I'm not a woman - which facilities should I use

[Whatiswrongwithmyknee]

Genuinely interested to hear what supporters of gender ideology would recommend here. I am biologically female but do not identify as a woman. I am officially trans though in reality I don't think I am the sort of person Stonewall meant to refer to in their definition of trans (I am gender critical - which for those who have been misled by some made-up definitions, to me means that sometimes sex, rather than gender, matters. It is not an anti-trans stance).

The question is - which facilities should I use? I should not be in the ladies if that is defined by identity but using the men's does not feel right either. How do gender ideologists suggest I negotiate this?

I am open to the idea that some others have what they call a gender identity so I don't think I don't believe in it - more that I don't feel it. Judging it or not is irrelevant to the question of which facilities agender people should use according to those who do feel it.

To be clear, I'm not saying I'm trans, I'm just applying the Stonewall criteria to myself and that's where we get to.

Yes some people would consider me transphobic because I believe that we have evidence that sex matters. Lots and lots and lots of it.

Again I think you are confused. The TW in the toilet and stonewall will think that everyone has a gender identity as they think that there is such a thing as sex and and such a thing as gender identity and sex doesn't have a role to play in gender identity. They will believe that if people don't buy into that then they are mistaken (or transphobic, or right wing or whatever).

A trans woman in the women toilet thinks they are female as they believe that 'identifying as a woman' makes them female. If the women in the toilet all started saying this is rubbish, we don't identity as women we JUST are women because of our bodies, the TW would 1) think they are mistaken or 2) think they are transphobic. They'd probably say 'your belief you are a woman is in (in my view) the same as having a female gender identity'.

You might not call yourself a woman, but you ARE in fact a woman. So you go to the ladies. It’s quite simple really, no need to over complicate with circular meaningless word salad.

I'm less interested in where Stonewall would fit you in (the answer is gender neutral toilets which are for non binary people - that is why they want them as the current binary system doesn't matter) than I am in understanding what it means to be 'agender'.

I have no idea what it means to 'not feel like a woman' (i.e. not identity as a woman) but accept that bodies and the fact you have a female one (periods, menopause, birth, oestrogen) is important.

Surely as a female sexed person whatever you feel are the feelings of a woman, so it's quite simple to say you are a woman. Not identifying as a womanseems rather peverse, as if you're just rejecting stereotypical ideas of womanhood - which myself and lots of other people would also agree with.

I do know one general queer person (gender neutral) quite well and theyseemed more or less indistinguishable to all the lesbians I know. Gender neutrality seems to be to reinforce stereotypes not challenge them.

Please do explain.

Sorry about the typos. Makes it hard to follow me.

And finally.

I thought the whole point of promoting gender neutral toilets is so that people who don't what to have to wee with others according to their sex but according to their feelings about themselves (identity) can do so, in comfort.

Gender neutral toilets would also accommodate people who are gender neutral i.e. yourself.

Stonewall would probably hold you up as an excellent example of why gender neutral toilets are necessary.

THey'd say you are in a difficult position precisely because binary toilets don't work for people like you. In fact, in answer to the. question "where should you wee, stonewall" , the answer is in their advocacy for gender neutral toilets.

However, as you actually think sex matters, then you can just go on ahead and use the women - where you will be welcomed and where you clearly belong. Just don't let on to the stonewall people tell you that sex matters, because when they understand they think that, they'll think all the stuff about being agender is guff, and label you a terf in sheeps clothing.

I think some people are still not getting it. The word salad is not mine. It is Stonewall/other TWAW supporters

Of course I know that most people consider me a woman. I have a female body and it functions like every other female body.

But Stonewall/ other TWAW supporters say that this does not make me a woman. I don't think it's perverse to say I don't identify as a woman because this concept of 'identify is' as a foundation stone to the whole idea that TWAW. Knowing I have a female body and being very happy to use the word 'woman' to describe myself as a woman when the word simple means adult human female is very different from a sense of 'identifying as a woman'. This sense of 'identifying as' does a lot of heavy lifting for TWAW supporters but as people like Eddie Izzard can 'identify as' a woman this term is NOT being used to describe someone who simply is an adult human female.

I was really happy to go to the ladies..until I found men in them.

Hmm, the problem for Stonewall would be that because I believe sex matters, I can't disregard the actual physical risk which females are exposed to when not provided with single sex spaces.

I nearly left a course because of their gender neutral toilets which just left me in an isolated area of the building with a man in very close proximity. It felt very unsafe.

However, as you actually think sex matters, then you can just go on ahead and use the women - where you will be welcomed and where you clearly belong. Just don't let on to the stonewall people tell you that sex matters, because when they understand they think that, they'll think all the stuff about being agender is guff, and label you a terf in sheeps clothing.

Their ability to assume that everyone who does not feel the things they do is pretending is an amazing level of arrogance. There's nothing in their definitions to suggest I cant' be trans, agender, non-binary and believe that sex sometimes matters.

I guess you have to ask yourself why you say you were happy to go to the ladies until you found men in them.

Maybe everyone cut all the pomo crap. If you got born with a male body, you use the men's. Because you're a man. And if you got born with a female body, you use the women's.

All genders welcome whatever! Same as all star signs welcome, whatever!

But we go by what sex your body is, for places and situations where sexed bodies are important. E.g. women's prisons, women's sports, changing rooms, toilets, jobs, political and professional "Women's Officers/Representatives",etc.

"the problem for Stonewall would be that because I believe sex matters, I can't disregard the actual physical risk which females are exposed to when not provided with single sex spaces."

This is not a problem for Stonewall. This is a problem for you. Stonewall willput the needs of trans people to feel 'comfortable' over the needs of a biological woman to feel safe.
If you insist that you feel at threat in a gender neutral space, and say you think single sex spaces are safer (and if you believe it's sex, that you think therefore TW should stay out of them) then you are again just transphobic (in their view) and stonewall will have no reason to engage with you.
They'll say there's nothing wrong with their logic. Just something wrong with you. I think they'd question also your understanding of the nature of gender neutrality.

I also think you're also going to have to define what you mean by "(biological) sex matters".
Stonewall will say it matters in some areas e.g. whether or not you need period products,
but will reject the idea that actually menstruating//reproduction/menopause are in any way necessary to the experience of being a woman.
If you think that's bollocks, as I do, then I'd say you're not 'agender' but a woman, who feels connected to her body, and doesn't feel bound by stereotypes

So I guess Stonewall would say that although sex matters in that females menstruate, give birth etc. all the discrimination which is built on this does not matter or does not exist?

It doesn't matter what words they use - i.e. if the menstruating etc. is not essential to the experience of being a woman, the discrimination secondary to this could still happen. If they are saying it doesn't, it would be good to be clear so we can examine the evidence to support those opposing views.

I guess Stonewall are asking (demanding) that people detach from the idea that your body defines your gender. Once we do that though, how many Stonewall approved women actually are there?

Well yes, obviously. That's the problem. This is exactly why so many people, like myself, find the trans debate so infuriating. I don't understand why men being allowed to shrug on a woman's identity as if it were a pretty little dress is any less offensive than Rachel Dolezal claiming she's black. Stonewall would say sex and race are different - that there is a communality and a history of oppression in being black that can't just be appropriated by a white person. But I'd say you can't appropriate women's experience either!! it's insulting. And belittling. And dangerous.

Are they saying there's no commonality and history of oppression for females? That would seem odd seeing as it was explicitly built into our legal systems.

Well, yes. People like the current Stonewall, and many others, fail to recognise history, and it is a very very long history, of women being oppressed, and even enslaved by men. All over the globe.

I don't know what they say

but if you think that it is offensive to assume a racial identity

but not offensive to assume a gender identity

then you are saying there is not parity between the two

and everything I have read about why people feel Rachel Dolezal (or anyone claiming to be trans-racial) is offensive speaks about the unspeakable racism of appropriating black experience

And I don't understand why anyone could not see that there is an equivalence in the oppression of women over the centuries and across the globe, and why no one is worried about appropriating that (I'm less worried about trans men, as identifying up the power structure is less offensive than identifying down).

do feel free to add it to your questions you want to raise with stonewall.

Also re your (faux?) shock at the idea of body and identity being divided - that's why there is a whole argument that lesbians who won't sleep with trans women are actually transphobic (i.e. they do not accept that it is legitimate to have a sex based rather than a gender based sexual preference).

Also how agender are you if you are sharing in the history and experience of being female. How agender are you if you want single sex toilets because you get worried if you are not in a female only space? By acknowledging the potential threat of men, by having to live with the threat of male violence, you are living like a woman. I still don't have any idea what you mean by agender.

Are you saying Stonewall says that if you identify as female or male, use the toilets that align with that identity but they don’t specify which toilets to use if you don’t identify as F or M ?
I am so confused 😒

I liked the "genderfree" thing we had, briefly, a few years ago! There was a poster on here whose work could send LGBTQI++ on a course, so she applied on account of being "genderfree"!

I wonder where she is now!

Gender ideology just doesn't make any sense in the real world, where we have real women and real men and real children.

And given the very recent revelations about Mermaids, never mind anything else - it seems a very nonce adjacent point of view.

Exactly. The OP is saying" I don't identify as any gender (agender) and therefore I can't choose a toilet based on my gender. What would stonewall have to say about that." The OP thinks that this reveals a flaw in the 'gender ideologues' (stonewall being used as a shorthand for this) argument.

However, it doesn't really. Stonewall would say, "join us in advocating for gender free or gender neutral toilets".

At some point they would realise that the OP seems to actually believe that single sex spaces are quite important and that sex does matter, in which case the stonewall supporters are going to question the OP commitment to being 'agender' and stop engaging.

But rather than engage in ever more convoluted thinking; can't we just say that Women's sports, facilities, prisons, changing rooms, toilets etc, are just for women, born women, female sex.

And provide men's and/or third spaces for the dissemblers?

Just keep women's rights and facilities for women. Don't care what the various men would then argue amongst themselves.

Yes. That's what I want. That's what a lot of us want. But in so doing we are branded as transphobic. because we are denying the right of trans people to fully identify with the gender of their choosing. because at heart I believe that sex matters and the 'gender ideologues' claim that they don't.