Mixed sex wards and trans women.

[sarsleypage]

I've opened a new account as the old one was too full of personal bits and someone could've connected the dots.

I am a medical student and we have a diversity lecture coming up, so I had a look at the LGBT slides. A lot of this seems to focus on trans.

I got curious about the requirements for sex-segregated wards, as I know this has been an issue for a while. Women want single-sex wards, both on wards for physical illness and those for mental illness, because they see themselves as vulnerable to abuse from men, especially whilst ill.

Fine. Nobody seems to oppose this, and it's become a requirement in pretty much all hospitals.

And then you see this: uktrans.info/attachments/article/5/trasngender_booklet_low%20res.pdf

"• Trans people should be accommodated according to
their presentation: the way they dress, and the name
and pronouns that they currently use.
• This may not always accord with the physical sex
appearance of the chest or genitalia;
• It does not depend upon their having a gender
recognition certificate (GRC) or legal name change;
• It applies to toilet and bathing facilities (except, for
instance, that pre-operative trans people should not
share open shower facilities); "

There's an example in the leaflet of a young female nurse refusing to wash a trans person because it was against her religion. This is held up as an example of trans discrimination.

I am struggling to square this away with feminism. In fact, I don't think it does square. Women have fought for this segregated space, based on female sexual characteristics (not a preference for make-up, long hair, but XY/vaginas/generally smaller in stature and weaker). But now, apparently, if you decide you feel like a woman, you're entitled to be on a woman's ward when women are at their most vulnerable.

It means if you're sectioned under the mental health act and a trans woman with a penis is on the ward, you have no legal argument to get them removed to make you feel safer.

How is this right?

Cote
I agree, calling them male is so much easier (and more truthful) - I just wasn't quite sure what might get my posts deleted!

YY, joystir. Originally I was happy to respect pronouns but my journey of discovery has hardened my position. I have never considered transwomen to be women but didn't want to hurt their feelings.

Now I have come to understand how misogynistic and homophobic is the trans agenda, and that a tiny group of what used to be called transsexuals - men with very severe sex dysphoria - which received widespread and understandable compassion, has been hugely enlarged by the addition of the far more common phenomena of part time cross-dressers and sundry fetishists. The transsexuals who feel compelled to have genital surgery make up only 20% of the total of transwomen. The 80% who keep their penis include the group that pose a potential threat to women.

Males with AGP are not women in any sense. Fetishes are almost unknown among women. Many of us have, however, been the subject of sexual assault. DV and rape. We are taught from childhood to be wary of men when we are in a vulnerable position, so loos, changing rooms and, yes, hospital. Further than that, women are blamed for not being wary enough, for "putting themselves in danger". Expecting, even demanding, that we override our fears for the sake of some bloke's special gender identity is completely outrageous.

Cote

I made the mistake of clicking on some of those links. God, it's depressing. Is that truly representative of most transwomen?

Whatever those people are searching for, it's emphatically not womanhood in any sense of what it means to me.

Their pursuit of a hyper feminine, sexualised identity is obsessive. And loaded with misogyny. This man who works with older women...

Man you cannot believe the ugly women that I have to deal with in a daily basis. Their legs so ugly, their breasts terrible and so on, so on. So far I haven't found a single woman that I have felt envy with. So of course if you compare yourself with a twenty year old girl you will be in total disadvantage, but they age real bad...

Someone born with XY chromosomes is, and always will be, male. They can present in a 'feminine' way, they can undergo 'sex change' to approximate to female and be legally recognised as such, but they will always be a male.

It's biological reality.

Yup. I'd love that person to be my HCP, examining my post childbirth body or administering HRT for my post menopausal body. Or doing my mammogram.

Because he evidently understands women, because, you know, he is one...

Personally I don't think an HCP needs to be the same sex as their patient to do their job well. I've had intimate exams from women doctors, as well as men, that have been equally painful or unsympathetic.

It's not proficiency, or otherwise, which is causing the debate.

Bartholin
For me it's not about doing the job well - I'm sure there are many male HCPs who are excellent at vaginal exams, etc. It's more about the fact that having a male I'm not in an intimate and trusting relationship with in contact with my genitals and/or other usually covered areas, makes me feel violated, panicked, and sick to my stomach.
It's unfortunate, but there it is. And a male who's got on makeup and women's clothing is still, undeniably, a male.

I'm not interested in debating a right already won, such as whether women should have the right to request a female HCP for intimate stuff.

I'm kind of preoccupied with making sure our government doesn't formalise in law the destruction of rights of females so that they can replace them with rights for males who identify as whatever we are now defining womanhood as.
And I'm pissed off at the effort and commitment it is taking just to keep women's rights standing still. Forget progression, feminists are fighting to stop things going backwards, which they already have.

What next - "Voting - are women truly up to the task?"

HairyLittlePoet

I agree. Unfortunately women's rights are already going backwards, as evidenced by one or two previous posters' remarks that they were unable to insist on a female HCP.

Can anyone enlighten me as to how to get womens' voices heard. I see the sentiments on this thread echoed over and over on the Internet, but it simply fails to go up the food chain in any meaningful way.

There must have been a high number of people writing to their MP in advance of the debate on the 1st. But the MPs in the chamber were all of one mind.

I agree with Hairy - lots of third wavers believe that we've won all the major battles for women's rights but they don't seem to realise that we have to keep fighting to maintain them, otherwise there'll be a slow edging back of the line.

I know. I watched the "debate" in horror.

When I can, I send links to MPs who might be able to find common ground with the rights of women. Not everyone is a complete virtue-signaller, and whilst everyone is susceptible to a bit of self congratulatory right-on-ness, everyone has a button to push.

If an MP cares about lesbians, They might, if introduced to the idea, have concerns about the transing of young girls.
If an MP cares about how they are perceived publically and wants to be seen championing the most oppressedest group, you need to convincingly find another group that they consider also oppressedest and set up a conflict that makes them backtrack. (This isn't going to be straight white middle class women, but they might feel awkward about chucking children/minority groups/ etc under the bus)
Not everybody's trigger is logic and reasoned argument (unfortunately) and it's a mistake to exclusively resort to that and ignore methods that work with other people!
There's also blindsiding people - most people if confronted head on during a trans rights conversation have learned to shut down any and all opposition immediately. But at the same time, they hold the entirely contradictory position already that girls and women should have rights and be supported and have their oppression recognised. Sometimes a stealthier approach works, gaining agreement on every point in favour of protecting boundaries for women and girls, ensuring bodily rights, and only once that has been agreed bringing the conflict with trans rights into the discussion.

But it feels like tiny drips compared to the deluge that is Transnami.

lots of third wavers believe that we've won all the major battles for women's rights but they don't seem to realise that we have to keep fighting to maintain them, otherwise there'll be a slow edging back of the line.

YY... except, sadly, I don't think there will be anything slow about it. How fast do you think Trump will roll back Roe vs. Wade, women's right to contraception as part of their occupational healthcare, etc? Then ask yourself what will happen in the UK if Labour alienate their traditional voter base in the north and provide UKIP with a foothold (their new leader, Nutall, has tweets where he has likened women who have abortions to Myra Hindley).

Pink - google "blindfold". This will suggest "blindfold someone" as the search term. Enter this. Read the first page - 7 of the 8 links are clearly related to blindfolding as sexual play. Now come back and tell me that you don't think blindfolding is a common fetish

HairyLittlePoet

I completely agree about picking your arguments. It's why, although I totally understand and agree with the fact that gender identity is a nonsense in and of itself, I'm not sure that argument makes much headway with law makers.

In my letter to my MP I provided a link over the sterilisation of a 12-year-old in the name of trans. And copy and pasted some random, unsavoury comments regarding AGP. Plus the relative ease of obtaining hormones on the black market, among other things.

The links I provided were irrefutable and damning and I purposely kept it succinct. When I re-read my letter, I had to sit on my hands to stop me from typing are you all insane?

And it's all fallen on deaf ears.

Probably not on deaf ears Datun.

My annoying brother once posted a scathing rant online about swing voters and how stupid they were to not be able to commit to a party and make their minds up. And I thought, well, it's the mind changers who end up changing the world when it gets really crap, the people who can change their stance who make lives better for everyone.

Spartacuses are not born, they are made. This whole sex/gender argument is brand new to all of us at one point and many of us didn't start out with a well thought through and reasoned argument.

It's hard to change a swell of public opinion but trends outlive their usefulness and die out as people move on to the next topic. Also, all it takes is something high profile and toxic to become associated with a cause and suddenly people drop it like a hot potato.

Battle is far from over.

That's reassuring Hairy, I hope you're right.

How do you feel about trans women being invited to breast screening?

Breast cancer might be an increased risk on HRT, especially when they develop breasts. I don't know enough about it to have feelings on it. Why?

How do you feel about trans women being invited to breast screening?

If they're on hormone therapy and if that increases their risk to the level at which screening is assessed to be beneficial then obviously yes. They should certainly be advised to self examine - but blokes should too once in a while (their lifetime risk is 1 in 1000 which is low but not negligible). And clearly this is something for which statistics need to be accurately recorded.

From Cote's links...

"The notion that it can be used to say someone is not a "real woman" should die, but the data shows that cis women experience autogynephilia, so its not really that damning of an accusation to begin with. Women like feeling sexy, who knew."

Whaaaaaat?

YetAnother
Ugh. It seems that fetishistic men can't tell the difference between a woman being aroused by a sexual experience or fantasy, and a woman being aroused by merely having a vagina. What a surprise

YetAnotherSpartacus

You wouldn't believe half the contorted delusions being used to minimise autogynephilia. From resolutely denying its existence to the fact that all 'cis' women have it and it's actively 'encouraged' by women everywhere. To the real leap saying that as women like to have a mental image of themselves being alluring in a sexual situation - that's the definition of autogynephilia, so it's fine.

God only knows how I manage to leave the house in the morning, or sit still on the tube if I'm wearing women's underwear. Exhausting isn't the word.

Datun - You wouldn't believe half the contorted delusions being used to minimise autogynephilia. From resolutely denying its existence to the fact that all 'cis' women have it and it's actively 'encouraged' by women everywhere. To the real leap saying that as women like to have a mental image of themselves being alluring in a sexual situation

• sounds like a variation on a typical heterosexual male fantasy to me ... all women are hot, wet, primed and ready to 'go' ....

The overt fetishism on sites where transwomen post makes our point over and over again. The trouble is that it appears the powers that be have swallowed the lie that they're all sexually attracted to men and have all had SRS. The ones that are pose no risk to women. The great majority, however, are essentially cross-dressing heterosexual males who may or may not have had cosmetic surgery, and who pose the same risk in women's spaces as any other man. I suspect they may pose more of a risk in some settings, as fetishizing femininity contains an intrinsic element of boundary violation.

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