Is it possible to be a feminist and also have some empathy for transgender people today?

[HoundOfTheBasketballs]

I’m not going to pretend I’m an expert here but everything feels incredibly polarised. Like, either you’re with us or you’re against us.
Is there no middle ground in this debate?
I am, and always have been a feminist, but I know and like people who are trans and non-binary. I can’t be the only person feeling confused and conflicted, can I?

I've posted on another thread today and many in the past that a TiM used to use his breaks to masturbate in the women's toilets or take phone calls and video calls like it was his own personal office meanwhile I was very pregnant, with HG and incontinence and spent most of my work days in the bathrooms closest to my workspace and when I brought it up to management I was told not possible, TWAW, he hasn't officially come out yet so can't assume etc. Didn't matter that he was built like a brick shithouse and had a constant 5 o'clock shadow and had over a foot in height over me.

I have personally, multiple times, been subject to unwanted sexual behaviour in the workplace by a man while I was at my most vulnerable and I was silenced because I couldn't prove that the noises I was hearing multiple times a week were a lady using her penis for sexual pleasure in the toilet next to me because ladies don't have penises.

Just because you haven't heard of these cases doesn't mean they aren't happening.

He clearly wasn't in the women's bathroom for his safety was he.

It’s almost as if there is a theme of who the perpetrator is of these crimes….

Hint…it ain’t women

Oh, well I didn’t know that which is why I’ve personally skirted it!

The thing is, once you do mention it, the TRAs use it as a stick to beat you with. They make out you’re calling all trans people perverts, and so anything else you say can be summarily dismissed!

Brava 👏🏻

Why does it bother women if trans women are in the toilet or changing room?

Sorry darling what is a crustal belief?

Because we don't want men in female single sex spaces

You gotta hold the frame!

This site is for mums not dads

Because they are men. And a women's toilet is a single sex space. For women.

Because they have raped and sexually assaulted people in them? Because voyeurism is on the rise? Because we deserve privacy.

Women are nine times more likely to be assaulted in mixed sex facilities.

Why don't you think about the boundaries of what you consider to be middle ground then? Can you articulate where you think this group should have rights:

You have already said no male people in single sex spaces and sports.

What about identification? Should male people have any identification that says they are female?

Job roles? Should any male person be able to be employed in a role that was designated as being for female people?

Access to language. Should any male be able to call themselves girl, woman, female, lesbian, she or her? Should they be able to demand that people use these words for them under threat of sanctions?

Should female people have to welcome in these male people into their interest groups, social groups etc that have been set up for women only?

Why should society have to comply to this group's demand that they are treated as if their philosophical belief is based on material reality if it is not?

Whose job is it to create this super friendly trans centred utopia? And what happens if you don't drink the kool aid?

Teens here also have no truck with trans or non binary identities and think they’re outdated and attention seeking

I guarantee on whatever Dadsnet-type forum exists in the online universe, there is scant hand-wringing over how they can find ‘a middle ground.’ This is a sex-based rights decision today. Impossible to imagine after all has been done over decades to secure equality for women that it took a Supreme Court decision to confirm that women’s rights are women’s rights.

This is my view on it all. I’ve had experiences as a girl and woman, including harassment, SA, and pregnancy and miscarriage which have shaped my life and my opinions. Luckily not all women have had these experiences but, I’m fairly certainly no men have had them!

I also am of the view like some PPs that many children (in my experience, teens) now think this is something a bit bizarre and attention seeking. My children (and many of their friends) absolutely wouldn’t pick on anyone trans, or say anything nasty to them, but they think it’s all a bit bizarre and they tend to roll their eyes at it all. Bit like they do with furries and all such similar stuff.
But they also know that girls can have short hair and not wear make up. Wild, I accept. 😵‍💫🙄🤣

What is a trans woman? If it’s any man who says he’s a woman when he walks into the toilet, then the answer is obvious. Men don’t actually like women wandering into their toilets, either.

Thank you. I will go and have a look. 👀

There isn't a way for men to pretend to be women that doesn't cause harm to women and girls as a sex class or some individual women/girls on a more personal level.

It's always been a case of how much harm to women and girls society was willing to turn a blind eye to. When it was largely just affecting women and girls in said man's family or circle most people couldn't see it so live and let live prevailed.

Now we've all seen it and that genie isn't going back in the bottle.

Nope, they tell us off for illiberal views

And of course, toilets and changing rooms are the least of it. Prisons, refuges, rape crisis counselling - all need to be protected too. It’s funny how it’s always toilets that are used to bat this away.

Because female people have needs in toilets and changing rooms that often involve being in a state of undress in the communal area of that space. And because it causes some female people distress when they find themselves sharing that space with male people when they believed it was female only.

And if some female people don't want to share their single sex spaces with male people, other female people should not be dismissing their needs.

What’s illiberal about fighting for women’s rights?

What have trans people lost?

Not sure what I'm supposed to feel sorry about.

OP, I don't think you've properly followed this issue over the years. Too many trans activists refuse to accept anything less than infringing on women's rights. They want everyone - the law, medical care, schools, sports etc - to agree that they are women and should have all the rights that biological women do.

They have categorically refused to accept a fair middle ground.

This is why we had to fight them all the way to the supreme court to be able to say that women's rights refer to biological women.