If you're GC, what should trans people actually do?

[AmaListening]

I'd like to understand what someone with gender critical views thinks trans people should do.

Maybe let's make it specific with a couple of famous examples: Laverne Cox (trans woman), and Elliot Page (trans man).

Imagine you had it exactly your way. What should those human beings, who feel and identify the way they do, do about every aspect like: names, pronouns, surgery, clothing, relationships, social spaces, work, sports.

How should Laverne speak about her own identity? Should Elliot not have had top surgery?

I'd really like to understand what the world looks like for trans people if we carry GC views through to their end points.

I would say that anyone who identifies as a woman is welcome to attend 'women only' spaces.

This is not a belief the vast majority of "GC feminists" have. Not going to "flame" you, but that literally means opening up women's spaces to all men who take a fancy to using them. That to me casts some doubt on your claim to be a GC feminist in the way the OP is using the term.

There are certainly GC women who think physically transitioned males can use women's spaces, but none that I've ever seen (and I've been a GC feminist since the term was first used) who think any male who "identifies" as a woman should be able to.

“I just can’t get over how any woman can believe they’re a feminist whilst consistently defining womanhood as vulnerable and biological. It’s so not helping anyone.”

I have seen this argument quite a lot recently. I think it comes from
a misrepresentation of what 2nd wave feminists actually were saying or intending. I have seen people who call themselves feminist and also blatant trolling (and deleted) male rights activists use it though.

It is not a feminist principle that the female body is exactly the same strength wise as a male body. It never was the intention of ‘equality’. Second wave feminists believed that women should have equal opportunities! Not be expected to lift just as heavy loads with their bodies FFS!

This rhetoric that feminists are regressive for understanding the needs of female bodies is bonkers and based on misrepresentation and misinformation. By now there is so much evidence on the physical differences between male and female bodies, with and without testosterone, that it takes only a person unable or unwilling to do the reading to make non-sense claims about feminism now being focused on ‘female weakness and vulnerability’.

And the same goes for denying the impact of trauma on women and children. What feminist wishes to put female people and children into situations where males can cause them irreparable harm?

There really is a dangerous element to a particular type of feminist who believes that males and females are equal in strength. That women (even on testosterone) are just as capable of fighting of male attackers as all other male people. Part of that is just that women don’t train as hard.

I'm not vulnerable as a human being. I'm vulnerable to male violence because I am not as strong as a man. I have an 80 year old disinhibited (and lovely) male patient who can punch his way past me if distressed. It is not my 'womanhood' that is vulnerable. I am built like a brick outhouse myself, am rarely ill (though unfortunately I am today), and come from a long line of great big tough women. I am still not as strong as a man considerably smaller than me. My patient is vulnerable to emotional, financial and sexual abuse and neglect, including from women, but I am vulnerable to physical and sexual violence from men purely because I am female.

Most men manage not to do any of these things so we don't give up on trying to improve society. But spaces for women are still important. 13000 people in men's prisons for sexual offences, 125 in women's prisons for sexual offences. We have to deal with REALITY.

I look around at the girls and young women I know who are identifying as male and I really don't think this is some innate sexual minority that has never been allowed to flower before. This is another form of self harm for women in a sexist society.

It's not othering, any more than having separate categories for U12s and U14s is othering, or weight categories in sports like weightlifting and boxing. Crucially, most women aren't forced to compete in the female category. They are free to compete in the open category if they choose to do so (same applies in most sports for age and weigh cats - a U12 can "race up" in U14s if they want to). The only females who have to compete in the open category are transmen who are using androgenic steroids with a TUE.

What do you suggest as an alternative?

I believe I can do anything a man can do just as well using my drive and brain.
I don't believe I can do anything a man can do with my body.
I believe I am physically vulnerable as a weak woman. I believe even a weak man can easily hurt or overpower me.

To me, this reads like you acknowledge that there are certain situations where women have to have a female only space, but where it isnt a priority, you can accept men who really want to be there.

It's 'be kind', but with conditions.

to me, the problem is twofold.

It's almost impossible to implement any conditions that don't either discriminate against some other male people, or let in people who are completely undesirable, because you can't tell.

But also, it's not taking into account the women involved. Some women will quite literally self exclude if there are males present.

And what you have to remember here, is it's not really about the space, at all. It's about the presence of the women in that space. If the women left, the space would become irrelevant. It's just a room with four walls.

And the space where the women went off to would now become the focus.

The presence of the women is crucial.

The women are being used as a resource.

It's not about kindness, it's about deciding that women, as a sex, can and should be used in the service of men.

Under certain conditions, of course...

I don’t want society to section off “biological women” whilst everyone else gets to be everyone else, not defined by biology

Humans are dichotomously sexed mammals. We're biological entities.

I have to admit I thought we got past blunt 'equality' and had understood 'equity' quite some time back.

I am about 155 cms tall, my brother is about 193cms . He is also very muscular, I am not. I never would be, even if I trained for years.Tell me how I could fight him ,or another male of his size off? I can't. Intellectually, I am better off than him, he has not a single educational qualificationto his name , neither could he understand why I so much as wanted to attend university. The contents of books had no interest to him.
I don't know any feminist of my generation who failed to understand that men and women are not the same in terms of size, muscle , strength and physical characteristics. We did, however, believe that we shouldn't be held back because of the lack of male characteristics.

This is absolutely not the answer in sport, as it will completely exclude trans people from sport at every level. Reserving the women's category for females, and changing the men's category into an open category is what every major governing body is going with - it protects female sport and maintains trans people's access to sport on an even playing field.

Most men manage not to do any of these things so we don't give up on trying to improve society. But spaces for women are still important. 13000 people in men's prisons for sexual offences, 125 in women's prisons for sexual offences. We have to deal with REALITY.

oh yes, my statistics were wrong.

5000 women in prison, in total, I believe. As opposed to 80,000 men.

Exactly this. I think the religion bit is an excellent analogy.

I work with mainly Irish Catholics. Should I have to be surrounded by holy water fonts and crucifixes in the office when I'm an atheist? Worse, should I have to bless myself with said holy water? Obviously the answer is no but my colleagues are free to do all of the above at home or in a chapel.

Should I be allowed to wear a t-shirt to work that says "Fuck the Catholic church" because I'm an atheist who has personal experience of abuse in said church? Of course not. That wouldn't be fair to my practicing Catholic colleagues.

Live and let live OP. But biological/natal males can do so outside of women's spaces. In either men's spaces or unisex facilities.

“I would say that anyone who identifies as a woman is welcome to attend 'women only' spaces.”

Have you considered the needs of the many women and girls who have been sexually assigned and sexually abused by males and what they need in ‘women only’ spaces? By including anyone who considers themselves a ‘woman’ you have just reduced those traumatised women and girl’s capacity to access those spaces.

It really is about male bodily cues. When you have opened it up to anyone who considers themselves male you allow in anyone who presents as Alex Drummond does through to Laverne Cox. And all people with male genes have male bodily cues. Hands, feet, gait, skeletal proportions are all discernible and not always disguised with clothing. And voice too.

Have you considered the impact on them of accessing those ‘women only spaces’? It is not just when they are vulnerable, it is all aspects in life when they have expected a space to be only with female people.

I honestly don't believe most MTF trans people will choose to compete in the open category. Maybe young ones like Emily Bridges who is able to compete against non trans men and win.

This exactly

No. Sadly. The misconception of women’s ‘equality’ keeps coming back to these threads.

As I said, either from one strand of feminism who misrepresents second wave intentions or from MRAs.

Bridges could actually be an elite male cyclist if Bridges just trained harder [shrug].

I am saying that women get to have women's spaces, men have men's, if anyone wants gender neutral then they can do so. What is wrong with that? It means that trans people can do sports ,but only against/with those who CHOOSE to do so. I would choose to be with women.
BTW, trans women don't want that.

The real losers re trans sports are trans men I'm guessing?

"Vulnerable and biological"? Jesus **ing christ. Women, I mean actual women, can do pretty much anything that men can do - we've seen plenty of women become the absolute best in the world, regardless of sex, in their field. Women heads of state, women, Nobel laureates, women Fields medal winners, women FTSE 100 CEOs... and we'll see more of all of the above... women can be as good as or better than men in pretty much every field of human endeavour, that's a given... but when it comes to the purely physical stuff, can a woman ever be as physically strong, or as fast, as the strongest or fastest men in the world... no, that can never happen, as a species we're just not built like that, this has always been known by every say aged 10 plus year old human on the planet and always will be.

It could work as a para-Olympic style category?

I think ‘Open’ and ‘Female’ works in most circumstances but I would support it if MTF and FTM type classifications were added where it seemed appropriate/numbers made it viable.

Probably can’t just lump all transgender people in together as would likely need separate categories based on birth sex and medical regime (similar to how para categories have multiple versions for various forms of amputations) and if it was based on hormonal suppression/addition it would have to be tightly policed via surprise drug testing in the lead up to the event date?

It’s fascinating how Genderists seem to have completely forgotten about Darwinism.

Hmm. I think trans people should be able to live their lives the way they without fear of discrimination, judgement or violence. They should be protected by all the legislation that protects other groups in work and out.
However. I think that there should be no body modification surgery before 18, and without counselling. And the counselling should not be affirmation. I think that it is obvious that there is discussion to be had about sport. And breastfeeding. And any measures that have been set up to support women into underrepresented areas (fine to have schemes for trans people, but if you've been socialised as male you are not facing the same challenges that women do.)

Third spaces are being trialed now though lois. And that third category just gives males an additional opportunity to win prize money.

So it would have to be third and fourth spaces so there is one for trans females and one for trans males. Otherwise it is actually a form of Indirect discrimination. Ie. Giving male athletes more opportunities than female athletes.

If there was four events, great!! well in theory.

The reality is that then means that there will be little meaningful competition for trans people until such time as there is enough people in the category. An open category is a better option at the moment. If there is a need to create these categories in the future, then do so.

Hence the argument against ‘third’ spaces in sport.

A question I have- where are all the middle aged trans men?