Confused about trans men or men posing as…

[TheQuickRobin]

Ok first off please be kind to me, as this is likely something others have considered and I am asking from genuine curiosity, not to try and make a point.

With the judgement on what is a woman, I like most people I know thought, oh well, that seems pretty common sense really. I don’t know any trans people and it’s not an issue that’s ever impacted me personally. I understand the arguments about women’s only spaces etc.

The only women’s only space I really use is a communal changing room in the gym. I wouldn’t like it if a man walked in claiming he ‘identified as’ a woman and used that as an excuse to bother me or others whilst we were showering. I get that. I also understand that there are trans women who have transitioned and look for all intents and purposes as female and that those people should now find another space to get changed i guess (?) as the female changing space should be female only. I’m tracking this so far.

Where I get lost is trans men, ie: born as women, now identify as men. Many have hairy beards, and identify as straight, ie: fancy women. Now as they were born women, does this mean they have as much right to the ladies changing room as me? Because I’m not sure how I feel about that. And ironically would this increase cover for creepy cis-men who want to go leer at ladies in the shower as they can just lie and claim to be trans men who were born female. In other words, would it actually make it easier for bad men to access female spaces as it’s harder to check? Ie: if a big beardy fella comes into the changing rooms and claims he identifies as female, i’d hope common sense would preside and we’d all kick him out. But if same beardy fella comes in and says he was born female… what then 🤯

@TheQuickRobin
Third spaces would seem the obvious solution and have been suggested many times. But activists don't want that - they want to deny women single sex spaces.

I’ve (finally) just read through the whole judgement, I feel emotional relief once again (and proud of my monthly DDs to Sex Matters - sounds like they might have played a massive role in putting coherent arguments forward). My understanding is that if a trans man passes to such an extent that it was reasonable to object to their presence in a women’s only space that would be exempted from any gender reassignment discrimination- but I’m not a lawyer and stand to be corrected- attached what seems to be the relevant paras - but more than happy to be corrected - as we need to make sure our info on this is accurate

220. The references in this paragraph only make sense as references to biological sex. Provided it is proportionate, paragraph 28 exempts gender reassignment discrimination but only in the context of the provision of separate services for men and women or single services to one sex. To rely on this exception there must be a separate or single-sex service that satisfies the establishment conditions to which we have just referred (in paragraphs 26 and 27 for example) and as we have observed, these provisions cannot on the face of it operate coherently if provision of services only to persons of one sex means provision of services to a group comprising women (biological females) and trans women with a GRC (biological males but legally female) but not to trans men with a GRC (biological females but legally male). The difficulty of establishing the conditions for a separate or women-only service on an approach tied to certificated sex makes it difficult to envisage any circumstances where the ability to exclude on gender reassignment grounds could operate.
221. There is nothing in the wording of this provision to indicate that paragraph 28 was directed specifically at those holding a GRC, nor is there any basis for concluding that this is its likely context as the Inner House suggested at para 56. (The example given in the explanatory notes at para 740 also does not distinguish between transexual people with a GRC and those without: “A group counselling session is provided for female victims of sexual assault. The organisers do not allow transsexual people to attend as they judge that the clients who attend the group session are unlikely to do so if a male-to-female transsexual person was also there. This would be lawful”). We can see nothing to support the Inner House’s conclusion that “the importance of this paragraph is that it provides the only basis upon which a person might be permitted to exclude a person with a GRC from services which are provided for their acquired sex”. Nor is the EHRC correct to assert that paragraph 28 is redundant on a biological interpretation of sex. On the contrary, if sex means biological sex, then provided it is proportionate, the female only nature of the service would engage paragraph 27 and would permit the exclusion of all males including males living in the female gender regardless of GRC status. Moreover, women living in the male gender could also be excluded under paragraph 28 without this amounting to gender reassignment discrimination. This might be considered proportionate where reasonable objection is taken to their presence, for example, because the gender reassignment process has given them a masculine appearance or attributes to which reasonable objection might be taken in the context of the women-only service being provided. Their exclusion would amount to unlawful gender reassignment discrimination not sex discrimination absent this exception.

Moreover, women living in the male gender could also be excluded under paragraph 28 without this amounting to gender reassignment discrimination. This might be considered proportionate where reasonable objection is taken to their presence, for example, because the gender reassignment process has given them a masculine appearance or attributes to which reasonable objection might be taken in the context of the women-only service being provided.

Thanks, CoralSnail.

There are plenty of posts all over social media of trans women saying they will still go into women's loos, but I haven't seen much in this debate about trans men. I wonder if they will continue to go into men's toilets and use the cubicles, as after all, that is probably what they did before the judgement, to avoid being confronted by men. I would like to hear more about this. I agree, I have met many trans people (one in my family), and you often generally know they are trans. Up until recent times, it wasn't an issue, but I think the last five years, young people have been groomed online. You only have to look at X and see all the young men that are into pornified anime, I wonder if they created female characters for themselves online, got more attention as 'girls' and took it over into public life. Something has happened either way.

Most transmen aren’t “big” they are women so are just average woman sized. Also most can’t grow a full beard - in fact a lot of men can’t grow a full beard. Transmen also usually have not had any surgery, they have also not grown up as males and are far far less likely to commit sexual crimes than men are (including transwomen). So yes transmen should be using the ladies changing area, unless (as per the SC ruling) they do look very convincingly male and likely to cause concern to women, then they should use the male area. Transmen also don’t pose a threat to men if they were to use male changing rooms/toilets and men are not going to be intimidated by them. So it really is not the same situation as men using women’s spaces.
Most transmen really don’t “pass” though, even if they look like they do online if you met them in real life you are likely to be able to tell.
I’ve known quite a few “butch” presenting women in my life and none of them actually looked like men, also tall women (5’11 +) I’ve known have never looked masculine, just like tall women.
I think the argument that now men can just say they’re transmen when they enter women only spaces sounds a bit silly. That’s no easier than a man saying he’s a transwomen then entering a woman only space. The difference is women will now be allowed to complain and that complaint will be supported by the law (as it always should have been) and they won’t just be called bigots and transphobes.

I think the "but how do we police it?" angle of excluding TIM from women's toilets is largely a red herring. Once policy is clear most people, trans or not, will abide by it (perhaps by self-excluding from single-sex toilets altogether, and perhaps that will sometimes be an inconvenience, but hey, it was their choice to transition...); and just as importantly, when someone doesn't, we will be entitled to draw conclusions from that fact. For example, if a TIM enters a female toilet we are entitled to think less of him, complain about him, etc. That's a big step forwards. Nobody will get to dismiss such complaints because "she had a perfect right to be there" or call us bigots for thinking less of the male colleague who uses the ladies.

I agree we can usually tell IRL, but not always, especially for TIF - but how many of us would actually challenge even an obvious male in the female toilets? I wouldn't, tbf. Here I think refuges, prisons etc. where someone is less anonymous are far more importantly affected by the ruling. Btw someone mentioned face blindness, but I don't think we use faces that much in telling sex - the person I know best who is severely faceblind is at least as good at telling sex as I am, in fact, has said that the problem is that if X who is obviously male tells her he wants to be referred to as female she can't do that because next time she meets X she will immediately know (again) that he is male but she won't recognise him as the same X who previously told her he wanted to be referred to as female! So she can't do preferred pronouns etc. even if she wanted to, other than on the very same occasion she's been told about them.

@TheQuickRobin if your concern is that this could result in males with bad intents pretending to be 'transmen' to gain access to women only spaces, bear in mind that a biological male in a women's changing room would be subject to charges of voyeurism and possibly indecent exposure. Until now the problem for women was that to call out a man who should not be in a female changing room would have no effect on him as long as he self-IDed as female. No danger to him, but the women doing the calling out could reasonably expect to be called bigots and in some cases have been banned from the premises. (See PlanetFitness and WiSpa). Seems a definite improvement since the SC judgement.

Please explain this photo. Do they all now have different genders?

Offer a government issued photo ID card stating sex only (with no printed name/identifying details) to anyone who wishes to be able to prove their sex for whatever purpose. It would be a crime to carry a forged/incorrect card.

Transmen who become annoyed by being chased out of women's toilets could opt to carry one if they wished and quietly show it to a woman who questioned their sex.

Transmen who deliberately choose to look masculine and yet chose not to carry a card to reassure women could hardly complain that they regularly get ejected from public toilets.

There's a segment written into the exemptions in the EA2010 that includes maternity wards.
It states that even if a transman is in labour and in the process of giving birth, it is still lawful to exclude them from the women only ward because of their male appearance.

TRAs crying about transmen... I mean, it's shocking how now TRA have for all purposes "lost" their argument - in the UK at least, suddenly transmen transmen transmen.

Where were transmen when they were campaigning for participation in sport? Prisons? Rape shelters? All of that was to benefit the TW and the TW alone. Misogyny on steroids.

For more clarity for those who haven't cancelled the cheque, transmen can be excluded from women's spaces in the UK.

The picture is of three males and three females. No idea what gender any of them identify as, tbh, as although sex is usually fairly apparent, gender identity is a mysterious shifting fluid inner feeling.

So far, I've mostly seen people 'heartbroken' about men being 'forced out' of women's spaces.

Barely a word about transmen, other than this bollocks point about how a man with a beard could pretend to be one.

Not a word about the fact that the judgement protects transmen's maternity rights.

It is absolutely astounding how much attention is now being paid to transmen.

However, in good faith: we have discussed this a lot. And general consensus has usually been they are women and therefore welcome in our spaces.

As an aside: IME transmen are often very young, quite weedy women who are safer and better off in women's toilets. Men i have asked have been unconfortable about having those transmen in their spaces due to other men being predatory and so on.

Recently people have been posting pictures of transmen who are very very muscled and with beards. The pictures do indeed look like men - and my personal opinion is that they should use the facilities they feel is more appropriate (taking into account that their appearance may unsettle some women). However the reality is that they are usually smaller than they appear in pictures, height wise, and up close most people can identify them as women. And of course, they really ought not to use men's single sex places because that's not really fair on men.

IMO if you are a woman who has altered your appearance so much so that you don't immediately seem to be a woman, you are welcome to use women's spaces but you should be prepared to be politely told that these are women's spaces. And then for you to say that you are female.

the NAMALT took precisely 2 posts. Well done.

Is it more helpful to drop the descriptions:

• transwoman
• transman

they only exist as a part of the fantasy that a man can transition into a woman, or a woman into a man. As we know from basic biology, and thankfully as now clarified in the SC judgement, that is not possible.

Therefore, arguably there is no such thing as a transwoman / transman - there are simply huge varieties of man and huge varieties of women

as such - men need to accept men who choose to chop their bits off - as much as they would a man who loses a leg or arm in an accident - they are simply a man whose physical conformation is different to the norm.

so, women need to accept women who might be a bit hairier and a bit more flat-chested - they are simply a different expression of woman.

Once you start to think in this way, you realise that there are lots of graduations of being male / female - a man may appear to be effeminate / may have little facial hair / may be very slight in build etc. - a woman may be taller / broader / have a deeper voice / etc.

to require all men or women to conform to specific narrow stereotypes is probably a big part of the original issue that led to some people feeling that they must be the other sex, because they felt more comfortable with that sex's stereotypical characteristics... but in reality they are simply expanding the expression of being man / woman - not changing to the opposite sex.

So, to the OP's question, yes there might be some hairier women in the ladies loos but that is acceptable as a part of understanding that not all are the same - they are still women.

we should also remember that statistically risk in loos / changing rooms is:

• toxic men -> women

not:

• men -> men
• women -> women

It's also worth considering the potential risks to transmen if they use men's spaces.

The law has been made clear.

Now we all understand who should be in what space.

And really, it's not up to others to police who goes where. It's up to trans identifying people to follow the law, which has been made very, very clear.

Perhaps there is a need for education and encouragement to ensure that gender non conforming people are welcomed and accepted.

Hang on, so if men are being told to pretend to be transmen to go into womens toilets to make a point are we saying that men go into womens toilets for purposes other than just using the facilities?
Wow, who would have thought THAT was a possibility hey?

I've just googled 'passing trans men' And honestly they still look like women. Its the facial expression as much as anything. I imagine in real life it is more obvious. If I came across any of these people in real life I would know. I don't think many of us will be confused very often.

yes and that is why i am a little uneasy with the "transmen can be excluded from women's spaces" under certain (IME very exceptional) cases.

I don't want to force a woman to use the men's facilities unless they are completely confident that they won't be under any threat. And of course if men object, that is also their right.

ETA

And really, it's not up to others to police who goes where. It's up to trans identifying people to follow the law, which has been made very, very clear.

yes. What people who often spout about "policing by consent" this is what it means. The majority of people follow the rules/don't break the law, because that is the right thing to do.

The law is there if something goes wrong.

If a trans male that passes very well, goes into the women's, then in practice, no one will notice. However, if he's starts acting up or someone challenges him, then at least now we know the law will be on the women's side and not his. It puts men meaning harm on the backfoot instead of giving them firmer ground. It quite rightly gives women the right to challenge him, whereas they couldn't before.

Similarly, for trans females in the men's.

They also don't care if transmen use their loos because they don't find it physically threatening , in the way that women do when men use their spaces

Yeah, I agree. I don't really know what to make of it. I can't say I understand my family member's reasoning for becoming a 'man'. Who is attracted to men. So he's a gay man now. Rather than a woman who's attracted to men.
It's just a bit difficult to get my head round.

I agree with some PPs that some transmen pass quite well (the same cannot be said for the vast majority of TW). I’m not confident I will always get it 100% right when it comes to TM, although I also agree that meeting someone in RL and seeing how they move, and hearing their voice is very different to a seeing a still photo of someone.

But I honestly think that those TM who really do pass will know that they pass and will probably continue to use men’s facilities. They are unlikely to be a threat to the men there, and if no one clocks them then there’s no harm done. That doesn’t affect women (apart from possibly the trans-identifying female in question who might be at risk if she gets clocked in the men’s facilities). That’s her decision to make- I have no skin in the game there.

So if a man comes in to the women’s facilities and claims to be a TM, I might be tempted to pretend to be a TRA and tell them they should rebel against the SC judgement by continuing to use the men’s facilities.