Labour have committed to single sex spaces

[flumpetto]

Excluding trans

This is a step in the right direction at long last....

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-trans-women-labour-b1924832.html

People will keep being born male and female and the females will keep being at greater risk of harm and other disadvantages arising out of make and female biology, as well as sexism and misogyny. Whatever you think. That’s why female safe spaces matter.

One thing that definitely is tricky to define and categorise is race. Yet it’s not acceptable for a white person to pretend to be black and claim entitlement to a black people’s award, business grant, leadership role representing black people etc - and I bet you can see that, why it’s wrong and why it’s insulting.

I think the reality of today's world makes male and female surprisingly tricky ways to define the complex combination of socialisation and physiological factors at play

Unless somebody is deciding who can have a secondary education/vote/drive a car, or which politicians deserve rape threats.

If it were difficult to tell the difference we would take all girls to A&E when they have their first period and there would be lots of surprise pregnancies because people wouldn’t know their sex.

I think it’s more true to say that whether because of ignorance, denial or misogyny, many people down play the impact of sex and therefore the rights and services that women need.

I’m repeatedly surprised that people suggest that sex is irrelevant on a site with so much content on child birth.

Statistics and research show males who identify as women are just as dangerous to women as any other males…
Please note, @ButterflyHatched, we are not accusing you personally of being a danger to women. We are talking about classes of people and statistical likelihoods here. My observation is that men and transwomen often find it difficult to engage with feminist discussion of violence against women and girls, perhaps because they believe they are not a risk as an individual and therefore resent being seen as part of a group, that as a class, is a risk. Sadly. (Sidebar; I sometimes wonder if some individuals are only upset by the violence suffered by women at the hands of transwomen in prisons because it makes transwomen look bad, not because of the horrendous experiences the women suffer.)

….so why in earth should women be put in danger by allowing this group of males into places where women are vulnerable? Where is the logic in that?
Especially if admission to this special group of males permitted into women’s spaces is by self assessment with zero safeguarding measures taken. How can that be justified?

Of you really ‘cannot compute’ the risks to women and the fear of women of men...

@Shedbuilder

NCBlossom, I prefer to think of it as colonialism. Mainly white, mainly middle class men invading places and spaces where they're not wanted or welcome and then rewriting the rules. Strange that so many of the people supporting this are the same people who are toppling statues of other men who invaded and colonised other countries.

This. In a nutshell.

Some of those males head pat. Some of them shout, threaten and abuse. I'm honestly not that interested in the difference between having a nice master and an abusive master: I'm not having a master at all. It's all based on the same atrocious belief in superiority and that females are service animals.

carefully watched and managed

Oh do give over.

Having people who are percieved as males in previously single sex environments evidently makes some women and girls uncomfortable.

It does.

It also actively excludes some females - frequently the most marginalised and least powerful ones - from being able to use the female space at all. And unlike male people, they don't have the option of another space to try, or the political capital to expect sympathy if they ask for somewhere else. They just get nothing.

On a personal level, I'm only able to express extreme gratitude that my presence hasn't, to my knowledge, reliably done so since I was 15,

To your knowledge. Women are very very careful not to upset or offend someone they perceive as male, because it risks violence. I've many times just got out as fast as possible. They might have been lovely people, they might have been a threat, there's no way to know because if you're female any male you don't know could be in either category and you won't find out which until its too late

I found it a particularly wretched experience at the time to generate feelings of obvious discomfort in others simply by existing in their presence.

I'm not willing to extend sympathy or understanding here until I see equal amounts returned to women. That this is hard for you does not trump how hard it is for women, or equate with bumping many vulnerable females from any provision in order to meet your needs. Not service animals.

I'm also ashamed to say that I have occasionally experienced similar surprise/awkwardness/discomfort reactions to the presence of non-passing trans women in these spaces due to internalised transphobia.

..... that's it is it? No one feels anything more important than just 'internalised transphobia'?

You really need to understand a whole lot more about female people, and try a bit more understanding that they and their lives don't revolve entirely around male needs. Including emotionally re programming themselves to better suit male needs.

So the wheel turns. It's a miserable ride for everyone.

Only one group being told to shut up, listen and reprogramme themselves though. Oddly enough, a group identifiable entirely by sex.

This is just plain sexism. That's all. That's it.

If male people need additional facilities to sex based ones, by all means campaign. There are hugely powerful political lobbies to help. But carrying out a raid on women's resources and then blaming women for resisting and daring to say 'but this doesn't work for us' is just sheer belief that females are less human. Have less inner lives. Don't have feelings like 'real people' do. Just don't matter as much. Their voicing of their experience is just silly and wrong and prejudiced.

It's the same thinking that has always allowed colonisation and oppression. I know better and I'm here to teach better to the poor lesser heathens .

Its offensive in the extreme.

@Artichokeleaves

Having people who are percieved as males in previously single sex environments evidently makes some women and girls uncomfortable.

It does.

It also actively excludes some females - frequently the most marginalised and least powerful ones - from being able to use the female space at all. And unlike male people, they don't have the option of another space to try, or the political capital to expect sympathy if they ask for somewhere else. They just get nothing.

On a personal level, I'm only able to express extreme gratitude that my presence hasn't, to my knowledge, reliably done so since I was 15,

To your knowledge. Women are very very careful not to upset or offend someone they perceive as male, because it risks violence. I've many times just got out as fast as possible. They might have been lovely people, they might have been a threat, there's no way to know because if you're female any male you don't know could be in either category and you won't find out which until its too late

I found it a particularly wretched experience at the time to generate feelings of obvious discomfort in others simply by existing in their presence.

I'm not willing to extend sympathy or understanding here until I see equal amounts returned to women. That this is hard for you does not trump how hard it is for women, or equate with bumping many vulnerable females from any provision in order to meet your needs. Not service animals.

I'm also ashamed to say that I have occasionally experienced similar surprise/awkwardness/discomfort reactions to the presence of non-passing trans women in these spaces due to internalised transphobia.

..... that's it is it? No one feels anything more important than just 'internalised transphobia'?

You really need to understand a whole lot more about female people, and try a bit more understanding that they and their lives don't revolve entirely around male needs. Including emotionally re programming themselves to better suit male needs.

So the wheel turns. It's a miserable ride for everyone.

Only one group being told to shut up, listen and reprogramme themselves though. Oddly enough, a group identifiable entirely by sex.

This is just plain sexism. That's all. That's it.

If male people need additional facilities to sex based ones, by all means campaign. There are hugely powerful political lobbies to help. But carrying out a raid on women's resources and then blaming women for resisting and daring to say 'but this doesn't work for us' is just sheer belief that females are less human. Have less inner lives. Don't have feelings like 'real people' do. Just don't matter as much. Their voicing of their experience is just silly and wrong and prejudiced.

It's the same thinking that has always allowed colonisation and oppression. I know better and I'm here to teach better to the poor lesser heathens .

Its offensive in the extreme.

THIS

Yes.

I think the reality of today's world makes male and female surprisingly tricky ways to define the complex combination of socialisation and physiological factors at play

Nonsense, we know exactly how male and female are defined. We know also that there are some regressive, oppressive and stereotyped overlays but they are not core to the definition at all and feminists have spent centuries deconstructing the overlays.

People may have argued, in the past, that a woman was not 'womanly' if she wore trousers or had the audacity to have an opinion. At no point was she considered not female. And at no point were some people not thinking/ saying that the person accusing her of being 'unwomanly' were the problem.

At the end of the day, maybe it boils down to - I (and most others) have a very clear, simple definition of woman. My definition is useful as it helps ensure women get the protections/ care etc. they need and it allows us to better understand better ways that inequality is enacted. This inequality is enacted on the basis of sex, not some amorophous identity and therefore should be tracked on the basis of sex.

You don't have a clear definition of woman. You don't want to use mine but you can't come up with any other way of tracking sex-based inequalities.

Here's an idea, why don't we use my definition until you can come up with a more coherent alternative which we can then consider.

Great post Artichoke.

Butterfly I was the person who posted the gender wars meme. It's not a reflection of hurt, or damage, or underlying transphobia, just an observation that the longer this goes on, the more irritable some of us are.

It's hard for you to understand but we care about women. Some of us have been having these discussions for a long time. Some of us have trans loved ones. And I'd suggest all of us have had men here explaining yet again to us silly wimmin that transwomen are all nice so we should just budge over.

I find myself wondering what brought you to Mumsnet. Was there a call to arms? Or are you here to 'educate'?

What Artichoke said with bells on! I’ve encountered TW in woman’s toilets twice. Did it make me uncomfortable & nervous? Yes. Did I say anything? Of course not. They were male & much bigger than me. I’m sure those TW if asked would say that the woman in question (me) was fine with it because I didn’t say anything.

Sex denialist people: only damaged people think that sex matters

Sex matters people: there's evidence of mental health co-morbidities being treated with surgery

Sex denialist people: surgically altering bodies to look like the opposite sex, an appearance which is surprisingly tricky to determine today, is the best medical treatment for a non medical condition.

See, Butterfly, you start off so reasonable-sounding. And then all of a sudden it's Nazis and the need to 'regulate' feminists. How do you propose 'regulating' women speaking?

And things like this:

the reality of today's world makes male and female surprisingly tricky ways to define the complex combination of socialisation and physiological factors at play.

• nah. This is trying to complicate matters. It's not rocket science. Almost all people understand implicitly the difference between male and female. Especially those of us who've, say, given birth.

Your 'perceived as' male or female covers I would say 99.9% of people. We've already described how women are able to discern sex with enormous accuracy within very quick time frames. And how we are just NOT going to signal our judgements - women's reasoning is rarely about confrontation. If we see a male in a female space we're not going to make a fuss. We'll take what is most likely to be the safest course of action.

On an anonymous internet forum, where women are able to speak more freely, with less immediate concern for safety, and a culture where women are less concerned about appearing 'kind', I can imagine it's maybe a bit jarring to hear more honest, uncensored responses. But that is what you are likely to get here.

It' s not 'authoritarian' to expect women to be treated with equal consideration and respect. It's just unusual.

Sex denialist people: surgically altering bodies to look like the opposite sex, an appearance which is surprisingly tricky to determine today, is the best medical treatment for a non medical condition.

Yes, the logic is difficult to follow.

All Nazis I'm aware of are critical of gender, but I don't think gender critical feminists are Nazis

I've nothing to add to merrymouse's very fine reply to you on this topic. However, OP I am seriously concerned that you had done such a tiny amount of research (if any) into this topic yet you were happy to use this trope in the midst of a discussion with well-informed posters.

And as for the breaking of the inversion, was that an attempt at a salve or styled as a witty sting in the tail?

I'm trying to decide if your lack of knowledge about the terms you espouse is arrogance or contempt for history.

Butterfly could you imagine there's another sex, let's call them Blomps. Blomps are on average approximately 30% more massive, 10% taller and twice as strong as males. They also are statistically much more violent than men and have a history of attacking and killing men regularly. Despite the fact that men have relationships and sex with blomps, often love them or are friends with them etc, the general risk from them means that a man finding himself alone with a blomp he doesn't know is quite alarming, as he knows there's a good chance the blomp will be unpleasant, ranging from verbal harassment to groping, assault, rape with the blomp's special tentacle, or murder. And once any kind of unpleasantness starts, the man doesn't know how far it will go but he does know the blomp has a very high chance of being able to overpower him. Oh and if raped, the man runs a risk of being impregnated and ending up with a baby blomp which he will be expected to care and provide for, while the raping blomp won't.

For this reason, men are given their own toilets, hospital and prison wards for safety reasons, as are blomps and women, and society in general agrees to respect these boundaries. So if there's a blomp wandering around in your toilets scaring you, you can report them and have them asked to leave, and it's something a decent blomp wouldn't do.

But now Blomps can be men. Just by saying they are, by wearing what they consider to be men's clothes, acting how they consider men act. A Blomp's idea of what men are like, not a man's idea. Blomp can still look like a blomp, be as powerful as a blomp, have the potential to rape as it still has its tentacle, but say it's a man and be wherever men used to be safe.

Even if some blomps really think they are men, many who don't will obviously say they are if they're predatory types. But if men point this out they get shouted down called bigots, and ironically, threatened with blomp violence and rape. Politicians and organisations concur, because they're all run by blomps or men who want to please blomps. Now men have nowhere to go to be safe. You could be asleep in hospital and get raped or murdered by a blomp right next to you. You could be in a gym changing room when a blomp comes in and waves its tentacle at you, you're scared but that make you the aggressor, because that blomp is a man. Because it said so.

When an obvious blomp comes into a male space calling themselves a man, what are you going to do? Have an argument with it? Or keep your head down, leave and not go back?

Who is to be the arbiter of 'passing?'

Jean Hatchet spoke to her MP. The MP said that nothing had changed and that everything as regards Labour has stayed the same.

10:13ArabellaScott

See, Butterfly, you start off so reasonable-sounding. And then all of a sudden it's Nazis and the need to 'regulate' feminists. How do you propose 'regulating' women speaking?

Yes, can we have an answer?

Is the current system of threats of violence, deplatforming and sacking going to be augmented by an official regulator?

The Office of Permitted Words for Persons?

Stonewall seem to have made a bit of a start already.

No thanks.

I think the reality of today's world makes male and female surprisingly tricky ways to define the complex combination of socialisation and physiological factors at play.

Not in my experience. The survival of the species depends on us being able to recognise sex, and even four-year-olds can do it with better than 99% accuracy.

It really is not that hard to recognise the sexes. Having chatted with blind women about this, they struggle with the self-id crowd, because even without sight, they reliably recognise sex, but cannot take their cues as to how someone likes to be perceived from their presentation.

And that's the issue, really, perception is in the eye of the beholder, not the beheld. It's not in my power how someone perceives me. I can throw "gender spaghetti" (I think that's what Contrapoints called it) about, hoping some of it will stick and hint at how I'd like to be perceived, but I have no control over that and I cannot in all fairness ascribe motivations to people who don't perceive me as I wish it to be. And yet that's what keeps happening.

But back to why it isn't just easy but necessary to define male and female and why we do so on the basis of sex.

One reason most often discussed here is safeguarding. 99% of convicted sex offenders in the UK are male, 90% of their victims are female, consistently across the globe 95% of murders are committed by men and more than 80% of all violent crime is committed by males. We have an unambiguous, very clear divide between male and female people that necessitates safeguarding of the latter: males are far more likely to be the perpetrators of violent crimes and females are far more likely to be the victims of sexual, domestic and familial violence. In order to safeguard female people, we need female-only provisions where no adult males can go, regardless of their identity.

And there's discrimination on the basis of sex, we haven't even got round to addressing a fraction of it even in this country.

I'd love to live in a world where sex doesn't matter outside of reproduction. But pretending sex doesn't matter is not the way to create this world. That's only a sure fire way to perpetuate the patriarchy.

Well yes, if you propose that some cats are dogs and vice-versa, the canine/feline duality is suddenly confusing.

This is basic Saussurian semiology. The word 'cat' is not a cat. A cat is what we all agree is called a cat. If we cannot agree and say its chat, gatto or macska, then we are speaking different languages.

When an obvious blomp comes into a male space calling themselves a man, what are you going to do? Have an argument with it? Or keep your head down, leave and not go back?

Or, just as importantly, a blomp who fully believes that they are indistinguishable from other blomps.

Because they have never been privy to a man's thoughts, or a man (who feels that they can be completely honest with that blomp) 's honest and uncensored thoughts.

We see it on MN so often. The constant narrative of 'my [insert descriptor] friends/family' tell me x. Sadly, missing the point that those friends and family want to care for that person and will tell them what they think they need to hear.

And sometimes, that is not quite the whole truth.

There is rarely any acknowledgement that those friends or family don't actually have any authority to 'give away' access to female single sex spaces either.

No, I don't think so. Policy has been left in a deliberately woolly form. Labour still can't fight off the Tories in the polls, Starmer's increasingly beleaguered, and a peripheral issue like this just isn't going to be worth the Labour leadership getting into a fight over. It might be different one way if there were many times more transwomen who were a lot more vociferous, or the other way if the media had given the impression that more than a smattering of natal women had ever been affected by it in real life. But such is just not the case, of course.

Heartfelt responses all; patience, candour and earnest engagement very much appreciated.

If I may: Many of the above comments betray a classic damned if you do, damned if you don't logic.

Either: Trans women are inherently dangerous predators with transparent psychological attributes of maleness, or: there are no psychological attributes of maleness because gender isn't real, and all behaviours are constructed. Which is it? These can't both be true.

If we are talking about learned socialisation, then I profoundly agree; toxic behaviours imprinted on people by the patriarchy are indeed astonishingly shitty. However, if I express the experience of having been victim to them, I'm appropriating womanhood and they can't possibly be real - despite them demonstrably being realities that occur. Are experiences only real if the brain that is experiencing them is pink, or has the magical genetic gender essence? Do I even have the magical genetic gender essence? It was repeatedly implied by clinicians that they suspected I had PAIS due to the low intensity of pubertal changes I'd presented with. I never got myself tested, as it didn't seem relevant, but there's a not insignificant chance that my magical Genetic Gender Essence field is compromised.

Stereotyped gender conformance behaviours are problematic reinforcements of patriarchal oppression imposed on women to silence and control them, apart from when trans women defy gatekeeping and don't exhibit them, at which point they're exhibiting inherent markers of maleness that show they aren't 'really' trans. What IS a real trans person? What's the diagnostic criteria? Does it involve stereotyped behaviours?

Either: you can always tell, I have unmistakeable physical male attributes that make women inherently uncomfortable and which people were always secretly cowering in fear from, and everyone I've ever met and interacted with including people who have by default included me in explicitly trans-hostile private spaces while sharing their horrendous jokes and memes in good confidence has just been playing along; or you can't always tell, I'm passing invisibly and thus a duplicitous infiltrator who is harming women by making them feel unsafe ?retroactively? if I later out myself. Which reality is it? These can't exist simultaneously.

Discussing this subject is deeply fraught and it's hard not to get into an argument of contradictions when it comes to definitions.

Even a moment's consideration will, however, show that this subject is a great deal more complex than credit is being given here; while an extremely small percentage (extrapolating GIDS admissions from the 2000 to 2015 period gives a very rough, optimistic estimate of 750 people spread across a range of ages, with varying degrees of visibility) of trans people with degrees of pubertal suppression have entered society so far, a new and vastly more numerous generation of young people is starting to follow, often starting at an even younger age, sometimes having had puberty entirely suppressed. They've never experienced male adulthood and have been experiencing living under the patriarchy while percieved and treated as female from ages six and even younger. And this goes doubly so for trans guys who, without wanting to throw shade on several of my mates, demonstrably exude trappings of male socialised privileged behaviours and make women inherently nervous by being present in their spaces - and this will again only increase with time.

While I appreciate cleaving to one's principles and repeating pithy axioms while celebrating your apparently flawless transdar is a great way to shut down attempts to have serious and necessary conversations about experienced realities, I can already personally refute the 'we always know' argument with twenty years of being, by default, included as a participant in the secret unrestrained transphobia treehouse that exists when we don't think trans people are around to hear us. You do not always know. This already demonstrably falsifiable assertion is soon going to slip beyond even the vaguest bounds of reasonable doubt as the next generation comes of age and disappears into society like we did.

We are going to have to find a more elegant way of defining maleness and femaleness as presented and experienced within the world. Even the transfinder general with flawless laser-sharp vision will not be able to tell on visual inspection if a person is trans or not, and certainly not while waiting in line for the loo.

Third spaces will not work for these people. It's ludicrous to expect trans people who've never spent a moment of their adult lives living in their originally assigned gender roles to casually out themselves every time they need a pee; and it's evidently not going to happen anyway short of forcing everyone to carry toilet passports.

I've noticed frequent mentions in this thread of posters who were previously willing to accept the presence of 'classical' transsexuals in single-sex spaces and who have since adjusted their stances, often citing the entitlement and demands for acceptance of a younger generation.

What changed? Is it simply that trans people are no longer meek, timid outliers and social outcasts asking to be let into the sisterhood so they can quietly cower in the corner - is the issue one of entitlement and demands?

Has the nature of trans people fundamentally changed and you feel you can no longer trust anyone? If so, what was it that changed? Do you feel that you changed - you consciously altered your stance - or that your stance is actually the same, and it's just that statistical weightings mean the majority of those you encounter don't meet it?

What differentiates, in real terms, a 'classical' transsexual in a historical sense, from those who don't meet this definition in your eyes?

I'm trying to understand what went wrong, and what we can do to fix it.

Butterfly, you seem still to be operating under the impression that this is women's problem to fix.

It isn't. We've said no. Whatever the solution is, it does not include watering down women's rights and protections.