Why are so many women ok with males taking their spaces?

[Throckmorton]

I don't get it. Why are so many women falling over themselves to be ok with males taking women's places in sport, in awards (working mum of the year FFS!), all over the shop? All over the NSPCC stuff for eg, it's women on twitter posting how transphobic every one is. I guess what I'm saying is what is making turkeys vote for Christmas? If I see one more TWAW/cis-women-are-transphobic meme on Facebook from otherwise intelligent women I'm going to bloody scream.

I also take issue with the idea that I am threatened by trans people as a group. I specifically think that the gender ideology that currently underpins trans activism is a threat.

My life is better than my mother's and my grandmother's because of specific legislation that recognises the rights that women need to participate fully in society - laws that made it illegal to sack women on marriage or restrict contraception to married women were introduced in my lifetime. MPs still don't have many maternity rights. That doesn't just impact on MPs who are currently pregnant, but any woman who is seeking selection.

Gender ideologists seek to reduce recognition of the impact of sex while forcing us all into gender boxes.

What is a trans person though if it's something anyone can identify as based on nothing more than saying it's so? What is stopping violent men getting in on the act? Going by social media behaviour there are a lot of violent sounding men who insist on she/her pronouns to describe themselves.

This is the issue.

That's the problem, though. It's all social media based. There's actually no law currently stopping men from entering the ladies toilet so I think the whole thing is a storm in a teacup.

Toilets are only the tip of iceberg though. I have concerns about making them de-facto mixed sex and creating a culture where nobody can challenge any man in there for fear of committing a 'hate crime'. This is particularly pertinent as we are seeing globally a huge uptick in hidden cameras in female spaces. There's no question that we are reducing safeguarding and offering up women as girls as collateral damage.

Beyond that though there are things that concern me even more such as prisons, sports, accurate data collection and so forth. Not to mention the complete loss of women being able to accurately describe themselves and their experiences without cries of whataboutism.

@Lamaha — Are you actually suggesting that being trans is some sort of fun hobby for poorly traveled people whose privilege insulates them from serious adversity? I don’t think you’re being intentionally ironic but this makes no sense. Of course people of relative privilege in western society have more freedom to be openly trans than those living with poverty and fear. Substitute the word “gay” for “trans” and it remains true. But it doesn’t logically follow that being trans, or gay, is just a trendy experiment.

It you’ve ever take a basic psychology course you are no doubt familiar Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, which points out that a person’s basic bodily requirements (food, warmth, sleep) must be met before the person can focus on anything else. After that, safety becomes paramount. Only when the person is warm and safe and fed can they attend to their other needs: love and belonging, personal esteem, and finally self-fulfillment. So yes obviously if you’re starving and facing mortal danger you can’t focus on your gender identity, especially in places where being trans will get you ostracized or worse. But that doesn’t mean what you think it means.

You’ve certainly accomplished a lot in your life. I don’t see the relevance of your life story but it’s always interesting to learn about other people. I too have a background you would consider “interesting,” and if I’ve learned one thing it’s that I am no more intelligent or thoughtful or able to “see facts” than anyone else. No amount of education or life experience entitles you to know the minds and bodies of strangers. This is why I fight against the encroachment of abortion rights and this is why I use whatever pronoun a person requests. Your sniffy attitude toward those you deem to be insufficiently worldly or heaven forbid enjoy Magaluf! is ignorant and bigoted. If your goal is to help uninformed people understand the “facts,” you’re not helping your cause by jumping to groundless conclusions supported only by sweeping generalizations and your own life experience.

Apologies if this post is disjointed, I’m rushing! I’ve already spent way too much time on it and this has reminded me why I don’t regularly engage on this topic. It’s not like I’m going to convince anyone to see my viewpoint anyway.

I think BjornAgain81 is right, not that these issues aren't important (which may not be what she is saying?) but about people not perceiving it as a big issue in their lives.

I think this is often true with people responding to legislative changes. Quite a few of these have happened procedurally in our government over the last number of years, but it is very difficult to interest people in them though they can have very significant consequences.

Literally nowhere on the internet does anyone talk about toilets as much as on MN.

@IndistinctRadioChatter
The problem we have is the following. Radical feminist theory posits that trans ideology is inherently misogynistic. There is plenty of feminist literature out there on the subject. Yes the very notion of concept that a man can be a woman is rooted in the worst vile misogyny when you begin to pick it apart: so the pain and so on of the trans person , while being very real to them, is still antithetical to women's rights because trans rights and women's rights cannot live side by side.
When a movement is rooted in misogyny, like transactivism is, feminists have to pick a side.
Men need to sort out their own shit and really not expect sympathy and spaces from the very people they despise and believe themselves to be superior to

but it doesn't change the fact that there are very few trans people out there speaking relatively.

That doesn't really help anyone who is directly affected, because they are say 'related' does it now?

Or the effect on women in places such as prisons? Or refugees?

Where the effect of just a tiny number can have a massive effect to the entire lives of other people.

Its ok, because it doesn't affect you because you are priviledged and therefore more sheltered from the risk of what it does go horribly wrong, cos no one gave a fuck about those less priviledged women and though about how shitting all over those women's rights was deemed fine?

Let me stress this; a lot of the time its not about YOUR rights on this subject. Its the rights of other women, that woke woman are happy to give up. You know the really vulnerable women or the women in situations they can not escape. And the kids who can't consent to all the shit which is supposedly for their benefit which is highly questionable.

It does not matter how many trans people there are out there. What matters is the vulnerability of those trans people and the conflict of interest there is with other very vulnerable people who do come into contact with them.

Its too easy to be woke and have no understanding what so ever as to what you are agreeing to on behalf of other people, who often don't have a political voice.

This inability to acknowledge abused women and kids and their needs and why this might class with trans rights is one I find particularly disturbing. Their invisibility speaks to me more than the triumph of progressive politics in 'winning' rights for trans people.

'Winning'? 'Winning' at whose expense? Its not a win, if there is harm done to vulnerable groups in the name of progressiveness.

I have not read the whole thread BUT I was at a social event at the weekend and the majority of women there have no idea what is happening with the ' loss of women only spaces'. I can't remember all the terminology ..I am old .
I mean they are not aware that self ID women will be allowed in places like women's prisons , refuges , toilets , changing rooms .

@RedToothBrush
Agree with everything you say but I do want to stress that there is an inherent misogyny in believing you could ever be a woman. That women are defined by you, and are nothing more than a feeling in your head. It stems from the very real male phenomenon of not understanding that women exist in their own right. Other feminists have written at length about it and picked it all apart.
So even if a particular woman doesn't give a shit about women in prisons, what bemuses me is why she's okay with some bloke pissing all over what it means to be a woman, telling her what a woman is and isn't. Why aren't women up in arms over this alone?

So even if a particular woman doesn't give a shit about women in prisons, what bemuses me is why she's okay with some bloke pissing all over what it means to be a woman, telling her what a woman is and isn't. Why aren't women up in arms over this alone?

I don't know.
Ask my mother.

Ask my mother why she sells my reality out.

@RedToothBrush
I'm sorry your mother does that. More than once I've considered that women deserve being oppressed. Were so feeble. Women are literally falling over themselves to support transwomen. Transwomen loathe us.
It doesn't help that there's a media blackout of women's voices and opinions.

Men need to sort out their own shit and really not expect sympathy and spaces from the very people they despise and believe themselves to be superior to

Do you really believe that's what the average man thinks about women?

twice, please do not apologise for the actions of my mother. Its not your fault and you shouldn't be apologetic just to be nice! It is what it is.

This is what frustrates me though. The black out of the experiences of those who HAVE been negatively affected. Women who are accused of lying or being bigoted for being harmed by the gaslighting or worse. Its like those women don't exist or don't matter. The feelz of the transwoman are the only things that matter and have validity and are never questioned or held up to scrunity.

I do understand the concern even if I think it's somewhat overstated (fully appreciate this is just my opinion and could be naive). What I'm a bit surprised about is that I've not seen one single person angry with transmen. Surely they are also reinforcing this narrative in an indirect manner?

I do wonder what men think about transmen as we so rarely hear anything about it. But there is a major difference in that transmen pose very little threat, generally speaking, to men. They may or may not be OK with a transman in their toilet, I don't know, but there isn't a direct, statistically significant, physical threat to them from a person with female dna and genitalia in that space. And if a transman is allowed to compete against men in sports, that's not going to be seen as much of a threat either. Therefore it's not surprising if a lot of men just don't give it much thought or don't really care.

There is also the issue of identity and not wanting your identity as a man to be trampled over and redefined by women who say they "are male". But as there is so little threat from it, men may be less provoked into considering that issue.

Are you actually suggesting that being trans is some sort of fun hobby for poorly traveled people whose privilege insulates them from serious adversity?

I don't think people hold religious beliefs as a fun hobby, but I am free to say that God doesn't exist without being accused of attacking Justin Welby.

Empirically it is also clear that some people suffer from gender dysphoria - but it's not clear why that should lead to a belief that it's possible to change sex or that everybody has a gender identity.

I'm also not clear why the compassionate, kind choice is to pretend that biological sex doesn't have any consequences. That just removes the language that makes it possible to describe prejudice against women/gay people/trans people.

@BjornAgain81 I'm not sure about the average man, although all men benefit from patriarchy as we know. But what I'm saying is that any man who thinks he is a woman is inherently a misogynist. So for quite some time feminists have been realizing that transwomen are more misogynistic than the average man. Trans seem to be pornsick for a start, that's where most of them get their idea of what a woman is from. Besides the obvious other problem of them believing they know better than women what a woman is. Plus the notion that a male with a neovagina ( which is literally nothing more than a fuckhole for the accommodation of a penis) is what a woman is. I could literally go on and on about the misogyny inherent in trans ideology. So I'm putting it out there that your average transwomen is more misogynistic than a man who knows what a woman is

@LadyBumclock I suspect, though I can't be sure, that if a ruffian clocks a trans man as female , and that trans man is in an exclusively male space like some backstreet toilet somewhere, the trans man is likely to be raped- for being female

To answer the OP.

Risk assessment.

In sports, there is a biological advantage that imo can never be overcome so woman could not fairly compete against trans woman.

In terms of ‘general’ spaces. For me, it comes down to risk assessment. I don’t see transwoman as a huge risk to woman. I believe if a male wanted to get into a female space in order to attack, he would do so without explaining his ‘gender identity’
I think it’s a pretty easy problem to solve with enclosed cubicles and don’t think the small risk of predators using it to their advantage is a big enough risk to tell trans woman to get ‘back in their box’ so to speak.

@LadyBumclock a bit like butch lesbians might be targeted for corrective rape

@Earlywalker Women reserve the right to challenge any male in their spaces. Transwomen don't "pass" despite whatever fantasies about passing they might hold. We absolutely have the right to say "what are you doing in here?"

Maybe I'm naive but I don't necessarily conflate TRAs with the genuine transsexual who just wishes they were born the opposite sex (and probably finds it even harder being reviled by said group). I think social media likely brings out the worst aspects.

Of course, it's hard to cater for the latter without pandering to the former but I do t like the idea of tarring all with the same brush and viewing a troubled 20yo transwoman as a misogynist.

As far as transmen, I think many people feel quite a few of them are themselves the victims of this ideology, so women are disinclined to be too harsh. Men are even less aware of these things than many women but I know quite a few don't really like the idea of sharing intimate spaces with women. But they are much more inclined for all kinds of reasons not to mention it.

I have not read the whole thread BUT I was at a social event at the weekend and the majority of women there have no idea what is happening with the ' loss of women only spaces'. I can't remember all the terminology ..I am old .I mean they are not aware that self ID women will be allowed in places like women's prisons , refuges , toilets , changing rooms .

I think this is really it. Most people don't know.