How do we find a middle ground?

[Namechange2468109]

How do we find a place where it’s ok to say we believe their are transsexual people (in my lifetime it’s always been around and as far as I am aware not particularly fought against/prevented people accessing services/given equal rights) generally these people (who I totally support and would advocate for) appeared to me to want to go under the radar and just live their lives. I’d have NO issues sharing a bathroom with these people.

What shifted? Why is it now a case that we are bullied into accepting a man (with a beard who in every way looks and acts like a man) as a woman?

I thought in the 90s we accepted that what you wear, your hobbies, who you slept with and career choice did not define you. I was never girlie, wore boys jeans but at no point did I think I was a boy or prevented progressing my life.

We now have men that define themselves as women by going backwards in stereotypes, basically the clothes define the man.

The levels of irony baffle me ‘sex doesn’t exist, but if I wear heels I’m a woman’ ‘don’t assume or judge, but if you don’t assume correctly I’ll punch you’ and my favourite ‘I’m a non-binary lesbian’

The ironic thing is (and sorry if this offends anyone) I never coined myself as a feminist. I genuinely thought the previous amazing women had won the war, I earned equally or out earned my male counterparts, I never felt being a women provided me different opportunities to my brother, if anything maybe a tiny advantage.

But now I feel that all that has been pointless and at 41 I’ve become a feminist because I NEED too. Is this not such a rewind in society. I was genuinely a little nervous today at taking a book to the counter (material girls) a bloody (amazing) book, but a book.

How do we rationalise this?

Sorry for the long post but I am genuinely lost at the next steps to take.

Pardon me. From her or his written expression and grammar I assumed sleepy was aged 15-18ish.

Ah the good old they are going to rape or assault you anyway if they really want to trope - why bother with any form of safeguarding at all then? Do you apply that ridiculous logic of yours to any other areas of life?

We are all well aware that risk cannot be eliminated entirely but measures are put in place to reduce and minimise the chances of it happening, how can you be so daft not to understand that?

Single sex spaces and services do materially impact women and girls safety and that has been proven time and time and time again.

It is not just safety it is privacy, dignity and comfort who the hell are you to want to remove that most basic of consideration from women and girls, how dare you treat women and girls in such a dismissive manner.

Women and girls are not collateral damage for you or anyone else's misogynistic beliefs.

I know several family or close friends who work directly with males who use female toilets and changing rooms.

Your attempt of claiming ‘it is not many’ is again, like others, coming from a privileged position. In fact, one person I know worked with an abusive male who transitioned and used the female toilet that their ex-wife also had to use as they worked together. The ex-wife left very quickly after that because the workplace prioritised the male person’s needs.

Also, you are forgetting that there are pockets of higher concentrations of males with trans identities in the UK. At city or county level or within particular organisations

So, in fact some women will have a much higher chance of having to share female single sex spaces with male people. What do you say to those women? Are you saying they don’t count because in other parts of the UK there is no chance of having to share a female single sex space with a male?

You have also just plonked down the ‘there are already laws in place protecting female people from attack or abuse, so what is the issue’? Fuck! Did you actually think when you wrote the following;

“Male sex offenders do not need trans female access in order assault women, and to imagine you would cut SA by merely making it harder for the tiny % of offenders who use female or trans disguise as a cover in order to access female spaces makes no sense.”

“You think they'd just give up? 'Oh, I can't dress as a woman now, I'll just leave women alone' it’s illegal to assault women in the first place - they were still doing that despite what the law says.”

Can you give us a number, not n+1 meaning when enough are harmed that society should act, for how many women and girls harmed are acceptable collateral in the prioritising male peoples demands over female people’s needs?

I’ll be fair and start from now because there is already many examples I can quote from the UK of women and girls being harmed. So, please quantify your thoughts here.

Will 1 more woman or girl being attacked, intimidated, being exposed to naked males, feeling traumatised, being abused or needing to exclude due to religious or past trauma mean you will consider those female people’s needs? 2? 5? 10? 100?

Do the women need to publicise their needs? Give traumatic accounts for you to consider their needs?

How do you measure the number of women and girls restricting their movements in public (including employment) because for religious reasons they cannot use the toilet or changing room? Do their needs even feature in your assessment when you prioritise male people’s demands?

Can you further clarify your thoughts? Because to me reading it seems you have not considered the reality of female people’s needs at all.

And you have forgotten, it only takes 1 male person to cause harm to many female people over the course of one day using a female single sex space. So, your ‘there are so few’ is just a false claim .

You think they'd just give up? 'Oh, I can't dress as a woman now, I'll just leave women alone' it’s illegal to assault women in the first place - they were still doing that despite what the law says.”

OK, say you saw someone who was obviously male but wearing a dress following a young girl into a toilet or changing room. What would you do?

Say you were in the changing room after the gym and there was a naked male who was obviously aroused just sitting there watching the women and girls getting undressed. What would you do?

In the past you could call security to get them removed (or even arrested), assuming that they hadn't already been prevented from entering in the first place.

In today's brave new world the answer is absolutely fuck all, in fact YOU would be in the wrong for even daring to question his right to be there.

“I think the main change is that things have got distorted by overreporting of exceptional outlying scenarios, serving political agendas that are not friendly to women.”

Anyone find this wording contradictory?

Here echobelly, maybe this works better:

“I think the main change is that things have got” finally reported in mainstream media, “distorted by overreporting of exceptional outlying scenarios”, meaning that women are finally getting verified examples of incidents to make those making legislation and policy aware of the impacts of past decisions “serving political agendas that are not friendly to women.” meaning women and girl’s needs are prioritised by more political groups now.

Trans people are less than 1% of the population and those are not all trans women

A tiny % with such vastly disproportionate funding and ability to have their new religion taught in every school and workplace not only as fact but to elevate this holy communities wishes over and above everyone else.

The ONLY way to give trans people, mostly the males what they demand is by REMOVING the rights female people already have.
They already tell us that using the words woman/women in relation to solely female biological functions is unneceptable. Even the word mother is now 'problematic.
Funny how all these demands are only aimed at removing the rights and protections of only one sex isn't it.

Why isn't anything being demanded from men? Prostate owners and ejaculators?
Sperm producer?

It's all lies. Smoke and mirrors. We see right through the emotional blackmail and threats, which is why they target middle aged women with such ferocity.

I just don't understand the attitude that some women have (I've had it said to me IRL too) where they declare that they are 'fine with it' or because 'it doesn't bother me' that any woman who isn't fine and is bothered should just shut up. Therefore, the 'fine/not bothered' person's opinion somehow counts for far, far more than the 'not fine/is bothered' person.

I just wanted to highlight this excellent post which gives background to the question I (and many others have asked myself) is 'how did this all happen?'.

Will 1 more woman or girl being attacked, intimidated, being exposed to naked males, feeling traumatised, being abused or needing to exclude due to religious or past trauma mean you will consider those female people’s needs? 2? 5? 10? 100?

You will wait in vain for that answer @Helleofabore as you know! We've asked it so many times and there is just tumbleweed. The short answer is they don't care there is no number of women and girls harmed that will change their minds. Women and girls are not worthy to be considered they are mere tools to be used for the validation and pleasure of males and are mere collateral damage not worth a second thought.

Tell me I'm wrong @Echobelly and @sleepyscientist I dare you.

Also, why should society, especially in law, be changed wholesale just to accommodate the poor mental health or fantasy of this tiny minority whose incoherent nonsense ideology has zero basis in reality.

Why should we all be forced to go along with someone else's beliefs?

We don't care if a man wants to wear a dress and make up. We just refuse to go along with the absurd claim that any clothes or drugs or surgery will turn a man into a woman and that these men then 'need' female rights and access to female sports etc.

How about the less than 1% acknowledge they can't change sex and that some things are off limits because of that.

I know gail. You are right. ArabellaScott is still out there on her vigil isn’t she? It has been 2? Is it 3? What for that answer.

Strange not one of those posters ever asked comes back and answers.

By the way echobelly, my answer is ZERO! Why isn’t yours?

Also, why should society, especially in law, be changed wholesale just to accommodate the poor mental health or fantasy of this tiny minority

Why on earth indeed. We don’t reorder society for other dys mh situations we treat it

Men did this and women were not consulted. I do not consent anymore, for me or dd

Following from acceptable collateral, shall we remember when Chapell, a prominent Scottish trans activist said the quiet bit out loud.

That it doesn’t matter if allowing access to male people into female single sex spaces resulted in any increase in VAWAG. That is who those who wish to dismiss the safeguarding of women and girls, such as echobelly agree with.

“Suppose people were saying ‘Well you know if you make it easier for gay people to be themselves in society there’s going to be a crime wave or dreadful homosexual murders are going to happen, it’s going to be awful if we do that’, I think we’d rightly dismiss that as scaremongering and we’d say ‘No it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter’. It wouldn’t matter, actually, if there was a slight spike in those statistics because this isn’t about that kind of issue.”

Here is the clip here.

https://x.com/chrismceleny/status/1439888354259111937?s=46&t=HTxp6zC_d4GZ2FFv4a-YeQ

DS can't have that places on a training course it needs to go to a XX to meet some criteria

You don't want your DS to be told he can't have a woman's place in a training course because it's reserved for a woman?

How very entitled.

And you talk about male and female victims of DV. First of all, men are overwhelmingly the perpetrators of DV. But even taking into account the fact the men can also be victims of DV - putting DV victims in mixed sex groups will not help them 'heal together', it will feel unsafe and triggering.

You write like this is all some academic thought experiment, without any empathy for the guinea pigs you're using.

“Male sex offenders do not need trans female access in order assault women,”

At least get your facts right, echobelly.

A convicted sex offender does need to self-declare a trans feminine identity in order to access female prison inmates.

A convicted sex offender who doesn’t declare a trans identity will be incarcerated with the other males.

there js no middle ground. Men are male. Women are female. Trans is not a Thing.

I sometimes wonder if the answer we never get is 'as long as it's not me/my close friends/relatives, any number is fine'?

I could be wrong though.

I don't think you are wrong RainWithSunnySpells, the attitude is very much 'Do It to Julia, not me or mine'. They don't/won't care about other women and girls they are just shit on their shoe.

Agreed 👌🏼

Luxury beliefs, right there.

You, @Echobelly, aren't incarcerated in prison, so you don't care about the terrorised women who are. Even double rapist and pedophile Karen White understands how he petrified women inmates more than you.

A serial sex offender has more understanding of this issue than you do. Imagine that.

You aren't playing sport against men who wipe the floor with you, take your medals and get erections in your changing room. Are you? So fuck 'em. All those thousands of women and girl athletes across the world.

You aren't in desperate need of a female only rape crisis centre but realise, horrifyingly, that they don't actually exist. And so you have to sue the authorities just to be able to recover from rape. So fuck them too.

And fuck the elderly women who have to have men performing their intimate needs. Who cares about them.

Women don't need sex segregation for no reason. We don't segregate supermarkets, vets or restaurants. We segregate when women are vulnerable. Do you understand that? It's called safeguarding.

The people you are willing to sacrifice so enthusiastically are the most vulnerable women and girls in society. And the entirety of women's sport.

and to imagine you would cut SA by merely making it harder for the tiny % of offenders who use female or trans disguise as a cover in order to access female spaces makes no sense.

And this ^ is just risible.

It's not a 'tiny percentage' of offenders. It's all of them. Every last one can now access vulnerable women whenever he wants. Right across the land. In their changing rooms, toilets, rape crisis centres, wards and prison cells. Where women are in a state of undress, raped, sick or injured or unable to escape.

And even in your own damn head it's all because you're desperate to pander to the demands of 0.5% of the male population.

Trans people are less than 1% of the population and those are not all trans women.

It may have escaped your notice but this is the feminist section of a site largely populated by women.

So one thing you're right about is that no, we don't agree with defending cheats, sex offenders and misogynists.

Funny that.

Or

This is true.
I feel on edge if I go in a shared loo, avert my eyes and hold my nose. No woman wants this so why are 51% of the population accepting it? 😩

“I don't think woman need encouraging into certain professions as ideally we need to stop being men vs woman so no encouragement will be needed. Our friendship group is made of many high flying men and woman, non of us woman have been held back by being woman. Many of us are more senior than the males.”

“This influences my view to a great extent I don't want to be told I have to wait in the massive line for the woman's loo when the males is empty. I also don't want it to be oh DS can't have that places on a training course it needs to go to a XX to meet some criteria.”

It really shows there is either some degree of denial or this is a person who has somehow missed some pertinent things. Perhaps because they work for the NHS??? Has the NHS been excellent for promoting women (I have no idea, hence asking).

So, this poster has at least one child, yet never suffered any consequences for taking maternity leave? Or did they not take maternity leave and not have a primary carer role? And that is absolutely fine by the way, it is a choice to be made. However, someone had to take that role unless the NHS is amazing in how it promotes women with caring responsibilities vs the commercial sector.

It also shows that according to this poster, not one of their group missed a promotion or a job due to negative sexist discrimination. That is remarkable to hear. If this is true, that is great news. But it shits on those who have not had that experience. It is the old ‘it didn’t happen to me so it doesn’t happen’ and ‘I am alright Jack’ approach.

If a training course or a sector is trying to increase diversity by having a % they wish to meet for female candidates, there is a reason they are doing that. It is because the “ideally we need to stop being men vs woman so no encouragement will be needed.” approach is not working and did not work the fucking first time around.

Left to people like sleepy we would be living in a permanent Ayn Rand experiment waiting for society to become that never to be that idyll. Attaining the idyll or sustaining it.

The illusion that it is all wonderful seems to be attributing to a complete lack of understanding of reality. Yes, I too know many highly successful women, none of them fail to acknowledge the difficulties experienced by other women though. And many of them keep their head down to never express a dissenting thought about gender identity issues, because they feel they would have to fight even harder for their jobs.

One doesn't preclude the other. I live in a European country. The standard here are single-sex rooms sleeping 2 to (rarely) 4 as part of a medically specialized "station" comprising maybe a dozen rooms.