For the Attention of Posters in the "bloody terf" thread

[PurgatoryOfPotholes]

So we can stop disrupting the OP's thread, and continue the discussion here.

@ArabellaScott

Gold lame?

That's a good one...

All dogs should be dachshunds. Or corgis.

@BrandineDelRoy

Exactly how can a dauchshund or a corgi reach high enough to bite the sausage?

Please remember the practicalities of this scheme. It is prosed to fix our human problems that have risen above material reality and because theoretical fluffy inner essences. If the crotchsniffpups* scheme doesn’t meet the needs of material reality then the crotchsnifferpups will then need to delegate the practicalities to another lowly species that remains limited by biological reality. It could get very meta.

• copy righted term

@BloodinGutters

* copy righted term

They're good enough for your queen! I'm just saying. (I'm a proud wiener dog owner).

Maybe things we (as biological women) have had to do or have observed in a public restroom/toilet/changing room should be it's own thread?

@BrandineDelRoy

Maybe things we (as biological women) have had to do or have observed in a public restroom/toilet/changing room should be it's own thread?

"Its own."

No apostrophe. That poor apostrophe.

I don’t believe the queen uses her corgis to crotch sniff and sausage bite.

Do your wiener dogs identify as gymnasts? Could they reach the human crotches? How can I tell a wiener gymnast from a regular wiener dog? How can my very large crotch sniffer dog identify your wiener dog as different from a sausage?

This is off the main very important super special topic of crotch sniffer dogs but now I have the urge to rewatch wienerdog.

@BloodinGutters

I don’t believe the queen uses her corgis to crotch sniff and sausage bite.

Do your wiener dogs identify as gymnasts? Could they reach the human crotches? How can I tell a wiener gymnast from a regular wiener dog? How can my very large crotch sniffer dog identify your wiener dog as different from a sausage?

This is off the main very important super special topic of crotch sniffer dogs but now I have the urge to rewatch wienerdog.

I can say with certainty that my dog barks at all doorbells of knocks, but then has a totally more mellow reaction to female people who appear. I guess he's sexist?

An analogy on the doggy theme: Cats and dogs are similar in many ways but observably different. So if I say that my cat is like a dog, people will probably understand that my cat shares some stereotypically dog-like characteristics. Maybe it is loyal or acts like a guard dog to defend me. Whatever. I can call it whatever name I like, accessorise it however. All absolutely fine.

If, however, I unilaterally try to change the word cat to mean dog and vice versa, so that when my neighbours are upset because they say my dog has repeatedly gone into their garden and used it as a toilet and I say "That's just what cats do, they just want to pee, get over it" or when I take my 'dog' to the vet and get upset when the vet says it's actually a cat even though I have called it Fido and put a lead on it and everything - well that infringes on other people's rights as well as biological reality.

And if I was to join up with others around the world who also believe cats are dogs and dogs are cats (and words mean whatever we want them to mean and let's queer all the boundaries) - it still won't make any of it true, it just means I have found a tribe of similarly confused individuals.

And if I get posters from Amnesty International saying "I am who I say I am" and attach them to to my miaowing dog and my barking cat, even that will not make it so.

Then if I start berating people because they will not call my dogs 'cats' to make me feel comfortable, even though they can see with their own eyes that a Rottweiler without a lead is in front of them and I say disingenuously "when has a house cat ever killed anyone?" that sounds like the gaslighting it is.

The most extraordinary thing is that people in my movement have somehow managed to get some people in government, and veterinary schools and the RSPCA and even the kennel club to agree that occasionally cats can be called dogs and dogs can be called cats (with some exceptions) and they can get a special certificate to say so.

Presumably they just could not foresee the potential harm of putting 'Rottweilers-with-a-cat-certificate' in a locked space with female cats and kittens...

But what they can never, ever do, because it's always going to be surgically, medically, scientifically impossible is turn a cat into an actual dog or a dog into an actual cat.

There are always going to be millions of real cats and dogs around, continually giving the lie to the simulacrum with its fake feline ears and its waggy tail.

So I guess the sooner I get over it, the better.

Can we take some bets on the twitterverse finding proof that cats can be dogs? I’ll be the bookie. It can fund crotchsniffpups pilot program.

I know nothing about math or probability. But I identify as making lots from being the bookie.

@BrandineDelRoy

Fine, I’ll accept your wiener dogs into crotchsniffpups as long as they are willing to train in trampolining to reach human crotches. I guess there could be a market for pocket size crotch sniffers.

I am drawing the line at handbag dogs though. Those are not bloody dogs! I don’t care what the vets says, if it identifies as an accessory it is not a fucking dog! And people who don’t think a pooping animal should take up a train seat like normal handbags will just have to get over it!! You handbigots.

@BrandineDelRoy

Maybe things we (as biological women) have had to do or have observed in a public restroom/toilet/changing room should be it's own thread?

I thought "bloody t*s" was quite suitable myself!

I am not as elocuent as other posters here but after two things struck me:

1. If now woman is a socially constructed idea based on feelings and what not, so that both 'cis' and trans women are included - can we say that we have female women and male women?

2. if there is no real definition for the word woman (or man) anymore, and there is nothing in common between all women (or men)...then does that not imply that we are just all the same now?! what would be the need for anyone to call themselves a women (or men)?

@IamAporcupine: I have a trans rights activist friend and she concedes that there are male bodied women, and female bodied women. She also thinks that some women are women by virtue of their 'womanly minds' and some women lack 'womanly minds' and are women by virtue of their female bodies. But she failed to answer what these two groups have in common. You could have a 'male bodied womanly minded woman' and a 'female bodied non womanly minded woman' and there is absolutely no intersection between the two. I suppose the consistent explanation has to be that ALL women, male and female bodied, have 'womanly minds' but this wouldn't include many people on here who deny they have a gender identity. I've never heard anyone answer what male bodied women and female bodied women have in common such that they are both women.

As for your second point, that is the big mystery. Supposedly the word 'woman' is impossible to define and doesn't in fact have any substantive definition at all. It is an entirely subjective term that means whatever the individual user wants it to mean. The word 'woman' can mean absolutely whatever anyone wants it to mean, and if that definition applies to you then you are a woman.

The problem is this idea clashes with the other deeply held trans belief that the word 'woman' is deeply special and important. The word is supposedly entirely subjective and relative from individual to individual, and yet transwomen get incredibly upset and dysphoric if they are not recognised as woman. The word 'woman' has no set meaning, and yet transwomen desire access to women's spaces, and want to look like female bodied people. If it really were true that the term 'woman' means whatever we want it to mean, then there should be absolutely no problem with me personally defining woman as an adult human female and telling a transwoman ' well, by YOUR definition you're a woman, but by MY definition you're not.' But this is not acceptable. We are frequently told this is bigotry. So they must have some non relativised, objective definition of 'woman' in mind that we must all subscribe and agree to. Trans activists just appear to struggle to articulate what that definition is.

You are right to be confused. Once you start digging into this stuff it turns out to not make much sense, and there aren't many explanations provided.

[quote BloodinGutters]@BrandineDelRoy

Fine, I’ll accept your wiener dogs into crotchsniffpups as long as they are willing to train in trampolining to reach human crotches. I guess there could be a market for pocket size crotch sniffers.

I am drawing the line at handbag dogs though. Those are not bloody dogs! I don’t care what the vets says, if it identifies as an accessory it is not a fucking dog! And people who don’t think a pooping animal should take up a train seat like normal handbags will just have to get over it!! You handbigots.[/quote]
My dog is 13, so we have to bow out on your challenge. I live in a place with really no train travel, but my mom has the same dog/handbag opinions! I kind of do, too.

@IamAporcupine

I am not as elocuent as other posters here but after two things struck me:

1. If now woman is a socially constructed idea based on feelings and what not, so that both 'cis' and trans women are included - can we say that we have female women and male women?

2. if there is no real definition for the word woman (or man) anymore, and there is nothing in common between all women (or men)...then does that not imply that we are just all the same now?! what would be the need for anyone to call themselves a women (or men)?

What about the female non women who may need to access female spaces or services?

As for underwear, do people wash them out in the sinks in the ladies? Never seen that, and even if people do, how many people carry around spare underwear with them at all times? Surely it would make more sense to change pads and get clean underwear when you get home, as washing them out in the sink would just make you have soggy pants

If you don't happen to have spare pants, what do you do, just walk around wearing blood soaked pants? Take off your pants and have nothing to hold a towel or stop drips? I'm post-menopausal but still carry a couple of pads, and try to remember spare pants. There have been, I'd guess, around a dozen times in my life when I've rinsed out pants in a public loo and dried them with paper towels and the blow dryer. I've seen other women doing this too. I've also fairly often been asked by women in loos if I have a spare towel/tampon or can help with change for the machine.

I would not feel comfortable dealing with those kind of things around men. I guess partly because periods weren't openly discussed with men when I was younger, and I've also been subject to male humour and abuse about periods, as has my daughter, but it's also just a time when I've felt particularly vulnerable and embarrased, and don't want to be around the opposite sex, just for my own comfort and dignity.

If I have a 'gender identity' it's only in the way my life has been shaped by having to negotiate biological realities like this, and other people's reactions to them.

I've noticed in public buildings which have changed toilets to gender neutral facilities that the queues are largely still self-segregated. So the doors will be labelled something like 'separate cubicles' and 'urinals with separate cubicles' but women go for the former, men go for the latter. I often wonder if the building managers take any notice of this at all - do they not see that people aren't just joining a random queue but that women choose what is often a much longer queue? And don't they wonder if there's a reason behind it, or do they just see a long line of 'bigots' standing outside what was formerly the 'women's' loos?

Nobody should ever have to explain why they are uncomfortable carrying out personal care or being in a vulnerable position with members of the opposite sex present. 'Privacy and dignity' are written into legislation, the Equality Act specifically mentions these issues.

I've noticed in public buildings which have changed toilets to gender neutral facilities that the queues are largely still self-segregated.

There was a poster on a FWR thread arguing against third spaces, and having argued passionately for some time that most women had no desire for privacy, dignity or space away from male people and this was a weird thing specific only to a tiny subsection of the old/stupid/ bigoted -

• then shifted to arguing that third spaces could not be provided because if they were, all women would decline to use them and would insist on using the female only space. Which would be unfair on TW.

@Artichokeleaves

I've noticed in public buildings which have changed toilets to gender neutral facilities that the queues are largely still self-segregated.

There was a poster on a FWR thread arguing against third spaces, and having argued passionately for some time that most women had no desire for privacy, dignity or space away from male people and this was a weird thing specific only to a tiny subsection of the old/stupid/ bigoted -

• then shifted to arguing that third spaces could not be provided because if they were, all women would decline to use them and would insist on using the female only space. Which would be unfair on TW.

I haven't seen any research on women's views (and I doubt it could be done now, because there would probably be an organised campaign to skew the results), but since so many buildings have gone gender neutral with their loos, pretty much every time I'm in a queue I'll hear women complaining about them, so I don't think it's just a few of us.

I really don't understand why there's no push for third spaces - I think it's something women would support and it's a relatively simple way forward, but it's almost like some people aren't interested in any solution that would work for women.

I have finally read this thread. My what a steaming pile of trope from the start.

I notice that as soon as prisons were mentioned, the recriminations were forthcoming. Why are prisons always mentioned?

Why? If you are so entrenched in your view that you cannot admit the dissonance that prisons allowing males into the female estate causes because we have actual rapes that have happened to some of the most vulnerable women in this country while being housed in prison. By transitioned males.

And yet, we also have posters whataboutering about prison guards. Well, yes. Thanks for bringing it up, I too believe that prison guards should be female. And that means female. Not transitioned males as guards either.

So, I can see why the upset at mentioning prisons.

Shall we mention sports too? And refuges?

When toilets add the focus, there are those who think ‘well, I don’t mind myself’ who then don’t extend any empathy to those who need the single sex space to remain female only.

When it turns to prisons, it becomes clear cut. Because there is well published evidence of rapes caused by this.

And sports… well only those who have no interest at all in sport, or think that sport should only ever be for ‘beating yourself’ and not aiming to beating other people to be the best, feel confident enough to post how males should be included. Despite the clear evidence which they twist and ad him attack to try to discredit, but can’t because a trans researcher got similar conclusions.

So an enlightening thread . Thanks Purgatory for posting it, and all the clearly thought out replies.

If you are so entrenched in your view that you cannot admit the dissonance that prisons allowing males into the female estate causes because we have actual rapes that have happened to some of the most vulnerable women in this country while being housed in prison

I've had this discussion IRL and been told I need to check my privilege because transwomen are far more disadvantaged than 'ciswomen' and we need to expect some disadvantages in order to 'level up'. But when I asked if that meant we need to accept more women being raped in prisons and hospitals by other inmates/patients, I was being ridiculous and over-dramatic.

I think this is basically what we are up against. Women are 'privileged' so any bad consequences of sharing our spaces are OK because transwomen are worse off than us. In a sane world both groups would be banding together to ask why we're both underprivileged and at danger from male violence, but that's the thing that goes unsaid most of the time, so you have to wonder who's pulling the strings.

seventyfits

In those situations, I’d be asking the person whether they are fully prepared to look in the eyes of one of those n+1 women or girls who were acceptable collateral damage and explain it to them.

No one wants trans people to be at risk. However, there is only one group who are insisting that the risk is mitigated by including males into female spaces and they seem very happy to accept female collateral damage.

so you have to wonder who's pulling the strings

Sadly you don’t have to wonder very long. It is very clear.

For anyone wondering whether women have privilege over people born male - here's an interesting Twitter thread on 'oppression olympics'. Fittingly, it's looking at these issues through a global lens:

twitter.com/Dora_Callisto/status/1405149110148206598?t=tzY4t2s1LDWOExQIsFwcPQ&s=19

(content warning: FGM, forced marriage, rape references)