Transwoman using women's loos at work

[CharlieSierra]

I've posted a bit about this over the past few days on the MN response to Spartacus thread in site stuff, but someone suggested I start a new thread about it here.

Earlier this week I was surprised to encounter an apparently male person in the women's loos at work. I understand from a colleague that they have just started the transitioning process, and it appears from all the research I have done that there is no way to avoid them invading our space. It would be discriminatory to prevent them.
We also have showers, presumably the same applies. I plan to take it up with HR, since none of the women in the building were told this could happen, but I haven't managed to speak to anyone about it yet.
I feel angry, powerless, silenced. It's obvious using the next cubicle that they use the toilet as a man would. We will have to adapt our behaviour, hide any discomfort so as not to make them feel uncomfortable. There are unisex accessible loos on every floor, but no, they want to be in ours.

Winchester - apologies, I accidentally misinterpreted that.

Being trans is so on point. It's not at all surprising that the group is accepting.

Actually, it's not invaluable to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Failing to understand that sex is important, gender is nonsense and that the brave battle is to challenge gender stereotyping is very damaging to kids trying to navigate their way in this world.

Stop throwing women under the bus and reinforcing the very notions that have led them to their discomfort in themselves.

It is a hard question to answer because we can't step into their minds. I'm not qualified to answer that I'm afraid. The student I teach always came across as painfully uncomfortable in his skin before he transitioned. I know that's vague but I can't really put it into words. I just thought he was an awkward teenager. He's a different person now.

FirstShinyRobe - who is that directed to?

Lozza: if people are seeking to redefine what I am then they need to come up with a really good reason why I should accept that. They need to come up with a new definition, then they need to justify that new definition.

If they can't do those things, I won't accept it. I'm afraid I have a dog in the fight here, Lozza: it's not just a distant persons feels. It's my life they're changing too. And they can't even articulate it, in the first place? It's not just hard to accept, it's impossible to accept.

Everyone has their sorrows. I accept that they have their sorrows. It doesn't mean that they can redefine who I am and how safe I am.

And then to just say - Oh I couldn't possibly explain, you'd never understand!

NOPE

I sure hated being female when my periods started at age 12 and I realised I had to put up with this shit for the next 40 years or so. I would have given anything to have been born a boy at that moment in time.
I was also realistic enough to know that I was female, no matter how much I didn't want to be.
I just wonder where the disconnect with reality comes in for some people.

Lozza, why doesn't work the other way round? Why is it so hard for some AMAB people who wish they were women to understand that actually being AFAB is something different? That we might still reasonably want the right to name ourselves as a group (we had a name, 'women'), organise ourselves and fight against the effects of being the smaller, child-bearing sex in society, and in the interests of safety have certain spaces free of all AMAB people, trans or not?

Apology accepted - excuse me I ignored that at first.

Noeffing - I should imagine it takes more than periods being an inconvenience to go through gender reassignment. 😁

This is very thought provoking
Physically I have an entire reproductive system that I don't need and it causes me pain and problems
If my breasts don't reduce with my weight I will be reducing them via surgery
Emotionally a couple of tests indicate I have a male brain.
Interesting.

"Why is it so hard to accept that someone else's experience might be completely unfathomable to you, and why is it so hard to accept that the fact that you don't understand it doesn't mean it isn't real?"

Actually, I personally don't have a problem with this, as a statement about other people's beliefs. Which is why my attitude to trans rights is very similar to my attitude to freedom of religious belief. People are free to believe whatever they want (and religious people tell me they have ineffable experiences of the existence of god, and who am I to say that those experiences are not real to them?) Where I draw the line is when it overflows into either expecting me to adjust my beliefs (say the catechism daily, say that I think transwomen are exactly the same as women when for me as a scientist that's biological nonsense), and more importantly when it overflows into the sphere of actions - for instance religious people wanting to curtail access to abortion or contraception, or trans activists insisting I accept people with biologically male bodies into women's spaces.

And the fact remains that belief systems are a bad basis for law. Pointing out that there are people who genuinely experience themselves as being trans does not help the law to distinguish between those people and people "faking it" in order to gain access to women's spaces for the wrong reasons (and there was a whole report by the association of criminal psychologists discussing the likely prevalence of, for instance, men in prisons deciding to transition for spurious reasons - either because women's jails were seen as safer, or because they were sexual predators who wanted to access vulnerable women - their professional opinion was that the threat was quite real, and not limited to just a tiny handful, but rather that quite a lot of predatory males would seek to take advantage of self-identification).

Refractalicious - perhaps not all women attach as much importance to the owership of the term 'woman' as you do?

Nat "Noeffing - I should imagine it takes more than periods being an inconvenience to go through gender reassignment"

Is there a word missing there?,like surgery or treatment? Because otherwise what is gender reassignment? Gender not being a real thing in the first place unless you mean sex?

Surgery or treatment - sorry I was just being lazy.

natweb oh go on then. What would be the 'more' then?

Noeffing - the 'more' would be individual to the person in question but would cause them such utter distress and discomfort that they would be in no doubt that gender reassognment treatment/surgery is a necessary step.

Matilda, where's the like button for your post?

It's not about ownership of the term. Even with a completely new word, supposing we accepted 'AFAB' as the world for the people formerly known as women - do you think 'AFABs' have the right to organise themselves politically, maintain spaces for certain activities free of AMABs, analyse and describe the world as it affects AFABs but not AMABs, endow scholarships for other AFABs, ... ?

Even if we say 'women' is no longer available for that group, the group sitll exists - the group of humans of the sex generally capable of making eggs and bearing young. Would you say that that group is now utterly irrelevant, and that anywhere an AFAB can go any AMAB should always be included too provided they declare that they feel like an AFAB? Because this is what's implied by a lot of the transactivist-driven policy decisions.

Also, what Matilda said.

Nat, do you support self identification then? It sounds like not.
I am not trying to keep on at you btw, I just think there's so much confusing terminology around and I want to be sure I am understanding posters correctly.

Right ladies, it's been emotional but I'm so rock n roll I'm nodding off. Promise I'm not flouncing! 😁 Enjoy the rest of the weekend.

natweb so if it's individual to the person then why wouldn't the 'inconvenience' (lol) of periods be a sufficient reason for one individual to hate being female and to consider transitioning.
That wasn't the point I was making though.
I was just wondering why some people , the majority obviously, can accept their biological reality whilst a few can't.

LozzaChops, your post prompted my post. I just don't see that validating an erroneous concept as being anything about which to be congratulatory.

As WinchesterWoman says, if woman formerly know as women are to be redefined, let us know what you're defining as women. Or maybe, ask us if we're OK with that. This is actually more important that the brexit referendum, but no one has even thought to consider what women think about it.

What is a human who is of the sex capable of bearing young to be called now? It can't be the same as someone with a cock and no uterus. So, if woman includes those people, then what of those who used to be called women?

Come on, people! These are simple questions! I know you don't like the answers, but that's why you need to do a bit more thinking and a little less emoting.

More Feminism is the answer. Get the kids reading gender critiques instead of indulging their beliefs that not wanting to fit into this world of hypergenderisation means that their biology is wrong.

To be honest I don't really buy into labels and terms. I take people as they are. If they're cool I spend time with them if they're an arse I steer clear. I don't give a toss about identity. Sorry if that doesn't make sense. I need my sleep, ha!

Noeffing - perhaps it would. Who knows?