How should we treat trans people?

[coffeeplease16]

I have been browsing the feminist thread with interest and been reading lots of arguments that accepting trans = encroaching on women’s rights and women’s only spaces. If you yourself believe that you can’t change sex, and being a women = having a vagina - how do you think we should include trans people in our society? I am genuinely interested, and not meaning to be goady. What is the ideal - how can we protect the rights of women without ostracising trans people from our society?

There is evidence that women are at increased risk of sexual offences, or even murder when male persons access their spaces.

Is there evidence of TW facing an increased risk when accessing male spaces? I’ve looked, but not found any.

TW are, tragically, murdered by men (or occasionally by other TW). None that I am aware of occurred in connection with male spaces though - moreso sex work or intimate partner violence.

Whereas many women and girls have been raped in female spaces, by males who seemingly followed them in for this purpose.

I heard of one case of a transwoman being attacked in a toilet in America, but it was a women's toilet (in a McDonalds I believe) and was about one of the young women in there thinking the transwoman was flirting with her boyfriend.

(Just to be clear - TM are my siblings and welcome in any space I am in. But I’ve been told that it’s patronising when women treat TM like women, so I want to respect their identity and preference for male spaces (if that is what they want. TM are not a monolith though - so those who want to use female spaces should feel welcome to.)

Being attacked for flirting with someone else’s boyfriend? So not just because they were trans then.

Not even a little bit.

Obligatory insert here - if your boyfriend is flirting with someone then you really should be angry with him, not the other person.

I notice the OP has twice referred to "a women"

If you go on twitter you will see that the biggest threat to TW are TERF witches who apparently commit TW genocide by thinking wrong thoughts and therefore violence against this group can apparently be justified. These as women, TERF witches, use women’s spaces so surely that makes these spaces far far more risky than men’s toilets. Universities spend thousands on extra security whenever women meet due to this sort of dangerous wrong think by women.

It's all in the tells

It's the cauldrons, you see. They're always in danger of overflowing and causing flooding, rising damp, and genocide.

I notice the OP has twice referred to "a women"

Wasn’t there another poster who did that?

This thread is great, it lays everything out from the first page. I hope HQ don't delete it.

Men shouldn't be allowed in women's spaces.
We should not have to put ourselves at risk or lose our dignity to accommodate a small minority of men who enjoy dressing like women.
I completely disregard the notion that you can be ' born in the wrong body'.
For boys/men to say they are a female wtf does that mean?
I am 36 and have no idea what it feels like to be a woman

This is both a man's and a trans problem and I don't think women should give a shit HOWEVER as ever it is our problem and we get the sole blame because women are easy to pick on and blame.
Look at Peter thatchel and his comments on women. He's a mysoginist who lays all trans violence and murders at the feet of women!

Look at Peter thatchel and his comments on women. He's a mysoginist who lays all trans violence and murders at the feet of women!

It’s very, very clear that both Peter Tatchell & Owen Jones know transwomen are men. Because otherwise they’d give them the same lack of respect they give women.

What is the ideal - how can we protect the rights of women without ostracising trans people from our society?

All people must have the same civil rights, no matter their background, identity or affiliation. However, that does not that we have to wholesale swallow a ridiculous ideology that states the impossible, goes against reality, and attempts to enforce speech on others. No, to gender Self ID, and no, to males taking part in women's sports, running on women-only short-lists, or using female only facilities.

Simple.

According to the NAS the rate of autism is more than 1% in the population, so higher than your figure of 1%.
Why aren't autistic people getting the right to self declare as autistic (rather than going through a long, drawn out and intrusive diagnostic process), get fast track access to support services and the right to make workplaces 100% suitable to them? Why do so many autistic adults find it hard to hold down full time jobs? Employers are less likely to employ an autistic person than an NT person.
Some shops do an autism hour, perhaps they could have a trans hour?
Why should the autistic person be made to lie about a person's sex when this may be difficult for them?
Plainly once you get into the competing rights of different groups of people you have to make choices. Sometimes the minority cannot have it all their own way and compromise is required.

Regardless of the finer points (which toilets trans men "should" use etc) pretty much all the responses on this thread have said the same thing, as have the responses on all the previous threads that ask the same question.

Yet Stonewall et al continue to state first and foremost that the biggest struggle for them is people "debating trans people’s right to exist."

I'm amazed that all the TRAs watching mumsnet so carefully haven't pointed this error out to them? It's bizarre that they continue to equate "treat people with the same respect you would anyone else" with denying their existence.

Transwomen generally don't want third spaces. They want validation, which means using women's spaces.

D'you know what I'd like?

I'd like the option of a single-sex space, so when I'm triggered and vulnerable I can escape. This means I can still participate in life. It is of prime importance to me.

And I'd like the option of a unisex space, so that when I'm fine and with someone of the opposite sex who's feeling vulnerable, I can stay with them, so they can still participate in life.

Why should it have to be one or the other? Why can't we have both? Why must my natural human urge to protect male friends with trauma issues be made mandatory by law, but my natural human urge to protect female friends with trauma issues (including myself) be made illegal and discriminatory and an excuse to advocate for violence against me?

this is not what trans people are campaigning for?

It is what trans people are campaigning for. If you can foresee something bad happening as a consequence of your actions and continue with those actions anyway, then you have deliberately brought about a bad thing. If I were to break the speed limit driving past a school and hit and kill a child, I would have deliberately brought about that child's because hitting a child is a very foreseeable outcome of speeding near a school.

More an unfortunate double effect?

Interestingly religious choice of words here. A PP already explained what "double effect" is in practice. In theological terms, it is used to render unsinful actions that would otherwise be sinful, such as the use of combined oral contraceptive pills to treat gynaecological illness despite artificial contraceptives being usually forbidden.

It's a very interesting choice of words, because a "side-effect" is something that one would seek to mitigate and one might deem a side-effect as sufficient grounds for stopping the action. A "double effect" is something that one has decided is acceptable as-is and requires no mitigation.

A "double effect" is something that one has decided is acceptable as-is and requires no mitigation.

That’s a very interesting insight, wacademia. Thank you.

It also fits with the Stonewall view that since women are going to be raped anyway, our safety & comfort are irrelevant compared to that of the men who want priority in our spaces

I love that I learn something new here every day! Re the "double effect."

equate "treat people with the same respect you would anyone else" with denying their existence.

It’s your insistence that twanw that they are equating with denying their existence. They say they are a woman, you say they are not.

Treating a trans woman as a man is not perceived as respect.