How to respond to "oh there's always bad apples that ruin things for everyone" and "well women do that too" ?

[Ohisitjustme]

How to respond to this?

Discussed the trans issue.

I said I'm really concerned about women's safety in eg changing rooms. Any man can come in now and flash their penis and anyone who complains is a transphobe.
Response: well nobody should be flashing their penis around. There's always a bad apple in every barrel
Me: but there's now no recourse to complain without be labelled transphobic
Response: well there'll always be people who'll take advantage

Me: no woman now can get changed in M&S changing rooms without worrying about a man opening their curtain, pretending it's a mistake
Response: well women can be voyeurs too
Me: but women don't rape other women
Response: yes they do

Me: muslim women now can't use public toilets as men are allowed in
Response: so should everyone use the toilet of their birth sex?
Me: yes
Response: what about Butch lesbians who look masculine and are then reported for using women's toilets. And what about women living as men ; should they frighten women by using female toilets?
Me: everyone knows what a woman looks like vs what a man looks like.
Response: what about that Butch lesbian who was asked to leave?

I don't know what else to say. Apart from "seriously are you fucking serious?"

I should think the answer is that everyone managed just fine until not so long ago, before gender ideology became a craze that swept the world.

These issues have only been inflicted on women very recently.

Don't discuss it with them any more.

If we weren't so alert to the possibility of voyeuristic men in places where they shouldn't be, butch lesbians would probably go unquestioned. If they were questioned, they could simply say, "no, I'm a woman" and in most cases it would become really obvious when they spoke/moved.
We used to have a sort of social contract that men and women stuck to their own toilets, changing rooms, etc, and anyone who appeared to not belong could be challenged; this is what we have now lost.
Also, before anyone asks, yes, I have been challenged before now as to whether I was in the right room. It didn't cause me any upset, because I know who and what I am. (On one occasion I had in fact gone to the men's after one glass too many - I felt very silly but not at all threatened.)

I try to avoid details or examples. I stick to provable fact, e.g. in humans, there are only two sexes and you can't swap one for the other; men commit more crime than women, including approx 98% of sexual crime - that sort of thing.

And principle: most women DO mind men in spaces where they are undressed, it's a long-established convention that men stay out of women's toilets and changing areas, and the vast majority of men willingly respect that.
Transwomen are factually men not women, and therefore don't belong in women's toilets or changing rooms.
The fact that a few women say they don't mind men in their spaces is neither here nor there. Good luck to them, but their wishes don't overrule the majority's.

People will keep coming up with 'yeah but what about...?'. Try not to get drawn into that. Don't get rattled. Stick to the basics. You're right.

Apparently trans people have been around forever. Native tribes have a "third gender" etc
They've just been horribly oppressed

I think this is what I'll do. I'm still bothered days later

Apparently unisex toilets are the solution. I said yes but men piss everywhere. Apparently women are worse for messing up toilets

Unfortunately I am not a good speaker and this person is a very good speaker so I end up stumbling over myself and sounding like a twat while they express themselves so fluently

You can't win every argument. I can't really see anything wrong with any of these answers.

I can't figure out this comment.

I wouldn't do this OP.
It would make you look like you were using the issue of race to score cheap points on a feminist board. And failing to grasp any of the real points involved.

It's an inflammatory comment, par for the course. Ignore.

Is your interlocutor a woman? If so, she will probably change her mind when she or someone near her encounters reality.

If it’s a man, I’m afraid thé Mandy Rice Davies response is the only one that covers everything ( ‘He would say that, wouldn’t he?)

I know what you mean - just try to remember that you are right, the facts are on your side. And it looks like the tide is turning, and public opinion is increasingly on your side too.

Ignore them, but from a position of
'I could destroy you all with my incontrovertible and perfectly-articulated gender-critical arguments, but there are more important things on my agenda - this hot chocolate with marshmallows and all the trimming won't drink itself, you know'

Feel free to come back here to be reminded that you are not alone if it starts getting to you again

Anyway, try not to worry.

Trump's government are erasing transgender people.

No mention of them will be allowed in any literature produced by the government or any agency attached to it.

Teachers who use a child's preferred pronouns or name (if that name isn't concomitant with their sex) will be sacked, blacklisted and possibly placed on a sex offender's register.

Transgender people will be erased from the military and probably sacked if they're in any role working in the public sector, because they won't have any protection from discrimination under the law.

Everyone has to say that sex is strictly binary.

Soon, if everyone stops talking about transgender people, stops posting about them on social media, we'll go back to how we were in the past. Where we knew transpeople existed somewhere but because nobody really talked about it, and because there are so few of them that most people who've got the rage about them have never actually encountered one outside of the social media space, we didn't expend vast amounts of energy on talking about how awful and dangerous they are.

We're due a far right take over in the UK at the next election. Just bide your time.

“Yes there may be bad apples, and yes women may do bad things too. But statistically 99%of the issues are committed by men, so let’s focus on fixing the biggest problems first”

Can you reply to their statements with a question?.
'Well they'll always be bad apples.....' you reply ' how would you deal with those bad apples?'
'There will always be people who take advantage.......' you reply 'How do you suggest stopping those people?'
Challenge every bland statement with a question

Any actual useful response to the OP? There are loads of Trump threads for you to rant on.

I posted my post above before I read this - so my suggestion of an inner 'Ohisitjustme - Destroyer of Daft Arguments But Too Busy To Bother' is even more valid

IMO, people who like to mention a third gender have zero idea about the cultural reasons behind it. They impose a Western pespective on it and think third gender means trans.

Me: but women don't rape other women
Response: yes they do.
Wrong. In the UK anyway.
Besides the fact that only 2% of sex crimes are committed by women, women can not rape. In UK law rape is a crime which requires possession of a penis.

That's what I said.
They said no, any object/ body part is rape

I doubt you'd change their mind

I'm inclined by my mums stock response of 'two wrongs don't make a right' which doesn't quite fit but is close enough.

Sex is binary. It's an either/or.
That's the root of the issue.

I actually don't have a problem with people walking around presenting as the opposite sex. Women can wear trousers. Doesn't make them a man.

It's when men are given free rein to enter women's private spaces, rape crisis centers, women's sports and other women's competitions (e.g. scholarships) and say they're women and everyone says "ok mate, whip out your penis that's ok" ... That's when I'm concerned for women's safety.

Boys wearing eyeliner and nail varnish? Have at it. Nobody's in danger