Men in women’s groups.

[gingangirly]

Really unsure if I’m being unreasonable, but what do others think?

I belong to a FB group for women over 65 in my town. They have lots of get togethers, at least a couple a week. A few months ago there was a vote after a man requested to join. The overwhelming majority said no. If they want a similar group, start their own. Fair enough.

However there is a trans woman that has been welcomed with open arms. He would NOT pass as a woman, not quite a bloke in a wig but certainly you would know he was trans.

What do people think about this? Acceptable or not? I’m am totally the ‘live and let live’ but seems a bit disingenuous to ban men but not trans women?

Still here. Still waiting.

Gender is a social construct. I do not believe men have to be violent or sexist. I believe they are socialised to believe they cannot control their anger or their sexual urges, and socialised to expect a dispropotionate amount of deference and support from female people.

I am optimistic this can change and I have said many times I'd be happy to work towards a future where the sex-based protections we have today are no longer needed.

What I am not prepared to do is to remove them today while they still are simply to accomodate trans women's self image.

I don't go about protesting or demonstrating when changes are made that affect me. If they change the number of times they collect my bin, it affects me but I just get on with it. If your a peaceful person you just get on with life. Possibly a lot of trans people don't want to make a song and dance one way or the other, they don't want to draw attention to themselves any further.

The problem with leaving it to the group is that some / many women will feel unable to say anything and will be quietly unhappy, maybe leave. Sometimes people go along with whatever the strongest personalities want. The dangers of going against the group leaders include being shamed, being asked to leave, being ignored. No wonder women don't do it.

If there was a secret ballot I bet you would get a very different response.

Still here. Still waiting @Howseitgoin any chance I could get an answer to my question?

Are you seriously suggesting women don't enjoy their prevailing aesthetic preferences? They are 'forced' to do so?

I'm saying they are socialised to do so. Which is a subconscious forcing.

Ask any mother how her child's tastes and preferences changed when the child started school and peer acceptance became important.

You are conflating two separate concepts. I never claimed wearing dresses is more relevant than anything else rather that the inclination to do so is an example of a commonality trans women share with women.

Logic fail. Your entire argument for including trans women in the supposedly single-sex category of "women" is that "commonalities", including your example of some organic "inclination" to wear a dress, are more significant than the differences of our sex.

Um, I hate to break the news to you but it's a well proven fact women in more equal/egalitarian countries are still disproportionately represented in caring professions, a phenomenon known as 'employment segregation'.

What a load of tosh, plenty men are brought up to be decent just like women. They don't all go around unable to control sexual urge or violence, if that were the case we would be on lock down permanently and unable to leave our homes.

Still not getting an answer to my question @Howseitgoin ?

But there are enough men who are a threat to women that it is sensible to have protections in the form of the single sex exemptions as allowed by law.

So if it is a social construct that leads girls to start wanting to wear dresses when they start school etc rather than something innate, then how come it's a part of the very core of a trans woman?

There's 'belief' & then there's science…

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetics_of_aggression#:~:text=The%20human%20genetics%20related%20to,relation%20to%20regulation%20of%20neurotransmission.

But the same can be said of all men. Trans women aren't unique in this.

There simply is no rational argument to include trans women in with female people that could not apply equally well to other groups of men.

And that is unavoidable because there is no meaningful objective difference between trans women and other men. The difference is only meaningful in the mind of the trans woman.

Humans are capable of managing our nature.

Socalisation is what gives men the excuse not to.

Yes but its also true that if people feel a genuine serious threat they would be more likely to resist. Perhaps having met the person they don't.

Yes. Plenty of men are. But unfortunately enough of them are not to cause problems for women (and for other men as well)

This is why we have single sex protections.

If you believe women-only protections are simply not needed then make that case. That is at least logical. But making the case for a special subset of men that have not been provded to be any less violent, sexually agressive or simply entitled than the general male population makes no sense whatsoever.

The law protecting women's right to single sex provisions does not permit for the group to wonder whether this particular man is lovely or whether the women want to. The SC judgment explains it clearly.

Women are allowed to be apart from men.
A thing is either single sex or its not. Cake and eating it too is not a thing.

End of, really.

Ahhh so now you are admitting behaviour is biologically influenced. Progress!!!

Resist what and in what way?

Have you read the literature on rape and the shut down response? I fought as hard as I could. I still got raped. And sexually assaulted. I broke one of my fingers trying to get away. I bit him. I searched him. I kicked him. I tried my fucking best to stop him. And because he is a man and bigger and stronger than me it wasn’t enough. And that goes for all men. Any of them would be capable of overpowering me by virtue of their sex.

How victim blaming of you. I don’t know how these sort of posts are allowed to stand.

I feel a genuine serious threat when any man I don’t know is in my company, and very often even in groups with men I know. That will never leave me.

Nowhere is safe for me anymore. Not even my own home. I have cameras. Upgraded locks. A dog in the bed. A spray on the beside table. And it’s not enough.

Who are you to decide if my assessment of threat is “genuine”? Who made you the one to determine that?

And that's fine, but they'll have to accept that people they don't agree with are representing them, largely to their detriment.

Would you care to answer the question about whether you think Karen White and Sarah Jane Baker share these feminine personality traits with women?

When we talk about male violence, it's based on hard data. If you want to take that to mean that gendered behaviour is somehow biological, feel free. But it does mean that trans identifying men, whose offending pattern remains male, are still just men whichever way you look at it.

Gosh, that old chestnut. You really do use the MRA playbook don't you 😂

I'm talking about centuries, millenia even, of culture. The books we read, the stories we tell each other, images of men and women that haven't changed that much from frescos on churches to characters in modern soap operas.

It's not about whether society's laws are more equal/egalitarian, it's about how individuals' self images and expectations are shaped, how they affects how we see ourselves and each other and the way that constrains the possibilities we allow for ourselves.

"I'm saying they are socialised to do so. Which is a subconscious forcing.
Ask any mother how her child's tastes and preferences changed when the child started school and peer acceptance became important."

Are you seriously suggesting women don't know their own minds? They are incapable of making a preference without social coercion? They lack any autonomy Monkey see monkey do? My god…

You do know its a well trotted out trope by the patriarchal faithful that women were 'brainwashed' into feminism. Oh wait…

I don’t wear dresses. I must be male.

In other words you have no evidence to dispute the fact that freedom doesn't change nature…