‘Trans women have been using women's spaces for years’

[DameHelena]

What does one say to this argument? I’m instinctively sceptical but I don’t know if I’m right to be.

For the women saying it doesn't bust you - do you understand what AGPs are and do you think all TW are the same? Are you aware that a sizeable number of men who say they are TW are straight men who have a fetish for invading your privacy and for masturbating in women's toilets? Are you ok with these men being in the same toilet young girls?

Do you understand that there have already been assaults in bathrooms by TW of young girls?

Does it still not bother you, and if not, why not?

www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/4002789/morrisons-sex-attack-girl-fife-transgender-katie-dolatowski/

@LittleWhingingWoman

For the women saying it doesn't bust you - do you understand what AGPs are and do you think all TW are the same? Are you aware that a sizeable number of men who say they are TW are straight men who have a fetish for invading your privacy and for masturbating in women's toilets? Are you ok with these men being in the same toilet young girls?

Do you understand that there have already been assaults in bathrooms by TW of young girls?

Does it still not bother you, and if not, why not?

www.thescottishsun.co.uk/news/4002789/morrisons-sex-attack-girl-fife-transgender-katie-dolatowski/

Should say bother not bust!

@OutlookStalking

Hmmm how much of this "asking about random womans lipsticknshade" etc really happens in womans loos ? Never happens to me!

Well that’s what being a woman is all about hun. It’s about complimenting each other’s beautiful hair and outfits and swapping lipstick shades in the ladies facilities. I mean not me because I’m wrangling four kids in and out and usually wearing jeans a hoodie for running between work and uni and kids’ schools and clubs. But proper women.

There is a trans person who worked in my local Debenhams in the ladies department though. I generally avoided if they were in the changing rooms as I don’t really like changing with unknown men/penis having people around. Wouldn’t mind in one of the changing rooms with walls and doors etc but it was a curtain type of changing room. Closed down now though.

I get the feeling we are supposed to think Tw are doing “woman” more authentically than those of us who menstruate, birth, breast feed, and menopause as part of our lived experience while getting on with being a person. I’m utterly unremarkable among my friends but reading some of this nonsense we’d all be gender nonconformity because the “gender” being acted out is like no woman I know.

Yes I get that. This idea of gender is foreign to me in almost every way. Listening to these people describe how it feels to ‘be a woman’ perplexes me. It’s like I’m too busy being a woman to perform femininity.

I like it when women swish their hair in slow motion from one shoulder to the other, I think only women can do that.

@5zeds

I get the feeling we are supposed to think Tw are doing “woman” more authentically than those of us who menstruate, birth, breast feed, and menopause as part of our lived experience while getting on with being a person. I’m utterly unremarkable among my friends but reading some of this nonsense we’d all be gender nonconformity because the “gender” being acted out is like no woman I know.

Exactly this.

"trans women have been using women's spaces for years"

This is a silly, pointless argument. Imagine if we said:

Women have been denied the vote for years, so it is ok.

Homosexuality has been illegal for years, and no one has complained.

Marital rape has always been legal, what's the problem?

See what I mean?

@VampireMoney

My best friend is a transwoman. You'd walk past her in the loos and never even know she's trans. You might even compliment her on her beautiful hair or her outfit or ask where she got her shoes. She might say she loves your lipstick shade. And you'd go on with your day not knowing you'd spoken to a transwoman.

Get. A. Grip.

Totally missing the point. And yes, I’d immediately notice a man pretending to be a woman who did this because I can’t remember the last time I complimented a random real woman on the shade of her lipstick

"but you had sex with me LAST week!"

@VampireMoney

My best friend is a transwoman. You'd walk past her in the loos and never even know she's trans. You might even compliment her on her beautiful hair or her outfit or ask where she got her shoes. She might say she loves your lipstick shade. And you'd go on with your day not knowing you'd spoken to a transwoman.

Get. A. Grip.

I've never had a conversation like that in the loos with a woman.

On the other hand, when I was on Bumble looking to make new female friends (on the friendship section) the transwomen stood out a mile by declaring they wanted girlie friends to talk about make-up and clothes with, as if that's all women do. They didn't say they were transwomen, it was transparently obvious even with the heavily photoshopped and overmade up photos.

@OnceMoreWithoutFeeling

"but you had sex with me LAST week!"

oof

I think we need to be clear that not making a fuss doesn’t mean we are ok with something.

A different subject- when I was in my young twenties I was often groped in pubs by men. I felt embarrassed and hurried away. It was a bit shameful and I often didn’t mention it when I got back to my friends. I didn’t want to make a fuss.

I would hate some bloke to think “well, I’ve been groping women in pubs and none have them have minded so why should I stop?” Because I was too nervous to say anything.

Anyway, I grew out of it and became comfortable challenging and drawing attention to it as I got older.

I don’t believe my experiences are unique- I expect many women here have been through it.

Also, I’ve often helped out at work/school/general life when I’ve not wanted to because I didn’t feel I could say no. Not because I’ve been ok with it but because somehow I couldn’t think how to stand up for myself.

Fair play, I should have worked on myself (and have since) and learned strategies to say no. But none of it mean I was ok with situations just that I was too scared to say I wasn’t.

I understand this is pretty common. Why is this any different?

@GromblesofGrimbledon

Well we're well passed the stage of the very occasional Hayley Cropper nipping into the loos, aren't we?

#WhereAreAllTheHayleyCroppers

Very good example really. A woman played the part not a man. Why? Because the character needed to look like a woman.

There is a difference between admitting that TW have been present in single sex spaces for some time, and ignoring, denying or repealing the law that allows them to be excluded where legitimate and proportionate.

There are no laws about who is allowed to enter a toilet. I can enter a men's toilet and not be breaking any laws.

But if I see a man in the women's toilets, there is also no law that prevents me saying, 'You're a man. The men's toilets are over there.'

And if I'm arrested at a protest, I am entitled to be searched by a female officer, and that means biologically female.

I am also entitled to request same-sex care, single-sex wards etc. But there have been obfuscatory tactics used to try to take these rights away from me.

@aylis

How I approach using female spaces with my daughter in terms of how I assess risk for her and her steps towards independence has absolutely changed.

100 percent. My young daughter who is old enough to go into a womens toilet alone is now not. She uses the disabled toilets when she is with her father. He has a key as he is a wheelchair user.

I don't know how I will deal with this when she's a teen!

And in the past I would only ever see trans people using women's toilets in bars or nightclubs not in McDonalds

@VampireMoney

My best friend is a transwoman. You'd walk past her in the loos and never even know she's trans. You might even compliment her on her beautiful hair or her outfit or ask where she got her shoes. She might say she loves your lipstick shade. And you'd go on with your day not knowing you'd spoken to a transwoman.

Get. A. Grip.

A stranger noticing my lipstick in the toilets would make me think twice, to be honest. It's not how women tend to behave.

Main difference I can see is that "back then" it was just a relatively rare, personal and unremarked upon thing...old school TW just quietly did their thing and we did ours and we rubbed along. There wasn't this "in your face" political and media frenzy that comes across as a fight that we weren't looking for because we had enough going on but which we are now goaded into engaging with. The goal posts were fairly set, but now they've been moved so often and in so many directions that it has generated in us an instinctive wariness that many didn't feel because the aggression wasn't really there - or I never encountered it. Now social media is full of demands on women to accept everything and everybody on their own terms, but should we politely demur, even in the spirit of compromise, all hell breaks loose and it can affect employment, safety, sanity and our sense of reality.

That's the difference, and it negatively affects women and trans people alike.

Divide and rule of a most insidious stripe.

Recently I was about to go into the women's toilets in a pub when a bog-standard, middle aged bloke in front of me made to go in there too.
I said 'this is the ladies - the gents is over there.'
He gave me a look, muttered something (not an apology) and headed to the gents.But I reckon if i hadn't said anything he would have gone in there, deliberately. Because it's transgressive and he wanted a thrill. or something
He wasn't at all put out or embarrassed. Yuck.

The examples given above (hair/make-up/shoes) of how women tend to interact with each other show something up fairly clearly: the fantasy isn't of being a woman, it's of being a young woman.

There are very few posts online that elevate the realities of living in a female-sexed body during the 'ordinary' years - motherhood, menopause, widowhood, middle-aged spread, caring for elderly relatives and grandchildren - to the status of fantasy.

It's all flicking hair in the mirror in public bathrooms and chatting about lipstick. That stage lasts about five years, then it's adulthood.

I've always found the argument 'well, we've been ignoring women's boundaries for ages so just shut up about it!' a very strange argument.

That level of entitlement and disregard towards women's feelings doesn't exactly fill me with hope that other boundaries will be respected.

@Manekinek0

It is a common occurrence in our local city. It doesn't bother me in the slightest. But I understand it maybe an issue for other women and I can't ignore their concerns.

This is the most important post on this thread. I don’t personally care if there’s a man in my toilet as I’m not afraid to challenge if I need to any more. My entirely theoretical consent however cannot be considered transferable. I can’t say yes on behalf of any other woman and nor would I want to. Why is it that other women do?

Exactly @internetpersonme. One of my daughters activities has ‘inclusive’ facilities now. Before lockdown I was fine with my daughter using the toilets on her own before or after the activity. Now since they developed their policy, I judge that it’s safer for her to sit in the waiting area on her own while I use the toilets, than it is for me to wait in the waiting area while she uses the toilets. The difference is men in women’s spaces. Simple as that. Somewhere, there is a man who would exploit these policies while young girl children are in the building. That LGBT organisations are refusing to address this head on - or even acknowledge it - makes me more resistant to drawing any distinction. It’s not me harming trans people, it’s their own community.