TWAW

[Billi77]

Thought it might be an idea to start a thread for women who support TWAW. I understand ‘Feminism chat’ should also include us and give us our own space?

Karen White was masquerading as a trans woman in order to rape more women.

With reference to my previous post, how do you know this?

Karen White was a rapist and pedophile with severe mental illness And yet saying TWAW leads us exactly to this outcome.

Would you put trans women with no history of rape charges into male prisons?
Are you aware that trans women in prison actually have a higher rate of commiting sexual assault than men as a whole? If a trans woman is at risk in a male prison then the prison has a duty to put the tw in a protected area. Why are you advocating for women to be used as human shields?

How do you tell the difference between someone who is 'genuinely' trans and someone who is 'masquerading'?
This, for me, is at the heart of it. I'd like Billi77 to answer this.

(I want to be kind to my trans friends, but how can that extend to allowing them into women's spaces. I may know that they are good people, but other women don't.)

Billi

You seem to have a clear idea of who you believe is a transwoman or transman and who is not.

If we are told via another strapline to 'believe people are who they say they are', how do you reconcile detransitioners who still suffer from GD. How do you reconcile the trans community rejecting these people and saying 'they were never trans' yet, they were trans for decades some of them?

And how do you reconcile the way those who disagree with the sloganing and are in fact honest in saying they are male still, being called vile names?

Don’t quote the screenshot bait!

Billi77" This task of "teaching them about the lived female experience" Should this be a mandatory requirement of women? and would you require black people to do the same for someone who was transracial?

This is an especially important question right now as we see people being killed for their skin color. How would someone who had to live with that pass it on to someone who felt black?

Would you put trans women with no history of rape charges into male prisons?

Yes, unequivocally I would. With the relevant protections and a risk assessment that is what should happen.

Women are not human shields to protect men from male violence.

With self identification how do you tell the difference between genuine people with dysphoria and people like Karen White? By saying that TWAW because Karen White says they are a woman then you have to accept that Karen White is a woman. You can't say 'oh but not them obviously because XYZ.' They have said they are a woman.

This is why self-ID is so dangerous as we, as woman, will be forced to accept ANYONE who says they are a woman as women. We get no recourse, no protection because we will not be allowed to differentiate between the Karen Whites of the world and those with dysphoria.

Broadly speaking many trans people are also marginalised and compromised. I feel that welcoming them into feminist and LGB circles is a better way of healthier way of teaching them about the lived female experience than ostracising them.

There is no reason why anyone should be prevented from entering any social circle. However, that doesn't mean everyone in a social circle needs the same rights and protections.

I think you are confusing campaigning, and the community and companionship that many people find in being part of a campaign, with legislation and human rights.

You know, it's interesting. In the comments below Rowlings tweets, there are several trans women who are strongly defending her, strongly defending women's rights to single sex provision where vulnerable, and liking comments on why. One was being mansplained by some beardy white bro, and acidly said, "Weird, because I AM trans, and I am telling you you're hurting us." Said Rowling was a staunch supporter, and that the concerns were valid.

There are plenty of trans women who recognise that trans women are trans women. One, when I followed to her own Twitter, had a chat with someone and said, "I think it's more important to identify with women than as one." Another said men always think they know better than women, including how to be a feminist and how to be a woman. That needing to reject gender roles didn't change sex or change women's oppression because of it. There are clearly quite a lot of gender critical trans people, and yet they are ignored.

These are people I am happy to stand shoulder to shoulder with. I'd proudly advocate for third spaces alongside them and campaign for that. You know what? Research in the states found that trans survivors of sexual assault in jail there wanted a trans floor or unit, so they could be with people who understood. They didn't want to access women's prisons, when this research was done, despite that being the position of the advocacy groups.

The problem is not trans people. The problem is SOME trans people, and a vocal group of misogynists who are piggybacking, and an industry of advocacy groups making a very nice living from it.

All the trans women supporting Rowling state that they know they will never be biologically the other sex. And that it's not reasonable to expect women to trust unknown men in spaces where they need to feel safe. In turn, they just want and need to live as society expects the opposite gendered role - because that is what feels right to them.

I think, myself, we need to assert that transwomen are transwomen, and that they need and deserve our solidarity as they challenge the gender binary, if they in turn respect our own rights and needs. Those who recognise sex-based oppression, and recognise that they would therefore entrench that oppression in demanding access to spaces where we need provision to remain single sex, are allies. And I would proudly, and gladly, stand with them in asserting that just as we need a disabled facility everywhere to allow inclusion in public life, we need an additional gender neutral one. My solution has long been to double the mandated disabled provision, but to make one of them a unisex, open-to-all provision. That means anyone who doesn't feel their assigned gender matches their sex has a safe facility, parents of opposite sex kids have a safe facility, if a changing table is mandated then parents of babies get a new clean, safe facility (how many men's spaces have that?), and we double disabled provision at the same time. I also think we need a prison that is designed for trans people, with a wing for serious offenders to remove them from the main population (why should a trans person who has stolen something, or driven with fatal carelessness, be alongside a child rapist or murderer?). And we also need shelters, both homeless and DV, for trans people - why aren't the TRA orgs, saturated in funding, not campaigning for that, and consulting to see what specific needs those spaces could best meet? Why co-opt women's provision when there's so little of it, and women have had to fight and campaign and fundraise to create and run them, and, by definition, the needs of each group are not the same?

Personally, I think the argument is arse backwards. Transwomen are not women. But gender is indeed assigned at birth, not sex, and anyone who realises their assigned gender is so uncomfortable that they can't stand it should be supported in rejecting that, to the hilt. What does it say, that refusal to accept gender roles makes people believe that they must have the wrong body? How inherently misogynist is that? Why not recognise that sex is not gender and that sex-based oppression, and need, is also a real thing that really does exist? And that is what those who scream TWAW are really seeking to deny, and then others are just blindly supporting the latest woke cause, because they are tribal. For many - perhaps even most - I don't believe it's about trans rights at all. If it were, it would not be this juggernaut. They'd just be another marginalised community nobody gave a crap about, sadly.

Karen White was masquerading as a trans woman in order to rape more women

Who are you to say that KW was not a woman but every other TW is? After all, all it takes to be a TW is to say you are one (under Stonewall guidelines and those adopted by many organisations) - no debate. KW didn't even need to make any alterations to their presentation as that is no longer required.

So, if TWAW, then anyone who says they are a woman is a woman. If you can't define what a woman is, then how can you define what a woman is not?

If you wish to introduce debate or restrictions then you are agreeing that TWANW. Or, at least, not all TWAW which makes the whole practice meaningless.

From a Mirror article about Karen White -

She also told of coming out as transgender in 2011, buying her first women’s clothes, make-up and a wig. She wrote: "I remember feeling as if I was on Cloud 9, I felt brilliant and nothing could [touch] me, I looked good"

It certainly sounds as if White believes she is a Transwoman, so why do you doubt her Billi77?

I don’t get to decide who is trans and who isn’t. Neither does any other individual. I don’t get to decide who is and isn’t allowed in sex segregated anything based on what I know about someone, neither does any other individual. That’s what the law is for. Laws have to stand up to legal challenge and be able to be followed by those who need to be compliant. Equality impact assessments are supposed to be carried out to ensure the human rights of all are not impacted by well meaning changes.

I don’t get to say oh so and so, they are great, let’s get them in as an unsupervised volunteer for vulnerable groups - we have learned this is dangerous and have a system and guidance to follow. Every single sex segregated space/service/sport is used by people who are in vulnerable groups. Where are the impact assessments for making these things gender not sex?

Billi77

This isn’t exclusionary or hostile. In sports, for example, Such distinctions to need to made. Do you understand that no such distinctions are allowed to be made?

I think from reading your responses you are trying to be kind and inclusive. I am not sure that you realise the breadth of the effect of the topic and the impact on women's health care choices, employment opportunities, sports, the homophobia that seems to be hidden behind it being transphobic to not include transwomen or transmen in your choices for a sexual partner, the complete failure of being able to clearly discuss women's issues with the inclusion of 'males' eg. FGM.

The list is actually staggering but the reality is, no nuance is allowed beyond complete acceptance. I keep asking how you reconcile it in your thinking. Because I genuinely wish to know.

@TheSingingKettle49

Would you put trans women with no history of rape charges into male prisons?

Yes, unequivocally I would. With the relevant protections and a risk assessment that is what should happen.

Women are not human shields to protect men from male violence.

Personally, I think we need specific provision for trans people. If 1 in 50 male prisoners now identify as trans, and we are seeing a wave of new prisons being built as an economic stimulus, why not make one trans? Violence should never be part of the penalty. (I could join a whole other section of MN on the desperate need for prison reform, in fact.)

Yet the currently advocated answer is to expect women to put their bodies in harm's way, to save male bodies. That is literally what is being asked and expected. And they call that feminism. It's not. It's the most hideous misogyny, and interestingly, the prison reform charities totally oppose it.

Anyone suggesting that male people shouldn't be put at risk, so let's put women at risk instead, needs to sit down and have a real think about why, frankly.

And the risk isn't only physical. Almost all women in prison have been sexually assaulted, often numerous times. Over half in childhood. The majority are in there for crimes of property, not violence. They are very afraid of being locked in with males. Why do so few seem to care? The Labour leadership candidates falling over themselves to say that rapists and serial killers who ID as women should instantly be in women's prisons? They have already housed predatory rapists in women's prisons, and the inevitable happened, and it hasn't changed the TWAW narrative - what does that tell you, about how women are valued in our society?

wellbehavedwomen yes. Agree with pretty much all of that to some degree.

Billi77

This isn’t exclusionary or hostile. In sports, for example, Such distinctions to need to made.

Then you are a transphobe. That's one of the key tenets. Trans women are women, women have different bodies, trans women's bodies are still women's bodies so no exceptions need to be made at all.

In the States, scholarships rely on sport. And teenagers are running as girls, after male puberty, and winning. And the girls protesting are being called bigots.

This is what we are dealing with. This is the reality. You are either okay with it in all areas - literally, TW are W and there is no difference or exception allowed at all - or not, and if you are not then you are deemed a transphobe.

Why are women who are treated by society as the gatekeepers of neglect or abuse to children, other women, men, the elderly and the disabled being castigated for trying to perform that role?

@HH160bpm

Karen White was put in a women’s prison because that’s what the guidelines said should happen and not doing it would have been discriminatory.

What do you think the guidelines should be? I’d go for clear, simple to follow and underpinned with an impact assessment.

Perhaps no trans women with a history of rape should be allowed into women’s prisons?

But surely they are either women or their not.

Which is it. Anyone who says they are woman is a woman? Or are women only women if they dont commit a crime?

What about sexual assault?
Violence?

What do you think the impact is on vulnerable women in prison who often have mental health issues, who are survivors of male physical and sexual violence is if TW are in female prisons? What about the female guards and other prison personnel?

And what is the prosecution rate for rape? Less than 5%?
What about dv/coercive behaviour, what about anger issues? A biological male is definitely more risky to a woman prisoner even if not convicted of a sex crime.

What if previously abused woman is triggered by a male voice or cell mate’s penis even if the tw prisoner is in for fraud.

“Not a rapist” is a pretty low bar for that female inmate, which again indicates what level of consideration society is willing to give a female prisoner.

Almost there! No transwomen should be in women's prisons. A transwoman only prison or a special wing in a men's prison is the answer.

Perhaps no trans women with a history of rape should be allowed into women’s prisons?

But where else will they go? If it has been agreed that TWAW the authorities will be legally bound to place them in a Women's prison.

A transwoman only prison or a special wing in a men's prison is the answer

They did this in a womens prison didnt they. Using funds for the prison to do it. So knowing full well that women werebt even able to access sufficient sanitary protection due to funding, still it was more important that identities were validated instead . Definately should be done in a mens prison