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 wonder if this question of a transwomen's right to "exist" is that if we as actual women refuse a transwoman access to our women's only spaces this shatters the internal illusion in the transwoman's psyche that he is actually a woman and "female" to such a degree that this personification can no longer successfully survive? In other words in order for the delusion to be fully immersive and satisfying to them they have to either win or coerce complicity out of everyone else? Without this and with regular reminders the trans identify is unsustainable and no longer satisfying to them so it largely withers away or becomes an occasional indulgence.

If this were the case then it is possible to argue that yes this ruling could impact on the right of the trans identity to exist, but not the person it does not impact on the person's right to exist however they like. Its an interesting question because are we obliged or forced to comply with other individuals delusions in a way that is detrimental to our own rights and safety in any other areas?

If it’s not dignified for someone presenting as female t use the gents then take that up with the gents.

if it is not dignified for someone presenting as female to use the gents why is it dignified for a female to use the ladies with someone who is clearly presenting male despite the clothes and make up ? ( or often because of the clothes and make up )

Why is it OP that you feel women owe care and compassion to a group of men who have been perfectly happy for women to be assaulted, harassed, driven out of any space at all, raped in some cases, and haven't cared at all? 'Reframe your trauma' and 'learn to cope' were some of the mildest instructions from those men, alongside the threats of violence, often sexual violence.

Why this sex based expectation of one but not the other?

Agreed. In the short term I suppose it will be to use the Accessible toilets. Longer term a unisex provision. Like the changing rooms in primark etc

Good luck finding a public toilet where I live they’ve all closed down due to budget cuts. Perhaps the council is denying us all existence. Most places seem to be built / redeveloped to have have self contained cubicles off a main corridor. I work out and about so am often loo hunting. Traditional male/ female loos are getting rarer.

I do think toilets could be an issue if people wanted to be actively unpleasant - you wouldn’t want butch-looking women (or trans men, who logically should use the women’s toilets if going rigidly by a person’s sex) to be chucked unceremoniously out of women’s toilets for not looking the part. You also wouldn’t want intolerant, aggressive men chucking effeminate-looking males out of the men’s toilets, just on the basis of appearance.

I think this is the harm that pushing legal definitions into the realms of fantasy has done - it has obliged women to point out reality and defend their legal rights. Now work needs to be done quickly on defending the rights of trans people in appropriate ways, rather than lazily trampling over the rights and protections of women.

@OneAlertNavyAnt it’s not dignified for someone presenting as female to have to use a men’s toilet

Why on earth not? Some spaces need to designated as single-sex for the protection of women from the small but far from insignificant number of men who are predators. People should use the single-sex space designed for people of their sex. It doesn't matter what they wear (or 'present') - transwomen should go to the Gents, transmen to the Ladies. They are fully entitled to exist.

You are surely not suggesting there is something 'not dignified' about being male? Or that invading the space of people who don't want you there conveys dignity. Top Tip. It doesn't.

You do know that some men have a fetish and getting into women's toilets is a huge turn on? Many trans women are straight. Some are rooting around in the sanitary bins looking for used pads for their cosplay, or getting off on hearing women pee. They pee on the floor, don't flush, to mark that they have been there. Pee with the door open. Take selfies with one leg up on the sinks......

They are not all Dylan Mulvaney gorgeous Audrey Hepburn wannabees. They include nasty, violent, sexually deviant men. And we can't tell who is who. They should all stick to the gents.

And to put the blame squarely where it belongs - with Stonewall who knowingly and cruelly encouraged trans and non binary people to act unlawfully. It’s them who should be asked what to do about this - not women

By saying that trans women can’t use women’s toilets, you’re effectively saying they’re not allowed to exist, because everyone needs to use public toilets sometimes, and it’s not dignified for someone presenting as female to have to use a men’s toilet.

It's interesting you mind about this for men.

For some years now many women have not been able to use women's toilets because men are in them to have their preferred choice of all the facilities. Those women didn't have a back up alternative, they couldn't use the men's. You're effectively saying you're ok with those women not being 'allowed to exist' because everyone needs to use public toilets sometimes and it was dignified enough for those women to have done what they have had to do because of these men - stay at home. Find somewhere else. Cope. Reframe their trauma.

It is baffling what people are so happy for women to suck up as their lot in life but cannot believe anyone would expect a man to deal with.

Women tend not to chuck people out of anywhere
they tend to move away

I am pretty sure that a lot of men - 10 to 20% based on sex offence rates estimated by ONS - would be delighted at unisex everything for a right old ogle at women which complicates this discussion

Nobody is denying their existence. We accept they exist but won't join in with their fiction.

I’ve also found that especially the younger gen Z kids seem to be moving on from the trans trend.
But also, kids cringing at something older people say is not that unusual. Doesn’t mean they’re automatically right just because they cringe.

'They're saying we don't exist!' is and always has been a disingenuous bit of TRA rhetoric. And what does 'space alongside us' actually mean?

Nobody thinks trans people don't exist. They very much exist and they should (and do) have the same rights everyone else has. Transwomen exist, but they are transwomen, not women. A trans person is a person who wants to be the opposite sex, not a person who is the opposite sex.

Two things:

And it’s not giving all the men access to the women’s toilets, most men don’t want to be there, so that argument doesn’t make sense.

Most men don't, but there are two kinds of men who do want access to women's toilets. Trans women and those with nefarious intentions. How do we stop the latter, or tell the difference? There has even been overlap between those two groups, i.e. known sexual assaults by trans women in women's spaces. We know that trans women offend at the same rate as the rest of the sex class (i.e. males).

it’s not dignified for someone presenting as female to have to use a men’s toilet.
So why is it dignified for females to have males in their toilets?

We don’t have to be unpleasant towards them or deny their existence?

Are women deny the existence of Islam by not wearing hijabs? Of Hinduism by eating beef? Of Buddhism by not being vegetarian? Of Roman Catholics by not going to confession?

Sorry!!!! 🤣

By saying that trans women can’t use women’s toilets, you’re effectively saying they’re not allowed to exist, because everyone needs to use public toilets sometimes, and it’s not dignified for someone presenting as female to have to use a men’s toilet.

I think you're a bit confused about what 'exist' means. It doesn't mean 'having to do something you don't want to do' or 'not being able to go in places where you're not allowed' or 'finding something undignified'.

it’s not giving all the men access to the women’s toilets, most men don’t want to be there, so that argument doesn’t make sense.

Give me strength....

Try reading the judgement. Please. Because that's what this is about. The judgement explains all of this.

@TheOtherRaven yes some men are violent and some are perverts, but we have to deal with them everywhere, and we can be attacked anywhere. There’s literally nothing stopping a man dressed as a man coming into a deserted women’s toilet and attacking a woman there if they want to. So I just don’t see that banning trans women from women’s toilets has any real impact on our safety either way.

It's not relevant whether you see it or not, or you agree or not, or if your personal standards of evidence have not yet been met.

The judgement is the legal decision on what the law means. And that's the one society will be working from.

Interesting. And do you believe that there is no reason for having any laws at all 'because people break them anyway'?

@TheOtherRaven Both the judgment and the discussion on this thread explain this clearly and repeatedly if the poster you responded to cared to look.

Unfortunately you cannot force people to engage with things when their eyes are tightly shut and their hands are clamped over their ears.

This is true I attended a group specifically for women in my industry a few years ago and it became loudly dominated by 3 transwomen who attended every session. Rather than complain the actual women who did attend just stopped going. Luckily many of us swapped contact information and kept in touch separately. I later emailed the woman who organised it to ask if the group was still happening and she confirmed that once the women stopped turning up the transwomen rather lost interest in coming as well so she closed the group.

The law has confirmed that you can be male or female based on your biological sex and that non binary is not something that exists. Perfectly sensible.