What do you expect transwomen to do then?

[Blibbyblobby]

@JohnHuffam1812 asked me a question on the woke thread that I think deserves an answer. The thread closed before I could post it but I’m answering here and hope that JohnHuff will see it and maybe give his/her/their thoughts.

What do you expect transwomen to do then? Should they not just be extended as much as they possible can within reason?

I expect trans women to acknowledge they are not female and that female experiences are also valid. I expect them to take as a starting point that the existing female-only spaces - ie everything defined as “women-only” when woman was synonymous with female - remain single sex for now. And then we work together, case by case, to see what can be reasonably opened up as mixed sex/single gender, and what might justify some third provisions, and what is just plain female and doesn’t really intersect with trans women’s needs and lives full stop.

I don’t know where that conversation will end up, and I don’t need to know. Maybe we will come to an agreement that “woman” becomes an entirely gender term that coexists with an entirely separate name for the female-bodied. Maybe, as trans women learn more about female people’s lives, they will decide the thing they recognise in themselves is not womanhood and the journey goes somewhere else. Maybe we will see a way forward that reduces the importance of both sex and gender for everyone and as we gain a more truly equal culture, the need to be seen as the “gender” one “truly is” just seems less and less important.

The point is, the first step is to communicate fairly, respectfully and openly. Without that we won’t be able to find reasonable solutions. But once we do communicate fairly, respectfully and openly, reasonable solutions will be surprisingly easy to find.

Basically, I expect trans women to respect our differences, and I expect us all to respect each other, speak honestly, listen with acceptance, and take it from there.

@JellySaurus

I redirect them to recognise that they have a belief. That they have not changed reality, but are responding to their own belief. That they have exactly the same rights as everybody else with respect to their beliefs: the right to practice and express their belief insofar as it does not affect or disenfranchise anybody else. I expect them to recognise that they are males, and have the same rights as other males, regardless of gender expression.

Couldn’t have worded it better myself @JellySaurus.

I'd like men to start accepting trans people and tackling the rank homophobic misogyny that puts males they see as feminine in danger.

I'd like all talk of 'stealth' and 'passing' and 'trans women' abd 'trans men' to be replaced by Pride in being a trans man (male who has transitioned) or a trans woman (female who has transitioned).

I'd like the bonkers stuff about sport to stop and the food stuff to start. There was a transwoman golf pro demonstrating golf strokes I think at either the Olympics or another tournament, and she got a ton of abuse from the crowd. The organisers should have shut the tournament down then and there. Likewise there are trans coaches of women's teams, and transmen playing on women's teams that should be celebrated.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

Thank you for this thread. I had a reply for *@johnhuffam1812* also.

JohnHuffam1812

So yes, both sides of this debate are being unreasonable ( although what a transwomen is doing at a smear test ( although they can be administered by men ofc) I don't know.

I believe BlibbyBlobby refers to this incident.

extract

The NHS has apologised to a woman who was left “embarrassed and distressed” after a nurse with stubble and a deep voice was going to carry out her cervical smear test at hospital.

The woman requested a female NHS nurse to perform the intimate procedure but was dismayed when a staff member with “an obviously male appearance” greeted her.

When the patient pointed out the mistake, the nurse replied: “My gender is not male. I’m a transsexual.”

The woman declined to go ahead with the examination – given to women aged 25 to 49 every three years and every five years for women aged 50 to 64 – and complained about her treatment. She stressed her complaint was not about the nurse’s appearance or gender status.

It is understood the nurse self-identified as a woman but had not been employed on that basis. He saw the patient only because of a clerical error.

“[It was] weird where somebody says to you: ‘My gender is not male’ and you think: ‘Well, what does that even mean? You are clearly a man’, the woman toldthe Sunday Times. “[The nurse] had an obviously male appearance . . . close-cropped hair, a male facial appearance and voice, large number of tattoos and facial stubble.”

The patient said it was “bad enough for a fortysomething mother”, but the effect of such an incident on her 17-year-old daughter would have been much worse.

The patient has requested anonymity for herself and the clinic because of fears it or the nurse could be criticised. The appointment for was on September 16 last year in an NHS clinic run by the Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust.

It said: “We apologised to this patient for the recording error and because the staff member accepted they didn’t manage the situation appropriately; the patient needed to feel listened to. Trust policy is to consider seriously all requests for clinicians of a particular gender.”

Meanwhile, the famous Ladies’ Pond on London’s Hampstead Heath will no longer be a haven preserved for women after a controversial ruling allowed men transitioning to be women to bathe there.

Regulars have complained in recent months that men who identify as women and wore female bathing clothes were using the pond. A spokesman for the City of London Corporation, which manages the lake, confirmed tothe Mail on Sundaythat men transitioning to women will be allowed to use the pond and the female changing rooms.

Julie Bindel, a feminist writer who has also been swimming at the pond for more than three decades, said: ‘It is totally unacceptable to allow men who identify as women, but who are otherwise male bodied and socialised as men, to be in a women-only space.”

inews.co.uk/news/health/nhs-woman-transgender-nurse-smear-test-114009

If this nurse was truly mistakenly asked to perform smears, this nurse should have raised the issue with a manager before they ever entered the room, pointed out that it was inappropriate and swapped with a female member of staff. They did not.

I wonder how many smear appointments this nurse took before encountering a patient who was confident enough to make a complaint.

God that’s shocking. I can’t imagine what that poor woman must have thought when greeted by a male nurse purporting to be a woman. I wonder how many other women going in for a smear that day were equally as shocked but felt unable to say anything. It’s an absolute violation.

As for the swimming example, it’s yet more erosion of our rights.

@Blibbyblobby

I should make it clear that the process I envision is not at all “what can female people reasonably give up to support trans women and what do they need to keep?” It’s more like “if we look at why this provision exists with different eyes, is there a better way to achieve the same thing? Would including some, or all, male people with perhaps new ground rules for all participants actually make it better?” And underlying that is a belief that sex-segregation is a necessary evil that can also become self-perpetuating, and if society can find ways to achieve the same safety and support for female people without sequestering us away (eg by improving male standards and expectations) that is positive for everyone.

You see, I just think “no” to this idea.

As in, it’s often forgotten in the changing room debate that single sex provision is not just there for safety, but also for dignity. I want to be able to change separately from men not just because of the possibility of harm, but also because I just don’t want to be looks at naked by men. I just don’t want it. Even the nicest men. Even the safest men. Even the gayest men who really don’t want to perve at me. No thanks to any of them.

I honestly think that one of the things that is an intrinsic part of this debate is that men simply feel entitled to have what they want without ever being told “no”. And the rage is part of that - and a telling part of the root of male socialisation - and the simple desire to have something you’ve been told you can’t have is right at the heart of it. So likely any “solutions” offered by women won’t ever be enough.

I expect trans women to acknowledge they are not female and that female experiences are also valid. I expect them to take as a starting point that the existing female-only spaces - ie everything defined as “women-only” when woman was synonymous with female - remain single sex..

This. I'm not diminishing my rights for anyone.They need to understand and respect that. And I won't be told by any man what my sexuality should include.

What I hope for is trans rights activists to abandon the zero sum game they are currently playing, and to acknowledge that they cannot get everything they want — even if they brute force it, threaten us , and call us bigots. This debate and conflict has arisen out of the unnecessary and unrealistic demand that transwomen be treated and regarded exactly the same as women in every regard. It’s simply unsustainable. And I don’t even know why they are so insistent on it. If trans people have special healthcare and mental health needs, then surely they would be better served by emphasising their differences.

I expect them to keep out of women's spaces, and beyond that I don't much care what they do.

To paraphrase Exulansic: good men stay out of women's spaces so that bad men stand out

youtube.com/c/Exulansic

And underlying that is a belief that sex-segregation is a necessary evil that can also become self-perpetuating, and if society can find ways to achieve the same safety and support for female people without sequestering us away (eg by improving male standards and expectations) that is positive for everyone.

It is not about just safety and support. It is not a necessary evil, it is a way of staying safe.

The male gaze has destroyed women and girls since forever. We are allowed to not want to undress in front of men if we don't want to.

Even men who behave themselves. Let alone those that don't, and will harass, assault, rape and murder women.

The Hampstead Pond situation is a prime example of this.

One for men, one for mixed and one for women. The men who say they are women weren't happy with either the male pond, or the mixed pond and they absolutely had to have the female pond. Thus women who didn't want to be swimming with men, were ousted from their own pond.

This is happening over and over and over again, and that is why we are called all sorts of names, and alienated, and doxxed, and sacked and in fear for our lives and why so many of us are now anonymous or just walk away from the situation, because we essentially don't want to die.

I genuinely do not care what trans women do, I am bored with this wailing about how mean we all are. Enough. Just [redacted] off.

@Blibbyblobby

I should make it clear that the process I envision is not at all “what can female people reasonably give up to support trans women and what do they need to keep?” It’s more like “if we look at why this provision exists with different eyes, is there a better way to achieve the same thing? Would including some, or all, male people with perhaps new ground rules for all participants actually make it better?” And underlying that is a belief that sex-segregation is a necessary evil that can also become self-perpetuating, and if society can find ways to achieve the same safety and support for female people without sequestering us away (eg by improving male standards and expectations) that is positive for everyone.

You see, I expect that women are and have been wise enough to keep modifying and adapting our rights to our needs all along.

We now realise in the attempt to use ‘human’ language such as woman, some laws are subject to claims from others. But generally, I don’t believe that our rights / services and spaces etc were not already being constantly updated.

Which ones do you think would be better with the inclusion of ‘males’? And while I commend your optimism that one day society will not need the safety of single sex spaces or the proactive tools for progressing females because they need support due to sexist discrimination due to our sexed bodies, we are a very long way off yet. That utopia is not even on the horizon. We have seen the harm caused by organisations acting ahead of law changes, I am not convinced we need more of these loopholes and harmful gaps.

@weebisom great post. When the census was going on in England and there was triumphant tweets from some TRA's that they had deliberately marked themselves as the wrong sex, it seemed like such an own goal - essentially reducing future services and increasing other services needlessly.

I don't want any male in a female space. I don't agree with a case by case, as soon as a male person enters it is no longer a female space
The very people who want to ignore female boundaries are the ones I would least want there

It’s just more BeKind Ladies or else, shakes fist. Shite isn’t it?

Men will tell us Ladyees what’s what.

I have never understood the toilet thing.

We women have been accepting masculine and biological women in our toilets ever since we had them. From tomboys to butch lesbians; wearing men’s clothes, with barber shop haircuts. We haven’t objected; why on earth would we...they are one of us and we welcome the female spectrum.

Why is this not expected of men in the men’s? I don’t get it.

Ah come on Swash reasons

Mainly toxic masculinity, which we GC women also decry, even if many men choose to misinterpret that too.

Power and control again by men. Just leave me alone you rabid infiltrating transwhatevers, you are not special, you are making yourselves look like idiots no doubt to assert the testosterone bit of you that still exists within.

People will accept many things and in general are tolerant of many things, provided respect is part of it all on both sides. I have no truck with men dressed as women or saying they are women using women only spaces. I despair at the lack of common sense and decency amongst those who make the rules and tread over women's rights every day. Why do they do this and who are they afraid of?

Strange though that similar issues do not seem to apply to transmen entering men's spaces isn't it? Power again.

Respect is all that is needed, together with an acknowledgment of the rights of women to their own spaces. Forever.

@HoardingSamphireSaurus

Ah come on Swash reasons

Mainly toxic masculinity, which we GC women also decry, even if many men choose to misinterpret that too.

LOL. Well, perhaps I was a little disingenuous in my bewilderment.

But what I mean is how can this be ignored in policy-making around toilets etc. and how do the policy-makers justify the different approaches for the two sexes? What’s their angle when it’s pointed out….🤔 Do they really openly say it’s because men are violent? (Because “NAMALT”, no? And that’s why they can use the Ladies..)

Perhaps I’m being thick but there really is something I don’t get. But at work, so rushing a message without thinking too hard maybe too.

@JellySaurus

I redirect them to recognise that they have a belief. That they have not changed reality, but are responding to their own belief. That they have exactly the same rights as everybody else with respect to their beliefs: the right to practice and express their belief insofar as it does not affect or disenfranchise anybody else. I expect them to recognise that they are males, and have the same rights as other males, regardless of gender expression.

👏

No, not thick. That's what has bewildered many others too. It's what makes it easy for policy makers to believe that they are doing the right thing - why on earth wouldn't a caring society want to help it's weakest, most put upon, hated, suicidal cohort?

I've known about it for years and I still cannot get my head round Stonewall's active lobbying for the removal of single sex spaces. I didn't understand it 5 years ago and I don't understand it now. But it is there, in black and white. It is something they are working towards.

It is incomprehensible!

I expect transwomen to state clearly what they need entirely separately to what women need. We are not the same.

Until they realise that they are going to be constantly disappointed at the lack of 'acceptance'. I can agree you are a transwoman, I can't agree that you are a woman. We are different in our beliefs there.

Women do not have to compromise our rights, we do not have to include others sexes in our rights and we do not have to give up our rights. Women on the whole had more or less what they needed until TRAs started taking them away.

Transwomen could also have more or less or what they need if they do what many women are doing now - get organised, raise funds, state your needs, campaign and go to court to have law tested.

Trying to change language, make people say they believe something that they don't, and attack on every form of social media isn't going to work and it isn't going to help transwomen is it. So they should stop doing that.

Oh yes, and also they should stop being so fucking homophobic and let lesbians choose their same sex partners in peace.

That's what I expect them to do. Have they got any better ideas?

I would like for TW to campaign for their OWN spaces and services, the way that women have had to, and not for women to be expected to 'budge up' to make room for them.
It's the MALE estate that need to expend to include TW, not the female estate made to squash up and enfold more people who do not belong in that estate.

I would like the biology denying to stop. For TW to accept that they are biologically male. For people with DSDs not to be constantly used in arguments about binary sex.

I would like to not be compelled to use certain types of speech and language that I do not agree with.

I would like my sex class as female and woman to be protected, and be allowed to refer to myself as mother, woman and female.

The Hampstead Pond situation is a prime example of this. One for men, one for mixed and one for women. The men who say they are women weren't happy with either the male pond, or the mixed pond and they absolutely had to have the female pond. Thus women who didn't want to be swimming with men, were ousted from their own pond.

This can't be repeated enough.

There were three options. All male people however they identified had the option of two already. As did female people. Male people wanted the female only option too. When females tried to argue their case, Edward Lord among others triumphally shut them down. Male people could now use whichever of the three they felt like in the moment.

There was no attempt to listen to female need or argument. Not even a discussion about could there be times or slots when female only was permitted. No, male people had to conquer that space, own it, control it. As a result, an orthodox Jewish woman who was a regular pool users lost access to any pool at all so that these male people could have all three options. No one's noticed or counted how many other females lost access altogether so male people could have access to everything.

A woman is currently seeking legal advice on the fact that her local rape crisis centre, funded by her taxes, provides three separate options for male people however they identify: a male option, a trans specific option and a mixed sex women's group. They cannot and will not provide any option at all for female people who cannot access the one single option of the mixed sex women's group. Why will they not?

Because male people refuse to tolerate female people having a resource of their own. They would prefer to see female rape victims go without help than tolerate that some females need spaces that cannot revolve around male need and be all the time under male control and focus.

This greed, this absolute inability to see females as human, is what has driven me and many other women to saying, I am done with trying to make this work. Female people need single sex things, strictly gate kept, and this sex segregation has been proved necessary by these events. Because here we see, yet again, mixed sex resources do not work for all female people ^because male people will dominate the resources, have little care or respect for females that allows sharing, and are unable to see females as equally human'.

In a couple of hundred years when maybe male people have managed to get past this, they can come and talk to females about mixed sex provision. But frankly, stopping permitting female people to have single sex provision because male people don't want them to have it is about the biggest reason you could point to as why females need single sex spaces, protected and gatekept by law. Because male people will not be extending them any such courtesy voluntarily.

@Artichokeleaves

Quite. Mutual respect and equality of expectations - not just demanded and enforced from females - would fix most of this.

As soon as we start into the 'within reason' there is the admittance that TW and female people are not one and the same, and that the impact has to be considered when they are forced teamed. There is also increasing evidence that female needs and issues and TQ+ needs and issues cannot be met in the same resource or brief, because the needs conflict and the existence of females as a separate group with specific need is in itself perceived as hostile. In most cases once a female only resource tries to include TQ+ it becomes by necessity wholly TQ+ focused, and female service users become a secondary priority handled only on TQ+ terms, and some are straight out excluded and bounced out. This is not inclusion. It's been tried. It has not worked. It's largely been the intolerance of female need and concerns and inclusion and diversity on the part of the TQ+ political position that has broken it. With generosity and tolerance towards females and a range of provisions including female only amongst women's provisions, it might have worked. That ship has now sailed.

TQ+ needs should be met. In additional services, resources, facilities, and how that happens is down to TQ+ people to negotiate. Females continue to be half the human race and require sex based provisions and equality, regardless of male wishes for them not to have it.

Great post, particularly the observation that opening women’s services up to the TQ+ is not working. Time for a rethink and for trans organisations and people to advocate for their own services and provisions, as women had to before them.

@Floisme

Why is question even being asked of women? Ask the men.

Exactly. It's not my problem to fix. Do your own campaigning because I know one thing......where were you when I was fighting for my rights as a woman? Fucking nowhere to be seen.

@Artichokeleaves

The Hampstead Pond situation is a prime example of this. One for men, one for mixed and one for women. The men who say they are women weren't happy with either the male pond, or the mixed pond and they absolutely had to have the female pond. Thus women who didn't want to be swimming with men, were ousted from their own pond.

This can't be repeated enough.

There were three options. All male people however they identified had the option of two already. As did female people. Male people wanted the female only option too. When females tried to argue their case, Edward Lord among others triumphally shut them down. Male people could now use whichever of the three they felt like in the moment.

There was no attempt to listen to female need or argument. Not even a discussion about could there be times or slots when female only was permitted. No, male people had to conquer that space, own it, control it. As a result, an orthodox Jewish woman who was a regular pool users lost access to any pool at all so that these male people could have all three options. No one's noticed or counted how many other females lost access altogether so male people could have access to everything.

A woman is currently seeking legal advice on the fact that her local rape crisis centre, funded by her taxes, provides three separate options for male people however they identify: a male option, a trans specific option and a mixed sex women's group. They cannot and will not provide any option at all for female people who cannot access the one single option of the mixed sex women's group. Why will they not?

Because male people refuse to tolerate female people having a resource of their own. They would prefer to see female rape victims go without help than tolerate that some females need spaces that cannot revolve around male need and be all the time under male control and focus.

This greed, this absolute inability to see females as human, is what has driven me and many other women to saying, I am done with trying to make this work. Female people need single sex things, strictly gate kept, and this sex segregation has been proved necessary by these events. Because here we see, yet again, mixed sex resources do not work for all female people ^because male people will dominate the resources, have little care or respect for females that allows sharing, and are unable to see females as equally human'.

In a couple of hundred years when maybe male people have managed to get past this, they can come and talk to females about mixed sex provision. But frankly, stopping permitting female people to have single sex provision because male people don't want them to have it is about the biggest reason you could point to as why females need single sex spaces, protected and gatekept by law. Because male people will not be extending them any such courtesy voluntarily.

This has been asked time and again. WHY? Why the access to female only spaces when there is already a unisex and a male space?

The answer can only be that it is the FEMALE space which provides the much needed validation. BUT..............It's really not the space itself that is the attraction, its the FEMALES inside it, who provide the validation therein. A space without females in it is just a space.

It's not enough that they have that space, they are have to have the acceptance (willing or otherwise) of the females in it.

TWAW! That's what they believe, so that's why they insist on accessing the spaces they believe they are entitled to.
Which is why I'm convinced that millions spent on building third spaces for trans people will be an exercise in name only, and largely lie unused.

What do you expect transwomen to do then? Should they not just be extended as much as they possible can within reason?

I expect transwomen to accept that the 'within reason' parameters should only ever be set by biological women. I expect that to accept that we live in a misogynistic society and their sense of entitlement to be the ones deciding what is 'within reason' is a clear expression of their male privilege. I expect them to listen to the answers which women have already given re: giving up female-protected spaces and try and sort out the problems which toxic masculinity is presenting for some males rather than demanding that women give up all rights in order to sort it out for them.