Accused of cherry-picking trans horror stories

[PuertoVallarta]

How do you deal with people who say that pointing out transgressions by individual transwomen is like combing the news for examples of immigrants behaving badly?

I do understand this particular criticism of GC talking points.

I am quite vocal about this issue in my daily life. But sometimes I feel caught between a rock and a hard place:

“That never happens.”

“Well, Karen White...”

“You’re just picking isolated examples to paint a whole segment of the population as villains. You’re as bad as Trump in America.”

I don’t want to sound insane and obsessed as I keep rattling on, “Well, this happened, too! And another transwoman did this! And another did that!”

Heeeeeeelp meeeeeee?

OF COURSE I am not trying to paint any class of people as villains. That’s just what people hear. I can’t break through.

Immigrants don't get access to vulnerable women. Men are not pretending to be immigrants to gain access to immigrant only spaces.

Transwomen retain male criminality patterns. Men commit nearly all murders, rapes and assaults. Women need spaces where there are no men to keep us safe

I have questioned myself about this too. I can see the parallels, so what are the differences?

I suppose it's that they wouldn't suggest putting a rapist in a women's prison normally, but stating "i am a woman" gets them in.

Similarly with women's sports, perfectly nice men aren't allowed to compete against women, but ones who say "I am a woman" can.

That's the difference, that some men are asking for special privileges which the average well-behaved man doesn't get.

In comparison, a criminal immigrant is being given the same access to a country as a perfectly nice immigrant. On abusing that initial trust they would be treated similarly to a home grown criminal.

There's no way of filtering out the criminal immigrant without discriminating against the majority of decent immigrants.

We are asking that all men are treated the same, no-one is discriminated against by being treated as all other men.

Because it's not just about whether or not someone actually commits a crime, if a male followed you into a changing room or toilet you'd be on edge whether or not they were trans - that isn't the key thing about them - they are male and as a PP said they retain a male pattern of offending.

Yes, they're asking for privileges over and above the rights that everyone else has, and to be trusted with spaces where people who are generally weaker are already vulnerable.
There are safeguarding rules for anyone who wishes to work with other groups who are vulnerable, such as children or in refuges because we know there is a risk from people who are less vulnerable.

But we can't admit some trans people into the opposite sex bathroom based on criminal history and rising of offending and deny others access, so the only safe and fair way to negate the risk is to say that no one can use the opposite sex bathroom.

Hope that makes sense.

All it takes is for one boundary to be blurred and it's a safeguarding issue.

Men who can say they're women and so claim access to women's spaces who retain a penis are smashing, let alone blurring boundaries. They don't have a right to enter a woman's space.

We are talking about the removal of safeguarding. the point of safeguarding is to assume the worst. TA's insist it doesn't happen, it clearly does, here are examples. Does the person want all safeguarding removed or just to lower women and childrens, why? There were real victims hurt by this ideology are they saying the victims don't matter, why?

And I'm also of the opinion that it makes no difference if there's a penis or not. The point - which is helpful to spell out - is that most do not get the operation.

It's because they are pretending trans women are just another class of women, like black women or disabled women. They're not. They're men. And we don't allow men into single sex spaces, so why should we allow trans women in?

Because the issue is one of framing laws. We don't make laws for the best case scenario where everyone is nice, we make them to protect people in the worst case scenarios where people aren't nice.

We don't denigrate all accountants by having laws against embezzlement. We don't denigrate all visitors to people's houses by having laws against burglary.

The problem with Karen White is not that all transwomen are like White; far from it. The problem with Karen White is that if you frame law on the basis that transwomen literally are women (rather than that it would be a nice and decent thing for society to treat them as if they were women for most, but not all purposes, the exceptions being those cases where biological sex matters), then you have to place White in a women's prison. And take the rather obvious consequence of imposing inhumane conditions on the women prisoners in violation of their human right to incarceration in a safe environment.

White isn't an attempt to show "all trans people are like that", which would clearly be ridiculous. He does (note, MN allows us to use male pronouns for convicted rapists) act as a kind of reductio and absurdum for Stonewall's "acceptance without exception" mantra and the anti-scientific assertion that "transwomen are women."

'I'm talking about a rights issue, and people frequently respond "but that would never happen" so then I give examples of how the rights are under threat in actual rather than theoretical ways. I don't think it's accurate to call that cherry picking.'

Only two of the 737 Max planes crashed, but they still grounded the whole fleet while they checked what the problem might be.

1. It is not about individual transgressors.

1. It is about creating a flawed system with poor safeguarding, which predators can and will exploit (e.g. see the Catholic Church).

1. Only a “small” no. Catholic priests exploited poor safeguarding in order to access and sexually abuse children. It was utterly devastating to those children.

1. presumably the vast majority of those identifying as women (like the vast majority of priests) have no wish to harm anyone.

1. But once you allow anyone to circumvent normal safeguarding (whether by becoming priests or identifying as women) predators will exploit this.

1. George Pell and Karen White may well be aberrations (I hope so). But their victims still suffered terribly (and still do).

Why do we have sex single facilities and spaces? Why don't we mix sexes in prisons? Why don't men compete against women in sport?
We were told the horror stories never happen. This never happens. This never happens. Then it happened and we aren't allowed to talk about it because it's cherry picking. Shut up women.

Evidence is annoying like that really.

Victoria Climbe's murderers caused an entire revolution in how safeguarding was (supposed to be) carried out. Huntley caused another.

That's how safeguarding works. One loop hole at a time.

Apart from anything else it's a deflection to avoid uncomfortable thoughts. But honestly, in case it's a useful line of explanation to use, look through the list of well known activists, the ones advising government, training national bodies, leading the court cases. Yaniv, Bradley, Challoner, and that's just off the top of my head. Sadly no, it's not at all unusual for cases in the public domain to be involved. Look at the increasing list of people demonstrating that women are at increased risk from males 'feeling more comfortable' in female spaces, such as Katie, and Karen White.

And then think of the well known people who speak out and represent the group the GRA was set up for, and deal with as much abuse from the transgender lobby as GC women do - Hayton, Willoughby, Yardley. You may not agree with everything they say but I can't think of one with a questionable case in the public domain, or in fact of them shouting threats and intimidation at women, or kicking windows.

I think many people have no idea how wide the trans umbrella is or the reality of the situation, they just have sympathy and want the jolly good chap system where everyone can be nice. And no one has to deal with no and difficult feelings. We're not a society who likes that. Women however shouldn't be the price of society rediscovering healthy boundaries.

It's because these cases prove that transwomen aren't women - which is what the whole debate is about.

It's also separating out: keeping single sex spaces for female people who need them is one thing. How does protecting those really harm trans people?

And are the people who are insisting that no corner of provision must be left for female people also good with excluding women from minority religions, women with disabilities like ASD and Dementia, women who have trauma, PTSD, rape survivors....? Because people feeling strongly about this will generally be people coming from a well-meaning position of social responsibility. (And you'll deal with the 'yes but SOME people from those communities are all 'this is no problem', but the fact stands that many are. And the ones that are will tend to be the ones without a voice or representation, who will just be excluded)

Surely solutions need to be found that work for everyone, not just shift the burden of exclusion around a bit? That should be a question that gets them thinking.

Just repeat over and over again: women are concerned about abuse by men, not trans people. Self ID facilitates the abuse of women by MEN.

Any safety measure is useless - and potentially irritating - until it is actually needed. Wearing a seatbelt is uncomfortable and useless on 9999 out of 10000 journeys, but no-one would say you were cherry picking if you highlighted crashes as a reason to wear it.

How do you deal with people who say that pointing out transgressions by individual transwomen is like combing the news for examples of immigrants behaving badly?

I always respond by saying that actually, I'm not that concerned about 'normal transwomen.' I'm concerned about the creep of self-ID becoming de facto "law" because men don't come with labels saying whether or not they're genuinely body dysphoric about their male body, or simply sick predators.

I keep it fairly simple - I explain I'm anti transactivism, not "normal ordinary transpeople." I express deep concern for the genuinely dysphoric**, but I say that when 98% of sexual violence is perpetrated by men, women do have a right to keep female-only spaces sex-segregated. Because with self-ID, predatory & violent men have yet another avenue of access to and abuse of children and women. So you virtue signal, but gently raise the issue of male violence, and toxic models of masculinity.

Then you could start on the homophobic nature of trans activism. And ask, gently "After all, what is wrong with a man wearing a dress and make up? Why can't he do that and still be a man?" If my interlocutor is female & wearing trousers (or doing anything that might be seen as typically masculine in sex stereotyped roles, eg earning a lot of money, managing men etc etc etc) I ask if by wearing trousers they are really "male."

And so on.

** Indeed, I have known a couple of dysphoric men & I can't imagine what it must be like to be so deeply disturbed about your natural body - it's a deep mind/body split for a start. Also like an anorexic - an unbalanced or disturbed relationship to one's body which could be life-threatening. But I suspect that the genuinely dysphoric (and it's a mental health issue) are in the minority ..

Yeah, we should all leave our front doors unlocked. Only a minority of people are burglars, and we shouldn’t tar everyone with the same brush. Oh, wait...

It's important to note that TW have the same offending profile as men without a gender identity.

I also bet that young, Muslim men who want to become pilots, for example, are thoroughly background checked. That is the form of safeguarding appropriate (all pilots background checked) for that risk. They don't just get to say that they are fine, upstanding people. It's that kind of special treatment the TRAs are demanding - that the safeguarding measures don't apply to them.

Although I have found myself conflicted over the parallels with racial profiling. If more knife crimes are committed by young, black men - does that make it okay to search them at a higher rate? My instincts are to say "no," that's racist. However, it's based on a truth not dissimilar to men committing most violent crimes.

That's how safeguarding works. One loop hole at a time.
Absolutely