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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

The Simple Problem with Those Anti-Trans Protesters' Big Stunts

136 replies

FoxOnSecurity · 07/06/2018 17:26

This sums it up really about the problem with anti trans stunts.

www.vice.com/amp/en_uk/article/kzknma/the-simple-problem-with-those-anti-trans-protesters-big-stunts

OP posts:
Mumminmum · 08/06/2018 13:03

what is FWR women?

EmpressOfSpartacus · 08/06/2018 13:05

The Feminism & Women's Rights boards, Mumminmum.

haXXor · 08/06/2018 13:52

As a PP stated, we use peer enforcement (the "competent guardian" of criminology) to keep males out of the loos.

In fact, not even that: there are two cheese layers before we get to "competent guardians" being in the same space as rapists and targets and preventing rapes by being there.

First cheese layer: we use peer enforcement of single-sex spaces to keep the offender (male, rape weapon person) from getting near the target (female, unpatchable security vulnerability person), enabling women and girls to visit the loo alone. The 94% of men who do not use their penises to rape are also part of that peer enforcement, by challenging a man attempting to enter the ladies as he makes the attempt, or summoning the police/attendant if a man persists in trying to enter the ladies even when challenged.

Second cheese layer: we use the social norm that males use the men's loos and females use the women's loos to filter non-rapist men from risky men, because non-rapist men aren't going to use the women's loo intentionally and, if they do by mistake, they will leave when challenged. Hence, a male in the women's loos has already red-flagged himself as a threat, just by being there, and women in the area can take informed action (e.g. leave, go in in groups for safety, call the police, etc). If social norms change (e.g. multiple occupancy mixed toilets become widespread or males become more tolerated in the ladies loos), we won't be able to rely on a male's presence in the ladies as a red-flagging criteria. We'll have to either take a greater risk of rape or not pee, and no one can hold it in forever.

The "competent guardian" third cheese layer only kicks in if/when a rapist is already inside the loo, the presence of multiple women in the loo acts as a deterrent to rape. This is the last cheese layer, and two cheese layers failed if you had to rely on this one for safety.

Bearing in mind how few rape cases make it to court "you can report your rape, that will deter a rapist" is not a cheese layer. If the three cheese layers fail and a female is raped, a police report is incident post-mortem, not prevention. The aim here is prevention.

The GRA changes, which take away females' ability to challenge men by taking away our ability to presume legal entitlement to enter female space based on visual assessment of biological sex, remove the second cheese layer completely and fill the first with so many holes that it's near-useless, forcing us to rely on the third cheese layer, and if you are the only woman in the loo, you don't even have that any more. This puts any female who wants to go anywhere on her own or with only male company (e.g. husband) on a bladder leash, and that's not on.

I was in Germany once and some fool town planner had put a bench right outside a women's loo. Two guys were sitting on that bench and verbally sexually harassing every woman who used the loo. It was very intimidating. They were deterred from entering only because bystanders can stop them or call the police. Imagine if they could self-id as women... And men will, oh they will: if they will choose jobs (John Worboys, Ian Huntley) to get access to victims and risk their wages and liberty to abuse, if they will risk HIV and hepatitis B to shove used tampons up their arses for sexual thrills, if they will break into houses to wear teen girls knickers to wank and film it (which was useful evidence in the trial), they will fill in GRC forms.

MIdgebabe · 08/06/2018 14:09

HaXOr I like your explanation of why safe sex spaces work now

I don't think that changes to the GRA necessarily will change that though. With that, it's about getting terminology correct and avoiding one group railroading another. That's one area where we need to remain focussed

Also I don't believe that you need to change the GRA to end up in that situation. The girl guides are acting independently of any legal changes. That's why it's so important that the GRA is written carefully, so that abuse of rights can be challenged legally and a push back made against changes that increase discrimination agaiant women

smithsinarazz · 08/06/2018 14:17

"The simple problem with those big stunts? They make people talk. And we don't want that."

TerfsUp · 08/06/2018 14:19

Excellent post, HaXXor.

haXXor · 08/06/2018 15:18

@MidgeBabe I don't think that changes to the GRA necessarily will change that though. With that, it's about getting terminology correct and avoiding one group railroading another. That's one area where we need to remain focussed

Are you instead thinking of the EA?

The GRA is the means by which a trans person gets a legal fiction of a sex change. This legal fiction allows them to be treated as the acquired legal sex under almost all circumstances and ATM it's gatekept by the need to get two doctors to sign off and also must live as if they were the acquired legal sex for two years. Hence, it's quite hard to get one. Making it a self declaration means we'll get a lot more male people with female legal sex and docs to prove it, so someone challenging a male in female spaces is more likely to be told "actually I'm legally female". This, combined with crybully social media users like that Oxford student who started tweeting at Primark after their friend was challenged and asked for ID to use the female fitting rooms even though said friend was let in after showing ID, makes women and organisations stay quiet instead of challenging.

So another cheese layer in the swiss cheese stack of measures to keep women and girls safe is "we trust psychiatrists to keep AGPs and transtrenders out of a
legal right to most female spaces and only let GD folk in".

Picassospaintbrush · 08/06/2018 15:24

I think foxonsecurity should also get a meter to assist in the brave services they are performing.

www.scientology.org.uk/faq/scientology-and-dianetics-auditing/what-is-the-emeter-and-how-does-it-work.html

LangCleg · 08/06/2018 15:36

haXXor - thanks for your clarity in explaining the dynamics at play.

Rufustheyawningreindeer · 08/06/2018 20:41

Great post haXXor

mancheeze · 08/06/2018 23:22

Fuck Vice.

It reminds me of the alt right when you point out their white nationalist crap is racist. Then they turn on you and claim that pointing out racism is the real racism.

Thanks Fox, for doing just that.

nooka · 09/06/2018 04:50

Keeping up with the IT security theme the GRA doesn't even need to be changed for the threat agent to be successful. The original GRA has acted as a trojan horse, whether it was designed that way or not.

It was a largely unnoticed and apparently innocuous legal change which has enabled the definition of women to become diluted by adding men who have been given permission to have the legal fiction status of women through gender reassignment, but more importantly as this has happened alongside

a broadening of terms so that the tight category of adults with gender dysphoria confirmed and treated by healthcare professionals who had taken steps or were in the planning process to transition medically/surgically having already transitioned socially (a group estimated in the low hundreds) has become a large group (estimated in the hundred thousands) of disparate individuals under the transgender umbrella who may have sex or gender dysphoria, or be driven by fetishes or other motivations to believe, pretend to believe or simply say that they are the opposite sex and be at least on the face of it accepted as such

the relaxation of initially rigid medical gatekeeping alongside the introduction of easier processes to enable changes of sex markers in key identity documents (why bother with a GRC altered birth certificate if you already have a drivers licence and passport in your new sex?)

these alongside the general growth of individualistic identity based thinking so that 'I feel x therefore I am x' is now a widely accepted paradigm, so that when individuals present in one of the new transgender identities official reactions are to celebrate and praise the individual regardless of how bizarre that presentation might be (eg Friday Pippa not being taken aside by HR for disciplinary action but instead being feted and asked to write policies, advise the board etc).

nooka · 09/06/2018 05:04

Oh and while people are enjoying an introduction to risk management another model of interest might be the fraud triangle. This is a simple behavioural model used to look at workplace fraud, considering why otherwise law/ policy abiding individuals act fraudulently in certain circumstances. It has three components:

Pressure (at it's most basic the individual needs money and feels there is no way to get it, often because it is difficult or embarrassing to admit to the problem)

Opportunity (the individual sees circumstances where they think fraud can be committed without consequence)

Rationalisation (the individual is able to tell themselves that their act is justified often because of perceived failings of the organisation or society they are defrauding)

To me it's fairly easy to see how this model could apply (substituting financial need/pressure for validation), thinking for example of the assault at Speakers Corner, election/selection of individuals for roles or schemes run by the Labour party and the way that these have been justified in some circles.

Ereshkigal · 09/06/2018 08:32

Brilliant posts nooka, thank you.

haXXor · 09/06/2018 11:07

What's really interesting to me is how we can analyse the GRA situation through at least two different models (criminology, security[1] theory) and come to the same conclusion. It's almost like we might be right...

@FoxOnSecurity and other PPs: I never thanked you for the compliments. So thanks. I try my best to explain things clearly. Writing documentation is easily the hardest part of my day job because humans don't have uniform instruction parsers.

[1] Not just IT security: anyone who uses external door locks is deploying a swiss cheese security model: first slice is that there is social pressure not to burgle, second slice is hiding valuables and closing curtains at night to reduce a thief's perception of your house as a target, third slice is your external security arrangements.)

SardineReturns · 09/06/2018 11:13

"Claims that GRA changes don't remove a cheese layer are disingenuous"

That would be better for me, I sometimes have trouble with the cheese slicing gadget that we have.

Sadly, I don't think that's what you meant.

Datun · 09/06/2018 14:29

haXXor

Fascinating posts. The content, but also the way you communicate it. Mesmerising.

TerfsUp · 10/06/2018 08:57

What Datun said.

waves to Datun Haven't seen you for a while. I hope you have been keeping well.

Datun · 10/06/2018 10:35

Hi Terfsup . All good. Still reading, if not posting as much.

foxyliz26 · 10/06/2018 12:06

its quite funny really , I noticed a girl I was in school with on here protesting about girls and womens rights

as a lesbian at school this same uber straight girl protested about me and a few lesbians , she didn't want to go in the showers with us and spread hate around the school !

C/F rang me some years ago for some free legal advice , told her I hadn't forgotten how she had made my life hell at school

have seen recently another girl who was anti lesbians and gay at school , and have subsequently got grown up gay children and march at Pride events , she still cant look me in the face

how times change

LangCleg · 10/06/2018 12:56

I noticed a girl I was in school with on here protesting about girls and womens rights as a lesbian at school this same uber straight girl protested about me and a few lesbians , she didn't want to go in the showers with us and spread hate around the school

Cool story.

Rufustheyawningreindeer · 10/06/2018 13:43

How did you notice you were at school with her?

Rufustheyawningreindeer · 10/06/2018 13:44

And i am probably one of the worst on mumsnet at not keeping to the point of the thread

But whats that got to do with the thread?

Rufustheyawningreindeer · 10/06/2018 13:45

I can understand a 15 year old growing up and changing her views...what with the whole maturing thing

Bowlofbabelfish · 10/06/2018 13:48

Rather intolerant of you. I had a couple of my school bullies apologise to me when we were in our thirties.
They were genuine apologies, I accepted them. Nobody is the same person they were at 14. It’s called personal growth.

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