Mixed sex wards and trans women.

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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?

Teachers encouraged me just as much, professionally I am treated as an equal. We have it better than ever.

Me too, pink. But being a feminist isn't all about me - at some point I realised that things simply aren't as rosy for all women, and 'I'm all right, Jill' doesnt wash.

TheMortificadosDragon reminds me off Donald, ...and some are good people.

Pink

Are you quite young? You talk about the early 90s being a long time ago (for me it feels like five minutes) and talk about teachers treating you in a certain way.

TheMortificadosDragon - what's your point? Some men have it really bad, too. Girls vastly outperform boys at school. Should all men suddenly band together in menism?

We have legitimate issues that we need to address, but not in this way.

think you might have got my 'some' arse about face but if so proves my point about being careful about wording.

Mid 20s (I did also talk about starting a job and being promoted).

The early 90s were a long time ago....! Not sure how that relates to age.

Pink you have not answered my question. How do you think the NHS should deal with transgender patients?

I'll answer your question. I would not wish a life of medical treatment on anyone. Males that undergo bottom surgery have a life of dealing with an open wound which requires daily dilation.

Well someone who is younger does probably think it's a long time ago. Someone who is older will less so.

If 20 years is 80% of your life span, it's a looong time. If 20 years is 40% of your life span it's much less so.

And in this context I dare say Datun remembers a time when it was much more challenging to be a woman. Something I don't.

Ironically, I remember thinking "can't be doing with victim feminism, I'm doing alright, look where I've got to" when I was a young woman. That was back in the 80s and 90s! Now I've watched how women are systematically disadvantaged because of our biology, watched friends lose jobs when they got pregnant (because there's a cap on unfair dismissal claims for sex discrimination, and some employers see it as a price worth paying), sat in on police interviews with friends who've been raped and seen how they've been treated... oh, and 46 fucking years after the equal pay act my union is taking my equal pay claim through the courts. I think I grew up some time between the 90s and now. Maybe pink will do the same over the course of the next 20 years.

kua I don't know, I am not an expert on this, nor have I read into it.

Well yes, I assume there are deep psychological issues involved.

The early 90s were a lifetime or more ago to someone in their 20s. But for some of us, at the point marital rape was made illegal, were already married. Since then, I suppose we all thought that the changes would all continue in a positive direction - which is why now, the risk of erosion of womens rights in various ways which are emerging at the moment are deeply concerning us.

When you interviewed Pink, did the interviewer ask if you were married, or had a steady boyfriend, or if you were thinking of starting a family?

The reason he/she didn't is because the legal framework that feminists fought for - for bloody years - makes it illegal.

However, what you won't be able to stop them from doing is wondering about it. Then interviewing a man and speculating over who might leave first and why.

We still have a long way to go.

Males that undergo bottom surgery have a life of dealing with an open wound which requires daily dilation

That's not exactly true. It needs taking care of but not daily dilation. Once a week at most as time goes by.

Ah, I never thought that all MtF would have full surgery but I did think at the least they would have chemical castration?

Anyhow, I'm 40, the 90s do seem a lifetime away but interestingly the regression we are experiencing, as women, feels more recnt, about fauve years old maybe. Obv this is all personal experience.

I still can't get past the idea that a person self identifying as a woman feels scared on the male ward but doesn't get why I'd be scared of them on the female ward.

*recent
*five

What is autocorrect doing when i actually need it?!

Happy to be corrected Ego but a friend who has recently gone through this procedure 9 months ago is having to do it daily. No doubt they'll be relieved when they don't have to do it as often.

However, I stand by stating that I would not wish a family member or friend having to deal with an open wound for the rest of their lives.

Lorelei76

I agree entirely about people simply not knowing. This law will allow a fully intact man who is attracted to women access vulnerable women and children anywhere, based on how he feels.

It needs to keep being said.

kua

That tip on replacing feminist with woman is very good. Gets to the root pretty quickly.

M0stlyHet - yup, I proudly proclaimed that my student union was regressive and sexist in having a women's officer because there was no need for one in the late 1990s...

Perhaps as women gain equality the moment of realisation that we still have so far to go is pushed further back for most women and girls? So girls who always knew that they weren't going to receive an education beyond the age of 15/16 but their brothers did would have realised at a much earlier age than now where on paper it all looks rosy but the glass ceiling is being inched up slowly but is still very much evident, particularly in senior roles.

(BTW Pink, patriarchy doesn't mean that in every circumstance Random Man will do better than Random Woman, such as your example of getting a promotion over your male colleague.)

I thought things were fine for women in the early 80s, starting a chemisty PhD ... well, they were for me, I hadn't been inconvenienced by being the only girl in my A level maths and physics sets and one of two in double maths ...it hadn't occurred to me to think why. And here we are in the 21st century and half of 6th forms still have no girls taking physics.

PinkRad - As others have pointed out, its easy to think there are no barriers in your early 20s. Wait until you get into your 30s when you (maybe) and your peers start having kids. When you're on the 'mummy track' and being leapfrogged by younger, less able male colleagues or getting over the shitty postnatal care you received, feel free to hop in your time machine and come back to apologise. There are stages in your life when sex (not gender!) inequality suddenly comes into sharp relief. Its so much easier to be a 'fun' libfem, all peace & love, when you are younger and have seen fewer examples of glaring discrimination.

I don't disagree that there are areas we need to work on. But this can be done rationally and factually. Not bitter angrily. Not demonizing men (and even if it isn't meant so, it sounds so). There are some countries (Nordic) where this is already much better, use those as examples. I am not saying there are no issues, I am saying one should go about it in a certain way. E.g. that boss, may well be a woman, not a man, discriminating against you because you chose to become a mother.

You almost sound as if you want PinkRad to have a hard time so you can be proved right.

I am a mother. It did not affect my career. I don't know what "the mummy track" is.

Inb4 one example doesn't prove anything.