Not sure how to concisely explain how female only events aren't similar to like, white only events

[UnlockedXCX]

My friend keeps insisting that to say 'women only (born women, not trans)' is basically exactly like 'white people only, not black people' and I'm not sure how to explain that one is discriminatory and the other isn't. I'll say "it's so women can feel safe" and she'll be like "well what about white people feeling safe?" and it's confusing me that she can't understand, but I guess I'm not clearly explaining. Any wordsmiths on Mumsnet able to help me out?

I am American for reference. I assume I can be here (there's not really any place on the US web to talk about this sort of thing without being inundated by TRAs).

If a group is sex-based, trans people are NOT excluded.
That's a false narrative being peddled by the permanently offended.
Since their sex is female, transmen would be welcome at any women-only event.

The issue isn't excluding transpeople at all, that's just sleight of hand by the oppressors (males). The issue is which transpeople are included in our inclusive society with sex-based protections.

By demanding that TW are included, those demanding this are erasing, othering, and forcing out transmen who are biologically women, who share the correct characteristic and are welcome in women's spaces. The TRAs are the problem, because they're not even agitating for trans rights, they're solely agitating for transwomen's (men's) rights, at the exclusion of transmen (women) which is not really on.

Would your friend understand better if you explained it this way OP?

They aren't necessarily forcing trans men out though.

We have seen this in sport, for example, in the NCAA swimming. Both Lia Thomas, who is male but identifies as female, and Iszac Henig, who is female but identifies as male, competed in the same women's categories.

Those two people share neither a sex nor a gender identity, so on what basis were they competing in the same category?

It effectively made the women's category a catch-all for anyone who either isn't a man or is a man but for whatever reason wants to be referred to as a woman. OK it's not quite as easy as that because Lia Thomas took cross sex hormones. So you would have to be quite dedicated to make that crossover from the male to the female category, you couldn't just do it on a self ID basis. But it shouldn't have been allowed on any basis. Women aren't just mediocre men.

Oppression doesn't have to be universal to be wide-reaching. The fact that there were a small number of wealthy free black people even hundreds of years ago does not negate that black people have been generally oppressed. The fact that a few powerful and dominant women have existed does not negate that women have been generally oppressed. Actions to redress historical imbalances are a proportionate means towards equality even if their reach sometimes benefits someone who is relatively privileged despite being in the category that is historically disadvantaged, and have a generally beneficial effect even if their necessarily precise criteria do exclude some people who are relatively underprivileged due to them not having the specific disadvantage required by those criteria.

My argument, which i'll outline in greater detail later is a critique of Marxist models of society - which always tend to view situations in terms of power dynamics between different groups, rather than as human society's attempt to civilise and regulate human nature and basic human drives.

If you look purely through a lens of oppression you will find oppression within the black 'community' too - because human nature is universal. Women can be 'oppressive' too. Anyone can be oppressive. Anyone can be oppressed. Just being female does not make you automatically oppressed. Oppressed is a lens with which to view society, but not the only lens.

Male and female ( Sex) are fundamental categories of life in earth - each with their own inherent nature and programming...which human society at best tries to civilise or organise through rules and regulations. Civilisation is the process whereby we attempt to temper human nature to allow people with conflicting views and interests to co-exist with minimum conflict.

Human enslavement, as an example, has happend throughout history ( and still goes on) and there is not a civiisation which has not engaged with it on some level. It is not an inherent characteristic of any one particular group. Just being of a particular group does not automatically make you a victcim.

Does your friend understand that All Lives Matter is offensive to the Black Lives Matter movement - that the BLM movement arose because it looked like blacks lives matter less? It's okay for black people to fight for equity in an area they identify needs them to, without having to include every other person.

She is essentially saying the All Lives Matter equivalent to Women's rights.

Does your friend belong to any groups? I’d start there…

PP have all made excellent points about safety, fairness, and modesty, all of which apply to sex but not to race, as well as legality, which also applies to sex but not skin colour under uk law.

But I would start with the fact that it's a universally accepted public good to sometimes have sex segregation just because that's what we humans sometimes like to do. (Admittedly, men have used it historically to conspire against women, but more equal political participation by women has mitigated this somewhat. )

Presumably your friend is happy with single-sex schools, clubs, youth organisations etc. It's the refusal to allow TW to make themselves an exception to the general rule that offends her.

I'm afraid your real problem is that she thinks TWAW. I don't know how to change someone's mind about that.

I went on a weekend for an adventure sport.

The UK's governing body were holding it, to encourage more women into the sport.

They had found, through research, that a lot of women were put off trying the sport due to men and more generally due to coaching techniques not being suited and sympathetic to women.

The men took a macho attitude to the sport and were much more confident. This in part is due to their bigger size and strength. Stuff like considering equipment differences was also relevant to this.

The weekend rather than being a competitive enviroment with men showing off, was one of collaboration and mutual encouragement with the wide range of ability and skill sets.

The coaching was different. It took into account that women had less strength and needed to focus a lot more on skills and needed longer to become confident in what they were doing. They were less competitive and showing off wasn't a thing at all. There was less pressure to do things outside your comfort zone and instead within your own time frame, rather than someone even well meaningly going "come on, just get on with it" which really can be off putting. Its not at the level of "stop being a wimp/girl" but thats how it can feel at times. No one wanted to be the centre of attention or to be around others looking to be the centre of attention.

A transwoman present would have raised certain issues. Firstly shared accomodation for the weekend - lots of women went by themselves and shared with people they didn't know. Secondly, there would still be issues with male socialisation and attitudes - transition doesn't stop many elements of this. Thirdly there's the physical size and strength issue, which does affect confidence and frankly empathy levels. And lastly there were conversations relating to biology - how periods and menopause were affecting women and their experiences with sport.

The feedback the weekend got was, yes it was really helpful and helped women feel more able to participate WITH the men because it had given them a confidence boost they otherwise would not have had. It also gave the governing body and coaches the opportunity to reflect on how the sport naturally defaults to an enviroment that suits men rather than actually being gender neutral and you do need to treat men and women slightly differently due to physical strength, size and socialisation in order to be a unisex sport.

As a rule, I've always found it a particularly welcoming sport and the men really accepting of women despite all this. Theres a lot less sexism than some other sports. But it also was a huge relief NOT to have men there as it really took off pressure and there was more understanding of how its much more challenging for women in various ways. It centred the needs of women rather than the loudness of men.

Saying this shouldn't be allowed, because its on a par with racism really fundamentally is missing the point and tone deaf to how the world works in practice for women and how their life experience and biology impacts on their participation for simply everyday things.

The entire aim of the weekend was to STOP the self exclusion of women from men within the sport. Not to segregate indefinitely by sex. The weekend was a gateway to that. It was about levelling the playing field to increase equality. If you force women to accept males into that environment, you would immediately have some who would self exclude because they are intimidated or the atmosphere changes or puts some subjects off limits. Indeed it ends up reinforcing exclusion of women from participation.

Transwomen simply do not share in the same socialisation or the same physical limitations. They have other barriers to sport, but these are not going to be solved by going to a women's only event. They need their own unique pathway to solve their own specific problems.

Women are an oppressed group, at significant disadvantage in society. We need our own groups in order to be able to feel safe, but also to discuss and address the structural disadvantages we face as well as feel comfortable knowing those around us deal with the same issues.

The same may apply to black people, or Asian people etc. White people are not an oppressed group though, so excluding people of colour from a group is based on discrimination.

If your friend’s opposition is based on the view that to group by sex is unfair because it excludes men who identify as women, then you may need to point out that women are oppressed because of and using our biological make up, not our presentation of “gender.” We’re not raped because of our gender. We’re not paid less because of it. We’re not facing poorer medical care (including research) because of gender. It’s all to do with our biology. Gender is not sex. It is a tool of sex based oppression.

I'm interested in the more detail later, will come back for an update 👍

I have some thoughts about this that I'm struggling to put into words, but something along the lines of: the use of oppressor/oppressed dynamic to describe group dynamics is a bit like examining a population according to norms for, let's say, disease risk. It's helpful when considering the population as a whole, but it can't tell you specifically which person out of the population is going to get cancer, or a stroke, or have a bad reaction to a medication (or specifically which is oppressed).

It's a useful tool although it doesn't capture the whole picture. It describes likelihood rather than specific risk.

In the same way, I think that oppressor/ oppressed dynamics can be useful to look at populations as a whole and to work towards equity. Of course there are exceptions and outliers but when there is a general underlying dynamic at play surely it makes sense to recognise and name it?

I do agree though that these dynamic descriptors can be misused and result in unhelpful general assertions (all men are bastards, all white people are inherently racist, etc).

There's a similar problem that arises whenever trying to argue on the basis of physiological differences between women and TW - you get a lot of 'TW are not all stronger/faster/more aggressive than all women', and idiots like jane fae arguing for an end to sex and gender and for prisons and sports to be organised along other lines like severity of crime and body weight 🙄.

Most of these points are arguing why we have "women only, no men" rather than "born women, no trans," - which we obviously see as synonymous - but it isn't clear which your friend thinks unnecessary. Does she not see any reason to have women only in general, or is she thinking trans women should be included - they are very different arguments/viewpoints.

If she's arguing for trans women to be included as a parallel to racism, then white people identifying as black are your parallel. It's also racist to suggest that someone's race negates being female as much as being male does.

If I remember the stats correctly 99% of sex crime is carried out by men and 88% of the victims are women. If a racial comparator should be made, men have the power (white people) over women (black people).

the need for single sex provision is considered to be so important for the protection of women prisoners of war it is listed three times in the Geneva Convention. Does your friend think that countries who abide by the Geneva convention are re-enacting Jim Crow Laws?

Yes, at the root of it this is the problem – although if she is still asking questions then there’s hope yet! Quite often people think this because other people say it, and they’ve never really interrogated it for themselves. So in principle she can be won round – indeed that must be true for a lot of the now-terven on here.

The fundamental issue at the very bottom of this is: we can run the world according to objective categories, or we can run the world according to everyone having subjective identities, but we can’t do both. I wouldn’t necessarily try to convince anyone using that dry philosophical point on its own – but if she can grasp it, and there’s even one area like sport where she does accept that it’s legitimate to keep men out, then you’ve won the principle, all you’re doing thereafter is arguing out the details.

This is the literal transposition of race into gender. But stating it would probably result in a brain short-circuit and a breakdown in the discussion. Although, the fact that that's the most likely scenario makes a strong case that these kind of discussions are mostly futile.

Men and women are DIFFERENT; black people and white people AREN'T.

The other thing that is omitted from this conversation about it being just like racism, is that if it were just like racism you'd be seeking to abolish sex classification NOT replace it with gender.

The replacing it with gender bollocks shows up that it's disengenious as an argument.

Personally I don't think we have single sex spaces because female people are oppressed, but because of inherent sex based differences which can render women particularly vulnerable in certain types of situation.Could it be that what you are calling 'oppression' is the same thing as having a certain type of vulnerability, maybe?

1.Is 'oppression' a fixed state of being or it it determined by a particular set of conditions?
2.Is being an 'oppressor' a fixed state of being, or is it also determined on a particular set of conditions?
3 Are you still oppressed, even if you don't think or feel that you are? ( does it operate like false class consciousness)?
4.If you belong to an oppressed group, is there anything you can do about it individually or is it in the very nature of your group to be oppressed?
5.If you belong to an oppressor group, is there anything you can do about it at an individual level, or are you doomed to be culpable simply because you belong to the identified oppressor group.
6.Can you be both an oppressor and oppressed at the same time?
7.Is there a hierarchy of oppression - with some being more oppressed than others, and if so how is this hierarchy determined, and by whom?

Some questions and reflections in order to get the ball rolling.......

They can argue that all they like, but they are wrong. Males do have general advanatges over women when it comes to matters of size, strength, speed, grip and so on, and the skeletal differences between males and females reflect nature's intended biological function and the roles that tend to flow on from that function.

Now males may well use some of those advantages in order to gain an advantage over females, but they may also use them in service or protection of females or the group more generally Oppression is only the result if one seeks to exert control or undue influence over the other through recourse to one's own inbuilt advantages - and against the will or preference of the other, and this is done this consistently and with intent.

Is oppression therefore being compelled to do things against one's own will or being stuck in a situation in which one has no control or influence over matters?

Are all natural advantages tools of oppression?

Does equity or equality mean that nobody must have any natural or inbuilt advantage, and if they do how must that advantage be suppressed? Should we all have the exact same opportunities regardless of our suitability, ability or skill?

Kurt Vonnegut had some ideas about how you could suppress advantage:

learn.k20center.ou.edu/lesson/1440/Harrison-Bergeron-Short-Story-Equally-Unequal.pdf?rev=9051

Yes exactly.

But we make laws according to the population as a whole, not individuals.

An unusually weak man is not a woman. An unusually fast woman is not a man. A really nice and gentle man who wouldn't harm anyone is still a man.

Ditto a trans woman.

I'm sure pp said this (or maybe on another thread) that the existence of a few well paid powerful women (individuals, outliers if you like) doesn't negate that women as a group suffer from issues like the sex pay gap.

That doesn't mean that individual men are to blame, or wish that on us.

Wow really interesting points to ponder, thank you.

To respond to just one:
"Does equity or equality mean that nobody must have any natural or inbuilt advantage, and if they do how must that advantage be suppressed? Should we all have the exact same opportunities regardless of our suitability, ability or skill?"

I don't think that would be feasible, desirable or ethical. So where should we draw the line?

For me, it comes back to the group vs the individual again.

If we have identifiable groups with a predictable advantage eg men over women, adults over children, then we separate those groups for sport/competition. An individual child who happens to be really tall (Or a swimmer like Michael Phelps with his super long arms) will have a natural advantage over their peers but it's a one off, a roll of the genetic dice if you will.

There's a kind of socio economic parallel, with utter free for all capitalism at one end and communism on the other. We can have social security to support the least well off without having to completely level the playing field of any advantage.

One of the Icons of black, Rasta, reggae culture
could have identified as white should he have so wished.

He could never have been mistaken for a female

Yes, acts and legislation exist to ameliorate but also accommodate some of the differences and predictable disadvantages betwen individuals and groups - in order to provide as equitable access as reasonably possible.

If the female sex is to achieve and be rewarded for sporting excellence and achievement then as a level a playing field as possible needs to be provided. Sex based provision is the obvious first step, and then in some sports you have weight categories too. But a woman and a man of the same height and weight still have distinct sex based differences which would inherently advantage the male, and may even be dangerous or unsafe for the female.

This is not to say that female excellence is any less important or hard won or earned. The same level of commitment is required for success regardless of ultimate raw score outcome.

Because you can have any skin colour you like, but your hips don't lie.

And hips, body fat and height have huge implications in sport.

Excluding someone of the basis of skin colour is superficial (and illegal), whereas excluding someone on what's going on anatomical is perfectly rational.