Glamour Magazine allows transwoman to redefine feminism

[MrsJamin]

Call yourself a feminist? Our transgender columnist Juno Dawson's here to see if you really pass the test

And calls women who don't "TERFs". Thanks, Glamour and Jo Elvin, thanks a lot.

[Datun]

Stats

I'm not shall I do agree. I can't find any reliable statistics for transmen having faced violence in men's bathrooms. If anyone can link some please do.

And I'm not very happy with unisex bathrooms either. Women congregate together for reasons other than just having a pee. It's often a refuge, or sanctuary and women bond and talk. Quite apart from the fact men just can't aim straight.

It's also a slippery slope imo.

Why can't trans people use the accessible toilet ?

[Datun]

*sure

[StatisticallyChallenged]

I did say if they face violence...

[Datun]

Stats. Well of course. But it's always used as massive leverage and I just can't find the stats to support it.

prawn is always good at stats, I'll ask her when she comes back.

[Datun]

OlennasWimple

Ah yes. I get lost down the rabbit hole and end up going round in circles through the entire warren.

[Datun]

Unisex loos also don't stop the large number of transwomen with AGP being in there too.

Just saying.

[StatisticallyChallenged]

I know they don't. I'm just saying I'd rather be sharing with decent blokes who wouldn't contemplate imposing themselves on the ladies, many of whom would speak up against pervy or abusive gits rather than the only guys being the gits and us having no means to evict them.

Properly segregated is first choice

[shins]

Datun yes and it's bullshit that the hormones he's taking are "HRT" as they're not "replacing" anything! Compared to the women I know who had no choice about their awful menopause brought on by chemotherapy

[EmpressOfTheSevenOceans]

This extract from James Juno Dawson's "This Book is Gay" (2014) is doing the rounds on Twitter.

[FreshwaterSelkie]

Juno is a terrible, terrible writer. Never mind the inconsistent bollocks, the extract above makes me want to gouge my eyes out for the prose style alone.

Speak for women? I'm not even sure if Juno speaks English.

[MrsJamin]

Glad to see this thread still going. I'm shocked about the silence from Jo Elvin and Glamour over this. They are f**king over women's rights to safe spaces and happy to compare an infertile woman to a man in a dress. It's making me so angry that they have given Juno a voice. I hope someone in the Glamour office is reading all of this and wondering if maybe we have a point. Good for them if they haven't been impacted by the discrimination towards them on the basis of their biology yet. I can't imagine that they haven't! Do they think we need feminism because people who don't have chihuahuas and wear make up hate people who have chihuahuas and wear make up? This whole thing is bonkers. We need feminism because of biology FFS.

[MrsJamin]

Also: great article in The Independent by Samantha Rea

[Datun]

I know what you're saying stats and Unisex on the surface of it sounds fine but if an AGP was in The cubicle next to you, you would have no idea and nor would anyone else. And they would just be getting off on the very fact that if you're there, if you see what I mean.

[YonicProbe]

Datun

That's not my understanding of the meaning of AGP. AGP is about arousal by oneself,

Many swimming pools have unisex changing rooms with cubicles, often to support mixed sex families swimming, and I think this is fine. I agree properly cubicled unisex is an option.

[Datun]

My understanding of AGP is yes the arousal is of one's self as a woman, but it is enhanced and furthered by being in women's intimate spaces. Many men like to hear women urinate, etc. It's being in a woman's space, that augments the feeling. A poster up thread mentioned one who went down bins to get used sanpro products - that's probably a bit extreme, but it is definitely not confined to the person themselves.

[Datun]

This is prawnofthepatriarchy's post

'Some get a kick out of hearing women using loos, some simulate menstruation, and one particularly bizarre individual dumper dives for used sanpro.'

The stats that I found for AGP sufferers was anywhere between 17% to 80%, depending on which site had the least or most vested interest.

AGP has been historically used to discredit transwomen in general, which is why it's a very contentious topic.

[StatisticallyChallenged]

I'd imagine unisex loos would reduce the turn on for agp compared to the current situation where they do have access to woman's spaces though? That's the thing, at the moment they have access and we still have no idea unless we've seen who goes in to the neighbouring cubicle.

[Datun]

Yes, Stats, it might well reduce the arousal. But, to me, it's the most compelling argument for sex segregation. I had a rather eye-popping half hour, when I first googled AGP. Largely to do with the assertion that ALL women get turned on by their clothes and the fact that it's basically a 'humiliation' fetish. It's not that they necessarily see women in general as 'victims', but the idea of themselves as victims is the turn on.

[SomeDyke]

The writing of Anne Lawrence (an autogynephilic transsexual) is interesting:

annelawrence.com/becoming_what_we_love.pdf

who has also published a book 'Men Trapped in Mens Bodies'. The 'I've got a ladybrain' narrative isn't universal.

And a very interesting link to that survey article from elsewhere (sorry, can't find it at the moment, and I'll admit I gave it only a quick skim), but which seemed to be saying that rather than the simple, male brain/bits of brain - female brain/bits of brain, with trans somewhere in the middle, instead it seemed to be saying trans was not just in between, but distinct. Whether this is innate or neuroplasticity, it definitely is more complicated than the simple ladybrain arguments.

Ah, found it!
Archives of Sexual Behavior
October 2016, Volume 45, Issue 7, pp 1615–1648
A Review of the Status of Brain Structure Research in Transsexualism

One quibble I have with this article, it compares homosexual M2T and homosexual F2T to heterosexual males and females. So in some sense you are seeing a double effect when you make that comparison -- the possible difference between heterosexuals and homosexuals, and a possible difference between homosexuals and transitioners (who by that want to be seen as heterosexual!). Add in the usual small sample sizes and lack of statistical significance in some cases.............

[Twogoats]

The independent article is fantastic! A very good, approachable, response.

[Stuffofawesome]

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/2775504-Why-is-Paris-Lees-speaking-at-Mumsnet-and-are-MN-seeking-Spartacus-tees?pg=1

[SomeDyke]

Having unisex shower spaces doesn't solve the problem though, as they discovered at the University of Toronto:

www.huffingtonpost.ca/2015/10/06/u-of-t-bathrooms-voyeurism_n_8253970.html

It really does seem to be, if transwomen feel safer, that is the preferred solution, even if all of us women have to be a little less safe in order to accommodate that. The only people not disadvantaged one little bit over any of this (and indeed in the U of T case some gained additional 'opportunities') are the menz. What a surprise!

[JedRambosteen]

SomeDyke From your link:

Melinda Scott, dean of students at University College, told campus newspaper The Varsity that some washrooms in the college’s residences will now be separated by gender for “those who identify as men and those who identify as women.”

“At the same time, there remains at least one gender-neutral washroom per floor and per house,” Scott said.

“The purpose of this temporary measure is to provide a safe space for the women who have been directly impacted by these events and other students who may feel more comfortable in a single-gender washroom in the wake of these incidents.”

So still mixed sex showering then...

[SomeDyke]

Yes, still mixed sex/single gender. But at least shows how the non-trans males at least mess it up, and naive applications of unisex washrooms just make more problems than they solve (actually, I don't think they would have solved any here, since I imagine blokes who would try to photograph a woman showering wouldn't have any qualms about trying it with a transwoman as well.)

Plus I'd like to see the usage of the 'gender-neutral' facilities. I'd expect given the history that they'd end up as cis-male only, hence as usual, cis-males wouldn't be disadvantaged by this stupidity one little teeny bit!

Well, they got some of the males out of the womens washroom, they just need to get the rest out...................

[SomeDyke]

I work in male-dominated old university buildings, where a simple count the ladies, count the gents calculation shows that chaps have more loos than us laydees for starters. And I bet that any calls for the introduction of genderless single loos would just mean someone replacing the sign on the front of the single enclosed womens loos that we do have. And as happened in Toronto, cis-males wouldn't be disadvantaged one little bit, they'd just have more places to piss! As they already have in newer buildings where some of the loos are designated as gender-neutral (but women don't use them cos they stink and we all know men can't aim!).