Why segregate by gender?

[FeminaSum]

I've seen this point raised in passing across a few threads before but want to give it its own.

Let's take the TRA position. Biology and biological sex are irrelevant, or at the very least unimportant. What matters is someone's gender identity. That is what makes them a man or a woman. This is also separate from their 'gender expression' so you can wear skirts and heels and identify as a man. Or be Danielle Muscato and identify as a woman. It's about an internal sense of self.

Accepting those hypothetical premises, what is the reason for dividing changing rooms between those who have a 'man' inner essence and those who have a 'woman' one? Why is it necessary?

When teenagers go camping, what reason is there to divide the tents between those who experience a 'girl' gender identity and those who experience a 'boy' one? What about boarding school dormitories - why is it important for young people to sleep in a room with people who have the same internal sense of identity as them, and wrong to share with those who have the opposite identity?

Why should sports competitions be split up based on whether people identify as men or women? Remember, it is identity that matters, not body parts, hormones or presentation. Why shouldn't everyone compete together? As a bonus, that means that those who identify as something other than 'man' or 'woman' can also join in!

I know (and share) the GC position on this. I'm honestly curious about what the rationale is on the other side. Is there one?

The rationale is the usual one: because male people say so.

SomeDyke I agree with you. It is the power imbalance between male and female sexed bodies that is the key, not the risk that someone might fancy you. The latter is irrelevant. That’s why I always ignore the idiotic ‘well if you don’t mind lesbians in female changing rooms, why do you mind men?’ arguments.

And of course there is never a reason to segregate based on gender identity. I tend not to speak to most people I share a changing room with so I wouldn’t even know what their identity is. Unless identity leaves a physical marker that is easily identifiable by others, it’s the person’s physical body that is the issue.

I wanted to start this thread, but didn't know how to word it.

I have no idea why anyone would ever segregate by gender. Apart from toy and clothes shops who feel they can make more money by having pink and blue aisles

I don't mind sharing a sauna with a group of lesbians by the way. Because even if they (in general) are attracted to me (pretty unlikely these days), it's very unlikely that they would either want to, or be able to, do me much harm.

The only place I've seen this conversation, by the way , is in relation to sport.

I may not agree with people who want to get rid of sex segregation in sport and just have open competitions, but at least there is some reason to their argument - along the lines of finding the fastest/highest/strongest human.

But those who want to get rid of sex segregation and replace it with gender segregation (or segregation based on testosterone levels) make no sense to me at all.

Bumping, patiently.

But validation wouldn't work if all the be-penised people ended up in one room and all the be-cunted people ended up in another room, for example at a post-operative trans event, because all the users of the "female gender" and "male gender" toilets would be the same as each other.

So would this type of event continue to segregate the toilet facilities, or would everything be single gender? And why?

This is actually something I would like to be ‘educated’ about, there must be someone who can shed some light on this surely?

The goal from the beginning appears to have been to drive women out of the public sphere.
Women's right to privacy and dignity, our ability to say no to men and laws that support that right, are what makes it possible for women and girls to participate in public life.

Lemon I think it’s unlikely that anyone will be able to educate you on it.
It comes down to someone saying ‘it will make me feel better if I get to female spaces’. If females complain, the response is ‘well I cause no harm, they must be transphobic. The only reason they could want to exclude me is bigotry.’ That argument by itself undermines the very idea of sex segregation. If the trans person doesn’t feel comfortable with natal men, it’s illogical that they cannot understand that a woman might not feel comfortable with their male body in an intimate space. Which means that the real reason must be ‘my feelings matter because I am oppressed, but theirs do not’.

It’s much harder because they are also saying at the same time ‘I AM a woman, I am just like you’. That throws a spanner in the works. It would be much easier if a man just said ‘I want to use the ladies’ because then any objection would not be seen as bigoted at all. The man would be seen as the unreasonable one. The same as if I said I wanted to gain access to a scholarship for black students. I would be the unreasonable one. But in the case of trans women, there is a double hurdle- you can’t just say no (as you could with the black scholarship), you are now made to give a reason for it. The dynamic changes entirely and women are put on the back foot.

So can we take it that there are no reasons for gender segregation?

Even the usual suspects haven't appeared on this thread.

So can we take it that there are no reasons for gender segregation?

Looks like it! Amazing to have an uncontested win for women and girls

I have to admit that I thought at least one of our regular pro self-ID posters would have a go at explaining it.

No?

Indeed FeminaSum there are normally several people so keen to "educate" us.

Thanks OP.

I think this is the big issue where, when you get right down to it, the demands of TRAs are fundamentally self contradictory. It's not possible for them to achieve what they want to achieve.

If we were to accept that sex is a social construct and gender is the only real thing and is a spectrum, then we'd get rid of mens/womens facilities and have unisex ones. But TRAs don't want unisex facilities and unisex options (hence why there's no push for a 3rd space from the TRA side).

What the transwomen seem to want is
a) that there be women only spaces that are for just women, and
b) that they themselves be included in those spaces without restriction

From the outside that's obviously an absurd and self defeating proposition. It is about validation, and unfortunately for them it can't possibly be successful.

And when we get right down to it, the belief they want to have validated is about the sex of their bodies. Nothing to do with internal gender. Hence why they have those contradictory demands. They don't want a bathroom for people who 'feel dainty' if many of the people in it are men. They want to believe that they have a female body and therefore belong in female spaces.
Everything else is just smoke and mirrors to try and prop up that delusion.

Interestingly, I was watching video yesterday where activist Theryn Meyer talks about Danielle Muscato.

It completely undermines the "internal feel" part of being a transwoman - the outer appearance (clothes, makeup) is the only thing that counts

Great post OP and I have often thought the same thing. If we do away with sex segregation we really ought to do away with any kind of man/woman segregation.

I think there are two reasons though that some people think segregating things by gender instead of sex is a valid idea:

1. We have actually been sort of doing this with some spaces, such as bathrooms, for years. This is what the “honour” system is - largely passing trans people, or at least trans people who had made some visible effort regarding their gender presentation, using the toilets of the gender they identified with rather than the sex. This has only become a problem now because we have so many people who aren’t really transitioning in any meaningful way claiming to be trans.

2. We are talking about very small numbers of people - in theory. There are few trans people and, in the grand scheme of things, probably few men who will abuse the gender segregation (I do think it will be abused plenty, but the majority of men will still stick to the area that matches their sex). So in practice, areas will still be MOSTLY sex segregated, even if gender segregation is officially used instead.

That’s the end of the arguments I can find in favour of gender segregation, and they more or less amount to “it will still basically be sex segregation, but more lax”.

So I’m not misunderstood, I’m not in favour of gender segregation at ALL. We should always make rules based on what can be objectively observed, not people’s feelings. I’m just reflecting on the reasons (some) people might think gender segregation seems viable.