Talking to non GC people

[Sausagenbacon]

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?

I wonder what trouble this colleague made and who was affected by it? Ask him!

As this thread is a bit focussed on ‘wavering middle-ground public opinion’ it might be useful for me to share some thoughts….. as that’s where I am. I barely ever post on these threads. I think I did once many years ago when I was still very ‘pro-inclusion’. I have read quite a lot since, mostly here. I think I’m pretty representative of a lot of middle ground folk, and have even thought quite a few of the things that are quoted as typical responses that most people on this thread are bored of hearing. So it may be useful to share some reflections on what I have found useful in evolving my view and what has not been useful. I’m not really presenting these arguments for them to be destroyed here…. But to give insight into thinking for someone who might want to persuade someone like me.

I am an active feminist and anti-racist - through volunteering, campaigning, and putting my money where my mouth - so I am Passionate about women’s rights. Just mentioning that to say that indifference is not the challenge.

For me, the trans movement has provided a massive dilemma. In every other instance, I have been a passionate defender of the ‘outlier’ or ‘disadvantaged’ group who experience discrimination. Women, first of all. Racial minorities (or global majority!). Those with disabilities. And LGBQ people. Trans felt like an obvious other group who were different, often suffering as a result of their difference, and deserving of support and not to be stigmatised. I still believe they are. Also, as they basically ‘don’t fit with the mould’ on a lot of the male/female:gender stereotypes I have battled against in life, they felt like natural champions of the same thing. (“No I don’t have to be like THIS, just because that’s what you expect. I can be a new way you might not be comfortable with, but I will define”)… so my initial strong instinct for all these reasons was to be supportive.

The other thing that pushed me towards the pro-trans inclusive/welcoming stance was the style of GC rhetoric around the toilet issue. The toilet issue is still one I find least convincing and most commonly cited. The communal changing room issue yes I see , because people are stripping down naked in front of each other, but toilets, where you always have individual locked cubicles for women, and sink areas or many toilets are communal/non sex specific anyway….it doesn’t feel like a defined right to have a female only space, but rather a right to have a lockable, private cubicle. let’s say it is not what I would lead with, at least in persuading people. A lot of the rhetoric around the toilet issues sounds incredibly similar to right wing battles against inclusion for other disadvantaged groups. I’m not saying they are, but that’s what it triggers in people. For example, painting Black men as a danger to white women, due to racist views of Black men….thus justifying segregation…. And the citing of individual examples of violence as somehow ‘proving’ the threat is real is another thing that generally hasn’t helped convince me- ‘you see this awful thing happened’ or ‘look at this revolting individual…this is the face of the movement’ This feels like scaremongering, and thinking that individuals represent entire groups…. Feels stigmatising, and intellectually dishonest (because the other ‘side’ can equally cite awful things, etc to try to demonstrate their point so it basically gets us nowhere). The argument that being trans is an illness also unfortunately mirrors very closely the arguments of the past of being gay as being an illness that you could be reeducated out of…. So while I understand the philosophical argument, it doesn’t help for me. It turns me off. Another thing that doesn’t help is all the labels or acronyms. I understand if you are living and breathing this stuff they are useful, but it’s hard to get into the narrative if you are not, and you can’t remember what a terf is. It also encourages boxed up, encamped thinking, which doesn’t open people to shift their position.

So as a “muddled middler” who DOES care about women… what helped open me and move towards the view of most people on this thread?

1. Sports issue - as cited, is persuasive. Because the danger (ie of a woman being beaten up in boxing by someone with a huge muscular advantage), is categorically based in biology, not fear or discrimination. The weakness about the sport issue is that sport doesn’t feel super important, and everybody involved is kind of choosing to be. So doesn’t fully cut it for me as a human rights issue I’d go to bat for. And there are many sports (eg swimming) when there is no physical risk. Trans being allowed to compete in these sports without rankings would be pretty acceptable to me here, certainly not a hill for me to personally die on.
2. Rape centers far more persuasive than toilets. Women by definition are coming for sanctuary and treatment at these places and are highly vulnerable to triggers. Prisons also, because by definition people in prison tend to be criminals, and therefore not to be trusted by default, meaning someone with physical strength advantages and possibly a penis should not be in an environment that is already endemic with abuse, power play, violence etc.
3. the most powerful for me is highlighting that some trans activists are trying to take away my right to call myself a woman or talk about women’s issues in my way. The first thing that really caught me in this realm and I still think is one of the most persuasive is the idea of doctors surgeries sending out smear test adverts not using the word ‘woman’. I felt for non native speakers or those with less education ‘people with cervix’ would genuinely damage the uptake of needed healthcare for thousands of women, for the sensitivities of a tiny minority. The idea that my field of expression and focus around women’s rights- especially in developing countries, would be curtailed was infuriating. We MUST have the ability to name ourselves and talk about our real problems in the world. I feel very relaxed about what others might want to say about themselves, but when that extends to bossing me around about what I can say or do or how I define myself or sex-based issues on behalf of women and girls, I draw the line.
4. Pointing out that trans men (ie women raised and born) are not the ones extending into that realm of dictating, but it is largely trans women (ie men who have grown up with the entitlement of believing they get to dictate things), helped me reframe these highly activist trans women from disempowered minority I should support to the male hegemony I’ve resisted all my life. while I believe many trans people feel a much deeper, intangible sense of being in the wrong body than simply ‘oh I like knitting so much be a girl’, and we should not trivialise the former as the latter- the ideology that gender matters over sex, feels like it sticks ME in a box I don’t want.
5. the high prevalence of people with autism and others with challenges among those who seek to transition. And the lack of help and knowledge to support children. I feel this is used too often to try to say ‘you see being trans isn’t real’, whereas ‘people with other challenges can be misdiagnosed resulting in great suffering for them’ helps redefine who the ‘disadvantaged group’ is we should be fighting for, and how to protect them.
6. Acknowledge the genuine pain and confusion of growing up in this world trans and/or struggling with societies’ horrible and deeply confusing legacies of sex and gender. the ‘mocking the intellectual idiocy’ stuff feels very distancing for those who are, or who know trans people, who truly fundamentally and deeply struggle with how to exist in the world, in a way that can drive them to suicide or the most radical interventions imaginable.
7. With this in mind, acknowledging that the large majority of trans people just want to live their lives free of discrimination and you want that for them too. I think GC could do more to distinguish between extremists and normal people whose identity has been co-opted in many ways. And that extremists are actually damaging normal trans’ people’s cause. There is a huge dissonance in most people’s minds between the trans people they have actually met and the ‘activist/extremist’ campaigners that GC are often talking about when they are fighting their fight for women. If GC people don’t draw that distinction themselves, then they can sound prejudiced/demonizing/stigmatizing or mocking of very pleasant, struggling people in the lives of the people they are talking to. Similarly, I think better distinction needs to be drawn between trans and cross dressing. When GC people talk about a man ‘sticking a dress on’ not making him a woman, it erases the difference and trivialises a very deeply held feeling of gender disphoria, as something entirely different. Another distinction I think needs to be drawn more often is the difference between acceptance (which we hopefully all support) and co-opting (which is a big problem)Z I think GC people could make more time to legitimize the existence and concerns of ‘mainstream’ folk who identify as trans and even suggesting solutions for these people, rather than just saying ‘tough luck’. These distinctions would help make it clearer who and what you are fighting and who/what you aren’t.
8. And then the most universal principle of persuasion, which is easily said but hard to do when so passionate- don’t despise your interlocutor. Acknowledge and celebrate the shared ground or shared humanity/concern that motivates people. This makes it far easier to hear and open reflection and move ones position. Eg…. Acknowledge That the extremity of online activist chatter on both sides can be an echo Chamber that pushes extremism, and it is possible to be an intelligent person who cares about the world and about women, who has not made this their central issue. Ie: If we have doubts about where we stand on this issue, it really doesn’t mean we are idiots or we don’t care about women.

Hope this is of some use.

I really don’t want any men, however they present, in spaces where women are vulnerable, which includes toilets.
Men who understand so little about women that they think they are women don’t understand female boundaries and are IMO more likely to be dangerous than other men. So no men in women’s toilets, ever.

All this guff about inclusion is just a smokescreen.

It’s the TRAs who go on about loos, @financialcareerstuff - because some of these trans ID males are unable to think past their own fetish. Definitely don’t go looking for how the talk about our toilets or watch the furore on Twitter yesterday of the large man masturbating in a women’s toilet in the gym.

if they can make a case for “pee next to me”
they can get in everywhere. Women will not have the right privacy because some bloke wants to wank.

fuck that shit

@financialcareerstuff Interesting post. I look forward to reading your equivalent post to trans people telling them how they could and should act more respectfully towards women and girls, how they should modify their language, how they should consider our feelings, requesting that they find solutions to problems and telling them what issues they should or should not be bothered about because you personally are not bothered about those issues. I assume you will be writing one?

I find people who dismiss female single sex toilets as not being an issue are perhaps those who have never had to use a female toilet space in a way that falls outside of that supposedly locked cubicle (if the locks indeed do work). In a way, it is a privileged position to dismiss other female people's needs for single sex toilets.

Just because you, general you, have not needed to have even the communal handwashing space in a female single sex toilet free of male people, shouldn't mean that you don't listen to other female people saying that they do.

I also often wonder how people who declare that they fully support traumatised women dismiss the toilet issue when traumatised women have in the past articulated clearly that they don't want to share a space with any male person over the age of a child who needs support. We see this quite often. Of course, it goes hand in hand with my first point too.

However, it does all come down to consent. Just because one woman 'consents', doesn't mean that that consent is transferrable.

Here is that Amy Sousa vid.

https://x.com/KnownHeretic/status/2006208789578391667?s=20

What I think you need to consider is that lots of people here that you see as hardline were “middle ground folk” until they were exposed fully to trans rights activists and understood just how misogynistic the movement is.

Basically DH's thought process is "He's to be pitied so I will call him her and it doesn't hurt anyone". Whenever I try to discuss this particular theme and why it DOES hurt, he explicitly flees the discussion and sends me back to " My forum " (Aka MN).

And I want to stress that he's not a misogynist. We both work and he does more in the home than I do (although I carry more of the mental load).

The other thing that pushed me towards the pro-trans inclusive/welcoming stance was the style of GC rhetoric around the toilet issue. The toilet issue is still one I find least convincing and most commonly cited. The communal changing room issue yes I see , because people are stripping down naked in front of each other, but toilets, where you always have individual locked cubicles for women, and sink areas or many toilets are communal/non sex specific anyway….it doesn’t feel like a defined right to have a female only space, but rather a right to have a lockable, private cubicle.

@financialcareerstuff The HSE have told me for Document T single sex toilets within a single sex environment are the only ones that can have door gaps. These make them the healthiest and safest designs.

Ask yourself these questions:

‪Q) is it a good thing we have a programme of rolling out defibrillators across schools, venues and workplaces so that we have a timely and best chance of surviving if we collapse? ‬

‪Q) is it important that the place where you go when you feel ill is safe?‬

‪Q) and in a non-domestic situation that would often be the toilet cubicle?‬

‪Q) so is it important that you would be found as quickly as possible in the toilet cubicle if you collapsed?‬

‪Q) so if toilets were all enclosed in full height ceiling-to-floor rooms that were resistant to the passage of sound, do you agree that could lead to delays finding someone who had collapsed?‬

‪Q) so if we get rid of all the single sex designs that have door gaps to make them inclusive of gender, that would mean everyone was more at risk at their most vulnerable?‬

‪Q) and would those people with invisible disabilities (collapsible conditions such as epilepsy, diabetes, heart conditions, POTS) be as safe in the workplace if only enclosed toilets were available?

‪Q) and would women and children who were led or pushed back into a toilet room be less likely to be rescued in time if there was no knowledge of what was going on in the toilet room?

‪Q) so would single sex toilets that were single sex and had door gaps also be a preventative measure for sexual assaults on women and children?‬

‪I have studied toilet safety for years now and know the healthiest and safest design for the medically vulnerable, women and children. It is the single sex design, which is the one that can have door and partition gaps (typically 10cm-15cm from floor-door and space above the door and partitions). But this design becomes floor-to-ceiling enclosed when both sexes are in the space in front of the toilet door.‬

‪The evidence of deaths and sexual assaults in toilets in this country, shows the design you want is least detrimental to healthy men.

I've never seen the toilet issue as being an attempt to suggest all TIM are dangerous or that they are particularly dangerous. Nor have I seen the presenting of evidence of TIM assaulting women or behaving in perverted ways in the toilet as a smear against TIM.
The first is simply an acknowledgement that some men are dangerous to women, and as we don't know which ones, we keep them all out of spaces where we are vulnerable, such as the toilet.
The second is not proactive 'smearing' its responsive provision of facts when it is argued that TIM are not as dangerous as other men so exceptions should be made for them.

And a lot of us (me!) were "progressive", #bekind, TWAWers too.

Ultimately though, what I think she needs to consider is this. There is no middle ground. Either men can be women or they can't. Either women have language of their own or they don't. Either women have spaces of their own or they don't. Either women matter or they don't.

No-one (I hope) would say to an Orthodox Jewish Brit "obviously you have the right to practice your religion, obviously discrimination is wrong, but come on, we can't have orthodox jewish women working in law or accountancy - that would be silly". Why is "obviously women have a right to single sex sports and rape crisis centres, but budge up for the men when it comes to toilets and Hampstead ponds" any less ridiculous?

Why are women told toilets are not important so that transwomen can use female toilets because this is important to them? Aren't toilets and which one to use important or unimportant for all or for none?

This is the crux of it for me too. Either male people can be women, in which case, they must be treated exactly the same as all other women in every aspect; or male people are not women so there is no justication for including them in places where men are not permitted.
It was precisely the binary nature if this that changed me from thinking there could be a compromise to realising there could not.
Because if I don't think a male person is a woman its wrong, patronising and disingenuous to pretend that I do just because I've taken it upon myself to decide I'm OK with it in that context.

The communal changing room issue yes I see , because people are stripping down naked in front of each other, but toilets, where you always have individual locked cubicles for women, and sink areas or many toilets are communal/non sex specific anyway….it doesn’t feel like a defined right to have a female only space, but rather a right to have a lockable, private cubicle.

I'm guessing you didn't see the video doing the rounds yesterday.

Of a 'trans woman'

In a ladies changing room

Wanking.

This, every time.
We are frequently sneered at for caring about toilets, told it's not important, told that our needs are not important, our spaces are not important.
But suddenly, when a man wants to use them, they are important. To him.

It seems that someone who takes an absolutist stance would believe women and girls saying that toilets should exclude all male people over the age of about 8 years old is akin to someone saying all male people are rapists. It is actually not even logical when you consider it.

Not all male people are rapists yet we still exclude all male from toilet once they are no longer children needing assistance.

There isn’t a logical conclusion that then leads to the comparison of wanting segregation based on race, religion or sexual orientation or any other illegitimate discrimination.

Perhaps it is an automatic and not carefully considered reaction to what some people think when they think about ‘discrimination’. That anything that discriminates is bad.

But of course, there is legitimate and illegitimate discrimination. Race, religion and sexual orientation discrimination for toilets is inappropriate and has negative impacts on those being discriminated against. Discrimination based on sex category, age and disability is legal and contributes to positive impacts for those in the categories benefitting from the discrimination.

If a major consideration for safeguarding is reliant on the physical power difference between male and female people (as accepted for sport), why is this forgotten or dismissed for toilets? There is a major inconsistency there and I have never seen it explained in any convincing way, why we should ignore it. It always seems that someone dismisses it because it is inconvenient.

The other thing mentioned was about evidence being presented. I actually see this as a type of victim blaming where women are blamed for collecting and presenting evidence. We do it because we have been put in the position of having to justify our need to have safeguarding reinstated in toilets.

Because a group of people removed the safeguarding structure that we once relied on. If we were constantly having to justify our need to keep a group of men out of the toilets, we wouldn’t keep presenting evidence that they still commit sex offences so should be kept out of single sex spaces.

I hope that helps readers gain some clarity why women reject some people dismissing our needs.

No @Shedmistress, don't be pointing that out because...

'And the citing of individual examples of violence as somehow ‘proving’ the threat is real is another thing that generally hasn’t helped convince me- ‘you see this awful thing happened’ or ‘look at this revolting individual…this is the face of the movement’ This feels like scaremongering, and thinking that individuals represent entire groups…. Feels stigmatising, and intellectually dishonest (because the other ‘side’ can equally cite awful things, etc to try to demonstrate their point so it basically gets us nowhere).'

It's unconvincing because GC women do equally awful things. Apparently.

Toilets do seem to be especially important to trans identifying men. Toilets and genitals. Goodness knows why.

@financialcareerstuff

For me, taking a similar journey, it eventualy boiled down to "Do I think the thing that makes men and women different, the reason we reconise some people as men and some as women, is because we have fundmentally different minds? So different, in fact, that the mind difference is more significant than the physical differences of sex? Do I believe that the history of what happened to and was said about the female body has no significance to women's place in society but this difference of mind does?"

At the end of the day, you either believe something in a man's mind makes him legitimately closer to a woman than a man or you don't. And if you don't believe it, then all the "reasonable" middle grounds are not reasonable at all, because they are just points between not being sexist at all and being totally sexist. And "being a bit sexist instead of totally sexist" isn't where I as a Feminist want to be.

Because most of them will never need (thankfully) rape support or prison. But toilets and changing rooms are an everyday validation they can all enjoy.

I think your post is interesting, thoughtful and honest.

I approach things from a different angle and this is why:

I have been a passionate defender of the ‘outlier’ or ‘disadvantaged’ group who experience discrimination. Women, first of all.

The logical conclusion here is that women and other groups can cease to be disadvantaged, and at that point they no longer need rights. However, I don't think women need rights because they are 'disadvantaged'. I think they need rights because they are different to men, and it will always be easier for men to live in a world that prioritises their own needs. This is also how equality law is supposed to understands rights - it's a question of of balance, not bestowing charity on the disadvantaged.

Also, as they basically ‘don’t fit with the mould’ on a lot of the male/female:gender stereotypes I have battled against in life, they felt like natural champions of the same thing.

I think the exact opposite - that the concept of 'trans' introduces the idea that one should conform. It's probably my biggest objection to the idea of gender identity.

The communal changing room issue yes I see , because people are stripping down naked in front of each other, but toilets, where you always have individual locked cubicles for women, and sink areas or many toilets are communal/non sex specific anyway….it doesn’t feel like a defined right to have a female only space, but rather a right to have a lockable, private cubicle.

I don't instinctively feel I need to be in a single sex space to get changed, but I follow the logic of arguments made by Keeptoiletssafe that there is a conflict between privacy and safety. I am also aware that crimes like voyeurism and indecent exposure are location specific and that sexual assaults are more likely to occur in mixed sex facilities. But all of that is an argument about whether a space should be single sex or mixed sex. I can't understand the argument that a space should be single sex but include adults of the opposite sex.

For example, painting Black men as a danger to white women, due to racist views of Black men

You are losing me a bit here - do you genuinely think that differences in race are comparable to differences in sex?

The argument that being trans is an illness also unfortunately mirrors very closely the arguments of the past of being gay as being an illness that you could be reeducated out of…

Many people who have been referred for 'gender reassignment' are same sex attracted. Body dysmorphia is a mental health problem, but if people are being referred for treatment for something else, what is it? Susie Green's story of her son's transition strongly implies a background of homophobia.

Rape centers far more persuasive than toilets.

We know. It's not GC women who keep talking about toilets.

the ideology that gender matters over sex, feels like it sticks ME in a box I don’t want.

Could not agree more.

And that extremists are actually damaging normal trans’ people’s cause..
GC feminists have been trying to be reasonable and see both sides for over a decade. They have lost their jobs. I still believe in being reasonable, but I don't think a lack of reasonableness is the problem.

Fundamentally, if it's considered toxic to name the problem - that people can't change sex and that a man is a man and always will be - how do you express yourself without causing offence?

Why is "obviously women have a right to single sex sports and rape crisis centres, but budge up for the men when it comes to toilets and Hampstead ponds" any less ridiculous?

It's not.

You can make an argument that the toilets an Hampstead Ponds should be mixed sex, but to argue that that they should be single sex, but not really, makes no sense at all.

"For example, painting Black men as a danger to white women, due to racist views of Black men….thus justifying segregation…. And the citing of individual examples of violence as somehow ‘proving’ the threat is real is another thing that generally hasn’t helped convince me- ‘you see this awful thing happened’ or ‘look at this revolting individual…this is the face of the movement’ This feels like scaremongering, and thinking that individuals represent entire groups…. Feels stigmatising, and intellectually dishonest (because the other ‘side’ can equally cite awful things, etc to try to demonstrate their point so it basically gets us nowhere)."

I don't find your example with black men as being coherent @financialcareerstuff .

It would only be coherent if you said that based on any danger from black men meant segregating all black people out of female single sex toilets. And this is not the basis women are arguing at all.

And then you see evidence being provided that a group of male people who still commit sex and violent crime at a rate that is greater than the rate that the general female UK population commit those crimes as stigmatising scaremongering. You then state that doing so is people thinking that individuals represent entire groups.

Your representation of what women have been forced to do is actually what intellectually dishonest. I also see it as emotionally manipulative to say that it is. I see it as an attempt to shame women who have been forced into a situation where they have little power except to argue for safeguarding to be strengthened.

And that requires risk assessment.

The entire point is that they still commit violent crime and sex offences at a rate higher than female people and therefore should still be treated like ALL MALE people.

The muddled thinking, to use your term, is thinking that any male who says they are not a male person should be allowed to use female single sex spaces. That they are in anyway different from any other male person for the purpose of safeguarding.

If you believe that there is a physical strength difference so those same male people should be excluded from female sports. If you believe that female people deserve privacy in all these other situations from those same male people. It simply isn't logical to state that safeguarding should be lowered for toilets unless you honestly cannot see that some female people have needs that you don't seem to be able to accept and therefore dismiss.

Being able to use women's toilets unchallenged is seen as a key milestone in transition as its taken to be indicator of their ability to pass. This means access is very important, even to those with no nefarious purpose.

Yeah the other side can't cite examples of women wanking in mens toilets.