issue rather than a personal one (which I don't: I have read enough first person accounts by trans activists to know that they want to pester lesbians into having sex with them) it is still problematic.

Excuse me if I cast this in terms of MTT because I'm heterosexual. Suppose the younger me, aged about 30, is clubbing and starts to make out with a good looking, if rather slender and androgynous looking bloke. We go home together. It gets to the point of taking trousers and pants off. I am confronted with a vulva. Is my reaction:

1. that's of no more relevance than the issue of finding a penis which might or might not be circumcised - genitals come in all sorts of external appearances;

2. Hell no, that's not what I signed up for here;

3. Oh god, my instinctive reaction is no, but that makes me a transphobe, oh god I'm a bad person?

My feeling is a tiny minority might genuinely feel (1). Well over 90% of us would feel (2). Even understood as a political claim rather than a personal one, the cotton ceiling rhetoric is a concerted attempt at social engineer designed to try to gas light as many women as possible in that 90% plus into feeling (3) rather than (2).

So even understood as a political claim, it's still fucking offensive. (And it also shows why trans activists are so keen on the idea - because the fact that most of the human race's sexuality leads them to think along the lines of (2) when confronted with an unexpected vulva or penis when they were expecting the opposite is precisely why actually the whole idea that transwomen are women in every important sense of the word is such an obvious crock of shit - the emperor really has no clothes on).

Adding a bit to that, I'd say that's why social construction will flounder on this one - while I'd be the first to admit there's a huge socially constructed part to sexuality, there's also a massive biological imperative there too - and on that level, you just aren't going to persuade most of the population that genitals don't matter.

It's such a specific and let's face it likely very rare occurrence, and that vulnerable patients find it hard to advocate for themselves is a much wider and more serious problem than all these imaginary trans people examination our minges.

"It's such a specific and let's face it likely very rare occurrence"

It doesn't matter how rare it mioght be though, if it's enshrined in law then for far too many women that's going to be a big enough theoretical risk. Given how many women are already scared to go for routine smear tests I can't see how it is in any way something to be shrugged off. The last thing we need os more women going and getting checked out because of an additional fear. These women need to know that the law is protecting them.

*more women not getting checked out

Oh right. So you've gone from "no problem- just ask for another HCP" to "It's so unlikely it's not worth thinking about"

How about a man being in the next bed to you on a hospital ward devil? That's a much more likely scenario. Again, if he says he identifies as a woman, he would be entitled to be there. And you would be racist Auntie Gladys

It's not not worth thinking about, I think there's a limit to how much consideration I want to give it! Extreme sympathy with the concerns about vulnerable patients (I am one, I've opted out of screening because I can't cope with intimate exams) but if you accept the trans people have a right to practise then we will have to make sure anyone uncomfortable with that knows their rights to request a chaperone or an alternative HCP.

Single sex wards are v recent! I was in hospital fairly recently and our so called single sex ward wasn't really, but we did have our own rooms. But many of the staff are male.

"but if you accept the trans people have a right to practise"

So, as far as you are concerned, trans people's right to work in medicine must mean that women are no longer to choose to have a female bodied HCP?

How about trans people still work in medicine but that it's not seen as transphobic or bigoted for a woman to ask for TW not to deal with any intimate exams? Is that really such an awful ask?!

But they haven't got a right to request an alternative HCP. They can request a woman- and have to accept a transwoman.

How about the hospital bed scenario?

Oh I didn't mean to say women don't have the right to refuse, I think if anything I meant to say patients should be encouraged to know and exercise their right to refuse treatment, to ask for another HCP, to be chaperoned.

Where do you get the idea that a patient must accept a transwoman?

Well I've been in mixed sex hospital wards, I don't know if I'm just really old or live in some rural backwater (both) but it's quite new to me to be in single sex wards. I haven't caught up with the concept yet.