Talking to non GC people

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I've been chatting to a few people recently about gender issues, and their opinion runs roughly like this ' we should all listen to each other, and not be so unpleasant. But of course, men shouldn't be in women's sports'
Which begs the question that, if GC people hadn't been 'unpleasant' men would have been firmly in women's sports.
So, should I be pleased that public opinion has shifted slightly, or should I be banging my head against the wall?

Some bloke might look at them weirder than three teenage girls! Horrooooorrr!

Plague, War, Fire and Damnation!

What I woud find more interesting is what are the stats of trans identifying males being attacked in male toilets? Are there any? Are they really a dangerous place?

Unless the sight of a transwoman triggers a very specific kind of rage in men, I imagine male toilets are about as safe for a TW as they are for me, which is, very.

When they claim that they are frequently abused what does this mean in practise? Does it mean physical assault or does it boil down to being correctly sexed?

Well, since being "misgendered" is ~literal violence~... Yet, the people I see being uneasy around me are the non-trans people, some of whom seem outright afraid of making a mistake when interacting with me, and treat me like like a grenade that could go off at any time. Man, I wonder what happened to them to make them so jumpy 🤔?

I am just reposting this video about emotional manipulation.

This is a general comment. How many threads have we seen the dynamic of women who understand safeguarding being referred to as extremists and hardline?

How many threads have we seen those who refer to women as extreme for pointing out safeguarding failures as insisting that there are ‘some’ male people who should be allowed to bypass female people’s consent / laws / policies etc because they pass / are lovely / are in danger / are so sad?

Just a note: referring to women as being extreme for reminding people that safeguarding requires exclusion of ALL male people is emotional manipulation whether it is intended to be or not. Stating that some male people should be able to be treated as special and bypass safeguarding laws and policies and societal standards makes that emotional manipulation with intention.

I think this video is a very good place to start for people to reflect on.

That and the question for any of those reading who do believe that some males who fulfil your (general) personal criteria should be able to access a single sex provision stealthily, where do the needs of female people feature in that belief?

Also, why the fuck do you (general you) think female male cannot reliably identify the correct sex of that male person?

And in the same vein. Why is it when women describe their lived exprience and the dangers of males in our spaces, we are ALWAYS asked for statistics and studies to back this up. But when trans identified males talk about their lived experience and vulnerabilities we are aways supposed to take this on trust and asking for evidence is "twansphobic"? Why are they automatically believed and women (the old fashioned cunty variety) aren't?

Post on X seems to show judicial as well as biological reality entering some workspaces at least:

Other Heather dot connectr ...... reposted

𝕄𝕖 🫟 𝕄𝕪𝕤𝕖𝕝𝕗 🫟 𝕆𝕟𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖

@MeMyselfOnline

A few weeks ago, the company I work for issued compulsory "training", including statements such as: “Remember, if Cathi is trans, saying ‘she used to be a man’ isn't accurate. Trans women are women, and they've never not been a woman”. I shit you not. So I've waited till today, when the company hosts one of its quarterly meetings with all the top brass across several sites, in person and online, to read out a statement on exactly what I thought of this “training”. I made reference to the precedent set when
@MForstater
won her appeal in June 2021, and levelled an accusation to the entire company that they are indirectly, and possibly directly, discriminating against all its employees under the protected characteristic of their freedom of belief. You could have heard a pin drop. At first. The result? HR is now bricking it. The training is no longer compulsory. They're taking matters under review, and I've had so many hugs and messages off support from my female colleagues. My boss shook my hand. It isn't easy speaking up. I've been very nervous till today. But as
@ThePosieParker
keeps telling me: if not me, then who? If not now, then when? I think it was important that someone saw a gay man stand up and defend the women he works with, and send a message that this absurd nonsense has no place being forced upon us. I've sure I've made plenty of enemies at work today and pissed numerous people off. And I'm glad. I'd do it all again in a heartbeat because it's simply the right thing to do.
2:45 PM · Sep 24, 2024
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2.1M
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Its Cassandra's fault.

Blame her.

If there were any examples, we'd sure as hell hear about it.

But yet...🤔

@Helleofabore apologies I have failed to keep up with all your posts and questions to me and information. Thank you to you and others - I have been reading and absorbing. I'm going to try to answer some of your questions, and share a few final thoughts, then step back for a while.

You asked me about my first post: I think it was an attempt expressing my journey, starting with the earlier thoughts that were representative of my thinking a few years ago, towards the ways in which I now already feel aligned and the remaining uncertainties/blockers I have. And also to somewhat speak for a potential swathe of women who want to defend women's rights but are still dragging along ambivalently on this issue, and who I think have far less fundamental resistance than it may at first appear...so to some extent extrapolating my opinions to others (this assumption that my views aren't unusual appears correct, considering how many times people have responded 'same old' to what I have questions about). Something I hadn't mentioned, but is also perhaps a factor is that I work in communications. So yes - somebody dismissed my post as PR advice (and I think you also mentioned the frustration of communications gaps?)... my post was probably intended a bit that way... As the title of the thread was 'talking to non GC women', I didn't think a post of that nature was inappropriate.

Yes, when I described myself as 'muddled' I was signalling both openness and that I was aware I was not well-informed, and that I find some of it complex. This was in no-way disingenuous. You also asked if I know anything about safeguarding. The answer is I care about women's safety very much, but as a discipline/ set of laws/ whole political debate e.t.c., no I don't. And yes, this is the first time I've participated at any length in a discussion on GC/ Trans issues. I know that seems hard to believe for those who have been slaving intensely on this, but I think it's still true of many, many people, I do think in part due to a perception of 'high barriers to entry' and frankly fear. For me, I've been working on other things on which I feel more confidently placed. And that is even in geographic terms- I work a lot in Africa - where the trans issue is virtually non-existent, and the feminist issues are desperate, with different very extreme imperatives and parameters.

I am aware I have stepped on various bombs. Some things I knew were sensitive. Others were totally unexpected to me.

• 'Toilet' issue. This one I knew would be sensitive. I am grateful for the in depth information (especially @Keeptoiletssafe ), and many who have contributed thoughts, their experiences and thinking. I had not thought through in full and did not know the differences between various designs/ set ups. I do hear that this is an issue not only of safety but of comfort, privacy and dignity, and that many feel those needs extending into the wash area. And that all that is important, and yes I agree more important than other people's needs. I do understand and appreciate the rejection of 'quiet inclusion', while part of me still wishes I could cling onto it. So I feel more clarity with this issue - and indeed, better informed and more able to make the case for single sex toilets with others who would question it.
• The implication 'to be kind'. Though I didn't use those words, and don't think it was my intent - I understand the frustration, and the legacy of women being told to be kind, and I apologised, and do again for somewhat aligning with that. In a movement - regardless of who is protesting or fighting for what, I think there is strategic need for a variety of approaches from very fierce and unreasonable to conciliatory, empathetic and reflective. I believe both are needed at different points, with different audiences, to achieve different objectives. And I think women should be able to discuss that with each other. But yes, I agree, women being told to calm down/be kind when their rights are being infringed is unacceptable.
• bun fight - very unexpected and unintended. Didn't mean it as an insult, just as short hand for a debate that can become reactive - throwing out points and accusations, without much listening in either direction. I thought it was an uncontroversial thing to say that discussions on GC/Trans often end up like this. I think there has been a little of that in this thread, but that many, many of us have tried to hear and share information in depth.
• Asking for data on assaults. Totally unexpected. I now realise there is a history here of data wars, and the assumption on everybody's part seemed to be that I was demanding the data to prove there was no evidence of the problem or if there wasn't a big rise it didn't matter. Nope. I was thinking if there was evidence then it would be very useful in explaining to people and I would be able to understand the extent of the challenge. It is a great shame data is so poor and/or corrupted.
• The suspicion that I'm not who I say I am/ Trans Activist. Totally unexpected. It clearly happens to this board a lot - and that must be very tough and aggravating, making discussions very difficult to have. I did actually keep my normal username, partially so people could check my posting history. I've been here for years in other parts of the board - most frequently posting on threads supporting women trying to leave abusive relationships or trying to rebuild their lives after divorce/infidelity
• My cousin. I know there were lots of questions for specifics. But I don't think that is my information to share more on, as they are very private but I have absorbed the points people made around this. What I am trying to express, is that personal experiences and connections can create a powerful tension - as others have mentioned. I think they can distort or help to bring clarity, are distinct from policy needs, but can be one of many ingredients that inform them, if one's own experiences aren't used to invalidate others'.
• 'Middle ground'. I think there was some misunderstanding here. I was not advocating a middle ground in policy or the interpretation of sex. I was saying I was 'middle ground' - as in neither a Trans Activist, or a GC one. When I talked about 'celebrating shared ground' I was talking about celebrating what GC and non-signed up GC women can agree on - nothing to do with celebrating mixed sex spaces.
• Finally, I want to say that I maybe misunderstood this area of Mumsnet. I had understood this space to be like a stall set out for advocacy - with a desire and intention to engage, argue, broadcast, discuss with people passing by. But I think some have responded more like it is a space for GC women to meet with other GC women and support each other - ie more like a living room. I sincerely apologise if it is intended as the latter, which would make my entire participation totally inappropriate.

Over and out for now with thanks to everyone

This isn’t specifically about toilets, but it does drill down into the stats behind the claim that trans people are the most abused and most vulnerable:

https://thecritic.co.uk/neither-marginalised-abused-nor-vulnerable/

Take-home message - if you examine groups of people by their protected characteristics, trans people are in fact the least abused and vulnerable.

The only stats I can find say 12% self reported experiencing harassment in toilets. But this doesn't differentiate between men's and women's toilets, so no indication there's a particular risk from men. It also includes 'exclusion' as harassment, so will cover women challenging men in the ladies, as well as any instances of men who at a glance mistake a TIM for a women, and tell them they're in the wrong toilet.

I’ve come to more or less the same conclusion myself. But I’m not convinced that the same sort of sexually driven mechanism drives F to M transitioners.

Thank you for answering, I appreciate you being candid.

Can I recommend that perhaps you actually spend time on this board and keep reading. Over time, I think you might appreciate just how often women on this board are denigrated, name called and misrepresented from many people telling us we are the extremists, we are bigots, fucking right wing, and a slew of other misrepresentations from people who have never taken the time to gain a depth of understanding of what we are discussing. Yet who feel they should be able to make judgements based on what they had falsely believed.

It really becomes very apparent when coming from the direction of safeguarding how women and girls have been failed. You already have stated just how important language is to women, so you can already see areas of failures of safeguarding there. Where by removing language needed by female people, our protections (physical, rights, opportunities etc) are diminished.

Yet so many people tell us safeguarding is just an excuse for bigotry. Partly because the accusers have not understood the distinction between legitimate and illegitimate discrimination. And they falsely use the misused word ‘rights’ to defend what are not rights but amounts to additional privileges when you analyse it further.

Women on this board are constantly told it is not what we say but how we say it that is the issue. We are constantly told that we are problem by people who then don’t seem to have a scooby about what it is they are discussing. This is not aimed at you, there have been others on this very thread. You may have missed the poster, claiming to be an academic, telling us how ignorant we were who then posted a list of failed and flawed links that either weren’t relevant or didn’t even work.

But apparently we are the ignorant ones who just don’t say the right things in the exact tone that some people need for them to hear the message. Rather than them doing their research asking questions etc. Rather than them asking questions first, some of them come to tell us where we have gone wrong and why we are hateful and why we just don’t understand.

The people on this board have accumulated a huge wealth of knowledge about this topic and have explored the issues over and over. Everytime there is a change, or new information , we analyse it and evaluate from as many angles as possible. Of course, we aren’t perfect and we don’t know everything and there is plenty for us to learn.

Thank you for the answers I will take the time after work to go through them.

Certainly doesn't drive me. I've worn male clothing for as long as I've been able to choose my clothes, and I've never derived any kind of sexual thrill from it. Nor do I get any sexual feeling from my flat chest or my beard. Satisfaction, yes, but not sexual in any way.

I remember when I first learned about AGP, from other trans people in the community, who insisted that it didn't exist, it was just something psychiatrists had invented to oppress transwomen. I had no trouble believing them, because the very idea of deriving sexual satisfaction from transitioning was entirely alien to me. So when I came here and discovered that AGP is a very real thing... Well, I still don't get it, to be honest! I totally accept that it's a real thing (I mean, some TW make it very, very obvious), but it baffles me.

Thank you. That seems relatable. My feeling was underpinned by having been very gender nonconforming all my life - had I been forty years younger I’m sure transition might have crossed my mind - and by my improved understanding, after years of experience, of male sexuality, which is so completely different in general from female sexuality - I think most women have a poor understanding of just how different, and resist the insights that may dawn on them from time to time.

male sexuality, which is so completely different in general from female sexuality - I think most women have a poor understanding of just how different, and resist the insights that may dawn on them from time to time.

Agreed, whole-heartedly. As I told someone recently: men constantly tell us how their sexuality works; all we have to do is take them at their words - and yet, we don't.

If I had to characterise the difference between trans-identifying men and trans-identifying women in as few words as possible, it would be that it seems like the men are running towards the idea of some sort of hyper-sexualised woman (due to arousal thereby), and the women are running away from the same hyper sexual woman idea (due to trauma thereby).

There are definitely also some younger, not gay but probably autistic, boys who have been sucked in to the trans world because they are scared of their changing, pubertal bodies; I don’t have a sense of whether they eventually get pulled towards the more sexual side of things the longer they stay in that world.

Placemarking to come back later.

this morning’s particular highlights, from a non-GC person :

that it was hilarious that my rape trauma response has made me good at spotting males, even when they present as female, and I should go to specsavers.

see also calling me vile for saying I didn’t consent to sharing women’s single sex spaces with men, even if I didn’t know they were men.

that I needed a document to show people to prove my trauma.

And more but I can’t remember them off the top of my head.

@financialcareerstuff It’s really good you are thinking of location and design. What you are afraid of is being in a place someone could hide and you be isolated and no one around you. Why do you think a private toilet is better? You know it can be opened from the outside don’t you? If you had a floor-door gap at least you would have an idea who was in the vicinity and get on your phone/ yell for help if you needed. I do not know where this information will end up so I am not going to discuss all my examples but I hope you realise why I know this is the case after several years of collecting incidents.

Remember the options are:

1. Single sex are single sex
2. Single sex toilets and changing rooms are mixed sex but use single sex designs. Voyeurism laws have to change. Building Standards, building regs, 1974 and 1992 legislation and the Sexual Offences Act has to be modified. No risk assessments and EIA done because it would make this option null and void.
3. Single sex toilets all become mixed sex designs. Costs a fortune. Less provision. Discrimination against certain disabilities, religions, age, sex. Less healthy and less safe toilet designs for everyone (scientifically proven). No risk assessments and EIA done because it would make this option null and void.

There have always been known risks with the combination of unisex/mixed sex toilets and privacy. That’s why disabled toilets had a radar key to try and prevent misuse. Quote from the BBC 2013: ‘they are open to misuse by the general public. Most notoriously, they are sometimes occupied by drug users or people having sex’.

For those reasons disabled toilet location lead out onto a corridor. It’s why the unisex toilet in schools was opposite reception. They need to be the most consistently monitored and cleaned. There’s a good charity called Euan’s Guide that has a website which helps raise awareness about keeping disabled toilets safe for users.

In contrast, influential ‘inclusive’ toilet designers have no health and safety background. Two of the famous ones have a background in design inspired by cruising in public toilets, the other (I am trying to paraphrase here) in articles about phallic symbolism. So, for example they think, like you, having more people around may make it safer (because they are thinking only in terms of voyeurism). It doesn’t. Sexual assaults happen in the most public of places behind a closed door such as train carriages in school disabled toilets. Sex and drugs is what happens in private toilets of any type leading out into corridors too. What perpetrators don’t want is to be caught in the act and be shamed/prosecuted. They will avoid a place if they haven’t got an excuse to be there. Voyeurs and assaulters are now using the new excuse they are transwomen to be in women’s toilets. When is a man a transwomen? When he’s in the toilet?

There is truth in bad men stick out because good men stay out. In a mixed sex area all men have access but you have to rely on a good man to be there and that they want and will help even if they arrive after you and can’t hear or see you. This is particularly important in places like nightclubs.

Do an experiment and Google ‘toilet’ in your local paper website. It will have stories of toilets closing down because of the cost of repairing the misuse (sex, drugs, vandalism), women, girls and boys being sexually assaulted by men, voyeurism by men and maybe a death (from drugs/ medical event like a heart attack or stroke). These incidents will hopefully be few and far between. Perpetrators will all be male. What you won’t find is people being killed or murdered (which is an extremely rare though Victoria McCloud thinks it is so likely to happen to trans people that Victoria is fleeing the country) or anything about people being sexually assaulted because of being trans. To be perfectly honest anyone is more likely to die in a toilet of a cardiac arrest (11% of cardiac arrests happen on the toilet) because it’s the place people head to when they feel ill and the strain on the body from the Valsalva maneuver.

To answer people’s questions about what happens in toilets for trans people. Stonewall et al completely dominated the Document T consultation which made trans people the biggest demographic for safety concerns. When in fact you look in greater detail at the Stonewall literature quoted in 67% of all consultation responses (11,866) it talks about physical assault (an incident of a man been pushed out of the toilets by two women) and verbal abuse (men being shouted at for being in the wrong loos). In the consultation this translated to safety concerns for trans/non-binary as 79% whereas less than 2% had safety concerns for children and 1% for disabled people. From my data children and disabled people very much have safety concerns in toilets. Safety concerns for women were mentioned in 75% of responses and 88% of these were in the context of black women, lesbians and butch women (these subgroups were listed in a Stonewall phrase so interesting 88% of the safety concerns for women were also through the lens of Stonewall). The comments about ‘gender neutral’ toilets dominated design raising issues of no gaps above and below the doors, and later as a way of reducing the risk of predatory behaviour/spying. Interesting everyone gets the connection between a door gap and men spying. Making cubicles bigger was another highly related toilet suggestion. This last comment is interesting as I know some venues had a policy of deliberately reducing cubicle size in an attempt to stop people having sex in them. The analyser from the government used the term non-gendered rather than unisex or universal which is the standard term.

For the medical reasons of why only having toilets with total privacy will lead to more deaths: Amongst the population in general, there are known medical reasons for a disproportionally high frequency of cardiac arrests and strokes while an individual is in the toilet room. Whilst there’s no accessible data where people collapse, it is known there are around 100,000 hospital admissions due to heart attacks in this country, equating to one every five minutes. It is estimated there are 400,000 people in the U.K. with undiagnosed heart failure. There are also around 100,000 strokes in this country, equating to one every five minutes. Around 1% of people in this country have epilepsy and around 80 people are diagnosed with epilepsy each day. There are many other conditions that lead to collapse where you need to be noticed and accessed quickly eg. diabetes and asthma.

There’s scandalously little scientific study about unisex school toilets but here’s a study from India that concluded constructing sex-specific toilets in schools significantly reduces child rapes. The reduction was more pronounced in co-educational and secondary schools. Conversely, unisex toilets were ineffective, because girls feel unsafe to use them and continued defecating openly.https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014292125000030

Heres an article from Wales about unisex school toilets that comes to the same conclusions as me: https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/drug-dealing-drinking-dirt-problems-28517175

In terms of health, unisex toilets are not good, particularly for women. The following article concluded ‘The move to convert traditional male and female facilities to unisex facilities in some hospitals raises concern that people might be exposed to higher risks of contamination’. https://salus.global/article-show/pathogen-findings-raise-concerns-about-move-to-unisex-hospital-facilities

Most men are good men but we all need to keep an eye out for each other in case of misuse or emergency. Because everyone (including Stonewall) is in agreement men as a group can’t not be voyeurs, the safest and healthiest solution is to have single sex toilets, with door gaps, with exceptions for children (and maintenance cleaning).

Remember gaps are there for ventilation, cleaning, supervision, prevention of misuse. Privacy means we lose those health and safety benefits.

I really have to go and sort out the kids now. I thought the above a good mix to keep you thinking.

That's because male sexuality tends to be wired differently to female sexuality, including differently from those females who identify as male. Males are far more visual and far more object oriented, and as we know males are far more prone to fetishistic obsessions and compulsions.

I agree. I think F to M transitioners are actually trying to escape sexuality, or certainly escape male focused versions of female sexuality.

Reported. I said NOTHING OF THE KIND of any of those things.

Fits in with all the evidence I have about toilets. Men want the women’s. Women don’t want the men’s or women’s.

Oh you did.

you said you thought WSSS was a document that I needed to prove my trauma.

You said I was vile for saying that your assertion that it was ok for trans identifying men to break the law and go in to women’s single sex spaces because the women wouldn’t be able to tell they were men. The logical conclusion to that is that you’re ok with men breaking laws as long as women don’t know - it didn’t matter that it was a consent violation and a law break because no one would know. So it’s ok for a man to rape me as long as I don’t know. And you called me vile for pointing out your logic.

and you absolutely did laugh at my trauma response - which informs my ability to detect trans identifying men - and told me I needed to go to specsavers.

OP, to answer your question, if it's safe to do so, I do sometimes call out despicable hate, prejudice, and ignorance, whether it's racism, anti-Semitism, or trans hate. It's generally a waste of time since bigots never change and are generally wedded to their hatred, but still, there are times I find their views so repulsive that I have to do it. They generally blow their tops at being called out and will weaponise anything to tear you down, including lying about what's written in black and white, hoping that others won't read the actual exchange, and including lying about anything and everything.

It's noticeable how they don't engage with what you're saying at all, they simply attack you personally and are, cringingly, very quick to lose control. Which is not only an ineffective tactic but makes them look really thick. They sometimes remind me of the people on Jerry Springer. 🤣 I don't find this with intelligent, educated people. They tend to have a much better handle on themselves and they respond to the content. You can always tell a bigot because they respond to polite discourse by frothing at the mouth and going nuts. I guess they thin they should be able to hate minorities freely and others should just nod along with their disgusting far-right attitudes.

Hate of any kind is unacceptable. Many people are into power, control, and are unfulfilled abusers, basically. But the saddest thing of all is that often, it's themselves they hate.

Happy people don't hate others.

As long as I live, I'll never understand why some people despise others who are simply going about their lives and doing no harm to them whatsoever.