For those who believe we need to differentiate by gender identity rather than sex, why?

[Blibbyblobby]

As a feminist my default reaction is to be sceptical whenever society determines it's necessary to treat men and women differently because it is so often based on sexist beliefs.

But I also recognise there are valid reasons for separation in some cases:

Firstly, where our bodies differ in such ways that we can't have equal provision without separate provision - sports, medicine, differences in physical tool design and safety equipment. These will never go away.

Secondly, where the intersection of our reproductive roles and the structure of our society put women at a disadvantage economically - maternity leave and employment rights, support for breastfeeding activities, legal obligation of males to finance the children they father regardless of the relationship with the mother. These will never go away as long as our society is structured around private incomes.

Thirdly, where the history of sexism in society has produced systemic structural disadvantages, internalised sexism and unconscious bias against women that has no root cause in a physical (sex) difference but nevertheless causes significant disadvantage, limitation or danger to women because of their sex. In this case we have agreed laws and other pro-women initiatives to counteract the reproduction of historic oppression. This I deeply hope will go away in future, but since these laws and protections can only be dismantled when the need for them has disappeared, here and now they are necessary. I personally include single sex toilets, accommodation, prisons and so on in this group because I believe that the male expectation of female care and time, male on female violence, male on female sexual violence and male fetishisation of female privacy is socially constructed not innate to male biology, but I accept I may be crediting them with too much here. Either way, as long as the danger is real, the protections are needed.

So all the reasons I can see where we justifiably separate men and women are either based in the actual physical differences, or inequalities that exist today because of past injustices based on those physical differences.

I also understand that under trans ideology, this view is hopelessly, irredeemably transphobic. To accept TWAW and TMAM one has to accept that there are no meaningful material differences between male and female bodied people that justify separation by sex rather than gender.

I don't believe that, but for the sake of argument let's say that is true.

I understand that while these sex-based separations may be wrong, since for historic reasons they currently exist, trans people want to be accepted on the Woman or Man side that aligns to their gender identity. However that's entirely a reaction and a reproduction of the pre-existing historic division rather than any practical difference between Man-the-gender and Woman-the-gender that produces an ongoing need for separate provision.

So while I know that feelings are not always logical, logically, TRAs should be fighting to dismantle these historic divisions that were based on sex, not keep them exactly as is but stick "for sex, replace with gender" on top.

And yet, they are not. So in fighting for TW in women's sports, women's toilets and women's prisons, there is an implicit statement in trans ideology that even without sex differences there is sometimes a need to separate men and women.

So what are these gender differences between men and women that mean we need women's prisons, sports, toilets, accommodation, STEM initiatives, political roles and so on?

Why under trans ideology do we still need to separate men and women in all the same practical ways that we were separating by sex, just now by gender and not sex?

And trans people don't want that either.

The preference is for the majority of people using the facilities for their sex, things still being labelled male female, and trans people use the ones they feel comfy in.

Really interesting thread that lays bare the illogical, quicksand-foundation ideology we're all supposed to be swallowing without question.

Thanks for engaging, Creepygnocchi, and for being so honest about your protective feelings towards your daughter. Don't you think it's bloody ridiculous though that you have daily worries about their safety in something as basic and fundamental as going for a wee? In 2021 Britain? Would you campaign for third space toilet provision (on the basis that female loos remain explicitly single sec)? What does your daughter think about that option?

“My child making it home safe and alive at the end of the night will be my priority over your child's comfort each and every time.”

And what about my daughter’s safety on the rugby pitch. Does that matter?

Coming back to the post where gender and sex doesn’t apply - an orchestra.

"The reality is that the vast majority of transwomen sit in the Blaire White, Nikki Tutorials, Nikita Dragon, Laverne Coxs territory"

Certainly not in terms of looks. The TW I know and have seen out and about tend to fall into the "chap in a wig and a frock" territory.

Yes, that only works if you exclude the large contingent of post puberty transitioners, most of whom's sex is perfectly obvious.

@NiceGerbil

And trans people don't want that either.

The preference is for the majority of people using the facilities for their sex, things still being labelled male female, and trans people use the ones they feel comfy in.

Male, Female, Unisex would be my preference, before anyone else points out that trans people don’t want to be outed or othered. This allows all the women who don’t want single sex spaces to use them too.

And guess where the longest queue will be - the ladies toilet.

Ha! very true about the queue for the ladies.

And I totally understand why a trans woman wants to be where the other women are, and that's why TRAs are demanding that the provisions for women that were originally made because of sex limitations (physical and social) are opened up to everyone who self-defines as a woman based on gender

And I also understand the practical reasons why a male who truly passes as female might, subject to appropriate controls to ensure the overall sex-based purpose is still being achieved, be better served by female-sex provisions in some limited cases. (As an example, toilets I can see a case for, but sports, working as a female rape support worker, getting a place on a STEM initative to encourage women and girls, or standing as a women's rep in a union, no).

But these are all practical concerns to do with who gets access to existing, originally sex-based provisions.

My question is why in principle do we even need these existing separate provisions, or indeed any separate provisions for men and women, if material physical and social differences are not, as we previously thought, between the sexes but only between the genders?

To re-nail my own colours to the wall, I certainly do not want to get rid of single sex provisions. I believe that a female-sex person has physical needs and social challenges that a male-sex person does not regardless of gender identity, that on average male people are still advantaged in our society over female people, and that if female people lose the single sex provision they have today it will further reduce equality between male and female people.

But that's not the challenge I'm giving in this post. I'm not posting to make a case for why we need single-sex provision. I'm asking for the other side of the story from the people who do not agree with me.

My challenge, to anyone who thinks that sex is not relevant but gender is, is to explain, from first principles and ignoring what exists already for historic reasons, what are the practical, observable differences - as in not just in how a person may see themselves but in how they are seen and exist physically in the world - that exist between a male-sex man and a male-sex woman, but not between a male-sex woman and a female-sex woman, such that we do not need any sex-specific provisions but we do need gender-specific ones?

My challenge, to anyone who thinks that sex is not relevant but gender is, is to explain, from first principles and ignoring what exists already for historic reasons, what are the practical, observable differences - as in not just in how a person may see themselves but in how they are seen and exist physically in the world - that exist between a male-sex man and a male-sex woman, but not between a male-sex woman and a female-sex woman, such that we do not need any sex-specific provisions but we do need gender-specific ones?

I suspect this challenge will go unanswered for as long as James Randi's Paranormal one...

@BlackWaveComing

So the only answer here from a pro-gender perspective is 'you can't tell real transwomen from women'. With a side of 'safety for the transgirl/transwoman must outweigh all other concerns and can only be solved in a binary manner.'

Colour me unconvinced that society ever needs to be organized by gender.

How could it be?

If sex is an irrelevant of non-existent set of categories, gender disappears too. Masculine and feminine would be like preppy and punk.

Only useful if you are trying to start a gang.

@BlackWaveComing

I'd like to know the answer to this also (beyond 'be kind').

Even if I were to accept there is something meaningful called 'feeling like a woman' that is shared by transwomen and women alike, I can't see the utility of organising that way. Because there's no shared material reality - the only thing shared is some (highly hypothetical) emotion. To me, it makes as much sense to organise society on the basis of sad/happy or introvert/extrovert or open to experience/closed to experience ie not at all.

I suspect there is no answer beyond 'be kind' and 'disrupt the norm', because other than the physical differences between the sexes, and then environmental/intrinsic differences that accrue to our sex, there's no real reason to separate humans at all.

But I'm always open to a coherent answer.

I posted something on Reddit recently, and I have to say that the comments surprised me a lot. The consensus seemed to be that trans women see themselves as of the female gender, and that it is a very personal thing. They do not, to generalize, see any sort of "bond" between themselves and other women.

I have to say that this surprised me. I thought that people demanding to be grouped together under an umbrella term "women" might share or at least claim to share some sort of sisterhood. I was at pains to make it clear I didn't expect all women to have very similar perspectives and all get along as one big happy family. But I would have thought that if you are born male and identify as a woman you might feel some sort of bond with other women, but it seems not. It seems (to generalize) that trans women's womanhood is very much a personal thing.

This made me even more sceptical of what I call the current trans-orthodoxy. I respect completely the trans community's desire for every trans person to be respected and safe as the individual that they are, but I have less sympathy with their desire to be part of an already-existing group that they don't tend to feel they have anything in common with.

desire to be part of an already-existing group that they don't tend to feel they have anything in common with.

I've heard TW talk about very similar views: it seems less a desire to be part of that existing group than to have the resources and accesses of that group. And it's the confusion of the insistence that there is sameness to the point of absolute rejection that female people may group themselves by sex and have needs that only female humans have - because that is felt to remove the feeling of 'femalehood' being wholly achieved, but at the same time there is not that feeling of being part of and with, having shared interests with, or interests in the needs and challenges of female people.

'We don't want to be you, but you're not allowed to say you're anyone else either' is ..... baffling. And rather reminiscent as a woman of many other times when male humans have been rather dismissive, appropriative and controlling of female spaces and needs, and not something that raises positive emotion. It's hard to see how it could be expected to.

Safety first?

What about the safety all of girls and women who are told they need to accept any and every male who says so?

There is a massive issue that I've just realised, after catching up a bit more.

I mean in addition to the other massive issues!

Re reading a comment from the poster who said their child should go wherever they are most safe and that is every parents main priority etc. Their child is a trans girl and so uses all the female stuff and their parent says yes obviously because safety first.

If things are separated on gender rather than sex. The the PPs child would (continue) using women's spaces. The argument is that might be at risk in the men's.

Thing is lots of men and boys feel fearful / may be at risk in men's spaces. Ones who are perceived by other men in a way that sets them apart. Things like disability, ethnicity, perceived sexuality. Being a small build. Even onto things like having the 'wrong' team shirt on.

What of them? The idea is that if it's safer in the women's then go there - but only if you're male and trans.

If you're male and not trans then take your chances with the men.

That makes no sense to me at all.

There's also the point that male violence- encouraging men to be more accepting, less judgemental etc is never raised.

Why not? Women have been shouting about it forever.

Why are trans orgs not working on this as a priority, and that would make life better for Everyone.

And also on the safety first thing.

There is risk in life. That's a fact.

If everyone operated on safety first then who would be sending their daughter to school after all the stuff in the news recently? Just as an example.

Just checking in on my thread to see if anyone not gender critical has explained why single-gender provisions are necessary and why they are exactly the same as the old-fashioned single sex ones only split by gender instead?

Because it still seems very odd to me that stuff originally designed around physical and social differences of sex should turn out to be exactly what's necessary for differences of gender when we are explicitly told that sex differences are nothing to do with gender.

Have we found out yet what these practical needs are which are the same between men (of any sex) and between women (of any sex), but vary between females depending on their gender and vary between males depending on their gender, that require these single gender provisions?

Because I can quite easily explain the practical origins of the single sex stuff but when I look for a practical (as opposed to just ideological) origin for single gender provisions, I am stumped.

@Creepygnochi

I'm speaking of being accosted when I speak of mental harm. If you don't pass and think you are at risk of verbal abuse in the female toilet, use the males. Likewise, if you believe yourself at risk in the males, use the female.

Safety first. Fuck everything else, you do what you need to do to ensure you get to go home at the end of the day.

This post is incredibly - creepily - telling.

My 7 y o daughter is at the age where she is incredibly anxious about men being near her when she is vulnerable - e.g. undressing, going to the loo, and so on. Even when it's her father or little boys at school. She's very small and highly aware of her size and vulnerability. Her school PSE curriculum is all about keeping safe at the moment, eg. videos about how people you meet on the internet might be predatory men, lessons about body boundaries and safety.

It's really telling Creepygnochi that your post is all about safety first for the trans person and fuck everything else, fuck that little girl in the ladies loo or anyone else who might also want to keep themselves safe.

Two observations.

As a mother of Tween and Teen DDs, never, ever, never would I use the word "tits" to describe their bodies. NEVER. I know no mother or decent father who would ever use that word to describe their child. I've never heard a feminist use it to describe ANY child, so, I cringed reading it on FWR when a supposed parent using that term for their own child. (If several of you can argue that "tits" to some ears is simply an innocuous term for girls' breasts, then mea culpa for not noticing cultural differences of English speakers).

Another telling sign is "underpants." That's American and Canadian English.

For sure, Delphinium20, I would never use that word to refer to my daughters’ anatomy nor my own. Turns my stomach to be honest.

And yes pants or knickers.