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?

But you weren't troubled by the impact on women at all?

Yeah. Requiring people to use the facilities which match their sex is exactly the same as the persecution of Jewish people

Are you suggesting that transwomen are being gassed in concentration camps? What ridiculous hyperbole. They are being asked to stay out of women's spaces.

What, like wanting to not be raped on a hospital ward, or have to submit to a stripsearch from a man under threat of prosecution if you don't pretend he's a woman and let him do it?

Awful attitudes like that?

I know why I feel like I have spent half my life checking for the closest toilet sometimes! It’s the having been pregnant and given birth 3 times. But, that doesn’t apply to a single transwoman ever, since they are male.

As angry rants go, it's a good example of a screaming tantrum, but screaming tantrums make me want to walk away from the screamer as fast as possible. I certainly find it very difficult to hear what they're screaming about, because the piece is so full of outrageously ridiculous statements, it's completely incoherent.

Yes because he is a man.

I'm not trans, I'm a woman and always have been by the way. I was just thinking about the men and women who have had surgery and therefore don't have a penis if previously male etc.

You do realise how very small the number of those who have had this surgery is?

How are you going to identify at the door of a women's changing room or rape crisis centre which man has had full penile inversion surgery and who has their full equipment?

What difference does it make to the impact on a woman in that space as to what surgery a man may or may not have had?

Do you think men who lose their penis through injury or illness are turned into women? Do you think a penis is the only difference between men and women? Do you think my male dog is actually now female because he has been castrated?

No of course not. That would not be a persons choice to lose their penis through illness or accident and a dog is not human. I know how you're trying to twist it but it's just not the way I think. A trans person will also be taking hormones and living a different life, or rather a life that feels more natural to them. I just feel like all trans people are being demonised as if they're all raging rapists and sex attackers and that's just simply not true. You would more likely be attacked by a man in the street than a trans person in the loo or changing room. Anyway, agree to differ.

No one is saying that all male people with transgender identities are rapists or sex attackers though.

Just like not all male people are rapists or sex attackers though.

However, for safeguarding purposes all male people are treated as if they are equal risk to each other. No sub groups are exempt from being subject to safeguarding principles. It is the only way that safeguarding can work. If it applies to all people in the group.

Honestly if a person wants to act, dress and present as the opposite sex it doesn't bother me one bit and it wouldn't bother me in a changing room etc because I believe the vast majority of trans people are genuine and not out to harm anyone in the way that it keeps being suggested.

It really depends on the person. In the 90s and aughts, I used sie and hir/hem (precursor to zie/zir) bc I thought gender was a BS concept that reinforced the patriarchy. Using she/her seemed sexist, like it was necessary that pp use gendered pronouns to recognize my secondary status as a women, thereby reinforcing the sexist hierarchy. Some pp used them with me, others did not. C'est la vie.

If someone used them, it seemed like a small way to spread the idea that gender is unimportant and often a way to identify pp with similar views. I know a few pp who still use zie/zir for that reason but even more who use it to be genderspecials who want to show alliance with trans pp.

Ok

Nobody thinks all men who identify as not men are out to cause harm. This is about keeping men out of women's single sex spaces. It's great that you don't mind sharing such spaces with men but you can't consent for all women.

Great.

But you do understand though that just because you don't care, other women can be concerned and should not be shamed by anyone for being concerned. And there are women on FWR who have been harmed directly by male people who have transgender identities. Again, not your hyperbolic 'all trans people'.

Can you tell us exactly how any of us should identify the ones who won't harm us vs the ones who will?

And knowing that simply having any male above about 8 in a space that a female person requires to be single sex may cause a female person distress, can you honestly say that a male who respects female people and their needs is someone who would enter that female single sex space?

And that distress could be for many reasons that they do not have to disclose to deserve to be taken seriously. The space was designated for the needs of female people. Not male people that someone thinks is nice so should be allowed in.

I'm not trying to twist anything- I'm trying to understand why you feel that is OK for someone male to potentially watch my teenage DD get changed or for my elderly maiden aunt who has never seen a penis in the flesh in her life to see one in the ladies changing room when she goes for her twice weekly swim. Only a tiny percentage of trans women have any surgery at all and that surgery is more like to be breast implants or facial feminising than to be penis removal but even if they have had that surgery they remain male. They keep male height, male lung capacity, male grip strength and yes male offending patterns. It isn't a personal judgement on individuals, it a safe guarding process to reflect that men as a class pose a threat to women as a class and the statistics show that doesn't change on transition.

‘vast majority’ ?

Which ones aren’t ?

You say you're happy to share toilets/changing rooms with men. But to what extent do you propose we accept men into women's single sex spaces? Rape centres and Therapy groups? Refuges? Prisons?

Fine but there needs to be a separate place made available everywhere for trans people then otherwise they are just going to be removed and eradicated from getting on with their lives because it clearly will not work for a female presenting man to use male facilities or a male presenting woman to use female facilities. Unless they are expected to stop being trans in order to take part in life. I think a few fanatics would like that, if they just disappeared from society.
I'm too tired and too old and not clever enough to join your debate, not good at expressing myself but it just feels all wrong to me and I hope a solution is found to satisfy everyone. Goodnight

Refuge has said they are still committed to helping trans men. Rape centres yes if they have been raped, why not. I don't know how prisons are going to deal with it but they have vulnerable prisoner units so I guess they will be used.

Yawn. Another "be kind" shill.

We tried being kind and it ended badly for us. We tried having sympathy and it ended badly for us. Go and tell men to "be kind" to TW who need to use male spaces, because it's men who pose the risk of violence to TW. Women aren't responsible for solving men's problems.

It's not women who post photos of themselves with guns, baseball bats, and knives captioned "point of view: you're a TERF in my mentions" on TwiX. The violence, threats, and piss protests have all been from trans people and their allies.

Specifically female spaces though? Are you proposing that men should be accepted into female prisons? Women's rape crisis centres and groups?

We have been saying for years that they need third spaces. The MOJ built a special wing for them and trans activists had it closed down.

And there is actually no statistics or public reporting of male people who are gender non comforming being attacked in male single sex spaces. And we know that many male people with transgender identities use those male toilets. They and their friends and their family tell us.

So, either they accept the third spaces and campaign for more or they use the male spaces and if there is a problem, they campaign to make them safer.