"You don't speak for all women" - how to handle transallies?

[FairfaxAikman]

WokeBro friend posted on FB "The only outcomes of not supporting your trans child is a dead trans child or a live but estranged trans child".

I'm openly GC and gave the usual responses about women needing sex segregated spaces free from penises etc (to which he asked me whose job is it to decide eligibility ) but now a female ally has told me "you don't speak for all women".
I've pointed out that neither does she but can anyone help me further argue my point please? I can't find the evidence that i'm looking for and i'm not as eloquent as some others here.

“Let's not forget that transitioning trans women who are undergoing hormone therapy have totally useless (irreversibly) male genetalia after 6 weeks of oestrogen and testosterone blockers.“

1. Many of us with Husbands who have been/are on HRT can tell you this is not accurate. My husbands penis continued to function on estrogen, his sex drive was slightly lower. And it works perfectly well now that he’s back (detransitioned). What is horrifying (to us) is that after this he is quite possibly sterile.

1. A bit “transphobic” of you to imply that transwomen are all on HRT.

catmint that is an excellent response. I will use it with your blessing.

Oh I hate that kind of lying.

I have a trans young adult child. I am GC. The outcome has been that my child has been gifted with time to reach full maturity AND supported with appropriate mental health care to deal with comorbid issues. She and I are definitely still on speaking terms, and spend rather a lot of leisure time together.

What she does to her own body once she leaves home and is earning a living will be her business. But right now, we are proof positive that the choice for parents is -ironically - not binary.

Then maybe we should be encouraging men to accept a broader spectrum of manliness rather than expecting women to lower their boundaries. We should address male violence rather than enforcing male bodies on women.

Absolutely. But it works both ways, surely?

Exactly how far should the boundaries of womanhood be extended? Because there is far less to address as regards female violence so this can't be referring to it.

I asked this before and it wasn't answered so I will try again.
This thread started with a question about the statement.
"The only outcomes of not supporting your trans child is a dead trans child or a live but estranged trans child".

Why did it move straight into a discussion about sex segregated spaces?
What is the connection?

Marco, thread title and the rest of OP's post show her question is wider than that. Rowantrees linked to an excellent answer to that specific statement on the first page, discussion moved on.

Discussion didn't move on.
The OP started straight away on sex segregated spaces.
Why bother with that quote it was irrelevant to the discussion she wanted to have?

‘You can’t give consent for other women, and the law has to protect everyone’

I usually start with a chatty intro ‘hey, I personally agree with you, but then I realised it’s not my right to give consent for others. I respect the right to say no’

I'm an ally to trans people. Ask me anything!

... and I'm friends with some vocal, involved gender critics. So you could stay friends, have dinner, commute together, hang out with the kids, and have some sometimes heated but always respectful discussions, like I do.

Ask me anything!

Why aren't you responding to the posters who are dissecting your claims on suicide statistics?

I have- see today's response on Andrew Gilligan thread plus an AIBU post a few weeks ago

I get (to an extent) concerns about self ID and female spaces, but if a male is going to prey upon a female in any way, they're going to do it in some way or another, regardless.

This sounds like an NRA argument - “people are still going to kill each other somehow so they may as well all have guns”. It’s such an irresponsible argument.

Also, why the talk of how harmless trans women on hormones are? It’s pretty clear that the vast majority of GC concerns about self ID focus on how easy it would be for a man to ID as a woman with no transitioning whatsoever, let alone medical assessment and hormones.

Suggesting that all / most trans women transition medically makes you a transphobe according to trans ideology now, do you realise that? Being trans now doesn’t even require dysphoria.

Instantly dissected again by two or three posters - but then you came over here to say 'ask me anything'. Was the other conversation not to your taste.

• Why did it move straight into a discussion about sex segregated spaces? What is the connection?*

Because there was more to the original FB conversation than I've stated on my OP. The only bit that was relevant to my OP is that which I have posted.

Those who are sexual predators and not undergoing hormone therapy and are "trans" with an ulterior motive? Like I said, they will find a way to get to their victim regardless of single sex spaces.

I keep hearing this argument and that if assault does take place in single sex spaces then women should just report it and have it dealt with that way.

But thinking about the sexual assault and harassment that is carried out by strangers in public places we know that these things are opportunistic and tend to happen in places where women are isolated or vulnerable. Public transport, parks, isolated areas etc. The experience is often fleeting and hard to evidence. The sorts of things I mean are getting groped/touched, being flashed, being masturbated at, being watched. We also know that the vast majority of this less severe sexual assault / harassment against women goes unreported.

The trouble with opening up single sex spaces to anyone who identifies as a woman is that this will also include the sexual predators with "ulterior motives" that you have mentioned. So aren't you are just making it easier for these sexual predators to carry out their abuses and get away with it?

The very nature of single sex spaces (presumably with the exception of prisons) is often that there are no cctv cameras. Refuges, changing rooms, toilets, shared dormitory accommodation are all cctv blackspots and are the perfect place for sexual predators to "get to their victims". Any allegations made will be the word of one individual against another There will be no physical evidence unless a violent assault is carried out or unless there are witnesses. And as we all know it is almost impossible to prove sexual assault unless there is cctv/camera/phone/witness evidence to prove anything untoward has happened.

As a 50yo woman I have experienced low level sexual harassment by strangers in public places on numerous occasions and I have only bothered to report one of the more serious instances because I was worried that the person may have gone on to carry out a more serious crime. Nothing was done about it because the quality of the cctv was poor and it was not possible to ID the person or ascertain that they were doing what I said they were doing.

I cannot work out how concerns about opening up women's spaces to anyone can be deemed to be bigoted or transphobic. For me it is a 100% genuine concern based on my life experience as a woman.

Those who are sexual predators and not undergoing hormone therapy and are "trans" with an ulterior motive? Like I said, they will find a way to get to their victim regardless of single sex spaces.

But this is, in a nutshell, the problem with self ID. Why can you not see this?

If self-ID is to become law, yet at the same time, making a false declaration is to be illegal, we need a criterion, a legal test by which to determine whether someone is in fact lying. And I have never seen a proponent of self-ID explain how such a test would work.

There was an exceptionally good analogy recently, about how the layers in safe spaces are like swiss cheese (I think).

Each layer has some holes, sure, but every new layer covers up some holes and reduces the risk slightly more, till the cumulative effect is pretty solid.

Self id removes every single layer.

I'll see if I can find it, but mentioning in case that poster recognises my description!

Found it. It was FloralBunting who referenced it, as follows:

I can't recall which poster it was talked about the Swiss cheese layers of security that we have around things, but it's a good analogy.

There are holes in every layer of security, so we have a number, and together, they work to protect.

So on a broad scale, it is socially taboo for a male bodied individual to go into spaces designated female. This taboo alone will keep most men out. One layer. The taboo will mean that if others seeing a male try to enter a female space, they will challenge them. Another layer. If they get inside a female space, women understand that they can challenge the male individual.

The point GC people are trying to make is that Self ID removes all those layers, because if all a man has to do is say he is female then the taboo will fade for the first two, and women will find themselves socially unable to do the third.

This matters because male bodies belong to make people who are statistically very dangerous to women. The only reason this is an issue involvng trans people right now is because the TRA movement is the one pushing for male bodies to have access to female spaces.

(Taken from www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3370046-confused?pg=1)

"Because there was more to the original FB conversation than I've stated on my OP. The only bit that was relevant to my OP is that which I have posted."

How was a comment

"The only outcomes of not supporting your trans child is a dead trans child or a live but estranged trans child".

Relevant to

"women needing sex segregated spaces free from penises etc "

I have rarely read posts in Feminism Chat but have read the posts about why people want to hide it. I am trying to understand this thread. I do think it is interesting but fail to see the connection with your opening quote.

This is such an odd line of argument. Noone speaks for all women.

@marcopront I'm not going to make you privy to the entire FB conversation - it was long, o can't be arsed and most of it is irrelevant to this MN discussion.

The relevant parts are why I got involved (dead v live trans child OP) and the part I was struggling with (you don't speak for all women).
Conversations do naturally evolve and don't have to stick rigidly to the one topic or part of a topic.

Swiss cheese layers of security is such a useful way to explain the situation.

@FairfaxAikman I haven't asked you to tell me anything about the rest of the conversation and the fact you think I have reinforces my point that the part you quoted was not connected to what you said.

I am trying to understand how someone making a comment about a dead vs live trans child is connected to sex segregated spaces.

I suspect there is no link and it just gave you a reason to start this thread.

I can't recall which poster it was talked about the Swiss cheese layers of security that we have around things, but it's a good analogy.

It was HaXXor, but the thread was removed so all that incredibly useful information disappeared.