Get men out of girls' sports and out of their changing rooms.

[ArabellaScott]

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13266245/KIPP-Academy-Lynn-Massachusetts-transgender-athlete-rowing-harassment-suspended.html

''The male athlete was caught staring openly at one of the female athletes while she changed her clothes in the women’s locker room and remarked, "oooh t*tties!"' it read.
'When a female athlete nearby asked if it was the first time he had seen female breasts, the male responded, "uhh yeah" with a laugh. The male athlete was suspended for this incident.'
The report also claimed she 'caused many issues for the female athletes' on the team and they avoided using the locker room because of her.'

Those who have enabled this bullshit should be fucking ashamed of themselves.

It is tough Goldengar. But ultimately you may potentially have to choose if you start to feel the dissonance. Because how do you support someone who you know is acting in a way that harms women and girls? I don't know. How do you partition your brain against the dissonance once you see the impact on those women and girls while supporting that person? And how then do you even broach the dissonance if you start to feel it if you understand that you probably can never reclaim that relationship?

It is certainly not easy to know how to progress if you have doubts. I, personally, have no doubts however, I understand that others do.

I think unfortunate I have to opt for hypocrisy here.

That’s ok.

As long as you understand your consent is yours alone and you cannot consent on behalf of other women.

Absolutely @KellieJaysLapdog

I have a vegetarian friend I have known for many years. I know they really hate that I eat meat. To them it's a huge moral failing on my part. But they accept that being my friend means accepting there is a part of me, their friend, they have no respect for. And I accept that being their friend means they will always dislike one aspect of me. We have both been honest, know where the other stands and can both live with that.

People with dodgy beliefs in one area can still be genuinely good people in the rest of their life. Great company, look after friends and family, active in the local community, supporting the less well off etc, just this one area where their beliefs or activities are not aligning to yours.

The question for you is what beliefs or actions are so against your own values that you could no longer respect the person at all, and are you prepared to be honest with your friends so they can make the same judgement about you?

The question for you is what beliefs or actions are so against your own values that you could no longer respect the person at all, and are you prepared to be honest with your friends so they can make the same judgement about you?

In the context of these 2 friends, how they live and behave, it's not this one.

That's kind of what I thought - and it's not at all a bad thing. The way forward is to find enough ways we are the same as the people we disagree with (the good ones anyway) that we trust each other enough to start talking properly about the things we disagree about. I firmly believe that the right way out of this gender mess isn't to go backwards as if it never happened but to use it as a trigger point to build something better.

I don't intend to start that discussion with these 2 women though @FlirtsWithRhinos.

I realise for most the position is black and white and when I read JKR's eloquence on it, it is. Then I look at my friends, and will not tell them, however kindly, that how they've been living for over 25, 30 years needs to change in some respects.

It's a contradiction I will live with, and asking for views here has helped me realise that's where I land on it.

None of you will agree, I realise that.

Are the two things incompatible?
those with genuine transitions are not those campaigning to trample over women’s rights… see them as just one expression of being a man and it makes a lot more sense… they will always be men but can live as they want within that biological reality - they are still no doubt lovely genuine real people - just can never actually biologically be women…

JKR has no anti-trans comments or thoughts - she just states the biological reality…

I look at my friends, and will not tell them, however kindly, that how they've been living for over 25, 30 years needs to change in some respects.

Nothing needs to change, unless they've been using spaces that are single sex. That's not fair on the many women who will be excluded by their presence.

I also have a friend who is long transitioned, post op. Transitioned as an older teen in the early 90s.

Thankfully said friend is classic HSTS (homosexual transsexual) and would rather do everything accompanied by hubby and would never push into women-only anything.

Sadly, friend is coming to understand that transition was motivated by an intense desire to escape the homophobia of an old school, east end, gay-son-of-a-barrow-boy upbringing, which sadly resulted in life-long incontinence and lack of sexual fullfillment.

I feel sad for friend, but fortunately friendship is solid enough that we can discuss all of these things.

At least he has been able to find love, if not sexual fulfilment.

That’s true! Husband is a ‘bear’ in gay slang and friend looks like a gamine 1960s fashion model (aged up!) so they are quite the striking couple. Friend will be very isolated if the relationship ends though. It’s a sad life.

Homophobia has a lot to answer for.

None of this is feminisms problem to solve, of course!

Then I look at my friends, and will not tell them, however kindly, that how they've been living for over 25, 30 years needs to change in some respects.

No, I suspect talking about the issue would really re-stabilise the relationship.

Because, since you said you don't mind sharing spaces with your friends, I'm assuming they do use female facilities.

And of course, it's not about using the facilities, it's about using the women in those facilities. It's the women who provide the validation. They are the resource. If they weren't there the space would be irrelevant. Their presence is the crucial part.

And that's one of the many reasons women disagree with it, in principle, nothing to do with surgery. Of course men have always felt they can use women for their own purposes, but this makes it much more stark.

And In terms of surgery, it doesn't appear to make much of a difference to the sense of entitlement, or male aggression.

There is, of course, the issue of predating on women, but for me, it's also about men's unthinking use of women as a tool.

Then, of course, in your specific situation, your focus is entirely on your friends.

You're not thinking much about the women. (except maybe you're wondering now, since you are asking!)

Women's biology means that their toilet provision serves far more purposes than the men's.

Women have to deal with menstruation and flooding, there's leaking when you're breastfeeding, morning sickness, miscarriages (many miscarriages happen on the toilet), etc.

Dealing with these particularly intimate issues is not something that most women want to do in the presence of men, whether they're secretly present or open about it.

These men should never have been given the idea that provision for women is something they can use as validation, therapy, disguise, call it what you like, in the first place.

And I totally understand how, if they have done it for 30 years, you would be reluctant to puncture their balloon. And there is a feeling that if transactivists hadn't fucked this up, men like your friends could carry on as normal.

But they'd still be using unconsenting women.

No, I suspect talking about the issue would really re-stabilise the relationship

There's no restabilisation needed. I'm not questioning my friendships nor how they live, more exploring how I rationalise my women-as-a-class view V my view of my friends as individuals. Here I choose to see the grey area and I'm comfortable with that. I'm sure for many there are no shades of grey but there most definitely are for me with 2 people living as women, in relationships with men for decades.

These women could not be further removed from the transwomen/transactivists that fill our news feeds.

Sorry, I meant de-stabilise! and I reread my comment for typos 🙄

Your friends are what Ray Blanchard calls homosexual transsexuals. And would've been the original 'transwomen'. He studied transsexualism for 30 years, and came up with two types.

Homosexual transsexuals, and autogynophiles.

These AGP, Johnny Come Lately men, are those who have a sexual fetish for wearing women's clothes. The extreme end of transvestitism.

The reason why they look so different to your friends is because they are heterosexual and it's a fetish. Hence issues like coercing lesbians, and the naked aggression towards non complying women, etc.

I'm sure they're nothing like your friends, who would come under the category of homosexual transsexual.

The issue is that although HSTS men would have largely gone unnoticed, due to their small numbers and lack of aggression, AGP men have blown it all up. But just because old school transsexuals face the pushback they are now because of that, it doesn't mean that women will always have been happy with them in their spaces.

It's still using women. And it's still without their consent.

And personally I don't agree that women should be used in this way. Whether you acknowledge it to them or not, your friends are men. And women are not their therapy.

Don't get me wrong, I totally understand that when this becomes personal, it's certainly a lot harder. But it must be almost impossible once you force yourself to consider women as fully fledged human beings who deserves the same rights as men.

Your friends absolutely think that women and their spaces are something to be utilised by them. It's the way they've been brought up. They can't help considering that their needs are more important. They probably don't even know they're doing it, that's how much they take it for granted.

But you do, which is why it has to be a grey area and not something you want to bring up. Because you know, if you do, it could threaten your friendship.

That's the strength of the entitlement.

It isn't really a 'grey area', when it comes down to the practicalities.

Either men can use women's facilities/rights/spaces, and this will exclude many women, or not.

It's a pretty basic, simple, and straightforward choice between whether we prioritise the feelings of men, or those of women.

No matter how kind, lovely, or convincingly passing a man is, his presence will make some spaces unusable for some women.

The general acceptance that some men can use women's spaces is shrinking the world for many women.

No, exactly. It's not grey in real life. Only in Goldengar's head.

It's grey, because goldengar knows it's wrong, but won't say so, because she doesn't want it to threaten her friendships.

Which I don't think anyone doesn't get.

But, personally, if you keep thinking that way, and follow that to its logical conclusion, you might end up questioning the sincerity of the friendship in the first place.

And accepting the likelihood that many friendships between men and women are, by their very nature, unequal and prioritise the men.

And the problem with that, is that once you see it, you can't unsee it.

Hence, 'late onset feminism'.

Transactactivism's totally unlooked for byproduct!

'They're not using the facilities, they're using the women in them'.

BOOM.

You can always rely on FWR for a truth bomb.

Exactly.

And it really does stand out, because it's undeniable.

The room is irrelevant - hence the lack of enthusiasm for third, gender neutral spaces.

The fact that it's women only is the appeal. And the only thing that constitutes 'women only', is the women in it.

Absolutely the grey only exists in my head.

My purpose for posting was to face the challenge I knew other posters would present, to interrogate how I feel. I've done that and see the contradiction, and I can live with it.

The binds of friendship override a cause that in reality I show my support for by liking a JKR tweet occasionally or moan about my employers using the word menstruators when explaining who the free sanitary products they're providing benefit.

I respect that others would take a different stance.

For what it's worth, Goldengar, I understand your dilemma and I don't know what I'd do irl either.

I don't have any close friends who are TW, so I've become aware of the issue and developed my thinking without that personal pull.

And any trans friends I made now would have to be unflinchingly personally honest and respectful of women's spaces, otherwise we couldn't be proper friends.

I don't think you'll find many women who cannot relate to your situation Goldengar

This issue has been responsible for de-stabilising relationship and friendships, or outright ending them, left right and centre. Husbands and wives, parents and children, co-workers, the lot.

But as I said, once you start to see the issues, it gets increasingly more difficult because you start to judge everything they say and do with that knowledge in your head - the knowledge that are not only do these men prioritise themselves to the detriment of women, but you are expected to do so, too.

And as soon as you realise that it's less about being kind, and more about expecting compliance, things tend to look a bit different.

But I, for one, am glad you decided to post here. Stick around.