https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/11/glaring-flaws-in-the-idea-of-excluding-trans-people-from-single-sex-spaces
I think it was the "glaring" that irritated me most. "Flaws" would suggest a productive contribution to a much-needed debate. But "glaring" shifts the tone and content into a rather complacent dismissal of our concerns as self-evidently unjustified. Ironic, given some "glaring flaws" in the author's argument: at best, it feels disingenuous; at worst, somewhat ignorant and illogical. I know you'll see the following and more besides, but, to still my beating mind (never read The Guardian before bedtime)...
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Our concern is that female spaces remain single-sex. I don't think I've read of anyone who feels strongly about the males'. The author's tilting at windmills while GC feminists are busy suggesting alternatives, such as...
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Females and open; or females', males' and third spaces. Perhaps the author could consider these possibilities, and also why they're so rarely proposed and sometimes often outright rejected as possible compromise positions.
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Few of us have concerns about transmen in our spaces. This is where the continuing mispresentation of the GC position as comprehensively "trans-exclusionary" by institutions and people who should know better (like the BBC; I'm thinking of that sportswoman - forgotten her name - who the presenter said quite emphatically was advocating for the removal of transpeople from sport or similar!) enables this fundamental misunderstanding - or tactical strawmanning!
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With reference to this, the author's argument appears to assume that we either haven't realised the logical end point of excluding transwomen (which would suggest a rather offensively low opinion of our capacity for critical thought) or that we haven't appreciated the risks that including transmen would present (ditto; or, more cynically, a disregard of our own very real perception of danger in favour of his/her politically expedient theorising).
BRIEF INTERLUDE: Why is biological sex in inverted commas (Macmillan: "quotation marks can also highlight that a word is being used somehow peculiarly – a writer may wish to indicate irony, inaccuracy, or scepticism"; telling...?)
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The idea that "a greater number of more masculine people" should be of more concern than an open door to actually biologically male people is remarkable, even when you take into account the core argument that...
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It would be easier for "cis (or biological) men to infiltrate" female spaces under the cover of the normalisation of females presenting as male entering than... actual males coming in. There seems to be an extraordinarily naive (at best) or disingenuous (more likely, surely) presupposition that all trans people pass, despite height, gait etc. And...
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That would disregard the whole premise of self-ID at the heart of the movement and on which our concerns are founded: if we open our spaces to any transwoman on the basis of their self-perception and however they present... we lose the right to say no to any man.
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And that gets us to the old chestnut of "policing" and the apparent need for a "feasible system of distinguishing between [the sexes]". I refer the letter-writer to the precious hundred and fifty years or so during which females of all shapes and sizes unconcernedly shared single-sex spaces enabling them full access to society. Upsettingly, I can see that maybe, in the current context of angry fear generated by those arguing for the removal of these precious spaces, there's a possibility that a woman "who [does] not appear sufficiently feminine" may face suspicion, but it does feel something of a stretch to me personally. (I'm prepared to stand corrected on this if anyone's been unfortunately enough to experience it; if they have, I'd be interested to know whether this has become more of an issue since this movement's evolution).
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Now, the rather upsetting arguments. "There is no evidence of an increasing in risk to the public at large" (interesting phrasing) "when trans people are legally allowed to access the... facilities appropriate to their preferred gender" raises two questions:
a) Is evidence even being collected?
b) How is it being collected in the given societies, given that what characterises them is a rejection, in key contexts, of the distinction of biological sex, and we know the impact this is having on data collection regionally and nationally over here?
c) What evidence is there that there isn't an increase in risk? Absence of evidence doesn't mean evidence of absence.
- And, to round off with a satisfyingly tidy number 10: I completely agree that all the issues listed exhaustively in the closing lines need addressing; but this reliance on the rhetorical flourish of logical dichotomy to close belies the weakness of the argument overall. It's not either/or. Give us these things - AND give us our spaces.
So, what have I missed? (Or got confused by; it's late!)
NB. My personal thoughts on a thorny issue. I've been following the "Would you call a transman/woman a man/woman" threads with interest. Like so many others, I tend to come down on the wonderfully-named CharlotteSometimes' side, but am troubled by the challenges faced by truly dysphoric and committed individuals. As so many others have noted, before the recent aggressive activism attacking women's rights, language and very political existence, I think I'd have welcomed these individuals in. Now, I find it more complex, and, as a tolerant, empathetic person, find it rather upsetting to have been (as someone else said) forced into this defensive corner.
But not quite as upsetting as I found that letter. Clearly. 😂
Bed.