Transmen

[Questioningfolke]

Lots of people generally think that people should use the toilets/facilities of their biological sex.
This would mean transmen using the women's bathroom. Lots of transmen 'pass' as men, which means if they're in the women's toilets then people will fell unsafe and uncomfortable with a 'man' in the women's toilets. You wouldn't know if they had a penis or not. They're just a man in the women's bathroom.

Lots of time you really can't tell a transman is trans not just a man if they've taken hormones.

Birth certs and GRCs and genitals aren't checked when you enter a public space.

This could prompt men claiming theyre transmen to enter women's spaces too, no?

Not as far as I’m aware, but there was deffo a bloke-looking-bloke who was convicted of a sexual assault that occurred in a women’s toilet who claimed to be a TW.

https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/1738250/sex-attack-female-toilet-gender-birmingham?

I suppose a man claiming to be a transman in order to sexually assault/rape a woman would soon have his ruse exposed, seeing as no transman has a penis?

(phalloplasty does not create a penis, only the facsimile of one)

Are we seriously arguing that there is no point in changing the EA10 because everyone who wants to ignore it will do so and we won't be able to do anything about it? Why did we bother then. Are we that fucking useless?

Trans men are women so no problem with them using the women's bathroom.

They're also very rarely a threat to men, so I doubt men would care if they use the men's.

It's vanishingly rare that trans people pass

Elliot page is 5 ft 1. Small for a woman let alone a man

you're right trans men should use the men's bathroom if theyre comfortable with it

I didn't know Elliot was that small, I thought they were my size (5ft 5)!

At the moment Elliot could pass for a young teenage boy, but for how long? What about when Elliot is 50? That's what I wonder about with these petite transmen.

I don’t think anyone is arguing that.

*Arguing that there is no point changing the EA.

It's exactly the same argument you see some Americans making for why they shouldn't bring in stricter gun laws. "bad people will still be able to get guns, so what's the point?"

Please read back through the thread. It is jam-packed full of posts around the idea that women would find themselves trying to stop transmen from entering our spaces because they "pass" as men so the whole thing can't work. Nah! Not having it.

@Giveaschitt Yes. It's the old "if two wrongs don't make a right, try three" argument. Men in the men's bogs, women in the women's. However they present and however they pass. We can sort it out if the law is on our side.

Agree!!

I wonder this too. How are all these people going to look at 60/70/80 and how wil their health be after decades of cross sex hormones? The trans women will still get the massive man ears. Their already higher then women risk of stroke or heart attack will be exacerbated by years of Estrogen, plus the cancer risk surely. The trans men will get even smaller and surley they'll suffer massively from osteoporosis and arthritis. It feels like they don't really think these things through.

Are there any trans people in their 70s or 80s yet? It's been happening for awhile right? Would be interesting to see how they fare medically.

I just wrote a long thing and lost it!

Stephen Whittle (age 67, started testosterone in the late 70s) is probably the UK’s only long-term transitioned FtM in the public eye.

There have been some long-term transitioned MtF people who died fairly recently having made it to their 80s, April Ashley who transitioned in the 1960s and Jan Morris who transitioned in the early 1970s. Not many from that time France as there was no NHS gender service back then and you had to fly to Casablanca for ‘the op’.

All trans people older than about 30 will have transitioned as fully grown adults as paediatric transition via blockers and hormones is only about 20 years old and the first ten years of it were teeny tiny numbers globally.
I think Susie Green’s kid (taken to the US for blockers as they weren’t available here) is now 27-28 ish?
It’ll be a long, long time before the earliest ‘transgender kids’ reach their twilight years.

Transition was much more surgical in the early days with a lot less messing about with hormones/hormone blockers - I have heard stories about the Warhol Factory trans/drag types cadging contraceptive pills from their female friends for DIY transition but obvs in that era, the pill wouldn’t have been particularly easy to access anyway.

Footage from last year of S’Whittle, as an example of female transgender person after 40 plus years of exogenous testosterone (began transition in mid 20s, now aged 67)

EmotionalSupportHyena · Today 02:53
I just wrote a long thing and lost it!

Stephen Whittle (age 67, started testosterone in the late 70s) is probably the UK’s only long-term transitioned FtM in the public eye.

Thank you for that link to Stephen Little speaking. Anyone’s perception of his character is not the subject of this thread, but I thought he was impressive, persuasive and sympathetic.

I would assume he was a male if I saw him in a ladies’ lavatory, and in general find older men and women a bit more difficult to tell apart - their clothes and hair styles making the most difference.

Buck Angel in the US has been on testosterone for many years and is open about the dearth of knowledge in the healthcare community and how he's had to advocate himself for better understanding. He is also open about the many detrimental effects (e.g. vaginal atrophy) and recognises it will shorten his lifespan, but still believes it was worth it in his case.

I’m afraid that talk veers into defamation against feminists towards the end - Whittle even predicts a young, angry trans person going on a violent rampage 😬

I mean, sounds like we are back to everybody showing their genitals and passport before entering a toilet, which I'm not that keen on myself.

What do you mean BACK to?

Have you been living in a parallel universe where ‘genital inspections’ have been a thing?

🤣🤣🤣

If you're this dim in real life how do you remember to put your shoes on before leaving the house?

No one has or will ever suggest genital inspections for entry into toilets. To pretend that it's even a slim possibility is facetious and deliberately inflammatory.

Who uses which toilet has always been a social contract and norm, decent males have always know that they shouldn't go into women's changing rooms, toilets etc because it makes some women uncomfortable and because it normalises a behaviour that allows the indecent men easy access to victims. If the norm is to question a man in a place where women are vulnerable then that allows for society to safeguard the woman. If the norm is to pretend we don't see the male in a place where women are vulnerable then we are saying it is socially acceptable to ignore safeguarding and pretend it isn't needed.

The fact that so many women and girls are sexually assaulted by males and that convictions are so pitifully low that as a country we have essentially legalised rape tells us that we cannot afford to pretend safeguarding is unnecessary, we cannot pretend that we don't see the man in a womens changing room, we can't for the sake of kindness say that it's ok for our female children to have to share a communal shower in the female swimming changing rooms with a male with a penis because he tells us his name is Sue. We have to be able to question it.

How can we be back to something that never happened?
How is it that for decades men used the Gents and women used the Ladies and the world didn’t stop turning.
Women need the right to be able to challenge males in single sex spaces.

This has been an interesting thread. Thank you to everyone responding.

I feel really conflicted by this whole thing because on the one hand I want trans people to be safe and validated, but ofc not at the expense of women/girls.

I honestly don't really understand why a third space can't just be the answer. I'd even probably use it myself sometimes! Surely that makes everyone safe whilst protecting women's spaces.

I like the gender neutral loos at the southbank! Even as a woman it makes me more comfortable because of the way I look. It can be pretty confusing though to ever find any loo there 🫠

A third spaces has always been a sensible, pragmatic solution but it doesn't achieve the transgender aim of validation. A third space is an oppositional position to the assertion that trans women ARE women (and then, more quietly - trans men ARE men, too, I suppose).

I know what you mean, but there's the TWAW camp and then the GC camp and unless there's compromise then then the arguments continue.

Completely understand arguments that are principled but also around safety of women.

A middle ground that removes risk for everyone, even if lacks validation for some, should be the first move. Safeguarding for everyone seems a sensible place to start rather than one side 'winning' and risk being in place one way or another.

Of course there has always been a very simple solution to this artificially-created problem, which of course is third spaces. We've been saying that for years.

But it's not the spaces that transwomen want, it's the women in the spaces.