“... but some women”

[BlardyBlar]

I was trying to think of an analogy to the argument that transwomen should be placed in women’s prison as “some women are also sexual abusers too.”

That is basically saying “We can’t keep women wholly safe in prison, therefore we are justified in removing steps that are known to keep them safe, such as segregation by sex”.

The analogy I came up with was that of a tall building like a skyscraper with railings on the roof to stop people falling off. The current railings don’t work perfectly. Very occasionally, due to appalling weather conditions, someone will fall off. Therefore we might as well remove the railings altogether.

I wasn’t wholly satisfied with this analogy. Can anyone think of something better, or a way to improve it?

Sometimes airbags / seatbelts fail. But we still keep them.

The house one works for quite a lot - burglers can smash windows to get around a locked door - but we still lock our doors don't we.

Some women refuse cervical smears so we should just do away with them altogether?

It is like a bikelane. A narrow bikelane. Sometimes horrific accidents happen, because some people riding their bike are just rowdies and don't stick to the rules, which include not going faster than 25 kilometers per hour. Some, however, have so much strength and are so reckless, they go 60 km/h downhill. Every couple of years someone might even die because these rowdies clash into them.

Now we open the bike lane to motorcycles, as long as the motorbikers promise to go only 25 km/h. Contrary to the bikers, the motorbikers are notorious rule breakers. But of course, not every motorbiker breaks the rules. The majority do not. But even when the motorbikers behave nicely, the bikers are now all scared shitless, stop and make place, when they see a motorbike. 'Cause you would not want to be in their way, when they go 200 km/h on this narrow bike lane.

I tried to address this in my ‘critique my logic’ thread (on phone and can’t link, sorry’. Basically, if you accept the fact that men are more dangerous to women than women are, then self id leading to unisex spaces increases risk to women.

Other facts, such as ‘some women are also violent’ don’t change this. The risk is not being increased from zero to something, but from something to something bigger.

I'm not sure analogies are that useful because you're pandering to a straw man. Yes some women abuse. But we aren't talking about that in that moment. I refuse to invite the comparison. They can butwhatabout all they like.

It always reminds me of threads when people complain about smoking and a handful of posters say "well I bet you drive a car and they're terrible for your health". Yes. But we aren't talking about mitigating that risk are we?

Not saying that in a reasonable discussion the "but some women..." question isn't relevant btw but the inclusion in most instances isn't relevant. It's a distraction.

"But some women..."
"Yes, yes they are. Can we talk about male on female abuse now?"

I’ve just had a serious operation with a real risk of infection. I’ve got antibiotic tablets and ointment, but sometimes antibiotics don’t work, or infections are resistant. What’s the point of trying to prevent it when the infection could get in anyway?

I'm sticking to - how can women's rights and protections be defined and upheld if the definition of woman is changed to include men?

I spent part of the weekend with a very well-known woman TV newsreader who "disagreed" that there are only 2 sexes, citing a trans man she knows. I explained that humankind is a dimorphic species. You can identify as anything you want, but you cannot change sex. She got uncomfortable and looked around for someone else to talk to.

I don't really know the stats around crime - I sort of assumed that most of the women in prison for sexual abuse had abused children ( a category more vulnerable than the women she would be imprisoned with) so the analogy would be putting women sex offenders in a young child facility … I think.

Barrier contraception sometimes fails. So you might as well switch to using the rhythm method instead.

Safeguarding frameworks exist to minimise risk, not eradicate risk.

The frameworks evolve in response to key events where safeguarding has failed to protect eg Ian Huntley's ability to get a job in a school despite being known to various police forces led to CRB checks which centralised intelligence about names used, being interviewed for alleged offences as well as convictions.

The Children Act 2004 ammended the Act amended the Children Act 1989, largely in consequence of the Victoria Climbié inquiry.

When a 'loophole' is identified the appropriate response is to identify this and take steps to close it.

Those who are determined to do harm will seek to identify weak points in the frameworks and exploit them

Important thread collating current failings /potential failures of child protection and safeguarding vulnerable adults:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a3301266-Safeguarding-girls-and-protecting-women-post-Jimmy-Saville-metoo

I think you're having trouble with the analogy because the 'some women are abusers too' argument rests on implicitly categorising tw as a type of woman.

"Some women do X and they're still allowed in, therefore tw should not be excluded for doing X."

The trouble with this is that doing or not doing X is utterly irrelevant to determining whether a specific individual gets to enter the space in question.

Access to sex-specific space is determined by sex, not by crime committed. Those rare females who commit X aren't excluded, because they're female. Males (including those with an inner sense of femininity) are excluded regardless of whether they commit X individually, because they're male.

In fact if you break it down, 'some women are abusers too ergo tw should be allowed in female spaces' is effectively implying that women cease to be female because they commit a particular crime.

Which is all kinds of fucked up.

The "women do it do" argument was used in the notes of the bloody consultation about prisons.

I don't know the stats but I'd hazard a guess that zero women are in jail for sexually abusing women in the outside world. If there are any, it'll be one or two. Maybe it happens sometimes when they are incarcerated, who knows.

But men ARE in jail for sexual assaults committed against women (and others of course) when they are in the world outside jail. So it's the fox in the hen house scenario then, isn't it? The authorities would already have the information that the man was a danger to women, but ignored it. Because women are acceptable collateral.

Not all bacteria are pathogenic. Still wash your hands don't you?

But men ARE in jail for sexual assaults committed against women (and others of course) when they are in the world outside jail. So it's the fox in the hen house scenario then, isn't it? The authorities would already have the information that the man was a danger to women, but ignored it. Because women are acceptable collateral.

Men are also in jail for other crimes who have also committed violence and sexual assaults against women and children. That they haven't been successfully prosecuted should be no surprise to anyone who understands the difficulties in doing so.

Ask them if they think all prisons should be mixed sex. If not, why are they segregated by sex?

There are about 13000 male sex offenders in prison. There are about 4000 women in total in prison. Already these incarcerated sex offenders transition at a higher rate than other prisoners. What do you think would happen if they could just self-id as women and get an automatic transfer to a women's prison?

Extra question for anyone pushing this argument: Why do you hate women?

I spent part of the weekend with a very well-known woman TV newsreader who "disagreed" that there are only 2 sexes, citing a trans man she knows.

The Barbican's Modern Couples exhibition is very much along these lines with some of the exhibits (riffing off the work of sexologists such as Edward Carpenter and trying to explain homosexuality/lesbianism). Is it too much too hope that early C20 like this (for that's what it is) had gone the way of the eugenics etc. that were also contemporaneously popular?

“We can’t keep women wholly safe in prison, therefore we are justified in removing steps that are known to keep them safe, such as segregation by sex”.

We can’t keep our houses wholly safe from burglars by locking the doors, therefore there is no point in locking the doors.

I favour the gun analogy.

We already have murders in this country so we may as well legalise guns. It’s an idiotic stance.

The one that annoys me more is people who say “well if a trans person assaults someone, the law will deal with it”. Yeah, because the law is so good at handling sexual assault.

Great arguments on this thread

The op nails it I think

And death, it is a bit late then. Shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

I agree with ShowOfHands. It's a strawman argument which is a distraction and irrelevant to the point. Getting into a debate about relative statistics or the levels of risk women pose to other women is getting away from the point. I like the very simple response to the 'But some women...' attempt to derail - 'Yes, yes, they are. But we are talking about male on female abuse...'

If you want an analogy this is the best one I could come up with.

There is a, hopefully small, risk of assault or theft in your house from people you invite or let in or live with. Does that stop you from locking your front door to keep others out?

The crime statistics for the year ending March 2017 show that 99% of all rapes and assaults by penetration were committed by men. Given that any rapes and assaults by penetration committed by transwomen with GRCs would be in on the women's figures, its fairly ridiculous to make an argument that women pose anything near the same amount of risk.

Oh, and the same police figures show that 634 women were victims of rape or assault by penetration as opposed to 25 men.