If you're pro Self ID for trans people please could you explain it to me?

[ReluctantCamper]

I have never debated with anyone who's pro self ID because they invariably post 'transwomen are women' on threads and never return.

When I have arrived at a thought out position I'm keen to debate it with others who think differently to test my reasoning - that's how I feel now.

I know we have a number of pro self ID lurkers - anyone feel like explaining to me why it's a good idea?

I promise to carefully read what you say and take it seriously, I don't promise to agree.

Come on, it's my birthday, someone treat me!

Surely the answer to men not conforming to the stereotype of a manly man is to broaden the definition of "man" to give men more ways of being accepted as men. I don't see why changing the definition of "woman" to include non-stereotypical men would be a useful goal.

"I don't think that the world specifically discriminates against women or people with vagina's. I think it discriminates against people who are not "men". And by men I mean people who present as straight and masculine - our stereotypical view of a manly man. So I think anything that enables anyone to live and be accepted and succeed as something other than a "man" is a good thing."

I can see your point here, but I'm not sure that I agree that all the discrimination has the same cause. It may well happen because people are not accepted because they are not straight (white) men. But I think it's not helpful or sensible to lump that all together as one type of discrimination. Feminine men are discriminated against for different reasons than women, and also for different reasons than non-feminine gay men.

"I don't agree with feminists who fight for "womens' rights". I think we should be fighting for rights and equality for all people, and that within that fight we must recognise that there are groups (BAME, women, disabled, trans, gay and many others) who have been historically denied rights and therefore need more action to get them equal rights."

So do you also criticise movements that only focus on one of those elements, and lobby them to be inclusive of all other groups as well? So disability action groups must spend as much time and effort campaigning against racism and homophobia as they do campaigning against disability discrimination?

I think that the majority of discrimination that women face is down to the social construct of gender rather than biology. I don't see that Thatcher's premiership was a triumph for feminsim becasue she gained power by acting like a stereotypical man, as have many women in the recent past. I want to build a future where stereotypically feminine traits are celebrated as well as streotypically masculine traits, and I feel that the feminist agenda which insists on biological sex as being the key differentiating factor can only be detrimental to that.

Again, I can see your point here. I do wonder about how aborting female babies or abandoning them at birth is to do with their gender and not their sex. Also how rape and coercive control of reproduction is a rooted in gender and not sex?

I also have an issue with the misandry prevalent in SOME of the anti-trans voices ( I do recognise that not all people who are against self-id are anti-trans but there are many) Yes, men as a class commit the vast majority of violent crimes. But that doesn't mean that any individual man is more likely than any individual woman to be violent.

Does it not? Surely it does? Mathematically it must do, unless I'm not understanding it correctly here.

We rightly abhor assumptions about an individual on the basis of race, but seem happy to do it on the basis of genitalia (and saying that woman have had assumptions made about them for years is true but doesn't excuse the same behaviour they other way). I know transwomen who could show far more empathy towards victims of violence in a woman's refuge than I could, and to blanket ban them from ever being able to so just because they used to have penises seems wrong to me.

A transwoman could easily show more empathy towards victims of violence. But if they then cannot understand that those women might not want them to, then they are not being empathetic enough. If their desire for validation overrides an awareness that male-bodied people might be unwelcome for valid reasons, then that's not on. Places like women's refuges and rape crisis centres must retain the right to have single sex workers for the benefit of their service users.

Having said that, I do recognise (as do many of the saner voices on the self-ID side of the debate) that there are extreme viewpoints on the trans side as well and some of the crap they spout is , well, crap. An individual lesbian who doesn't fancy an individual transwomen is no more transphobic that I am racist for admitting that actually, Idris Elba doesn't appeal to me. And I do think that any person should have the right to refuse medical treatment from any other person based on anything they want without being accused of being phobic or "ist" but I don't think the right to refuse treatment based on a particular characteristic should be enshrined in law - that's state sanctioned discrimination.

I don't think women are asking for the right to discriminate to be enshrined in law. I think women are asking for the right not to be convicted of a hate crime if they state the reason why, and ask for someone of the same sex.

I think there needs to be control over who can take part in sports - but I would prefer to see that based on scientific evidence of unfairness such as levels of hormones or measured muscle density rather than the genitalia someone had at birth.

The overlap between women and men in terms of physical strength etc measures is so small that it makes sense to use sex as a category. If you look at skeletal structure, lung capacity, heart size, bone density, muscle mass, limb length, height, arm span, hand size, hormones and so on I'd be astounded if you ever had anything other than a split by sex.

I'm not asking your to believe that. I fully respect that you don't.

I think our approach is just different - you think the solution is for everyone with different needs/experiences to be separated into spaces where those needs can be met because we can't as yet create a single safe space for everyone and we need to keep vulnerable groups safe until we can.

I think we should be aiming to create that single safe space for everyone where what we define oursleves as doesn't matter a jot and everyone should have the right to define themslevss as anything. And that the best way to get it is just to create it, and then put in place measures within that space to protect vulnerable people within it.

I do accept that as a white middle class educated woman living in a liberal area I am safer in that shared space than most and that might influence my perception of how close we can get to my utopian ideal.

I want to build a future where stereotypically feminine traits are celebrated as well as streotypically masculine traits, and I feel that the feminist agenda which insists on biological sex as being the key differentiating factor can only be detrimental to that.

How? Genuine question. I really want to understand the other side!

I'd rather see a world where people have spaces and services based on sex segregation to meet male and female biological/physical/health/medical/social needs, but where we are all able to style our hair however we like; wear the clothes we choose; pursue the interests we want; present however we like - masculine women/feminine men etc free from restrictive gendered expectations and without ridicule or discrimination.

But I don't think we need to pretend that women are men and men are women in order to achieve this.

I have no issue with a man wearing a dress, or painting his nails. But I do have an issue if that man starts saying that he is as much of a woman as me, if not more so because I don't do those things.

I have no issue with a man wearing a dress, or painting his nails. But I do have an issue if that man starts saying that he is as much of a woman as me, if not more so because I don't do those things.

But even then, a man who says that he is as much/more of a woman than me can't cause me any harm, or impact on me negatively, unless the law is rewritten to mean that he is now a woman just because he says so.

When you argue for transrights to safety and protection, I don't think you'll find a single person on here who disagrees with you. But why do we have to say that they are women in order to provide that protection?

If success was only tied to the straight male stereotype then we would expect to see butch lesbians in more positions of power than we would gay men. But we don’t.

The very fact they want it so badly, makes me nervous.

Yes. And the fact they are so violently aggressive towards the class of people they say they most identify with.

If they regard themselves as 'one of us', why don't they behave like it?

I do accept that as a white middle class educated woman living in a liberal area I am safer in that shared space than most and that might influence my perception of how close we can get to my utopian ideal.

Well, if we're talking utopian ideals then we can do away with sex segregation altogether because we wouldn't need any safe spaces because no man would ever pose a risk to any woman.

But back in the real world...

An individual lesbian who doesn't fancy an individual transwomen is no more transphobic that I am racist for admitting that actually, Idris Elba doesn't appeal to me.

This misses the point. It is not about fancying individuals. It is about lesbians being told that if they say they do not fancy people with penises they must exclude transwomen from that preference. They must accept all transwomen as prospective sexual partners even if they have male genitalia. This is no less homophobic than men who see lesbians as women who ‘just haven’t met the right man yet’.

I'm not asking your to believe that. I fully respect that you don't.

I think our approach is just different - you think the solution is for everyone with different needs/experiences to be separated into spaces where those needs can be met because we can't as yet create a single safe space for everyone and we need to keep vulnerable groups safe until we can.

I think we should be aiming to create that single safe space for everyone where what we define oursleves as doesn't matter a jot and everyone should have the right to define themslevss as anything. And that the best way to get it is just to create it, and then put in place measures within that space to protect vulnerable people within it.

I do accept that as a white middle class educated woman living in a liberal area I am safer in that shared space than most and that might influence my perception of how close we can get to my utopian ideal.

I think you are being woefully naive.

If our government and politicians have such disregard for the thousands (eventually probably millions) of women who have concerns about self ID why do you think they will give a shit about vulnerable groups who make up nowhere near 51% of the population?

An individual lesbian who doesn't fancy an individual transwomen is no more transphobic that I am racist for admitting that actually, Idris Elba doesn't appeal to me.

Lesbian is a sexual orientation, not a preference. A lesbian is a person of the female sex who is attracted solely to other people of the female sex. Lesbians don't do men, male people or penises. Sexual orientation is a protected characteristic. To imply it's only OK on an 'individual' basis for a lesbian to not be attracted to a transwoman is deeply homophobic.

everyone should have the right to define themslevss as anything

Except lesbians, apparently.

And I am also a white, middle class, educated women living in a liberal area.

I kind of resent the implication that anyone who isn't pro self ID must be uneducated and closed minded...

Yes PencilsInSpace orientation rather than preference. I think if I’d have written ‘oriented away from penises’ it would have sounded weird though :)

I think the issues are not the issues ifykwim.

OF COURSE they are the issues. Does nobody have any historical knowledge at all of how women's rights to set their own boundaries and of statutory safeguarding procedures came to be?

They came to be through indefatigable women who were demonised by the wider population - just as so-called TERFs are today - who won tiny little bits of ground at a time. Such was the opposition, their progress was painfully slow and the protections we have now took the best part of a century to achieve. A century FFS.

They came to be through many crises that abuse scandals generated, with Jimmy Savile just being the most recent example. Safeguarding obligations on orgs, businesses and institutions only came into being because the blood and suffering and abuse of thousands of women and children became public after years of cover ups. Because everyone, if ever given the choice, just turned away. Only huge scandals forced change.

And you say the issues are not the issues. Jesus. We lose what we've got and it will take another century of abused women and children and another dozen horrendous scandals to get it back.

And I am also a white, middle class, educated women living in a liberal area.

Me too and it hasn't prevented me being oppressed by consequences of my biology. (mother of a disabled child who is very much not a social construct).

I really hope some of the earlier pro self id people come back and I hope that MrsMcGarry answers some of the questions/responds to some of the points made.

Largely because I cannot get my head around the pro self id thinking at all and I'd really like to at least understand it, even if I don't agree with it. What I find frustrating is when a statement is made and then not backed up. So questions it raises are left unanswered and points made are ignored or replied to with fluffy ideals that still don't address the very real concerns. I get you how you think it should be but what about how it is.

I can only assume that it is because people don't have an adequate response to them.

I do accept that as a white middle class educated woman living in a liberal area I am safer in that shared space than most and that might influence my perception of how close we can get to my utopian ideal.

I think the word utopian used here signifies a lot. Utopian ideals aren't a lot of use in the real world when we have to create legislation that actually protects people and doesn't rely on everyone sharing one space and all being lovely to each other.

Well hope away. Because when you start referring to "they", calling me naive, or homophobic, or see criticism that really isn't there, or saying that my unwillingness to argue is because I can't because obv you are right I give up.

And I have to go to my second session of the day of knocking on doors to persuade them not to reelect Tories.

Will you use the same logic when you're canvassing and give up if people ask you questions?

This is one of the most interesting genuine discussions I've yet read on self ID, where people on both sides of the debate are able to share and explain things from their POV. Thank you.

It does rather beg the question of why they aren't clamouring to be nail technicians or cleaners or secretaries or any of the other 'typically female' jobs that don't provide access to semi/fully naked, vulnerable women.

One reason would be that there are no barriers to holding those jobs: the issue the TRAs are engaging with is the few reserved sex protected/biological women only spaces because those are currently not open to TIM. (Or shouldn't be under current law.) There is a drive to break those barriers down for TIM by removing those reserved spaces and replacing it with self ID. Any man who says he is can go anywhere and do anything a biological woman can: no one may put a barrier up against it.

In one light it's inclusion and freedom of respecting self expression/ self identity.

In another light, it's inevitably providing ANY man with access to women when they are naked, vulnerable, in intimate situations, where SOME women will be embarrassed, ashamed and humiliated, unwilling and forced to either put up with it - which brings up major issues of consent, and the rights of biological women to privacy and to set their own boundaries around their bodies - or to no longer access services in which they cannot feel comfortable or safe. This will include accessing hospital wards, smear tests, toilets, swimming and gym changing rooms and many other areas. It will disproportionately affect some groups of women more than others, and the harm to those women is greater than the offense and SMALL limiting of working opportunities and areas not accessible to TIMs.

You cannot get past that the TRAs pushing this are angry about boundaries - to some extent this is about breaking them down, about not permitting there to be barriers they can't cross. Men have been livid about women being able to say no since the beginning of time; it is hard not to see the misogyny in that. See the secret, underground lesbian women's groups that have sprung up, that can't be found listed on social media or by looking at your local authority support groups, and never mention in the name of the group that they are women and lesbians, because TRAs have searched for all such groups, attacked them for being non inclusive, and as a poster said recently, the local lesbian women's group is 80% TIMS. The only way to be allowed to meet without appropriation and domination by men - and that is honestly what is happening, is to meet under the radar. Which means lesbians looking for support will struggle to find them.

You do also have to question why, knowing that these limitations are small and specific to those women who are not comfortable with accepting intimacy or private spaces involving vulnerability/nudity with a male bodied person, it is more important to overcome the woman's right to say no and legally force her compliance to submit to their presence than it is to do exactly what a large group of women are doing here - listening, picking up the nuances of the situation, trying to genuinely understand each other's views. That's what women tend to do. If someone is demanding their right to work in a refuge with the qualifications to understand why that is difficult for some of those women and will be a barrier to their benefitting from the service this prospective employee wants to provide to help them - then you have to ask yourself why that person is seeking that position. The only answer is that it''s more about their right to claim that space - rather like LMadigan is doing - than it is about any care or interest in the job itself. TRAs are putting womens refuges under a great deal of pressure about opening jobs in refuges up to transwomen because it is one of the few obvious barriers to TIMs. If you're under any illusion that they have the faintest interest or care for the women in those refuges, you may want to look at the online discussions around this campaign, which include bombarding the refuge with calls and emails to pull staff away from the women they are trying to help and to disrupt their work.

Well you shouldn't give up.

I do have very strong views on this. But I've had strong views on other things before and have changed my opinion when presented with compelling evidence for an alternative perspective.

And, tbh, saying "I give up" does sound like a bit of a cop out. Because I know that if someone says I'm talking nonsense and I strongly believe my position, I will defend it.

And people have told you that they don't disagree with some/much of what you are saying but that, in the real world where this is happening, we can't afford to think in 'utopian ideals'.

Yes of course. You have obviously never canvassed. Why would I waste my time on someone who is never going to agree with me because they are so sure they are correct? When told "I always vote UKIP/Tory" I smile, move on and concentrate on finding people who are open minded and willing to listen to my arguments

Tbh, MrsMcGarry you still haven't made an argument for self id.

I said "ask questions" not tell you they vote UKIP. You'll give up if they ask you to explain a policy, as they're interested in trying to understand it?