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.

Yah definitely this is what I think. How do you prove by omission though? You're asking me to quantify a psychological mindset really - the idea that at least most TW behave like women and not men. I don't know how to provide that.

You can't structure things based on "psychological mindsets"!

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine

I don't think that interpretation about the case by case basis is actually correct

I believe here it means by assessing by service, rather than by individual transperson.

Thanks, that fits much better with my understanding. I am in awe of the legal knowledge some of our posters have and really appreciate their interpretations of the cases that are being brought.

@TheFairPrincess

The argument seems to be that trans women, while being physically male, are actually not going to behave in the same way as other males (ie, that not all, not even a majority, but enough to be a problem, will encroach on female people socially, physically and culturally in a way that disempowers and often physically harms them), but do in fact behave like females, and therefore that it is right, good and proper to include trans women, but no other males, in the previously single-sex provision for females

Yah definitely this is what I think. How do you prove by omission though? You're asking me to quantify a psychological mindset really - the idea that at least most TW behave like women and not men. I don't know how to provide that.

We're not dismantling anything or making any changes though, this is the way things are, like, currently.

And that's why we have been linking you to individual instances.

Because you fundamentally believe that transwomen do not pose any risk, and it's been stark staring obvious that you believe that

While awful, you can't use individual examples to make decisions at a population level on a whole community

Yes. You really can. I can think of three well known cases ending in a conviction (in two cases several convictions based on serial offending) all three of whom were sincerely and genuinely trans.

Their presence in female only facilities led to direct harm to women. In two of those cases, repeated harm to multiple women in more than one female facility, leaving several of those women significantly physically injured: the mental and emotional injuries will be obvious for all. There are other cases. There will be other cases.

This was a thread about trans identity.

It was about how trans identity can/could be something that doesn't infringe on the reality of sex, and may be going that way among some of the kids for whom it's currently a huge fashion trend (I don't say that glibly; I see it first-hand and it definitely is).

So I think the single-sexed spaces is a relevant debate. As it's about what you see yourself as. If people can see themselves as the sex they are, whatever their "gender identity", that could lead to a resolution. Understanding that we have a sex and that it can't change should mean preserving sex-based rights and spaces. Part of the push to remove them involves claiming that sex doesn't matter, doesn't exist, or that it can be changed.

@ItsAllGoingToBeFine I don't know how to overcome that dissonance. It's a risk taken for the sake of trans women. I feel like it's worth it, others don't. It's not an easy question, favouring one over the other, after consideration, does not mean that you don't care about the other group.

I just feel really sad because I think women and trans women have this huge common denominator of some form of womanhood as well as the thread of sexual violence and I feel like they need to be included in feminism.

I suppose it does come down to whether you believe TW are socially different to cis men. I certainly think they are. And I understand the problem with anyone saying they are trans. I just don't think there is enough people pretending to be trans to be predatory to justify taking those rights away from TW. It's not fair.

@Blibbyblobby I saw a really interesting post on this board a while ago from someone from Keep Prisons Single Sex about the assessment framework they use to assess whether males in prison are likely to re-offend. This framework wasn't being used for transwomen despite their sex being male. So there seems to be a push to not gather evidence regarding possible reoffending rates (I don't believe there was a similar framework for females but I may be wrong).

Given that transwomen are in prison for sexual offences at a hugely disproportionate level, this seems like a very sinister decision for women in the community, let alone women in the female prison estate.

Anecdotes are not data though. I still do not believe that was done in good faith, and if it somehow was, then it's still a poor way to convince someone because again, anecdata don't cut it.

Me: I don't think you can exclude TW from single sex spaces as a blanket rule

Why? What is it about their feelings that trumps women's?

@TheFairPrincess any chance of an answer?

Can I please point out that I have never :

Stated that genuine trans women can't be predators

Stated that there is no possibility of predators pretending to be trans to take advantage of this social compassion within the law

It doesn't matter if transwomen behave differently to other men.

It matters if they offend differently.

You have no evidence to suggest that they do and there is evidence to suggest that they don't.

I will admit the evidence is more patchy than I would like and I would fully support future research to decide the matter definitively.

It's a risk taken for the sake of trans women. I feel like it's worth it, others don't. It's not an easy question, favouring one over the other, after consideration, does not mean that you don't care about the other group.

And there we have it.

It's right and just that women just suck up the exclusions and harms for the sake of male people's freedoms and happiness, it is justifiable to favour male people over female ones, and for vulnerable females to go without services and spaces.

No. It really isn't.

It's sexist, discriminatory and exclusionary, and values females as less human than males.

I keep going back to this hypothetical secondary school, where there has also been a problem with some asylum seeker 'children,' who seem suspiciously old for their age:

Should we exclude these hulking bearded self-identifying fifteen year olds from Y10 classes because they might pose some threat to the children there, or is that discrimination?

Do we have to wait for something to go wrong?

I just feel really sad because I think women and trans women have this huge common denominator of some form of womanhood as well as the thread of sexual violence and I feel like they need to be included in feminism.

The common denominator is male violence and abuse. You argue that this subset of men will be safer from other men if they use women's spaces. How about gay men? Men with long hair? Fat men? Non gender conforming men? Should they all be able to opt into women's spaces too?

I suppose it does come down to whether you believe TW are socially different to cis men. I certainly think they are. And I understand the problem with anyone saying they are trans. I just don't think there is enough people pretending to be trans to be predatory to justify taking those rights away from TW

Exactly. Beliefs. Decision making needs to be evidence based.

Yah definitely this is what I think. How do you prove by omission though? You're asking me to quantify a psychological mindset really - the idea that at least most TW behave like women and not men. I don't know how to provide that.

Well, we could look at the crime stats as this might show us something.
Interestingly around 1 in 5 men in the male prison estate are sex offenders. And around 1 in 2 transwomen in the prison estate are sex offenders.

What it does show (obviously this always has to be pointed out it seems) is not all men or transwomen are like that.

It also shows that there is a significantly higher rate of transwomen in prison who are sex offenders, when stacked up against the rest of the male prison population.
Generally sexual assault are quite male crimes.

From this, I'm struggling to see in terms of mindset, how (some) transwomen can be considered to be behaving like women.

TheFairPrincess

This isn't about individuals. It's about mitigating risk.

98% of all sex crimes are committed by men, no matter how they identify. In fact statistically, identifying as a woman pushes that statistic up.

Of the transwomen in prison, over half of them are there for sex offences.

You can say they're not really trans, but as trans is not defined in any way other than saying it out loud, you're on a hiding to nothing.

This is not about individual people. Women do not need sex segregated places because of lovely, benign men. They need them because of predators.

It's not that transwomen are predators necessarily, but they are as predatory as any other male.

And guess what, they are the only ones trying to change the law to eliminate sex segregation.

We are fighting to maintain our safety from people who want to erase it. I don't give a fuck what you call them, that's what they are trying to do.

What is it about their feelings that trumps women's?

Society cannot apply blanket discriminatory rules based on anyones' feelings alone. While society's laws of based on moral principles which can change and evolve, our laws in the UK at least are still based on human rights and the principle of not allowing discrimination.

So why would your supposition that all women feel uncomfortable around trans women and therefore these feelings should not be trumped, that is just your subjective opinion on the situation. It literally doesn't align with anything substantive, demonstrably so as the law does not fall on your side.

I think we need to be clear, Princess, that you're arguing for male access to female spaces because the male person would like that to happen.

This is going to be very much not OK for quite a number of women using those spaces.

This is very much not a feminist position.

Unisex spaces, fine, crack on. As an addition

Anecdotes are not data though. I still do not believe that was done in good faith, and if it somehow was, then it's still a poor way to convince someone because again, anecdata don't cut it.

I completely agree. TW should not be in women's spaces unless there is good evidence to show there will be no negative impact on women.

So why would your supposition that all women feel uncomfortable around trans women and therefore these feelings should not be trumped, trump theirs that should say.

@Jaysmith71

Compromise Two:

Instead of re-educating females to accept male transwomen in their female-only spaces, why not re-educate males to accept their fellow males however they present?

First response: Ha ha ha!

Second response: Well, yes, of course. But how much easier for men to delegate the whole tricky issue to women.

... with the huge advantage that if it all goes tits up (to coin a phrase), men can blame women!

What is the difference between excluding men from female spaces and excluding transwomen?

Surely, if the difference is based on feelings, it is based on the feelings of transwomen, not women.

Women think "No penis people, please" in both cases.

Why allow one set of penis people and not the other? Whose feelings is this based on?

Here's some research (acknowledged as correct by the MOJ) regarding transwomen in the female estate. fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-prisoners/

And

fairplayforwomen.com/transgender-prison-policy-judicial-review-ruling-confirms-trans-rights-do-conflict-with-womens-rights/

I just don't think there is enough people pretending to be trans to be predatory to justify taking those rights away from TW. It's not fair.

How many would be enough?

At present you are saying it is more important to you to accommodate transwomen in hospital wards, the changing rooms of municipal leisure facilities, women's-only swimming sessions, refuges, high street changing rooms, and so on than it is to you to accommodate

Women and girls who have been subjected to sexual violence,
Women with religious beliefs.

Due to the overlap of religious beliefs like Islam with particular ethnic minorities, you're directly discriminating against Muslim women and Orthodox Jewish women, and indirectly discriminating against people on their race. Women of faith and sexual assault survivors are going to be driven out of public life, but I don't expect they'll get refunds on their council tax for the services they can't use, will they?