Matthew d'Ancona in the Guardian - 3rd spaces as the solution

[rowdywoman1]

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/apr/01/transgender-equality-women-only-carriages-caledonian-sleeper

This seems to me to be a thoughtful and reasonable article. Apart from his irritating use of 'cis' he talks about the need "to build toilets that accommodate trans visitors without making cis women feel uncomfortable." and that in rape crisis centres, trans women seeking work will have to accept that their aspirations are trumped by the rights of the horribly violated. Sorry, but there it is"

It was good to read an article which genuinely tries to navigate a way forward and move the conversation on. And slightly unbelievable to see a second constructive article in the paper that has acquired such a reputation for dismissing women as transphobes and bigots. I wonder whether he'll get the same reaction that Hadley Freeman did?

,if you were doing that, you'd be pushing back against the extremists and you aren't.

Which extremists? The homophobic men who attack trans people? What would you like me to do about them? I’ve been “kicking back” against male violence, homophobia and misogyny all my adult life and I’ll continue to do so, but I’m not sure what evidence of this you are expecting to see in this kind of conversation?

The bottom line is, all of these arguments, disagreements, differences of opinions could be understood, addressed and resolved if women were allowed to talk about them and if we weren't silenced in favour of the Angry Shouty Men.

If everyone was heard and repsected, we could get on with the business with finding a solutions that the majority agreed with amd were content, even if not happy, with.

This whole thing is escalating because men don't like it when women say no.

I don't think Irish feminists should brag about how progressive Ireland is while your compatriots still have to fly to the UK to terminate a pregnancy.

I don't think that British 'feminists' should show their ignorance of the situation in Northern Ireland, where their fellow women are in a considerably worse situation than those in the Irish Republic and are still prosecuted for terminating their pregnancies.

That's on your watch and in your United Kindom.

Not caught up but I am GOBSMACKED that there is a poster here saying women's toilets should let men in and it's irrelevant if women and girls for time immemorial have been using them to escape dodgy men because women and girls have for time immemorial been DOING IT WRONG.

I am genuinely aghast, just who the fuck exactly do you think you are?

And using a murdered woman's charity to back up your argument? Yes that's really pleasant.

I had a look at it quickly, and clicked on aggressive behaviour, It says this

"If you cannot de-escalate the situation:

Get away from the aggressor"

Like into the FUCKING LADIES as we have been doing forever.

I ask again, who the FUCK do you think you are to announce that teenage girls all over the UK are STUPID when it comes to their own safety????

Jesus wept. You have revealed yourself massively with that one.

poster 53rdWay

The extremists on this thread, those who keep saying that trans women are men and shouldn't be allowed their legal right to use single gender space. Those who bring in dozens of side issues that have nothing to do with self ID, those who are actually bigoted and keep repeating transphobic tropes. Those who make misogynist comments. Why aren't you picking them up?

There is no doubt that the 3rd space option will be expensive

There is a precedent, that's not insurmountable. When the disability act came in and the conversions had to be made in schools and public buildings for accessible toilets, changing beds, staff trained up to do personal care, ramps, there were grants made available to LAs from central government, the expectations of amount of provision and speed of it being in place were in line with the size of the setting, the number of people being served and their budget, all new build plans had to contain the specifics from the start. In about five years the provision was pretty standard.

Its very reasonable to legislate that all new build toilets, changing rooms etc, must include gender neutral provision as well as designated sex segregated provision (and from conversation here, the general consensus seems to be towards that gn provision being single contained floor to ceiling cubicles). There should be several designated trans prison units. Maybe a percentage of UK refuges could either be set up or maybe even existing ones asked (with financial incentive) to be the designated placements for gn/trans people/male dv victims alongside provision for women, with male/trans staff employed to support them, so women could choose to accept a vacant bed there if they were happy to but the massive majority of refuges would continue to focus on their core brief of women/children only. Everyone's safety and dignity matters.

The sticking point is that this would mean the government standing up for biological sex being a fact, and while trans people are welcomed into all spaces and equally provided for, no one is viewed as being able to change sex.

This article highlights far better than I can the levels of pressure that children are under from activists:

lilymaynard.wordpress.com/2018/03/31/but-nobody-is-encouraging-kids-to-be-trans-2/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

How anyone can argue that a child's right to consent to undress in front of the opposite sex doesn't matter I fail to imagine. We should be working with children to be confident in saying no, I do not consent to this, not gaslighting them into prioritising the wishes of someone to undress with them. It's shocking that this even needs explaining.

that teenagers and their rights are mere collateral in a fight for trans right

Couldn't agree more. Any amount of collateral damage is acceptable. It turns my stomach.

You're right, Stillscreaming, none of on here are feminists and worse, we are terrible women, because it is all our fault that women in NI are denied basic abortion rights. And we are nasty bigots because we think that girls and young women should have a voice and be listened to. And we are not playing nicely when men tell us what to do and what to say and what to think, and we should be very sorry and think about our actions.

FFS

@53rdWay

When you sit back and allow the kind of aggression that 'TheDukesOfHazzard' demonstrates, it really does undermine the idea that what you're looking for is to be listened to and to have reasoned debate.

We need a bit of 'not in my name'. We need a bit of self moderation.

"In the ladies, with the rest of us who are legally women. "

We are not "legally" women >>>

We ARE women.

Female is a material reality, without which there'd be no human race. The other piece being Male, also a material reality, also without which there'd be no human race.

Male and female are not social constructs, nor are they legal concepts. They are material states that have been around since before language, and exist in all mammals, and all mammals know which is which.

The extremists on this thread, those who keep saying that trans women are men

That’s not an extremist position. That wasn’t even a remotely controversial position a few years ago.

“Trans women deserve violence and harm” is extremist. “Trans women are biologically male” is a statement of fact.

Stillscreaming
Just to point out that the title of the thread and Matthew Ancona's article is quite clearly about 3rd spaces not self ID.
If there is transphobia then report it.
I am waiting with bated breath for your explanation as to why teenage girls should have no rights to consent to undress in front of teenage boys?

@ OlennasWimple

Try going back and reading my post again, I don't think you've got the full run of what I was saying.

Kneedeepinunicorns
That's a really good point about the conversions for the disability act.

That’s not an extremist position. That wasn’t even a remotely controversial position a few years ago.

To deny someone their legal right to use the loo of their legal gender is extreamist. Are you trying to claim that had t happened?

The extremists on this thread, those who keep saying that trans women are men and shouldn't be allowed their legal right to use single gender space.

Oh, get a fucking grip. 99.9% of the population think that TIMs are men.

Most of the TIMs think that, too - or at least, they understand themselves to be males in retreat from manhood. Opinion differs how the needs of these male refugees from manhood should be best accommodated within society - here, the majority voice is right up to the point women's rights are compromised and no further.

The only extremist here is you, along with your rag tag bunch of aggressive males and pomo-addled cultists. You're not just wrong: you're outright delusional.

Aggression?

I think that anyone who comes on a women's website and says that teenage girls are incompetent when it comes to understanding how to protect themselves from creepy men is an out and out misogynist.

And that's all there is to it.

An absolutely revolting and tone deaf comment and link.

A link which didn't back up what you were saying by the way.

I think you don't really give a toss about the privacy, comfort or even safety of teens, do you. All you care about is getting what you want.

What a nasty piece of work.

Teen girls are vulnerable enough to creepy men without being told that the ONE place that they can get away should be cancelled.

This is the NORM - this is what teenage girls DO. The fact that you express utter disbelief when a woman mentions it makes me wonder where exactly you grew up, how on earth you managed to navigate your teenage years.

Thing is, Stillscreaming, when the only way you can square the circle of feminists not agreeing with you is to believe that we’re lying about the positions we hold and the activism we’ve done and the things that we want, then that might work for you. But it’s not a very compelling argument for the women you’re talking to, who know we are not lying about our own beliefs and our own experiences.

I mean, I don’t know how I could prove to you that I’ve reported a good few comments to MN for transphobia previously (they get deleted, fyi). So you’re free to say “don’t believe you!” if you like, but that’s not going to do much to convince me, is it?

I'm also Irish and I think you've been more than a little disingenuous in your comments on this thread stillscreaming. The population in Ireland is much smaller than the U.K., the trans population therefore is much smaller (see the numbers applying for a GRC) and in general we don't have a significant number of transgender individuals with a high profile, many of whom, it would seem, aim to appear frequently in the media solely in order to make inflammatory statements with the aim of denying women the right to speak/discuss issues that directly affect them, as would seem to be the case in the U.K.

I would also agree that the population is also more conservative outside of the big cities with a lower level of general awareness of the issues concerning women's rights/rights of transgender people and the issue of self ID.

To be honest the issues around toilets are not one I can get particularly exercised by, although I do understand the concerns that have been raised by others. I'm more concerned about crime statistics, prison segregation, womens refuges, sports participation, scholarships, political participation and the ability of women to meet as a group to discuss issues concerning our female biology without accusations of transphobia. I also find the discourse around the supposed 'cotton ceiling' disturbing and homophobic but I accept I'm not directly affected by that.

You see it's all going along fine, robust but there is some exchange of ideas and then the ranting just overflows, like a Mount Vesuvius of mouth foam.

Anyway, here's the contact details:

cambridgeanalytica.org

And I wish you happiness in your third space.

Toilets aren't segregated by "gender" they are segregated by sex. For good reasons. The biggest of them is that gender is a social construct and "transgender" identified males are just as male as any other man.

Now - about teenage girls and their right to consent??

And....

Flounce.

Will it last?