Page 11 | A Trans Woman Was Asked To Leave The Women's Changing Room At A PureGym

skiptrip · 19/12/2018 16:54

I experience men’s use of female only spaces as an act of sexual domination. It reminds me of all those lovely guys who exposed themselves to me as a child.

This!

It reminds of a very unsettling and just plain weird experience I had as a teenager (15/16 - still at school). My friend and I were in the changing room of our local gym - the only ones using it at the time. It had a jacuzzi that we were about to climb into when we realised there was somebody in it, under the water in a full wetsuit and snorkel. We swiftly moved to the showers instead. The guy followed us into the shower area and started looking under the cubicle doors. We ran out, pulled some clothes on and told a member of staff - the guy claimed he was there to fix the jacuzzi (he wasn't). I never found out what happened. It sounds so incredibly far-fetched but I think it's an example of the lengths some men will go to access women's spaces. It's terrifying to think that with self-ID, people like that man wouldn't have to do anything at all except say "I am a woman".

Materialist · 19/12/2018 17:09

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

cantgetridofthekids · 19/12/2018 17:13

Sometimes it’s the wearing of our faces.

Am I to assume you are referring to the fact that transsexual people like myself have long hair and wear make-up ? The concept that makeup is for women and not for men is part of the issue we have nowadays..... "here is how men have to behave and if you dont you are transgender".

I have as much right to wear makeup and dresses as anyone else. Clothes and makeup shouldnt be used to define a gender.

Knicknackpaddyflak · 19/12/2018 17:21

Er, women are currently being told that being women has nothing to do with their biology and is purely about them being defined by things like long hair, make up, dresses, liking pink, being emotional.... trust me, you won't find a woman here who doesn't want rid of gender based stereotypical crap and is delighted for men to dress and express themselves any way they choose. They just don't want their identity and spaces co opted.

No there's nothing wrong with wearing make up, but if someone who is white makes a choice of blackface make up, it can be questionable in the attitudes it reflects and some people born black may find it disrespectful, insulting and appropriative. No matter how good the intentions of the person doing it.

ZuttZeVootEeeVro · 19/12/2018 17:21

It all boils down to “discomfort” and which sex’s discomfort is being treated as a national emergency, and which sex’s discomfort is just “prudery” or “bigotry.” What it really is, is grooming girls and women into the idea that we have no right to bodily privacy or dignity before males.

I agree

Knicknackpaddyflak · 19/12/2018 17:23

And since I'm feeling lectured and really rather patronised, I'm out of this thread.

Melamin · 19/12/2018 17:25

Perhaps there is a difference between wearing make-up and using that make-up to look like the opposite sex?

KayM2 · 19/12/2018 17:29

( an aside, on how things can go on, I hope relevant to MN )

Someone I know was for a few years a " moderator" on a specialist subject website. She got fed up of it, as anyone might. But she once said this;

Reading the stuff, one formed a mental picture of the nature of the person who was writing. It became stronger and stronger over time, and seemed likely to be more and more honed and accurate.

Then you met the person at some weekend conference. And they were often totally different to what the " picture" had been ; the words used were the same, but the effect was different.

So when you read the next few posts, the next week, you read them differently.

But within 5 posts, the original opinion came back!

If this is true, what chance do we have on threads like this, where the issues are so divisive, and the language so contested?

But hey..... :-)

cantgetridofthekids · 19/12/2018 17:30

Perhaps there is a difference between wearing make-up and using that make-up to look like the opposite sex?

Is that in itself though not a stereotype over how women should look ?

The cultural norm says women wear makeup, men don't so by definition if a man wears makeup he is seen by other men to look like the opposite sex.

ZuttZeVootEeeVro · 19/12/2018 17:36

If this is true, what chance do we have on threads like this, where the issues are so divisive, and the language so contested?

Do you think that it is right that sex segregated open plan changing rooms are divisive?

LangCleg · 19/12/2018 17:36

It all boils down to “discomfort” and which sex’s discomfort is being treated as a national emergency, and which sex’s discomfort is just “prudery” or “bigotry.” What it really is, is grooming girls and women into the idea that we have no right to bodily privacy or dignity before males.

This. And the howls of outrage when it's pointed out that there is no super special exception to this simply serve to cement it further.

LangCleg · 19/12/2018 17:40

Personally, I find myself thinking of Maya Angelou:

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time.

Words to live by.

Kvinne · 19/12/2018 17:48

cantgetridofthekids My brother in law wears eyeliner and he’s fine being a man. David Bowie wore make up, Boy George wore make up, all the rockers did.
John Maclean has a make up youtube channel. Still knows he’s a man.

DisrespectfulAdultFemale · 19/12/2018 18:10

If a woman doesn't wear makeup, does that mean she's a man?

KayM2 · 19/12/2018 18:30

Makeup? A side issue, you'd think.

I wear none, either in the day or in the evening. Nor do/ did my sisters. Of the two TS women I know, both in their 50s ( so mere children to me, ) neither wears makeup that I have ever seen.
Why am I saying this? Just in case any reader thinks that all TS women wear makeup and dresses and that is in some way diagnostic.

( and I possess no dresses either, and nor do others I know. They might have when they were just transitioning, or wanting to. I never asked )

Bowlofbabelfish · 19/12/2018 18:42

What it really is, is grooming girls and women into the idea that we have no right to bodily privacy or dignity before males.

I’m afraid I believe this too. The stance that schoolgirls who object to mass in dressing rooms are in the wrong and need to be re-educated cemented my opinion on that.

There is no hierarchy of deserving men. All need to be excluded. This relentless pushing of our boundaries has to stop. The wedge arguments, the ‘well what if..?’ And the ‘those others no but me yes’ stuff has to stop. To much pushing. Too much threat. The answer is no. No to all men.

Men: you have the whole world already. No more.

KayM2 · 19/12/2018 18:53

I got into trouble earlier for asking this; I promise I am serious, not " taunting" as someone said then; How CAN we ( anyone) make sure that no male bodied people, or formerly male bodied people , are totally excluded from female spaces? What would be the procedure? How would it be checked up on?

One of the reasons why some ( many? ) long term post op TS women are keen on stopping self ID is so everyone can maintain/ go back to/ promote the situation where people with "intact" male bodies , and who are looking as if they are not making to effort to adapt, are not able to enter female spaces.

I promise you I am not being mischievous here; there have always been some males and females who lived " cross -over" lives. The danger, certainty I think, with self ID is that the numbers will rise a lot.

LangCleg · 19/12/2018 18:56

Sometimes it’s the wearing of our faces.

That this has been taken to mean make up says it all really.

KayM2 · 19/12/2018 19:06

Langcleg, well, I think you will find that quite a lot of people WOULD have assumed that that was about hair and makeup. The expression " wearing our faces" is a little bit " poetic", if it refers to identity, and so on.

It is actually a rather good phrase, if taken to refer to identity, in some way. I havn't heard it used before. Is it from a novel,or a film or is it a phrase that is carried over from academic feminism? It is a very striking phrase.

So really, assuming it meant makeup and hair doesn't say it all, really. :-) I'd like to know where that phrase originated.

NotAnotherJaffaCake · 19/12/2018 19:10

How CAN we ( anyone) make sure that no male bodied people, or formerly male bodied people , are totally excluded from female spaces? What would be the procedure? How would it be checked up on?

Male bodied people will always be male, no matter what bits you cut off or what hormones you take. And if you don’t exclude them from female spaces, then those spaces are no longer female spaces.

Stop trying to change the argument so that the default is males in female spaces.

NewWomensMovement · 19/12/2018 19:12

There is no hierarchy of deserving men. All need to be excluded. This relentless pushing of our boundaries has to stop. The wedge arguments, the ‘well what if..?’ And the ‘those others no but me yes’ stuff has to stop. To much pushing. Too much threat. The answer is no. No to all men.

Hear, hear!

ZuttZeVootEeeVro · 19/12/2018 19:12

How CAN we ( anyone) make sure that no male bodied people, or formerly male bodied people , are totally excluded from female spaces?

If a male person passes completely as female, we can't.

As has been discussed many, many times before, we can allow women and girls a voice. We can stop shaming them when they are unhappy when a male person invades their space.

It's far easier and safer to exclude all male people than to include only a select few.

LangCleg · 19/12/2018 19:14

I'd like to know where that phrase originated.

Possibly with the writer? I realise it's a shocker. It is within the ken of women to turn a decent phrase from time to time you know.

And no, she didn't mean make up. Let's focus on why some people may have thought she did.

LangCleg · 19/12/2018 19:16

There is no hierarchy of deserving men. All need to be excluded. This relentless pushing of our boundaries has to stop. The wedge arguments, the ‘well what if..?’ And the ‘those others no but me yes’ stuff has to stop. To much pushing. Too much threat. The answer is no.

With the no being a complete sentence. Not the start of a negotiation or the requirement to indulge any resulting temper tantrums.

NewWomensMovement · 19/12/2018 19:19

How CAN we ( anyone) make sure

You can't make sure of stopping any sort of entitled, boundary pushing, deceptive violations of women and girls.

The fact you can't be sure of stopping all of it is not a reason to say it is actually acceptable for it to go unchallenged and become normalised. It is an uphill struggle to push back against entitled males who intrude upon and dominate women.

But it is still wrong. Therefore we should make whatever efforts to stop it we can, even if it is impossible for it to be perfect and foolproof.