A Question of Some Considerable Delicacy

[theilltemperedmaggotintheheartofthelaw]

Ever since FWS, we've been told by TRAs that the country is awash with transwomen who are heartbroken and terrified because they've been told to stop using women's facilities, and this has outed them to their colleagues.

I'm finding this hard to believe, because I have virtually never mistaken a transwoman for a woman. There have been previous threads about this, from which I gather that the scientific consensus is that humans are very good at sexing other humans from an early age.

Maybe I am just wrong, though, and have been fooled many times. And maybe some people aren't very perceptive. According to a recent thread, Morgane Oger thinks he could only accurately sex about 70% of a mixed crowd; a PP on the same thread thinks Maya Forstater looks like a man.

So I would like to hear other people's experiences of this (please try not to insult or offend!). Were you ever surprised, when a woman turned out to be a man?

This piece about Kelly v Leonardo reveals the mindset:

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/10/terf-employee-admits-to-secret-cis-only-bathroom-at-work-i-wont-sacrifice-my-privacy-my-dignity/

Kelly also admitted to speculating over her colleagues’ gender identities and tracking their bathroom usage, telling the tribunal that over a period of six to nine months, she identified three people she believed to be trans who were using the women’s restrooms.

This seems to misrepresent what was happening. MK was not speculating: she knew that they were men, surely?

I'm interested primarily in what this means for the law, in particular in relation to Article 8 ECHR (right to private life). TRAs interpret this as an unlimited right to conceal one's sex in every situation. But how can even a limited such right exist, if there is no way in reality that such concealment can reliably be achieved, from everyone, all of the time?

Are they actually demanding the right to force everyone to pretend to be fooled? That's not a privacy right.

Article 8 right to privacy and family life. It is a principle that the state should not interfere with a persons life and liberty, and not subject people to unnecessary rules and intrusions.

it has been used in particular the Goodwin and Berlinger cases, about transexuals rights not to suffer administrative discrimination.

It does not however prevent signatories to the treaty from interfering with article 8 rights for lots of reason including safeguarding and national security.

there is not one single case that has been adjudicated by the European Court Of Human Rights, about transexuals having the right to be recognised as the opposite sex to the extent that they can access women's services.

Nor is there ever likely to be because the convention also recognises women's rights to dignity privacy and safety.

The TRA’s have ran out of road its all over apart from a few more skirmishes in the courts.

boo hoo

I'm finding this hard to believe, because I have virtually never mistaken a transwoman for a woman

You find it hard to believe because you’ve identified trans woman. Do you think it’s possible you haven’t noticed some?

What? Noticed men dressed as women you are having a laugh aren’t you.

i came across a couple of “trans” boys last year at a TK max store (the gay trans types)

you can tell a male instantly, hands, height, hip width, gait, jawline, brow, Adam’s apple

the only ones that “pass” can afford extensive surgery and are unlikely to be lurking about in the local market town.

The best most recent facsimile of a female i have observed recently was the rather pleasant panelist on Jeremy vine, even then i looked him up as i knew he was a man

Yes. See paragraph 3. And that is why I'm asking.

I met my first Trans Identifying Man in the 1980s at work. Wasn't surprised then and never have been.

There is a difference between meeting somewhere in person and trying to judge them from photos or a video. It's something about viewing the whole person

My local mall has 2 TIMs working in shops. It is obvious that they are trans and I can tell from the reactions of other people that they know as well.

The one exception may be telling the difference between people in different cultures to mine where it might take a longer look.

Your position is that you can clock every trans woman because you’ve clocked every one you’ve seen? Do you not see that ridiculous flaw in your logic here?

The few transwomen who pass perfectly still give themselves away when they ask if there is somewhere that they can tie their unicorns up.

@Bannedontherun

It does not however prevent signatories to the treaty from interfering with article 8 rights for lots of reason including safeguarding and national security.

So, Article 8 rights are limited. We can enquire about sex when sex matters (not that they like that either!).

But, I don't see how even a limited privacy right can be enforced - or even exist - if the private knowledge is not private in reality, due to that being physically impossible.

What were they thinking, that advances in medical techniques would solve the problem? Because the direction of travel is the opposite. A GRC requires no medical treatment. Doctors have ceased dissuading non-passable would-be transitioners, saying that transition will have therapeutic utility, even so. Self-ID is a thing.

Men want to say 'I am a woman', and then immediately 'keep private' the fact that they are actually men by forbidding anyone from saying so.

When out and about my shorthand way of spotting them is to look at anyone dressed in a feminine style of around 6ft. On an outing in town, I'll see at least a couple of TIMs now that I am looking in this way. I'd say I am mostly seeing males in their 20s-30s. Often they are very feminised and well presented/spending a lot on hair/grooming etc but they still are obviously men. It's not just the gait, hands, jaw, height etc etc It's that there's something of a "performance" about the presentation. A lot of looking around to see who else is looking? I'm not sure what I mean, but I've never seen a woman do it unless she is up to something or on the stage.

I know 4 trans people very, very well. I think only one would be identifiable. The others I honestly don’t think anybody would know.

I suppose what you are saying is that there are male people that go undetected in female spaces because they look exactly like female people.

If that is true and we are none the wiser then there is no harm done to anyone.

you can honestly believe that if you want, i do not.

Trans men and women make up less than 1% of the population but you spot a couple trans women when you go to town?

We understand this. That's why I asked the question - it wasn't rhetorical.

Do you know any transwomen irl whose sex is truly unknown except to those they choose to tell?

When famous people transition, why is it that they don't usually then pass? Where are the passing ones?

I’m saying you’ve come to that conclusion that no trans person can pass because all you see are the non-passing ones

No need to answer if you prefer not, but, do you know how they plan to deal with the fallout from FWS? And, are they male or female?

🤣🤣

BTW I do think a lot of the time TW mistake politeness for passing.

What do you find difficult to believe about this comment?

The thing is I suspect we have seen males in women's bathrooms before, we may have given them the side eye but they caused no issue and went about there thing, keeping a low profile.

Then TRAs got involved and then quite obvious men in dresses and bad make up demanded access to women's spaces, women quite rightly said no.

Now there is this ridiculous situation where men just want to invade every space that was once a women's, they are not happy just making their own, they want ours.

okay for arguments sake maybe i come across men pretending to be women and just do not notice, in my daily life. So no problem, theoretically.

so lets say i am a lesbian and set up a date with a “passing” female

and discover in intimate circumstances that the “passing” person is in fact male.

what say you to that

Three male, one female.
One of the males recently used the women’s toilets as dictated by law. He was asked to leave.
It’s a shitshow. Seeing them live their authentic selves and their mental health soaring, I am totally pro transitioning (as an adult). I wish people could spend time with my friends/ relative. To see how happy they are, how they have blossomed since transitioning.

Also trans surgery was less well known in the past. In the days of Christine Jorgensen etc, women may have thought s/he looked odd but probably many wouldn't have known what a transsexual person was. Or TW might have been assumed to be intersex (or I suppose they'd have said : 'hermaphrodites')

'I saw some people' is not how you do data…

Many women would kill to look like Arden Hart:

https://share.google/images/GB6VTF1D3i4eHyoGe

"Many women" is not how you do data

I haven't come to any conclusion. I'm asking the question because I don't know the answer. For all I know, 99.9% pass, because unknown unknowns, as Rumsfeld would put it. But I do wonder where all the famous passing people are. And, how this Article 8 right can apply to non-passing people.

Yes. It is a major urban centre. And in the 16-30 age group the incidence is about 1 in 73 based on Scottish data