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?

The law in the United Kingdom doesn’t allow men into women’s single sex spaces.

A trans woman is a man. They’re not allowed into women’s single sex spaces.

what more is there for debate?

If you don’t like it, campaign to change the law.

I belong to a women's group and I really hope this doesn't happen to ours. In any case, it makes no sense to include trans women and not include men. If that happened to my group, I would leave.

Seriously? Ever heard of Rosemary West? 😂

Outliers existing are irrelevant to the average.

Do you know why I don’t wear dresses @Howseitgoin ? Because it makes me more vulnerable to rape than trousers with buttons and/or a zip.

And the only people in uk law who can rape are those in possession of a penis.

I’m still not getting an answer.

It is very telling.

But they are not outliers. They are males. Males commit something like 98% of sexual violence. Giving them a different label doesn't change that.

…

Good lord, anyone who menstruates knows that our biology influences our emotions!

But society determines how we express them, what we feel able to act on and what we do not.

Behaviours do not fit neatly into male and female groups.

However, our culture has overlaid strong messages that influence how we see themselves, how we behave and how we relate to the opposite sex.

These mean that at the population level, women have better outcomes if they have spaces without men, both for safety and to engage in dialogue with each other without fitting it around men's needs and reactivity.

Many men, trans woman on not, feel excluding all men based on behaviours at the population level is unfair to them because they don't believe they align with the behaviours that women find threatening or constraining.

These men are failing to understand that women, due to our own socialisation, often find their presence intimidating or limiting anyway.

As a woman I believe very strongly that the benefit to women of excluding all men in some circunstances, and of having language that is sex-specific that can underpin legal rights, social converstaion and cultural and academic insight and analysis is more important than the benefit to a few men of being included.

HTH

Let me try to break it down for you using small words.

In what way is someone who is biologically male and does not have any of the following personality traits:

very feminine, agreeable, sensitive, empathic, nurturing, compassionate, emotionally expressive, understanding and cooperative individual

a woman?

Surely they fail according to every possible definition of womanhood. Both the biological definition that we favour and the bullshit behavioural definition that you favour.

Whaaat?

The point is that trans women are men. They are literally no different to other men.

These are the personality traits you listed as corresponding to women.

Maybe you could try explaining in words because, no, your point is not clear.

By your own logic, did you ever consider that your own gender critical beliefs may have been socially 'manufactured'?

See where this logic goes? Or are you exempt from it?

Trans women are a subset of men.

Trans men are a subset of women.

What’s the issue with that? Each individual can dress / present / feel however they like. I couldn’t care less.

What they cannot do is use single sex spaces that don’t align with their actual sex.

And this is the legal position in the U.K. I appreciate some people find this upsetting but the answer to this is for them to campaign to change the law, not to unlawfully enter where they have no right to be, because that is a consent violation.

I am suggesting that people, women and men, all of us, are hugely influenced by the social norms we grow up with.

I think very few of our decisions and preferences are "our own". I do not believe that had we grown up in a vaccum, say, or in 15th Japan, we'd have the same beliefs about the word, the same values and preferences, or make the same decisions as we do having grown up here and now.

I actually find it staggeringly arrogant that anyone would not realise this.

Yes but then we will have to work in different buildings to men, use separate transport. I don't think it's practical to say because some men are dangerous we always have to be separate from them. But I agree if it involves being nude, undressing, using the toilet etc then yes keep things separate.

How do you think the belief that humans can't change sex is socially manufactured, exactly?

My gender critical beliefs were born of my rape.

I’d say that’s pretty clear logic.

Care to give me your comment on that @Howseitgoin ?

The point being that male bodied outliers might have them & as such are more associated to the average woman than men in terms of behaviour .

They’re still men though.

No one is suggesting they can "change sex" rather that factually the sexes share personality traits.

I can see a difference between a man who wishes to be female, and then the rest of the male population. Just like most women don't wish to be male, i would say a woman who wishes to be male is different from the rest of the female population who wish to remain known as female.

Yes but I am asking you about men who claim to identify as women and yet don't have any of those traits.

What makes them women? They're male people who look like male people and behave like male people.

@Howseitgoin

Are there interests influenced by genetics? I don’t think tribal loyalty is genetic.

If there are, so what?

There are probably specific hobbies full of people with autistic spectrum diagnoses, is that genetic influencing?

Why link their genetics and their hobby? If there was a group for neurodiverse people in a particular area or hobby, there would have to be a reason why they kept non autistic people out of their group, like it’s a supportive non-judgemental space, or to meet other people with neurodiversity within the field.

And you wouldn’t say, I like this hobby, but as a neurotypical person I don’t want to join the general admission hobby group, I want to join your neuro spicy hobby group and ruin it for you.