'Passing' trans

[SavetheVees]

Namechanged due to ~controversy~

I understand the anti self-ID issue. However, what I don't understand is how single-sex spaces can be policed by appearances alone? I have seen many threads where people speak about 'male bodies' - which is clear in the case of trans people who haven't actually made any effort to transition (incredibly rare in my experience - of course there are high profile examples)

This just really confuses me because I know quite a few trans people, including being a vague acquaintance to Tara Wood (I don't condone her actions so lets not go there), and in many cases, especially where hormones and surgery are involved, it is not really possible to tell they are trans. I first met Tara before she 'came out' as trans and the first time I saw her after the transition, I failed to realise it was the same person I had met before, and thought she was absolutely stunning. I was actually a bit envious of how effortlessly feminine she looked. I also know 'butch' presenting women, who despite being biologically female, are not feminine in the stereotypical-appearance way, and are often mistaken as men. I ALSO know women who have PCOS etc etc and have facial hair, who would be mortified to be accused of being biologically male when accessing single-sex spaces, even though they have a characteristic perceived to be 'male'.

So how would this be managed and policed? If you saw someone you knew to be trans accessing a women's changing room, despite them 'passing' as female visually - would you challenge them? What if someone was truly androgynous - would you challenge them? Would you expect someone else to? Surely there is no way on earth that we should be mandated to carry ID cards with details of our genitalia printed on them, or even worse expected to flash our privates at a changing room attendant in order to gain entry?! These sound far, far more intrusive and offensive to me than having a wee in a cubicle next to someone with a penis.

just to reiterate - I completely understand the ideological values of single sex spaces etc and protecting women from violent and voyeuristic men, however I struggle to understand how these spaces can be policed to avoid "be-penised" bodies without 1) being ineffective and 2) not offending biological vagina-owners who do not fit feminine stereotypes as effectively as trans folk do

koyaanisqatsi Now we're getting somewhere

www.freep.com/story/news/2015/06/22/fishbones-woman-speaks/71243408/

Appalling treatment, absolutely should not have happened, it was a male security guard again

Google “butch lesbian bathroom.” There are many, many news articles discussing it and for many gender non-confirming women, being confronted BY WOMEN is a regular occurance.

I just did. All I got was a load of blogs and one north Carolina woman removed from a ladies toilet.
Am I googling wrong?

For the most part I appear as a butch lesbian woman, no idea why as I am not.
And although I have never been thrown out of a bathroom yet, I have been looked at twice and asked if I should be in there.
After the first few times when I was affronted, I just get on with it now and tell them I am female. My voice, my mannerisms, my gait and probably the fact I don't throw a hissy fit when asked means no-one questions a second time.
I know precisely one Transsexual woman, who does not pass, she is fine with that.

Googling "toilet" might be advisable since we are talking about the UK environment. What goes on the US isn't really relevant.

I've been gender non-conforming to varying degrees for a good portion of my life and have only ever once had anyone say anything in a ladies' loo and that was a small child saying 'mummy, there's a man in the ladies' and the mum was obviously mortified, could see I was a woman and hissed at the child that I was a lady with short hair. I think children are bombarded with stereotypes and so can get this idea in their head that a girl is someone who has long hair and wears a dress and a boy is someone who has short hair and wears trousers.

The idea of 'passing' as a woman (or a man) is based on an understanding of what a woman is and that has completely changed for the younger generation so we aren't even answering the same question.

In general society:

Man = adult human male
Woman = adult human female

People are aware of a set of stereotypes/societal expectations that attach to men and women and either accept divergence from them or try to police them - which results in aggression towards butch/gnc women (calling them a man, not a real woman etc). They recognise that they are a woman (obviously they wouldn't go around harassing an actual man accusing him of being a man) but are threatened by them not performing their gender role.

In the brave new world:

Man = Someone who conforms to masculine gender roles (whether they have a penis or a vagina)
Woman = Someone who performs a feminine gender role regardless of whether they have a penis or a vagina

So what they are looking for when they are assessing whether someone is a man or a woman is their conformity to and performance of a gender role. I think these people can still tell what someone's bio sex is but now assess the clues of how they present/behave to determine whether they are a man or a woman. That means they get confused by gnc women in a way that previous generations weren't

I've seen this both in young people who have been raised in this ideology and also in well-meaning older people who are trying to be politically correct. Before if you were interacting with someone who was clearly biologically female but didn't conform to gender stereotypes, the right thing to do was to just treat them in the same way you would treat any woman and definitely not to insinuate that this meant they weren't a 'real woman'. Now the PC thing to do seems to be to either refer to them as 'he' or try to ascertain their preferred pronouns (in a way you wouldn't with a more gender conforming woman). Obviously this can be offensive to gnc women but, if you don't, you could be accused of 'misgendering' someone who identifies as trans - and we all know which of the two with shout the loudest about the 'literal violence' they have been subjected to.

The policing of women who are gender non conforming but don't relinquish the word woman is still going on of course both from traditional misogynists and also from transactivists. I've seen a number of occasions where transactivists have mocked and belittled butch women for not being 'feminine' or as much of a woman as they are.

So 7 pages in we've established that other than the OP MN posters here don't have any interest in how well a trans woman passes. We can almost always tell and it doesn't matter how 'femininely' they are made up we are alert to the possibility of male violence and that is what we're concerned with.

There have definitely been cases where male security guards ask 'butch'* lesbians not to use ladies toilets sometimes forcibly with sexual violence (which I think we're all agreed is completely unacceptable behaviour they have every right to be there)

There is no evidence of straight women roaming around the UK hauling lesbians out of toilet stalls to examine their genitalia Phew

I think we're done here

• as an aside I personally Dislike the term 'butch' as I've only heard it used by men to describe women and they don't use it in a positive way. Aesthetically I like the look of the non-femme lesbian style 😎

We will always get people trying to cheat the system. That doesn't;t mean abolish the system.

Exactly. And it seems to me this argument is only ever used as a gotcha! to justify self ID without any gatekeeping.

I'm glad this thread has come up and gone the direction it has as its basically what I have argued all along. In cases like toilets, fitting rooms, non communal changing etc., a trans mtf who vaguely 'passes' (well enough to feel unsafe in the mens) and crucially minds their own business without behaving in a threatening manner to women, thats where the honour system works. A man making no effort to pass (so may as well use the mens) and behaving in an inappropriate manner - the issue is whether they could be challenged under the cultural climate as its going. Ironically I have been challenged for looking 'masculine' as I do, once by security in a shopping mall but he could tell after approaching me I'm a woman. Not pleasant at the time I can tell you.

I've maintained there should be a much higher bar for prisons and refuges. I think both have a fairly strict GRC requirement though there have been exceptions. Under self id there may be similar requirements, like evidence of medical and social transition previously assessed by the GRP. 'Passing' alone would not be enough in such environments.

SpareRib I love that summary. Every thread should have one like it.

@kneedeepinunicorns thank-you 😊

Hope you're ok mummybear after everything.

I think that is pretty much everyone's position. Or at least, everyone I speak to has that position or something close.

I think that is pretty much everyone's position

Yep, its pretty much mine, and always has been

Forgive my ignorance, but I've got a general question on Self-Id, and this does indeed seem like the tail end of a topic so I hope you don't mind if I park it here.

There are so many opinions on these boards about the potential wider implications of Self-Id, limited sometimes only by the imagination, and as expressed on pretty much any of these boards, but what is actually known for certain?

For example, I find it impossible to believe that a woman refusing a trans bra-fitter would be grounds for anything other than a possibly sad shrug, and not being fined or hauled off down the nick, but I wouldn't dare bang a drum like that here, so when someone says differently I just have to take it at face value, but how sure is anyone that they are right?

The thin end of a wedge is always there if you want to see one, and it's not always easy (espec. if you are me, here) to argue with. And at this point, I'm struggling even to disagree.

I agree with @LangCleg "I don't consent to stranger penis in women's spaces."

So maybe we need unisex toilets (we need to stop saying gender -neutral because as far as I can see gender is becoming, thankfully, more neutral and could basically mean anything!)

Toilets that are safe for anyone to use but retain female only and male only places.

If we did that would everyone be happy?

Cortney Bogorad was a victim crime of male violence and institutional lesbophobia on the part of the police, who didn't record her report. Koyaanisqatsi, you make it sound as though female patrons were screaming to see her biological credentials, which absolutely wasn't the case. Somebody thought she was a man and mentioned it to the security guard (quite reasonably); it was HE who refused to check her ID and physically assaulted and humiliated her. Absolutely disgraceful.

Having said repeatedly that all we do here is talk about transgender people, despite the fact that what we discuss is the effects the laws have had and may yet have on women's rights, suddenly we have many new threads being started asking about our view of transgender people.

I do not think this is a coincidence. The American slang is "ratfucking" when done in politics. "False flag" elsewhere, and "JAQing off" on the internet. Just Asking Questions.

The subject is winding down (you can refuse to use any service you like, dad no one need submit to an involuntary bra fitting, I hope you know that!) But I just like what @Trousersdontmakemeaman said

"The problem we have is that a default sex segregation is being changed to a default gender segregation in law and compelled cutural acceptance.

This means two things;

1. the law is on the side of any malicious man who chooses to use it, and this is being tested to the limit in prisons already;
2. child protection for girls has been thrown out of the window in favour of a small minority of boys and men;
3. we are forcing girls and women to give up their right to consent in all circumstances where they could expect privacy."

So although this thread is about passing "This has nothing to do with passing or not passing. The fact that women are being forced to tie their selves up in knots to try to justify why sex segregation is needed is evidence of the forced nature of what is happening. This is being forced on women and girls. Forced.

Some people may not mind this coercion and not see it as such. But this is what is happening. If it was a wonderful voluntary choice for all there would be no need for this level of force."

We should not be tying ourselves up in knots. It's simple. We need sex segregation for intimate spaces and a third safe neutral spaces for anyone else as well. If TRAs really cared they would have been campaigning for that for years.

@MadBadDaddy why don't you start your own thread. I'd love to chat to you. You can ask all the questions you like on your own thread! Might not get answers. But might.

Well explained, Greyhound

I'd add 4) This makes a social norm and is teetering on becoming enshrined in law that the feelings of boys and men are more valuable and truthful than the feelings of girls and women, and must be awarded greater precedence in all situations.

Those are the words of Trousersdontmakemeaman but I completely agree.

And yes I agree, @Kneedeepinunicorns self id by stealth.

The whole thing centers what it means to be a woman in the mind of a male. It says what someone else thinks is bigger than observable reality.

And potentially it could make saying this a crime. Just look at Canada!

It really is1984 by the back door.

And it does no favours for genuine transsexuals with genuine dysphoria, who the current GRC is in place for. No wonder some transsexuals are wisely distancing themselves from anti-female rhetoric.

Being here is one thing, starting topics is something else. I'd go out of my way to avoid any accusations of the kind thebewilderness just described. You could describe my agenda as 'damage limitation' on behalf of all my stupid idiot cousins.

For example, I find it impossible to believe that a woman refusing a trans bra-fitter would be grounds for anything other than a possibly sad shrug, and not being fined or hauled off down the nick, but I wouldn't dare bang a drum like that here, so when someone says differently I just have to take it at face value, but how sure is anyone that they are right?

It's not necessarily about police involvement. Though the more we normalise the invasion of women's boundaries the more likely that is. It's about a male person feeling their wishes to be a bra fitter override women's feelings of discomfort, our privacy and dignity and our boundaries and I'll say no more about that but I'm sure most people know what I'm thinking.

Agree italangreyhound. Passing or not is irrelevant really. Sex segregation matters for girls and women. I would feel really stressed if someone male who “vaguely passes “ was in the loos.
It is ironic that there are campaigns in Africa for safe, single sex public loos for females, because everyone understands they are at risk in mixed sex spaces, while here the erosion of sex protections is happening by stealth, while there is still a law in place. Look at Primark’s response today, just like TopShop they have said that anyone can use the changing rooms of their choice. Apart from those who want or need single sex space...

@MadBadDaddy it was just an idea. Anyone can start a thread, as you an clearly see. In my opinion 'damage limitation' needs to be done by those making laws right now - but your input is also welcome.

I think, even the idea that a woman cannot refuse an intimate service from a male is damaging.

As Ereshkigal says "It's not necessarily about police involvement. Though the more we normalise the invasion of women's boundaries the more likely that is."

They assume that women's no is the beginning of a negotiation, as most males do.

@thebewilderness I'd be surprised if any male who wandered in here thinking like that would last 5 minutes.

Don't be ridiculous. It happens every day.
You have been doing it right along.