The Times on survey about trans women in female refuges

[Collidascope]

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/f9a5cf58-db52-11ea-9bd5-8c0b68caf23e?shareToken=7bc3afb0702bed423076e5a246b59620

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/5c22a9d0-db3a-11ea-8d9c-6a97b944a97b?shareToken=b51b32cfe3dfa63a24dc12770897273d

And a comment piece on preferred pronouns for anyone who's interested.

Two good articles, thanks!

I'm still gobsmacked that 51 per cent of people are comfortable with trans women using a woman’s refuge. The only explanation I can think of is that people don't understand how broad the trans umbrella is and the principles of safeguarding.

I also question if the opinion of the general public is the most relevant voice here. Surely the opinions that matter are those of the women that use refuges, and the women who support them. I wonder what the outcome of that survey would be?

Yes, a lot of people still think the term 'trans woman' refers to some extremely tiny minority who have gone to great lengths to look very similar to women, have had genital surgery and so on. Some even think 'trans woman' is a woman (i.e. female) who is trans.

I don't know how these questions are asked in surveys. I suspect if they were straightforward without any sugar coating then the percentage would be much lower.

Thank you for the tokens. They were both interesting reads.

I wonder if Liz was told she needed to wait for this study to be complete to announce. Is this a study we have already seen the result of?

I would like to know if they also tested what the public believe who is included in that term. I would bet if they knew that it meant anyone regardless of presentation, support would drop significantly.

X posts!

50% of the population is male. I bet many of them would feel fine about trans women in a women’s refuge, because the men won’t be affected by it.

I wonder how many women (adult human females) would say the same?

50% of the population is male. I bet many of them would feel fine about trans women in a women’s refuge, because the men won’t be affected by it.

Also, the very men who are being considered will have a vested interest in supporting it so they will definitely have voted.

As will their supporters.

A lot of women will not know what a refuge looks like or how it feels to be in one.

In fact, the only opinion that really matters on this subject is that of women who are either in, or have experience of being in, a refuge.

The statistics which are probably impossible to collect but the only ones which really matter are:
1)are women who need refuges 'comfortable' with TW being allowed to use them
2) how many women who need refuges are not using them because of the potential of males being in them?

Were the terms defined in the survey? I'm certain that a not insignificant number of people think that a trans is a woman who is trans ie a transman...

It shouldn't matter what the general public and men in particular feel about this. What matters is what the vulnerable women in these refuges feel. I doubt many of them would want any men no matter what around them in this supposedly safe space

"Forced attempts at normalising pronoun introductions may be done in the name of inclusivity but they reveal only how hopelessly out of touch those who run our universities, local authorities and political parties have become. They no longer have any idea how normal people talk to each other." From the opinion piece.

I tend to agree with this but I do think that younger people tend to be more accepting of pronoun introductions because it is their "normal" and there are those who don't understand or are not aware of the wider implications and so go along with it.

Is this the survey carried out by EHRC? I think there were fundamental flaws in how the survey was carried out.

Maya Forstater has tweeted about it

twitter.com/mforstater/status/1292919092098334723?s=21

A survey was done a little while ago which showed similar results but when asked if transgender without any surgery etc should still be in women's places, the results were very different. 70% ish against.

Survey's are very difficult to interpret especially when you don't know why the poll was done, who requested and what the questions were.

It indicates that we're not a massivily transphobic nation.

I tend to think that this pronoun signaling might go the way of the ‘z’ pronouns. It might be just the enthusiastic that do it and it might just die away in the future. Well... I hope.

@SheWhoMustNotBeHeard

Is this the survey carried out by EHRC? I think there were fundamental flaws in how the survey was carried out.

Agree. Main flaws seem to be how the EHRC defined trans to include (for example) "thoughts" vs the EQA's definition of gender reassignment; and then the set of feelings people were given to choose from which formed a bizarre and unbalanced group of choices.

Also why ask the general population how they feel about who enters a women's refuge? It's not them who use it. It's traumatised women and children. The qu about acceptable jobs also caused me to raise an eyebrow. I could go on.

Sorry about previous link. Hopefully this is the correct link?

twitter.com/mforstater/status/1273562476467101699?s=21

“Overall public opinion remains supportive of transgender people, with 82 per cent feeling they were not prejudiced against them”

I wonder how many of those would be considered bigots anyway?

Well obviously a very large chunk of that 82 % would be considered bigots if just over half felt uncomfortable with women sharing single spaces. And obviously, they don’t realise that they should be screamed at, cancelled, and re-educated!

@SheWhoMustNotBeHeard

"Forced attempts at normalising pronoun introductions may be done in the name of inclusivity but they reveal only how hopelessly out of touch those who run our universities, local authorities and political parties have become. They no longer have any idea how normal people talk to each other." From the opinion piece.

I tend to agree with this but I do think that younger people tend to be more accepting of pronoun introductions because it is their "normal" and there are those who don't understand or are not aware of the wider implications and so go along with it.

Yes, because their introduction to the 'real world' is typically when they go into further education - an environment which is about as far away from the real world as it is possible to get. Unfortunately, young people aren't aware of that so are easily indoctrinated into the idea that stating your pronouns is normal. It isn't.

As Williams says: 'Pronoun-declaring is, in truth, a game played by an identity-obsessed minority with far too much time on its hands.'

Children who leave school and enter the world of paid employment are not going about stating their pronouns because they have other things to worry about.

This article also makes for interesting reading...

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jk-rowling-publisher-asked-mermaids-trans-group-to-censor-legal-article-on-free-speech-ruling-2dl7t5g9q

I am shocked by the fact that an article reporting the facts of a court case about freedom of speech was deemed to require editing according to the suggestions of a lobby group who use the slogan 'No debate' and repeatedly declare a biological falsehood all of which are intended to silence a group that has been oppressed for centuries. Thank you Ian Yule for resisting and resigning... who will be left to speak up??

I actually find the idea of having an opinion poll on this topic to be wholly inappropriate. It's not up to the general public to give their two pence on whether they're "comfortable with the idea of a trans woman using a woman's refuge". We're talking about people's basic human rights here. I don't really give a shit what Joe Random from Guildford thinks about it.

@SheWhoMustNotBeHeard

Is this the survey carried out by EHRC? I think there were fundamental flaws in how the survey was carried out.

But it is interesting that it shows that as a nation we are largely supportive of transgender people and so the claims of spiralling hate against transgender people don’t match that. So can we assume that the government is safe to maintain the legal status quo, clarify the existing Equality law for organisations that are confused/misinformed and all the amazing female talent, time and money can be directed towards activities that will move humanity forward rather than having to defend ourselves against the hugely regressive steps being pushed for? (Obviously I realise there are still many mountains to climb just to do the above)

@twoHopes

I actually find the idea of having an opinion poll on this topic to be wholly inappropriate. It's not up to the general public to give their two pence on whether they're "comfortable with the idea of a trans woman using a woman's refuge". We're talking about people's basic human rights here. I don't really give a shit what Joe Random from Guildford thinks about it.

Precisely.

The rights to single sex recovery for traumatised and raped women isn't conditional upon the opinion of random people.

Plus, another survey, which was far clearer that self identification frequently meant retaining male genitalia, had a completely different outcome.

fairplayforwomen.com/poll/

In all cases the majority of UK respondents consider a self-identifying transwoman who retains their penis to still be a man, and for it to be inappropriate for them to be considered female when it comes to changing rooms, sports, prisons and performing intimate procedures on a woman.

Although almost a fifth (19%) of UK respondents said that a self-identifying transwoman who retains their penis is a woman, a significant number of them did NOT then go on to agree that they should be treated as women in all circumstances (ranging from only 9-14%).

It's completely disingenuous not to make the public aware that stonewall include cross dressers and transvestites under the term transwomen.

Likewise, people like Philip Bunce, who uses male facilities half the week and female, the other half.