I think that for those trying to see both sides, who don’t want this to be such a toxic culture war, the only possible rational reason for arguing that “trans people” should have the “rights” that are being demanded on their behalf is that their numbers are so few that it’s not going to have a massive effect.
I suspect this will be the next argument used by rational transavtivists. These arguments and discussions go in waves, which change over time as each is rebutted by women arguing rationally. Returning to the “numbers” argument conveniently moves the discussion away from the currently pervasive “what is a woman” question that has been leveraged to good effect by those arguing for women’s rights recently.
I understand this argument and it’s the one that won the discussion when the original GRA was introduced. It’s a tempting argument and I can see how easy it would be to fall into. If I look at my own life, on the surface nothing has changed and neither GRA, nor the march of Stonewall-led, “getting ahead of the law” self-ID has had a significant effect.
If you can bring yourself to believe that the majority of “trans people” are sad victims and very vulnerable, then you can make the argument that societally, we ought to try to find a balance between women’s right and “trans rights”.
However, anyone who’s been watching this for a while, can see that the point where there was a reasonable argument for that balancing act was passed a long time ago. In the UK, with the GRA and the EA, people who are going through a real medical transition are already well protected and have some “rights” or “privileges” (depending on your position) such as being able to change legal sex, which many already regard as dodgy. Most people don’t know and are shocked if you tell them birth certificates can be changed, for example.
It’s also becoming anecdotally obvious that even the current system is beginning to cause problems, particularly when it comes to sports, prisons and rape crisis. That is because it only takes a small number of men taking advantage to negatively impact a huge number of women.
As soon as self-ID is on the table, there is no possibility of balance, which is why there is such an uprising of women on Terf Island. It occurred when self-ID was about to be imposed and women spotted it in time as the usual below the radar tactics failed.
I can see how beguiling that argument is though. If I can cling to the low numbers argument, then I don’t have to be seen as being mean to anyone. It’s back to being a straightforward “balancing of rights” exercise.
What those arguing this fail to take into account is that we are already past the point where any kind of balance is fair and reasonable to women.
Unfortunately, persuading people that any or all current “rights” should be rescinded (for example making a GRA more difficult to obtain, stopping falsification of birth certificates or ensuring the EA only protects actual transitioning patients, as it was intended to do) goes against the expected march of “progress” which many would assume to be the gradual rolling out of all the “rights” currently being demanded by the trans lobby. That assumption is one one of the huge mountains we are having to work to overcome before we can persuade people to our cause.