“There is no evidence that predatory and abusive men have ever had to pretend to be anything else to carry out abusive and predatory behaviour.”

[ArabellaScott]

I know this was years back.

It's just struck me again what vacuous bullshit it is.

Every man who has abused and predated has pretended to be something else.

How many men wear T shirts saying 'Hi, I'm a rapist', or state their intent to abuse children when applying for a job or meeting a prospective partner, or signing up for a dating app, or going out for a drink with someone, or spiking said someone's drink, or 'love bombing' a target, or stalking someone, or abusing their position of trust in their job, church, social group?

Every predator and abuser 'pretends' to not be a predator and abuser, surely?

Deception, manipulation and lying is a fundamental part of abuse.

It's quite chilling that politicians got to the point where they would make a statement like this.

It's effectively saying that men will openly warn us before abusing and predating. It's the direct opposite of the truth. In other words, it's a huge, blatant lie.

www.holyrood.com/news/view,shona-robison-must-resign-over-gender-reform-comments-alba-mp-says

Was the predatory man in the article I posted wearing a wig or claiming to be a woman?

Why would he bother? Women's bathrooms have no magical barrier stopping men from walking in.

The sign on the door depicting a woman should be sufficient. It's a woman's space. Men are not welcome. Trans women are men.

Why the focus on bathrooms? That's just the tip of the iceberg.

https://4w.pub/male-inmate-charged-with-raping-woman-inside-california-womens-prison-cdcr-confirms-pregnancy

This is a clear example of a predatory and abusive man who pretended to be a women to carry out abusive and predatory behaviour. And there's plenty more evidence like this, in a wide range of circumstances.

Even taking the statement as I assume the speaker meant it: that men don't have to pretend to transness to abuse women, it's still bollocks.

It's not about the transness, real or pretend. It's about the potential for abuse.

It's not about the men. It's about women reducing the attack surface for women.

We get it chris, we know that if men want to endanger, frighten, inconvenience, distress, piss off or scare away women they will do it anyway.

They will do it if women say no, they will do it if women say please stop, they will do it if women say I don’t want you to.

They will do it, they will brag about it and they will laugh.

And lawmakers will argue it’s ok to make this easier or more acceptable. And police will do nothing about it. And courts will not convict and judges will worry about ruining these men’s reputations whilst giving no concern to the women or children who suffer.

Yes, we know men will do many things women don’t want them to. And we know this suits you very well.

There's no evidence people have ever had to break into buildings to steal.

That statement's just as true, balancing precariously in the same way on the very tight "had to" combined with the loose intransitivity of "steal". There are plenty of other ways to steal stuff in general, as long as you're not talking about stealing a specific thing.

Looking back at the original formulation, you'll note that the target - the women - are totally removed. It's just a thing the man does to no-one in particular: "carry out abusive and predatory behaviour."

So protecting any individual or set of targets, reducing his opportunity, isn't going to have any effect, you see? He could still do that action somewhere to someone - so locking any doors is pointless.

This is a quite typical queer theory statement - technically true, basically meaningless, created to win an argument by verbal trickery because it can't be won openly and rationally.

Of course they do. That's why since they were invented, women have been able to tell men who enter by mistake, to get out. And they have.

The magic barrier is they're for women.

It's called respect.

Women's bathrooms have no magical barrier stopping men from walking in.

They used to have something like a “magical barrier”, that’s the point.

Societal expectation used to be that men did not do this, and that if they did, women could and would feel confident to challenge them. This expectation has been deliberately and officially dismantled.

(I’m often surprised to read these arguments that directly contradict the point that the writer thinks they’re making.)

Edited to say: That’s a response to chris, not the person quoting them

A preditory man is a preditory man whether he wears a wig or not. And yes men in women's spaces does bother me. I put the privacy, safety and dignity of women and girls before men and their hurt feelings every time. The magical barrier is knowing that the good and decent men stay out of women's spaces. If we see a man (wig or not wig) in a women's space we know he's not good and decent and should not be there.

They used to have something like a “magical barrier”, that’s the point.

That would be one of those "social constructs" the queer theorists go on about a lot - as if something being a social construct was a particularly profound insight.

Some social constructs are a good idea (such as having some spaces be female-only); others are a bad idea (removing all barriers from male predators, or giving funding and attention to queer theorists).

She’s still in post.

That is shocking to me

Societal expectation used to be that men did not do this, and that if they did, women could and would feel confident to challenge them. This expectation has been deliberately and officially dismantled.

(I’m often surprised to read these arguments that directly contradict the point that the writer thinks they’re making.)

Yes!

We're told all the ways that women can't keep men out (there's no magical barrier, you can't do genital inspections, you can't tell, they'll come in anyway).

And the person fondly imagining they are occupying the moral high ground, appears entirely unaware that they are actually describing boundary violating, entitled, dominating, abusive behaviour.

On second thoughts, they probably know exactly what they're saying.

So according to you, a man can just walk into a women's toilet if he wants to attack women or girls, therefore Katie Dolatowski doesn't exist.

https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/transgender-sex-offender-who-attacked-29765751

A man would never pretend to be a woman in order to prey on girls, therefore Andrew Miller/ Amy George doesn't exist.

https://news.sky.com/story/andrew-miller-jailed-for-20-years-for-abducting-and-sexually-assaulting-girl-in-scottish-borders-12983829

On second thoughts, they probably know exactly what they're saying.

I think that's very possible.

Societal expectation used to be that men did not do this, and that if they did, women could and would feel confident to challenge them.

And if the man didn't leave when challenged the women could get the manager or the police - who would throw the man out, not the women awful transphobes.

"Why would he bother? Women's bathrooms have no magical barrier stopping men from walking in."

The "magical barrier", and we all know that this kind of language is used to try to make it sound silly and unimportant, was a known boundary, that was respected and enforced if it was broken.

Up until recently if I was in the local Nuffield women's changing room which is open plan with only 1 tiny cubicle that's always in use, and I was in a state of undress, if a man had walked in and got his cock out then I would have been able to tell him to get out. I would have had the backing of the management and of every other woman in the room.

Now that man just has to say that he feels like a woman, the managers will call me a bigot, the other women in the room may or may not back my stance that I do not feel comfortable or safe being naked in front of a naked male stranger.

That is what happened I am now no longer able to trust that the women's changing room will only have women in it and I have no power to challenge the inclusion of males in that space.

The only option available to me is to no longer use the Nuffield gym, so to self exclude and that the option other women are facing too.

Some based on their religious beliefs, some based on trauma, there are a huge variety of reasons why women may not feel comfortable or safe being naked or vulnerable in a confined space with a male.

Most rapes and sexual assaults are planned and thought through . The majority are not just spur of the moment . They select their victim knowing they won't be believed or can be easily silenced or have no protection as in another male who will beat these cowards or no strong support networks such as family members in positions of authority. People do what they think they can get away with .

Plus women and girls could tell others there is a male person in there and alert others.

It feels like ground hog day.

However, if it means that a new batch of readers see how easy it is to counter these arguments with logic and fact, then I am all for it.

But it really feels like we are on constant repeat.

https://thesun.ie/news/13932055/woman-raped-tesco-supermarket-toilet-man-cubicle/

This is nothing to do with trans woman. The rapist is a man who isn't trans, and would still have entered regardless what the rules are regarding what trans people may no or not.

We know that male people will attack us and cause us distress whether those male people say they are transgender or not. No matter how they present themselves to the world.

People using that weak argument miss the entire point. Why do female people now have to be exposed to even more risk in their single sex spaces?

We fucking already knew about the male people who just walked in before, but now we have an additional layer of risk that we have to be exposed to.

And yet, we get posters berating and shaming women and girls for raising this very point. Because a group in society has declared some male people should be exempt from safeguarding protocols based on no evidence at all to show those male people have a lower risk of committing violent or sex crimes as any other male person.

The main point is though, there is no evidence that those male people have the SAME or LOWER risk of committing violent of sexual crimes as female people in general.

How many additional women or children do you see as acceptable to be harmed in any way before you support alternative solutions for the group of male people you support, or maybe you belong to, and allow female people to have single sex spaces that are just that, single sex.

And for clarity, female people are only those with bodies formed around the production of large gametes regardless of the production status of those gametes.

Confirming yet again that the problem is 'man' not 'trans' - except when a man is claiming that being trans means that long-established rules do not apply to him.

And that if that point is conceded it means that the rules no longer apply to any man and cannot be enforced.

Women-only spaces do not exclude transmen aka women, because 'trans' isn't the problematic thing, 'man' is the problematic thing.

Christinapple

Right, so how do women keep unwanted men out of their toilets?

What's the magic word??

It's got a everything to do with preditory men. And highlights why we need to keep doing all we can to keep ALL MEN out of women's spaces regardless of how they identify or what certificates they have.

So, because one man was 'going to anyway' we are duty bound to let all men in there?

No. We keep all men out.

That way, Katie Dolatowski may not have had the opportunity to assault young girls in supermarket loos.