Does anyone actually fully support trans people in women's changing rooms and loos?

[bottomsup12]

Just curious really? I see a lot of aggressive stances (Owen Jones eg) pro this on twitter etc. I don't get it.
The only reason I can think of is that it's never actually happened to them and they imagine it will be fine but when it actually happens a few times they might start seeing sense?

For the men who are aggressively pro it I wonder how they would feel is women just started flooding into their changing rooms and bathrooms ?

Wow. How did we get from men in women's restroom and changing rooms to baby buying!! I suppose if don't bat an eye at one, it's easy to ignore the ethics of another.

It's amazing how easily one person can derail a discussion. It's one of the much-used weapons of the TRA: whataboutery of the highest order.

Just to repeat my question from (much) earlier, PP82 in your opinion, what is a woman? Obviously for you it’s not about a biological pathway, but I’m hoping you won’t refer to stereotypes or the ‘womanly feelings’ that so many of us don’t adhere to/recognise. If it is, what would be the appropriate term for adult human females who don’t have ‘womanly feelings’ (or, just to be clear, ‘manly feelings’)?

Still curious as to your thoughts on this @PP82

And why is such a thing happening in front of a strange man any worse than in front of a strange woman?

You wrote the above about maternity aftercare spaces when I mentioned that it would be especially uncomfortable for me, and lots of other women, to for example waddle to the toilet in the night with a gown potentially open whilst bleeding etc.

Yet you believe that for now, when it comes to single sex toilets, trans women should be permitted to choose to use the women's toilets if they need a wee? Is that correct?

Why is it so bad for them to have to use the male toilet? Why is that any worse than using the women's toilet? You are astonished at natal women living in fear of men etc.

Why do you validate trans women's discomfort / fear around sharing spaces with natal men when they need the loo (for example) despite dismissing the discomfort / fear of natal women about sharing spaces with natal men in places such as maternity recovery wards?

You'll say gender neutral bathrooms are the answer to the 'who can wee in which toilet' issue but in the meantime, in instances when single sex toilets are the only ones available, why is it that you think trans women's comfort should be prioritised over natal women's comfort?

Just checking if anyone wishes to answer this.

@PP82

And why is such a thing happening in front of a strange man any worse than in front of a strange woman?

Genuinely speechless at this comment.

I mean even if you really, truly don't care about dealing with post partum bleeding etc in front of strange men, can you not see why other women just might not feel happy about it?

(Incidentally this is one of the reasons I personally hate unisex toilets. I had managed to get into my 40s before I had the horrible experience of dealing with heavy bleeding in public toilets. Washing the blood off my hands standing next to a woman would have been embarrassing. Standing next to a trans woman however as I was, I just wanted to cry. It felt so humiliating. And I don't care if you wouldn't feel like that, you don't speak for us all. I can't imagine what a young teen girl would have felt if she'd have gone through that. I expect she'd have avoided the festival toilets afterward).

I don't find it 'lol'

I find your thoughts processes terrifying.

So, going back to this.

You, personally, acknowledge that these male people have no reduced risk compared to other male people in later posts.

Could you then tell us how many extra women and children are to be harmed by allowing male people into female single sex spaces? Because you seem to ignore the point that by allowing a small sub-group of male people into these spaces that you are actively increasing the risk.

How this is done, is that with the current ideological demands, female people cannot use the social norms to assess whether they should call for help or walk out or even to teach their girls to turn around and walk out. There are sometimes posters up in toilets stating that female people should not make a male person feel uncomfortable in the toilet because 'they have the same right to be there'.

So, while before we had an informal ability to police the toilets, that has been removed. You can try to twist this to be 'if a 'man' wants to attack they just will', but that is really just part of the story. The chances were lowered in the past through detection etc. Now, this ability has been lowered so that it is even more risky. Why would you advocate this.

It is meaningless to hide behind 'we should all have individual, floor to ceiling cubicles'. Because we don't have that. It might not ever get to point where we have enough coverage of this. PLUS 'unisex' facilities are known to be even more dangerous to female people. Those floor to ceiling doors hide a lot.

This does not even cover the many scenarios that female people need privacy for other things other than 'peeing' that may also extend outside the cubicle.

Firstly, I didn't say that trans women posed any more risk than any other women.

They pose the same risk as males, they are male.

Secondly, I don't think women's spaces should exist. All spaces and facilities should be gender neutral.

The TRAs and TW will absolutely tear you a new one for this, they don't want to share with men remember? Fully mixed sex space won't give them the validation they crave.

Pretty sure the evidence is to the contrary: 58.9% of trans MtF identifying population have been convicted for sex offences, vis a vis 17% of so called ‘cisgendered’ male prisoners (parliamentary committee evidence). Interestingly only 1% of the female are convicted of such, and I believe (can’t remember the source), these predominantly occur in concert with a male partner.

ie. Women are should validly be concerned about males in their spaces.

Genuinely pity any poor women who were on a maternity ward when @PP82 was working there. Or maybe she has never been near a maternity ward ... just a thought 🤔

I don't think these questions will be answered, at least directly, for whatever reason. Just dropped back in one last time to see if mine had been addressed, only to see Helle approaching similar issues from a slightly different angle above.

Why this is does interest me. Troll (ugh, sorry)? Or TRA (also labelly, but sometimes fair!)? Or, if neither of those, then a pretty unusual perspective on the illegitimacy/immorality of sex-based rights outside those circles...? Because whether one, all or none of these - I just don't understand what posting in this way aims to achieve.

If troll... A key aim of this site is to present the arguments for upholding established sex-based rights while exposing the perceived inadequacies of opposing arguments for curious readers. So, mission pretty much accomplished! (& does this beg the question, is it even possible to troll this site?! 🤔)

If TRA - See above... but even more so.

And if an unusual viewpoint for someone else, then presumably there's a desire to convert posters to that way of thinking, just as posters hope to convert PP82. And most here are up for that - bring on the data, incisive questions, thoughtful challenges that get to the core of an argument & rip it apart from the inside out.

But that's not really happening either - or only at a superficial level - so, if anything, posters' arguments are looking stronger than ever. And many here really quite enjoy this process of testing & sharpening arguments in debate in exactly this way, & are actually keen to be challenged more rigorously...

So it's win-win at this end all the way, in a very real sense. Except that...

I know I'm typing from my perspectives on these issues, my own opinions - mentioned above that taking on others, & recognising our own resistance to doing this, is hard!... But I feel this thread has just reinforced for me the firm foundations my views lie on. I've not seen anything that really counters them that I can hold on to & grapple with, before either reviewing or reaffirming what I think...

I can assure you I did. Odd that you would think that the way I interact on mumsnet reflects my professional conduct in a clinical setting. But then I've never encountered anyone in real life who thinks or says the things the people on this board think or say. It is almost like we're all very different on here to real life. Otherwise there wouldn't be the angst ridden posts about 'coming out" as GC at work.

You all have zero actual empathy for trans people, women who have just given birth and need the support of their partner, possibly having endured extremely traumatic labours or having very sick babies on NICU, or partners who want to be present for those crucial early hours of their babies' lives. Zero empathy for those people. But I bet if you encountered them in actual real life, in professional capacity, you would have empathy and provide the best care possible.

Honestly though, I've lived and worked in many places, often in health and social care roles, and I just don't recognise the attitudes on these boards. I've worked with a lot of very religious women who wouldn't, for example, be examined by a male doctor, and plenty of women who were experiencing DV and needed rigorous safeguarding plans in place, but I never heard anyone object to the presence of other women's partners on the ward. That's a new one. I've also lived in a country where the concept of privacy and dignity in healthcare was an anathema. I adapted because I had to. We all have to adapt to the reality around us.

I can answer these questions, but I'm actually having a spa day and dipping into these threads is sort of defeating the object. I'll get back to you.

The reality is you can't change sex

but I never heard anyone object to the presence of other women's partners on the ward

There have been bunfight threads about this since I joined the site over a decade ago. There's one now. It seems to me that you aren't the best judge of what people think.

@PP82

We all have to adapt to the reality around us.

This sentence is so goady in context that I'm starting to think you're posting in bad faith.

You'll note, by the way, that multiple posters wished you luck on your fertility journey. And said they were sorry to hear of your miscarriage.

Empathy and kindness given to you even in conversations throughout which you dismissed, mocked and minimised the feelings and experiences of other women.

You're welcome.

You all have zero actual empathy for trans people, women who have just given birth and need the support of their partner, possibly having endured extremely traumatic labours or having very sick babies on NICU, or partners who want to be present for those crucial early hours of their babies' lives. Zero empathy for those people.

I don't. I just don't think their feelings and wishes trump everything. I'm not clinically unable to empathise with others, like people with certain personality disorders. Unfortunately many people in the "trans rights" movement do have personality disorders, and similar non trans people are drawn to it as a movement, without the same self interest in it as the men have, but more out of a sense of internalised misogyny.

@PP82, emotive generalisations about posters showing "zero empathy" for women who have "endured extremely traumatic labours" would be comically unconvincing in this context if it wasn't so painfully ironic!

Right above your post is a string of intimate accounts by those women, expressing what they felt would help them, & sharing their own traumas to explain why they disagree with the approach you think is best.

Why not engage fully? "I can see why you may have that perspective, but would counter it by arguing that..." / "I'm sorry for what you went through, but still believe... because..." / "This is an interesting perspective, but undermined by..." etc.

Instead of this, you condemn the very demographic about which you seem to care, right here, as they share the most challenging moments of their lives. They have different views to you, yes. And some of your past patients will have shared their views, & some won't... So debate! You touch on some interesting issues above - religious women (which many of these posters mentioned before you, so is clearly an area of concern & interest), male doctors (which seems to conflict with your denial of sex classes, unless this was purely semantic - you could clarify)...

But your focus instead on dismissing intensely moving testimonials from the very demographic you claim to defend - & as evidence of the authors being morally void, no less! - is the closest example I've seen here of the zero empathy of which you accuse them.

I'm out, too. Other things to do.

Similar non trans female people

OK, just seen you said you'll get back to me. Good to hear, & I'll be back at some point - just very sporadically right now! Hopefully you can acknowledge some of my concerns above, too.

Ahem. "I'm out", to "OK, I'll drop back in!" within 2 posts. 😂

You see?! People can be persuaded to change their mind online. 😁

Though I think the issue here is a dopamine one. Reading "Dopamine Nation". Eye-opening.

What the fuck do male trans people have to do with new mothers?

And it seems a surprising thing to say that women on Mumsnet would not have empathy for new mothers. And that it wouldn't occur to posters that women that they are scolding have BEEN those traumatised mothers.

Yep. It's not adding up / leaving me wary of engaging further.

But am curious as a cat(iette).

It absolutely doesn’t add up. It never does. And there’s always so much distraction and claims that MNers on FWR have no empathy.

Presumably the posters that show up to ‘educate’ us are all working on the assumption that our silly little female brains have no meaningful pattern recognition.