Anyone in the middle?

[piesforever]

All I see on here is GC rants. I am in the middle, I support trans people but do agree they shouldn't take part in gender specific sport, and there needs to be more caution in "changing gender" for sure, especially hormones and surgery for young people. I do agree some are troubled or young people, who are hating puberty or have had some trauma. Let's support them overall though, it must be horrible whatever the outcome. Anyone else feel a bit of sympathy to both "sides"? In fact, why are there sides, we need to find common ground and help each other!! Instead of being furious all the time. It's not healthy.

Yes. But again, proportionality has to come into play. It is fine to acknowledge they have discomfort or even experience incidents. But they are/should be male people using male toilets.

To put this into perspective, at what point do we create separate toilets for ALL vulnerable males? All this discussion around ‘kindness’ and ‘acknowledgement’ is fine, but was is the end outcome? I know what you want and I want and this differs from what extreme trans activists want. But at what point do we stop validated a fear that is not based on fact and reality. And is it then cruel to those lead to have their unfounded fears acted upon by society. And if we act on those unfounded fears, where does it end.

Hence me repeating, if this is an issue, it is one for all vulnerable men. And separating male trans people for special accommodations/ considerations even for discussion is contributing to part of the issue in various ways. Is that actually positive for them and how?

And yes, I can say here, but in very few other contexts, that even among those transwomen who appear wholly authentic that I’ve encountered or read about (& that, in itself, is of course “phobic” - we’re not permitted to distinguish the dysphoric transsexual any more than we are “real” women as AHFs!), a number do evoke a some unease in me in their overt reliance on the kind of highly gendered “markers” (ref. Deborah Tannen) that we’ve spent the last half century painfully & gradually working ourselves free from.

Sorry. Typos. More than normal. I am running on treadmill

That is bloody impressive, Helle.

If your husband doesn't think they should be in women's spaces or men's spaces, where does he think they should be?

I disagreewith those posters claiming emphatically either that no transwomen feel authentic fear, or dismissing such fear as irrational. I think we should be open to the possibility that some feel this way.

I think that's a bit of a misrepresentation/misunderstanding. I think most people who have addressed the fear TW may or may not have of men's toilets are asking for the data.

We often ask the TWAW and should use women's toilets crowd: how many women must be injured by a man (in a dress or not) in a women's toilet before you will agree with us that women deserve sex based facilities? There is never usually an answer so we call it "n+1". However: we know from a recent thread in FWR that n >100.

So let's take that as a baseline and say: sure. When the number of TW attacked in men's toilets reaches 100 we will start to talk? (about 3rd spaces)

Here's a thing. On IWD i often tweet about the topic of the year RT lots of resources, tweet other resources for women. And i ALWAYS get a lot of flack from the MRAs and their handmaidens (and increasingly TRAs and their handmaidens) about how DV isn't always perpetrated by men. etc etc. Whining that women aren't campaigning for men's issues (hint: CALM and other men's advocacy groups were set up by women)

On International Men's day (19 November) i tweet resources for men. Mental health charities, support, about getting regular health checks etc. For a few years i used to check in on the dissenters from IWD and say "hey! here's your day! you can highlight all the issues that are so close to your heart". Crickets (or more abuse)

So while a lot of women would be happy to campaign for 3rd spaces, men? (and TW) not so much.

I know what you mean, @Helleofabore.

I guess, in summary, my distinction is based on not having seen parallel claims of vulnerability from other male demographics, on a moving anecdotal account from someone I absolutely trust, from a recognition that an absence of evidence doesn’t mean evidence of absence, from a desire for empathy for another group at risk of being subsumed, as we are, into a polemical ideology - & from a cautious sense that it may be tactically advisable to acknowledge this minority.

But it may also well be a wholly moot or even unhelpful distinction to make in a complex debate - when we’re arguing against people who are single-mindedly, utterly resistant even to acknowledging the infinitely stronger, already existing evidence supporting women’s fears & needs, I really can see the argument for rejecting my thinking in the current context.

I'm not trying to make your husband the problem. But you haven't explained at all.

You say he was harassed by a transvestite/transsexual in the men's toilets. Of course this is unacceptable, and of course this made him uncomfortable.

My question was simply would he still feel uncomfortable about sharing the men's toilets with a person who looked like this if they just came in and used the toilet and didn't harass anyone? You haven't answered this question.

Let me put it another way. Still jogging so apologies.

what would be the equivalent to happen in a female toilet for you, personally, to declare them unsafe inherently ( not for specific toilets) for you to declare some women need additional toilets to be safe? Instead of countering the unsafe behaviour and not providing an alternative toilet space the way that this group has now had special treatment ?

And @Brefugee, agree with so much if that again. We’re really on the same page, just with a subtle distinction or two.

On a large scale, the resistance in this movement to measuring these issues, & self-exclusion being hard to measure, don’t help.

On a smaller scale, I wish we heard more trans people standing up again the encroachment on our rights.

Combining the two, large & small, it’s a pity, & maybe telling in various ways of various things, that there doesn’t appear to be even one trans-supporting organisation campaigning for third spaces, for example.

I think the obvious answer is that this would be less likely to happen in women's toilets because women don't go round attacking each other.

@Helleofabore, can’t believe you’re jogging & typing!

Not sure I understand your q., but if you’re asking what evidence I’d hypothetically need, I’ve no answer, as my argument is, rather, that the perception of threat by a particular demographic of vulnerable individuals may be seen as legitimate to a degree, even in the absence of concrete supporting evidence.

However, that’s obviously on a whole different scale to the wealth of concrete evidence of women’s actual vulnerability - & to the numbers of women affected.

From an evidential & a utilitarian perspective - as well as in the context of our fundamental (currently under challenge!) right to advocate for ourselves as a group without any obligation to compromise our own evidenced needs to accommodate others’ perceived & un-evidenced needs - it makes no sense to dismiss our concerns! It appalls me to see it.

Yes, Margot. The point being though, people keep posting this group need special spaces. Is this a legacy though of those clinicians who told the first males that they really were women and should use women’s spaces?

or, is it a genuine need based on current and historical evidence? Creating the third spaces, in essence others that group, it discriminates in a positive fashion to create a space that they need while also fulfilling ancillary needs of others.

It never addressed the underlying issue. Because to do that was and probably still is considered hateful.

But I feel I am not expressing myself well so I will leave it.

I am always typing on my phone while doing things. How else does everyone fit so much in during their days???

isn’t this common? and a sad indication of how much I overload my brain?

@Helleofabore, I do think I get you.

Have doctors contributed to engineering an artificial expectation of a need for transwomen to avoid the Men’s, as opposed to promoting acceptance in this space, leaving society struggling with the unnecessary legacy of this? My instinct is Yes, probably, to some degree. But I just feel like I don’t know enough about this group to judge.

Or, in some hypothetical alternative universe, was there always a group with an inherent, unambiguous need for third spaces that another, “better” society catered for from the start? Not a clue.

As with everything, it won’t be either/or, but rather a bit of both - messy individual & societal perceptions of need & responses to this, directed in our context by flawed patriarchal values.

I can’t untangle it, & I guess that’s my main reflection: how - whether! - to acknowledge the possibility of others’ needs, when our absolute priority is to advocate convincingly for our own as paramount.

“How else does everyone fit so much in during their days???”

Yes. Yessss! As a totally irrelevant aside, I feel you. How?!? So bemused & frustrated by that at the mo.

(& yes, ok, the answer is, in part, debating online when I should be working… but it doesn’t fully explain another messy, existential conundrum: namely, where does the time go?!?)

On that note… 😊

Yes. This is getting there.

And it is relevant, but never discussed in depth because of people feeling it is not kind to discuss it. However, it is integral to the discussion of ‘what do these male people use if no mixed sex toilets are available’.

Anyway, I too am off to work.

https://www.change.org/p/boris-johnson-a-plea-for-third-spaces-for-transgender-men-and-women

Not an organisation, but two transwomen made a campaign for third spaces.

I'm three pages behind and appreciate this may already have been said, but there is no real equivalence between a transwoman not wanting to use the men's facilities, and a woman not wanting a man in the women's faculties.

No transwoman is ever going to be coping with menstruation in a loo, no transwoman is ever going to be coping with the effects of pregnancy in a loo. No transwoman is going to have to cope with creepy men who are sexually titillated by their bodily functions. And most transwomen will be in the same size and musculature range as men, unlike women who are substantially smaller.

Massive thanks to the person yesterday who suggested bringing back the useful word 'unisex' which cuts out the nonsensical arguments that get brought in once we use 'gender'. Unisex facilities as a third option would supply the needs of anyone who does not want to use the men's rooms and who must not use the women's rooms.

Hi , Mr Wiccan here . Thought I would explain to you seeing as you won't let up .I have no problem with trans women in mens toilets . I have never witnessed a trans person being harassed in a male toilet. When I was approached in a sexual manner by a trans women I was the one that was made to feel uncomfortable I take issue as I had my very young nephew with me . Ok . May I suggest you go and look up the term harassment . (Sorry MNHQ for speaking on my wife's post but I had to defend her . Thanks )

@OldCrone . Happy now ?????

4,000 odd signatures in 4 years.

Ouch.

That's even less than the number of people who have a GRC.

Yes. All of that.

I might be more interested at this point in the authentic fears of male people if those specific male people showed any signs of investing reciprocal care and consideration on the fears of female people saying 'this does not work for me, and you've just excluded me'. Goodness knows we're knee deep in appallingly hard, cold, discriminatory stuff rubbishing and dismissing the feelings of raped women and women whose lives cannot revolve around whatever is currently happening between the ears of a male in front of them.

The endless lengths women will go to in order to be fair, kind, balanced, sympathetic...... I am so sorry, but you're being used. In this thread, in many many many such threads, and in general. And you're being used to hurt other women. I'm not bothered whether it's being used to create feelings of safety and support, or feelings of happy penis, or feelings of control and coercion: none is better than another. Women are not on the planet to be Mummy to everyone with a dick.

Women have really got to get a backbone while there's still time, and learn to be less gullible. It is being used against you.

Well said 🙏

I agree, Helle. It very much is getting there. Great points from you, @Catiette , @ArabellaScott and others about balance but also pushing back in the spirit of "if they aren't interested in helping themselves (fighting for third spaces or inclusion in men's toilets), why should we be forced to care?"

My empathy, without any evidence base I accept (except the stated views of TWs that they don't feel safe in the men's), still leans towards the Be Kind but without compromising on women's spaces. Perhaps the compromise I'm advocating for is the provision of 3rd spaces without the evidence data. Maybe on a trial basis somewhere first before national rollout. It'd have to be somewhere meaningful like Brighton. Otherwise it'd be like the open swimming category that had no entries. I really can't imagine a mass demonstration of transwomen in Brighton deliberately avoiding peeing in the local area just to make a point. And if they did, what point would they be making if they did indeed just want to pee and there were third spaces in which to do that?

I wonder if the petition that you shared @ArabellaScott is still considered open?

All voices in this are important but it would clearly need to be transwomen that led the way. By all voices, I also mean the hardest of hard lines ("I've had enough being empathetic and I just want to prioritise where there is clear evidence of risk: women") and the softer of hard lines ("there may not be supporting evidence for third spaces but is it worth a try?"