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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Does this person have a point about trans women in loos?

110 replies

HamsterToast · 07/09/2018 19:28

To be fair I have seen people say this about trans women. Thoughts?

*and no I'm not a trans troll stalking in disguise. Although that is what a trans troll stalking in disguise would say ......

Does this person have a point about trans women in loos?
OP posts:
LagerthaTheShieldMaiden · 07/09/2018 22:37

I do apologise, I find it difficult to stick to one train of thought. This is why I usually lurk. I hope I make a tiny bit of sense.

UpstartCrow · 07/09/2018 22:40

You don't need to apologise, you make perfect sense. There are so many strands to our lives and we have to manage all of them. At the same time we are expected to keep so many of them private.
And now we're being told we are bigots for needing to do just that.

ALittleBitofVitriol · 07/09/2018 22:42

It's not women who invented this double bind to be big meanie meanies.
Ffs.
The double bind just is
You were born a male. Nobody's fault. It just is.

You want to use female spaces. Women didn't tease or tempt you into them and then cock block you. Your feelings about your body have nothing to do with women, it's not our fault. You want something that just isn't - it's not us denying you. Natural biological phenomena. It just is cold in winter, t**fs didn't cast a spell.

Our bodies are different and have different needs & experiences, this isn't a cool girls club we're nastily excluding you from, you just are excluded - just like I'm naturally excluded from 'Male' even though some of that physical and societal privilege would be sweet. I'm also excluded from the transwomen club.

It also isn't our fault that your sex commits 98+% of sexual assault and 90+% of violent crime. I know that many of your MRA buddies like to blame us, or say that male on male violence is worse. It's not our fault that we have learned responses, triggers if you will, to be wary of the primary and secondary sex characteristics that we recognise in you. It's not women's fault that you aren't comfortable with those characteristics either. Again, we aren't witches, we can't cast a spell to either remove your characteristics, fix male violence or quell our response to it.

Being female under patriarchy is one big double bind. Madonna/white, skinny/fat, ugly/pretty, nice/bitch, meek/bitch, emotional/bitch, frigid/slut, bad mother/bad worker, infertile/too fertile, fetishised/ignored... on and on ad finitum. Just like I don't understand what being a transwoman is like, you have no idea - no idea what being a woman is really like. None. And you betray that truth with every word.

What we can do, what our foremothers fought hard to do, is create our own spaces within which we can feel safe and enjoy privacy to manage our exclusively female bodied experiences. We didn't create them as a slight to you and your sex (who incidentally have fought us every step of the way), we didn't conjur them up with a magical flurry, we fought and fought and poured out our labour, our blood, sweat and tears.

Maybe you can understand why stealing that labour, invading those spaces, is objectionable?
I'm sure that if transwomen similarly fought hard to create those spaces for themselves in society, many women would have been your allies.

Help us dismantle patriarchy, by first doing your own work to dismantle it within yourselves - not by pasting patriarchal femininity over patriarchal masculinity and calling it kweer

ALittleBitofVitriol · 07/09/2018 22:44

Edit - *that should be madonna/ whore

FloralBunting · 07/09/2018 22:44

Emphatically no need for apologies. This is a tangled ball of twisted nonsense, and I do not want women to feel they have to apologize for having confused misgivings.

FloralBunting · 07/09/2018 22:48

Oh, and Lagertha, if I may point you to another shieldmaiden, who did brave deeds and proudly declared "I am no man!" by way of encouragement Smile

scotsheather · 07/09/2018 22:54

Then surely the 'requirement' to use womens spaces for that period is wrong? Awkward for the person going through it as well as women.

Materialist · 07/09/2018 23:02

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Datun · 07/09/2018 23:06

ALittleBitofVitriol

Excellent post.

LagerthaTheShieldMaiden · 07/09/2018 23:21

Thank you Upstart.

That post ALittleBitIfVitriol, that's everything I try to say.

CertainHalfDesertedStreets · 07/09/2018 23:23

Lagertha there is a thread on Feminism Chat about school toilets with a good template letter stating why there legally needs to be single sex provision. Might be useful in speaking with your dd's school? It was started in the last week IIRC.

LagerthaTheShieldMaiden · 07/09/2018 23:24

I keep thinking, it's ok for me, I'm 38 and I'm becoming invisible as I choose Ben and Jerry over male approval. It's my daughter I'm frightened for. She's 15. School are changing ALL the toilets to "gender neutral". She's panicking about managing her awful periods with boys in the bogs.

LagerthaTheShieldMaiden · 07/09/2018 23:25

Xpost Certain. I'll have a look, thank you

speakingwoman · 07/09/2018 23:26

Also struck by this:

“Do men think all women are their loving Mummies?

Yes. And when mummy doesn't do what they want, we are the repository for everything.... Hate, disappointment in oneself, rage, uninvited dick, you name it.”

thatwouldbeanecumenicalmatter · 07/09/2018 23:38

Yes! ALittleBitofVitriol This, all of it!

CertainHalfDesertedStreets · 07/09/2018 23:39

Think this is it www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3357167-unisex-school-toilets-daughter-refusing-to-use-them

birdsdestiny · 07/09/2018 23:44

Fucking hell, littlebitofvitriol, can we save that post, when I say we I mean someone who knows what they are doing.

ToeToToe · 07/09/2018 23:46

Yeah - I'm copying that post alittlebitofvitriol - amazing stuff.

littlbrowndog · 07/09/2018 23:47

Nice. Vitriol so so nice great post

ALittleBitofVitriol · 07/09/2018 23:50
Blush

Thanks! Copy at will. It's just cobbled together thoughts from greater women than I.

thebewilderness · 07/09/2018 23:53

TRAs have been saying this for years: Let's face it. Women's loos are not the real problem. Women have been accepting transwomen in loos for years - they generally try to blend in or "pass"

Women having access to single sex loos made it possible for us to participate in the public sphere and the UN is encouraging single sex loos in emerging countries so that women can participate in the public sphere.

Women ran out of the loo and called the manager or the police when they saw males dressed as women enter. The women also stood guard at the door and warned other women not to go in.
This cool story about how women never minded before, so why do you mind now, is a zombie lie.

AWomanNamedSpartacus · 07/09/2018 23:58

Thank you ALittleBitofVitriol. What an excellent post. Just perfect Flowers.

thebewilderness · 08/09/2018 00:07

ALittleBitofVitriol
Brilliant!

Prawnofthepatriarchy · 08/09/2018 07:10

I've saved your excellent post ALittleBitofVitriol.

Juells · 08/09/2018 07:38

scotsheather

Then surely the 'requirement' to use womens spaces for that period is wrong? Awkward for the person going through it as well as women.

There is no requirement to force your way into women's spaces. Wanting to do it isn't the same as a requirement. Wear jeans and use the gents.