Clarification on Women only spaces

[Magenta82]

Hiya, I've always identified as a feminist, I'm fairly new to Mumsnet and before joining had read about trans rights and had got the impression that any challenges were transphobic and bigoted.

I can see now that, as with most things, the issues are far more nuanced than Twitter would lead us to believe. I can see issues with women's rights, self identification, shutting down debate, etc and am starting to understand other points of view.

I guess for me the complications arise when things get personal. I have some trans friends, both MTF and FTM, who have fully transitioned (as adults over 30), had all the surgery, got certificates the whole thing. What would the general consensus be on access to single sex spaces for them?

My friend may not have grown up as a girl/woman, but has made every effort to become one because she has always felt this way, she may not have faced the same challenges as me growing up, but she has faced other challenges and discrimination. I feel like she absolutely belongs in women only spaces and would hate to think that other people see her as a threat.

An adjustment such as a single sex service or space is for a specific group, it is not an act of discrimination if people who are not part of the group are excluded.

So for example, the breastfeeding space in the workplace is for women who are breastfeeding or expressing milk.
As a woman who is not breastfeeding, you don't feel discriminated against for being barred form using it, do you?

People cannot change sex.
Single sex spaces are for a specific sex.

It's really very simple.

Perhaps you and your friends should campaign for 3rd spaces for those who are uncomfortable using the spaces allocated to their sex?

I think this is where so many of us started, thinking of our own friends. And this is where the original GRC started from: a legal fiction that a transsexual person could become a woman, and that being more or less ok because it was less than 5000 males and females in total.

The thing is, as you say, the nuances. What sort of surgery and to what extent should take place before someone male born uses women's spaces? Should that include genital surgery? How is this going to be evidenced to gate keep who this does and doesn't include? Since all forms of surgery are huge decisions, painful, carrying high risk, and since any pressure to people to alter their bodies in this permanent and potentially very harmful way if they're unlucky with complications, should surgery be a requirement even?
At what stage in transition does it become ok to use single sex spaces and again how will this be gatekept?

The bottom line is through this narrow door opening for transsexual people who have been through extensive and often complete SRS, it has led to male bodied people such as Danielle Muscato, complete with beard and no visible transition, or Pip Bunce choosing a sex on a day to day basis, demanding to be accepted as women, complete with 'some women have penises' and 'suck my lady dick'. And 'women's rights are transphobic'. And 'biological essentialism'. And a fight against women's rights to be homosexual as that involves separating women from self identified women due to their biology. And 'menstruators'. And 'cervix havers'.

Where would you put the boundaries? (Bearing in mind that a number of transsexual people have gone on record here and in other places to say they are equally alarmed at the invasion of safe spaces by male bodied people in this way) How, practically, can they be managed? And if it has to be any male born person who wishes may enter a women's space at any time, or no male born person at all, which would you go for?

Most importantly - what would you want to see happen to the women who will be excluded from women's spaces by the entry of a male born person, regardless of the degree of their transition? Should these women lose their rights and access to any space in order to show care and compassion for a small group of male born people and give them a choice of two spaces to use? Is that equally just and fair?

The answer would be third unisex spaces, which many women and men will be happy to use and are available as a second choice for transmen, transwomen, non binary people etc if they prefer not to use the facilities for their sex, and this still allows provision for men and women requiring single sex spaces.

If FTM people are welcomed into a womens' space it is not a single sex space. They might have had "full" surgery and a gender recognition certificate. They might well be very lovely people. But they are not women. They have not changed their sex.

I am of the view that there are spaces that must be kept single sex. Prisons, hospital wards, women's refuges for example. And women's rights to dignity, for example the right to choose a female HCP, are in my view unassailable.

None of that means your FTM friends are not deserving of dignity and respect. None of that means they haven't experienced discrimination. I absolutely support their rights not to be discriminated against, harassed, etc. And their right to receive suitable services. But those rights should never be at the expense of womens' rights to single sex places and services.

I'm of the "single sex spaces are for a single sex" and sex can't be changed POV.

Even if you don't believe either of those things you must surely realise that the practicalities of enforcing a "post-surgery transwomen only entrance policy" are pretty unworkable.

I can absolutely understand that your friend doesn't want to use the men's spaces. There would seem to be good grounds for campaigning for provision of alternative spaces where neither your friend nor women would feel uncomfortable.

I support your friends' rights to live their lives with freedom from discrimination.
I don't believe in gender so I cannot be said to have gender in common with either of your friends. I also do not share a sex in common with your mtf friend, whereas I do with your ftm friend.
The same is true of my daughter and of all women.
Consequently, your FTM friend retains rights to use female only spaces, but your mtf friend is violating my rights and my daughter's rights if they use the female space.

Transition may be meaningful to your friends, but it has no impact upon MY right to distinguish myself from the opposite sex.
I intend to assert my right to privacy amongst my own sex.

Transition may be meaningful to your friends, but it has no impact upon MY right to distinguish myself from the opposite sex.

This.

It's really not about individuals. Firstly it's impossible to police. Secondly someone you feel comfortable with, may not be someone I feel comfortable with.

Individual women have absolutely no way of knowing who is a threat and who isn't.

I talk about my father-in-law. A delightful, kind man. I still don't want to disrobe in front of him. Nor would I expect other women to.

There are, statistically, obviously millions of men who pose no threat. They are excluded on the basis of their sex, not on the basis of whether they are a threat.

And lastly, does it never occur to you, OP, how sexist and dominant it is for men to try to decide amongst themselves, exactly what criteria they deem important enough to access women's spaces?

I always felt that those like your friend (and some of mine!) who have made a meaningful transition and are legally women shouldn't be excluded from most areas socially available to women eg pub loos and so on.

(Obviously, strictly single sex homeless shelters / refuges etc are a bit different and they should be entitled to have whatever stringent admission criteria they feel will best protect vulnerable women).

However with the move to redefine "trans women" from someone who has actually transitioned to someone who might in the future, or might dress three days a week, it's much, much more difficult. I do think that expanding the definition of trans has done transsexuals no favours at all - the social contract where they quietly slid under the radar and have always been in women's spaces has vanished now that "trans woman" can literally mean anyone at all who claims the title.

Women need and want female only spaces.

I think it's unfair and dangerous for people to campaign for single sex spaces to be removed.

Op - do your TW friends really pass - would i know they are male? Obvious males in a female space will cause concern for at least some women and girls. If they totally pass and will attract no attention- they will be able to use female spaces as no one would notice. Personally I’d like to see the GRA repealed as it forces folk to lie and be involuntary caught up in someone elses belief system.

In the end it comes down to a choice.
Your lovely mtf friend accessing female spaces or my lovely hijab wearing natal born female friend accessing them, because if your friend is using them my friend can't. Doesn't seem fair to me that someone who is male born takes priority.

Yes to what everyone has said!

There are many people who feel they are of a different gender from their sex and who have transitioned, but not had surgery or got a GRC. And others who are non-binary on gender fluid etc...

All of these people need somewhere safe and private to change, go to the toilet, sleep (in dormitories, halls of residence or whatever).

It may be that they do not want to use the facilities for people of the same biological sex as themselves, either for their own comfort and privacy or because it would make others feel uncomfortable (for example if they really do look like a member of the opposite sex).

So ideally there should be single user/ unisex options in addition to single sex spaces, so that no one is excluded.

Some people for their own personal reasons to do with their own mental health and their relationship with their body choose to have surgery to their genitals. It does not change any of the above.

Has OP plopped and run?

Has OP plopped and run?

I only posted a couple of hours ago, I'm trying to understand other points of view and so want to consider the responses before writing my own. I don't think that firing off the fist thing that comes into my head is going to improve the discussion.

Ok, I hope you understand the slight suspicion though....we get many a 'plopper' on here, looking for screen grabs of us being mean terfs.

Really interested in your views on what's been posted thus far.

It is a very polarising debate and there is a lot of mud slinging from all sides so I absolutely understand why people might be cautious. I would like to reassure people that I'm not trying to start a fight, I came here to learn.

I don't think the first example of a breastfeeding room makes sense, because they are exclusively for the act of breastfeeding in the same way that changing rooms are for changing.

The whole "cotton celling" thing is disgusting, abusive and wrong. People absolutely have the right to chose who they have sex with and what genitalia they want to play with.

I haven't thought about sport much, but I can see that transwomen would potentially have unfair advantages.

I have a lot of sympathy with the argument that people who didn't grow up as a girl/woman didn't have the same experiences, challenges, face the same discrimination or institutional misogyny and so should not be able to dominate conversations about feminism and the rights of women. People who are socialised as men will have not been shut down or expected to be quiet and defer to others in the same way as women are.

Its the single sex spaces that I am getting stuck on. I understand the need to protect women and why others might be uncomfortable with a transwoman in a public toilet or changing area. But I also thing that there must be a way to reach some kind of compromise. What that would look like is something I am not sure about. I am not talking about self identifying, gender queer, non binary, cross dressing, etc, people. But if someone has gender dysphoria, has gone through steps to surgically change their body to match the gender they see themself as and has taken legal steps to change their identity then there needs to be some kind of acceptance.

I would never want to get into the situation where we police people's genitals and the idea that we only allow people who can "pass" access single sex areas doesn't work for me because I think that discriminates against people based on looks. Masculine looking biological women can get caught up in this.

I don't know what the answer is.

there needs to be some kind of acceptance

Why?

Seriously.

Because it seems to me that you are saying 'Women and girls must give up single-sex facilities. The only question is how many different males should be allowed in.'

Why?

I’m sure your friends are lovey people. But we don’t create blanket exclusions on whether individuals are nice or not. My husband is nice. He’s no threat to any woman. But he’s not dream of using a women’s changing area because he acknowledges that simply being Male in such an area can be problematic.

Not everything needs to be exclusive. Your friends made a conscious choice to transition, and however nice they are, if they’re MtF they need to use the men’s. If they’re FtM they can take their chances and if the men don’t want them there they should respect that.

We don’t create blanket exclusions needlessly. We can’t see which men are a threat. So all men stay out. It’s as simple as that.

there needs to be some kind of acceptance

Why? Can you explain without recourse to calling me a meanie? A logical, rational explanation as to why any Male should be in a woman only area?

I am not talking about self identifying, gender queer, non binary, cross dressing, etc, people. But if someone has gender dysphoria, has gone through steps to surgically change their body to match the gender they see themself as and has taken legal steps to change their identity then there needs to be some kind of acceptance.

How should a woman tell the first type from the second type.

Why are third spaces an unacceptable compromise?

there must be a way to reach some kind of compromise

Why is it up to women to make the compromise? Why ask women to accept that women only spaces include some men too? No matter how much surgery men who think they're women have they're still male bodied - and are still identifiable as such.

It seems the compromise we're being asked to make is to pick which men can be included as women and in women's spaces. To compromise on the very definition of woman. I'm not willing to countenance that.

If people who think they're able to change sex don't feel comfortable around people who align with their biological sex they need to find and carve out spaces for themselves. They can't just take the space that women have fought for - it destroys single sex space for every woman who is in there.

If someone has any form of dysphoria then I have huge sympathy for them. I know what it's like to want to reject your physical self and be seen as other. I suspect many other women also know what that feels like. It doesn't mean that I will accept a man as a woman, a woman as a man, an underweight person as fat, a white woman as black, an able bodied person as disabled etc. So we have to work with what is true - true to everyone.

Masculine looking biological women can get caught up in this

This isn't true. It's a TRA argument and it's absolute nonsense. You can tell someone's sex from the way they move, the way they look, the way they smell with absolute accuracy at least 99% of the time.

I don't know what the answer is

The answer is very simple. Humans cannot change sex. Keep single sex spaces single sex. Make men accept feminine men and stop being so bloody homophobic.

You are saying that women and girls cannot having single sex spaces because some men have a diagnosis of gender dysphoria?

You can't compromise with consent.

There is nothing nuanced about single-sex spaces, services, advancement schemes or sports. Single sex applies to biological sex. Humans are 99.98% either female or male.

Third and separate spaces, services, etc need to be provided for all those who claim otherwise, be that "trans", non-binary or any other category beyond female or male.

The word "nuanced" does not apply here at all