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."

But they won't be able to refuse a transwoman on the grounds that they only want to be treated by a woman. I think it's an incredibly important principle- whichever side of the debate you re on.

You can refuse anyone for any reason. Whether that's in the best interests of your own overall health or not is something else.

But for women who are unhappy with mixed sex wards etc I can only think we should make provision for people who identify as female but are not biologically female to have their own space.

I think this should definitely apply to sports too, in the same way the Paralympics is careful to exclude people with my kind of disabilities because I'd have an unfair advantage over someone who is an amputee or whatever.

You're missing the point. Under the new legislation, men can declare they're women, and that's it. They're a woman.

If you're in the maternity ward, and struggle with intimate exams, and someone you know (they're a neighbour) to be pre op trans, has to give you one, you can't refuse on the grounds they have a penis and you've seen them dressed like a man many times. They are a woman . You can request someone else, but you'll never know if they're cis, planning to have the op or happy with their penis. I think that's madness.

So you don't agree with the recommendations of the Transgender Equality report?

Microferret- I so adore that man!

Shame about his rather unfortunate love life.............

Uh no, I don't agree with those recommendations! Is this thread helping you answer the question in your subject line?

I'm just finding it very difficult to reconcile various of my own conflicting beliefs about things.

Buffy - "And more complex still in this truth-power relationship is that males with penises aren't being asked to accept this truth about 'straight' transwomen in quite such a... personal and bodily way. IYSWIM?"

Oh, I do indeed see what you mean! It's a case of asking "cui bono, (or if not exactly "benefiting") whose lives in contrast get to trundle on entirely unaffected by this brave new world, and who gets the fuzzy end of the lollipop yet again..."

I've forgotten the name of it - but what was that "language" that was used in the 40s and 50s whereby gay men could recognise one another and interact in a time when homosexuality was illegal? I'm seeing parallels with your imagined world.

Matilda I think you mean polari. It's kind of intermingled with cockney rhyming slang, carney, butchers back slang,and other forms of slang that were meant to throw off the authorities.
I can invision lesbian culture being forced underground again.

Polari, Matilda?

In NHS clinics and wards, there simply often isn't an alternative HCP available. So the 'just ask for someone else to do your smear' argument doesn't really hold water I don't think. Also, if you've waited weeks for an appointment sand taken time off work etc, do you really want to have to do the same again to come back another time? Or would you just get on with it and then feel violated? Or would you leave and not bother to come back because you'd been made to feel like a bigot? Or would you ask for someone female and have to wait for them to become available, thus holding everyone else who was waiting up?
It isn't as simple as just ask for someone else

But, and is this really a straw man? How can you uphold rights of trans people to work without accepting there may be occasions when you encounter one in this sort of scenario? The right to a chaperone is enshrined but nobody can offer an inviolable right to access any HCP of the biological sex of your choice at your convenience.

I get the objections I really do, I just don't see how it isn't already covered by existing measures. Other than patients not feeling they have sufficient power to advocate for themselves which is a bigger problem in itself.

I know that a patient can refuse treatment from any HCP for any reason, but if they do so on discriminatory grounds would they get another? I didn't think that was the case unless it was wanting someone of the same sex. So if I don't want to be treated by a black doctor then I won't be but I don't get to demand a white one. Am I mistaken?

What I don't understand is if it was considered necessary for laws to be written that give people the right to have another person of the same biological sex do intimate exams and perform personal care how it can just be thrown out without any discussion?

How can it be necessary to have segregated by sex changing rooms, refuges, prisons, bathrooms and then it isn't?

How can it be considered transphobic for someone to not want to have sex with someone of the opposite biological sex from his/her preference? Sexual attraction for the majority of people is specific to the other person being a specific biological sex. I'm not bisexual but I'm fairly certain if I was and I thought I was about to have sex with a man and then found out I was in bed with a woman I wouldn't think "oh well, whatever."

It's like being Alice where the laws are being changed by the White Queen.

“There's no use trying,” she said: “one can't believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven't had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”.

Because somewhere along the line sex has been replaced by gender.

It was a horrible horrible thing to force people into a gender, John Money's studies showed this. I'm glad things are changing. But I remain confused by pretty much all of it.

I'm totally up for throwing out gender stereotypes. I'm not supportive of a trans supportive Trojan horse which increases risk for women and female children.

Why would anyone want to do that though? It's easy enough to enact violence against women and girls and get away with it. Why put yourself through the trouble of acquiring a whole new gender?

If the proposed changes to gender recognition happen there will be no trouble.
"I'm a woman"
"Oh ok then, in you come."
Cue changing room of naked women and girls looking startled as say, Boris Johnston walks in.

Rapist being sentenced in court.
"I'm a woman."
Female prison it is then.

that just doesn't sound plausible does it, we will have to make separate provision for people who are not biologically women but identify as female

incidentally when they evaluate people for gender affirming surgery in prison they already make sure they aren't doing it to gain access to the women’s prison for sexual predatory reasons - in California anyway, hopefully most places

devilinmyshoes - read the response to the trans enquiry. The UK government response.

Under the existing GRA, it was very tough to acquire a new gender devil, and I agree that women and girls are at very little risk from it. It's worked well.

But TG activists have argued that it's humiliating to have to have a doctor and a lawyer assign them a new gender. Which is where the new self-identification proposals come in. And under those, as I posted above, anyone can just say they're whatever gender they like.

If you google voyeurism in mixed cubicle changing rooms in swimming pools, there are numerous recent prosecutions of men using their phones under or over doors. Allowing those self-same men access to single sex changing rooms is putting women and girls at massive risk.

It is not troublesome to acquire a new gender under the proposed legislation. This is a woman in America. To acquire her new gender, s/he has done nothing to change appearance, clothing or anything else, beyond insisting people use female pronouns and call her Danielle.

It seems insane but if the GRA is updated, this could happen here. And women wouldn't be able to do a damn thing about it.

that just doesn't sound plausible does it, we will have to make separate provision for people who are not biologically women but identify as female

That's not what the activists are fighting for though. They don't want their own space, they want to be in the women's space.