Transman tries to join female and non-binary space

[AnnListersBlister]

This has gone quite mad over social media.

I am not sure what to think of it other than, if transwomen are women then transmen are men? Why would this person want to be there?

And this is a 'female and non-binary space' -the 'non-binary' makes it ambiguous? But from the reactions the transman got, wasn't welcome, shunned, seems primarily female, a 'safe space'?

I am sorry that I cannot upload the file, only the TikTok link.

www.tiktok.com/@papasmurf9059/video/7474605736216087830?_t=ZN-8uBP9BayAg2&_r=1

I'm perfectly happy any time to welcome women with beards, deep voices and any other appearance. However if you choose to radically change your appearance you need to expect that you may cause other people confusion and it's not their fault for not being psychic.

And if you have made it very clear that you reject womenhood - and with some of the women with trans identities I've known they in doing that show quite open disdain for the subordinate role they see women having as a part of what they have rejected - then yes, it's a bit offensive to other women.

Women aren't put on the planet to provide services to TQ+ people. Although really this is largely what 'cis' means to many people with TQ+ identities.

You make such good points, TheOtherRaven.
Most of the comments about the transman at the heart of this discussion have been fairly supportive, but tinged with a bit of exasperation - of course you are still a biological woman, of course you are entitled to use women's toilets and join women's groups, BUT -

There are so many things a young woman needs to consider before taking the irreversible steps which transition comprises. Most of them are extremely serious, for instance the ones about the dangers of surgery, the side effects of hormones and other medication, but they also need to be asked how they intend to cope with situations where they present very proudly as men, but for their own reasons also wish to operate as women on occasions, for instance by joining a women-only group, or using the women's toilets.

How do they think women will react to what appears [somewhat] to be a man trying to join in women-only activities? What is their plan for dealing with this? Do they have the changed self-awareness they need to have, now they have changed themselves so drastically?

In many cases, like in this one, the answer seems to be no.

I can still remain sympathetic as I see these young women as victims. Victims of cynical and ruthless trans lobby groups who've been enabled by politicians, educators and medics - all who should have seen the threat these groups pose to the young and naive.

They've been groomed and gaslit into abandoning their long term physical and mental health, their fertility and their futures. We all know that the majority will feel regret but, having battled their families and other trusted adults about this, will find it extremely hard to admit the self inflicted damage.

Whether the adults responsible will ever be held accountable in the courts remains to be seen. Sadly there's no doubt that these young women are now living complicated and difficult lives with limited life opportunities for their future - as the unfortunate person cited in the OP clearly demonstrates.

I do totally agree with you on all of this but just to clarify, Frankie transitioned in late 20s &is now 39.

Reminder that the person in the OP is 39, old enough to be a grandparent, displaying the neediness and lack of social cop-on of a 13-year-old. There comes a time, around your early 20s, when it stops being everyone else's fault and starts being your own.

Other people don't have to like you, and unless you make some effort to be likable, the chances are they won't.

OMG that makes me old enough to be a great grandparent, but I’ve still got two teens at home 😭

This, also used to have some aspect of sympathy, but with examples like this I am bored by the egocentric, main character drama..
I.e
EVERYONE must buy into my reality and show that they believe my fantasy and total detachment from reality or....
• you'll be verbally/physically threatened
•you'll get reported to police/employers/registered body/media for being a bigot and I'll try to destroy your life. I'm in charge!!
The only truth and reality is what I say so agree or suffer.
Now it's all.
'Wahhhh, why did people allow this to happen to me.... I'm a poor wee victim who has been failed... I take no responsibility! It's someone else's fault!!'

Being a recipient of the Heartless Brute school of parenting (aka loving but realistic) isn't always fun, but it does make you realise that you have to take some responsibility for practically everything in your life, and the older you get the more you need to do.

That someone has got to 39 without having taken that on board is sad, terrifying and exasperating. And it would be whether there was any concept of gender in the mix or not.

I know you're right. But it just seems such a massive con for people - no matter what their age.

Which is terribly sad, because the effects of the hormones she has taken are irreversible ( as pretty well is any mastectomy surgery , possible but painful and expensive) and this is an issue that she will have to deal with for the rest of her life.

I'm not un-sympathetic, I'm even sorry for the grown-up should-know-better transman in question - she too fell for the dangerous delusion that women can become men and vice versa, and now she's living the consequences.

The best thing she could do with her unhappiness about how women treat her would be to warn gender-questioning young women not to believe the hype that they can become men, but to sort out their issues without damaging their female bodies as she has, sadly.

Stories like hers - women trying to become men but also wanting to retain the companionship of women, and who don't succeed in either of these - are the 'facts of trans life' that would-be transitioners need to know.

That is true. A lack of self awareness can be put down to ASD but it is unfortunate that especially among strangers, when demonstrated to this extent, it definitely won't make people warm to you.

If I had have turned up to an event like this, id have probably been a bit nervous as I'm new and people were supposedly familiar with one another already but I'd have gone over, said 'is this the walking group? I'm coming along today, met so and so last night, hope that's okay!' Or something.
Frankie wouldn't have thought that that's a thing you do. Having ASD, as a PP said could've likely meant that she thought she knew why she was there so they must too. So any action that wasn't friendly and welcoming from the offset (despite nobody having a clue who she was, probably!) Was a deliberate shun.

The transman thing may be a bit of a straw man of the situation.

That's very true. There are transfolk on YouTube warning of some of the dangers, some of whom are now 'detransitioning'. I've obviously not watched all of them but as far as I know, their warnings are mostly about physical consequences. It would be good for someone to speak out about the social consequences too.

It does make me wonder what her childhood was like. A quick Google tells some things including that her mother wouldn't accept her being trans but that she did respond to a post some years ago saying that despite the difficulties she loved frankie and didn't understand why frankie had become so hostile toward her.

Any adult child going NC, I'm usually heavily biased in their favour. In this case however I'm wondering if frankie's mother may not have done much wrong other than perhaps be worried and somewhat naive about frankies' struggles, and frankie has taken much offense at this, rather than her mother doing something spectacularly awful.

Yeah seems hypocritical, and the reasoning against transwomen can't apply to transmen given the stance that you can't change sex?

I've already responded to that post, I realise I worded it clumsily.

I was meaning that the whole feminist stance around trans tends toward the fact that we're constantly told 'Transwomen are women!"

So if this is true, perpetuated largely by the trans movement, then a trans man is a man.
Why is a trans man then trying to join a female space?

They're a man.

(Obviously not really, but by their own ideologies).

That's what I meant.

I think there are a couple of points here, depending on what type of single sex space is under discussion.

If it's a single sex space such as a toilet or a rape crisis group, where some women may feel forced to self exclude if a male person is present, then I think how well you "pass" is relevant. A relatively tall and muscular trans man who has had surgery and hormone treatment may pass convincingly as a man. And if that's the case, their presence in a female only space Is likely to distress the female users of that space for the same reason that the presence of a man is likely to distress them. I'm not sure what the answer to this one is, because I don't think they should be using a women's toilet or rape crisis group, but they won't necessarily be safe in the equivalent space for men.

If it's a single sex group such as a walking group, where the single sex aspect is merely a matter of personal preference, normal social rules apply. If they want to be part of a female only group despite identifying as a man, a little explanation is called for. For example, if I wanted to join a women only walking group and it was a "just turn up" arrangement rather than one where you contact the organiser in advance, I would look for the group, then go up to them and introduce myself. If I was too shy to introduce myself and just lingered in the corner and nobody came to my rescue, I think I'd be feeling 20% like, "they could have come and said hello", but 80% like, "you should have gone and said hello, why are you so stupid and shy, what's wrong with you?" For a trans man I would go one further and say that not only should they go and say hello, they should also say, "I'm a trans man which means I identify as a man but I am actually female like you and lived as a woman until I transitioned. I'd really like some female company. Is it OK if I join you?" Either way, whether you are trans or not, you can't expect everyone else to do all the work for you in a social situation. You have to put yourself out there to some extent.

Yes, I agree with that. I used to be very shy and I'd have had the same thought process and then beaten myself up about it afterwards!

This is generally true IME.

Although to be fair I have a lot of gay male friends who don't mind young females drinking in gay bars. Don't mind isn't welcome of it just a 'ah well whatever'. They don't like it. The more aware of them including my closest gay male friend, have the stance that they understand why it is necessary and wish it wasn't. Others range from mild joking irritability 'ah great fanny fest in here again!' To 'why can't we have female only straight bars?!'

I love my gay male friends, and I wish it were safe for women to go out for drinks anywhere then everyone would be happy. Unfortunately the world isn't like that.

As a case in point, I'm a reasonably attractive 40 something. Over the last two years I've been chatted up by very much straight males,in gay bars.

Once I was alone. The barmaid had apparently told this man to not approach me, he was a regular. I'd been shopping and decided to pop in to read my book and have a couple of glasses of wines in the sun.
He was very interested but to be fair to him once I told him I was gay, he was respectful and we had a nice chat before he left me alone.

The other time wasn't so civil. I was wirh my previously mentioned ex dp and each time she left for the bar or the loo this man made a bee-line for me. He would not listen to my 'I'm gay, I'm with dp, please leave me alone' pleas at all. In the end I spotted a (gay) man whom I didn't know but recognised from a previous encounter and asked if I could move to stand near him. He agreed and this man didn't approach again then. My dp came back not long following, approached him and told him to leave me alone in no uncertain terms. Being confronted by a butch lesbian and being protected by a male (albeit a very obviously gay one) seemed to work.

I don't want straight men in gay spaces.
A lot of them have unisex loos for a start. Gay men are not a threat to me generally, straight ones are.
I am pleased when I see young women in gay bars. I am glad they're keeping themselves safe(r) however that safety has now been compromised with straight males entering these spaces, 'trans' or not.

I remember the days of having to kiss a girl to prove I were gay before entering certain bars! Maybe they should make men do that.

This is a very good point too. Almost as if they've decided what being that sex will be like-and are inevitably disappointed when it isn't and their trans presentation isn't received or accepted in a way they assumed it would be.

I am trying to envision how the men I know would react to a transman in a walking group or any sex-segregated group. If I were a man I don't think I'd want one turning up to 'Andy's Man's club' for example. In a sports thing, I'd be afraid of hurting them. In a therapy group, I'd be worried about saying something that'd upset them. I am not a man so maybe I am getting these things quite wrong...

I imagine their reaction would be very similar to Edward Norton's reaction in Fight Club when Helena Bonham Carter gatecrashes his testicular cancer support group.

Norton himself shouldn't even be there. He doesn't have testicular cancer, he's doing it as a weird therapy thing to cure his insomnia. But, even though he's faking it, he's still outraged that some woman who obviously never had testicles in the first place blags her way in.

Because women's single sex spaces have the safety justification, I think we sometimes forget that a sex segregated space or group can be justified by people just wanting to be with their own sex. Men too. The 5 foot 2 transman may not be a physical threat, but she's still an intrusion.

I haven't seen that! I will look it up.

Yes-there is a need for male only groups in certain scenarios same as there is a need for female only-different reasons perhaps, but valid ones nonetheless. IT would be awkward for men at best.

Transmen are women, many of whom have been made to feel excluded from womanhood and women's spaces. Of course they should be welcomed with open arms. Most are victims of abuse and terrible adversity which leads to their self harm in the first place. Mentally ill women deserve female only space as much as anyone else.

Inasmuch as any of us 'deserve' anything, the mentally ill are obviously as deserving as the rest of us, and it behoves us all to make some allowance for them. It's when it starts to be implied that someone is more entitled, or that their condition absolves them from any need to consider others, that it is problematic.

Most adults have stuff that takes effort to overcome. That's one of the reasons people join, for instance, walking groups, in the first place.

The woman described in the OP seems to feel more special than everyone else, and that others should somehow know that. Since she is well enough to have spent years describing her own travails online, she is also old enough to have learned very basic social conventions, such as introducing herself to people she is meeting for the first time.