Still Genuinely Willing To Discuss In Good Faith

[Catiette]

I've taken the plunge and started a new thread. In the interests of good manners, an addendum that I may be disappearing to work for a while myself, as this has all been far too interesting to allow me to achieve any of my urgent weekend work to-dos today - I hope that, in the light of that, creating this follow-up thread isn't bad form. I just thought other people may want to continue discussing these issues (mainly, now, the redefinition of woman, and statistical trends re. women globally), and I'd definitely dip back in when the urge to procrastinate overcomes me next. No worries, of course, if people think we did it all to death on the old thread - we were fairly thorough, methinks(!), so can also just let Good Faith Discussion #2 rapidly fade into Mumsnet obscurity. 😀

Different people have different posting styles. So long as everyone remains civil we should be able to continue.

It is hard to deny the logic of this arabella.

Here is an honest and revealing account from a transsexual that was posted on mumsnet a few years ago ( MTF):

The term transsexual was defined as a medical one and was what appeared in all my early medical files when I was sent from doctor to doctor, hospital to hospital and into psychiatric units.

By the time I got to the point of surgery - always the end of the process and after several years of other therapy first back then - something had shifted. As you were asked to sign a waiver before they consented to do the surgery that you understood that it was not changing sex but reassigning gender.

I was told by the psychiatrist about to pass me onto the surgeon that this was a legal requirement because the law would not recognise any change of sex and he was sure never would as he had just gone to court to give evidence to help annul a transsexual's marriage to a man as illegal on those grounds.

So gender was introduced into the nomenclature not for any reason other than to give a separation from sex.

This is probably why transsexuals have always been realistic about this concept of changing sex. We had to get that before we passed that point. If we didn't then you were not taken further.

I would guess based on how many people today seem not to get this biological reality within the transgender community that it is not part of the treatment path nowadays.

After I was signed off by Charring Cross in the early 80s (they only did two or three years follow up after my final surgery) I was basically left alone and never really asked about the subject again, even by GPs, though, of course, I told them all every time I moved to a new area. I did not even see my notes until 2004 when my GP wanted to check them with me during the application for a GRC and I discovered that they wrongly claimed I had had breast enhancement. I had been offered it on the NHS in 1980 but had turned it down.

All the records still used the term transsexual. I never even heard the term transgender until all the stories started appearing on Digital Spy where I had posted regularly on media matters and the subject had suddenly become something everyone was talking about. But calling it transgender.

That's when I first started searching the net to find out what was going on, joined the only non fanatical forum I could find (Angels) and started catching up on what had been going on over the past decades whilst I was getting on with living.

Whenever I used the word transsexual I was reminded not to, just as I was told to use terms like Cis and Terf. I looked into what these meant as I had no idea and quickly decided they were needless or provocative so I was not going to follow that pattern. But transgender or trans for short seemed a harmless enough word and I thought, as transsexual emphasised the misconception of 'sex change' perhaps it was a sensible modification.

The reclamation independently seeming to happen now appears to be happening partly out of distancing to some degree, but also I think because it emphasises that in our case - whilst the biological reality is understood - it always was about changing as far as possible the sex characteristics of the body. And not about expressing a girly gender identity, or indeed any kind of lifestyle preference or interest in clothes or hobbies.

For some gender expression very much seems to be what it is about. I think for transsexuals it is about the body. Probably why there is very little interest in physical transition by those transgender and it is really more about expressing personality in a way they find more comfortable.

So without presuming different causes or origins as we are still guessing on those with any of us - I think there are two very different focal points of what we seem to be doing about it.

Reclaiming transsexual just seems to have occurred to a few people at the same time as a way to point that out.

It's self evident. I also find the arguments for removing all attempts to protect women quite depressing. I suppose this is how we have a situation where rape is effectively legalised.

'Because they're going to do it anyway' still doesn't satisfy me as a reason to abandon attempts to improve women's safety.

Or explain why 3rd spaces won't work.

Or why rapists should be put in womens prisons. Etc.

Yet YOU have used the emotive terms.

Your framing of males as being comparative to black women and lesbians is using emotive terms. To evoke an emotional response from a board with mostly women and many black women and lesbians.

You might not be deliberately using the emotionally charged framing, but you are indeed doing it.

The thread has moved on, but I wanted to comment exactly on this.

As a recovered anorexic I can openly admit that there are moments were you feel on top of the world. You feel in control. It does not last forever though, and the body dysphoria keeps coming back.

Realising about the similarities with anorexia and other dysphorias was in fact what made me snap out of the TWAW mantra.

That, and learning about AGPs, and that not all TW were the hyperfeminine post-op transexuals I had in mind.

That doesn't answer my question. It dodges it.

I wasn't dodging your question. I think focusing on the extremely rare occurrence of someone transgender using a women's facility to commit harm is a red herring, when women's facilities are frequently used by cis men to commit harm with no attempt to pretend to be transgender. I think it's a distraction and not a relevant point. There will always be people, of all types, who want to commit harm. There are cases of cis women producing child pornography at nurseries. We do not use those as examples of why children are not safe around cis women. We need to get out of this habit of finding someone in a group who has committed harm and using them as a representative of the group as a whole. Of course when someone commits harm in any way it's abhorrent, but so is using them as a representative of their entire group.

I have been accused of being another person (I'm not) and repeatedly accused of emotional manipulation despite asking you repeatedly to stop, so I'll leave here. I thought we could post in good faith. Notice that even though I disagree with many of you (and indeed there are some things being posted that I find deeply offensive) I haven't criticised any individual person or asked you to change the way that you write. I thought we could have a discussion in good faith but I see that that's not possible here.

Have a good day.

The thing with saying they're going to do it anyway, is that argument doesn't work. If some men are going to do it anyway, it doesn't mean we give all men easier access to it because we just have to accept it'll happen. What we should do is make women's space only for women,so it's not acceptable for men to be in there.

@Deiji, your arguments seem, perhaps somewhat ironically, to be heavily predicated on assumptions about superficial appearance of your own (including the assumption that transwomen will wear conventional women’s clothing, which flies in the face of arguments for self-identification, and also some surprising references to transwomen as „small“ and transmen as „tall“ which - flies in the face of what physical transition makes possible). I would describe this, yes, as making assumptions „based on what people look like“ but, in the context of the above, would suggest this is strawmanning us as susceptible to prejudice based on superficial outward appearance whilst simultaneously perhaps revealing some of your own assumptions of this nature.

I think it’s important to distinguish between superficial prejudices about „what people look like“ and the innate human ability to perceive sex - make, or female. This is what females have used for millennia to risk assess their surroundings. It worked until recently in the context of eg. toilets as gender identity simply didn’t exist on the sense it does now of an innate sense of self distinct from dysphoria and outward presentation.

Now that it does exist, females must retain the right to rely on their innate ability to distinguish male bodies. And, as a rule, we can. Our judgements aren’t based wholly, or sometimes even at all, on the often superficial trappings of sone of what you seem to be calling „what people look like“. They’re much more deep-seated and primal than something so changeable and socially determined. They do rely in part on eg. height etc. because, as a rule, transition doesn‘t change this - and because the smaller, weaker animal has an evolutionary imperative to be wary of the larger, stronger one.

In summary, I think your arguments are omitting up distinguish between our fundamental human nature, and superficial social prejudices. We, too, deplore the latter.

I don't believe this idea that women & girls wouldn't feel any fear at sharing facilities with a trans man who had medically transitioned. I think they'd accuse that person of being a cis man and expect him to be excluded from the service.

You can believe us, we're telling you right here and now.

A shame you're away, Deji. I had so many questions to ask!

Perhaps we can take the gist of Deiji's argument and try to look at it more closely? Steel man it a bit?

The argument was, as I understood it:

1. The aim is to protect people as best as possible - I agree with this.
2. Women are best protected by using 'gender' criteria to exclude 'cis' men and transmen from women's single sex spaces. It would be dangerous to try to exclude cis men, because they would then claim to be transmen to access women's spaces.

And if I've got it right, the main thrust of Deiji's argument is that 'cis' men are the danger and 'transwomen' are, relatively speaking, so few in number that they don't present a realistic risk to women.

Is that about right?

I hope you'll come back Deiji, and persevere on this thread.

I profoundly disagree with your argument but really want to hear your thoughts regardless.

I think so, Arabella. And yes, Deiji is clear about the need to protect women, what we're disagreeing on is whether that is best achieved by excluding trans women or transmen.

To clarify (as I understand it) Deiji is not saying that transmen would be a threat to women but that by accepting a person with a male presentation in the space that would allow predatory males to exploit it.

@Deiji

So you suddenly find examples of harm unfair to mention despite you writing posts solely about harm!

You only got yelled at in a supermarket toilet but considered this sufficient evidence of harm to use it as a justification for not judging people on appearances.

You come over all "not that one" when harm is done by a transwomen sex offender though!

It's non stop hypocrisy. Great to see though as it's proof that supporters are woolly minded liberals!

It's not just about how this affects trans people, either. This idea of judging people based on their appearance hurts cis women, too. In fact, it's statistically more likely to hurt cis women. I've even been a victim of it myself. I'm not trans. I'm short with long hair and when I'm wearing makeup, you'd never question that I was a woman. Yet if I'm wearing a hat (e.g. in winter), no makeup and a nerdy t-shirt, I could be either a woman or a boy. I walked into a Tesco toilet once and had a woman yell at me that boys aren't welcome here.

@Deiji, I’m disappointed you’ve gone, too. People can be direct here, and addressing one another’s arguments will include, to some degree, identifying rhetorical tactics (the phrase “emotional manipulation” is more emotive, I do acknowledge) and logical inconsistencies (my post above attempts to do this, but I now worry could have been better phrased). Sometimes it’s hard to separate these, and I can see how it may have a cumulative impact when you’re arguing against a majority! I appreciate your efforts.

Good faith is hard work, in a way! Speaking myself, I think it’s fair to say that I find the implications inherent in some popular arguments against single-sex spaces that my fears for my own safety are predicated on prejudices about superficial appearance, or irrational, emotive; ditto analogies to Black women and segregation, which I don’t personally feel stand up. My point is, I guess, that discussions like this can be emotionally draining.

If you feel like coming back later, please do! I’m taking a time-out again now, too, as work continues to call!

Ah, okay, thanks, that's a useful clarification.

So in this instance the problem is that 'single sex spaces' would force transmen to use women's spaces.

Well, this is why women are asking for 'third' spaces.

Are third spaces an acceptable alternative? If not, why not?

The whole point of safeguarding is to assume bad actors among the people you would trust. Creating a loophole attracts bad actors. Catholic priests aren't inherently bad guys but assuming that they are ok just because they are wearing the gear is how the job attracted predators. See also: sports coaches, social workers, TV stars etc. Why is trans ideology any different?

FWIW do transmen regularly use male spaces? This is something we don't hear much about.

Do transmen consider it safer for them to use male spaces?

Briefly, the argument there seemed to be 1) It would be impractical & 2) Transmen & women having to share.

I found 1) surprisingly defeatist. We did it for women, then disabled people, so why not this demographic, too? Why not at least campaign for it?

2. seems more problematic, but given we’re assuming a small number of trans people nationally (proportionately at least, like disabled people) I’d assume a single, enclosed, disabled-style toilet would address that issue, too.

(Re: AS’s third spaces query).

This is why it’s a faith belief from my point of view. There is a belief in a sexed ‘soul’ or something totally separate from the body. I see sex as being inherently bodily. You cannot have a sex which is different from the body. That is its definition. However you may all kinds of personality and preferences that don’t align with gender stereotypes of your bodily sex. I don’t believe in a sexed soul.

Disabled people genuinely cannot go out without ready access to disabled toilets. Many couldn't even use able bodied loos. Urinary leash. Women also experienced a urinary leash. Trans people simply do not.
Trans men can use women's loos because they are women and will not be assaulted for being there.