Trans unpeak moment

[Sunflowersforever]

Have really been tuned into the whole self-Id issue and subsequent discussions through mumsnet, and appalled at the encroachment into women spaces and the silencing of women's voices. Was so glad to have read Hadley Freeman's article and how she summed up concerns in such an articulate way that reflected my views.

Ok. Here is the unpeak trans bit.

On HFs twitter feed, someone posted about selfid saying. "It means swearing a statutory declaration that you are living as a woman (and there are legal consequences if you lie), changing your name and documents, telling friends, colleagues, family".

Is that correct? If it is, I didn't know that and it changes the whole 'any man can enter a woman's space unchallenged' argument a bit as surely documented proof can be produced if challenged?

Someone else also said Ireland had adopted this law with no consequences? Really?

Anyone aware if any of this is true?

Thank you @Sunflowersforever for your thoughtful post.

The starting point is the owner of the space determines who can use it. In the event that a transwomen is barred from using the women's facilities (e.g. toilet, changing room), the only way forward for her would be to bring a claim under the Equality Act. Only individuals who intend, are in the process of, or have reassigned their gender would be able to bring a claim. A transwomen who is indistinguishable from a natal women (i.e. passes, has had all the surgery), has transitioned for a number of years, and has a GRC would win her case. Whether other transwomen would win a claim for gender reassignment discrimination - it depends.

The specific factors and the weights applied to them to win a case of gender reassignment discrimination are not written into the act itself. And there have been very few cases on this issue. Looking at the few cases there are, it is clear the courts are reserving a lot of discretion for themselves and approach things on a case by case basis. And this makes sense. The courts are balancing the rights between a number of groups and the cases are being decided on the facts of the specific case.

There is no judicial authority for the proposition that a transwomen in possession of a GRC can legally demand access to women's spaces. It is possibly a necessary condition (although there are a lot of arguments it is not), but it is certainly not a sufficient condition.

Very roughly, to obtain a GRC today, a transwomen needs to have (or had) a diagnosis of gender dysphoria, have lived in role for 2 years, intend to live in her preferred gender role for the rest of her life and provided the required evidence to a tribunal. No medical transition is required.

So today a man could socially transition for 2 years, obtain a GRC and revert back to living as a male. In theory he could demand access to the women's facilities and bring a claim under the Equality Act. The reality is that he would be laughed out of court.

Likewise a transman could transition socially and medically, not apply for a GRC and then request access to the women's facilities as his legal gender is still female. Although some women might have been told he was trans and be perfectly happy to share the facilities with him, most women would be horrified by the thought. He too would not win a case.

The government has proposed simplifying the process of obtaining a GRC and removing the need for medical evidence. If the process in Ireland is followed - and that might be too radical for this Conservative government - then a statutory declaration would need to be signed in front of a solicitor or other Commissioner for Oaths. If the individual is dishonest in signing the statutory declaration then he can be sent to jail for up to 2 years.

An individual is free to change his mind later. But if he was dishonest at the time he signed the declaration - e.g. using it as device to commit crime - then he would be guilty of the offence.

The offences of Voyeurism and Exposure are both drafted in gender neutral terms, so a legal change of gender does not prevent these offences occurring.

Many transwomen don't have a GRC and it does not affect them day to day. However, there are times when legal gender is important and having a different legal gender to the lived gender - e.g. on DHS records - can cause confusion and stress.

Oh forget it. I'm hopeless on MN. That says exactly the opposite to what I planned.

@SarahAr thank you for your reply.

This is what I'm looking for, actual detail of what is being proposed and evidence of how areas of concern are being mitigated. We need more of this as it reduces fear and offers a way forward that is inclusive.

I don't like the whole 'cis' thing, but do like what you have outlined. I, and I can only speak for myself, genuinely don't want someone who struggles with this to suffer or face discrimination or pain. Everyone deserves a fulfilling life.

Can some sort of sensible working group be formed to bring parties together to find a way forward? Isn't that possible?

NHS money is being spent on these trans services whilst non trans people, including children, can’t access mental health services.

@crispybuttyfan

It was YOUR claim that transwomen "usually" achieve lower testosterone levels, not mine. I made no claim at all in this direction. The study I quoted is the first actual scientific study to investigate the efficacy of testosterone suppressant treatment in transwomen. So whatever your gripe about the medication, unless you can show an actual study disproving this one, you're out of luck. I know what I consider more trustworthy - an actual study or your assertions, especially after your goalshifting.

And on the tiny man-large woman example. Do not be daft. I thought we were having an intelligent, informed discussion between adult people here. But since you need it spelled out:

We are talking about averages and entire sex groups, not just particular individuals, precisely because the law change will affect entire sex groups, not just particular individuals.

It is a fact that men as a group are 10% bigger and 30 to 50% stronger than women as a group. It is medical fact, established with empirical evidence from hundreds of thousands of subjects worldwide over close to a hundred years of research that all of the advantages I listed above are found in the average man vs the average woman. Finding a puny guy and an amazon does not disprove averages - those are outliers and we both know it.

But if we take a tiny guy and compare him to a tiny woman of the exact same size and weight, competitors in the same sport, he is still stronger, better, faster. And if we take a tall, strong man and compare him to a tall, strong woman of the same weight, competitors in the same sport, again the man is stronger, faster, better.

And that claim comes from research. Here is one physiology expert explaining the advantages male-born transgender athletes have over women and here is an endocrinologist explaining why it can take 15 years before the bone density of a transwoman after hormone therapy and genital surgery declines to that of a woman.

Most women understand the law. They understand its limitations. And they understand the exemptions that are written into it.

At the moment, though, for many it's not really about whether or not something gets as far as a court.

Almost all the incidents that women are writing about don't get to court.

Swim England, Girl Guides, twits like Travis, the social pressure on lesbians, etc.

The information that is being disseminated throughout schools, for example. That has been going on for years and years. It is changing the way people think.

There is an underground element to this movement. And talking about laws, although very useful, doesn't address it.

The law, obviously, needs to be talked about, understood, and applied. I'm not saying it doesn't, at all.

But it's only part of it.

Anyone can claim they intend to transition then make no changes at all.

Sunflowersforever
The way forwards is very simple; create a third gender neutral space or service in addition to sex based ones.
The question is why wont you accept that?

I am another who advocates for a third space for all transgender folk then maybe, just maybe, they would stfu.

And I find it abhorrent that so much time and money and energy is expended on the whole trans movement.

But then I am just a terfy old bigot.

But if anyone, anyone ever called me cis to my face .............

Wrong thread sorry

@Sunflowersforever and @SarahAr

This describes the current situation very well indeed. The proposed changes in the law however are to no longer protect gender reassignment but to amend the Equalities Act to protect gender identity, to remove ALL gatekeeping, and to amend the EA further in abolishing certain sex-based exemptions all without providing for a legal distinction to be made between a pretender, a weekend crossdresser or a genuine transsexual.

That's the legal side of it. The societal changes however are galopping ahead of the law. Most organisations do not understand the existing sex-based exemptions and are often advised by trans rights organisations who rightly prioritise trans people in their guidance. And this has already resulted in the erosion of female rights.

Take the Girl Guides. The law is very clear and very strong here. Where you are safeguarding children at camp, you can legally exclude male-bodied children from the showers of female-bodied children. They do exclude the male children of girl guide leaders from sharing a tent with female children (even if their own mother is in that same tent), and obviously the showers. Legally, they should maintain the single-sex showering and sleeping arrangements and find a way to accommodate transgender children.

But not only have they not done that, they have also been advised that the parents have no right to know if their female children are expected to be naked in the shower with male transidentified children or when they are sharing a tent with male transidentified children (who are fully male-bodied). Considering that more than a third of children who are sexually abused (usually female) are abused by other children (usually male) this is a huge safeguarding issue.

But then I am just a terfy old bigot.

Yay! Go the terfy old bigots!

it changes the whole 'any man can enter a woman's space unchallenged' argument a bit as surely documented proof can be produced if challenged?

Who's going to do all this challenging, then? I don't know any woman who'd challenge a man in the Ladies. You'd get your teeth knocked out for your pains.

I don't know any woman who'd challenge a man in the Ladies.

I've done the "er, sorry, wrong toilets" thing to men who come through the door when I'm in the Ladies. I've done the "oh, I thought this was the Ladies!" thing when I've gone into the Ladies and found a man in there (one one occasion we went outside to look at the door, agreed it was very confusing bloody hipster winebars but it probably was the Ladies after all)

I've also clocked transwomen in the Ladies and decided not to say anything. I don't know if they would have read that as me not noticing, or me not minding

I wouldn't challenge a Travis Alabanza type but would probably go and speak to management about it. And that's where things start to get tricky, as in the future potentially I could be charged with some kind of hate crime for mis-gendering

But that whole business of 'you could challenge' thing just shows up the yawning gap between men's and women's life experiences. Men don't see a problem with it, women know that it could lead to violence.

Male thinking.

@charleyparker
Yes and it is still true that trans women who have successful hrt treatments have the same or lower testosterone than the average woman, as I have already said, you have cherry picked a study not actually using an anti-androgen such as decapeptyl.

Here is a study that refutes your assertions overall, though it may not statistically cover the levels of testosterone, there are no studies I'm aware of, your claiming the opposite of actual standards of care that are well established and followed worldwide to reduce testosterone to female or below female levels.

Here is the study... www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5357259/

I am not being daft, you are the one claiming there is no variety amongst these groups and it is all cut and dried, and fail to accept your claims such as reach are absolute in the way your portray them.

And you also moved the goalposts by claiming testosterone effects take 15 years to diminish, and now it has narrowed down to bone mass.... can you show me study that actually proves levels of bone mass are an advantage whilst married to weaker muscle mass, tendon/ligament elasticity? The fact that bone mass remains higher, whilst muscle mass is weakened is clearly one of the disadvantages trans women have, whilst you are positioning it as an advantage.
In many sports propelling a much heavier skeleton, with drastically reduced muscle ability is clearly and demonstrable a disadvantage.
Attached is an average of advantages and disadvantages in various sports... Events such as 100m sprints a power event, has trans women at a distinct disadvantage.

The rest of your post is clearly conflating males, with post hrt trans women, and your links are opinion pieces not studies, while I would not dismiss them entirely as you seem to be doing to anything I post, there are many equal opposing opinions.

there is no conclusive evidence at this point because at this point in time, these things are in their infancy, but everything so far points to, again as I said, some events trans women have an advantage, and some a disadvantage.

I can see you clearly are desperate to assert absolutes, and seem to be taking this discussion as some sort of challenge to prove me wrong, however I'm not really interested in playing silly games, so I will leave this discussion now. Best wishes.

So today a man could socially transition for 2 years, obtain a GRC and revert back to living as a male. In theory he could demand access to the women's facilities and bring a claim under the Equality Act. The reality is that he would be laughed out of court.

Why would he be laughed out of court? There is no set criteria for ‘living as a woman’

"The reality is that he would be laughed out of court."

I'm not confident about that either. A court allowed a convicted TIM to avoid treatment in relation to downloading of child sexual abuse, because there are no programs for women. The TIM had no GRC or surgery, but managed to persuade the court that they were a woman.

Was it this one? Gina Owen, formerly Gareth Owen, who sexually abused a 13 year old boy over a 6 month period.

Mirror link

"The reality is that he would be laughed out of court."

Karen Jones attempted to rape a woman in order to be sent back to prison so they could get on the treatment programme.

So this is apparently accepted as 'living as a woman'?

How would it actually work in court if a man reverted back to living 'as a man'?

Yes, your honour, I might have a beard and men's clothing, but I cry at romcoms, bake all the time and can't parallel park?

No, that's not good enough?

So should I be wearing a dress and wig?

Help me, how do I live as a woman?

Come on, which is it? Is it attempted rape, dress wearing, or baking?

You can't live as a woman, unless you are one.

This is what I'm looking for, actual detail of what is being proposed and evidence of how areas of concern are being mitigated. We need more of this as it reduces fear and offers a way forward that is inclusive.

Amen. Thank you for this thread @Sunflowersforever.

No, it was this one

www.eadt.co.uk/news/judge-criticises-lack-of-specific-treatment-for-women-who-download-child-porn-after-ardleigh-woman-20-is-found-with-1-200-indecent-images-1-4733506

But it seems it isn't an isolated case.

Re SarahAr's claim:

The offences of Voyeurism and Exposure are both drafted in gender neutral terms, so a legal change of gender does not prevent these offences occurring.

This is untrue. Allowing men into women's change rooms does effectively nullify voyeurism and exposure as crimes in those spaces. It means a man can go in there, expose his penis to women and little girls, and watch them undressing, and no one will be able to do anything about it. Because as a self-declared 'woman' he has every right to be in there while they undress, and to be naked himself.

This was demonstrated very clearly in the case of 'transwoman' Colleen Francis at Evergreen State University, Washington in 2012.

Francis was a 45-year-old army vet who availed himself of the opportunity to hang out naked in the female change room of the university pool facilities on days when girls from the local high school swim team were there for training.

Francis was reported to the police for exposing himself to girls on three separate occasions, (twice by the swim team's coaches and once by the mother of one of the girls), but after investigating the police found they were unable to charge him with anything, as under the state's gender identity laws he had a legal right to be naked in female change rooms.

From the police report included as part of this article: Colleen was observed sitting with her [sic] legs open and her [sic] male genitalia showing

Read the police report. It's all in there. Man' deliberately exposes his penis to multiple girls on multiple occasions, but police conclude no crime has been committed.

School officials were similarly unable to do anything about Francis's behaviour, because they were obliged to follow state law. The outcome was that the girls were allotted a small room away from the main facilities in which to change so they could avoid the 45-year-old man intent on showing them his dick. This is how easily self-ID enabled one man to not only get away with sex crimes but destroy the right of a whole swathe of girls to participate equally in sports.

Like the trans activists who like to dismiss these cases as 'one-offs', I too want to emphasise that Francis was just one man. When the 'gender expression' law was passed in Washington State, it didn't result in hordes of men taking up the opportunity to walk around naked in women's change rooms. This is important to note because I think one of the problems with getting people to realise the dangers of self-ID is that they immediately think, OK, but are men really going to do that? And the answer is, of course, most of them won't. Sane decent men are not going to be the ones taking advantage of this law. It is the Colleen Francises, the Christopher Hambrooks of this world who will. And there only needs to be a few of them for the public freedom and privacy rights of all women and girls to be severely curtailed.

Its very unlikely that anybody would challenge anyone to show a certificate. The change is that it becomes acceptable for somebody with a completely male body to enter a woman’s space, not because the space has changed to accommodate people of both sexes (e.g. change cubicle design), but because they can claim to be the same as women.

Re sport: Most people take part in competitive sport at school before anybody would receive hormone treatment or surgery. Again, councils are already advising schools that competition should be organised around gender identity because a girl can have a completely male body.

The original law was a work around to help people suffering discrimination and e.g. not able to marry somebody of the same sex.
It never got to grips with the fact that you can’t change sex.

Self ID just takes flawed legislation and makes it worse.

We must protect the status of biological women, we have to allow our daughters to have their own female spaces and activities wherever it's appropriate. We must allow women the freedom to talk about their bodies without being censored.

This is not about being transphobic but about protecting the rights of women.

We all know the risks of standing up for this: being called a TERF, being labelled transphobic, being blacklisted, even the risk of losing our jobs.

For me personally, standing up for women's rights also means risking the loss of my own daughter.

A year ago she was a 20 year old lesbian about to go to Uni. Within the space of 12 months she has gone from lesbian to non binary to now identifying as a male.

She has changed her name, her pronouns, destroyed treasured family photos and has shut out anyone in the family who dares to question the validity of her new identity, or who has concerns. Including me, her Dad and her brother.

She passionately believes she is trans - despite 20 years of living as a female without any evidence of dysphoria or gender issues. She now wears a binder, wants a double mastectomy and testosterone injections. She has already been medically 'approved' by an NHS 'gender specialist' so the hormones will happen very soon.

She has become secretive and has blocked us from most parts of her life. There is nothing we can say or do to dissuade her that this may be a phase, or a reaction to a previous traumatic period of change and loss in her life.

As a family we feel like we've been shunted into a parallel universe- where black is white and our truth and reality no longer mean anything at all.

There is so much about the trans world that needs to be discussed and talked about- with respect and sensitivity. So much we need to let others know about so we can avoid sleepwalking into a future that risks the loss of so many of the rights and protections that we currently treasure. As well as the 'loss' of our children and young people.

I'm new to MN and I'm so relieved to have found a place where other women are speaking up too.