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?

'Putrid beliefs' such as women need sex based rights.

Yep, newspapers please spread that as widely as possible, plus that the police don't police when special people break the law.

Women fought to get single sex spaces. If trans people want their own spaces, I'd be right behind them. But they have to lead the fight

Sorry, that ended up on the wrong thread for some reason

. Why do you think women should have to sort out trans people’s problems?

I don't think women should sort this out. I think society should though. I think planners and architects, whose job it is to do this, should be sorting it out.

I also dont understand why these discussions only focus on transwomen. I would find it difficult to have to share a hospital ward or a changing room with someone who looked like a man, yet you are all very happy for transmen to be welcomed into female only spaces.

Some people have said that they're not, actually. We're not all the same person with different usernames.

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?

They don't exist widely, and where they do exist it's where the women's space has been converted into a mixed space (often keeping a men only space for men at the same time), eg Hampstead Ponds. Topshop and MnS changing rooms. The Science museum toilets. Women's sports. You name it.

TRAs have spent so much energy obliterating women's spaces and making them mixed already, we find ourselves in a situation needing to fight for women's spaces all over again.

Just use some common sense that's all.

It is actually written into the Equality Act that a TM can be excluded from a women's space if their "perceived maleness" makes a woman uncomfortable.
It's also lawful to exclude a TW from a women's space for being male. This is a sensible law that has worked for women for years. There's nothing wrong with it.

T Activists have bullied organisations relentlessly to ignore the law. I think enough is enough now.

Women are speaking out and that's great, but TW/TM really should be sorting it out.

Why are we (as a society) having to accommodate a very small, niche group of men?
The irony here is that it takes a man to shout and he gets what he wants.

It is actually written into the Equality Act that a TM can be excluded from a women's space if their "perceived maleness" makes a woman uncomfortable.

So where does the Equality Act suggest the transman goes then? Into the men's space? But what if their presence their makes a man uncomfortable? Equally, the same with a transwoman?

The problem of where a trans person goes is for the trans person to find a solution to, not for other people to put up and shut up. Women didn't used to be catered for when it came to toilets etc and they had to sort the problem out by campaigning and working to have dedicated spaces built.

Well, ok, how many times do we need to repeat ourselves over and over again that there is a blindingly obvious need for a third mixed sex space.

Empress 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'm sufficiently gobsmacked by that to ask for a citation, because I am having difficulty believing anyone could say that and I am really hoping that FWR has misinterpreted something more benign.

It's been said like, a million times now.
Third space. I don't care if it's called "mixed sex", "unisex", "for all genders", "gender neutral".
I don't care.

It's not my problem. Keeping women's spaces for women, is.

Ruth Hunt said it, waca in an interview.

It was Ruth Hunt specifically who said it, if that helps with the googling. BTW she's now going to be in the House of Lords!

DecomposingComposers

Interesting
Again the equality act has put the onus on women having to make the judgment call to whether or not a man looks manly enough.

To me Men are men regardless of how many hormones they pump into their bodies. I will not have a man appropriate as a woman and ever accept it.

It was a Guardian interview. Where she also criticised the 'intellectual stupidity' of gender critical people.

here

"The question over whether gender self-identification “will lead to men raping women” is, she says, the wrong one. “Men are always going to rape women."

source: www.theguardian.com/society/2019/may/19/ruth-hunt-stonewall-moral-responsibility-fight-trans-people

Again the equality act has put the onus on women having to make the judgment call to whether or not a man looks manly enough.

The poster was talking about transmen though in regards to the Equality Act and how male someone looks.

Thanks ladies, your search engine hints paid off.

interview

MN thread from May 2019

I think Linda Bellos should be put in charge of Stonewall and Ruth Hunt has no business being a lord.

I think Ruth Hunt needs to take a long hard look in the mirror while contemplating the kind of person she's become.

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

How do I “treat someone as a man?” Do I start talking to them about sports and beer instead of makeup and cute boys?

If someone is male then they are male, however since I believe gender stereotypes are evil and toxic, I work to treat people as individuals.

How do I “treat someone as a man?” Do I start talking to them about sports and beer instead of makeup and cute boys?

No you refer to them as he or Mr, tell them to use the men’s toilets and tell them they’re not allowed to apply to a woman only shortlist.

A more interesting question perhaps is “how do I talk to someone civilly on a forum?” Preferably not in the patronising way you just did to me, would be my suggestion.

No you refer to them as he or Mr, tell them to use the men’s toilets and tell them they’re not allowed to apply to a woman only shortlist.

My god. The sheer inhumanity of such treatment.

A more interesting question perhaps is “how do I talk to someone civilly on a forum?” Preferably not in the patronising way you just did to me, would be my suggestion.

Now, watch your tone, woman.

Field, you're back! Any chance you could answer my question above? I genuinely want to learn what is meant by the repeated statement so I don't look stupid.

"The question over whether gender self-identification “will lead to men raping women” is, she says, the wrong one. “Men are always going to rape women."

I don't doubt it.

Where RH and I differ is that RH thinks a few raped women and girls are acceptable collateral damage in the grand quest to make all the boys feel better about not being sufficiently powerful Manly Men.

And I can't help but note that there's a direct inverse correlation between the severity of punishment rapists receive, and the severity of trauma inflicted on their victims.

Enabling rape to make men feel better: it's the very basis of patriarchy.