Debbie Hayton in the Times

[Igneococcus]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/women-are-right-to-have-concerns-over-trans-reforms-5kj5k28sd?shareToken=aa090ad90f6f886db629247a0d6ca19b

Debbie My daughter is 8. She’s becoming more independent. She wants to be allowed to do things like go to toilets in cafes and restaurants. I want her to be able to go to toilets in cafes and restaurants. At the moment her instructions are that if there’s a man in there she’s to leave instantly.

She’s not going to ask you to leave, she’s 8. But I know which of you shouldn’t be there.

You say that you would like your spaces to be male free but you can't ensure that. If you try and do it on appearance then you are going to get it wrong from time to time. Many transwomen do pass unnoticed ... especially those who are shorter. But there are also false positives to worry about. Women over 5'10 with big hands are going to be under routine suspicion with no way of proving they are not transwomen with a GRC.

big hands

Big fucking hands??

Fuck this shit.

We’re measuring womanhood in hands now?!!???

Seriously fuck this shit to fuck.

no one is entitled to use any facilities, they can however use the most appropriate ones for them and as long as people use them as intended this is supported by society at large and is currently supported by legal frameworks to allow this to happen. while I can understand you don't like this and wish to change it, if society decides that it does not want to change then all you will be able. to do is continue to campaign for this change. if you are right then it will change and all the questions that Debbie is asking will come into play how would this work. it's like in America where it might be a law but it's really unworkable in reality and is having little impact in people day to day life.

We are telling you what our boundaries are. It's up to you if you respect those boundaries or not.

This isn't our problem to solve.

There is a discussion taking place right here; and the vast majority of us cunty-type women are saying No.

I do not buy guilt-tripping acceptance of men who say they've had SRS. They are still men. So not acceptable in women's single-sex spaces.

It is up to those men to work out their own third spaces, if they feel that they cannot share with men and acknowledge that they are men, and for other men to acknowledge that they are men, but maybe not fitting into the male stereotype of "man". It's just that they are Not women.

No men at all in our women-only spaces, hard-fought over decades running into hundreds of years.

Men are not women.

Refuges need to have the authority to check someone out. Certainly the register of births to check someone's legal sex. Whether they should be able to check to see if someone's legal sex had been changed by a GRC is for debate.

Toilets are not the same as refuges. It's unworkable to do those checks so we need to assess the risk accordingly.

I have a daughter as well. She was 8 once so I get your concerns but the strategy needs to be robust against a male offender trying it on. Sounds like you have that @BesmirchingMotherhood with what you tell her.

Bespin there is the equalities act...

when people on here say they will speak up in these situations with trans woman I am yet to have ever faced this in the real world. the assumption seems to be that all other woman would also feel the same as the person speaking out and as we know a large number of woman are trans inclusive so what happens when the other woman disagree with you when you speak out.

I wasn't talking about the forum. I was talking about spaces. Again I come back to the pragmatic: how do you protect against transwomen who do not leave when asked because they think they really are female? So in their minds female only spaces include them?

This comes back to the collusion of the medical/legal and political professions that have allowed magic realism to flourish through a total affirmation model.

A more realistic approach would be wear what you want, modify your body how you want but your sex is unchanged. Beyond that campaign for specific spaces if sex based spaces are unsuitable.

I do understand the arguments as to why trans people don't want to be in the space according to their sex but it's not acceptable to take away spaces from women (or men for that matter).

My daughter is eleven.
She weighs 4 stones.
Do you expect her to ask you to leave? Or any man to leave?

Do you?

You KNOW you should not be in there. You know how this makes us feel. I'm stepping away from this thread now, because the thought of my tiny daughter being stuck in a swimming pool changing room with any man who thinks the burden to get him to leave lies with her, is making me so distressed that I will say something that MNHQ will need to censor. And I want this thread to stand.

I want those who have championed you as an ally to women to read your words and seriously reconsider who you are and what you stand for.

I will continue to say no to you. And I'll say it on behalf of the women and girls who want to say it to you, but are scared, or feel guilty, or think they aren't allowed to, or who consider you the inevitable price they have to pay just to be allowed any dignity ever again.

No. Even to you, Debbie.
Absolutely no.

100% agree Barracker

@BarrackerBarmer I hear your argument and I understand it. I also want this thread to stand. The passion in your posts and others people's posts is telling. It is a world away from other places I go online.

I'm not running away but I do need to get to bed. Thanks for the robust debate. You've given me much to think about.

Debbie: I'd say, think about working on convincing your fellow men that you are a different type of man, outside the Man stereotype, and that men need to accept men like you, because you're still a man - rather than expecting women to shove over, and be expected to accept men in women-only space.

Why can't men deal with men who swear faithfully that they are women, despite being men? Why are women expected to sort out men's problems?

This whole passing thing is such nonsense. If some transwomen do actually pass, what the fuck do you expect anyone to do about it?

It's a non-thing. Using it as leverage is awful. It's using deceit as a gotcha. It's using non-consent as a plus. Stop it.

And, Bespin, using the current law, or the current change in protocols is also bloody awful. The same as 'well other women agree with me so shut up.'

You have no idea if other women agree with you. This is the only forum where women are allowed to bloody disagree. Women are being routinely fucked over for disagreeing.

Women have always been fucked over for disagreeing. How do you think a patriarchy comes into existence in the first place?

Cos it sure as hell ain't through consensus.

It should be a very lowering reflection for you to imagine that men threatening women who disagree can then be coloured to look like consent.

It is a world away from other places I go online.

Well you might want to have a word with the curator of terfblocker, gagging 50,000 women's voices.

Women will not ask a man to leave. I am a middle aged outspoken woman, with strong feminist views. But I have been in many situations when I have not asked a man to stop what I feel is inappropriate behaviour. I have a male colleague at work who always seems to hang around outside the toilet when I am in there, maybe listening to me wee?! (Toilet is small WC directly on main corridor).

Don’t ask me why, but a lot of women don’t want to create a scene, are worried they are imagining it or will not be believed , and do not want to feel humiliated.

So to answer the question. Most women will not confront a man in their toilets, and will just feel they have to put up with it or leave.

No means No

No means No even when women can't enforce it

No means No even if another woman has said yes as they can only give consent for themselves

No means No even if the woman is too scared to say it very loudly

Bespin and Debbie If you will ignore women saying No because they can't enforce it you might want to have a think about how different you really are to -the rapey sort of males who don't take any notice when a woman says no.

Women's silence out of fear or embarrassment does not mean We've thought you're a female

Silence is not consent

No means No means No means No

Very few MTF transexuals/transvestites pass. Debbie, here's my female socialisation trying to stop me from saying this, but I've seen you in real life and you don't remotely pass. I'm sorry that you are negatively effected by the transactivists, who manage to peaktrans the world all by themselves, but I'm more sorry about the women and girls whose dignity and privacy and safety is compromised by the trans ideology and its successes.

I'm horrified when I think of my daughter and her friends having even less protection from men than I did at her age. I'm baffled at you putting your own dysphoria or whatever it is that makes you want to be seen as female, ahead of the feelings of women and girls. I'm baffled that you don't understand how your presence might make them uncomfortable in a female-only space. I know that you most likely pose no threat to women, but how are they to know that? My husband also poses no threat to women but he is a big burly bloke and understands that this makes him intimidating to women who are strangers to him; he is careful not to walk behind them at night. And he sure as hell doesn't follow them into the Ladies.

The scales have finally fallen from my eyes about all of this, all of it. We gave an inch, they took a mile, and that inch should never have been given in the first place. I'm bloody livid.

It would be a pyrrhic victory if legal rights were gained at the expense of social acceptance. The judge will be the court of public opinion and if society loses faith in the process, trans people will be the victims.

Really incisive point. Totally agree.

I think that many people lose sight of the fact that most of us feminists on MN have long been involved in campaigns in defence of other oppressed and marginalised people, and we genuinely do not want to see persecution and exclusion continue. Our own hard-won rights should not be put up as bargaining chips, however, or we all lose.

thebewilderness Sun 02-Sep-18 21:30:30
What makes men angry with women?
Aggrieved entitlement.
You can test this assertion by telling a man no.

When do women get to say what works for women?
Why do men demand we make room for them?
Why do men demand we are their property for them to use as they see fit?
Why are men involved in any discussion concerning women and their rights and their bodies?
Why don't men listen and respect a No from women?

If they don't want to drink - and this is the important bit - don't make them drink it. Just because you made it, doesn't mean you're entitled to make them drink it.

Self id was the norm, we all knew trans women I think, I certainly did. Self id WAS the norm, then the door opened by it demonstrated risk and now women have been forced to assert boundaries. Its not a negotiation or a debate while women are being terrorised and not only forced to confront their error but faced with the possibilitry of a complete loss of rights including self determinaion and sexual autonomy. So the conversation changed. And will continue to. I was one of the early ones to spot this backlash growing and its bigger than we imagined and women have been forced to assert their identity and autonomy. The inevitable result is we wont be able to get away from that, that womens boundaries are theirs and women cant budge an inch on it cos if we do we have given up a mile for our daughters and that is what trans activists have taught us and it cant be untaught. It is a mess. Its certainly not Debbie's fault, I know Debbie well, but it is a mess and its no longer tractable and whats been done is done and self id is done and womens boundaries are no longer negotiable and this could still yet turn into the child abuse scandal of THIS century and so we dont know what the backlash will turn into. I think its highly unlikely we we will return to self id, I think the GRC has already been made meaningless and I think the UK is a tipping point and this threatens trans rights gloally. Noone had a problem when gender dysphoria was recognised but what has been unleashed since has been a lesson women cant afford to unlearn in a hurry. That is awful for trans women I know, but I have realised my concern is girls, women and women who dont have the ability to say no I do. I cant ever say yes on their behalf again like we did with lesbians.