"Trans women ARE biological women"

[TangenitalContrivance]

I see this argument and comment more and more the last few weeks and hugely over the last 3 days.

For example:

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1k1tliv/trans_women_are_biological_women/

This statement, and the comments underneath it absolutely baffle me.

The approach, one that I am sure will only work with a minority of the people who said TWAW, is to undermine the definition of words, yet again, and deliberately cloud the water when it comes to speaking clearly and using terms that everyone agrees with

I have seen it said in more places than Reddit however, and by respected people

If 'woman' needs a definition, why does 'man' not need one too. What is the definition there?
Maybe the ability to not see something in front of their nose? 🤔

But that’s like saying someone isn’t human because they have a disability. I’m assuming TRAs don’t want to be viewed as attacking people with a disability

They're fine with being viewed as people who regularly call to rape, murder, piss and shit on women, so I don't think that's going to trouble them too much.

Could that website be abbreviated as SOF?

That's such a daft argument, isn't it? Like trying to argue that we shouldn't provide disabled people with ramps, wheelchairs, talking books etc because it "reduces them to their disability" to acknowledge their needs.

All of their arguments are stupid. They don't know the difference between "categorised as" and "reduced to" and they think it's a winner to say that it's somehow dehumanising to acknowledge that humans come in two distinct sex categories, which sometimes matter. Obviously, they think it's fine to erase women entirely by claiming men are women, and reduce them to a feeling in a man's head or a collection of stereotypes.

Defining and naming a characteristic does not mean we are reducing everything to that one characteristic. In some contexts, some characteristics matter more than others.

And it totally falls apart when you see they never want third spaces. If they truly believed it was reductive and dehumanising to have spaces for men and women, they'd insist on a third space specifically for both. But they never do. They always want to keep the female space, purely to validate the men. So it's totally dehumanising to recognise women exist as a sex class, but totally necessary to keep women-specific spaces so that men can have them.

The stupidity, absurdity and ridiculousness is endless. I can't even call it sophistry because it really isn't smart enough.

Don't look for logic in their demands, it isn't there beyond 'you will validate my identity!'

TRAs have been known to berate and threaten disabled women who want single-sex intimate care. IIRC one such lady was called Henrietta Freeman and she was treated appallingly by a trans identified male person. I have read posts by TRAs that have said that having Down's Syndrome is no excuse for misgendering a trans identified person.

Your response was to the 'Have you ever met a transwoman' failed 'gotcha'.

It highlights one of my big problems with the TRA arguments: they are so anecdotal. Now I enjoy a good anecdote as much as the next person, but when it comes to massive societal change - changing language, the law, education, medicine, building regs etc etc - I demand more than anecdotes.

There are non-anecdotal things like facts, statistics, a sense of proportion, justice, fairness, logic, common sense which should be much more important to policy-makers, education, legislators etc than the slew of anecdotes like

'I know two transwomen and they are lovely lovely people therefore sex is a spectrum, GC women are transphobes, JKR is the Devil Incarnate, and every building now needs a 'third' space which is only a 'third' space because we either can't count, or disabled people and their spaces don't count - but anyway that's irrelevant, my lovely lovely trans friends are sad and they are demanding 'third spaces' to make them happy, because they just want to pee, so -

What do we want? Third Spaces! When do we want them? Now. How do we propose financing and building them, and continuing to guarantee single sex facilities? Not our problem, bigots!

A bit of infighting here about “the trans man gotcha” https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/s/BCaItGHQM5

Well that's about as rational as I would expect from young women who want to use the men's toilets

But they never demand third spaces, that's the issue. They want the women's spaces for men and nothing else will do. Some...person on here the other day was complaining that these third spaces don't exist so trans people can't use them. I said they would exist by now if TRAs had used their resources to fight for them rather than to erase women. They then complained that GC women should have been fighting for them and it wasn't TRA's responsibility. When I said we were too busy funding and fighting for our own spaces and not to be erased in law, as it now seems was always our legal right and this was on them to obtain if they wanted it, they gave a reason-free response of pure guff, dancing around the question of why third spaces aren't an option.

They do not want third spaces and they never did and never will. The purpose is to colonise female spaces as validation tools for men, nothing else.

“I am a trans man that has been assaulted three separate times in public toilets. Each time it was by cis women who thought I was in the "wrong" one, twice by cleaners who were cleaning the mens and clearly thought I was too clocky to be in there.”

😂 at the idea that female cleaners are policing male toilets and physically attacking anyone who doesn’t look male enough.

Just a thought on the idea of 3rd spaces, would that not really mean 2 sets of mens toilets? The normal mens and the trans??

What happens if other sub-sets of men start asking for separate toilets, 🤔?

3rd spaces is just ludicrous the more you think about it

It's when you get the pure numpties who say 'well, we should just have terf toilets!' as if it's some sort of winning point.

And you think, so, female single sex toilets? That's....sort of the whole point.

I'm okay with Terf toilets 😈

No. Anyone can use mixed sex loos. They’re useful for parents with opposite sex children, for instance - probably far more of those than trans and NB people! They’re an excellent thing in addition to single sex facilities.

I agree that for the loudest TRAs, it's the women's toilet or nowhere, 'third' spaces won't do.
It's just that I've seen 'we must provide them with third spaces' or something similar again and again in the media, and on MN.
Maybe it's intended to indicate a level of empathy and so as not appear too gleeful about the SC ruling.

It might turn out that 'third' spaces end up being used mostly by all the women who insist that they've been using unisex toilets for years now and there's absolutely no problem with them

Terf toilets would be great. Have any of these transmen ever been in a men's toilet? Do they have no sense of smell?

I love it when they argue themselves round to our points. They know we are right about everything - they just fight it.

I would place a bet that all the little handmaidens are ageeeing with them and affirming their biological status to correspond with their demanded identity

Going by Reddit, they seem to think that most women don't actually value single sex spaces and once there is a third unisex space, it will be a lot more popular and the 'terfs' will then end up feeling sad and ostracised alone in our single sex spaces, unfulfilled with nobody to be cross with. While the TiMs and 'inclusive' women have a lovely party in the mixed sex loos 😆

A) I think it's very unlikely that most women would choose mixed sex over single sex in most scenarios if offered a genuine choice.

B) Personally I don't care at all where other women are getting changed or going to the toilet. It's not a bonding exercise or 'validating' for me. I'd bet a lot that this is a majority attitude.

C) The prospect of having nobody to be cross with because nobody is violating my boundaries doesn't sound bad, it sounds like a blissful relief. Crazy they think this could be a downside.

Ha so true. You get it on here. Women can just say er ok then. Sign here we’re happy with that.

To be fair, I will use whichever toilet has the shortest queue and most toilet paper, unless the toilets are poorly maintained and supervised so that I feel unsafe, in which case I’d either hold on, however uncomfortable, or choose the ladies’ toilets if there are enough other women using them at the same time that they feel the safest bet as a consequence.

The narrative is gently starting to glide in the direction of fine lets have lots of really nice third spaces pdq. And great, lets.

They actually will add to genuine accessibility for many as well as leave women in peace.

Edited to add: happy to contribute to a dish of party hats to go alongside the san pro if that helps.

Except they say that the 'terf only' space will be the third space 😄 Great idea lads.

But yes, it is nice to see them taking the idea semi seriously as it has long been suggested as a solution. It would be nice for lots of people to have that option.

We all know that toilets are really not the most important thing anyway. Not unimportant, but not close to hospital wards, rape crisis services, prisons, sports, etc.

I don't actually mind mixed sexed toilets usually, as long as properly labelled, though I wouldn't choose them over single sex all other things being equal - but it's vital that everyone can make informed decisions.