FAQ

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I know that mn doesn't work this way, but given that there have recently been 3 threads basically saying 'what's all the fuss about tg' , expecting posters to engage and rehash all the posts that have been gone over already, it would be great if could have FAQ pinned at the top.
Starting with 'Why do you all hate tw?'

Side 1 is the side that points out that men can be violent
Side is is the violent men who threaten women with rape with their splintery baseball bats.
Pretty obvious really.

how odd that RoyalCorgis perfectly sensible comment at 8.51 has been deleted

This forum is being brigaded

I can't help laughing at the posts, because they think they are so clever and well informed and clearly imagine they are dropping conversation stopping zingers that will shut us pesky women up, but the things they say are just so silly that it's like reading the stream of consciousness of a toddler

I also think this is a sign of desperation. Court case are being lost time after time, female sport is being protected, groups that bullied and lied and whipped up the 'anyone who doesn't agree that a man who says he is a woman is a bigot and must be punished' fervour are losing their power, the public narrative has swung back towards allowing people to question trans dogma...

I doubt a FAQ will discourage the scolders.

Yes, the wide-eyed, faux-naif 'why are you being so nasty - I'm a good handmaiden cis woman and I count it a privilege to share my spaces with my lovely beautiful TIM bestie who absolutely passes and definitely exists' approach.

They're all happy and convinced they're fooling the horrible mean mummies, while looking very like a 4yo with chocolate round their mouth, stoutly denying all knowledge of the empty Advent calendar.

I think the thread title 'FAQ' was a reference to how surprisingly frequently the same questions are being asked recently, not actually asking for answers - did I get that right OP?

There have always been posters who clearly haven't read anything on this board and think they are making convincing points by saying 'TWAW' 'TW are the most marginalised in society' 'TW only want to live their lives in peace' 'You all hate TW' 'I don't mind peeing with TWs'
and so on, as if these are new, original points that nobody has ever made to us before, and gosh if only we had been told that sooner, we'd never have developed these hateful gender critical notions🙄

I've always been careful in how I respond because obviously some posters are genuinely working out what they think about commonplace statements like 'TWs are the most marginalised' 'both sides are as bad as each other' etc, and deserve to hear the GC arguments in order to make up their minds.

But recently, there have been so many threads started which seem to be a vehicle for promoting the idea that MN in general, and this board in particular, hates transgender people.

That's all. No debate, no exchange of reasonable words, no sharing of evidence, just 'you hate transpeople', over and over. There are some deviations into sports, toilet arrangements etc, equally devoid of facts, but it boils down to fingers-in-ears la-la-la 'you all hate transpeople'.

I get drawn into it sometimes, but I'm getting more choosy about if, how and when I engage, because there's so much blatant hectoring going on recently.

And oddly they know enough to come to this board, and to ask their questions and have an opinion, but have never actually bothered to read any of the existing threads or inform themselves.

Any woman who actually wants to know about this needs to do a bit of reading and understand the arguments on both sides, not turn up declaring 'you're all a bunch of meanies, now convince me otherwise'. It's like popping onto the cats board and declaring 'I hate cats, now convince me otherwise'. Why on earth should people bother?

If Bridge Phillipson pops by, or anyone else actually involved in policy decisions, then happy to share links to key threads and bits of information.

Quite. It’s ridiculous.

I ignored a toilet thread yesterday (a first!) because I have received a large dataset of incidents in toilets used by the public and I was analysing it. I have been collecting evidence, looking at toilet design and how and why it’s changed and the impacts this has on occupancy or avoidance.

I am looking at this objectively in terms of health and safety.

The posters that want to use toilets that are different from their sex that I have explained this to in the past have never been able to argue against what I say.

I am trying to find the safest designs for everyone so it is useful to hear a diverse range of views.

What I am finding (with evidence) is the trend that older men who don’t want to use men’s toilets, don’t want to use universal toilets. They want to use women’s toilets.

Younger women who don’t want to use women’s toilets, campaign for ‘gender neutral’ designs (a variety of unregulated designs). Some single sex designs get changed for neutrality purposes and lose health and safety properties. Interestingly, some women desist and go back to the women’s toilets when they realise the drawbacks of the ‘gender neutral’ designs.

However, by people using toilets designed for the different sex it means that regulatory-wise designs have to change to universal design. We all lose the health and safety benefits of single sex designs. If informed people were truly being kind and protecting the most vulnerable in a toilet (people having physical or mental health emergencies or people being assaulted) they would realise this. We are all at risk of something happening in a toilet but some demographics are more at risk. This includes children, elderly, people with known or unknown heart and neurological conditions, immunosuppressed people, drug users, people having a mental health crisis, people choking, young women and men. For them toilet door and partition gaps can make the difference. But, only single sex toilets in a single sex environment can have this design.

If people who don’t want to use the toilets for their sex want to have mixed sex toilets with door gaps advantageous for cleaning, ventilation, supervision and prevention of misuse, then you would need to change lots of regulations, standards, legislation and refine parts of the Sexual Offences Act. I predict they would end up defaulting to be a men’s toilet.

To the uninformed, we all need a toilet but we lost the majority of public toilets to misuse (sex, drugs and vandalism).

I want to inform people so everyone gets a toilet they need rather than one they (think they) want. Health and Safety comes first. It’s fundamental to good public design. As a society we need non domestic toilets to be single sex designs as the main provision.

If you want to get theoretical rather than practical, health and safety is at the bottom of the Marlow’s needs pyramid. Actualisation is at the top.

I think the thread title 'FAQ' was a reference to how surprisingly frequently the same questions are being asked recently, not actually asking for answers - did I get that right OP?

thank you, yes. It feels very similar to the proliferation of 'MN is horrible' threads on AIBU

@teawamutu In my hypothetical civilised debate (which will never happen) I would compel both sides to consider the existence and the rights of both "lovely" and non-lovely transpeople, AND lovely and non-lovely not-trans people.

I agree, a FAQ is a good idea but I don't think it will deter those who want to lecture us from a fixed position or disingenuously ask questions with the intention of wasting a great deal of our time because they have no better way of occupying themselves.

And also, if just one person stumbles on to just one of those threads and has their eyes opened, that's a good outcome.

I think people use public toilets as the easy compromise where women are protected by stall walls and lots of other users. I think they are imagining a busy stately home or a motorway services at 2pm.

So strident and unladylike,

Why can't you all just be nice?

I'm going to make some scones, but won't discuss them further on this thread. Try the pub in a couple of hours.

I used to be on the GCdebatesQT on reddit before TRA put a stop to it.

There were good discussion on there, on occasion. Lots of trans identifying men didn't want to be alone in vulnerable situations with just anyone who identified as trans. They know the community is a mess.

The one thing I do notice is rather a selective view of transpeople. If you are non passing (which unfortunately requires either good genes or a lot money especially if you are male) or removal of your genitals (how did we get to a place where removal of body parts seems to be a ‘normal’ requirement for anything) seems to be the thing. Then again ‘protect the dolls’ seems quite popular so should I be surprised?

So it has! I think someone must have decided it broke the Mumsnet rule prohibiting troll-hunting, even though I didn't accuse anyone by name of being a troll.

I'll have a go at rephrasing it: Don't engage with people who are being deliberately provocative, as it only encourages them. Perhaps that will do.

Don't feed the dolls.

😄

Tea/keyboard.

I find it interesting how similar the posts from Trans supporters are.

Being relatively new to this area I expected a standard of understanding of the wider implications such as health.

It feels as if the supporters say the same things but it's usually at what feels like a beginners level.

In particular there is often a theme that if one knows a Trans person then one should feel a particular way.

Obviously this is ridiculous as concern for family members or friends is making more and more people question Trans propaganda from some areas.

It's just odd on how similar they are. This is where a FAQ would be useful as these posters are not covering new ground and it seems as if they start a thread and then disappear.

(Just as an aside and obvious a different thing - one of the health groups I belong to (outside MN) gets waves of new posters claiming 'miracle cures' and they do all sound the same but can reoccur for years with the poster disappearing each time).

if one knows a Trans person then one should feel a particular way

I know (and am related to) a few trans people and they are about as lovely as the anorexics I know.

But our local cross-dressing man, who I've know for decades, isn't particularly lovely. afaik he isn't trans - he's never changed his name. I think from his conversation and habits (dressing up for pride week) that he's gay. But he's also an alcoholic and substance abuser who has been in repeated legal trouble for being very abusive and borderline violent to young female shop assistants who wouldn't/couldn't give him alcohol when he had no money to pay for it. He's also very very smelly, with skunk forming a strong element of it. His next door neighbour told me he abused his own elderly mother and elderly neighbours when he wanted money or booze.

atm he is away for drying out. I hope it works, but will not be heartbroken if he stays away.

He leaves me unconvinced by the sweet and gentle gay man cliché. Gay people are as various as the rest of humanity.

😆

@Keeptoiletssafe

As an aside, I was listening to Helen Joyce yesterday from a podcast a couple of days ago.

She was discussing with two other women about toilets in general, and gender neutral in particular.

The other two women were talking about gender neutral toilets as a possible option, and she immediately said how the floor to ceiling doors presented a problem.

She talked about hygiene and safety. She also talked about opening doors into a toilet at an angle where you can't see the cubicles, etc.

I don't know if you've been in touch with her, but she's totally on it.

And she's a brilliant speaker. So bloody well done if you've got her on board. She's absolutely everywhere at the moment. The word is out.

edited to add: the other thing she said is the reason why women's toilets are often beyond the men's, is that men therefore have no excuse to loiter outside them.

which makes sense. But then has the added disadvantage of often being out of the way.

Honestly from the bloody lengths we have to go to to ensure women's safety is ridiculous.

Can I please ask a favour.

While I understand that having an archive thread is very useful to refer to as needed, can people please make sure that the archive threads stay clear of discussion so that the are easy to read and people don't have to scroll through discussion.

I always thought having individual discussion threads about one aspect or FAQ would be a good idea, then link them to the Break it down thread. It may or may not work though at the moment because I wonder how much will be taken up with deliberate derailing.