The same as racism? Help me out please.

[talkingdeadscot]

So, after yet another discussion last night, my DH said that my insistence that I would not allow a TW to perform an intimate examination at the doctors on me as akin to racism. I don't think it is but I can't articulate why. Why is my refusal to accept TWAW as discriminatory as racism? He says it's because I'm denying a minority exists and has rights. I said I'd also refuse a man but apparently TWAW so that's not the same even if I personally refuse to accept that TWAW (which I do)

Help!

unless the dh is a total twat he knows biology matters, he knows that men and women differ biologically- and he presumably knows men and women have different needs, treatments, etc
but hes arguing that mens should have the final say over women's needs and treatments.
hes not the nice guy he thinks he is.

@talkingdeadscot solidarity. I can imagine that being so upsetting and destabilising. My husband instinctively and fiercely protects my and my children's rights. In general but also he knows and appreciates the risks men as a category pose to us. I would find it so devastating if I found out he didn't have my back in all circumstances.

I've found once someone says TWAW, then no argument or discussion works, because it's a gotcha to every statement. You are being examined by a woman because TWAW, you aren't allowing men into single sex spaces because TWAW.
As for the racism, they say refusing to be examined by a transwoman is the same as refusing to be examined by a black person. Even saying that a black woman would be fine and then the answer is then you discriminate against black men. It's exhausting. Especially as I don't care about the sex or gender of a doctor, but I very much feel it is important for women to have a choice.

He's very contradictory. He knows biology is real and knows people can't change sex but seems to think that gender identity trumps everything. I can't get him to explain properly why that is except that gender is the way society expects a sex to act and not all people accept their gender roles. He bought up the non conforming woman being thrown out of women's spaces non argument too which was doubly insulting since I have no breasts.

It's like he knows how the sexism is imposed but doesn't see how TW re-enforce those gender stereotypes. I think that must be wilful, it's not difficult to see how TW performing woman is stereotypical.

Then I think logic fails him. He thinks society needs to change and gender roles disappear but can't get him to explain how this will happen without the world changing. And what we do in the meantime. I've said I will happily stand in solidarity with any trans people wanting to campaign for money, resources and facilities but I won't stand by and let them just take what women have fought for. I also can't get him to explain how to keep women and children safe in the meantime. He accept men's violence is the problem but that's society's fault - I don't think he really accepts that men's violence is men's to solve. He doesn't seem to accept that TW offending behaviour is the same as male pattern violence despite sending him info so that must be wilful. It's there in black and white.

It's like his views and understanding of gender has developed over the last 10 years (thats' what he said) now he's just expecting once all us dissenters catch up society will turn into some equality utopia - it's bizarre!

And yes, he would sleep with a TW.

Have you doubled checked what he means by sleeping with a TW? A post op TW or a self ID beard cock and balls TW? And that sleeping with the latter is the same as sleeping with you? If he is arguing that then I'd suggest he's being disingenuous at best...

Whatwouldscullydo:

"Drs/hcp shouldn't be misleading patients like that in the first place. If someone asks fir a female care giver and they send in someone who isn't female regardless of how well they "pass" then that's not what the patient has consented to. Treatment without consent ( when the patient is lucid and conscious amd informed ) is assult isn't it?"

Interesting point. Maybe it could be explicitly stated by patients, "I'm only giving consent to be examined by a biological female". If medical professionals go against that, and their professional body finds that they gave treatment without consent, then that's a major ethics violation. Also possible prosecution but who knows if you can rely on the system today to take that side.

And yes, he would sleep with a TW

I doubt very much that most heteresexual men would be happy to be confronted with a penis in an intimate situation. It's very easy to talk the talk when he is in a long term relationship and unlikely to have to carry this out in reality.

*heterosexual🤦

gender is the way society expects a sex to act and not all people accept their gender roles.

He is not wrong.

Where he goes wrong is thinking that long hair and tits = rejecting assigned gender. That is astoundingly superficial and offensive to women.

Plenty (but obviously not all) of transwomen behave with just the same level of male entitlement and misogyny as any other male human. Crime statistics bear this truth out. We have safeguarding because males are physically and structurally advantaged. We can't tell who is abusive until after the event.

You may want to mention to your husband that women having the temerity to say "NO" is about as big a rejection of assigned gender as it gets.

My DP is woke lefty. As am I (although obviously the old meaning of both terns). When the scales fell from my eyes re trans ideology being pro patriarchy, I shared my thoughts with him. He went from "you can't say that!" to full on feminist ally within 24 hours.

Honestly, I would have ultimately kicked him out if he'd not come around. He knows my history. I could not be with a misogynist.

This is an important question to help explore the logic of the GC position.

(1) Does the husband accept that women should be able to demand that men, as a class, not perform their intimate examinations? If he says no, then the first discussion relates to why women sometimes need sex-segregated spaces and services, i.e., why an exemption from the default position (no sex-based discrimination) is legitimate.

(2) Let's say he says yes - the next question is, what is a man? What is a woman? If the answer is based on a person's inner gender identity, what he is saying is that a woman's right under (1) is not grounded in the any objectively-verifiable truth (i.e., this clinician has a penis; it is legitimate for women to not want people with penises to see and touch their genitals) but depends on the subjective feelings of the clinician. Not only does sex disappear as a protected characteristic, but if we really take gender identity seriously (with the idea of multiple genders, fluidity etc), the whole notion of any division based on 'men' and 'women' look entirely inconsistent with the ideology.

So this issue basically falls back on your definition of 'man' and 'woman'. Is biology relevant?

The question of whether the an exemption permitting sex-based discrimination is equivalent to an exemption permitting racially-based discrimination depends on whether there is a legitimate reason for the exemption. That is, although race is a protected characteristic under the Equalities Act, there are exemptions; these relate to instances where race is an occupational requirement or where positive action is being taken by an organisation to increase representation from particular groups.

It is ok that a medical surgery targets the employment of, say, black staff, if there is a legitimate basis. This could include encouraging black patients to engage with and attend the surgery, bearing in mind the history of abuse that black people have suffered at the hands of the medical establishment.

In contrast, giving all patients the blanket right to refuse to be treated by a person, based on race, would not pursue a legitimate aim.

Noone else gets to dictate what makes YOU feel safe.

Ball back in his court.

Explain about gynephobia and male supremacism.

And how the belief that a female person's feelings and beliefs must be predicated upon what a male person says is their personal sense of self (at that time, if someone who is gender fluid)

that their subjective experience of the male person is worthless next to the male person's subjective experience of being validated by that female

that the female right to bodily autonomy, consent and to control other people's access to her body is conditional upon the permission of the male people involved and what they tell her at the time?

Is not compatible with seeing female people as real humans, or existing for reasons other than caring for male humans.

Women are spending far too much time arguing for things that it's beyond belief male people have got the gaul to challenge them on. He can take his male supremacism and fuck off.

Does the husband accept that women should be able to demand that men, as a class, not perform their intimate examinations? If he says no, then the first discussion relates to why women sometimes need sex-segregated spaces and services, i.e., why an exemption from the default position (no sex-based discrimination) is legitimate

But what happens when they reply of course women should have the choice not to be treated by men, but transwomen aren't men?

I'm only asking because I've been completely walked over trying to discuss the whole trans debate.

@SusannaSpider

I've found once someone says TWAW, then no argument or discussion works, because it's a gotcha to every statement. You are being examined by a woman because TWAW, you aren't allowing men into single sex spaces because TWAW. As for the racism, they say refusing to be examined by a transwoman is the same as refusing to be examined by a black person. Even saying that a black woman would be fine and then the answer is then you discriminate against black men. It's exhausting. Especially as I don't care about the sex or gender of a doctor, but I very much feel it is important for women to have a choice.

I agree. I've tried debating with former FB acquaintances about it and they are firmly entrenched in the mantra. No critical thinking whatsoever, just repeat the words and stick their fingers in their ears and go lala I can't hear you. They will be a lost cause until it affects them (or their daughter/niece/mother) negatively.

Repeating the mantra gives them enough cognitive dissonance to avoid it answering the Staniland question honestly. If TWAW then who are these mysterious "intact males" she alludes to? Gosh, who knows. 🙄

@Perfect28

Can I just ask, in this very hypothetical situation (I assume) how on earth would you even know? If someone presents as a woman are you going to ask for their original birth certificate? Blood results?

You know, apart from the fact that pattern-matching is one of the earliest skills humans learn, and one of the strongest and most useful throughout life, we have empirical evidence from a lot of research done over the decades that women are better than men at recognising female faces (even when you remove ears, hair, neck etc and just show facial features).

This is, of course, a survival skill, because the male sex class poses a higher risk to us than our own.

But beyond that, sight is not our only sense. Not too long before Covid hit, I was returning from one of the women's rights meetings and ended up sitting at a table in the train with two lively, and lovely, young women and their mum. I tried to give them their privacy, but of course couldn't help overhearing.

They complained about the identity politics at their university and how ridiculous they thought it was. And then they turned to the TWAW mantra, and how they were forever falling foul of it.

They weren't transphobic though. They were blind. And missing the visual cues that might suggest to us that a male would rather be regarded as female, they could only go by what their other senses told them.

Males who wish to present in stereotypically feminine-coded attire remain male, of course, as do those who take cross-sex hormones and cosmetic surgeries. And we are so good at recognising sex, even small children can do it with accuracy. Even blind people can tell. We ended up having a very interesting conversation about all of this.

Now I'm not blind, and my other senses are not as practised as those of the young women I met. But in December I had an unpleasant encounter with a man losing his rag in TK Maxx. If I hadn't known he was there, I probably would have become very scared when he kicked off. I never saw him though. I was browsing the shelves, and as we are supposed to keep our distance now, I noticed when someone stepped between me and the socially distanced female shopper browsing the same shelf as me. He came no nearer than about two or three feet. He was very quiet, didn't speak, wore no aftershave and yet I knew immediately the person behind me was a man. And because I'm hypervigilant, I was immediately on my guard and so managed to stay calm when he started shouting.

This notion, that we cannot tell who is male or female is ludicrous. But more than that, given that more than 90% of males who identify as trans have no medical procedures to feminise their appearance, it's a superfluous argument.

I expect that a male who identifies as trans and who passes will have the common decency not to offer to treat a patient who requests a female health care provider. I do not know why arguing that male HCPs who identify as trans would be so callous and uncaring as to ignore patient consent is considered a pro-trans argument. I think it's utterly shameful to cast trans people as so lacking in professional ethics.

I completed some training this week on ACEs - Adverse Childhood Experiences - and how they could impact on us as adults. One video that struck home to me was of adults who had been victims of sexual abuse at the hands of men when they were children.
One woman talked about how she is unable to be alone with men, as their voices, the size of their hands and their facial hair absolutely triggers her PTSD. When she visits any health care professional, she needs to know she will only see a female otherwise she is unable to go through with the appointment. She wished this wasn’t the case. She pointed out that its mostly the voice and hands that are the triggers.
Transwomen, no matter how hard they try, cannot change their voices enough to pass completely as a female. They certainly can’t change their hand size.
Does your husband believe that the complex needs of a female who has gone through significant trauma in her life should just put up with being examined by a transwoman so as to not hurt their feelings?

Transwomen aren’t monsters, but if a trans HCP believes their feelings override the needs of their patients, then they're in the wrong job.
His saying its akin to racism shows just how little he understands about the whole issue.

So according to your husband, trans women are women the same way that black women are women?
Seems like he’s the one being racist here.
Black women are women because they’re adult human females, nothing more and nothing less.
Trans women transitioned to become (like) women because they are male.

Sorry you have to go through this argument. I had similar with my DH until he suddenly stopped disagreeing with me.
This is a very poor argument.
You don't want someone with a penis examining you. The very fact he's taken this point as his "gotcha" demonstrates how men can happily agree that TWAW- because they are not threatened by this ideology at all. He should care that you are though.

The problem with a lot of this, talkingdeadscot is if your husband doesn't understand feminism, and patriarchal control, none of these other things will instantly fit into place. He has to get it from scratch.

He has to understand how and why it all works, in order to see that this is simply more of the same.

Women being told that they need to allow their bodies to be touched against their will, in order to validate males, ought to give him a bit of a clue.

@andyoldlabour

I would be very suspicious about the true intentions of a male who transitioned, and then put themselves in a position which involved them carrying out intimate examinations on females. OP, I think your DH is showing a lack of empathy towards you.

Absolutely. The type of person who does the job thinking this is acceptable is the type of person I don't want anywhere near me.

The intentions of the individual who goes into the job knowing that it involves intimate examination of women in a vulnerable position - aside from the fact I am half naked in a locked room - and this will possibly increase their anxiety and fear, are unlikely to be pure. If they were a decent person they would work in one of the multitude of other clinical areas.

Can I just ask, in this very hypothetical situation (I assume) how on earth would you even know? If someone presents as a woman are you going to ask for their original birth certificate? Blood results?

You do realise in this situation what you're suggesting is that someone male tries to deceive a female person into believing they have the female hcp they asked for?

And just hoping the female person doesn't realise she's being deceived?

Why would anyone with basic respect for someone else's beliefs, feelings and bodily autonomy want to do this? Particularly someone supposed to be in a professional role?

Any male person whose response to a female saying 'I want a female hcp' is 'I bet I can trick her.... hee hee hee she didn't realise! I win!"

is not someone who should be in any position of trust.

(Bearing in mind that the 'trick' played on her is to touch her body in a way she explicitly refused consent to.)

Are you nuts?

Does he understand that around 90% of Trans women
still have fully functioning penis and testicles?

Definitions of race have varied overtime

Definitions of sex and biology have not