So much confusion over transgender issues

[Shockedandbefuddled]

Hello - I realise I am here under a new user name.

I am now on a feminist board, having never described myself as a feminist.

My university friends would laugh wildly to hear me described as such.

I feel strongly transgender people need to be looked after and are vulnerable. I do not believe acknowledging transgender people exist poses a threat to womanhood.

However, I am scared that there are a lot of bad men, perverts, abusers and fetishists out in the world (far more than transgender people) who could abuse self ID.

I’m afraid to post this away from Feminist boards because of the backlash but am genuinely confused how the argument has become so fractured.

I think its ok to say I want full support for transgender people but it cannot be at the expense of women, kids, those of religious belief etc?

With my two DDs I have taken precautions to protect them

Would you mind running through what precautions these were/are?

The religious right, particularly in the US, think that 'trans' is the current thin end of the wedge and would be delighted to move on to erasing LG and B rights thereafter were they to succeed with trans.

I find this quite interesting. What are your sources for this? I must say I'd be surprised if they think they have to roll back rights in a certain order. Female reproductive rights have already been rolled back in some states regardless of what is happening with other oppressed groups. What is the planned order in which they are trying to erase rights?

*The issue is not trans women

It is men

Any man can declare himself a woman and access said changing room. That’s self ID. My DH tonorrow could go to Marks & Spencer’s as a fully intact Male presenting as a man and say he was a woman and he’d be let in

Now I know my DH is perfectly safe around women but you don’t know that or not dies any woman

This is about men!*

A legitimate concern, but:

(1) What is the practical solution which does not exclude or disadvantage masculine-looking women & trans women?

(2) Changing rooms are usually supervised in that they are a potential point of theft for the shop and that supervision is highly likely to detect unusual behaviour.

(3) This is the position we have at the moment. How would the proposals about self-identification change the position?

(4) when I use changing rooms I change behind a door or a curtain and (occasionally) might come back to the communal area to ask the opinion of my shopping friend (if I am there with one). So what opportunity does this present for a voyeur (of any persuasion?).

think that 'trans' is the current thin end of the wedge and would be delighted to move on to erasing LG and B rights thereafter were they to succeed with trans

Rather like riding on the coat tails of the LGB in order to gain rights (Dentons)? The claim is T should be protected, therefore protecting LGB rights?

Best the discussion is not muddied. I have not had a G trying to access my spaces at all. They are different.

Yes, it's really important to keep same sex attraction/relationships/orientation separate from gender identity, not least because the former is defined and protected by law.

If the religious right came out in favour of breakfast, would you refuse to have any as a matter of principle?

Gosh aren't those bingo points being ticked off quickly?

We've had DSDs, we've seen the "this is like gay rights" card, checks at toilet doors, the sneaky little "you're being disrespectful" card got played, and also "what about butch women?"

I am pretty close to "House!"

And the chromosome tests for toilets is completely unnecessary hyperbole

We have managed for centuries for people to understand who is meant to go where, and to socially instil behaviours such that people would know that they would be assumed to have been violating the social code and therefore not innocent if they went the wrong loo.

This is important when we recall that most sexual offences are very hard to prove and investigate because of the lack of unambiguous physical markers and the resulting he said she said dilemma. If the starting point is that a man in the ladies is up to no good, we have protection. Take that away and the flasher, the rapist can enter and know that the chances of being challenged or prosecuted are miniscule,

How do we tell who is male and female? I really don't know how it works, but in the 80's I remember laughing at the old folk who would say " is it a boy or a girl" because it was always clear. Even with effeminate androgynous gays. I wonder if it's partly related to hormones and your sentivitity to them, which might decline with age!

With my two DDs I have taken precautions to protect them

Would you mind running through what precautions these were/are?

I'd be interested to find out what these precautions are too if you wouldn't mind spelling them out for the rest of us please release. Assuming they work this could be a pivotal moment for most women since, presumably, rape and sexual assault would be reduced to nothing if we all adopt said precautions? Looking forward with interests to your reply. Cheers!

Those old dears in the 80s who couldn't tell if Boy George was a boy or a girl had been raised in a highly gendered society of the sort some people would like us to go back to.

What is the practical solution which does not exclude or disadvantage masculine-looking women & trans women?

To create third spaces for male people who prefer not to use male spaces, and to re socialise society to believe that female people are human too, and have the right to female only spaces for their privacy, dignity, feelings of safety, actual safety, and personal preference.

Basically to afford females the same respect females are being demanded to extend to males who wish to use females' spaces. And whose answer to females stating boundaries is rarely respectful or interested in showing the equal consideration or 'kindness' they are demanding females provide.

Nobody can protect themselves 100 percent. With my girls I didn't allow them out alone under secondary school age and never in the dark. Similarly at swimming pools I would be with them in the changing room when they were little. Now they're older I insist they have their phones switched on and let me know where they are. I've been lucky they always have.
I don't want them to grow up scared. I'm also proud to say they respect all people equally regardless of age, colour, gender or sexuality.

IMHO One of the achievements of liberal western democracy over the past 250 years or so, has been the gradual protection of those not white, protestant, property-owning males. Probably that can be tracked back to the granting of religious tolerance / freedom, the emancipation of women, the Equal Pay Act 1970, the Sex Discrimination Act (1975), the Race Reletions Act 1976 and the other rights which followed in the later 20th and early 21st centuries.

I think comments like 'muddling LGB and T' rights miss the point. G is still disadvantaged in a number of spaces, as the Hall v Bull case not so long ago showed. Retreating to corners will play exactly into the hands who would roll back rights.

My evidence for the religious right (particularly US) wanting to roll back LGB rights? Watch any number of US religious TV channels as I do when I travel there from time to time, or the famous 'Top Gear' episode where they painted a number of deliberately provocative slogans on their cars in the US deep south.

4
Most changing areas are not well supervised and often not many people there. Last few times the changing area was effectively policed by the husbands /boyfriends of the women .

removing the single sex assumption, the voyeur could be direct. Because the men were waiting outside so could not police what happened inside.

It also seems, from evidence, that mixed sex changing areas make it easier to place hidden cameras.

Actually didn't they recently show that mixed sex changing facilities did have much higher rates of sexual offences than unisex facilities. Even though the mixed sex facilities had been carefully designed with a unisex assumption rather than the weaker design rules used for single sex facilities

You stated "The religious right, particularly in the US, think that 'trans' is the current thin end of the wedge and would be delighted to move on to erasing LG and B rights thereafter were they to succeed with trans."

Do you have a specific source for someone stating that this is their thinking?

I clearly didn't ask for 'proof that people in the US are homophobic'.

So because some people might want to roll back LGB rights we should abandon sex based rights?

No I think I will continue to expect that 1) everyone has human rights and that 2) regulation should provide additional protection and support for groups who are not fully receiving their human rights 3) that protection should be specific and proportionate

"Nobody can protect themselves 100 percent. With my girls I didn't allow them out alone under secondary school age and never in the dark. Similarly at swimming pools I would be with them in the changing room when they were little. Now they're older I insist they have their phones switched on and let me know where they are. I've been lucky they always have.
I don't want them to grow up scared. I'm also proud to say they respect all people equally regardless of age, colour, gender or sexuality."

Oh, I'm disappointed by that. You are just using the normal common sense that the rest of us use. I was genuinely hoping for something better. Do you think 'respecting' a rapist, for instance, would make the rape less likely to occur or less horrific if it did? I don't but good luck to you and your respectful family.

why do you believe transgender people are inherently vulnerable and "need to be looked after"? Unless their identification intersects with a serious illness or disability i'd say that's a pretty patronising starting point!

And why are you so negative about the idea of feminism begin with? What did you learn about a woman's place in the world growing up?!

The position we actually have at the minute is that people can tell the sex of people, even of butch lesbians ( or butch straight women for that matter ) and that a man going into a female space would be considered in the wrong,

The position with self Id is that the man can go into the female space and the woman would be considered in the wrong if she objected,

It used to be that changing rooms etc were self-policing, with everyone in society enforcing that through a common understanding of social norms and what is socially acceptable. Women are now being told that, no, men no longer have to police themselves (ie recognise their own biological sex and act accordingly) instead women have to come up with some other solution to stop men coming into their spaces.

Sex recognition is mostly about how someone moves and carries themself, with a plethora of other physical indicators. We use dress and styling as short cut indicTors, but it is not difficult to look past these. However, if there is a problem for masculine women accessing single sex spaces , then it would help those women if (a) we as a society were confident that men and women return to self-policing in this area and (b) butch and gender non-conforming women were given a much higher profile in society.

So much to unpick here, I don't have enough time in the day.

(2) Changing rooms are usually supervised in that they are a potential point of theft for the shop and that supervision is highly likely to detect unusual behaviour

So, I suppose it is only in women's spaces where women have to allow for the possibility of iffy characters or activity. Not to worry, supervision will eventually detect unusual behavior, so that's ok. You have already been confronted with this unwanted activity you say? Oh well, such a shame.

As admitted, with self ID any man, presenting as a man, can enter. So there goes the first line of defense. Why don't we try this: no self ID, and only women can access women's spaces?

I think comments like 'muddling LGB and T' rights miss the point. G is still disadvantaged in a number of spaces, as the Hall v Bull case not so long ago showed. Retreating to corners will play exactly into the hands who would roll back rights

Very disingenuous. G is not asking for rights previously seen as women's rights. Clearly muddying the issue. Let's keep on track.

With my girls I didn't allow them out alone under secondary school age and never in the dark. Similarly at swimming pools I would be with them in the changing room when they were little. Now they're older I insist they have their phones switched on and let me know where they are. I've been lucky they always have.

What/who was the risk you were mitigating again though? Who were you protecting them from?

The point about changing rooms and toilets is you cannot install cameras, so you need to guard the gates.

I didnt put forward the 'chromosome detector' example flippantly - I was asked if that was a solution by a client a while ago. The 'third space' solution only works if you are prepared to enforce this in some way, which always starts with the problem of 'detection' and leads on to 'enforcement', even against undetectable trans women or men? Strip searches? X rays? And then how about those trans women or men who suffer considerable psychological distress if made to use facilities other than those they identify with? And finally, given that gender-variant individuals are still only somewhere around 1 in 2,000 to 1 in 5,000 of the population, are the fears of encountering one of us, or the resources needed to create 'separate' facilities, justified or proportionate?

Interesting questions indeed.

gender-variant individuals are still only somewhere around 1 in 2,000 to 1 in 5,000 of the population

What's your source for that?

Didn't a BBC survey (for the little that is worth given the self-selection and other methodological irregularities) report that 2% of their staff report a gender variation?