Which changing rooms, bathrooms, showers, dorms etc should trans men use? Haddocks ultimate gotcha question

[happydappy2]

AH on twitter presents a photo of a topless transman who passes well as a man-questioning which bathroom should this person use? I just wondered what other people feel about this? Personally I think trans men should use the mens facilities where it is safe to do so-ie most of the time, but not be in prison with men because of the clear risk of rape. They clearly do not pose the same safeguarding risk to men, as males do to women.

[OldCrone]

If we, as women, say that trans women should not go in the womens changing rooms then we can't say that trans man should go in the mens changing rooms. You can't have your cake and eat it.

I've copied part of Gasp0de's post from earlier in the thread since you seem to have missed it.

2. Safety. This is relevant to females. Males are responsible for most acts of violence. Their victims include other adult males, adult females, children of both sexes. The victims of sexual crimes are disproportionately female and almost all sexual crimes are committed by males. Most males are physically stronger than most females and obviously far stronger than children. Hence the reason for females to have places where males cannot go when the females are in a vulnerable state, e.g having to use the loo or getting dressed/undressed.

Transmen are female. They pose no threat to the safety of males. Hence it's their own decision which loos and changing rooms to use. Biological males may have a view about whether they like transmen using male facilities because of the privacy aspect. Transmen will have to think of their own safety if they make themselves vulnerable in a male-dominated space.

I'd add to that that transmen who actually look like men are likely to be challenged if they use the women's facilities and some women and girls may find their presence unacceptable. But if they pass that well they will have no problem using the men's which is probably what they'd prefer anyway. Transwomen should always use the men's because women and girls shouldn't have to accept males in their spaces at all.

"Have your cake and eat it" is the wrong way to look at it. Men are a threat to women. Women are no threat to men. Men in women's spaces is not the same as women in men's spaces.

[Gncq]

If transpeople aren't happy with same sex designation they can always campaign for mixed sex as an additional option. They'd have a lot of support.

[Goosefoot]

I wonder if it more that they don’t jar with us a much as transwomen so we don’t need to ‘look again’; females don’t represent a threat to other women in the same way. Also things like smell don’t stand out as different from women in the way male smell does in transwomen.

I think it's more that the physical changes that come from testosterone are so significant. And short and narrowly built men aren't so rare really, especially in certain populations. But the older transmen I've seen very often have a potbelly, they are bald or have a very male hairline, and a respectable beard. If you made a real investigation you might wonder, but it's not obvious on sight as with many transwomen and how often do you stare at strangers?

If you think about it, most men who transition can take off the make-up and clothes and immediately they are men again and no one would question that. More so if they stop taking hormones. Whereas even younger women that have only been taking testosterone for a few years often have clearly masculinised features, and it's often permanent.

[Datun]

Women who take hormones and have facial surgery to look like men, and succeed, aren't going to be the slightest bit interested in going to female toilets.

That's the whole point of transitioning.

14-year-old girls who say they are transboys, will, I imagine, be perfectly happy to use the ladies.

Either way, transwomen should not have access. It's not an either/or.

And yes, of course, a third option, for those who slip between the cracks.

[Michelleoftheresistance]

My most recent meeting with a TM: a smile and hello instantly told me they were female, the beard was irrelevant. The body shape also made it clear. I can't imagine them for example taking photos of themselves in toilets with a sword to terrorise female people, or threatening to punch or rape anyone for questioning them in a female only space, or wanting any female to feel uncomfortable or unsafe. And while they're only one person, I'm also going to go on the generalised experience that female people, however they identify and however annoyed they may be, don't have a track record of doing that. They don't leer. They don't sexually intimidate. They don't ffs take your used tampons and stuff them up their bum, or masturbate while listening to you pee.

Male people however they physically present, are still male people, and belonging to the sex that is excluded from female people's spaces. That they really want to be in female spaces isn't the relevant factor - unless you believe that male people are intrinsically more important and that all spaces belong primarily to males and female only spaces is a gift males may or may not grant.

This whole business is demonstrating that in terms of sexual equality, males and many females always believed that women's rights, like women's spaces were just something on loan as a gesture of good will until it no longer suited males to gift them.

[beebeeduck]

Where they go is surely up to trans rights activists, not feminists.

Where they go should be up to the biological males who the changing room is for, just like the situation with trans women in the women's changing rooms. Some of those people might be feminists, some of them might be trans activists - that's not relevant. What is relevant is that they are biological males in a male changing room or biological females in the women's changing room.

Do you know if I am a feminist or not?

[Goosefoot]

Women who take hormones and have facial surgery to look like men, and succeed, aren't going to be the slightest bit interested in going to female toilets. That's the whole point of transitioning.

Yes, I'm sure, I just don't think they should be allowed. Single sex provisions apply to men as well as women.

That's the real point that Harrop is making I think. If we are asserting that single sex provisions for some spaces need to be maintained, that's not just women's spaces. It equally applies legally to men.

It's no more ok to assume that all men are ok with it than it was to assume women were.

[beebeeduck]

Transmen are female. They pose no threat to the safety of males

So no man has ever been abused by a woman? Why are there domestic violence charities for male victims of domestic abuse by females?

[Michelleoftheresistance]

98% to 2%. So it is ok to talk exclusively about females and the reality of the issues arising from the 98% without having to do the NAMALT and whataboutery dance. It's allowed. You're not a bad person to talk only about the female experience without making sure you've included and emphasised the importance and vulnerabilities of males.

[happydappy2]

Beebeeduck No one is comparing a TM to a woman who has undergone a mastectomy for medical reasons, please don't assume I'm saying something I'm not. A TM will most likely also be on T, which can drastically alter their jawline and muscular shape, if they have facial hair and pass as a man then don't you think that would be extremely unsettling for children and even some adults? For that reason they can be asked to leave a women only space. Imagine if Buck Angel walked into the ladies changing room.....the fact is I don't think they would.

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

The constant attempts at a gotcha are so tedious. No, Haddock, we still aren't going to agree to random cock in the women's changing rooms no matter how hard you try to manipulate the argument. As long as you're arguing in favor of Alex Drummond being able to take Alex's beard along with Alex's dangly bits into the women's changing room then you cannot logically argue that a transman with a little bumfluff mustache and no dangly bits should frighten women. Arguing that seeing a female body post mastectomy should be frightening to women in those spaces in the same way seeing a male body would be is just grossly insensitive. Most women will at some point in our lives know a mastectomy survivor, and the response we have to that is a. clearly not within the realm of things that you as a bloke could ever understand and b. deeply empathetic.

[Datun]

So no man has ever been abused by a woman? Why are there domestic violence charities for male victims of domestic abuse by females?

98% of sex offences are committed by men.

That's how risk assessment works.

[Datun]

As long as you're arguing in favor of Alex Drummond being able to take Alex's beard along with Alex's dangly bits into the women's changing room then you cannot logically argue that a transman with a little bumfluff mustache and no dangly bits should frighten women.

Good point.

[TorkTorkBam]

I don't even get why this is a gotcha?

A transman who genuinely passed could use the gents, nobody would notice and nobody gets upset, nobody knows a convention has been broken. Same for a TW and the ladies.

If someone does not pass and is in the right toilet for their biology then it's fine too. We can tell that 5'2 chubby teenage boy is actually a woman being a transman. The men can tell that 6'2 15st person in a bodycon dress is actually a man being a transwoman.

If someone who is noticeably the opposite biology attempts to go into the wrong toilets then people would say oi and intervene, which is how it has always worked.

[TorkTorkBam]

Anyway, let's say women were intimidated by having a transman enter the ladies toilets, why would the solution be to let actual blokes in too?

What's the logic? The women are going to be upset anyway so the men might as well do whatever they want?

[beebeeduck]

No one is comparing a TM to a woman who has undergone a mastectomy for medical reasons, please don't assume I'm saying something I'm not

If a woman who has had a masectomy is going to appear to be male and be frightening to some children then that is going to be the case regardless of the reason.

In reality children will accept the difference. Remember Cerrie Burnell? There were so many complaints from parents about how she was frightening their children when really it was the parents being professionally offended.

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

I would also imagine that most transmen would choose to use cubicles within a changing room if available if they were granted access to a men's changing room. As we all know many transwomen vigorously object to the suggestion that they might do the same, which is one of the many reasons why some women have moved from "maybe in some circumstances" to "nope, never, GTFO".

[MartiniDry]

Wherever they like. My concern is not about women who look like men any more than it is about lesbians. I (you, our mothers, daughters, and co) am not likely to be assaulted by a woman.
It's the human with a penis which worries me.

If Harrop doesn't understand that he can kiss my ass. He's a twat.

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

If someone who is noticeably the opposite biology attempts to go into the wrong toilets then people would say oi and intervene, which is how it has always worked.

And if men respond with aggression to the presence of someone obviously male in a dress in their toilets then the solution to that problem is for the men to change their behavior, not for women and girls to offer our spaces as a refuge from toxic masculinity.

[happydappy2]

beebeeduck a woman who has had a mastectomy does not automatically appear male-thats a really offensive thing to suggest.

[Sicario]

I find it hard to grasp why anyone gives this awful person any airtime / oxygen. The old "have you stopped beating your wife yet?" question, like it's some kind of genius move. I do wish he'd just piss off.

[TorkTorkBam]

Transmen are female. They pose no threat to the safety of males

So no man has ever been abused by a woman? Why are there domestic violence charities for male victims of domestic abuse by females?

I am sure many of us have seen situations where a woman was in a room full of men and started being aggressive threatening violence, maybe when drunk. The men are not threatened. They don't like it, true. They are worried, true. They also know they can collectively overpower her with little trouble should they wish. The story will be retold as a funny story with much laughter.

Now, a man getting violent and aggressive in a room with women. Not the same. Not a funny story.

[testing987654321]

Men like AH will never understand why women prefer single sex facilities

He absolutely does though. He likes to share pictures of transmen with the gotcha "would you want me in the ladies" or similar.

The thing implicit in that question is that women don't want men in the ladies.

What I don't understand is what some women looking convincing as men has to do with actual men going into women's loos?

I have poor facial recognition and am quite unobservant generally, but I notice loads of transwomen out and about, the vast majority do not pass at all.

[Xanthangum]

Adrian Harrop. Basically a sad comedy character Russell Howard invented, but gave up as too far fetched.

I do not understand why anybody gives his views credence at all.

[TheProdigalKittensReturn]

Neither do transmen irl, generally, though they tend to pass better in photos of just the face than transwomen do.