Passing

[leafinthewind]

After listening to Ed Davey on the Today programme I was thinking about passing. For a trans person who truly passes, there has never really been a problem accessing the spaces they prefer, right? No one questions a man in the Gents or a woman in the Ladies if they have no doubt that the individual in question is in the 'correct' toilet.

Biological men have been able to enter women's spaces as long as they pass as women. In addition, women have generally ignored access to women's spaces by biological men who don't quite pass but are clearly make a good faith attempt to pass because we are generally polite and trained to be non-confrontational. Finally, women are unlikely to challenge men making a clearly bad faith attempt to pass, because those men are outside the social boundaries we're used to, so we choose not to provoke them for our own safety.

So when Davey says that there should be no spaces for women and girls that transwomen can't access, he's taking a political position, but also describing the world as it is; as it has been all my adult life. We've only ever excluded men who are beyond the pale, and then only when we've had an organisation behind us e.g. a prison. So the key difference between the world-as-it-is and the world-as-he-wants-it-to-be is that men who are beyond the pale in terms of their social behaviour now cannot be excluded, even by organisations. Do you think I've got that right?

It’s also a highly problematic term just in itself - it’s borrowed from the history of racial “passing” in the US, where some African-American people with mixed-race heritage could “pass” for white to escape oppression; but risked social stigma and sometimes far worse if this was discovered - by both black and white communities. (See Nella Larsen’s 1929 novel “Passing”, for example.)

It’s been considered something highly problematic in civil rights movements for a very long time, and obviously one of the reasons why, is the idea of adopting a “false” persona of the oppressor group by an oppressed person in order to survive. In the later civil rights era, “passing” was extremely controversial indeed.

So - quite typically - the trans movement has adopted this extremely controversial term with a highly problematic negative racial history - and turned it into not only a positive goal, but has also completely inverted the meaning - so it now becomes something to be celebrated that someone of an oppressor group can “pass” (deceive others) into thinking they are actually a member of an oppressed group!

For people who like to think of themselves as on the “right side of history”, you couldn’t make it up!

Yes, if you put it that way. People like Ed don't want women to have any boundaries or be able to gatekeep safe spaces. Thanks a bunch guys.

I agree with you. Hadn't analysed it, but now that you've worked it through it seems to me that Davy reasoning is that women and girls are to be afforded no quarter.

Men don't pass as women.

Women don't challenge men because they are afraid.

I thought that he meant that there would be no places that a man cannot access as written in law.

That laws will be changed by the Liberals which will allow men to go anywhere with no protection for women as a sex class.

That women will be prosecuted under hate laws if they object, harrassed by the police if they try to organise against it, treated as terrorists and prosecuted for hate speech.

I've come to believe it's always worse than you think.

What you seem to be saying OP is that transwomen who have made a big effort in terms of presenting a feminine appearance, who have been tolerated by women in women's single sex spaces, have been very effectively used as a Trojan Horse to allow the like of Karen White, Yaniv, and others into those spaces.

Is tolerated the word? I wouldn't approach anyone I clocked as male in a female only space. I'd be aware where they were in relation to me and if I could get out quickly in case of being boxed in. If I clocked a male on entering the space, I may do a U turn if that was an option. Depending on how much I needed to use that space.

Tolerated? How? Because we daren't challenge them.

@Tibtom

Men don't pass as women.

Women don't challenge men because they are afraid.

They often do

And

Women don't challenge them because mostly they don't give a f...

@Tibtom

Tolerated? How? Because we daren't challenge them.

Yeah, that’s the thing. I think lots of women aren’t happy about this, but who would challenge a large, clearly male-bodied person in an enclosed space? I wouldn’t, but it doesn’t mean I’m happy with it.

I think you’ve got that right.

There's no point in discussing whether we recognise transwomen in our spaces. What Stonewall and the rest are demanding is not that women's spaces should be relabelled "Women including transwomen". They are demanding that all our spaces should be relabelled "Gender Neutral" which means mixed sex. So all men can go in freely, without even having to pretend they are anything but men.

What it means is that because transwomen "feel unsafe in men's spaces", all spaces must be made men's spaces so that all women join the transwomen in these unsafe environments. We should stop talking about this as if there's any middle position. It's not relevant whether we're "claiming all transwomen are dangerous", we're being asked to give up any pretence of safety or privacy and allow all men into our toilets and changing rooms and saunas. We should talk about this more clearly.

Passing is irrelevant.
But if you think women don't confront men because they're totally cool with them being in places like toilets and changing rooms 100% of the time you are sadly mistaken. Even smiling and being friendly is a strategy that women use frequently to minimise threat. Most men have no idea when a woman is scared of them.

No comment…

Absolutely but the argument that 'it has happened for years and women don't mind' is false. We do mind.

The number of TW who can “pass” (awful term) is tiny.
They may think they do but most women know and choose to ignore as long as they don’t feel unsafe
The TW and their allies who try the “gotcha - is this a TW or not?” Use largely airbrushed photos that mean anyone can pass as anything.
I take the attitude that if a TW has made the effort to closely resemble a woman then they aren’t a White or Yaniv. I know not everyone feels the same but that’s my boundary and I DO agree with female only spaces such as medical environments etc however the male person presents

the number of NGC cis women is probably much larger than that of "non passing" trans women. This whole idea of "passing" leads to more "challenges" to them.

I dunno. I wonder if it is males who look at a NCG woman and think she is manly. Women may be way more attuned to clock who is male and who is female. Simply because we know we are more vulnerable to the thread of violence from males and it is a survival instinct.

@CatherinaJTV

the number of NGC cis women is probably much larger than that of "non passing" trans women. This whole idea of "passing" leads to more "challenges" to them.

Well that is obvious - no women is fully gender conforming and there are a lot more women (making up 51% of the population) than transwomen (who don't pass whether they think they do or not). Transwomen should not be in women's toilets and if they are they should be challenged. They aren't because women would fear for their safety doing so.

I’m annoyed with the argument I often see that ‘transwomen have been using women’s spaces forever with no problems’.
The first time I ever remember seeing my mother truly frightened was when I was 7, standing at the sinks in a small public toilet with two sisters; a new born and a 3 year old. A transwoman was ‘making funny noises’ and came out of a cubicle and winked at me. There was a problem and my Mum was far too scared to say anything.
Men do not understand women and wrongly think that as nothing is said there is no problem.

@Cailleach1

I dunno. I wonder if it is males who look at a NCG woman and think she is manly. Women may be way more attuned to clock who is male and who is female. Simply because we know we are more vulnerable to the thread of violence from males and it is a survival instinct.

I went to an event a couple of years ago where for a variety of reasons there were a larger than normal proportion of TW and “butch” women It’s was bloody obvious which was which

I would add that Ed Davey presumably thinks women who object should be prosecuted. That's the additional 'right' these men want. Women can have no boundaries in this brave new world.

I feel like the concept of passing is problematic from a feminist perspective because it relies on stereotypes about how women ought to look.

I've been around Paris lees and mridul wadhwa and neither of them seemed to me like female people seem.
Not based on whether they had pretty eyes or the right kind of make up.

More in terms of voice and smell and vibe which are more or less impossible to quantify.

I wouldn't want to use those experiences to make a feminist point.

I think it's better to have single sex services and facilities rather than making criteria around gender presentation and passing.

That said, I would prefer men using the women's loos to do so with as little as possible in terms of theatrics. I am not qualified to evaluate your lipstick, pal.

@LucretiaBourgeois

There's no point in discussing whether we recognise transwomen in our spaces. What Stonewall and the rest are demanding is not that women's spaces should be relabelled "Women including transwomen". They are demanding that all our spaces should be relabelled "Gender Neutral" which means mixed sex. So all men can go in freely, without even having to pretend they are anything but men.

What it means is that because transwomen "feel unsafe in men's spaces", all spaces must be made men's spaces so that all women join the transwomen in these unsafe environments. We should stop talking about this as if there's any middle position. It's not relevant whether we're "claiming all transwomen are dangerous", we're being asked to give up any pretence of safety or privacy and allow all men into our toilets and changing rooms and saunas. We should talk about this more clearly.

Spot on.

@Toseland

I’m annoyed with the argument I often see that ‘transwomen have been using women’s spaces forever with no problems’. The first time I ever remember seeing my mother truly frightened was when I was 7, standing at the sinks in a small public toilet with two sisters; a new born and a 3 year old. A transwoman was ‘making funny noises’ and came out of a cubicle and winked at me. There was a problem and my Mum was far too scared to say anything. Men do not understand women and wrongly think that as nothing is said there is no problem.

Similar experience here, as a teenage girl. Was I likely to kick up a fuss about the person at the sinks who was apparently ... overcome with emotion? The person who was far older, larger, taller and stronger than me?

Was I fuck. I was likely to get out as fast as possible without drawing attention to myself, because I have a well developed sense of self preservation, largely because growing up as a female you bloody well need one.