‘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.

1. We were led to believe all transwomen were homosexual males with no dicks. So threat of rape lowered.

2. We noticed and may well have sometimes minded but point 1.

3. We thought homosexual males were our allies.

4. We had empathy for transexuals and points 1 and 3.

5. "It's always happened" isn't always a great argument. See the treatment of women, people with disabilities and black people since forever.

6. "You didn't mind before" is also a lame argument for anyone who understands consent.

7. I thought trans rights ideology was "progressive" anyway? Make your mind up!

@DameHelena

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

It's one of the talking points that's already covered on the GCritical site.

gcritical.org/trans-people-have-been-using-womens-bathrooms-for-years-and-it-has-done-no-harm/

@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 know a transwoman - they are very obviously male - receding hairline, Adams apple, hands like shovels, very obviously male gait. If they walked past you in the ladies loo you very much would know that they were born male. They are very fond of 'girlie chats' about make-up and fish for compliments. They don't belong in the ladies.

I don't believe anybody born male has the right use female facilities (the only exception is a young child when they cannot use toilets on their own.) Similarly I do not believe that anybody born female has the right to use male facilities (the only exception is a young child when they cannot use toilets on their own.)
I apply my views both ways.

@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.

Don’t kid yourself.

Woman know.
It’s a basic fact of self-preservation that we recognise other women. And that recognising a man is in a woman’s space makes women feel uneasy.

And we don’t rave on about a complete strangers “beautiful hair”, regardless of their sex, far less notice their lipstick. Cos that’s just wierd and would make a woman uncomfortable.

A trans woman I know recently shared dma 'lipstick anecdote' story about how it made them feel accepted into the female fold. Apparently random compliments about hair and make up are park of what makes us women. .

As I was reading it all I could think was 'which women speak to each other in toilets when they aren't pissed?'. It just isn't a thing.

When you say "Transwomen have been using women's facilities for years"

What you are really saying is "they have been ignoring women's boundaries, thoughts and feelings for years".

I minded in the past with old-school transexuals. No one asked me for my opinion or my consent.

I continue to mind now.

The reality is, that in years gone by, when trans = transexual and there were far fewer men claiming a trans identity, women clocked an outsider in our spaces and either kept quiet through kindness or fear.

I've frequently argued that #BeKind is a gendered behavioural control. Kathleen Stock on kindness elaborates this and takes it much further in a thought provoking way. Colluding with an immersive fiction isn't necessarily an act of kindness. Particularly when the impact of the kindness is considered in the round and not just from the perspective of the individual for whom people are valorised for being kind to them.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4514337-Kathleen-Stock-on-kindness

Even if transwomen have been using women's spaces for years (which I doubt), they certainly haven't been doing it legally. It's like if I got stopped by the police driving 85mph on the motorway, and in my defence I say "Well I've been driving 85mph on this road for years and no one's ever complained before". It has ALWAYS been against the rules for males to use female-only facilities. Just because some people have got away with it in the past, or others turned a blind eye, that doesn't mean it was allowed.

I’ve genuinely only ever been asked things like ‘where did you get your shoes?’ By people I already know. Like if I’m dressed up for a party, a friend might say ‘your hair is gorgeous’ or ‘where did you get this dress?’ Because it’s sort of expected as they know I’ve dressed up. I might say similar back.

I’ve never ever had a stranger ask me anything like that, and if someone in a public toilet asked what lipstick shade I was wearing I’d think they were a bit odd or sort of creepy to be honest.

@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.

There was a transwoman in the local supermarket toilets when I went in earlier this week. I didn't have the confidence to say anything at the time. "She" probably assumed that either I didn't notice or that I was fine with it. I did, and I wasn't.

It used to be rare, but now people are taking the piss.

It's like people feeding ponies. One kid a week providing a handful of fresh grass over the fence is unlikely to be a problem for even the most delicate of equine digestions. Masses of clueless walkers appear, encouraging their kids to feed the pony their bloody sandwiches, and up go the signs telling the world that Dobbin is on a special diet and not to feed him at all, ever.

One polite transexual in the ladies every now and again, polite nods exchanged. Man with his cock out in a female spa, women unsurprisingly lose their shit and privileges are revoked.

@Hercisback

A trans woman I know recently shared dma 'lipstick anecdote' story about how it made them feel accepted into the female fold. Apparently random compliments about hair and make up are park of what makes us women. .

As I was reading it all I could think was 'which women speak to each other in toilets when they aren't pissed?'. It just isn't a thing.

And, maybe it's me, but I'm wary of speaking with people who are drunk because comments can be misconstrued and people's moods can turn on a sixpence (or whatever the updated version of that is).

I wouldn't initiate a conversation with a drunk stranger and particularly not in the enclosed space of public lavatories.

These scenarios may be part of an immersive fiction for some people but they're not part of my reality.

@twelly

I don't believe anybody born male has the right use female facilities (the only exception is a young child when they cannot use toilets on their own.) Similarly I do not believe that anybody born female has the right to use male facilities (the only exception is a young child when they cannot use toilets on their own.) I apply my views both ways.

Again it's about risk. Why don't mothers want their young male child to use the men's toilets on their own? Because of the risk of predators to that child in the men's. Those children will not pose a risk to women in the women's toilets, particularly as they are being chaperoned by their mother.

@Zerogravity

1) trans used to mean transexuals and there were very few so most people would not encounter them. Nowadays it is clear that there are a lot of chancers who just like to frighten women by insisting they're women too. 2) just because they did, doesn't mean women were happy about it. We weren't consulted and we are now saying no.

This.

When I was a teen, if I encountered a creepy man hanging around in a nightclub/pub ladies toilet, I could go fetch a bouncer and have the creep thrown out. Now I’d get told to “be kind” and not be a bigot, and the creep’s feelings would be prioritised over mine. Right until I got sexually assaulted at which point I’d be told I hadn’t been, like that poor woman who was raped in her hospital ward by a man who identified as a woman, and the victim was told by the hospital and police that she hadn’t been raped as rape is a male crime and ‘there were no men there’.

Women’s spaces weren’t invented for fun. They were created in every culture that’s ever existed to keep women safe from the creeps who harass and rape us. Once you open the door to men who identify as women, you also open the door to any man who wants to be in a small enclosed space with women where she can’t easily call for help. And there are unfortunately a LOT of men like that.

I was in the Middle East recently, the event had a bouncer whose sole job was defending the ladies’ toilets from all the creeps trying to sidle into it to perve at the women. I felt vaguely jealous of the protection those women were being given.

'You can't withdraw consent' is not a compelling argument, even if I had been allowed to give it in the first place.

@Kanaloa

I’ve genuinely only ever been asked things like ‘where did you get your shoes?’ By people I already know. Like if I’m dressed up for a party, a friend might say ‘your hair is gorgeous’ or ‘where did you get this dress?’ Because it’s sort of expected as they know I’ve dressed up. I might say similar back.

I’ve never ever had a stranger ask me anything like that, and if someone in a public toilet asked what lipstick shade I was wearing I’d think they were a bit odd or sort of creepy to be honest.

Seriously? How sad? I give and get compliments all the time. Is that not normal?

Seriously? How sad? I give and get compliments all the time. Is that not normal?

I'm interested in the compliments you get all the time from strangers and in settings such as public washrooms.

Seriously? How sad? I give and get compliments all the time. Is that not normal?

QED

@CatherinaJTV

You share compliments about lipstick and shoes with strangers in the toilet? I don’t know if it’s normal but certainly not my experience.

Sharing compliments with my family/friends/colleagues of course I do regularly. MIL in particular seems to try and compliment me no matter how bad I look 😂 but random people in the toilet, no that’s not been my experience.

Seriously? How sad? I give and get compliments all the time. Is that not normal?

No it's not normal for women to be doing that in the toilet. Seeing as it isn't normal, I guess you are therefore making the first move and commenting on other women's presentation whilst standing next to them by the wash basins.

Weird.

Although I think I was pretty clear in my post that I give and get compliments a lot from people I know, just rarely from ladies in the toilet.

'Seriously? How sad? I give and get compliments all the time. Is that not normal?'

It was when I was sixteen. Now I'm an adult I rush in and out of the toilet carrying my shopping and my kids' school stuff. I don't notice other people's shoes.

@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.

Ha, as if that ever happens. Even if we dont clock them as men which is highly unlikely but just assume that your friend passes, who tf compliments women on their hair. Ffs never happened to me yet in a toilet or changing room. And shoes? Dont make me laugh, I've got some splendid shoes and boots and yes people do ask where I got them, but its never been said in the toilet.