Debbie and Stephanie Hayton interview transcript

[Clymene]

I thought the women of FWR might be interested in the interview that Debbie and Stephanie did with the Straight Spouse Network podcast this week.

It explains quite a lot about Stephanie's demeanour in their interview with Stella O'Malley for her documentary.

* [edited by MNHQ - broken link removed] * **

Al77

Forgive me if I am getting this wrong, because I don't find your posts particularly straightforward. But are you saying the same as Debbie Hayton? In that post op transwomen should be acceptable, at least in some women's spaces?

Because they're post op?

And that women who object are like Mary Whitehouse/prudes?

I ask this, because you will find tw like India Willoughby demanded that the criteria for access should be whether a transwoman 'passes', or ex convict Tara Hudson, complete with '7 inch surprise' saying it's about when a male transitions, or we've had plenty of transwomen on here saying it should only be if you are in the possession of a GRC, irrespective of passing, surgery, or longevity.

It feels, certainly to me, and in the words of someone more eloquent than I, that this is just a question of the boot placed on the neck of women, being incrementally adjusted, according to the various whims of different male born individuals and whatever criteria they personally, and very specifically, possess at the time. Be it the way they look, what operations they've had, what paperwork they've acquired or at what precise time they transitioned.

It would appear I'm going to have to say this again.

Women. Are. Human.

We are fully fledged members of the human race. And with the same identical status as males.

We do not agree to men in our spaces. And whether you feel that is acceptable or not, or whether you understand that or not, is irrelevant.

The answer is no. Because they are our spaces. Ours to gate keep.

Not Debbie's, or India's, or Tara's, or Jan's.

Ours.

@Datun That is exactly what I am saying. Transexual women have been sharing my toilet spaces for my entire adult life. I have met them in clubs, pubs , public toilets and work toilets. This is not new. As far as I can tell the current legislation backs this up, perhaps I am wrong on this and maybe it has been illegal for them to access toilets all along but I don't think so and they have been. I don't think it is an affront to anyones dignity or safety.

"We do not agree to men in our spaces. And whether you feel that is acceptable or not, or whether you understand that or not, is irrelevant.The answer is no. Because they are our spaces. Ours to gate keep. Not Debbie's, or India's, or Tara's, or Jan's."

I agree they should be, but I think you underestimate how far this ideology has spread and just repeating the mantra is the same as a TRA repeating TWAW. Standing guard at a gate when someone has just removed the boundary fence.

I just keep coming back to this part of the interview - and also noticing the ratio of Stephanie's words to Debbie's words.

This is Stephanie saying: "Even if you have to leave, even if you have to walk out, I think maybe we need to separate because I can't cope with it anymore,' and Debbie said, 'Okay if that's what you want, then that's what we'll do.'

But my daughter was about two months away from her first set of significant School exams, which are taken at age 16 in Britain.

And so two weeks later, we went back on a Thursday evening to this local arts centre and
Debbie said, 'I've been thinking and I'm not going to move out. I want to stay' and at that point, I really just felt, 'Well, I've got nothing here. All along, you've been saying that, if necessary, you will leave and eventually I've got to the point of saying okay, you need to leave. And you're now saying you refuse.'

So again, actually that was a turning point for Debbie. I think Debbie realized that if she wanted to stay within the family, she needed to actually start thinking about the family a little bit more, rather than just what she wanted and how she was going to do things. And after that, I started having a little bit more of a say and Debbie would ask my opinion about things and I felt that my opinion was actually making a small amount of difference, maybe not huge, but a small amount of difference. And we got through my daughter's exams and, at that point, you know, it was then three months after I'd said, 'I think you need to leave'. And things were better, though a long way from perfect but much better than that very, very low point.

Sorry for derailing. Every time I look at this thread, I just feel so much for Stephanie, and the position that she was put in.

@StellaAndCrow

Sorry for derailing. Every time I look at this thread, I just feel so much for Stephanie, and the position that she was put in.

TBF you're doing the opposite of detailing!

[quote Al77]@Datun That is exactly what I am saying. Transexual women have been sharing my toilet spaces for my entire adult life. I have met them in clubs, pubs , public toilets and work toilets. This is not new. As far as I can tell the current legislation backs this up, perhaps I am wrong on this and maybe it has been illegal for them to access toilets all along but I don't think so and they have been. I don't think it is an affront to anyones dignity or safety.

"We do not agree to men in our spaces. And whether you feel that is acceptable or not, or whether you understand that or not, is irrelevant.The answer is no. Because they are our spaces. Ours to gate keep. Not Debbie's, or India's, or Tara's, or Jan's."

I agree they should be, but I think you underestimate how far this ideology has spread and just repeating the mantra is the same as a TRA repeating TWAW. Standing guard at a gate when someone has just removed the boundary fence.[/quote]
Are you saying that when they take our boundary fence, we should just consider that fight lost and go on to the next?

So we should just relinquish any rights that they manage to take without trying to reclaim them and hope they don’t press for more?

If someone nicked my physical garden fence, No chance will I just roll over and let them have it... it’s my fucking fence!..... And that’s just a bit of wood, so if I won’t let someone steal a bit off wood of me, there is no way I am letting them make off with my actual legal rights ond protections.

And the point about should males who have had surgery and hormones be accepted in female toilets.

I'd seen pictures of Debbie Hayton on their profile. When I first saw a full length picture of Debbie I was jolted with shock because they were so obviously male, just in their body shape and their posture. If someone like that came into the toilets I was in I'd panic.

I think you underestimate how far this ideology has spread

Are you trying to say it's too late to do anything about it?

Usually we're accused of 'scaremongering'. It's a change to be told that we're underestimating the spread of this ideology.

That is exactly what I am saying. Transexual women have been sharing my toilet spaces for my entire adult life. I have met them in clubs, pubs , public toilets and work toilets. This is not new. As far as I can tell the current legislation backs this up, perhaps I am wrong on this and maybe it has been illegal for them to access toilets all along but I don't think so and they have been. I don't think it is an affront to anyones dignity or safety.

So, what, we should ignore the Katie Dolatowskis of this world and shrug their victims off as unfortunate incidents when the benign 'eunuch' (your word) turns out to be a predator?
Seriously, what are you saying?

I think you underestimate how far this ideology has spread

I feel confident that Datun is very well appraised.

For those more recently aware of the issues, many people have found this thread useful:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3145470-Break-it-down-for-me

[quote Al77]@Datun That is exactly what I am saying. Transexual women have been sharing my toilet spaces for my entire adult life. I have met them in clubs, pubs , public toilets and work toilets. This is not new. As far as I can tell the current legislation backs this up, perhaps I am wrong on this and maybe it has been illegal for them to access toilets all along but I don't think so and they have been. I don't think it is an affront to anyones dignity or safety.

"We do not agree to men in our spaces. And whether you feel that is acceptable or not, or whether you understand that or not, is irrelevant.The answer is no. Because they are our spaces. Ours to gate keep. Not Debbie's, or India's, or Tara's, or Jan's."

I agree they should be, but I think you underestimate how far this ideology has spread and just repeating the mantra is the same as a TRA repeating TWAW. Standing guard at a gate when someone has just removed the boundary fence.[/quote]
I did not underestimate it. But I'm under absolutely no obligation to accommodate it.

There are no laws over who uses which toilet, but there are customs and protocols. At the moment, women are becoming frightened to object to a man, any man, in those toilets. Hence events like that involving Katie Dolatowski. These customs and protocols need to reflect what women want. Not what men want them to want

It's wrong.

The solution is patently a third space. There is no rational objection to that.

Your solution is unworkable. No one can tell whether a man is pre-op, post op, trans or otherwise.

But the point is, it's completely irrelevant. Just as if every man dyed their hair, and no one can tell the true colour of their hair, it would be equally immaterial. It's got nothing to do with nothing.

The sex of the individual is the issue, not the individual's own personal, internal, unknowable and irrelevant attitude to it.

The reason this is so hard to grasp is sexism. All these decisions, according to you, and Debbie, are dependent upon what the man wants.

You're just finding ways to make women agree.

And, funnily enough, and surprising to no one here, there are any number of other transwomen who are doing exactly the same, just using criteria that applies to them, and not someone like Debbie.

Do you think your solution is unique? It's not. It's identical to every other transwoman's solution.

(It's also a red herring. Toilets can be solved, in a heartbeat, with a third space.)

Similar arguments about safety were used about gay men and lesbians using public toilets only a few decades ago, people worried about the dangerous sexual predators hiding in plain sight.

Were those arguments made, tho?
Why would they be? - No-one was going to start using toilets that they hadn't previously used, so what's the problem?

Similar arguments about safety were used about gay men and lesbians using public toilets only a few decades ago, people worried about the dangerous sexual predators hiding in plain sight.

I have never made those arguments, and since these boards are visited by quite a few lesbians, I doubt they have either.

And, of course, unless you are saying that gay men and lesbians commit 98% of all sexually violent crime, then so what?

Using a prejudicial, and clearly irrational argument from the past to back up your argument now, probably isn't the most logical premise i've ever seen.

Similar arguments about safety were used about gay men and lesbians using public toilets only a few decades ago, people worried about the dangerous sexual predators hiding in plain sight.

Oh bollocks did they.

Gay men encountered vile jokes and prejudice about backs to the wall and worse, and plenty have been beaten up in toilets or because of a man feel threatened, or in other ways failing toxic masculinity policing itself. That's what that was. Straight men have never gone in fear and trembling of a gay man assaulting them; plenty of gay men did though.

Women have been used to butch and masculine presenting women since the 1920s, and no, there's never been the fear of the predatory lesbian.

No. Your male enabling is falling on deaf ears. If you want to give up, you give up. I'm not.

I can attest that the number of times my mother (who as I have discussed before, felt very strongly about the local council employing male cleaners for women's toilets) warned me to look out for 'predatory lesbians' in the toilet as a child was absolutely zero.

If she'd thought it was a thing I would have been told about it.

1. Debbie, you don’t have any female sex characteristics. None. Nadda. Zip. Zero.

2. In what bizzaro world do you think prisons have “options”? It’s fucking prison.

3. Just because a man has been convicted of a minor, non sexual crime doesn’t mean he isn’t a danger to women. It just means he hasn’t been caught.

@Al77 - your tone is enormously patronising. Most of the posters here are entirely aware of how far this ideology has spread. In fact, it's the endless remonstrating with women to be kind, telling us that men who would rather be women have been using our spaces for years so what the fuck is our problem, which has got us into this whole sorry mess in the first place.

We played nice, we turned a blind eye. But that wasn't enough. It will never be enough. Until men have the right to decide to entirely subjugate us - to decide which of our spaces they want, which of our terminology they want, which of our body parts and reproductive functions they want - whatever concessions we make will never be enough for some.

And that's why we need to reinforce the boundaries. There is no way to distinguish the 'getting on quietly with my own life transexual from the transgender woman fantasising about smacking women with baseball bats. And I appreciate that the people with bats have ruined things for the nice quiet ones but that is not women's problem to solve*.

It's also a horrible sleight of hand to say oh come on, not all men are predators, whilst simultaneously using the fact that an awful lot of them are, to force women into a position they don't want to be in.

There is not a woman alive who hasn't encountered a man who is either predatory, or sexist, misogynistic, intimidatory, domineering, disrespectful, bullying, etc. Almost every woman will have encountered a man who is one or some of those things.

To pretend it doesn't exist is lying.

To then utterly disregard what women are saying, (even in the teeth of them receiving rape threats, threats of violence, doxing, etc,) and claim that actually, no, they can't just say no, tells me, at least, that irrespective of how many times you assert that men are not a threat, you're using the fact that they are, as leverage.

It's also a horrible sleight of hand to say oh come on, not all men are predators, whilst simultaneously using the fact that an awful lot of them are, to force women into a position they don't want to be in

Somehow the predatory nature of men is then given credibility when males decide they will be unsafe amongst other males..

Which is it?

We really have got back to "no means no", No men in women's spaces.

I find it interesting that only one person has done the thought experiment of where they'd like to be imprisoned were they to have a catastrophic lapse of judgment.

As far as I can tell all the women here are either empathising with women in prison or with Hayton's hypothetical example.

That's how women work out what they think is fair, by using empathy for others.

Unfortunately it's something used by manipulative men to get women on their side.

I feel it bears repeating: no men in women's spaces. That's the boundary we need until everyone gets the message.

There is no way to distinguish the 'getting on quietly with my own life transexual from the transgender woman fantasising about smacking women with baseball bats. And I appreciate that the people with bats have ruined things for the nice quiet ones but that is not women's problem to solve.*

Abusive / controlling men (whatever their gender identity may be) are not distinguishable by the demeanor that they present to the world. Men who choose to abuse children and women often go to great lengths in order that they pass unnoticed within their community, job and social circle. Its part of the pattern of abuse / control.

I’m sorry, but no, there were never any arguments that lesbians were sexual predators and therefore shouldn’t be allowed free access to women’s spaces. That’s such a huge red flag lie. This assertion is really only made by people who aren’t old enough to remember what the time of section 28 was like, or people who use it disingenuously to try and pretend that men in women’s spaces are safe.

The lesbians in my life have been a very positive influence, and not at all like men.

reposting my deleted comment from 13:39:57 which quoted part of a deleted post:

The idea that male abuse of women/control pattern behaviours are solely caused by their testicles is naive at best and rather surprising to see posted on FWR during #16daysofaction

thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3452784-Coercive-Control-a-need-for-better-awareness