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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

What would it look like?

220 replies

Bewilderednow · 07/06/2018 04:57

First in the hope of clear answers, and so I'm not viewed with suspicion, I am transgender. My question is what would legislation look like if you could pass every law regarding transgender issues tomorrow? Thank you for reading and for any response.

OP posts:
Bowlofbabelfish · 08/06/2018 14:35

Can I ask what’s discouraging about it, OP?

Women requesting their rights are not trampled is not discouraging surely? Women saying that they support the right of trans people to live free from discrimination is not discouraging? Women pointing out that self ID will have adverse effects on the laws that protect women ... is that discouraging?

May I ask what YOU would legislate for? And if that legislation would remove protections from women and children, I’d like to ask you why you feel that is justified?

Knicknackpaddyflak · 08/06/2018 14:38

Thank all of you for replying again. It was illuminating if not encouraging.

So basically you're on the now familiar line that women having rights is by itself transphobic.

Zero sum game. Women just need to be nice, shut up and hand over their rights to make trans people happy.

No. Seriously, no. There will not be guilting me ever out of standing up for the unique, separate needs and rights of biological women and girls which are wholly and entirely based on their biological reality. They cannot be shared by anyone who does not have that biology. Any more than a biological woman can truly know what it is or be the unique needs and reality of a transwoman. Both are equally deserving of legal protections, provisions, respect, privacy, dignity. Neither group should not be subsumed, silenced and destroyed by forced colonisation from the other. Funnily enough, only one group is trying to do that.

Every poster who replied in good faith expressed concern to ensure transwomen's rights and needs are met. Maybe not in the way you'd like, but in an equal if separate way to women's. How do you feel EQUAL concern and respect to biological women's rights and needs can be met by transwomen?

Knicknackpaddyflak · 08/06/2018 14:43

And frankly I don't find it encouraging either that even a (very rare) polite poster, posting in good faith, asks GC women for their side of the debate and then basically says 'wrong answer'.

ErrolTheDragon · 08/06/2018 15:00

we should all be free to wear whatever we wish. Women were brave enough after the First World War to start wearing trousers, despite the criticism they came in for, and accusations of sexual impropriety. It's time men did the same.

Yes - if your 'gender' doesn't match your sex, how about expanding the bandwidth of your own sex before trying to encroach on the other?

It can be done. Well, it certainly can in the U.K...

goo.gl/images/RYt4jq

goo.gl/images/7VHSRk

picklemepopcorn · 08/06/2018 15:21

Some transwomen take women's used and discarded menstrual products and wear them.

Do you, OP, think it is reasonable to make that behaviour easier? Would you want to share a confined, semi private space with someone who would do such a thing?

MrsTerryPratchett · 08/06/2018 15:25

So what's your solution @Bewilderednow? That meets women's needs and trans people's needs?

Bewilderednow · 08/06/2018 18:01

This was never about agreement between sides. This was about trying to understand your position. Personally I dont believe there is a solution to the issue that would make both your position and mine coexist in harmony.
This is ok. It is ok for you to strive for laws that you support. This is true of transfolk as well. I won't vilify those on your side for disagreeing with my politics. If anything I said was offensive you have my apologies, but I won't apologize for not sharing your view. Compromise is likely to be difficult when the two sides can not even agree on terminology.

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Bewilderednow · 08/06/2018 18:08

Pickle that's disgusting, and also irrelevant. Some people do a disgusting act so I will target every member of that class? There were two lesbian women that murdered their children tecently should this equate to fearing lesbians around your children? No.

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Baroquehavoc · 08/06/2018 18:09

Do you understand why sex segregation is important?

I don't think there are two sides. But, regardless of your rights and needs, women and girls have rights and needs of their own.

PosyFossilsShoes · 08/06/2018 18:11

I don't expect you to share my view @Bewilderednow but I would really appreciate it if you would explain what it is about the law I proposed that you would disagree with?

Bewilderednow · 08/06/2018 18:12

Knicknack I do not believe is separate but equal. It never works. It always creates an underclass of less thans.

OP posts:
Baroquehavoc · 08/06/2018 18:12

It is ok for you to strive for laws that you support. This is true of transfolk as well

Yes, it is. You can do that without taking any rights away from women and girls.

Picassospaintbrush · 08/06/2018 18:15

Grayson Perry is a self confessed autogynaehpile. He is to my mind used as a part of the sanitation of this, as many of his community actually do want it to be believed that they are women. Off the back of Perry's national treasure status all sex fetishists are now being given the freedom to abuse the rights of the female sex.

transcritical.wordpress.com/2016/04/23/grayson-perry-im-all-man/

Picassospaintbrush · 08/06/2018 18:16

That was in relation to ErroltheDragon's photos.

Bowlofbabelfish · 08/06/2018 18:19

Personally I dont believe there is a solution to the issue that would make both your position and mine coexist in harmony.

Interesting. I think it can be done legally.

So you don’t - whose rights take precedence then? Children’s, women’s or trans people?

Knicknackpaddyflak · 08/06/2018 18:21

How often do lesbians murder children? Statistically tiny. How often do people murder children? Sadly all too often. So we have safeguarding policies and safeguarding leads in places where children regularly are, DBV police record checks before employment with vulnerable groups, social services, we don't hand children over to just anyone and hope for the best because we know some children will pay a huge price for that carelessness.

How often do men murder women? Sadly all too often. How often do men sexually harass and intimidate women? Pretty much every woman has experienced it. The harassment and abuse is not based on their gender identity- oh that it was possible to identify out of it- but on their biology. So there is sex segregation which has allowed women safety in intimate spaces as well as privacy, dignity, emotional safety.

Is it proportional to remove that from women and say sorry about your loss of privacy, dignity, higher risk of the sexual harassment and assault many of you have experienced from an early age, and that basically you can accept the risk/embarrassment or accept that you no longer can go out in public longer than you can be away from your loo (hi great grandma, that was your situation wasn't it?) - because a group of people born men would really like the validation of being included, and don't understand or care about the loss that this creates for you.

Proportionate? Fair?

I absolutely accept and agree that transwomen should not be in the position of having to use mens changing rooms or bathrooms, their safety, privacy and dignity matters as much as women's does. I wholly support the creation of new third spaces in addition to men only and female only provision. I don't agree that women should be allowed privacy, dignity, to name themselves, to be allowed to talk about their biology and to be safe only so long as that doesn't inconvenience or upset anyone born with a penis. The word for beliefs based on that aren't 'inclusive', they are male supremacist.

Knicknackpaddyflak · 08/06/2018 18:32

I do not believe is separate but equal. It never works. It always creates an underclass of less thans

That's a convenient point of view from the trans perspective because it dismisses out of hand that women can have the right to their own spaces. 'You can't have separate spaces because ours would be lesser than'.

Actually when you look at many transgender writings, the whole 'we're women, you're cis women' thing is already busy creating an underclass and surprise surprise, the under class are the ones with vaginas and ovaries.

It boils down to a basic point of disagreement.

Point A: There is an ideology that a man is a woman if he identifies as one, therefore born women must be permitted no boundaries that exclude them because feelings of rejection, invalidation, being lesser than.

Point B: It is not possible to change sex. Women are a biological fact, their oppression is rooted entirely in their biology. It can be fully respected that someone's gender identity and biology do not match, that they prefer to be socially treated as the opposite sex, and in most situations can be treated as the opposite sex. However there are some situations in which women as a biological class have the human right to safety, privacy, dignity, to assemble without the presence of men, to change and toilet and receive intimate care only from someone of the same biological sex and should not be deprived of this

You're right. They are not compatible beliefs. They can't be.

anonymouseagain · 08/06/2018 18:37

@BarrackerBarmer Being, as it is, in direct conflict with the L and the G

The L mostly, from the lady-penis silliness. As trans men start moving into G spaces, the G will push back.

The B should be ashamed of their complicity in selling the L down the river, for reasons that I will at some point write up. (The G should also be ashamed, but I don't have an essay to write on that.)

Knicknackpaddyflak · 08/06/2018 18:37

Just to add: If men's toilets/changing rooms/hospital wards/prisons and women's toilets/changing rooms/hospital wards/prisons etc etc are separate but equal,

do you feel that this has not worked and has created a situation of lesser than?

Baroquehavoc · 08/06/2018 18:40

I do not believe is separate but equal. It never works. It always creates an underclass of less thans

Women and girls need 'separate but equal' for our own safety and opportunities. I have never seen this as creating an underclass.

Bewilderednow · 08/06/2018 18:43

Knick agreed the positions are not compatible. That's unfortunate, but it's life. Folks disagree, I would simply like to minimize the strife. I'm disgusted with the way this has been done to date. It helps no one to insult each other and or threaten. I've seen way to much of that from transfolk. I understand fear, and hurt, but it is not acceptable. So I listen. I don't agree, but you deserve to be heard.

OP posts:
Baroquehavoc · 08/06/2018 18:46

I don't agree, but you deserve to be heard.

What don't you agree with, sex segregation?

Knicknackpaddyflak · 08/06/2018 18:47

You're 'hearing' but not 'listening', not least that your only engagement is to say I'm wrong. You won't say why or how or discuss it, just nope, you don't agree.

Sorry, but that kind of listening does nothing to minimise strife, it just gives me the same feel of 'yep, shut up and get under the bus' superior dismissiveness and lack of caring that the shouts and threats of violence give. You don't care about women, you don't care about anything anyone is saying here, so I can only imagine you're collecting views for some other agenda you're not explaining. I'm out. There is nothing to be gained from this conversation.

Bewilderednow · 08/06/2018 18:51

Ok obviously I am offending so I'll exit as well.

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Hoppinggreen · 08/06/2018 18:52

I don’t care how you dress
I don’t care what you call yourself
I don’t care how you want to live your life
I will defend your right to do all of the above the way you want - EXCEPT for accessing female only spaces if you have a penis.
And I will NOT agree that you are a woman in the same way that I am. You are a trans woman, you have had your own journey and will continue to have your own journey. Be proud of who you are but don’t try to insist I recognise you as something you are not and can never be.