Aren't transpeople still a tiny minority?

[Waheymum]

Over about fifteen years, I've noticed growing awareness and concern about transpeople. This may be my age and simply a case of when people I knew started to transition.
What I'm wondering is whether there are statistics further to the last census on how many people are transitioning or have transitioned. This is because I'm pretty sure that men are still a bigger threat to women's safety than transgender (m-f) women are. I'm not saying that no transwoman poses a risk to women, I'm querying whether, statistically, I'm better off crossing the road to avoid a cisgender man or a transgender woman (if, hypothetically, one were on each side of the road).

Not arguing but language is important we have tall women short women black women white women loud women quiet women and Transwomen. There should never be a space as trans is not a type of woman. It's not a description of a woman it's a category of men.

For anyone with cognitive processing difficulties (including women with brain fog via menopause, like me) asking them to change the entire way they've used language their entire many decades of their lives is not a reasonable ask. I actually think asking me to do a cartwheel every time I saw someone would be equivalent - actually better, as I'd only have to (attempt to) do that once.

I also think asking some autistic people to lie is problematic and placing a bigger burden on people who struggle to not tell the truth.

Would you feel the same about "common sense" if instead of the opposite sex, the thing that society was being asked to accept was living "as if" someone were a different race, or from a different country, or had a different job? I can certainly see some of the autistic men I know embracing living "as if" they were a doctor or a lawyer, if society told them it was a legitimate and reasonable thing to do. Not to work as a doctor or a lawyer, but to believe themselves to be and so introduce themselves as such, and to converse with people and give opinions on topics of law or medicine expecting to be accorded the same weight as an actual lawyer or doctor's opinions.

Or perhaps living "as if" one were French? Dressing a little stereotypically French? Putting on a French accent? Talking about holidays visiting "Maman" in "Pareee"? A bit cringe but harmless... until a French person moves in next door and you have to explain why being French is totally fine except in front of M. Bernard.

And if those things are not ok, then why are women worth less?

Let's bin the magical thinking and work towards listening and mutual respect and actual solutions that enable privacy and dignity for ALL. Which doesn't include putting a sick trans woman on a ward full of men or forcing a trans woman into the men's toilets if they feel unsafe. We need gender neutral 3rd spaces that provide human dignity and respect the way people live.

Transwomen don't want third spaces they want access to us and ours.

Fair point!

Let's bin the magical thinking and work towards listening and mutual respect and actual solutions that enable privacy and dignity for ALL. Which doesn't include putting a sick trans woman on a ward full of men or forcing a trans woman into the men's toilets if they feel unsafe. We need gender neutral 3rd spaces that provide human dignity and respect the way people live.

a 3rd space definitely indeed, that doesn’t mean putting a male on ward of sick women, or allowing a male into female toilets and making the females who are using them feel unsafe and allowing the females dignity and respect.

And if these men are vulnerable, they should be treated exactly like other vulnerable men.

Take away the suggestion that these men should ever be treated as women and the whole issue ... goes away.

Accomodations can be made for those who need them. Within their own sex provision.

Mixed sex toilets in public areas like bars and restaurants are grim. Even in really nice places, they are noticably ickier than the previous women-only iterations.

Men don't realise because the gents have always been grim so mixed sex single occupant cubicles that women at least tend to leave clean are a massive upgrade for them, but you can't get away from the fact that yet again women's provisions have been degraded to accomodate what men want.

I worry about people who think validating sexism is ok because it's less important than hospital queues.

It's not ok.

You may not have the time or focus to fight that battle and I respect that, but please do not devalue women by saying sexism isn't even that important in the grand scheme of things.

Just as ignoring small acts of everyday racism creates a climate where big acts become acceptable, ignoring small acts of everyday sexism creates a climate where women's needs and voices are generally understood to be less important than men's.

Doesn't the fact that your trans-identified child and all his trans friends from swimming are all autistic make you stop and wonder just why so many who identify as trans are autistic? Could it be that, rather than being an inherent characteristic, identifying as trans is a way of dealing with autism? Moreover, the fact all members of this group of friends identify as trans suggests that social contagion is playing a role here.

In that case, shouldn't we be extra careful when diagnosing "gender dysphoria" and giving kids puberty blockers (I know this is being curtailed in many countries now, but not everywhere, and it has been done to excess), encouraging social transition and having surgeries? Many autistic children and adults will be caught up in this and may make irreversible changes to their bodies that might make sense at one point in their lives but may make little sense in 20-30 years.

I understand the annoyance at the activists, they really messed things up and it will be hard to reverse the situation. But they are also the ones who helped spread the idea of identifying as trans, which autistic people and all the other people who identify as trans to cover up other conditions and traumas have latched on to. If it hadn't been for the trans activists, your son may never have identified as a girl.

"Moreover, the fact all members of this group of friends identify as trans suggests that social contagion is playing a role"

They met at trans swimming....

Wow the privilege just drips out of you.

I can tell you that plenty of people in those "Northen Towns" you are so dismissive of still deal with being broken into, as indeed do plenty of people in the forgotten parts of London. Of course, these are the parts of London where people who "write about" important things like the Global South don't tend to live, although the people who clean their offices or deliver their parcels often do (and indeed often came from the Global South)

And - just reread your post before I hit send - Jesus Christ did you just say that since rape is hardly ever prosecuted now it might as well just be legalised???

The point you are spectacularly missing is that trans people and TRAs need to campaign for third spaces.

And when they do we will support them. Donate to their crowd funders even.

But it's not up to us to do this on their behalf.

We (well, most of us) are not their mums to step in and tidy up their mess.

The talk on FWR is about protecting women's rights, women's legal and social identity and women's spaces because that is what is being threatened by TRAs' political and social demands.

Stop the demands, stop the threat, and there will be no need to keep focusing on why those demands and the "identities" that drive them are unreasonable and unfair.

This is surely obvious, no?

@FlirtsWithRhinos it's not privilege; look at stats. I didn't say that everywhere else safe, I was replying to pp who pointed out that we lock doors because of burglaries and I pointed out that if you are worried about crime, then burglaries are not such a concern anymore.

I also didnt say rape is legal but that it has effectively been legalized because hardly anyone gets prosecuted for it. Therefore, if one rapes someone, they get away with it.

My point is that at the same time as right wing hysteria has made trans issues such a moral panic, other forms of protections for women have disappeared and no one seems to care. Policing, social s e vices, adequate health facilities, safer streets, public support systems are all gone but again no one cares.

Why do you think it is 'right wing' to know men can't become women? 🤔

@TheKeatingFive The question is whether or not it's a marginal issue - and the mainstreaming of a marginal issue at the same time as austerity rather than the transcommunity took away women's protection is indeed a misdirected moral panic.

So if he’s said he identified as a six year old would you have sent him to primary school? If not, why not?

Giving away women's rights to single sex spaces is not remotely a 'marginal issue'.

Either we have that right or we don't.

@BbjghiIfewh what about the women who are currently incarcerated with men. Sharing cells and communal areas like showers.

Are you going to tell them this is a marginal issue? 🙄

One thing this has revealed all too clearly to me.

The left REALLY hate women.

Granted they hid it well for a time. But it's all becoming crashingly obvious now.

I see people saying men should budge up in the gents which sounds logical except it doesn't enable privacy and dignity FOR ALL.
how does letting males into female toilets by telling us to budge up, enable privacy and dignity for ALL?
it’s Animal Farm as ever. All are equal but some are more equal than others