A space for respectful dialogue about sex, gender and diversity

[Tandora]

This is a thread for posters who want to talk and share a diverse range of opinions about sex, gender, being gender non-conforming and/or trans, and public policy. It is to learn from each other; to engage in a productive exchange, and to hear different sides of the story.

It is not a space for bullying and insults. Please do not join if your intention is to control the conversation and undermine those who disagree with you.

I think the worst thing for me is the giggling like school children that went with it and the fact this was a bloke who had a fucking beard and was about six foot.

He had turned up half way through the half an hour talk and clearly hadn't grasped any of the points of the talk at all.

One of the other points they'd actually made during the course of the session was comment on the lack of ethic minorities in adventure sport for both men and women and how they really wanted to change that.

You are simply not going to attract Muslim women to outdoors adventure if you decide that men can join a women only network.

It comes back to this idea of respect. There was a total lack of respect for all the reasons covered during the topic by this man. But women are supposed to be 'respectful' and allow him to join.

I should add that the session prior to this one had been about LGBT inclusion in outdoor and adventure sport so it wasn't as if this had been overlooked.

Time and time again we are increasingly seeing, as the logical fails becom more apparent, the only way to shut down discussion is via tone policing and telling women to pipe down and stop being uppity and using unbecoming language. It's all that's left apart from threats and violence.

I'm over it.

I'm not going to kowtow to this inequity in how women have to constantly 'show respect' whilst actively being abused. That doesn't mean I'm going to resort to threats and abuse myself but it sure as hell means I'm going to refuse to play along with the bullshit and do performative 'being kind'.

I’m sorry. I said on another thread a day or two ago that my own experience of SA was minimised on this board, but no-one seemed to care about that - in fact, I was asked for evidence of this over and over, and some posters seemed to care more that FWR might get a bad name. I’m sorry for Taztoy’s experience. I’m not talking about her.

Well quite, just like Sandie Peggie, chastised for leaving the changing room.

It is my conclusion that @Tandoori is a male & likely sociopathic to boot given the utter lack of empathy regarding Taztoy & others. He also makes preposterous claims. To not only be a scientist who has been researching "trans" for over twenty years but to understand the subject so deeply that us muggles simply cannot understand the words he uses to describe what "trans" is. The claim to have "birthed children" doesn't ring true either any more than does the occasional flash of performative sympathy when claiming that he too has suffered SA or had a termination.

The one thing I am pretty clear that he isn't is a TIM although there may well be a strong personal connection to someone who is. I imagine he is rather like that unpleasant little man haranguing Sharron Davies at the Tory conference the other day.

I don't think it's as a diversion. It's more likely incredulity that any woman could hold certain views. And that they're much more likely to be male.

If a male holds those views, then it's just par for the course. Male socialisation and male entitlement will often result in certain views, and trying to change their mind is an uphill struggle, because those views generally benefit them.

If a woman holds them, it's much more difficult to understand.

with Tandora, the views they hold benefit men, and men only, and are directly detrimental to women. It's hardly a leap to think they're not a woman.

You were asked what was said to you, as it’s a serious allegation to make. How can anyone comment if you can’t state what was said. You said you couldn’t as it was four years ago. Another poster if I recall said she was sorry that happened to you.

That's all you’ve contributed, and continue to contribute to this conversation.

We've no idea what sex other posters are and it doesn't really matter. Plenty of women are enthusiastic supporters of TWAW.

Anyway, this is the ad Datun mentions upthread:

I'm sincerely sorry about your experience of SA.

I don’t think I’ve ever done that to anyone. And I’m sorry that you too experienced SA.

It just goes to show.

I see that ad, and I think bloody hell no one stares at a person like that when they get into a lift. No one. It's invasive

But you had a lot of people really not seeing it like that.

I guarantee the director of that ad spent ages trying to find what he/she thought would be an acceptable length of time to look.

I appreciate that - thank you.

Thank you - and you Taztoy.

We could then talk about Tandora's treatment of everyone else and wider conduct

For me it's the superciliousness, combined with the inability to engage respectfully with any issues beyond her claimed area of expertise.

FWIW my gut feeling is that she's a woman. I believe one of our other regulars (the super feminine mother of two) is a liar.

@RedToothBrush the ethnic issue is huge, from a sex perspective. Think it was only last year that there was a brouhaha over comments that rural England is inherently racist (in fact a quick google just now suggests there was a report in Sept criticising this - farmers are predominantly white, no halal options, black and Asian visitors feeling unwelcome etc).

I was raised in an Iranian family (adopted when mother married) and I know that my aunties would for faith and cultural reasons have found taking part in outward bounds activities without assurances that there were either women only/women led groupings and/or single sex facilities. I am technically white british, but as a result of my socialisation in a muslim household and extended family I am probably a little bit of a prude/self-conscious in male dominated environments (despite 20 years in finance on a trading floor… but that’s a whole other kettle of misogynistic fish). But as a result of my background, I would have loved access to an exclusively female adventure sports group - or any exclusively female hobby groups really. I hope this organisation you mention changes it’s position …

It is to learn from each other

After 700+ posts, I’d like to know what T has learned from anyone else. Frankly I’d like to know what she’s learned from the bazillion other threads she’s read here.

Well quite.
And one thing I'd like to learn from Tandora is a definition of what being trans is.

The issue for me is there's posting and there's posting in a manner that suggests vested interest rather than a passing one.

We see this in multiple posters across the subject. I believe it's identifiable.

Posting on here in a certain manner can only be about a very desperate need to virtue signal or there's a male driven agenda - either MRA or TRA.

The trouble with the former is that you quickly spot the posters for whom you cross the point that continues to believable on a tangible level unless there is a close family member involved. In those cases the reveal about that relationship is generally fairly quick because it's used as a way to demonstrate authority on the subject.

This repeats and those of us who have been around a while do spot it with alarming regularly.

Thanks Arabella. I was just about to post this.

This is an excellent illustration of the inconsistency and the incoherence of the application of the theories and philosophy some people have. This woman is shown as being hateful for leaving the lift when she is scared.

To me, this ad spectacularly back fired. The government in Australia has made clear promises to tackle VAWAG, and yet this ad was made by the Victorian state government that shamed any woman and girl from correctly leaving a situation that they felt afraid in. Because the Victorian state government wants women to suppress any fear that they experience in the presence of a male person in a lift which would be impossible to leave while moving.

This really does epitomise what so many of us have been trying to discuss. That female people need single sex spaces, and whenever one female person needs that space to remain single sex, that is the minimum standard for that space. That should not be controversial.

I haven’t read the whole thread. Tandora has never engaged in good faith with how they envisage real life toilet provision to be ‘inclusive’ yet safe.

I got to the bit where Tandora listed a myriad of choices that Tandora wishes for. Now back to reality…

In the real world, in terms of toilets, it is unlikely that a wheelchair user can go out somewhere new without forward planning to find where there are open accessible toilets. There is a lot of evidence (over several decades) that elderly people, in particular, do not go out if there aren’t enough public toilets in case of soiling themselves. Public toilet provision is much, much less than it used to be. People have to plan around toilet usage all the time. We know as women, on our heaviest days, even if we are able-bodied, we change our plans.

I want safe toilets for everyone.

I have looked at the information published by Translucent (2025) and Stonewall (2018) and the worst case scenarios is a man flashed another man in protest (Translucent) and a man was pushed out of the ladies by two women when he refused to leave (Stonewall). These incidences can not have been nice and there are lots more incidences of people telling others they shouldn’t be in the toilets they are using. In the Translucent booklet there were several accounts of fear due to previous incidents but no one described what happened in these previous incidents. I deal in facts so my reports deal with stories I can verify. It would have been of more use if they could have highlighted cases where people had been arrested or taken to court - because I have searched and not found any.

In the Translucent booklet it has a trigger warnings including for rape at the front. I can not find any incident of anyone being raped.

In contrast, I have a lot of data about what happens in mixed sex toilets. I have incidences of what has happened in ‘gender neutral’/ missed sex designs, including loss of life, sexual assaults, drug use, rapes etc. It has always been men who are the perpetrators. Mostly men who are described as men and less often men who describe themselves as women. To put assaults into perspective, in this country, it was noted that a rape is reported at least every school day inside school premises. The locations where mentioned are store cupboards and toilets (disabled toilets are quoted). It is logical that it would be a private space.

We are all safer in designs that are not completely private in an otherwise public space. We are all less likely to catch something too because it’s easier to clean and ventilate.

Honestly, public toilet provision is so expensive with the maintenance that goes with it. What we need is everyone to respect the toilets we still have though they never have in the past, so I can’t see why people are going to change.

Unfortunately there will always be people who fall ill in toilets (irrespective of gender/sex etc). What we can do is to make sure anyone at their most vulnerable gets the safest toilets, by having the default provision to be single sex toilets with door gaps above and below the door.

Because it’s male behaviour that is most often the problem, men in particular need to be kind and tolerant to all men and behave in toilets. Having sex and taking drugs should be discouraged. I know it comes across as boring but it’s health and safety.

The solution, if you had all the money in the world, would be to have another set of toilets everyone could use, with door gaps. Then mixed sex would have the same safety benefits. However, this, in my honest opinion, would end up being the mens toilets. Women already self exclude from mixed sex toilets now as they feel less comfortable. Most men also don’t like being heard having a wee in earshot of women and there is a danger paruresis.

What would be more beneficial, is more single sex ‘disabled’ toilets within single sex spaces. That means disabled women and children in particular would be afforded the extra safety.

The mixed sex ‘disabled’ toilets would be for everyone but they need to be very closely monitored and regularly checked. This is usually not possible as, in most public toilets, supervision comes from strangers in the area not attendants anymore.

Around the world, women are more likely to be sexually assaulted than men and we are constantly and subconsciously using more of our peripheral vision and making judgements on risk. This has been proven scientifically. It is well known that aid agencies build working toilets that don’t get used by women refugees in camps - they’d rather go on the floor in their tent than risk the toilet.

Back to this country, there’s no evidence that ‘inclusive’ toilets (private, mixed sex cubicles) are best. In fact there is lots of evidence to the contrary.

I have a question for @Tandora and others. I hope my manner of posing it will be seen as respectful.

Over five years ago, the philosopher Alex Byrne wrote in conclusion of an article ('What Is Gender Identity? - The elusive true gender self', see https://medium.com/arc-digital/what-is-gender-identity-10ce0da71999), "... If there is some kind of “gender identity” that is universal in humans, and which causes dysphoria when mismatched with sex, it remains elusive. No one has yet found a way of detecting its presence, and verifying that it is causally responsible for dysphoria."

Here is my question. Has anyone found a way of detecting the presence (and making the link to dysphoria) of what Byrne described here as "elusive", either before or since he made that claim?

If so, what is it?

If not, can we - with due respect - finally lay the notion to rest?

That was my post. If you think calling a poster a man is offensive, report my post.

Yes that's an interesting point.

A couple of people have said the vested interest could be financial. A Helen Webberly type person.

The fact that Tandora kept changing the justification is weird. Apparently it was first of all of a DSD, then it becomes a neurological issue.

And the final (after waiting pages and pages) description of trans as a person with some male sex characteristics who thinks they're female, could apply equally to transmen and transwomen, so twenty years of intense study just went straight up the Swannee, in one post!

so yeah, maybe a paycheck is what it's all about.

edited to add, and let's not forget about the seven different categories required for toilets and changing rooms.

Twenty years of study to come up with seven separate categories? Yeah right

Well said. Fully agree.

The thing is, every gender critical woman here has a obvious vested interest - in being a bit woman. For some they have multiple vested interests (their children, neurodiversity, sexuality, religious views).

That's why it's heavily gender critical.

You have to ask the vested interest question about pro-trans posters when they make such a challenge so persistantly against sex and women.

All of this.

Plenty of us have known through direct experience, in my case from an early age, that being in an enclosed space with an unknown male while in posession of female biology he feels entitled to and no respect for you as a person, can end very badly.

Demanding that women resist seeking safety and self defense to benefit men is like requiring lesbians to 'learn to cope' with straight sex, and for women to learn to take their clothes off and shower with men. It's all about the benefit to the men. It's all about coercing the women to be good resources in the way that men want, and to shut UP bleating about it. You can frame it as building resilience, you can make it a social virtue, you can use words like 'respectful' every two sentences to try and entice women into believing it isn't misogyny, it's still trying to cover up an oil slick with a tissue.