Let's have a poll!

[AdamRyan]

Thought it would be interesting to see the majority view on this board for what the consensus is on how trans people should be accommodated in society. I want to see what less vocal posters think

Options:

1. as they identify. Exactly the same as the sex they identify with. Access to womens spaces at all times, protected in law.
2. Third spaces: Treated as their acquired sex in most social and work contexts, use third spaces or treated as birth sex for times where biology is important for safety or dignity (i.e. hospitals, prisons, sports, changing rooms, providing or receiving intimate services like waxing, smear tests)
3. As their birth sex. People can choose to refer to them in their acquired gender but there is no expectation of this; all official documentation and interactions with services remains as birth sex.
4. Other - please explain

Let's see!

I voted third spaces, but that's on the condition that disability access is sorted out first.

Third spaces where possible. Otherwise option 3

I agree with MrsOvertonsWindow. Also, isn't it considered polite for the OP to start with their opinion?

The poll is very likely to appear all over the internet.

For Mrs Overton's echoes, to save you posting the same thing over & over. Particularly as some of you may not have read Mrs O's post properly!

Or define ‘trans people’

OP, when you listed 3rd spaces and gave a list starting “ie hospitals, prisons …” did you mean eg or did you deliberately leave out or forget rape crisis, refuges, toilets etc?

I would suggest that anyone who has concerns that this isn’t a genuine poster or is somewhat hoary to report the thread. Let MNHQ decide.

The question is about "trans people".

Though option 1 only mentions accommodating them "as they identify. Exactly the same as the sex they identify with. Access to womens spaces at all times, protected in law."

Does this mean the question only refers to one specific group?

There is no doubt at all that this is a regular poster.

You can't acquire sex

Smear tests are single-sex on the basis of biology.

Thanks @MrsOvertonsWindow

OP, why do you want to see what "less vocal" posters think? What's your purpose?

Define “trans people”.

All of your options are transphobic because they exclude non-binary people who don’t identify with either sex. Try again.

This poll is a mess. Is it a metaphor OP?

I agree with @MrsOvertonsWindow that this will be abused. But I do want to know what people think, including lurkers.

I voted 3. I'm not against people having both an official sex and a (non-deceptive) social sex. There's a conversation on the Debbie Hayton thread about a specific problem with allowing gender nonconformity across the board, though.

I would ban medical transition under the age of 25.

Thing is, we shouldn't be treating people differently based on either their sex or 'gender', except where there is a valid reason/need for it, and all the valid reasons I can see relate to sex!

Why/where would we treat people differently based on how masculine/feminine they look, or say that they feel? Isn't that just sexism - which we've been trying to get rid of?

The exceptions in the Equality Act, though they may not cover quite everything, give a pretty good steer on the types of reasons we might need to treat people differently based on their sex, such as:

• Differing health needs between males and females, different drug doses, different conditions or same conditions presenting differently, etc
• Physical differences (strength, speed, size) - relevant for sports in particular, clothing/shoe sizing potentially, safety in some cases
• Privacy and dignity - not wishing our intimate areas to be exposed to the opposite SEX (who have different bits), or them to expose theirs to us (hence separate showers, toilets, intimate care, changing rooms...)
• Issues relating to pregnancy, maternity, menstruation/gynaecological issues, and the much greater impact (on average) of having children on women compared to men
• Sexism - lower rates of female representation, discrimination against women, awards/schemes etc. that go primarily to men unless there is a female category/separate award...
• Male violence against women/girls - especially sexual violence, which is vanishingly rare in the opposite direction, domestic abuse (which is also heavily sex-biased), etc - which creates the need for women to be protected from men in certain situations, and separate female-only provision in accommodation, prisons, rape counselling, shelters, etc.

These are all based on SEX, I can't see that any of these are significantly impacted by how someone dresses, refers to themselves, or feels inside if they are not of the relevant SEX. (Some people may have biases against people trying to appear as the opposite sex, but that is a separate issue, as it's not due to any confusion about their actual sex!) And there is plenty of evidence that "identifying as" the opposite sex does not change these factors significantly - males will still be male-bodied, rates of male violence aren't lower (and appear to be potentially actually higher) in men who identify as women, and most women don't feel any more comfortable with intimate exposure (on either side) just because a man says he's a woman. So there is no good reason to extend adjustments made to address these issues to people who are not of the intended SEX, and indeed, in most cases, that will defeat the whole point of them, as they will no longer deliver the benefits they were designed to if they now include both sexes anyway!

But apart from these scenarios and related adjustments which are clearly based on SEX differences, what possible reasons/excuses are there to treat men and women differently (especially if it's based on appearance, behaviour or claimed feelings, i.e. stereotyping...) that aren't basically sexism?

I see MrsOvertons post has been deleted.
Are we allowed to advise caution?

What? Why the deletion?

Adam, what do you mean by ‘treat as their acquired sex in most social and work contexts”? I’ve spent a great deal of time trying to ensure that organisations obey the law and do not treat people differently because of their sex, except where biology matters. Surely you wouldn’t be suggesting it’s a good thing for organisations to discriminate on the grounds of sex?

Why has Mrs Overtons post been deleted? I believe she had every right to mention concern about this poll and the motivations behind it. The fact that the OP has said they don’t want the more vocal members of the board to be heard is telling…especially when one gets a deletion.

To be fair, the OP didn't say that.

But the motivation behind the poll is not clear. People are naturally going to be suspicious.

Isn't there a problem with treating men as women in the workplace- job opportunities earmarked for women going to men, for example.
Third spaces seems like the way forward but there are a number of cohorts of men who are vulnerable to male violence- very young men, very old men, gay men, disabled men who don't need the disabled facilities. Those third spaces should be available to them too.

I'm also concerned that disabled people will lose access to their spaces in this. Because, technically, the third space is for disabled people.

Well yes, in law we should treat both sexes the same (subject to mitigations for female disadvantage) and we should treat trans and non-trans the same. So the laws on this might just as well be scrapped and replaced with a single imperative against arbitrary discrimination of any kind.

But there's a social aspect. Men and women socialise differently. Leaving aside (acronym) for the moment, TWs presumably hope that by changing appearance they can socialise more like/with women.