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?

How many times do people have to say that they object to being referred to as cis women?

Jaycee psychology and psychiatry is not an exact science.
It is open to personal opinion and is always a science based on interpretation, and when that person is not trans and has no real experience of gender dysphoria, it has been less than successful as a barometer of anything much.

Yes thanks crisp. You lost me at cis.

I am going to try one more time, then I'm going to drop it.

crispbuttyfan

Do you think there are any situations/places/provisions that should be or it is reasonable to be, single sex? If so what are they?

Here's where I think it would be important to maintain single sex options:

-Rape crisis centers and shelters, therapy groups, and when a person requests a counselor of the same sex
-Restrooms, lockers and changing rooms
-Prisons
-Hospitals, and when a person requests a medical professional/caretaker of the same sex
-Sleeping and overnight accommodations, like train cars and school trips
-When the focus is to increase female participation or representation in a traditionally male-dominated field, such as all women short lists

Please note that I am absolutely not saying that trans people should not have access to anything I've listed, or that mixed sex and/or gender neutral options should not be available. I am saying that there should be single sex options available for all of thes, also.

What is your position on this, crispbuttyfan?

At the very least, Crisp, I hope you can find it in yourself to acknowledge that you have received an overall courteous reception here, despite your own continued use of terms such as cis that you know are personally offensive to most of the community here and your pejorative language - quackery, propaganda anti-trans etc - about any point of view you disagree with.

At the very least, even though little common ground has been found, there has been a civil exchange of views, yes?

crispbuttyfan once again your reading comprehension is letting you down. I did not say the Equality Act harms women - on the contrary, it protects us. I did not ask if you understand why women have concerns, I asked if you understand which concerns we have.

Clearly the answer is no as you not only deny all reasons to be concerned (from medical research to political representation to elite sports to the pay gap between the sexes to sex-based statistics to violence against women and girls etc etc) but also call the concerns themselves to be motivated by transphobia and caused by anti-trans propaganda.

I don't disagree with your views on gender expression or what it means to be trans. By calling them philosophical I'm saying that your arguments are not based on material reality, but on feelings in someone's head. Especially concerning is that you say - more than once - that this feeling is different for different trans people.

There are half a million trans people in the UK. Half a million different ideas of what it means to be trans. And you say there are no absolutes. That means there is also nothing concrete to base legislation on. Logically, you therefore must reject all gatekeeping because you cannot define a single material criterion to base anything on.

And as long as you paint each and every single objection to self-id as anti-trans you are not arguing in good faith. As long as you call women like me cis who have never accepted their gender role or any gender identity or the stereotypes society forces on us because of our sex you are demanding from us what you are refusing to give yourself.

As for your claim that the majority view is yours - the blocklists on Twitter have grown from a few hundred women very recently to over 50,000 now. Every single person - woman or man, old or young who I've spoken to in the last three months on finding out self-id is not for transsexuals but for anyone who merely believes themselves to feel like the other sex, rejected self-id afterwards.

They all assume they're protecting transsexuals. When they find out that is not the case, they not only change their mind about self-id, they start talking to other people about this in turn. And by changing their mind on self-id I mean only self-id not the right of trans people to express their gender as they wish not their human rights either.

But I ask again, crispybuttyfan:

Are any sex-based provisions acceptable to you?

P.S. Judging from the hospital ward I was on, I would complain if your friend was non-med and non-op. I was sharing with very vulnerable women who wandered around in a state of undress, didn't close the toilet door - sharing with a male person is not appropriate under those circumstances.

Male violence is the greatest human rights crisis the world has ever known.
Peak trans is that moment when the evidence overwhelms our female conditioning to give males the benefit of the doubt.

Charley, I'm sorry but your anecdotal propositions, and your opinion that everyone else see's trans women as no different to males, leaves nothing much to discuss. Best wishes, but we are never going to agree or find common ground.

There s no such thing as a cis woman. We are not isomers. We are human beings.

Not sure what happened to the other post... but..

Do you think there are any situations/places/provisions that should be or it is reasonable to be, single sex? If so what are they?

Here's where I think it would be important to maintain single sex options:

-Rape crisis centers and shelters, therapy groups, and when a person requests a counselor of the same sex, if someone in this position feels for whatever reason, 'even' if it was based in some element of transphobia there clearly needs to be concessions to protect the mindset of the individual. However I still believe transwomen need access to these facilities overall too.
And those who work in these places everyday fully support the inclusion of trans women, so maybe their opinion is above both of ours.

www.commonspace.scot/articles/12402/what-you-need-know-scotland-s-women-s-sector-speaks-out-gender-recognition-trans

To quote"Chief executive of Rape Crisis Scotland Sandy Brindley said: “I think the most important thing to say is that [the proposed legal changes] should make no difference to the provision of women-only services – that’s where some confusion has arisen.

“There isn’t any Rape Crisis which would ask to see documentation of gender.”

CEO of Scottish Women’s Aid, Marsha Scott, said the national organisation was not aware of “one incident where there has been any problem for services” around the self-identification policy, but said that a survey of Women’s Aid services was being conducted to gather their views and experiences to inform its consultation response.

Linda Rodgers of Edinburgh Women’s Aid noted that “there are concerns out there that our service could in some way be abused” by allowing people to self-declare their gender, but said this wasn’t something she had heard from the organisation’s staff or board.

“The reality is that any service has the potential to be abused, and we would deal with that, whatever direction it came, from on a case by case basis,” Rogers said. “I don’t think this should be used as a reason to restrict the rights of a particular group.”

The primary services all stated that, despite being trans-inclusive, the numbers this represented in terms of their service users were, in reality, very low.

Forth Valley Rape Crisis prevention worker Loraine Williams said: “When we read some stuff around a threat to women-only spaces, the idea is that there’s going to be thousands of trans people knocking at your door - that just isn’t going to be the case from what we know.

“It’s estimated that around one per cent of the population are trans, and we’re not even seeing that from people accessing our service, and that’s with us being for people of all genders.”

-Restrooms, lockers and changing rooms. Obviously I think trans women should have access to these spaces, and since it is already law, theres nothing much to discuss.

-Prisons Prisons have an independent authority that assess's risk on a case by case basis, which actually means even cis women that pose a risk can be housed on a male estate. Any trans woman judged to pose the same risk would also be housed in a male estate.

-Hospitals, and when a person requests a medical professional/caretaker of the same sex. Hospital wards should be inclusive, and again they are by law. However I have worked in a care home, where some elderly people have refused to be seen by foreign doctors or carers, and there wishes have been satisfied despite going against the equality act, it is very likely discretion will always be used, wrightly or wrongly, legally or not.

-Sleeping and overnight accommodations, like train cars and school trips .... Should be inclusive.

-When the focus is to increase female participation or representation in a traditionally male-dominated field, such as all women short lists ......should be inclusive

It is trans women, with the support of cis women, who find themselves coming up against a vocal minority that disagree.

I don’t think it’s possible to begin talking in terms of agreement and disagreement because we don’t yet even have a common definition of key words like ‘woman’ and ‘trans’.

Merrymouse we certainly do have clear consensus on those words.

There are people who want to play etymology based word games to derail discussions though. For instance woman=adult human female, woman originally meant mans wife. 'wifemon' the etymology changed over time. Language is a social construct, and it changes constantly, and encompasses new idea's and meanings.

when the focus is to increase female participation or representation in a traditionally male-dominated field, such as all women short lists ......should be inclusive

Could you expand on why you think that should be inclusive?
Why should female people give up space to male people when its there to increase representation of female people?

Would you think a situation where there was 10 men and 5 trans women and 5 women an even split between men and women?

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When the focus is to increase female participation or representation in a traditionally male-dominated field, such as all women short lists

Here, I don't know what you mean by 'female'.

merrymouse

That's what I just thought reading crispybuttyfan's list of acceptable single-sex provisions. A transwoman who identifes as trans only intermittently like Philip/Pippa Bunce? Bearded Alex Drummond who rejects all medical intervention? The type who tell me to suck their dick if I don't accept them as women?

And they are all women like me?

By what definition?

The sofa as a transbicycle comes to mind...

teacup aws very rarely have a finite number. Often there will be a number of cis-women on the shortlist for a particular election, and sometimes another trans woman may be added to that list, not a woman substituted by a trans woman.

Then there will be a vote, a trans woman will always be up against a number of cis women, if the trans woman gets the vote it is done on merit, if not it goes to a cis woman, it is democratic.

Bewilderness.

How are you?

Merrymouse we certainly do have clear consensus on those words.

Then perhaps you could explain what they mean.

Language does change over time, but legislation doesn't work if it isn't clear.

I'm fine.

This has been an interesting read.

It's been very helpful.