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).

You want the entirety of society to change its words and functions to make your child feel better with a complete lie.

Yes, that does indeed make your child a 'special child'.

I've asked this question several times on other threads here and elsewhere. I'll ask it again. When does a man become a woman? What differentiates a man from a woman?

There are many lovely men in the world and none of them should be using services and facilities created for women.

"DC uses the changing rooms assigned for women during the swimming session where everyone swimming is trans. The pool and changing is private and no other people except the trans swimmers are using them during that period"

@Diverze are all of the trans swimmers male? I'm curious about how the venue is facilitating these sessions, are trans identifying girls included or not? And if so are they using the male changing facilities?

So, again, what transitioning has he done? What stops him being Harry and now makes him Helen?

It's interesting that a majority of times when people bring these questions to the forum and use trans as a blanket label, as in the op and also in the description of pool changing room use, they are referring to trans women, not trans people as a whole.

Why does Harry have to be Helen to do the washing up and cooking? What changed other than a “feeling”?

No, I come on here to remind people that most trans people are ordinary people. They aren't writing about terfs dying in grease fires or in prison after raping children. They aren't TRAs demanding access to women's sports or prizes.

I want to say, there is a middle ground here.

I am perfectly happy that women care about their rights. I want them to do that without demonising trans people or using vitriol. It doesn't help.

In order to affect change people need to listen and understand each other's position.

We cannot police the way people want to present, the names they want to use.

We can get to a healthier place where trans people acknowledge that they are not a natal woman or man, they are a trans woman or man, and that is an ok and valid thing to be, but it is different, and therefore it's important to accept that some women in particular are uncomfortable sharing intimate or restricted spaces with them.

We need to get to a place where trans people are fighting for 3rd spaces and trans-specific activities like the trans swimming my adult child attends.

That does require women to move away from the perverts/misogynists/sexists/bullshit rhetoric around transpeople too, as it perpetuates that polarisation of positions and isn't actually true for the majority. I am not trans so I have no understanding of what that might feel like, just as much as you might argue that a male person cannot know what it feels like to be female. None of us has a shared experience.

I want to get to a position of saying 'trans people are going to be mentally healthier if they aren't overly invested in "being perceived as" the other sex and "having the perceived privileges" of the other sex. In return, they deserve respect, dedicated spaces and dignity'.

Saying it's all bullshit and if I stand up for ordinary transpeople who are just living life while trying not to intrude into women's spaces I am "all hail the male" and "fawning" doesn't help in striving towards that position.

Yes the transmen use the male changing during these sessions.

What about comparing trans people of different sexes?

According to the census (not reliable, I know), the number of males identifying as trans is about the same as the number of females identifying as trans. In recent years, the number of people issued with GRC is closing between the sexes (approx 2,800 males and 2,400 female over the last 6 years).

The prison numbers should be similar shouldn't they? But males who identify as trans are more represented in prison for sexual assault than females who identify as trans.

If men want to redefine what being male looks like, to encompass all the ways of being male, including adopting makeup and dress which are female coded according to sexist stereotypes, then it is for MEN to budge up and accommodate them in their spaces.

It is nothing to do with women, we are already fine with all women, any way they present, in female spaces, even down to women who take male hormones and have beards etc, because they are still women.

We have already budged up to make room for all types of women because for some reason we seem to be more progressive than men in recognising that sex stereotypes are harmful, and that it’s only our innate biology that defines us.

Men are the ones who need to do the work in just the same way. It’s for them to make all types of men feel safe in their own single sex spaces.

The problem is, there are a lot of perverts, misogynists, and violent men who are operating under the guise of being trans (whether they really feel trans or not is anyone's guess), and we need to be able to talk about them to protect our rights, don't we?

Of course, it's not all transwomen, just like it's not all men, but there is a problem with many of them, and I'm not going to stop talking about it because it upsets the decent ones, because where would we be if we just pretended it wasn't happening?

We can get to a healthier place where trans people acknowledge that they are not a natal woman or man, they are a trans woman or man, and that is an ok and valid thing to be, but it is different, and therefore it's important to accept that some women in particular are uncomfortable sharing intimate or restricted spaces with them.

Ten years ago I thought that's where we were at. That trans women were men who wished they were women and that everyone knew that trans women were men that wished they were women.

Then along came the phrase "trans women are women"......

At that point I first felt guilty because I couldn't trick my eyes and ears into thinking the bloke in front of me was a woman.

I'm not sure it's possible to get to that stance that I had assumed existed. Women wouldn't be in the courts (see Darlington nurses) for the right to not change in front of men if it was possible to get there because surely it would just be common sense all around.

Don't you see a massive problem with this, particularly if the transman is quite obviously a biological female, which is highly probable, given the tiny number of transgender people who have any type of surgery.

Are you saying you would expect to see a similar proportion of sex offences among trans men and trans women? If so that would seem unlikely due to the big difference between men and women.

It won't be an issue here because everyone swimming is trans, so all the men are changing in the women's and all the women are changing in the men's.

Because safety is not the first thing that pops into my mind when I see the claim that TWAW - it's the patent, verifiable fact that TW are not and never will be W - so I haven't engaged with the OP about TWs being more or less dangerous than other men. Other posters have done so in great detail.

I'll just focus on the thread title:
Aren't transpeople still a tiny minority?

because I think the OP has made an important point there:
transpeople are indeed a tiny minority of the general population.
Even the dodgy census figures put them at about 250,000 in a UK population of nearly 70m.

And yet, look at the disproportionate influence they have had, on the media, school curricula, the law, medicine, workplace relations, even everyday language.

It is suggested that every public building should have a separate gender neutral/mixed sex/unisex toilet on the off-chance that one of the 250,000 may pop in, need to pee, and decline, for their own reasons, to do the obvious thing and use the toilet designated for their sex.

These demands are disproportionate, but they are made by trans activists who are loud, aggressive, manipulative and sometimes violent, and are clearly unused to hearing the word 'no'.

Everyone is entitled to their human rights, but every 'tiny minority' in the population is not entitled to a wish-list of disproportionate demands.

To be fair, I think it's been described as a trans only session. Trans women use the women's and trans men use the men's.

Yes, common sense is needed. It seems to me that Stonewall in particular has done transpeople a disservice, muddying the waters. You can't do that with a largely autistic population, tell them they "are" the other. Tell them instead that it's ok to go through life "as if" you are the other, except in certain restricted spaces.

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.

If Stonewall & all the other TRA orgs had pushed for that from the start, things could be so different.

Did you know that one of the very earliest events set up around this was called ‘We Need to Talk’ and Venice Allan, the organiser, invited Stonewall along because she wanted it to be a dialogue?

Not only did they refuse, but they also bullied the original venue into cancelling. TRAs then came along to stand outside the replacement venue shouting BURN IT DOWN, and one of them was arrested for beating a woman up.

I know all this because I was there.

It is a minority issue as the chances of any one of us coming across this issue is unlikely. It is a minority issue because there are very few trans people. Yes, it animates a lot of debate - but it is minor for us - because we will be very unlikely to mean a trans person. It is minor statistically not because of whether or not a single trans person is a source of danger - but because statistically you are unlikely to come across them. The point of comparing stats in terms of prison stats is to show that it is a minority issue across a wide population. Actually it is everyone else misunderstanding stats and not me.

Now there is a question as to whether philosophically once one is in - all are in....one may debate that. But this is a philosophical rather than practical issue. And practically speaking - it is a minority issue. Now I am an academic and I love nothing more than debating philosophical, abstract and highly irrelevant issues but if we are being practical and talking about relevance - yes, it is a minority topic that has been highjacked by the daily mail and span out of all proportion.

I don't think that's true anymore. I live in a small Northern town, the kind of place where everyone knows everyone. When I was a teenager, there were four trans women you'd see walking around regularly. Now, there are at least a couple of dozen, and at least the same number of transmen, and they're just the ones I've clocked.

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.

Now try going into trans Reddit & saying that. They’ll tell you that anything less than unconditional acceptance into the spaces of their choice - those for the opposite sex - is triggering, othering & genocidal.

As a general rule I don’t care what anyone wants to live their lives as, I’m not bothered if they’re men, women, trans, gay or whatever, they’re welcome to live their lives however they want and I hope they live a truly happy life. I draw the line at trans women denanding that I allow them into women’s sports/spaces.

This.

It makes all spaces mixed sex and they have a high rate of offending -- as men are in them.

Unoffically mixed tends to be even worse as women are less aware of risks and the bad men are ones who go in.

.independent 2018: Unisex changing rooms put women at danger of sexual assault, data reveals