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?

As I just said, you need to read around this whole board more.

Dismissing all posters as a homogeneous group of "trans-haters" is just as bad as what you are accusing them of doing wrt trans people, no?

Plenty of posters on here have personal stories to tell about their young people and have sought help here. If you haven't seen it, well....

I’m not engaging with all the posts with obviously stupid examples like not locking your front door, or what about the poor burglar and his rights. I’m not stupid, please don’t make stupid comparisons. Also, locking my own front door doesn’t cause any harm to anyone.

It would be more relevant to compare the toilet issue with men in flats and houses - often women are attacked by men they know in their own flats and houses, so should all men be banned from entering all residential buildings? No, because that is not proportionate and would cause harm. Women would definitely be safer though.

"And you guys on here have explicitly no empathy for that.
No, that's not acceptable. You need to read the board more extensively" @Greyskybluesky

"No empathy at all. Genuinely none" - sirchenjins

"I have nothing but contempt for trans people." Chimpanzeethatmonkeynews

"I have empathy for people who are confused, traumatised, unhappy or whatever combination has led them to believe pretending to be the opposite sex will make them feel better, but that's as far as it goes once their response to that trauma or unhappiness is to objectify, fetishise and colonise women" - tecsquad.

That's just this page, @Greyskybluesky . I am a long time resident of FWR and there are many on this thread who are no longer seeing any young people as victims of this ideology.

Why is that a stupid analogy?

And if there is harm involved in men going to men's bathrooms (and there isn't any evidence there is) - why would that be women's problem to solve? Why can't they campaign for third spaces or better behaviour from men in men's sauces?

Also, locking my own front door doesn’t cause any harm to anyone.

You might be upsetting burglars or squatters looking to pinch your stuff or occupy your space. Requiring men to use men’s toilets doesn’t harm them.

No, it is not acceptable to say posters don't have empathy.
As I said: Read. The. Board.
You are picking examples from one thread and applying it to all posters.
They are entitled to those views BTW.

I am a long time resident of FWR and there are many on this thread who are no longer seeing any young people as victims of this ideology.

Being a victim and being a perpetrator are not mutually exclusive.

You don't the right to perpetrate harm on others because you're a victim.

I am sincerely baffled by posters who think women need to solve the problems of transgender people when we havent solved our own problems yet.

We are light years away from a world where women are not raped, killed and harassed daily.

I will worry about transpeople's safe toilets when women have safe toilets across the world. They don't.

Ok, some of you guys on here have no empathy for that.

I was referring to the people expressing that pov, of which there are a large number on this thread.

Only 3 options? Men's, women's and everyone's?
I hope you've just accidentally left out the obvious 4th requirement:
the accessible toilets which are solely for the use of disabled people.

The 'everyone' space you describe sounds very like an accessible toilet, and if it is the case that the library has just co-opted and relabelled the accessible toilet that disabled people had to campaign for for decades - shame on them.

This is happening informally - 'transwomen can use the disabled loo' and formally - a university in Ireland actually took away accessible toilets from disabled people and re-badged them as 'unisex' for any able-bodied person to use!

Just as women have always had to trust that men will respect our single-sex spaces, disabled people have to trust that able-bodied people will respect the accessible facilities that had to be fought for over decades.

After the judgment yesterday I suspect accessible toilets are going to come more and more under threat of being handed over to able-bodied transpeople.

I hope that's not the case in your local library AngelinaFibres, but I'm glad it gave me an opportunity to flag the danger of disabled people's accessible spaces being next in the firing line now that access to women's spaces has been clarified.

Accessible toilets are not a consolation prize for disappointed transwomen who aren't allowed to use the women's toilet.

A recent AIBU 96% agreed it was a good decision for women but not a reason to gloat - empathy was expressed by 96% of people who voted

The differences are that huge numbers of them are not actually transgender, then@Diverze , they are just having unhealthy reactions to a dysfunctional society. So having them speak up and not be quiet doesn’t assist people who actually are transgender, does it? These vulnerable, young people cannot be helped if they are treated as though they are something that they are not, or encouraged to believe something that is harmful to them. So I go back to my point that genuinely transgender people, whose voices we have not heard above the shouts of the transactivists, should be spread evenly across age groups, not growing exponentially in the young, autistic population. If not evenly spread, then huge numbers of them are not transgender in the first place.

Women have a choice in who they invite into their home or choose to share their home with. That is not remotely comparable to sharing a toilet with male strangers. In one situation we have agency, in the other we don't and have to rely on customary protections.

Yes there are differences. I'm not unsympathetic to young autistic people. My own DS is autistic, albeit not one who has an identity. It's possible to be both vulnerable and pose a risk/do harm to others.

It's been highly irresponsible for all manner of organisations to encourage this in children and young people however unless someone is assessed as not having capacity then personal responsibility still comes into play here. Age 21 is old enough to understand the arguments about women's fear, discomfort and fairness. Ignoring all that because you want something is still a choice.

Personally, it was never about Trans people for me. It’s always and still is about males using female single sex provision. No matter how they identify.

However, since you’ve asked, of course I have empathy for vulnerable young people caught up in the ideology and people who suffer from genuine gender dysphoria. But that doesn’t cover the Trans umbrella does it? I have no empathy for AGP men or violent prisoners and cheating men in sporting situations who say they are women. I despise them. Unfortunately, the people pushing this ideology have insisted that anyone who says they are Trans, should be accepted as such. And here we are.

Apart from assault, voyeurism is a sex crime, exhibitionism is a sex crime, like all sex crimes they are almost always committed by men, and many of the men who commit them focus on toilets as a location. Semi-naked women in vulnerable positions, unable to run, what's not to like if you're a predator. Changing rooms and hospital beds also attract and excite the dangerous.

Like all sex crimes, they tend to be committed in an escalating pattern - the criminal becomes more intrusive and more violent over time as he needs more extreme stimulation to gain the same level of arousal.

When my colleague was assaulted by a man in the loos at work another woman, who saw him entering, knew he was going into a place he had no right to. She followed him in and helped fight him off. Together they were able to make a joint complaint. There was no 'he said, she said' debate. He had no business there, it added to the long sheet of official complaints against him, and eventually he lost his job.

So you were being disingenuous.
Well done.

So you cannot see the direct comparison, you can’t engage with your logic fails and then you posit the ‘but the toilet in your own home is shared by men’ fallacy.

I now sense you are not interested in seeking any clarity at all. You just wanted to tell us all that you don’t agree. Because if you did want to engage you would be engaging with the posts. If you don’t understand them, ask.

I think it is not suprising that some posters are past the point of empathy. Female empathy has been exploited against our own interests to such an extent that women have had to take their own government to the highest court in the land to claim back rights that have always existed in law. A lot of people now understand that asking women to #bekind is a patriarchal tool that serves to maintain or increase our oppression.

Why are women on here being asked to have empathy for men invading our spaces and stealing our language? OP are you also on trans sites asking men there if they have empathy for the women whose rights they are destroying?

I believe that a lot of women have been pushed to the brink by this as they perceived that a lot of the ideology was pushed at their children.

there is a perception that a large number of trans children were validating the existence of adult transwomen.

there was questionable teaching in schools.

and there was a huge amount of autistic girls transitioning. Notably the puberty blockers and the testosterone seems to have a worse medical effect on girls that equivalent for boys - and there were more “top surgeries” (although once you start with operations on genitalia it seems sort of equal).

I believe that most women have a huge amount of empathy for genuinely distressed people - but when we perceive that our children are in danger, it is different.

(Male sex offenders in women’s prisons and males in sport is a topic for another post)

Because empathy is a gendered word and it's appealing to stereotypes and social expectations of how women are supposed to behave.

It's manipulative and coercive.

I hope this makes sense to you but I have no idea what you’re talking about.

Women are definitely at risk from men that they know, but TIM’s commit sexual offences at a higher rate than men in general, so they are still a risk to women because they are MEN. They are not a magical subset of women. The common denominator of the people who pose most risk to women is MEN.

@Diverzethis is going to sound really arrogant, but you’re teaching your grandmother to suck eggs, here.

Us guys on here know all about the brain washing, and how mainly same sex attracted, children with autism, have been caught up this debacle masquerading as a civil rights issue.

We’ve heard it all before. Loudly and often.
So, we’re not lacking empathy, we’ve just heard it to the nth degree.

Empathy or sympathy?

Sympathy is a feeling of sincere concern for someone who is experiencing something difficult or painful. Empathy involves actively sharing in the person’s emotional experience. (Merriam-Webster)

I do have sympathy for those people (especially children, and those with autism or other conditions) who have been led to believe that they are ‘in the wrong body’ and that they can change to the opposite sex.

I have sympathy for any trans person who is concerned or worried about yesterday’s ruling.

But do I have any empathy? No, not really, as I can’t and haven’t shared their emotional experience.