@Fenlandia
Thank you TedMullins for your good faith reply upthread. I've always struggled to understand what it
is a trans person is identifying with. Obviously my bafflement can't be resolved with a Mumsnet thread, but how is it not just projecting whatever stereotypes or conditioning you've picked up in your life about the sex you want to be? How can you feel female without being in a female body? (And likewise for trans men)
And while acknowledging the fact that gender dysphoria must be distressing, why does it then follow that trans people should be exempt from the sex-based social norms (eg around nudity, men's and women's changing rooms etc) and safeguarding that everyone else has to adhere to? It's not just a British thing that women don't want to be naked or sleeping in a room with men they don't know.
I'm not expecting a detailed answer Ted, but please try and understand why women on this board can't just disregard centuries of male violence and harassment, and our own life experiences.
Hello, thanks for this reasoned and polite question (genuinely, I know it’s hard to read tone on here but this is what I would call a measured discussion!)
Ok, so I think something at the base of this argument is actually not to do with trans people at all, but a perception of what the universal female experience is, and what we think is the best way forward for society, much in the same way that someone with socialist ideals and someone conservative both think theirs are the best for society but often struggle to understand how the other reaches that conclusion.
In my opinion, I feel that the best way to dismantle repressive and oppressive gender stereotypes is to just try and do away with the idea of gender altogether, and this includes normalising things like bodies, non-sexual nudity where appropriate (I don’t think we should all start being naturists or go out of our way to be nude for the sake of it) and dismantling the perception that a sexual current, or danger, or connection, or power imbalance, or whatever you want to call it, between men and women means they must be segregated.
I will caveat this by saying a gender-free utopia is obviously a very western-centric idea and not applicable to countries where there aren’t even adequate facilities for women to begin with, such as India, where outdoor toileting facilities do present a very real danger to women. But as we know, trans people in these countries also face danger - a Pakistani trans woman was murdered in recent years and in many South American and African countries being any kind of LGBT will lead to possible physical harm or murder. Protection and facilities for women and trans people in these countries will need to be completely different and culturally appropriate. I’m exclusively talking about the UK, because that’s what we’re talking about here, right? This began as a discussion on who to vote for.
Anyway, I digress. So I believe that, from the point that we are at as a liberal western society, dismantling of gender stereotypes and greater freedom for everyone begins with a radical rethink of our attitudes to sex, bodies, and the idea of women and men. In my own personal life and experience, and that of the women (natal women) I keep company with, the idea of wanting sex segregation due to fear of male violence and feeling threatened or in danger by the presence of male bodied people in confined/private spaces is not something we really feel, and not something I internalise as a universal female experience. This is despite having been raped - I do recognise that men as a class pose a danger to women and that for some people, their own experiences with men have led them to a completely different place in terms of worldview, gender politics, advancement of women etc.
I don’t find the idea of mixed spaces to be gratuitous or threatening, but then I don’t find single sex spaces particularly comforting or integral to my life as a woman - many others have spoken about why they do, but clearly this isn’t the universal female experience as I’m not the only one who is unbothered by the idea of trans women using them too.
That doesn’t make me right and you wrong (or vice versa) on a philosophical level, but it means that we are coming from totally different starting points so many arguments fall flat - e.g throwing away women’s rights isn’t something I think I’m doing, because I don’t think trans women are identical to natal men, and I don’t believe women lose anything by accepting them. Similarly, my assertion that trans women aren’t men (even if they aren’t bio women) falls flat with GC ideology because it’s simply unacceptable and unfathomable, and halts any attempt at understanding how a trans inclusive viewpoint can evolve when for you, it falls at the first hurdle.
I feel like in order for a debate to be successfully had, people need to accept these baseline beliefs are different. I feel like I do accept that the GC approach is in part trauma informed and I understand how women get there, I feel like I’ve gone through this in previous posts and personally I just don’t agree. It doesn’t gel with my more general beliefs and ideologies on dismantling a gender-based society more generally.