I found this slightly reassuring - re girls IDing as boys

[QueenPeary]

Until recently despite engaging in the gender debate a lot and having a VERY full-on TRA family member, I hadn't had much direct experience of trans-IDing children.

But recently 2 of my DD's female classmates (year 6), one a close friend, have started IDing as boys, have boys names etc and this is being embraced by the school. My DD knows my GC views and we discuss it, but I have agreed to be respectful in using the right names etc (though I avoid using he pronouns).

Anyway - what I found reassuring is that both have discussed it with my DD and said they know they are not actually boys, and are not interested in taking drugs or having a penis. So despite the school being captured and going along with the full TWAW/TMAM etc, the kids (sometimes) aren't. They seem to realise it's an identity to try on, akin to a fashion or music tribe, and so maybe - I hope - there's a way in which girls (and maybe boys too) can go through this without it having to involve the long-term risks to their health.

I still don't think they are a "he" and I don't think it's going down a very healthy or feminist path to ID as a boy instead of just being a girl of whatever type you want to be. But I am kind of heartened that maybe this trend could default back to something more akin to good old 80s "gender bending" and away from the idea of actually changing sex.

Of course many kids still are at risk of both harmful medicalisation and anti-science ideology and I'm not minimising that – but wondered what people thought.

I said I didn't necessarily agree all single sex spaces should be off limits to trans women all of the time?

Once a TW has entered a single sex space it is no longer single sex.

How many single sex spaces do you think female people should be permitted? In what circumstances?

The YHA for example thought of a policy that they might allow a female person a room outside of a mixed door if they disclosed highly distressing personal trauma to a total stranger on staff to justify it. (With of course the risk of being judged and called transphobic for having inclusion needs incompatible with a political ideal)

But my whole point the whole time has only ever been, you can support women's rights without being transphobic.

That depends on the definition of transphobia. It is perfectly possible to support women's rights without hating transpeople. In the current climate it is not possible to support women's rights without an evidenced based discussion of how that might impact women - in some quarters merely having this discussion is classed as transphobic.

The thread was actually about trans identity and the poster expressing surprise that trans people did not actually literally believe they were the opposite sex. I had what I felt like was an interesting discussion, then got paraded with examples of rapists and abusers because I said I didn't necessarily agree all single sex spaces should be off limits to trans women all of the time? I do find it upsetting and offensive of course

When having a debate it useful for those involved to agree definitions and to provide evidence. You disagree that allowing transwomen to access women's spaces can negatively impact women. How about you provide some evidence for your stance?

I do find it upsetting and offensive of course.

I find it upsetting and offensive that you appear to think that sexual predators represent the whole trans community 😢 And of course they absolutely don't.

@Waitwhat23 but that could easily be reframed as:

This board: All trans people pose threat to women and therefore should be excluded from single sex spaces:

Normal people: I don understand the principle but it is acceptable to indiscriminately ban TW from single sex spaces or is this discriminatory, should there be situations where it is decided on a case by case basis

This board: Here some accounts of these rapists, are you saying you sympathise with a rapist over women??

I just don't feel that the response is proportionate.

@TheFairPrincess

I have noticed the use of the word triggered. This is the sort of emotive language transwomen use to try to make us sound unreasonable and persuade predominantly young women to the cause.

I am not triggered. I am scared. Afraid for my child. My life. Her life. Afraid for womankind.

I am still trying to work out how much of the trans stuff you know about. You seem to have very little understanding of safeguarding and what it is like to be someone, who isn’t you. Young, fit, healthy, not from a religion, which bans men and women from mixing in certain settings and so forth.

@GregTransphobia literally what? I literally am arguing the opposite why are you doing this.

Post by R0wantrees from another thread.

post

(extract)
"I spend a lot of time designing policies and procedures, and what I tell people is this:- Imagine a worst-case scenario occurs. There is an official investigation, where you’re asked “What did you do to prevent this happening?”. Now imagine what answer you’d like to be able to give to that question in that scenario – that’s the starting point for writing your policies.

In that vein, here’s a scenario.

You are the head-teacher of a secondary school, with pupils aged 11-18. A police officer arrives at the school and asks to speak to you. They have found a video on a porn site which shows the changing-rooms at your school, including a number of girls, who appear to be aged 13-15, in various states of undress. It has clearly been filmed with a concealed camera-phone.

The video has been taken down, but not before it had tens of thousands of views. The account that posted it has been traced to a student at the school who identifies themselves as trans and was, in accordance with the guidance, allowed to use the female changing rooms.

The police need a female member of staff to view the video with them, to identify the 20 or 30 teenage girls who appear in it, so that they and their parents can be informed that they have been victims of voyeurism.

What did you do to prevent this happening?" (continues)

There are around 2.2 million males aged 13-18 in the UK, no matter how much experience you have with children, with trans people, with trans-children, you cannot absolutely assert that none of them will abuse, or attempt to abuse, the guidance given in a manner that infringes of the rights of other students.

This isn’t about demonising all trans people, or suggesting that any given one of them would act in such a manner. This is about the risk presented by the guidance itself, whether that risk can be mitigated in a manner which is proportional to the potential seriousness of the outcome and whether the risk is, in part or in whole, outweighed by the risks of not implementing the guidance." (continues)

excelpope.wordpress.com/2019/02/28/the-unaskable-question/

No-on has ever said all transwomen pose a risk to women.

We have said that they pose the same risk as other men, who are also excluded from single SEX spaces.

[quote TheFairPrincess]@Waitwhat23 but that could easily be reframed as:

This board: All trans people pose threat to women and therefore should be excluded from single sex spaces:

Normal people: I don understand the principle but it is acceptable to indiscriminately ban TW from single sex spaces or is this discriminatory, should there be situations where it is decided on a case by case basis

This board: Here some accounts of these rapists, are you saying you sympathise with a rapist over women??

I just don't feel that the response is proportionate.[/quote]
Correction

This board: Some males pose threat to women and therefore all males should be excluded from single sex spaces

How about a compromise?

Post-op transwomen can use the ladies, but no willies allowed in a space not designed to accomodate them?

(Or do we demand the retro-fitting of urinals into the ladies because not having them is transphobic?)

All trans people pose threat to women and therefore should be excluded from single sex spaces:

We don't say that. That would be unfair on transmen and female people who identify as non-binary.

We say all post-pubescent males out of female-only spaces, no exceptions. No exception for my lovely brother, or for other mumsnetters' lovely husbands, or for male people with gender dysphoria.

Post-op transwomen can use the ladies, but no willies allowed in a space not designed to accomodate them?

Won't work as there is no way to tell.

To return to the original point of the OP, should we allow any teenage boy who says he is trans to use the girls loos at school?

Suppose one such boy starts climbing up and peering down at girls. That boy is banned. So the girls now have nothing to worry about, until the next time it happens?

When I think of the men I know, I honestly know very few creepy men. I work as a teacher and pretty much all the men I know are really appropriately behaved around women. If this was my only knowledge of men, I would wonder why anyone would ever be worried walking home alone, why we could not all just get along nicely.

My friend, however, works with violent sex offenders in a high security prison. His first hand view of what men are capable of is very different to mine. I can incorporate his world view without thinking that he is being bigoted towards the men that I know and work with.

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine I have never once said it can't happen.

I am saying the response of automatically banning all trans women from single sex spaces is not necessarily proportionate to the risk of harm, when looked at at a population level. I fundamentally believe that you cannot discriminate against people of a certain demographic. I do not believe trans women have the same lived experience and motivations as cis men, and I believe that even excluding genuine trans women from the argument completely, the proportional likelihood of men using this loophole to exploit women is not any more likely than many of the the other ways women are sadly exploited.

I don't believe all transwomen who say they are transwomen should be let into any single sex space. I don't believe women should not be able to request biological female counsellors or medical practitioners. But I believe that trans women are also vulnerable to male violence, and as sex is binary the only alternative for trans women would be to use male services, which seem more inappropriate in those more vulnerable situations such as prison.

Of course if someone displays predatory or intimidating behaviour to women they should be removed from that setting.

I still don't believe it's fair to refuse trans women access to single sex spaces, especially something normal and every day like a public toilet. And we don't do that! We don't refuse access. So it's obviously not just me who thinks this.

Also to the person who said I'm using triggered to what, be performative or whatever. I wasn't. I don't feel like I should have to explain my psychological triggers to an internet forum, so all I can say is I hope we can move past it now.

This was a thread about trans identity.

Which got derailed into a conversation about when women should be able to have female spaces, if ever, and why they need them.

....so we have to wait until the boy offends, and then we can ban him, and so the girls now have nothing to worry about?

I don't feel like I should have to explain my psychological triggers to an Internet forum

I didn't mention "triggers" you did, but while we are on the subject, what about mine, or those of other women on the thread?

How is a transwoman different to a man, in any material sense?

Why is it fair to ban men from women's spaces and not transwomen?

Yet more hyperbole. We have stated many times that we do not believe that all transwomen are predators.

but some are. And 97% of sexual offenses are carried out by the male sex so they are excluded from single sex female spaces. Self ID compounds this issue. Safeguarding is put in place because that risk is there.

How do you do a case by case basis? How is this decided and by whom? What would be reasonable to some people would be deemed transphobic by others. And in the case of those who genuinely believe they have changed sex (and they do exist, as evidenced on this thread), they will obviously see exclusion from any and all single sex areas as transphobic.

Third spaces have been mentioned several times - what are your views on those?

(Or do we demand the retro-fitting of urinals into the ladies because not having them is transphobic?)

I've actually seen this suggested, in earnest, more than once.

Should we allow any man who feels intimidated by other men into women's spaces?

And it was the TRA lobby that demanded that a transwoman was anyone who said they were, 'Acceptance without Exception.'

literally what? I literally am arguing the opposite why are you doing this

Huh? I'm just literally responding to what you have written. 🤨

I was just reading up and basically all I'm saying is exactly what the law already says:

The Equality Act 2010 officially adds "gender reassignment" as a "protected characteristic", stating that:[19]

A person has the protected characteristic of gender reassignment if the person is proposing to undergo, is undergoing or has undergone a process (or part of a process) for the purpose of reassigning the person's sex by changing physiological or other attributes of sex.

This law provides protection for transgender people at work, in education, as a consumer, when using public services, when buying or renting property, or as a member or guest of a private club or association.[20] Protection against discrimination by association with a transsexual person is also included.

The Equality Act 2010 prohibits discrimination against people with the protected characteristic of gender reassignment in the provision of separate and single-sex services but includes an exception that service providers can use in exceptional circumstances.[21] In general, organisations that provide separate or single‑sex services for women and men, or provide different services to women and men, are required to treat transsexual people according to the gender role in which they present.[21]

However, in limited circumstances, treating transsexual people differently may be lawful. For example, excluding a transsexual woman from group support sessions within a sexual abuse crisis centre and instead electing to provide individual support privately, may be justified if her presence is considered detrimental to the support of other service users.[22] This is likely to meet the legal requirements of the exemption in the Equality Act which states that it may be applied as "a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim". The exclusion can only be applied on an individual case-by-case basis and must not form part of a blanket policy for the treatment of transsexual people

That's literally all I'm trying to say.