How is the trans issue ever going to be resolved?

[PassportPanicFuuuck]

It seems as insoluble as the Israel/Palestine question when the two "sides" want directly opposing things. I've heard the arguments that trans people "just want to pee" and that "no-one would go through medical/surgical gender reassignment purely to abuse women", plus the mantras that "trans people exist", "trans rights are human rights" and "trans women are women" and it's quite clear that the people who believe these things fervently aren't going to change their minds any time soon.

But to a certain extent, life isn't fair. Not everyone does have equal opportunities. If you're in a gay relationship (and there's nothing wrong with that) you can't have a biological child with your partner; if you're infertile (as I am) you can't have a child at all; if you're trans (and there's nothing wrong with that either) you can't enter the spaces of the opposite sex; if you're British you don't have an automatic right to go and live in the US; if you're short and unsporty you don't have a right to be on the Olympic basketball team - and so on. All sorts of opportunities are denied people at various different points, some as a result of decisions you make (like not studying for a medical degree means I can never be a doctor) and some not (see above re. infertility), and beyond universal human rights you don't have a right - one might say "entitlement" - to an awful lot of things, much as you might keenly want them.

Like it or not, once we end up in these categories we have to accept it. Absolutely no-one is eligible to do everything or to go everywhere. However if you have made a choice - even if you consider it to be more a recognition of something innate rather than a conscious decision - it doesn't mean that you have made this choice on behalf of everyone else. If you have chosen to transition (again, you may not consider it to be a "choice") you can't dictate that everyone else ignore biology and logic and linguistic authenticity and you can't dictate that everyone else will want to celebrate your decision. No, we don't have to accept the "lady bulge", we don't have to accept child abuse under the guise of gender-affirming care and we don't have to accept men in female sports / changing rooms / organisations.

Not sure how coherently worded all the above is, but perhaps it will provoke some interesting debate.

Provisions? Or spaces?

This would need to be very very clear. Because there are many single sex provisions that are not 'spaces'. Obviously sport is one. But also employment roles where only female people are required. Opportunities that have been set up for female people to be adequately represented in policy / law making or to recognise exceptional female people in an attempt to overcome negative sexist oppression are just a couple of others.

Yet, even here the issue does not 'end'.

For example, currently there are laws and policy that punish people for using correct sex language instead of a person or people's demanded language. Why should anyone have to act in a way that permits one person's belief about themselves to override material reality?

There are other issues too.

I'm not saying we should give up. Just wondering what else we do.

But I suppose the answer I'm gleaning from here is to reach a point where enough of society agrees on people only accessing spaces that match their biological gender, and clearly making that a law. How it's enforced though, I'm not sure.

That’s what I was asking about. Provision that isn’t spaces.

Depends on the situation. It's really easy to enforce single sex prisons - the sex of the men being placed in womens prisons is known.

Even for toilets it's not that difficult to enforce the correct usage in a workplace because an employer can take disciplinary action against male employees who consistently use female toilets.

biological sex

"Not-my-Nigel" means "I know a very nice harmless trans person (Nigel) and any laws that inconvenience Nigel are bad laws even if they are the best way to protect women from other trans people who are not as nice as my Nigel".

"No-true-trans" is a version of the "no-true-Scotsman" argument (google will have more info about it) In this context it means that anyone who harasses women is automatically not "really" trans. So for example Isla/Adam Bryson isn't "really" trans. There are a number of counter-arguments that are regularly presented here on FWR, I assume you have seen them already so I wont go through them.

Thanks for your reply. I was a bit unsure as I immediately got multiple replies to my initial post telling me it just comes down to whether women should have female only spaces and do I agree with that. And I was under the impression that there were other issues as well, like you say

What do you mean 'biological sex' ?

You said spaces that match their biological gender.

you mean sex.

gender Isn’t biological.

Thanks for taking the time to explain. I didn't mean either of those things.

Ah yes I did mean that. I believe I said bioloigical sex in a different post

Enforcement will be through upholding policy and legal action.

Currently a male person who has not accidentally entered a female single sex space can be removed. If it is a provision that is not a physical space, they can be excluded in the future.

Legal options will be available if needed.

It is a bit like in the past saying seat belt laws would not be enforced. Not having 100% compliance is no reason not to have the law or policy in the first place.

Just having the law clearly stated will mean that the population understand what is expected of them.

Well we can insist men use male facilities and get punished if they don’t? No male looks like a woman so it’s easy. All males stay out of female spaces. Sorted.

I think the 'other issues' are important but will come to light and be changed in time. The priority is getting a legal definition in law.

That legal definition, in my opinion, will then allow replicate out to this current issue around language too. Because if the legal definition is clear, then how the fuck does any person believe the legal system should be supporting enforcing language demands that contradict that legal definition.

@Helleofabore Just having the law clearly stated will mean that the population understand what is expected of them.

Agree with this, good point

I can't tell if you're being sarcastic? I've seen plenty of trans women who are biological men but look completely like women and I would never guess.

This is a weirdly callous and rude response when I'm trying to genuinely engage with the discussion

Policing each other enforces gender stereotypes - do you challenge someone based on how much they look like a man or a woman?

Have you ever felt the need to do this previously? Why would you feel the need to do this now when the law hasn't changed?

So then we'd need to trust that everyone is policing themselves, ie obeying the rules, and with such different opinions on which spaces people should access, that isn't happening.

People police themselves all day long, obeying the civil law on trespass, complying with the Highway Code, not jumping the queue.

Why is this more difficult?

I'm not really sure, that's why I'm here to see other people's opinions. So if people generally self-police, but some rubbish people don't obey the rules eg cutting you off on the road, jumping the queue, do you have the same view on single sex spaces?

As in, it's written into law and generally accepted, but there'll always be people that don't follow the rule? And would this sort of settle the issue for you?

Until approx 10 years ago this is how society functioned. Any man trying to get into the women's changing room, showers etc would immediately be seen as a potential predator and challenged / removed.

Once men started demanding that women undress in front of them - no arguments or you're a bigot - women and girls started having problems with potential voyeurs and flashers in their spaces.

No women anywhere in the world campaigned to have men in women's single sex changing rooms, toilets etc. This has been a male led demand. You only have to look upthread at the intimidatory accusations (brown shirts, Nazis etc) for a display of the intimidatory / shaming tactics used to bully women out of our right to undress in privacy from random men.

So if a cis man is a man whose gender identity aligns with his sex, surely a male claiming trans identity is a non cis man as his sex does not align with his gender identity? Is that not correct? Or are you saying males claiming a trans identity are not men? In which case you don’t need to use cis do you?

Actually, it is a blunt statement of fact and not 'weirdly callous and rude' at all.

If you, personally, cannot identify a person's sex correctly with interaction, please do not assume that this is universal. It is irrelevant how they 'look', male people have male body cues that will remain unchanged by surgery or hormone treatment.

Gait is just one. Skeletal proportions is another.

There are studies that show that models of heads without showing hair or skin colour have a very very high level of accuracy in people being able to tell which sex the modelled head would belong to.

I don’t think you can compare the trans issue with the issues going on in Gaza, the issue in the Middle East has had warring factions ever since humans stopped being nomads and agriculture came into being, in other words millennia, it’s a very complicated geopolitical nightmare, and sadly I can’t see it being resolved in my lifetime.
The trans debate really isn’t that complicated. If we accept humans can’t change sex, which they can’t, then we have to accept that there are simply two sexes. If sex matters, which it does, then men and women need different sports, different changing facilities, different sex related health care etc. it really is that simple. To try and live as a woman when you are biologically a man, or to try and live as a man when you are a biological woman is a fantasy (often, but not always, borne out of dysphoria ), nothing more, nothing less.
The issue of course, are those who like to hold power, who are good at manipulation, who are charismatic and can draw people in, and have managed to effect change at a political level for their own questionable ends.
As more young adults realise they have been lied too, and start suing the NHS for damages, the quicker this quasi-religion will fall and be assigned to the history books to be studied by anthropologists and psychologists as an extraordinary period in 21 century society. I believe this will happen within the next two decades if not sooner. The movement is already losing power and I believe will continue to do so. I feel extremely sorry for those young people who have gone through medical changes because of a faulty schema driven by certain adults in power (drs, counsellors, teachers, MPs etc, who allowed or encouraged them to believe their unhappiness was simply due to ‘being born into the wrong body’) and those adults who, whatever their intentions (a genuine belief in doing the right thing, or a darker ulterior motive), have been responsible for significant psychological and physical harm.

Yes - I don't expect the law to change.

Ah ok this is where we disagree, I don't think it's always possible to tell

I've seen plenty of transwomen too, and thought a lot of them passed, both because I wanted to believe it, and because I met them in groups and so compared them to each other. But then I went out in the city with them, and random people's reactions made it clear they clocked them. I'm not saying there can't be a few that might pass, but most don't.