Grey area on trans rights

[Spyrothedragon23]

Reasonably new and learning about be trans issues / community. Happy to learn more but my request as it’s a hot topic for people to keep it adult and polite.

Just wondering if it possible to be a bit grey on the area rather than black and white? Alot of people on these boards feel very strongly about the movement and in some ways I understand.

This is where I am a bit grey:

I don’t agree with anyone with the sex they are born with being in the opposite sex sports / jails etc it’s just wrong and not fair. There’s a biological advantage if some is male and moves to female for sports.

However I don’t have an issue with someone wanting to be the opposite gender if it makes them happy. As long as it doesn’t affect or
impact others (see above statement about sports / jails etc). If it was a friend I would happily call them by a different pronouns or name.

Is there another area of this movement I’m missing? Are some people a little more grey rather than black and white?

I think it's a 'cascade of interventions' to use a phrase some of the mums here might recognise

someone said 'castration' and accurate language is not to be countenanced, so it was reported and any post quoting it got auto deleted....

Yes, absolutely agree with you.

If a man wears it in the workplace, I think it is sexual harassment.

Just like it would be if he pasted pictures from pornography on the walls.

There are certain situations that gratifying oneself sexually is inappropriate.

We're not allowed to use the accurate technical term for one part of gender reassignment surgery?

On males, obviously. It doesn't apply to women.

... sorry, should have added. I used to say wear what you want, until I started reading accounts from transwidows. That certainly opened my eyes!

i don't think this is a problem

if a woman wore those kinds of clothes to my workplace she'd be taken aside and asked to dress in a more professional style

same rules apply to men, job done

clothing is just clothing. there's nothing inherently unprofessional about a man wearing a skirt (or there shouldn't be), but wearing a bum grazer to work? that's unprofessional on a man or a woman

Yes, another recommendation for OP is to read the trans widow threads here, or visit www.transwidowsvoices.org/

I don't think we can tell people what to wear, I don't think we can dictate to people what name the use. However, I do not think we should have any more than male or female toilets (clearly we do have accessible toilets), male or female change rooms and male or female on forms.

This is such an important point - so much of what they mean when they say 'feel like a woman' or 'being a woman' is based on stereotypes. Clothing, make up, hair, nails, etc. etc.
When actually, what makes us women is our biology - nothing to do with our outfit.

Germaine Greer did a really good interview about this (I saw it on a thread recently) where she outlines the difference between female and feminine that struck a chord with me.

Femaleness is our biological reality - so for example periods, pregnancy, breastfeeding, menopause - are all uniquely female experiences. Obviously I know that not all women will experience all of these, but ONLY women experience these.
Whereas femininity is the 'role play' of women in society - and it is usually culturally shaped. What we wear, how we look and how we are expected to behave. The hair, the nails, the make up, the outfit etc.

And now we are expected to go along with the idea that femininity is what actually makes us female, rather than our biology. So the 'role play' is supposed to be the authentic thing.
This is because men want to be able to opt into it, and they can't have the biological experiences, so they claim that what makes a woman is all the dress up etc. etc. So they get to take part. Usually for fetish reasons btw.

But our biological experiences are so important, and they are usually the reasons we are discriminated against as women. Think about young girls who experience their first periods, and feeling dirty and embarrassed by a perfectly natural biological event. Now periods are being used as fetish props for men.

Or the way breastfeeding is often seen as embarrassing or a bit unpleasant in public or whatever. This is because breasts are supposed to be pert and sexy, for men to enjoy - which is ridiculous because breastfeeding is literally the actual function of breasts.

Someone has already said it but for me the most astonishing thing is that they have managed to get so many people to believe that the trans agenda is progressive when it's the exact opposite. You can't be an effeminate boy or a tomboy girl any longer . You're in the wrong body.

As I have said I think there should be a choice of male or female - but that in itself is not enough as its whether people can choose which box to tick and which facility to use. My view is that we have not choice - biology dictates that alone.

It is the stuffed bras, etc, which I find mocking and degrading as a woman.

I simply do not trust a man’s motivations. I know many men, very well and they would know exactly why a fellow member of their sex wears ‘women’s clothes’ to work - it will not be for comfort and practicality, like a woman ‘wearing men’s clothes’… it will be sexually motivated.

I don’t think women, or other men, should be expected to work around a man who is prioritising his sexual fantasy life over the job at hand.

Men who are turned on by wearing women’s clothes, won’t be limited to getting turned on by miniskirts.

My point about allowing people to wear what they want doesn't mean that I personally like people dressing up as the opposite gender, it stems from the fact that it would be impossible to enforce and where you would draw the line. Its more to do with the practicalities.

I’m interested that you’ve framed this thread as “trans rights”, OP.

Transpeople in the UK have the exact same rights as everyone else, and arguably more than some (the right to essentially falsify legal documents).

The reason women here are so passionate and vociferous is because the TRA demands for extra privileges - to compel others’ language, to make single sex spaces de facto mixed sex and thus exclusionary to any woman uncomfortable sharing those spaces with men - not to mention the horrendous failures in safeguarding of children, especially girls, is nothing less than an attack on women’s rights. And I don’t know about you OP, but that makes me fucking angry.

You hear a lot of hyperbole from TRAs about feminists “denying their existence”. But what is “existence” if not the right to be recognised as fully human in one’s own right, separate from other categories of human; the right to name one’s own personhood; the right to state boundaries and not have them trampled over by those who don’t think they’re worthy of respect?

Exactly whose existence is actually being denied here?

I don’t think women, or other men, should be expected to work around a man who is prioritising his sexual fantasy life over the job at hand.

I agree with you as we know about the motivations of many of these males but there isn't much we can do, if their behaviour is creepy in any way other than clothes, or if they are displaying male body parts they should be reported as sexual harassment. I'd be content with them being excluded from female only spaces.

and I don't want to live in a society where what you wear in the street is a police matter (presuming all your rude bits are covered)

people are sometimes dickheads. for society to function that has to be OK to an extent

It's not that black and white though.

You can walk down the street wearing pretty much whatever floats your boat.

If it involves indecent exposure, expect to be arrested.
If you are holding a job, then most workplaces will tell you to follow basic social appropriacy at the very least, and quite possibly a dress code out of respect for co workers and customers.
If you're working with children, you really shouldn't need to be told if you're a fit person to be doing the job.

There is an undeniable issue that weaves through the 'queering' society agenda, which comes down to 'to what extent is it ok to involve non consenting others and use them as props in personal sexual thrills' ?

And as you say, there are some in society who will always be dicks and push things to the limit without the capacity to respect others, so boundaries need to be clear.

and I agree regarding stuffed bras fwiw. that's always the sign that the man in question is dressing this way to get his jollies

but you can't make being a dick illegal. who gets to decide what constitutes being a dick?

as long as I'm free to say 'that man is getting sexual satisfaction from dressing that way', I think that's an adequate compromise

i think the defining question is 'would it be OK if a woman wore this to work?' if the answer is no, it's not OK if a man wears it either.

I sat opposite a man on the tube a few weeks ago (don’t know if he thought of himself as a woman, TW, cross dresser - who knows?).

He was a tall, broad shouldered man of about 50-60. He was wearing a mini dress and platform heels with suspenders visible, carrying a fake designer handbag, false eye lashes, wig, heavy make up etc. He very obviously hadn’t had any hormone treatment or surgery - masculine face, padded bra, hairy arms & legs etc. It was surreal, as seated next to him on both sides were women, dressed casually, trainers, no make up, just women being…women. He wasn’t ‘dressed like a woman’ (because that isn’t a thing). He was wearing the sexualised costume of make fantasy about women.

I had to wonder what it was about. It seemed pretty obviously to be about him living out some sort of sexual fetish in public. It made me feel uncomfortable and to be honest, also a bit giggly. A weird feeling of wanting to laugh out loud (but knowing that would not be ‘kind’) but also feeling deeply unsettled (but knowing women aren’t allowed to be scared of men because that makes us hysterical/bigoted/nazis)

. But hey…nowt queer as folk, we were on the tube in a big city, whatever etc etc I could let it go.

Thing is, if that guy walked into my workplace, toilet, changing room, sports club and said ‘but I AM a woman and you must all say I am or you’re a bigot’ I would be in a tough spot, wouldn’t I?
And to me that’s just fucking dangerous and ridiculous.

male fantasy

as long as I'm free to say 'that man is getting sexual satisfaction from dressing that way', I think that's an adequate compromise

Yes, me too.

if that guy walked into my workplace, toilet, changing room, sports club (in that outfit)

and unfortunately you don't have to read accounts from male people for very long to discover that reactions from female people are often a part of the thrill.

M&S reviews have had a lot of this: those wanking on the changing room floors imagining women walking on their jizz and hoping they might have bare feet. Wanking on lingerie and putting it back on the rails in the hope a woman tries it on. The lovely individual who liked to get into a state of undress in a women's cubicle and leave the curtains half drawn in the hope of a female walking in on him, and talking about how exciting it would be if she scolded him. Women's fear, disgust, anger, for some males it is all a part of the thrill. "You're beautiful when you're angry darling" has been the gleeful call of abusive men for years when a woman reacts to their sexual harassment.

Other than stationing a clone of Layla Moran at the door of every female space to soul search which male person is using the changing room because of acute gender distress, and which is here today to make their penis happy, (and the two it has to be faced are not mutually exclusive) why should women put up with this as part of their sex based burden when trying to use public spaces?

And that still doesn't address what we're going to do with the women, many from vulnerable groups, who just have to stop using women's spaces as soon as any male enters it, regardless of how lovely that male person may be. Although I would argue they are not lovely if they think their needs make it ok to exclude women from society.