Passing privilege

[DamnCommandments]

Just filled in the GRA consultation and it got me thinking... Trans people face uncertainty every time they need to use single-sex faculties like toilets and changing rooms, right? 'What if I'm challenged? What do I say?' But no one is going to carry their birth certificate around with them. And even if they do, and they have had it changed to match their acquired gender, once they've been challenged, it's too late - they already feel shite and have had to justify their existence.

Presumably if they have the privilege of passing, this stuff happens less. Fewer challenges, less time feeling like shite. So the people who have most to gain from the GRA are the people who already have least trouble - people who pass in their prefered gender but just want a little extra confidence. (People who don't pass will still spend their time being challenged, not having their birth certificate and feeling shite. No GRC is going to make a 6'4" transwoman with a visible Adam's apple blend in.)

And predatory imposters who want to gain access to women's spaces. They'll gain too, of course.

It's not unlike saying Black people can't be in our spaces because they're 'over represented at every stage of the criminal justice system' as previously evidenced in government statistics

Ok ScottCheggJnr (I'm assuming you're a man) lets do a thought experiment. Let's imagine there's another category of human. They're substantially bigger and stronger than men and immediately distinguishable from you due to an exaggerated brow ridge, pointy shoulders and other physical indications specific to them. They are noticeably more aggressive than men and commit the vast majority of violent crime, much of it, especially sex offences, against men. The majority are sexually interested in men and a substantial minority make it clear that because of this they think of men as a kind of prey. They are politically powerful, better paid than men and pride themselves on being as different from you as possible.

Since you were about 10 years old, you have been regularly sexually harassed and humiliated by these people: at school, at work, on public transport, on the streets. You don't argue back because they're often aggressive, you know they're a lot stronger than you, and because the whole point is that they are getting off on exerting control over you and you are keen to avoid escalating their aggression. You and most men you know have been seriously sexually assaulted by at least one of them on at least one occasion, and you have been in many, many situations where you have been frightened this was going to happen. When you turn on the news, you see reports about men being raped or murdered by them, and when you watch a film or tv drama there's typically an obligatory rape scene in which a man is their victim. You know that many of them enjoy watching porn in which men are violently sexually degraded and you are aware that some of them get off on invading men's privacy by watching or filming you in toilets and changing rooms. You also know that most institutions are run by these people and that if you are harmed by one of them you will have trouble getting anyone to believe or support you. Of course, many of them are perfectly safe and reasonable but there is no way for you to tell who is a risk to you and who isn't.

Do you want these hypothetical people sharing your hospital ward or cell in prison? And can you see why women are concerned about allowing male people in our spaces even though we are completely unfussed about sharing with women who have a different skin colour, cultural background or sexual orientation than ourselves?

The problem of course, is that if you come out of the shower and there's someone sitting there with his penis hanging out, you won't know if he's a brave inspirational transwoman, or a dirty old perv who has come in to flash.

I'm guessing that a decent personwithapenis would practically never be doing that, so it's a very safe assumption that the individual is a total perv, there with the specific purpose to intimidate and terrorize. I like the suggestion someone else made, to scream. Long and loud. Just scream and scream and scream. What are they going to do -- arrest me for experiencing an emotion? Outlaw emotions? Fat chance buddy, I will just scream even louder.

No one has yet explained how it's possible for women to tell the difference. When the question is raised, I'm given to understand that I shouldn't be asking it. The implication seems to be that it just doesn't matter that women and girls will be put in this position and we're making an awful fuss for no reason. It's just a penis, get over it. Or alternatively suck it , bigot.

exactly WeWantJustice. Women do not count at all, we're just here to be the fetish prop for the amusement of the people who really matter.

WeWantJustice, you put all that very well.

TallulahWaitingInTheRain I'm going to save your comment if you don't mind? Possibly to share again with attribution? It explains the problem so well from a woman's perspective.

SO many brilliant and insightful mumsnetters here!

And let's add that these aggressive, larger, more physically, socially and institutionally powerful people not only make up 98% of sexual assaults on men but also that some of the men raped by them suddenly find there's a whole new human growing inside them, and depending on laws where they live, or their and their family's beliefs, they may be forced to carry this being inside them for nine months, when they will go through a painful and potentially dangerous birth.

The problem of course, is that when you get off the bus and and a asks you for the time, you won't know if he's about to steal your watch or just wants to know how soon his bus will be arriving.

If this was the issue we would be looking at removing all sex or gender segregated spaces and having everything be unisex, not making what have been sex segregated into gender-ID segregated.

The question - if you are going to use the race analogy - isn't why transwomen shouldn't be allowed in womens spaces, it's why all men shouldn't. Which is answered by the other posts above about what it would be like for you if you were constantly targetted by a physically stronger more powerful class of humans and backed up by research that shows that women lose out when put into mixed-sex situations where they are vulnerable.

If somene passes it makes no difference either way whether they have a GRC, because if nobody can tell that they're not the sex the space was intended for why would anyone question them? This is and always has been about forcing open those spaces to those who are very clearly and visibly male.

This. The whole thing is a red herring because a) hardly any of them pass and b) for the tiny number that do, there's no problem.

No problem ohello!

Sorry for the rant, I was suddenly exasperated by all the racist false equivalences swilling around. ScottChegg I'd be interested to know what you made of it.

ScottChegg hasn't come back to answer questions I see.

Here's another reason his comparison doesn't stack up: I am not more likely to be mugged by a black person than a white person. I am much more likely to be raped or sexually asaulted or sexually harassed or threatened or intimidated by a man, than by a woman.

ScottChegg, your argument is an argument for unisex spaces. Why not just have unisex spaces altogether? Let's have seven year old pre-pubescent girls and fifteen year old developing teenagers showering next to naked adult men. Why not? After all, by your logic, not all men are rapists or voyeurs or perverts or creeps, so it would be wrong to keep them all out of the changing room, right? Why not let them all in?

We know why not.

1. Because where men are allowed to be in close proximity to women in an intimate setting, some of them just can't resist harassing or assaulting us
2. Because even if the men in them aren't the rapey harassy type, it is generally accepted in our culture, that both women and men want and need privacy from each other and it it is an attack on our dignity, to force us to share unisex spaces in an intimate setting. The NHS tried it on hospital wards and it was universally hated.

Women are more likely to change their behaviour than challenge surely?

I’d probably put my head down, hurry myself into a cubicle or leave rather than be a) be made to feel uncomfortable by a man in the changing room or b) be made to feel uncomfortable by being put in the position where I feel I need to ask if you are in the right place.

So if you think it’s likely someone could challenge you, be uncomfortable by your presence then I’d suggest being more considerate and showing some empathy. Because this isn’t actually all about you.

The problem of course, is that when you get off the bus and and a asks you for the time, you won't know if he's about to steal your watch or just wants to know how soon his bus will be arriving.

I don’t know your life, but I don’t travel on the bus when naked or with my knickers around my ankles.

I got punched in the face for not responding to a man sexually harassing me on the street in broad daylight. I put my head down didn't look and walked on, he stared screaming at me. I shouted back to leave me alone. bam. punched in the face, went straight down on the pavement, no one came to help me. Police never got him. My face was a huge swollen mess on one side. I thought I was going to die.

I do not challenge.

Oh BTW wanna know what I was wearing, jeans and an old top and flats. Because of course MRA reading will believe I insighted the violence upon myself.

The only thing that is going on here is men demanding access to women safe spaces.

I think AngryAttackKittens has nailed what I was thinking about.

If somene passes it makes no difference either way whether they have a GRC, because if nobody can tell that they're not the sex the space was intended for why would anyone question them? This is and always has been about forcing open those spaces to those who are very clearly and visibly male.

And BoomBoomsCousin - yes, exactly! If 'not all men are like that' is where we're going, we shouldn't need sex-segregated spaces. But we do. Do as LangCleg said, GRCs are a red herring.

Thank you TallulahWaitingInTheRain!

Gulag that is terrifying! So sorry that happened to you! Not sure how you're coping? I would have a difficult time ever leaving my house again if that happened to me.

Jesus Christ Gulag

I got punched in the face for not responding to a man sexually harassing me on the street in broad daylight. I put my head down didn't look and walked on, he stared screaming at me. I shouted back to leave me alone. bam. punched in the face, went straight down on the pavement, no one came to help me. Police never got him. My face was a huge swollen mess on one side. I thought I was going to die.
This is pretty common. Bear in mind, on another day this man will be somewhere with his partner and children and seem unthreatening. Sorry it happened to you though.

You know what, I don't believe for a moment that even non passing male transpeople have a huge problem with being challenged.

I would never challenge a man in a woman's changing room if I were the only other person there. I don't know may women who would. Most women wouldn't challenge a man even if there were other people present. Because we all know what the potential consequences are, of annoying a man. They can suddenly turn violent and we don't know which ones will be violent and which ones won't, before we challenge them and so the safest thing to do, is not to challenge them; even if they're wearing a dress. I'd concentrate on getting out of there as quickly as possible or finding a cubicle to hide in until they're gone.

And tbh up until the current furore over trans encroachment of women's spaces, it wouldn't have even occurred to me to challenge someone trans. If I saw that they were making a genuine effort at passing, I'd be sympathetic and smile at them to reassure them that they're welcome.

That is why so many male transpeople kid themselves that they pass and the "other" women in the loo/ changing room etc., haven't noticed them. Because we don't challenge them. We make them welcome and because they have no idea of how women really behave, they misinterpret it as passing.

That is why so many male transpeople kid themselves that they pass and the "other" women in the loo/ changing room etc., haven't noticed them. Because we don't challenge them. We make them welcome and because they have no idea of how women really behave, they misinterpret it as passing.

This is so true, in general they really just don't understand things from a woman's perspective at all (I think Miranda Yardley might be the exception). And, in addition to the physical factors, it's one of the reasons why they don't pass,

gulag What an absolutely terrible situation to be in. I hope you’re recovering from it as best you can.

What (many) men fail to realise is that women having had threatening experiences with men is the norm, not the exception, and violence does not even have to be involved.
I still remember when I was a teenager, 16 or 17, and walking home at night after work. There was a group of men coming towards me, and I automatically moved out of the way to let them pass. The stepped in my way and surrounded me, laughing and jeering as I visibly flinched and tried to pass them.
I was absolutely terrified like I’d never been in my life, and they never even laid a single finger on me. But that feeling of being completely helpless prey at the mercy of a group of individuals older, bigger and stronger than me was enough to make me fear for my life, and they knew it and thought it was funny. They enjoyed scaring the ever loving shit out of a young girl for kicks.
Most women will have been in a situation like this or much, much worse, and we shouldn’t need to give detailed accounts of trauma in order to qualify for not sharing our women-only spaces.

Thanks for the support everyone , It was actually quite a few years ago, sorry I didn't make that clear! I think my posting is a bit confusing sometimes, sorry.

But I have never challenged a man since when I've had street harrassment. So many women have experienced stuff like this and the women who witnessed it on the street will have been affected too. I didn't engage, then I didn't submit. I was punished.

Men control the space.

I've had two kind of scary experiences, both times they happened when I wasn't expecting it. Walking through a busy underpass in London, not looking around, a man coming in the other direction punched me as hard as he could in the stomach and just kept on walking. Nobody even looked! I've thought since then that he could just as easily have had a knife in his hand. The other situation is something I'd know to expect now but at the time I had no idea that it was a 'thing' in Egyptian and North African cultures - in the main train station in Paris I left my then BF to mind our luggage and walked across to the toilets, but was surrounded half-way there by about a dozen cheerful friendly-looking men who all pawed and groped and pulled at me. I may have punched a few, hard to remember, but I had to scuttle back to my BF and we had to drag all the baggage across with us so I didn't have to brave that public space on my own.

Women have plenty of reason to fear strange men, no matter how they're dressed or how friendly they appear.

Jules

Here's another reason his comparison doesn't stack up: I am not more likely to be mugged by a black person than a white person. I am much more likely to be raped or sexually asaulted or sexually harassed or threatened or intimidated by a man, than by a woman.

I really feel uncomfortable using the race analogy btw, but I don't feel that should be a reason to ignore important questions.

As I said above, black people are 'over represented at every stage of the criminal justice system' according to UK government figures. In the US, where the analysis has been done, they commit 52% of homicides despite being 13% of the population.

A common argument around trans people is that they pose a threat due to continuing to offend in a male pattern (i.e. more prolifically). So why are black people not a threat for committing more violent crime?

The long answer above about a theoretical alien race doesn't really answer this. Both race and gender reassignment are protected characteristics.

ScottCheggJnr
Ok, I'll play. Even if I'm more likely to be mugged by a Japanese man than an English man, for example, I can't segregate Japanese men away from me. Apart from it being racist, and racism generally being accepted as not a good thing, it's practically impossible within our current legal structure. It interferes with law - the Japanese men are adversely affected by being restricted from "my" spaces and they are prejudged, which is patronising and doesn't account for the free will of any random Japanese man to choose to not mug me. Young men are more likely to mug me than elderly men, I can't segregate them away from me. Educated men are more likely to defraud me, I can't segregate against them. Women are more likely to poison me, I can't segregate women away from me because I am one. Should I be kept away from men in case I poison them?
You could find any group more likely to do something negative to another group, the practicalities of doing something about this are far from straightforward, and the negatives of prejudging mainly outweigh the positives. And that's accepting your premise that certain demographics are (for example) more violent by virtue of their race and not because of any other contributing factor (which again is not proven to be true).
Men are not discriminated against by not being allowed to be in women's spaces, and the vast majority of men are happy with the current setup as they recognise that there are men who will do women harm. Whilst they know NAMALT, they recognise the need for sex segregation in specific situations. MRAs can argue certain female-only prizes, scholarships and facilities are unfair, those arguments are generally on a case by case basis. Maybe some are unfair, I'm not going to go into that, personally I'm not a fan of positive discrimination and prefer levelling the playing field at the earliest stage possible. But that's just me.
We had the racial argument on here before, the example was a Swedish man versus a Honduran (I think?) woman. The latter demographic commits more murders. Does that disprove the fact women commit fewer murders than men? No. Does it take into consideration the huge difference between Honduras and Sweden? Again no. Does it give Swedish men the right to enter women's spaces? No. Does it mean Honduran women should be banned from women's spaces? No. Does it tell us anything useful about men and women generally? Not really, because the other variables are not considered.
The fact there might be other variables in the Venn diagram doesn't negate the fact there is a risk to making certain areas and activities unisex, the fact that male/female segregation in those areas and activities is beneficial, and the perceived benefit to undoing that segregation is entirely subjective. A transwoman needs to pee safely. A transwoman needs to be safe from violence. Making all areas and activities unisex doesn't even achieve that aim, as unisex means the transwoman may still encounter a violent man in that space.

Both race and gender reassignment are protected characteristics.
And to answer this more specifically, there will always be conflict of interest between protected demographics. These specific conflicts may be dealt with through a legal framework. What we're dealing with here is the interaction of the protected characteristic groups of the Equality Act (where "gender reassignment" has been expanded past the original definition) with the legal fiction of the GRA, where GRA protections have been afforded to those both with and without a GRC. Organisations have overreached, and in doing so break the law according to the Equality Act. Gender reassignment as a protected characteristic does not specify that a male who identifies as a woman is protected as a woman and has the entitlements of a woman, but interpretation of the existing law has allowed people to believe that is already the case.
Race is irrelevant in this case and although I'm happy to interpret your questions charitably, it does look like you're trying to lead posters to a position whereby they are making a racist argument.

Thanks for answering sincerely.

I'm really not trying to lead people to make a racist argument. In fact, I believe it's so obvious that racial segregation is wrong that I'm trying to understand why I (and likely most people) feel this way about it but not about other types of segregation - is it just social conditioning and being accustomed to 'the norm'.

My gut feeling is that women should have their own spaces for safety and that this is because us men are as a group more violent. But then when I get the night bus and feel vulnerable I wonder why it's taboo to have the same feelings towards certain ethnic groups who tend to congregate in gangs and have a higher rate of violent offending.