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).

@TheKeatingFive my whole point is we have given away public spaces to austerity and the selling off of the public good. There arent these public spaces that people speak off. And the fact that the moral panic regarding this issue flagged up by the right wing press happened at the same time as the public spaces disappeared from view is in itself my concern.

For all of those who say - of it's fine - what we actually mean isnt public spaces (because those are gone) but private spaces that we occasionally get ot use if one has enough money is actually the privileged voices. My point is there arent the libraries, free leisure centers, toilets etc that are the precise spaces people are so worried about. Instead we have privatised spaces that lots of women have no access to but not because of trans community but because they are simply not rich enough - not everyone can access private leisure centers, universities, coffee shops to make use of basic facilities. Far more women have been made unsafe by the removal of these public goods than the unlikely scenario of a trans rapist getting into an M&S changing room. However, the fact that thousands of women are raped each year and their rapists are not prosecuted because of a lack of police provision is a real issue - that is a mainstrea issue.

It's not a marginal issue to me because I can't use toilets if men, including transwomen, might be in there. There is a high chance it will set off my C-PTSD. It's the same for women who are members of some religious or cultural groups. We aren't being controlled by the right wing; we want to be able to live our lives without a urinary leash.

This question is important to me: When did society or police ever care about sexual assaults or other violence against women, especially working class, poor, or minority women? They never cared when I was trafficked as a child. It's never seemed to me like they cared after that either. IME rape and sexual assault has always been effectively legal.

But ssshh don’t mention it, as that’s hateful!…

Nothing you have said there makes selling out women's spaces to men okay.

Your argument is because things are bad, it doesn't matter that you are taking this step to make things worse.

That is an extraordinarily callous position to take. There are actual
womem suffering because of this.

There arent the public spaces you talk of......

What, you think toilets, changing rooms, domestic violence shelters, rape crisis centres, prisons don't exist?

So what public spaces are we talking of? I’m confused. Do explain your reasoning and why women should allow men into female spaces.

'The right wing press invented transpeople to get rid of public spaces' is what I'm getting

Well, that's great! I'm glad they have a space for themselves.

Don't you find it noteworthy that so many people who are autistic also identify as trans?

The potential removal of women's rights is a marginal issue?

This isn't just about toilets. Over the last ten years groups such as Stonewall have campaigned to remove the entire framework of legislation that prevents unlawful discrimination against women, and they would have succeeded without the work of women like FWS.

the unlikely scenario of a trans rapist getting into an M&S changing room

Really doesn't matter if he is trans or not if anyone can use the changing room without challenge.

I think the argument is that women shouldn't worry about little flibberty jibberty things like their rights when we have to fight capitalism.

This is not a new argument on the left.

Yeah i have pretty much said exactly that several times.

The only difference is that appropriating female language is a red line for me, because it is simply not true that some men are objectively, genuinely more like women than other men, and it's only possible to believe (or pretend to beloeve) they are if you reduce the individuality and personhood of women to sexist ideas about how we differ from men emotionally, intellectually or sexually.

I do find it ironic that the poster who wants us to see trans people as individuals not just a TRA stereotype is nevertheless quite happy to lump all the women on FWR into one group with one voice, totally missing that all the things she claims we should be saying have been said here, often, already.

Who exactly is stereotyping and closed-minded in this conversation again?

Talking in hyperbole all of the time doesn't add to the discussion.

You've made so many false statements and assumptions, BbjghiIfewh to excuse men who want to use the women's changing room in Marks and Spencer.

Even if we increase public spending by 1000%, these men will still be trying to get into the women's changing rooms.

And it still hasn’t been made clear who these reasonable transpeople are who are going to enthusiastically agree, on behalf of all of them, to use unisex spaces & respect women’s rights so we can all stop fighting & get on.

Edited to add that I mean the ones who apparently have sufficient power to actually make it happen.

I'm not sure anyone's been "mocking" trans-identified men with the phrase "stunning and brave" in this thread, but that term is more about being ironic than being derisive. Ironic towards the huge force coercing us all to praise transwomen and to believe that they are being brave for claiming to be women. Online, so many handmaidens comment "stunning and brave!" at any man demanding to be treated as a woman. The truth is, as they have male physiques, wearing women's clothes doesn't always work for them, so stunning isn't quite the right word (feelling stunned at what one is seeing is more like it), while attempting to destroy women's rights is hardly brave.

If there is any "mocking" it's of the huge social pressure to call trans-identified men "stunning and brave".

If you thought your son and daughter in law were overindulging your grandchild and turning him into a spoiled brat, would you tell them in those terms? If not, why not?

If your daughter was with a bloke you thought was a waste of skin, would you make sure she knew your thoughts and feelings about him precisely? If not, why not?

If your talentless son wanted to be an actor would you tell him straight out there's no way he's talented enough or handsome enough? If not, why not?

If school was teaching vulnerable autistic children that age is a spectrum and some of us don't identify as our birth age, and if you don't definitely feel like a ten year old you might be trans age, would that change things for you in terms of how simplistically you see this situation? If not, why not?

Yeah, the irony that women are having to literally fight through the courts to have a women-only Hampstead Pond wasn't lost on me either...

Let's remind ourselves what a normal man with a trans identity posts on Reddit. Authoritarian and controlling.

Wow, yes that passed me by. Transpeople-only swimming sessions provided, but no women-only swimming sessions allowed anywhere.

I would like people to say "look, we appreciate that most trans women are just trying to live their lives, but it's important to acknowledge that ordinary women have rights that clash and we cannot validate trans people simply by allowing access to female spaces and awards. It should never have been on the table and the lobbying didn't consider the needs or rights of natal women. There are women who will then be excluded, including some religious women, those who have a history of trauma, and so on. So it doesn't work for us.
We can also see it doesn't work for you to be forced into a male toilet or a male hospital ward when you are sick and vulnerable.
Let's work together on solutions that enable privacy and dignity for ALL".

Don't you see the irony of saying that on a feminist forum? Giving women a script and expected us to find solutions to make adult men happy?

Men have the solution to their problem, stop imagining they aren't men, and use the correct toilet and hospital ward. There's really nothing different or special about them. They are just men.

Expecting women to treat a subset of men as if they aren't is madness.

Im sorry for what you are going through. I do appreciate families have to do so much to avoid alienating their children. But its not women problem, we can't all pretend that a self selected group of men aren't men.

@BunnyBunbunbun

This is my question too! Strange that a large group of autistic people are all trans and in just one area alone, is it not?
The mere fact that a lot of autistic people can be very easily influenced and the fact that their wants are often facilitated, rather than properly discussed, usually in order to prevent meltdowns, screams enabling to me.

And anyone who wants to change their gender (not sex!) usually have those feelings all their lives, not suddenly at the age of 17. But then those people are the ones that say they've always felt they were born in the wrong body. Not because it's a fad, or it's trendy or all their friends are doing it. It's a genuine thing.
I personally know 3 people who have had full surgery because they were never comfortable in their birth assigned gender. They don't parade it round, like some sort of "Look at me! Look how different I'm being, I've decided to be a 'woman'". Many have struggled with their feelings since they were small and the majority of them have contemplated suicide, before having the courage to change. And the 3 M-T-F transsexuals I know, just get on with it. They don't scream and shout that they're transsexual, they don't demand rule changes. They quietly live their lives how they felt they should always have done. (I don't know their toilet habits, just to add, I'm assuming they use female facilities, because in effect, they don't have male genitalia any more).
But I feel what we are seeing these days is nothing more than a fad, a kink, or a fetish.
And the people who facilitate this kind of nonsense are to blame.
All it's doing is stirring up controversy and damaging womens rights. I feel women are now just basically being parodied and undermined.
.

The first three are opinions, not material facts. So completely irrelevant to the point in hand.

The fourth - I don't understand. Yes, age is a spectrum as it literally changes all the time. But no, you can't change the age you are at any given moment. What is your point?

It is a simple situation - humans can't change sex. Just because you have chosen to lie about this doesn't mean it isn't simple or true.