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?

I think most people would instinctively say side effect so the word choice is interesting.

If I drive drunk I may not intend to cause an accident and kill someone but if I do it's still manslaughter.

"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."

I'm not sure how people debating the making of a word is denying the existence of anything - could you talk me through the logic please? I'm clearly not clever enough to get it.

*meaning, not making

It would depend what they were doing at the time.
Getting on with their life, fine.
If its a transwoman appropriating things specifically for women, then I think we need to stand up for women and our spaces

I can think of circumstances where I would be uncomfortable with trans women being in that space but I would feel that there comfort triumphs my discomfort because life is harder for them and they don’t easily belong any where...

Stop sympathising and start empathising.

When males are allowed in female-only spaces because they are uncomfortable, female lives become harder, females experience greater discomfort.

By catering to their discomfort and trauma and hardship, you exclude me from humanity, you exclude me from public life, you exclude me from feeling as though my pain matters as much as theirs does.

Life is very hard for me, coffee. Male violence and abuse and sexuality has made it very hard for me. I experience a great deal of discomfort because of it. I have met the clinical threshold for profound "gender dysphoria" all my life. You admit you do not meet this threshold, and that those with gendered dysphoria crippling their lives must be accommodated over you.

You are increasing my discomfort and the hardness of my life, by prioritising males with gendered dysphoria over females with gendered dysphoria. This is sexism.

You make things worse for the girls with gendered dysphoria, by casting them out and drawing their brothers in tight. You are saving the sons by sacrificing the daughters. This is patriarchy in action, and it's happening inside your brain right now.

Yes but that person wasn't posting in good faith. Funny that?

No? Surely not?! My gast is well and truly flabbered! 😱😁

What happens when you deny the existence of someone? Do they suddenly disappear in a puff of smoke? If people deny the existence of a male who identifies a woman and they cease to exist, does that mean the children they fathered cease to exist too? Is it like a Doctor Who logic? So many questions, but I’ll wait for a nice logical answer that will make it all clear to me.

Wait, will this denying people exist and then they cease to thing work on Trump and Boris Johnson?

Wait, will this denying people exist and then they cease to thing work on Trump and Boris Johnson?

shuts eyes and wishes really really hard 🤞

Does this mean BJ and the Orange Overlord are actually Tinkerbell?

Oh gods. No, universe. We are not going there. Brave and stunning Boris would be the last straw that breaks me, I think.

wacademia, thank you, you articulated clearly what I was trying to get across in my late night posting about Double Effect.

No one is denying that TW exist. TW clearly do exist. Many people work with or know TW in real life. We all want them to have all civil rights and not face discrimination.

TW are not female though. There is nothing wrong with that! But it matters in some situations - it’s is not fair to put TW on the female estate in prison, for example.

We need some female spaces.

Treating a transwoman as a man is not perceived as respect

Transwomen claiming to be women is very disrespectful to all women, it dismisses Women’s oppression, their vulnerability, fear, abuse at the hands of men, it prevents women taking part in society, destroys our sport, reinforces harmful sexist stereotypes, puts us at risk medically and ultimately costs some women their lives. It is also a lie. Why should I respect such a man?

Forcing women to lie is not perceived by the women as respectful, because it's not respectful. It's also unkind and downright inconsiderate.

EmpressLesbianInChair totally! Hit the nail on the head.
Few weeks back I was in a woman's toilet. A man came out of the cubical and was at the mirror.
I was shocked and so angry.
As someone who is assertive I lost my voice, for the first time ever. I'm so angry I didn't speak up.
However an assertive woman equates to being a transphobe

It's a way for society and men to be mysoginistic and silence us.

See, I might keep quiet in that situation, depending, but it wouldn't be because I would be OK with it, it would be because I quite like having teeth.

www.reddit.com/r/thisneverhappens/comments/d56a8e/florida_63_280lb_tim_punches_woman_knocking_out/

A response to coffe's post at 01:28

So in my job (it's Oxbridge) you're allowed to self id. So basically I have to agree, as a woman, that a man can say he's a woman ( so frigging disrespectful and also biologically ridiculous) and use our toilets and showers presumably

Are these open showers? Cause if so, that's enabling voyeurism and is an excellent way to ensure that female staff never shower onsite again.

trans women in men’s spaces would be very unsafe for trans women in terms of violence

I don't get why this is accepted as 'just the way it is'. Well I do, because patriarchy, but it still gives me the rage every time I see it.

So in my area we have unisex showers. Probably because we only have 2 showers. However the diversity training said if you id as a woman you must be accepted as a woman and can use the toilets you want.
Presumably if men say they're women they'll face the glass ceiling like we do and be paid less, not get those opportunities to climb the greasy pole either. Somehow I suspect that won't be the case.

www.google.com/amp/s/www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6195853/amp/Credit-Suisse-boss-dresses-woman-slammed-appearing-100-women-list.html

How can you say all women are happy to share women's spaces with transmen? On what basis do you make that assumption?

Just use your common sense.
Most transmen are obviously female. Especially after they open their mouth and speak.
If they're looking like Buck Angel doped up on testosterone to the eyeballs, obviously this will make women uncomfortable so you'd expect the transman to have respect for women and not impinge on their spaces, and to use the mixed space.

Same with extremely passing transwomen, they'd stand a mile out in the men's, so have respect for women, don't use the women's space, use the mixed sex space for whatever it is (always seems to reduce to toilets, but it could be anything. Prisons, dorms, sport, anything).

trans women in men’s spaces would be very unsafe for trans women in terms of violence

What that says to me is that men need to stop being violent towards men who they consider to be not masculine enough.

Male on male violence has nothing to do with women.

And indeed, feminists would agree that men need to stop being so violent. Not sure how putting women at greater risk achieves that goal.

Qcng

Where are these mixed spaces then?

You say transmen and transwomen who "pass" shouldn't use single sex spaces but use the mixed spaces instead but where are they?

Decomposing perhaps they should campaign for them (in addition, not instead of, single sex spaces)? They seem to be quite effective as campaigning to destroy women’s spaces so I am sure if TRA turned their attention towards campaigning for mixed sex spaces they may find some success. Why do you think women should have to sort out trans people’s problems?