Best tweet ever on trans madness

[AssignedPerfectAtBirth]

twitter.com/half_half_lady/status/927434611923341312

Had to post it

Yes love it

brilliant!

''Many socially constructed things have real-world referents. But the language we use and the categories and concepts are in our heads''

Things are real but language we use to name the things is in our heads.... good grief @theDXman, did that sound profound to you when you wrote this?

Don't know where would be the right place to post, but, just returned from local tesco where a very big man (6+foot ish, 15 stone or so) 'dressed' as a woman was working on self service tills. He started some loud suggestive banter with some other women workers there while 'helping' me. I was intimidated. Would he be able to use women't toilets?

Little kids from local schools visit there a lot.

Anyone got any advice? Contacting the store, I will do, although I suspect they'll claim Equalities Act covers him working there.

He shouldn’t be having “suggestive banter” in front of customers regardless of what he is wearing. What was he saying?

Something mild like 'we could all do with a bit' or something. Just it was a bit weird and creepy.

woman11017, what would you be reporting him for, exactly? Wearing a dress? I reckon most feminists would say it's OK for men to wear dresses, and that people shouldn't be fired for not conforming to sex-roles around dress and presentation.

Or did you mean the 'banter' with female colleagues? This is fairly vague, as banter could cover anything from, well, banter, to sexual harassment.

Sorry if this sounds overly interrogative, it's just that your post set off some warning bells for me, in the sense that maybe it's intended to goad some Mumsnetters into saying that men should be reported to their employers for presenting in feminine dress, and presenting it as 'evidence' that we want trans people fired.

If there's more to the story then feel free to elaborate in another thread (as this one pertains to something else).

I can report the inappropriate behaviour, woman If the colleague is transgender though - which is not something which we would have to confirm - they are allowed by law to use the facilities of the gender they identify as. There is no action we could take to change that.

So large man in make up will be using toilets where girls and young women go.

Has anyone else had any experience of challenging this malarkey, especially in supermarkets?

Sorry, X-post.

Something mild like 'we could all do with a bit' or something. Just it was a bit weird and creepy.

I am all for women listening to their instincts when a man comes across as creepy. Our gut feeling on this is NEVER wrong. The problem is that there are many things that men can do to make women uncomfortable, creeped out, etc., while doing nothing officially 'wrong' - or at least, walking a borderline which gives them plausible deniability. I'm not sure what Tesco would do about your complaint - they might warn him (and the women he was 'joking' with) not to engage in sexual banter in front of customers.

DonkeySkin Sorry to disrupt thread, I just wondered if anyone has successfully kept public spaces safe and especially toilets for girls and women. Genuine query, but thanks, I won't disrupt further.

I'll shut up now! The post at 14.40 was tesco reply. It's the law.
Thanks.

Thanks for clarifying, woman11017. I didn't realise your main issue was toilets/change rooms.

Yes, it's really shit, isn't it, that our sex-segregated spaces have been opened up to men - that women and girls lose the right to participate equally in public life in the name of 'equality'. Very Orwellian.

Anyhow, back to the amusing tweet

It is indeed remarkable how easily the pomo 'sex is a spectrum and a metaphysical unknowable' shit falls apart when you apply to any other biological phenomena. And it's ripe for satire, as this tweet shows.

It reminds me a bit of Mary Lou Singleton's remark about her trans-supportive left-wing friends (paraphrasing):

'They will claim that biological sex is fluid and too complex to define, but somehow, when they want eggs, they just know to get hens.'

All these words games around semiotics, intersex conditions etc, are ultimately sophistry in service to a political goal: to deny sex-based oppression by saying that females don't exist.

they are allowed by law to use the facilities of the gender they identify as

That's not quite correct. Actually, there are no laws about which toilets people use at all, any many can go into a women's toilet in the UK, but social convention is that these are sex segregated.

There is a duty for an employer providing facilities to provide sex segregated ones where appropriate though - gender isn't a protected characteristic, only people who have a GRC are covered by it at the moment.

FizzyWaterAndElderflower
Gender reassignment is a protected characteristic now, the Tories changed the Equality Act. People are protected as soon as they decide they want to start the process to apply for a GRC. They dont have to have made any changes.

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/7

@FizzyWaterAndElderflower

As DJBaggySmalls says, you're incorrect. Anyone in the process of transitioning is covered and has been since 2010.

This is one of the weird things I've found about this campaigning, to be honest. People are acting as if suddenly Men are going to be allowed to use the women's toilets IF the changes suggested by the Conservatives actually go ahead, when in reality transwomen (MTF) have been allowed to use women's toilets fully since 2010, in whatever stage of transition they are in. Some of the people around here are still trying to fight a battle that was lost in 2010, and acting like the battle hasn't actually even happened yet.

The fight currently is against self-declaration and self-diagnosis without any medical diagnoses, NOT against diagnosed transpeople using the bathrooms (or other facilities) of their choosing. There's nothing that can be done about that - it's been law for the best part of a decade.

Employers aren't even meant to ask for a GRC legally.

Sorry, I should clarify - you're right mostly regarding that there aren't laws currently protecting bathrooms as single-sex occupancies, HOWEVER there ARE still bathroom laws - as companies find out if they try to stop transwomen from using the bathroom of their choosing (they are taken to court and the companies lose under breaking the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 and the Good Practice Services Guidelines).

Some of the people around here are still trying to fight a battle that was lost in 2010, and acting like the battle hasn't actually even happened yet.

There is currently provision for exemptions, even in the case of GRC, where it is considered proportionate, such as employing an MTF trans as a rape counsellor. They are not generally applied. Part of the feminist campaign will be to strengthen these exemptions. Transactivists want to get rid of them.

It's not just about toilets though. For example prisons cannot refuse to house a TIM in the female estate if they have a GRC:

4.1 Arrangements must be in place to determine the legal gender of all offenders at the first point of contact. This will inform assessments and decisions where binary (male/female) services for offenders are required1. Where legal gender cannot be determined, staff must use the best information available and consult with equality leads where necessary (sources of advice and support are listed in Annex F). Staff must not ask to see a GRC but can request sight of a birth certificate. Where an offender does offer a GRC as form of evidence and identity, they must be treated in the gender identified on the certificate. (from PSI 2016 - Care and management of transgender offenders)

And we know Miller's report recommended getting rid of ALL exemptions for those with a GRC.

And the battle hasn't been "lost". Laws can be changed. This was slipped in under the radar. People don't know that their rights have already been given away. That doesn't mean campaigning and challenging and awareness raising should stop. Quite the reverse. It's more needed than ever.

Christ - I stand completely corrected - I was under the impression that sex based segregation was still legal where there was a demonstrable need, apart from in the case of a GRC..

Well.. that's a bugger.

It is. Changing rooms are given as a specific example in the EA as something which may need to be exempt. The problem is various trans centric guidelines and backlash that organisations get. We need to raise the profile of women as a protected class.

The problem is the vague woolly definitions in the EA.