Please or to access all these features

Add post

Watch this thread

Save thread

Start a new thread

Flip thread

Hide thread

My feed

Active Unanswered threads

Getting started FAQ's

Unanswered threads Acronyms Talk guidelines

Hide shortcut buttons

Talk

Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Feminism: chat

Flip

Original poster

Anyone care to help me follow an argument through? Trans....

16 replies

Bi11yOneMate · 21/04/2018 15:05

So.

If you don't accept that transwomen are women, but dont want to discriminate against trans service providers (eg bra fitters, HCP etc), then surely it follows that you can't discriminate against men either in these positions.
Is there a good reason to refuse male service providers OTHER THAN it makes the recipient uncomfortable/feelings? Could this be genuinely compared to a racist white person feeling uncomfortable/scared with a BAME service provider?
What arguments are there that it is a different situation?

Thanks, would really appreciate help on this one.

OP posts:

Original poster

Bi11yOneMate · 21/04/2018 15:06

Oh and as it would be racist, therefore the first situation is also transphobic?

OP posts:

Jayceedove · 21/04/2018 15:13

It is about biology. Some women feel uncomfortable at the thought of intimate touching or exams if the person doing so is a man.

Really that it is. A trans woman could still be physically male whilst legally female. And some women do not consider even those who have had surgery as anything bit male.

I say this as a trans woman and whilst I think of myself day to day as a woman and have done for nearly half a century I am fully aware of the biological reality and why that matters to some women.

If they cannot be sure they might feel uncomfortable. That is why I fully support the exclusions allowed even for those trans women with legal recognition in places where this kind of problem might occur.

Somewhere like a refuge has a right of exclusion. Someone having a smear test has a right to insist on a woman (her perception of what a woman is matters here). And I have no objection to anyone doing that. It is a reasonable accommodation.

This should be about give and take.

I have had enough intimate examinations myself post transition to understand the sense of vulnerability.

It would be unreasonable not to appreciate why this matters.

spontaneousgiventime · 21/04/2018 15:16

Thank you JC coming from a trans woman I don't think much more need be said.

CuriousaboutSamphire · 21/04/2018 15:27

Thanks to JC that's the shortest, most succinct and nigh on incontrovertible thread on this apparent 'dichotomy' ever!

HerFemaleness · 21/04/2018 15:32

Could this be genuinely compared to a racist white person feeling uncomfortable/scared with a BAME service provider?

No because white people haven't suffered centuries of oppression, discrimination and abuse from BAME people. Turn this around, if I barged my way in to a charity that exists to support the needs of black women (I'm white just so you know), would they be acting unreasonably if they told me to sling my hook? Is it an act of discrimination against me if I'm unable to participate in the activities of this group?

changeypants · 21/04/2018 15:33

It's interesting OP makes the comparison with a "racist white person". The truer comparison would be with a person of colour who did not want to receive a service from a white person. This is because both women and people of colour are the oppressed classes here. As countless people have already explained, it is the maleness and not the transness that is the issue. The fear on the part of the hypothetical woman /person of colour is based on (often many examples of) prejudice experienced and the structural power dynamic existing between them and men /white people. As it happens I am a white person providing a service in which I occasionally step aside for a person of colour to provide the service instead if the service user so requests. I have not read a single post on MN where a woman has expressed concern about a trans men.

HerFemaleness · 21/04/2018 15:33

Great post jaycee.

changeypants · 21/04/2018 15:34

X post!

Original poster

Bi11yOneMate · 21/04/2018 15:37

Thanks. I'll try it :)

(Long running fairly civil "argument" over SM )

OP posts:

Janie143 · 21/04/2018 15:38

for JC I have just become a massive fangirl of you That is an enlightened and profound response

Original poster

Bi11yOneMate · 21/04/2018 20:26

Changeypants - I've come back and reread your post (only really skimmed answers to my op earlier as the kids have been bloody hard work and full on today). I think that's helped clarify my thinking - I was trying to think of a response to why the female service recipient's feelings would trump the male service provider's feelings - and basically it's the power imbalance and history of oppression - have I got that right?
So any situation where it is currently acceptable for a female to refuse a male service provider - it should also be acceptable to refuse someone they perceive to be male, due to a fear of power imbalance. Yet this is not saying that "all males are abusive" and that they think that specific male might be a danger?

Sorry about this. I've never really studied feminism and I'm genuinely worried that my feelings on this are indeed intolerant...

OP posts:

Ereshkigal · 21/04/2018 20:32

Your thinking is a bit confused IMO. It's not paranoia, it's a legitimate concern. 98% of sex crime and most other violent crime is committed by males. And there is also women's privacy and dignity to consider. Which are generally handwaved away in these debates, because no one cares about women's feelings. That is what oppression looks like.

MsMcWoodle · 21/04/2018 20:37

Sorry that the kids have been hard work today.
I think that same sex HCP is not really such a troubling idea. Many men would want the same. I wouldn't worry about being intolerant.

ChickenMe · 21/04/2018 20:44

Also the person working in a shop (ir for that matter being a doctor or anything where you are entering "their" territory) is in something of a position of authority. Perhaps not in a legal sense but in a social sense. Eg you hear the argument "oh but you can ask for a female" but would eg a 16 year old girl feel initimidated by asking this?

thebewilderness · 22/04/2018 04:12

It's interesting OP makes the comparison with a "racist white person". The truer comparison would be with a person of colour who did not want to receive a service from a white person.

That was my thought also. When you compare power dynamics you need to compare like to like.

YimminiYoudar · 22/04/2018 08:27

The "women's refuge" analogy would be if a victim (male or female) of modern slavery - for example someone trafficked as a child from Africa to rural England to pick fruit without wages or freedom (yes this happens) - escaped somehow and got to a refuge, and was so traumatised by their experiences having only known violence and pain from white people that the very sight of a white face was terrifying and traumatising and they need some time away from the world to recover during which it's best if they only have to deal with black people until they feel strong enough to step out into the real world - and into this highly sensitive situation comes someone like Rachel Dolezal, claiming to be black whilst actually being white and insisting she has every right to be there - focusing on gaining validation for her internal feelings of being black rather than being compassionate for the trauma this person has been through.

Flip