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.

I don't tend to use public changing rooms and toilets if I can help it now. I buy clothes online and try them on at home.

So when a trans person actually disturbed you or when you were told that they were likely to, is my drift?

The competing rights are these:

men's right to violate women
women's right to not be violated

I really wish people would stop treating this as if they were the same thing.

Males defining themselves as women is a violation in itself. By redefining 'woman' they place themselves firmly within a male supremacist worldview that women are whatever men say they are, that our lives and our bodies belong to them to define and control. This is central to womens oppression historically, internationally, and right here right now. There is no way round this.

When dysphoric males who do not have this understanding become aware of it, it is their responsibility to find ways of redefining themselves instead of continuing to expect us to move over and make space for them. I can empathise with how difficult this might be for them but it is essential for any male who wants to show solidarity with women. We owe them nothing.

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

It is privacy and dignity for women too. Even the nicest most harmless man on the planet shouldn't be intruding on our spaces, or expecting women to undress or ablute in front of him. But of course no decent man would want that either.

Do you think rape is about competing rights?

t is privacy and dignity for women too. Even the nicest most harmless man on the planet shouldn't be intruding on our spaces, or expecting women to undress or ablute in front of him. But of course no decent man would want that either.

This x 100. The privacy and dignity of women seems to be considered less important than hurting male feelings. It is not.

When an obviously male got changed next to me behind a flimsy curtain with obvious gaps in.

I felt really uncomfortable. Never happened before.

@JoanSummers I get what you're saying, but I think transgenderism one way of disrupting gender's loop just as gender nonconforming women are another.

Gender is not a loop. It is a hierarchy. Transgender identified males are trying to create a new class of privileged males while transgender advocates are trying to transitition away the Gay and Lesbians.
They will blow up the democratic process to do it if we refuse to submit willingly.

Gender is not a loop. It is a hierarchy.

This. This is a core philosophy in feminism...

Gender is not a loop. It is a hierarchy. Transgender identified males are trying to create a new class of privileged males while transgender advocates are trying to transitition away the Gay and Lesbians.
They will blow up the democratic process to do it if we refuse to submit willingly

I think that these fears sound more like the Brexit and Trump zeitgeist than anything else and that given the plasticity of consciousness, viewing gender as a hierarchy might only serve to perpetuate it as such.

GaspingShark - could you give definitions for 'feminism' and 'gender', as you understand those words? I don't want to have to quote from The Princess Bride, but...

(This is a lie, I always want to quote from The Princess Bride)

12th rule of misogyny: Women's ability to recognize male behavior patterns is misandry!

Naming the behavior perpetuates the behavior? No, it does not.

10th rule of misogyny: The worst thing about male violence is that it makes men look bad.

If you are on a Feminist and Women's Rights forum arguing that the Feminist position that gender is a hierarchy is what perpetuates the hierarchy you are demonstrating the 1st rule of misogyny: Women are responsible for what men do.

@thebewilderness Women's ability to recognize male behavior patterns is hugely overrated if Twitter is anything to go by and usually just means you're disagreeing with a self-identified terf.

And I wasn't necessarily disputing gender being a hierarchy, you might have over-invested in my loop metaphor.

@JoanSummers I have no idea. Isn't that refreshing?

Thanks for clearing that up.

"viewing gender as a hierarchy might only serve to perpetuate it as such."

So if you agree gender is a hierarchy, why did you say this? It is clearly a hierarchy. How are you supposed to view it any other way?

They are just here to pose and posture.

Wasting women's time, how brave and clever.

"viewing gender as a hierarchy might only serve to perpetuate it as such."

So if you agree gender is a hierarchy, why did you say this? It is clearly a hierarchy. How are you supposed to view it any other way?

Because it might be a hierarchy now but if it's set to change you might miss it if you were, say, overly concerned with, say,

"viewing gender as a hierarchy might only serve to perpetuate it as such."

So if you agree gender is a hierarchy, why did you say this? It is clearly a hierarchy. How are you supposed to view it any other way?

Because it might be a hierarchy now but if it's set to change you might miss it if you were overly concerned with, say, overly rigid definitions of things.

.

Good work on neutering the pronouns though. You'll be calling me a man by morning.

Males defining themselves as women is a violation in itself. By redefining 'woman' they place themselves firmly within a male supremacist worldview that women are whatever men say they are, that our lives and our bodies belong to them to define and control
Absolutely.

In answer to your question, when I went to use the women's shower and changing room at work and found a man using it and it was all fine now he called himself Lucy and wore pink trainers.

You'll be calling me a man by morning.
Are you not one?

Why would a man (with no understanding of or interest in the meanings and mechanics of feminism and gender) come on to a feminist board and ask women to share their experiences of feeling unsafe in toilets?