Men’s loos are unsafe for MTF

[Allthegoodnamesarechosen]

So last night at the jubilee street party I canvassed opinion from some men, as wide an age range as I could. I asked them what they would do if they encountered a MTF person in a mans loo or changing room.

The consensus seemed to be ‘ it depends on them’. If they looked like a woman, that is, they were smaller than most men, slightly framed, dressed in an appropriate way they would expect a woman to be in the venue where they were for example a supermarket or a cinema , they would just point out that this was the ‘gents’. Most would be taken aback but not cross.

If there was some cognitive dissonance, that is, if the person had a masculine build and heft * whilst being dressed in what one referred to as a ‘girly’ way, so not unisex jeans and trainers, they would ‘ zip up and bolt’ . They might try to use a cubicle.

No one proposed attacking or even challenging them. ‘ keep well clear, you don’t know what might happen’ was the response to the suggestion of confrontation.

Of course it was a small sample, in a middle class area with middle aged men. But they seemed to feel threatened rather than threatening.

*when I suggested that some women might present convincingly as a man in that situation, they laughed!

@Roseglen84

The same pattern of violence? Was this from the Swedish study? The authors refuted these interpretations.

👋hi Stella

Yes.

Hobgoblin, cross as I have been with some of the posts you've made today, I truly applaud anyone who survives such experiences, puts themselves through therapy and genuinely tries to overcome thinking patterns.

I do wonder, though, whether there's a risk of overriding your own risk assessment system in the interests of being kind, or having already experienced awful things.

Refusing to live with a victim mentality is one thing; refusing to recognise vulnerabilities (and thereby increasing the likelihood of harm) is quite another.

So because I think differently to you - then all of what I am saying has to be fabricated? I am seeing now why you can't imagine another human beings sense of self is any more valid than your own.

You could just answer the question and demonstrate the knowledge of safeguarding that you claim.

You must be aware that limiting opportunities for sexual predators to access their victims means that you can't just assume that someone is not a predator? You have to treat them as if they might be.

@TastefulRainbowUnicorn

Oh I get it now... You're representing ALL Womens views now?

My view stated here represent my own. I do not reflect other Womens views or experiences.

I said something very similar to your original comment when I first came on this board.

Now I realise that if even I, lucky as I am in having had few genuinely unpleasant experiences with men, feel a little uncomfortable, then perhaps I need to think about those women who have had appalling experiences, and would find the situation truly impossible.

Personally, I think we need to put the needs of women who are unable to use spaces with men in them above the claims of men who would like to use women’s spaces. The rights clash is obvious and I think those who have been in those spaces all their lives because they are female, should have priority.

If there are some male people who feel unable to use male spaces, they should respect the fact that their wish to move out of male spaces does not give them the right to displace women who need their own spaces. If those men need a new space, separate from other men, then they need to work towards that.

Stonewall and all the other trans charities have used huge sums of money campaigning to put men in women’s spaces. Had they used that money to campaign for, or even provide, safe spaces for those men, it seems likely they would have progressed quite a long way towards making those people safer.

(also, of course I don't think anyone else's sense of self is more valid than my own. )

Stonewall themselves include cross dressers under their trans umbrella.

No-one is making this up.

Why are you so ready to dismiss the feelings inside a woman's head to accommodate the feelings in a man's head?

My view stated here represent my own. I do not reflect other Womens views or experiences.

Yes, that is abundantly clear. The comment you are responding to states that other women who have different boundaries than you also deserve to be respected.

Do you believe that other women deserve to have their boundaries respected?

So @HobgoblinGold

Sex based violence doesn't exist and is a figment of women's imaginations? There are no cases of TW sexually assaulting women in shared spaces? There are no men who share pictures on Reddit of them dressing up and masturbating in women's toilets and changing rooms?

When women are subject to sexual assault, they are often quizzed on what "risky" behaviours they adopted - were you alone, were you drunk, was it dark etc etc. Women are always told that they have to try to manage their own risk alone, otherwise they are to blame for male violence. But according to you, women who might have been sexually assaulted already have an unjustified fear when they try to find single sex spaces as a refuge from men?

@NancyDrawed

I try not to ignore my instinct. But if I had a view based solely on how someone looked - yeah id question this.

The same way that I'd like to think that all people working with kids aren't paedophiles- however, we still put in place extra levels of safeguarding and crb checks to be sure, and even then some wrong 'uns fall through the cracks.

Unfortunately life isn't always that rosey, and there are a number of people who will take advantage of this "it's okay for all (as long as we try and look feminine) to use the ladies facilities" to be nefarious. So, for now, I'm quite happy that we stand together for men to be educated to be more tolerant in their spaces, as opposed to women being called names if they don't want biological men in theirs.

@HobgoblinGold

You are coming across to me as someone who feels a great deal of empathy with people (in this thread, men) with crippling gender dysphoria. People who might find their life more bearable if they can be accepted as the opposite sex to the reality of their biology. Who would want to deny that?

I was you not that many years ago. Then I discovered that transwoman is not the same as transsexual woman and that there are plenty of men who hate women, who are delighted that they can cloak their hatred of women in 'trans rights' and pretend they are being progressive.

Genuine question - would you object to a man in a space meant to be female only and labelled as such?

Dhejne wobbled, because she didn’t like the fact that her results were being used by those arguing to deny her patients the access she wants them to have.

She is, however, unable to refute her own finding, that even male transsexuals who are undergoing a process of medical transition, continue to criminally offend at the same level as other males.

It's not about how they look - it's that they are willing to violate women's boundaries. Most people don't care how someone dresses, what they call themselves etc. But if a male person enters a single sex space (toilet, changing room, refuge, prison etc.) they are invading women's spaces and don't belong.

Nothing to do with how they look, to do with their behaviour.

@Roseglen84

So I think differently and therefore I think like a man? Riiiight

The authors did NOT refute the interpretations of their study.

See: murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2022/05/20/has-the-scottish-government-undertaken-any-further-analysis-on-gender-recognition-reform-since-2019/

@Wifwolf

Fair enough

But your own admission a man can think he is a woman, and must therefore be accepted as a woman - how is that any less ridiculous?

@datun

Ok - how and when transwomen are classified - I find this a difficult concept to think through in terms of ensuring the rights and safety for all.

Or @HobgoblinGold

Would you allow your 9 year old daughter into female only facilities on her own to use the toilet? Say, in a restaurant

If so, would you send her into unisex facilities alone directly following a man?

If not, would you send her into female facilities alone after a man wearing a wig and lipstick?

@unwashedanddazed

Because a man who has gone through the work to actually use a woman's space as he feels like a woman (I don't mean this to sound as flippant as it might read) adoesn't need my prejudice to make her day that little more shit. I guess it's not about male and femaleness in this capacity, but just being kind?

HobgoblinGold. Male pattern violence doesn't change with transitioning. The sorts of areas that are being targeted are specifically where women are quite vulnerable. Toilets with knickers round ankles, undressed in changing rooms, incarcerated in prison, recovering from male violence in rape refuges, unwell on hospital wards.

can you really not see why women would like female only spaces under certain circumstances?