Women's rights general conversations - Thread 3

[Kucinghitam]

Continuation of Thread 2.

There is so much excellent information and so many active discussions on FWR that I wondered if it would be useful to have a thread to sort of "cross-fertilise" between them - airing little thoughts or vignettes that wouldn't themselves merit their own thread, to highlight other posts/threads of particular interest or to point to notable developments on fast-moving threads so that casual observers know where to look.

(For example, "the X thread has meandered onto a fascinating discussion of Y" or "Poster P's amazing analysis on thread Z might have relevance to the scenario in thread W" or "Has anybody noticed this recurring theme that keeps coming up??" or even "Random bloke asked me to smile while I was choosing onions, grr"- that sort of thing).

I'm reminded of Billy Connelly's Drunk on the Bus routine, which was funny. But this isn't. Sitting next to a women on an empty/nearly empty bus is a threat. What sort of man would do that?

Oh, pretty much any.

"Anyway, on that thread, most MNers (because we're all evil middle-aged bigot hags who have seen it all before) were pretty clear that what a girl should do is firmly get up and move to the front of the bus near the driver. "

When my daughter was sixteen, she had to come home on the Tube. We lived at the end of the tube line and at that time of day it was often fairly empty. She often sat in the front carriage so as to have a shorter walk to get out of the station, and then she walked across a park to get home.

One day she came home in some distress and when I asked what the matter was she said the driver of the train had left the cab and come into the (otherwise empty) carriage and exposed himself to her, clearly masturbating. I immediately rang the police and a policewoman came over and took a statement from her. We later heard that the driver had been fired but there was no court case, I guess because there were no other witnesses and perhaps to spare my daughter from being involved in a trial.

Bloody Nora! That's horrible.

That's horrible, Britinme. I've always preferred public transport to avoid being alone with potentially dubious taxi drivers. I've never worried about train or bus drivers, but obviously they can be just as bad if you end up alone with them.

I doubt it would have happened on a bus!

You're probably right!
😁😁😁

Urgh - your poor daughter even if it was a long time ago.

In other news, this, pinched from another thread, is infuriating.

www.nbcnews.com/nbc-out/out-news/transgender-athlete-wins-discrimination-case-usa-powerlifting-rcna72879

Following her court win, Cooper thanked the trans women who came before her.

“Marsha P. Johnson and the Stonewall riots

Johnson was a gay man who cross-dressed and the Stonewall riots were about police persecution of gay people. History is being re-written

How horrific @Britinme , your poor daughter.

These stories are so common. Also these things can, unfortunately, happen on a bus. When we were in our twenties my friend and I had a man sit behind us touching our hair and fondling himself.

As it was the nightbus the choice was - move, stick it out or get off and face a 40 minute wait or more in the small hours for another bus.

We moved downstairs. We didn't tell anyone because who would we tell? In hindsight the driver? But I think we have remember how much of a potential threat any man is when you are a woman, especially a young woman, out at night.

That's just horrible @Britinme

bignosebignose · Yesterday 18:50

I actually put "be kind" in my reply - asking whether this person was confident that e.g. a primary school age girl, in the circumstances we were discussing, would have the confidence to challenge a situation which made her feel uncomfortable or would just feel obliged to "be kind" if that's what she was being taught/ socialised to do. There was a bit of backtracking.

Bloody Hell, it's just everywhere, isn't it? I've posted a Mail link on the Drag Queen thread, regarding the school in the Isle of Man, it's not just the drag queen, there's worse.

There are at least 5 stories there today, regarding DQSH and school stuff. I think that the wider public is becoming enlightened on the subject and not before time. With this degeneracy and the Pink Legging Rapist, the Genderwoo time may well be moving to its twilight hours, I think.

Britinme · Today 08:38

I'm just lost for words.

It is. Sadly most women have a man wanking in public story. ☹

Sadly most women have a man wanking in public story.

Yes. I always feel I escaped lightly in the scary men/sexual abuse stakes, but when I think back there are flashers and intruders and creeps, and sheer luck has been my only saviour in some of those experiences.

I want to ask a question and it's one I've been cautioned about before, so I'm asking knowing that I might be asked to stop. Willing to learn on this matter.

It's about trans demographics, and I think it's important for many reasons. What I'd like to know is how the population segments by needs, which should lead to a better understanding of the segments (assuming they truly exist and can be reliably identified statistically).

I've not been able to find anything, though I think it obvious from the literature that transwomen are not a heterogeneous grouping. There are, or seem to be, younger (I think) men and boys with significant dysphoria or dysmorphia, whose mental health distress means that transitioning is a valid treatment. There are also older (I think) men who don't have a diagnosable mental health problem (the former category has) who want to present as women for sexual reasons. I'm not sure what other segments there might be or to what extent the categories overlap or develop.

The reason for caution here is that it would be tendentious to start with good-trans and bad-trans. Is that important? How does it help to not know? I can't figure this.

But I do believe that the BeKiiiind advocacy of some women might rest on a belief that a man's paraphilia doesn't play a part in their desire to be in women's spaces. I'd like to know in any case. Any ideas, anyone? Sources, papers?

... and many young boys too.

Britinme· Today 08:38
I can’t imagine how terrifying that was for her.

And to think he will surely have gone on to do more of that when he got similar good opportunities.

A lot more men than we think would pounce if they thought they could get away with it imo.

I have a "man wanking on the bus" story but it's not quite the usual.

I did my Sixth Form abroad and lived in a hostel (the sort for school pupils, very strict, there was a boys' block and a girls' block and never the twain would meet). Every morning, a flood of pupils would pile onto the public buses heading out to their various colleges.

The local pervs had obviously twigged on to this. There came a spate of bus incidents whereby this dodgy bloke would board the crowded bus, select a young victim sitting in the aisle seat, and rub his crotch on their shoulder. The gossip gradually spread around the hostel (particularly those of us on the Bus 154 route) and thus it emerged that this was a serial offender, which was duly reported to the hostel authorities and escalated to the police. With great efficiency, it wasn't very long before the perv was caught and we never had any trouble for the rest of our stay.

The twist was that the perv specifically went for the boys.

@angelico53 I think there is a third group as well, which is genuinely men whose brains are more like women's and who wish to alter their bodies accordingly. There is some research on this but it needs somebody more sciency than me to parse out the results, and it is a small study.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8955456/

and the gropers. Kuci's story isn't untypical, but in my experience growing breasts was regarded as an invitation by far too many men - walking down the street with their pals, oh look, here comes a pair of breasts, lets rub them, ha ha ha!

Long before online porn was thing. Poor kids today.

Raises hand. But what strikes me is that the most egregious examples of sexual harassment that I endured was, like PPs, in public. Walking down the street at rush hour (flashing/masturbating/talking), at a gig (groped in the tight crowd), on the train in an empty carriage (threatening sexual talk/harassment by a group of men egging each other on).

A lot of the public discourse is around semi private areas such as toilets and changing rooms. But women have had to practice situational awareness in public ever since we were old enough to be allowed out of the house without our parents, and it’s not just about getting home safely late at night. Public transport at any time of day. Walking to our car in a quiet car park. Getting in a lift. Hundreds of times a day we have to assess and judge a situation, most of the times subconsciously, and we are extremely experienced at spotting whether the figure in our peripheral vision is a man. And adjusting our actions to ensure our safety.

it frustrates me no end that people can’t see this context and acknowledge that accepting men into the semi-private single sex areas blasts straight through all of this safeguarding. If asked by a man, I explain it by pointing out all of the encouraging noises they make about women keeping themselves safe (unattended drinks, getting taxis, stick together etc), because a small number of men are “bad”, and we can’t tell a “bad” man from looking at them. Why does that rule suddenly change at the gym, at the swimming pool, in the changing room, on a hospital ward. How does a man saying the magic words “I am a woman” guarantee he is not one of the small number of “bad” men? I’ve not had an answer to that one yet. Lots of bluffing, harrumphing, changing of the subject and whataboutery though.

On the rugby thing - I’m Welsh and this infuriated me. I’ve just written to both those ministers expressing my concern about their views and setting out the practical reasons why sex matters I. Sport. Honestly. What numpty thinks women can go up against biological men on the pitch, ffs?

What an odd comparison?!!??! Racism is against segregation?

This is one response to the study which is relevant:
sillyolme.wordpress.com/2022/10/30/gaming-transsexual-brain-sex-research/

The problem it discusses has to do with gay men having certain discernible differences in their brains when compared to heterosexual men which could be interpreted as gay men's brains sharing certain aspects with heterosexual women, probably having to do with sexual orientation.

The study you link to has 6 trans women out of 24 attracted to men and the rest (18) attracted to women. The group they were compared to consist of 24 women and 24 men who are described as 'cis'. Here's the problem this causes:

It is extremely unlikely that the control group of 24+24 'cis' people would have a quarter gay and Lesbian people. Given the actual prevalence of homosexuality in the society the likely number could be as low as one person or none.

So when the researchers do their comparisons, they are comparing a group with a quarter gay people to a group which might have far fewer gay and Lesbian people or even none.

They don't do the analyses separately for those trans women who stated that they were heterosexual, and this means that their findings could be driven by the large number of gay people in the trans woman sample and not being trans at all.

This means that their findings may just be the old one which shows that gay men have some similarities with in their brains with the brains of heterosexual women. So the jury is still very much out on this.

funnelfan · Today 12:41
If asked by a man, I explain it by pointing out all of the encouraging noises they make about women keeping themselves safe (unattended drinks, getting taxis, stick together etc), because a small number of men are “bad”, and we can’t tell a “bad” man from looking at them. Why does that rule suddenly change at the gym, at the swimming pool, in the changing room, on a hospital ward. How does a man saying the magic words “I am a woman” guarantee he is not one of the small number of “bad” men? I’ve not had an answer to that one yet. Lots of bluffing, harrumphing, changing of the subject and whataboutery though.

Given funnel’s excellent words, perhaps some women reading, and any men they know whom they can persuade to back them up, might be interested in this: (It guarantees privacy).
www.mumsnet.com/talk/petitions_noticeboard/4722618-petition-to-update-the-equality-act-thread-2

Ignore comment from the Gov. on the site that all is well. It misses the point about discrimination litigation threats to sex based spaces, due to lack of clarity about sex being biological in the various related laws permitting those spaces. This has had a chilling effect.