My daughter was assaulted tonight - why I'm against self ID

[JudgeFlounceRedRugBlah]

Been around since it was all fields etc. but name changed as this concerns my children.

So, one of my children is transgender. My child is wonderful, kind and strong. I've struggled with the transgender debate because of this. They have no obvious signs of wanting to pervert womanhood just to emulate it. Imho as transgenderism should be.

I've also got daughters and, as a women, am well aware of how vulnerable a girl or woman can be when singled out and this has been borne out today. My (underage) daughter was working at her first workplace taking orders at tables in a restaurant. The staff have known her since she was born. They care for and look out for her - thank goodness. Tonight a man followed her to the toilets, pinned her and told her "he knew he shouldn't but he couldn't help himself.." sadly too many women know how this goes.

Luckily another person in the restaurant noticed a man go into the womens toilet and that neither of them came out in a reasonable amount of time. Instead of being scared that the man was a woman and they'd be in trouble with the police for hate crimes they alerted staff who got to my daughter before much more than clammy mauling had happened.

I'm angry at the sleaze who did this to my CHILD. But more I'm scared that we are fast approaching a world where that person could have felt uncomfortable raising their concerns. Perhaps they'd have hesitated just a bit longer, a bit too long. Perhaps the staff would have had a training course about jelly babies.

As it is they did say something, staff did react and my daughter is shocked, a bit scared but mostly disgusted. I can't tell you how thankful I am that she lives in a world where people are, currently, free to say "erm... that doesn't seem right".

My transgender child is going through hell in so many ways, they are battling on a frontier - I can see that - but, much as I support them, I am not prepared to sell my daughters out for it.

I'm aware I may get some backlash from posting this so I apologise now if I have to ask hq to remove. I really just wanted to say thank you to those who are not against trans people but also recognise that not against doesn't mean they have to drink the kool aid. Those who are fighting so hard just to have a proper discussion about it all. Thank you

I definitely think you can have a reasonable conversation about it. In fact, it really helps if you can get the transgender person's perspective about what makes a male bodied person think they are female.

I would love to hear that from the horses mouth, so to speak, but it's so hard to because those that do come here to discuss won't engage. The only reasons I have seen put forward so far relate to the gender stereotypes that are being pushed despite them being so harmful to women.

I would love to live in a world where colours, fabrics, costumes, face and body decorations and childrens toys and behaviour are 'sex free'. I wish people who are transgender would embrace their differences and campaign to change these harmful stereotypes rather than reinforcing them.

Also, I think that if someone wants to declare themselves a woman, they should be able to define the world woman.

Otherwise they are saying I am x and although I can't tell you what x is you must agree that I am x and that makes me the same as you and even though you have a different definition of x you must ignore that and use my definition which I cannot divulge.

As a socially and emotionally intelligent person with a high degree of empathy and will to inform myself, I'm finding it very hard not to throw my hands up and say F you I'm disengaging and discounting all your points. If I in my position am really struggling to stay engaged and open minded in dialogue with you, I'm almost certain there are several other readers who have already switched off and left the room having made up their opinion that we are all nasty TERFs who can't even play nice among ourselves. That to me seems like an own goal.

Play nice!? Play nice!? I am so fucking tired of appeals to female socialisation on this, a Feminist forum. If we can't be frank and clear then what's the point? We don't have to pussyfoot. The people who think we're bigots won't stop whatever we say, because for them just saying human beings can't change sex qualifies as bigotry.

OP is talking about her DC. Her daughters are being brought up with a brother who identifies as a woman. RedToothBrush has been that daughter/sister so her experience is highly relevant, and just as valid and important as anyone else on this thread.

Criticising her for being on a "personal soap box" is pretty rich, considering that the whole thread is about someone else's equally personal perspective.

OP, your title says you are against self-ID. However, your child has to self-ID and use a toilet that corresponds with their chosen gender (and not their sex). So are you actually against self-ID? If so, how would your daughter use the bathroom? And would you object to another male using said bathroom after selfIDing?

Just trying to understand your point.

Inside, I think you have misread what I said about toilets?

So do you think your transwoman child should use the mens toilets OP?

The problem is that women always lose with this ideology.

Always.

Whether they be the mother, the sister, the daughter, the wife, the teenage girl, the lesbian.

They always lose, because the whole thing is built on gender stereotypes and reinforcing those stereotypes.

The socialisation side of 'being nice' is constantly repeated. Yet it doesn't matter how nice you are about it, you always lose.

This is my point. You have to recognise that you are always going to lose. And you can not say your daughters will not be harmed as long as you reinforce the stereotypes that gender identity is built upon.

You can deny it, but it always is there.

You can not change sex. And if you believe that women and girls have a genuine need for sex based protections and spaces then you can not pretend that gender identity is a neutral harmless thing.

I truly wish it was not. It is the sad and unfortunate paradox that in trying to please everyone by sitting on the fence, you always end up hurting someone anyway. Whether you realise it or not.

I might be being blunt about this, which is uncomfortable to see, but it needs to be said. The cognitive dissonance is part of the harming process.

You wasn't clear about toilets, you said when he's had to he's used a toilet with a friend standing outside.

Was that the men's toilets then? If so, how can he go in them wearing women's clothes?

When caught needing them in public, which one would he use?

No fairenuff both myself and my transgender child would prefer a third space. They are not comfortable in either bathroom and I have made my thoughts clear here.

Redtoothbrush, unfortunately it's not a situation where you can just throw up your hands and say "too hard cant do it". There has to be a solution found. Personally I suspect this may be along the lines of separate provisions in a lot of cases but I confess that's not perfect either. Until everyone stops shouting at each other there will never be a solution. It's not a case of "being nice" or "being direct" or telling "home truths" it's about being adults and talking to each other. If we cant even talk to each other on a forum where we largely agree how on earth are we going to talk to the people on the other side of the fence?

I am so fucking tired of appeals to female socialisation on this, a Feminist forum. If we can't be frank and clear then what's the point?

Me too.

Yes, a third option is better, but they don't have them in most public spaces/restaurants/shopping centres.

What does your son do? You haven't been clear about it at all.

No they don't. That doesnt mean they can't though.

I have said upthread what my child does.

I truly wish it was not. It is the sad and unfortunate paradox that in trying to please everyone by sitting on the fence, you always end up hurting someone anyway. Whether you realise it or not.

This is along the lines of what Martina Navratilova was saying in her Times article today.

Someone will always be hurt in trying to include everyone here, and you kind of have to fall down on one side.

You can't be neutral. If you think men should have access to women's spaces, that's not neutral.

*No they don't. That doesnt mean they can't though.

I have said upthread what my child does.*

I don't think you did, or I misread it. I saw you said he uses neutral ones, avoids them, or other times a friend has waited outside when the coast was clear he used them, but didn't say which toilets.

It doesn't mean he can't, what?

No they don't, meaning? Meaning they don't use women's loos and changing rooms?

JudgeFlounceRedRugBlah I'm sorry to hear about your daughter's hideous experience. We have a right to safety and privacy and I'm in a perpetual state of fury these days that we are unable to assert that right without resistance.

One phrase you said, though, leapt out at me. You said I so wish we'd arrived at a point in time where predatory men didn't exist so that it would be easy to give transgender people access without fear

I'm sure you didn't fully consider the implications of what you said.
Because by 'transgender people', you mean boys and men, and by 'access', you mean access to women and girls.

And there is no situation in which I will allow society to forfeit my boundaries, and my daughters privacy, to benefit boys and men, no matter how physically harmless they may be.

I've heard many women focus so intently on the issue of potential physical harm that you can hear them conclude that that's the only real issue at stake.

But to me, that phrase speaks volumes.
It reveals an underlying, and unrealised sexism that women and girls may not exclude boys and men if those boys and men demand access to them. That the most we can expect is to not be physically harmed. But that we have no right or expectation of dignity and privacy.

As if we were family pets. Labradors. Treat us humanely. But of course we have no rights as full human beings to determine our boundaries.

There is so much more to this than whether women and girls might be physically harmed by men getting access.

There is the uncrossable line of women's privacy, dignity and consent. That line cannot be argued away by 'these men are so harmless' arguments.

If women say no - that's that.
And girls cannot consent - so they have a standing, continuous NO instated on their behalf by those of us responsible for their safeguarding.

So whilst I have empathy for your family challenges, I'd urge you to consider more deeply the implications of assuming the only barrier to boys accessing girls is some other external problem; bad men, predators etc.
The barrier is consent.
And it will continue to be a barrier that no man should cross, ever.

Personally I suspect this may be along the lines of separate provisions in a lot of cases but I confess that's not perfect either.

Why is this not perfect?

Thank you for your continued involvement in this thread by the way. It's rare to have someone here that is prepared to respond to individual posts.

You either have a transchild or a feminine boy. This sets up how you promote gender stereotypes to your children and the social expectations you have of them and how their identity forms around that.

I look back now and I am aware of my mother saying at a young age about how my brother 'wasn't like other boys' and think about how profoundly it sits in my memory. Her anxiety over it was something that resonanted with me. The repetition of it over and over again. She never realised she was even doing it, nor how much of an impact it had on both of us in different ways.

It came as a shock to her when I confronted her about it. She thought she was always for women and girls, yet she unwittingly simultaneously undermined that.

Beware your blind spot.

To be totally honest I find all this hand wringing and ooh you can't achieve both a massive cop out. You absolutely can't if you're not prepared to try. I can definitely see why the average person can be sold the story that GC feminism is bigoted.

This thread has essentially read like a TRA play book. I'm GCing wrong, I'm mothering wrong, I'm even womaning wrong and if I dare to disagree I will be talked at until I back down or back off.

What do you want to achieve? Personally I want to illustrate to people that wholesale acceptance is not a solution however woke you want to be. I don't really see why that is so offensive but this thread is basically making me think the problem with it is that you don't think I'm being extreme or hard line enough. It stinks of "no debate".

OP that's bullshit. You are not addressing the specifics.

No-one is handwringing, that's a passive aggressive statement.

You are not GC.

Fine, that's ok. Just don't pretend you are.

No faire, I'm not your version of it.

You're possibly right about specifics though I'm trying not to get too drawn in so that I am attacked and therefore stop responding altogether. I am trying to stay part of the debate (even though that wasnt really the point of this thread) all be it not perfectly because I am genuinely fearful of the treatment I have seen people receive on here.

What did you want answered? I'll do my best.

I don't really understand you then.

Your daughter was attacked by a man and you said this is why self ID shouldn't exist and is unsafe. But you also have a son who believes he is entitled to be a woman and is entitled to use the same resources you think he shouldn't.

I don't know how you don't see that it's a side you have to fall on one side of.

What is it that makes him a woman?

It's when we get down the specifics that people always withdraw. I thought you were going to be different OP.

What do I want answered? Well so much but I will start with one thing and thank you if you respond to it because I know how hard that can be for people who try to justify the impossible.

First is: Do you agree that transwomen are women?

Where did I say my child felt they had the right to use these resources? There seems to be an assumption that being transgender means being a TRA, it doesn't always mean that.

No I don't. I think transgender people are transgender people. A "feeling" is very different to "being" imo.

You said it doesn't mean they can't use them.

What resources do you think he should use though? Do you think he should be in male resources dressed in a skirt or dress? Isn't that a huge risk?

To expand a bit I think birth sex is a scientific fact that can't be changed. I don't really believe in gender, I never really have. Therefore I see transgender as a label people who feel a certain way apply to themselves. I don't believe you can "feel" a woman or man because they are not quantifiable but you can believe that you feel that.