I’m so confused by my opinion on the transgender debate

[OkayOkay1]

I have never, ever known a trans person in real life. I thought I had my opinions on the whole issue until this season of I’m a Celebrity. I know it sounds silly, but listening to Caitlyn’s plight has made me question everything.

My views have always been that sex should be determined at birth and cannot be changed but that gender is something that people can choose if they so wish.

That way, sporting events should be categorised by sex, regardless of what gender you may identify as.

I also sympathised with the fact that women who have been subjected to abuse from males would hugely benefit from toilets etc being strictly female only. Although I could see an argument for trans women using women’s toilets at a point where they have fully transitioned surgically.

But I listen to Caitlyn Jenner and what she has been through and she has my utmost respect for being brave enough to go through all that she has. Being in the public eye, the transition process must have been even more daunting. She has lost family over this. I feel for her so much and think that I would love her to be fully treated as a woman. She has fought so hard to get to the place she is now. Wouldn’t it be so humiliating to have to join in with the males in sporting events that are segregated by sex? Or use male changing facilities etc.

I don’t know what the answer is but I am really confused. 😔

@MrsWednesdayteatime separate spaces exist for males and females. Being treated as a woman by society would entitle Caitlyn to access women’s spaces. That is what I had meant. This goes against what I have always thought I believed to date, which has left me feeling confused, hence my reason for posting.

That's unfair, the OP has presumably only just realized adult humans have histories and it's made them confused.

How do you do, fellow women! Isn't it just so confusing to experience empathy?

I’m a very empathetic person (which has been to my detriment many times in my life) so I know I have a tendency to feel so saddened by the feelings that others have had to experience

If you only feel empathy for the person currently standing in front of you then that's a problem. Think of all the people affected. Have empathy for the women too. Far more women will feel sad if they start being told their objections to males taking over don't matter.

Funnily enough, the trans widows have been discussing CJ recently. Particularly this clip, where CJ's sense of entitlement is very familiar to us.

"Buckle up, Buckaroo!"

God bless South Park. It slices through the bullshit.

I have genuine sympathy for anyone who has been through suffering or feels that the only way they can be happy is to change their body.
I will use preferred names and pronouns almost all of the time (not for some of the abusive piss-takers)
However, I will not accept that transwomen are female and as such, they cannot demand to be treated the same in all circumstances.
They have no place in women's sport, that is grossly unfair for the women.
3rd spaces should be available for anyone who doesn't want to use the facilities designed for their sex.

I just want to understand things a little better

https://www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

Caitlyn may have Caitlyns own sob story, or Caitlyn may just be extremely attention seeking, who knows. But Caitlyn is a transwoman not a woman, and I'm happy to treat Caitlyn like every other human being on the planet. With consideration, decency and respect.
Women's spaces are still for women and women only.

I think about it like this- as a man, CJ was able to compete against other men and win an Olympic medal. Had she started her transition much sooner, would it be fair for her to have competed as a transwoman (in the Olympics as well, which sportspeople train their whole lives for) against women? Would it have put them at a disadvantage? If you/ your sister/ your daughter had trained and participated in competitive sport to the extent they were going up for one of the highest accolades they could receive would you just be ok with a transwoman taking part?

This is where third spaces are needed, for the times when TW prefer not to use male spaces, and quite understandably so. Everyone's privacy, dignity and identity matters. And in some very particular situations it's not possible to give males more freedom of choice in spaces without excluding some females from having any space at all, and reducing their privacy, dignity and identity. Many of those females will be from already marginalised groups. There's no way to make that ok.

Inclusion in female spaces where those females privacy, dignity, vulnerability or plain right to meet together as a group, can't be extended to males as a prize they win when they're distressed enough or 'deserve' it - that was kind of the thinking the original GRA was based on. Just a few, they're very vulnerable, budge up women. But when it becomes India and Caitlin, and Lily and Steph, and Jessica and Danielle, and ooh look there's Karen.....

It's all of them or none of them. So no. Female spaces are for female needs. A wider range of spaces is the only answer.

Actually this is a good thread to indirectly point people to Miranda Yardley's website where you can sign the third space partition.

And because it's indirectly linked it shouldn't be deleted.

Thing is, it's not about individuals.

Take any subset of human beings - blue eyed people, Tory voters, teachers, nurses, football fans, transwomen, whatever. There will be nice people and nasty people among them. There will be people born lucky, people who've had to struggle (which I personally don't think Jenner has had to do). People who put others first, people who're selfish assholes.

But this is about principles.

Is it right to put male bodied offenders in women's prisons, even at the expense of the human rights of women to serve their sentences in a safe environment?

Is it right to allow male bodied individuals to take part in women's sport, even if that destroys women's sport?

Is it right to remove a woman's right of veto as to who performs intimate medical procedures?

Is it okay to allow children to embark on a medical pathway leading to mutilating surgery and sterilisation at an age when they can't vote, drink alcohol, marry?

Is it okay to deny women the right to free assembly on the basis of sex?

All good: Be compassionate, support the rights of all humans to fully participate in society, work out what transpeople need to help them, and work out what women need, listen to the stories of transwomen

And listen to the stories of women. Women who lost college funding because some transperson beat them in a race, where the physical advantage of growing up Male was clearly a factor in that victory.
The stories of the women abused by a prisoner who was housed in the female prison because of their identity. The stories of women who is scared to go to a woman's refuge because of the presence of males.

Useful facts to bear in mind
Most transwomen remain fully functional Male and wish to have sex with women.
Transwomen maintain a physical advantage over women .
Transwomen commit sexual violence with the same likelyhood as men, which is much higher than that of women.
Many transwomen are just trying to get on and live their lives without hurting any women.
Many women are just trying to get on and live their lives without hurting any transwomen

OP I think it's reasonable to have empathy both with trans women and GC women. Most people fall somewhere in the middle ground - you'll just find more extreme GC views on here.

I think most women are happy to treat trans women as women as long as the Equality Act exemptions are in place and organisations feel comfortable to enforce them. In practice this means it's legal to ban trans women from applying for sensitive job roles (eg as rape crisis counsellors). It's also legal to prevent them competing in women's sporting events. As long as this stays legal and these exemptions are in place then that's fine by me.

There's also the issue of trans activists who are winding women up no end with threats of violence and are completely dismissive of women's safety and their right to privacy and dignity. If these trans activists actually manage to get the law changed re the Equality Act exemptions then women are in big trouble.

Most trans people are lovely, don't want any trouble and want to live their lives peacefully.

The trans activists aren't.

It's not straightforward really.

Lots of men have struggles. Disabled men. Gay men. Black men. They are not women.

Funnily enough, the trans widows have been discussing CJ recently. Particularly this clip, where CJ's sense of entitlement is very familiar to us.

oh god. I couldn't finish watching that, it had the hairs standing on end. I think it was Kris's body language even more than CJ's that bothered me - I had a physical reaction to the first frame, where you can't see CJ's expression. I have never watched the show, but would have expected the rich af Kardashian svengali/matriarch to be confident and at ease in her own home.

My heartfelt sympathy to any of you who found that clip resonant.

Here’s one way to look at Jenners “disadvantage”.

Jenners original rise to fame was through winning the Olympic decathlon.

There was not then, and there is not now, a women’s decathlon.

The reason for this is that when women were finally allowed to compete in athletics, they were funnelled into the heptathlon - fewer events being less strenuous on out uteruses, and less apt to make us undesirably masculine, or some such paternalistic bumwash. No woman alive has been permitted to compete in an Olympic decathlon.

How, then, having done so, is Jenner disadvantaged in life? How is that an obstacle to overcome?

It's not the least bit humiliating to be categorised with your own sex, on the basis that you are all and always will be, that particular sex.
Sex is just a biological reality, no more a thing to be ashamed of when people recognise it than you would be if they recognised you have two ears or ten fingers.

It is however, humiliating for your entire physical biological reality to be dismissed and made taboo, so that someone of the opposite sex can declare they are now the same as you, because of feelings, thoughts, makeup, hairstyle, personality type and heels, all of which they have decided are the most important traits to determining what sex you both are.

So no.

I don't feel any empathy for Jenner, decathlon Olympic champion and millionaire who confessed to wearing his daughter's clothes secretly when she was a child. No, I don't feel empathy for someone of the opposite sex to me who keeps insisting we're the same, and who is contributing to making it impossible for women to differentiate ourselves from men.

I wouldn't feel sorry for a person who 'identified' into any biological group in which they patently didn't belong and made it as hard as they possibly could for that group to reject their intrusion and false claims.

It's extraordinarily easy to reason your way out of convincing yourself you are the opposite sex.
All that is required is a basic understanding of biology, a fundamental respect for the human dignity of people who truly are of the female sex, and an ounce of integrity to confront one's own false sense of entitlement to 'inclusion' into a class you don't belong.

But you don’t think humans can change sex do you? Because if you think some things should be single sex then TW can never be included in the female area/service.

What about the young girl who hears a male voice & is scared to come out of the cubicle? What about when a rape victim asks for a female doctor - is a TW acceptable? What about when my granny asks for her intimate care to be done by a female carer?

Women matter.
And maybe CJ is utterly lovely & you would be happy to share all spaces with them but consent is not transferable. I do not consent. Most women do not want female spaces to become mixed sex, we matter.

Tinsel I'd forgotten about that. Not to derail the thread but I watched The Kardashians a bit around that time and it was so clear that Kris was trying to say she loved Bruce once and was mourning his loss as were the family and Caitlyn literally gave no fucks. I know it's a reality show and scripted but I really felt for her. I'm sorry to hear that you've experienced similar (I assume from your post).

It's not confusing for me. Women and girls are oppressed by men and the basis is our biology. Anything that dismisses women's biology, dismisses the root of our oppression, which means it will NEVER be stopped...and women and girls continue to suffer.

Women and girls first.

Oh barracker nicely put

I haven't watched I'm a celebrity and know little about Caitlyn who may be lovely (though didn't Bruce wank into his daughters knickers or something..?).

Going through a hard time as an individual isn't what we should be basing stuff on. I.e. a scholarship for underprivileged young people should not be opened up to a 60 year old because that particular 60 year old has had a really tough life and missed out on some opportunities and been really brave about the whole thing.

You can feel compassion for a myriad of people without wholesale agreeing with their vision of the world. I have a mentally ill friend who thought the CIA were after him. A bulimic friend who was convinced she was fat. A lovely meth-addicted man I worked with who thought no one knew as he danced around with sores on his face.

In only one case are we compelled to believe and assert the narrative of the person stating the opposite of biological, physical fact.

Even in the case of patients with Alzheimer's or MH delusions, we agree with them while being able not to believe it or tell other people it's reality. Why is this?