Reconciling competing rights

[GaspingShark]

Let me start by saying I do know what it's like to have my experience disbelieved, invalidated and gaslighted on an large scale, though not as a trans person or a victim of sexual assault. I don't have PTSD but I do know what it's like to have triggerable sources of distress, again, not as a trans person or a victim of sexual assault.

For me, equal rights must include the right to define your own experience, without gatekeepers, and to be very hesitant to consider people delusional.

So I am unsure about this. I would be ashamed of trans friends seeing me saying stuff such as "I err on the side of including them as much as possible", because I don't think that kind of recognition is mine to confer.

OTOH, I don't know if therefore that means I'm not recognising sexual assault survivors distressed by the fear of male people in women-only contexts.

Is this reconcilable, or does it mean one side just has to grin and bear it? I'll read this thread carefully but due to my bad management of a health condition I can't promise to tend it beyond the OP atm.

Hey flowers! I think it's different reasons for different spaces/facilities isn't it? It's hard to give a blanket reason because, well, there isn't one! But you're right I think that the reason in each particular instance is at the heart of how much that "rule" should be bent for transpeople. Again, there can't be a blanket solution.

Ugh, but I just stressed myself out a bit so I'm going to get a beer.

I thought house=womanhood in anal joy?

• ANALOGY

Ahhh I see your autocorrect is sentient and evil like mine 😂

It all boils down to this though:

Women’s spaces are generally a safety thing. A significant number of men have, do and will continue to harm women, so women’s spaces are so women can be safe

Allowing men into those spaces destroys that. And puts women at risk.

Men’s spaces are less for safety and more for privacy and dignity. But women space is a safety thing.

Trans women have Male offending patterns. I cannot see any argument that convinces me that they should be in women’s spaces.

All rights essentially stem from property rights, flowing from perhaps the most significant one of all: Self-ownership. However we've gotten ourselves in a mess by trying to reframe things across socialist ideaological lines where ideas of ownership are muddied through conceptions of collective/state ownership

BarrackerBarmer's post is spot on. It's a violation of basic property right's if I make a claim on her property it doesn't matter if I can get a mob of people to agree with me to take/share her home to give the claim an air of legitimacy it's still a violation of the non-aggression principle. It matters not wether it is an individual or a collective of individuals that violate it. It's still a violation.

What we are seeing is a natural extension of what happens when people try to shift and claim ownership of language itself. Politically people have been trying to re-draw the meanings of words. There is an unholy alliance, and has been for sometime between liberal left leaning academia and agents of the state to enforce certain reframings of language and ideas onto the genreal population.

Usually discussion of women's right's and feminism has been one of the ideaological beneficiaries of these biases. The trans debate is fascinating for a few reasons, one it is seeing a lot of feminist being hammered by some of the same rhetorical tricks they have used against opponents in the past and second it reveals that ultimately there IS a colossal amount of sexist abroad in the world, as even in the liberal-left leaning circles the promotion of women's rights have been used as an ideaological device to control and win more power, and not sadly in truth from a genuine idealogical belief in women's equality.

I must confess I didn't really realise the full extent of how badly the deck is stacked against women until this whole thing blew up. I'm coming increasingly to the view that women's rights such as they exist nowadays have not come from an extension of any "natural" impulse, but rather from the hard work, blood sweat and tears of a great many women who have fought very bloody hard to win them.

As with any conception of liberty what liberties we do have we owe to those who came before us and bloody fought for them. We cannot and indeed must not let them be lost now. My worry now is that it's through those who use the language of equality and fairness that we are most risk of losing them...

Are you serious Upstart? Can you please explain to me how Jonathon isn't transpeople in Barracker's analogy?

RatRolyPoly Its been patiently explained to you time and time again. Its there in my answer.
Trans people can ask for their own spaces and services instead of fighting to let any man who self ID's into ours.

No one here has a problem with trans people. And;
No one here wants to give up our sex based rights and protections. The need for those has never been addressed.

RatRolyPoly Its been patiently explained to you time and time again

Upstart I have to say I am not someone who doesn't understand the broad position they're arguing against here. I think that's quite clear. I simply, for the most part, do not agree. God forbid a woman does not agree. But that's me.

No one here has a problem with trans people.

Yes they do. But it's bizarre that you would assume you know the thoughts are feelings of everyone who has ever posted here. Or did you mean to say "most people" - because then I'd agree with you. But it's not "no-one".

Gasping hmm, yes, perhaps it could be womanhood... but then how does that work with other people letting Jonathon stay in their house and setting a precedent? Are they letting Jonathon into their definition of womanhood? Because what does anybody's definition of womanhood have to do with transwomen in "women's" spaces? It doesn't matter what my definition of womanhood is and who I "let in", it matters who the people who control those spaces want to make them available to and the reasons they have for setting those limits. So all around I don't think that makes the "anal joy" any more functional.

The take home from this @RatRolyPoly is that truth and knowledge (in the objective scientific sense) is immutable, but our language is fluid, organic and ever changing. We have to be mindful in how we try to use language and realise it's limitiations and transitory nature.

Trying to make language immutable and non-changing is an excercise in futulity, as it trying to use to it to control the thoughts of other people.

Indeed @CritEqual, that's exactly the nub of it for me.

Your post directly above that is Crit, only now reading your longer one. Won't it be strange if I agree entirely with your second but not at all with your first! Let's find out :)

Disagreement should be cause for celebration, as it reveals somebody somewhere has the opportunity to learn something! And that is just as likely to be me as anyone else.

A lot of trans and other dysphoric people support "gatekeepers" aka medical professionals being involved in the process to ensure that transition is best for an individual because the hormones and surgeries involved have risks that must be balanced against the benefits. Many of us fight for there to be more face to face time with a range of medical professionals before, throughout, and after transitioning as well as care for dysphoric people who don't transition.

The thing is, I can define my experience without gatekeepers. I can define myself and discuss myself however I want. I do not have any rights to make other people believe or make them define me in any which way no matter what my legal status is. I regularly see people call masculine women men, particularly if they don't like what they're saying. My sons have both been called girls, both by people trying to be nice and to insult them. I can't make people see me or see my kids how we see ourselves. I have no right to change how others see anyone, that wouldn't work.

My experiences, however I define them, and who I am in the eyes of the law or in the eyes of a place that service providers is not the same thing. I have the experience of having lived my entire adult life in the UK, having four British kids and married to a British man, and regularly weirding out Brits when I use a Britishism when they use an Americanism. Even though it could be argued I've "lived as a Brit" for many years, I'm still American (even though I haven't been there since 2003), still an immigrant, still don't have British citizenship no matter what my experience is because I haven't go through the gatekeeping the law requires: the over a grand in fees, the paperwork and references, the test, the giving of my biometrics (which many immigrants have to do to be legally employable in the UK at our own costs). That means my rights and responsibilities aren't exactly the same as a Brit. That's just how it is, I could fight to change the law but I can't just 'define my experience' to make who I am in the law any different.

I think we should have single sex and mixed sex services for sexual assault survivors and other victim services. I mean, while the law disagrees, I've been raped by women. I've had women hold me down and force objects into me until I bled enough for them. All the most violent people in my life have been women. I'm not sure if I went to survivor services whether I'd want single sex or mixed sex services. I think the options should be there and that single-sex services and facilities should be protected. As a female dysphoric person, women's services have done a lot for me, I know men who have benefitted from domestic violence services for male victims, and I think there can be room for all of it though I don't think there is enough for either sex or mixed sex options at this time.

Kinda starting to feel like a lot of this is a scarcity issue. Mental health services and therapists, victim care and services, even public toilets and facilities which lots of councils are closing as cost-cutting measures, no one has enough of what would help us be fully well and involved in society and rather than deal with that, it's easier for those in power to promote 'demedicalization' and pointing fingers at each other.

Well interesting Crit I do agree with a large portion of it, however without searching your username and going just on the little information in that post it appears we've started from similar principles and ended up at remarkably distant destinations :)

DN4GeekinDerby

I can define my experience without gatekeepers. I can define myself and discuss myself however I want. I do not have any rights to make other people believe or make them define me in any which way no matter what my legal status is.

Yes, this.

and good god, the experiences you describe .

Completely agree about the scarcity thing

It's hard to give a blanket reason because, well, there isn't one!

You might not be able to give a blanket reason for segregation, but in each case there has to be a clear reason, other wise it's just discriminatory. I can think of some reasons for sex segregation, some reasons why spaces that are currently segregated by sex should be unisex, and some instances where there is a reason to share single sex space with trans people of the opposite sex.

I can't think of a single reason why it's necessary to segregate by gender.

I realise that it is difficult for many trans people to talk in terms of biological sex, but I think we have to talk in those terms in order to achieve any kind of compromise.

Geek
I agree about the difference between how we define ourselves and how we are defined in law.
There is a scarcity issue, but I don't get the impression that it underlies the disagreements between those of us who are GC and those campaigning for trans rights. They insist we must redefine our language and accept that they are the opposite sex. A third space would not be acceptable to the trans lobby.

CritEqual
Disagreement should be cause for celebration, as it reveals somebody somewhere has the opportunity to learn something! And that is just as likely to be me as anyone else.

I love this - I will probably steal it.

rat
You know that much of the reason for segregation by sex is to do with female safety from males. As trans is now an ill-defined umbrella containing so many identities there is no logical way to seggregate by gender identity. The logical extension, therefore, if we define people by self-defined gender, rather than sex, is that there will be no segregated spaces, and women will lose hard-won protections.

This is why we need honest, open discussion. We need to be clear on what everyone's legal rights are. Everyone seems to have different interpretations of the law both in terms of rights and even definition of words.

I think we are pussyfooting around clearly stating the facts because no one wants to take responsibility for the upset that will cause.

Women need to know exactly what is meant legally by women only and female only spaces. If they just mean we try to keep them for women only, or its based on identity or something else completely, we need to know to make informed decisions.

DN4

Rat for what it's worth, I did not read Jonathan as trans at all. I read him as the egotistical grabby type of bloke that doesn't even consider that anyone else has any rights ( exactly the type to take advantage of self-id ). They are all his rights.

God, I can even picture 'Jonathan', oh wait, nope that's my ex.

For goodness sake. The 'house' isn't a 'toilet' it's not a 'communal space' it's not 'womanhood' it's any woman's individual boundary. It's our own boundary. And we are not operating a 'bigoted' boundary. It's a boundary for males. All males. No exceptions for 'gender'. The only males allowed are those each woman chooses personally. In a shared female space all women know that means no males whatsoever.

The line in the sand in these competing rights has to be imo the language. Trans women are not women, cis is not a thing. That does not mean trans women should be treated with anything other than dignity and respect.

There is the idea that society has to have grey areas in law, and a sign of oppressive state is the diminishing of the grey areas. It has been said before in other posts but it feels like we should go back to the "grey area" days when everyone muddled through by respecting each other and allowing trans people to use segregated spaces on the proviso they were respectful.
...but reading some trans peoples comments I realise the vulnerability they must feel being the tolerated other.

Personally as above I would hold fast the position of biological reality/ a man cannot become a woman just because he says so.

We need to get the cultural forces lined up cohesively. What this is symptomatic of is how so many people answer this basic question: which is more important to you liberty or equality?

Unfortunately this is often (but not always!) mutually exclusive, to enforce equality one needs to restrict liberties. By one I really mean the state, and well if you 100% believe the government to be free from bias and to be able to act in good faith wrt equality then you're golden.

However this trans issue just reveals the limits of state power to be able to act responsibly, as one of the often unseen effects of the fight for equality is it just then becomes a race to the bottom for everyone to identify themselves into some sort of protected specialist interest group. Then we end up losing both our liberties AND don't really achieve equality either.

I know MN don't like zombie threads but I've been stretched thin, sorry.

Can you tell me, at what point did those among you who feel unsafe in toilets and other women-only spaces begin feeling unsafe there?

When I saw the camera lens. When I read about the two way mirrors and the observation rooms.