Do you avoid the bathroom if there is a transwoman?

[PeachyDaisy]

I’m going to an industry event next week and I know there will be a transwoman attending. Should I use the disabled bathroom to avoid an awkward encounter or just continue to use the women’s and hope not to run into them?

People with DSDs are either male or female. Accurate language is important especially in this topic so while it might seem harsh, a persons identity does not override their sex and we are all free to speak as we find.

Women (and DSD groups) have been saying “leave people with DSDs out of it as they’re not relevant to the argument.” for years and we ended up with a female boxer being smashed in the face by a man for the ‘entertainment’ of many, so that was a pointless effort.

You feel free to follow your values but stop blaming women for the tras weaponising a medical condition.

When precise and accurate language is needed to convey clear messaging about why a male athlete cannot compete in a female sports category, claiming that a woman cannot compete in the female category leads to misinformation and extended discussion about their identity.

Language is vital for communication. This is where complying with language demands/ requested fail.

If you, personally, wish to use demanded / preferred language, go for it. Expect push back though when you attempt to shame others for not making the same choice as you have.

You choosing to now politicise incredibly rare medical conditions to prove your own point can be seen to be hypocritical. How many people in the world have a body formation that cannot be categorised at all by considering all the aspects of that body?

And in saying that, what of it? Are they the people being discussed where those accommodations had to be made, or are you using them to score your own political agenda.

I take the point about trans-activists starting it.

What I object to is the assumption by many on here that all those with DSDs can be neatly ‘catergorised’ as male or female.
Some cannot.

Please stop saying it as it just isn’t true.
I say that as a scientist. Lots of what’s posted about DSDs on this board is overly simplistic or simply incorrect. People working in the area or living with the condition realise the situation is sometimes much more nuanced.

It doesn’t matter who started it tbh.

The infamous boxers should not have been eligible to compete in the woman’s category as they had a male physiology to a large extent.

They are men so their physiology is entirely that of males. Women are not disordered men.

What person does not have a body that can be categorised into either male or female though?

Does a person exist with both a working ovary and a working testes with both a vagina and uterus and a working penis of any size ?

You are the one here who seems to be trying to imply there are stricter rules than there is. Not only that, why is discussion of them relevant?

Is describing a broad category with reference to then containing a wide variety of bodies impeded by extremely rare medical conditions? I don’t believe so. Human’s are still bipedal animals, the existence of humans without or with more doesn’t mean the description is incorrect for the purposes of a general definition.

The experience of this woman on MN is basically the sort of thing I object to.

she left because a very vocal set of mumsnetters who were very black and white about Y chromosome means you’re a man. Correcting people referring to individuals with dsd as she “he, he has a Y chromosome, it’s he”

Compare that to the NHS:
“Specialist healthcare teams advise that children with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS) are raised as girls because they have female genitals, no testosterone response and almost always identify as female gender when they're older.”

They’re referred to as women and girls in the medical and scientific literature.

As a biologist I believe sex is binary of course. I am also GC.
But nature is complex and we need to resist the urge to over-simplify.

Does a person exist with both a working ovary and a working testes with both a vagina and uterus and a working penis of any size ?

No.

How do you categorise that though?

On one hand as per @Matcheroo post we have the medical community categorising CAIS individuals as female because they have female genitalia, no testosterone response, and are completely socialised as female.

then we have the mumsnetters insisting that they are men. Y chromosome, man.

if you had a daughter and took her to the doctor at 15 because she hadn’t started her periods, to be told she had a dsd, a Y chromosome, could never have children and would need medication for the rest of her life, would you then insist she does sports with the boys, because she is male?

elite sports is a whole other issue. Some dsd’s give an advantage, some don’t. I still don’t know what the answer is there, other than make genetic testing mandatory and you compete as per your chromosomes. Or ban dsd individuals completely. But does that then filter down and your daughter who finds out at 15 she has a dsd has to switch category for her school sports day?

On a day to day basis dsd individuals should decide with their medical professionals. Nobody else should be deciding they’re a man because they have a dsd.

DS has severe learning disability and can’t go to the toilet unsupervised so I take him to the disabled toilets. He is 30 and very physically able

Its irrelevant.

Women, as a sex class, 99% of whom are entirely unambiguously biologically female, need single sex spaces.

Once the hair splitting starts of 'but this person who looks like a man/has interesting chromosomes etc', it is right back to what's been destruction tested for a decade. Any man can use any women's space at any time because there's no way to tell what they are (although in most cases its absolutely bleeding obvious) and women may not argue back.

No. We have a whole body count of women who have been raped, harmed, assaulted, threatened, harassed and excluded because of men taking very happy advantage of this wangling, and in almost all cases it's not about any actual concern for a tiny minority with medical differences, it's about enabling the use of that minority for men to stalk into women's spaces and crack on.

No men in women's spaces. End of. No ifs, no buts. Alternative solutions for those with genuine need, which must be additional to and different from the necessary provision for women.

A person with CAIS is a male person for the purposes of categorising their body type for the purposes of reproduction.

If I had a daughter who I discovered had CAIS, I would not support a medical practitioner not being accurate on their assessment and diagnosis.

As to a 15 year old child with a DSD that did result in masculinisation and was one excluded by sport organisations? I would provide lots of support but point out that maybe mixed sex events are the way to go for them because their medical condition required them to make adjustments to their participation. Just like the many children who discover things about their health that require them to make decisions about sport every day.

Should someone with CAIS use the gents or the ladies toilets in your opinion @Helleofabore ?

Wow.

sorry Suzy, don’t listen to the doctors, you’re a bloke.

men’s toilets and rugby for you.

for their own parent to dismiss all those feelings, and tell them they are not what they think they are is beyond my comprehension. Their entire world and future has changed, the medics are telling them this doesn’t change their female identity, and their own fucking parent is saying nope, man.

just wow.

That it is a grotesque misrepresentation of the love and care and support that parents give to their children who are diagnosed with a DSD.

If a doctor told a person with CAIS that they’re female, I’d want that doctor to go back to medical school.
ones sexed body is not a feeling, it’s a biological reality

CAIS do NOT have female genitalia. External genitalia may resembling that of females but they have undecended testes, not ovaries, and no uterus.

Isn’t this you now politicising a group of people for whatever your political aim is with that question?

How is toilet usage relevant to a sports category discussion or for that person’s medical knowledge?

You are not GC if you think it's ok for a transwoman, i.e. a man, to be in women's sex segregated spaces against the wishes of women and without their consent. This is at the heart of being gender critical.

Sorry. Your post is confused.

If a medical doctor has said to Suzy, that Suzy has a masculinising DSD, how am I then telling this imaginary child that they should ‘ignore what the doctors are saying’? in the point I made, where the teen had a masculinising DSD, eg 5ARD, I doubt that the doctor would be telling them any different. In fact, if the medical team was telling my child any differently and telling them that their DSD didn’t mean that their body was going to masculinise, I would be finding if there was a specific difference within that DSD that meant otherwise or seeking a second opinion. If the child doesn’t have a masculinising DSD as per the IOC guidelines currently, eg CAIS, the child wouldn’t have to change sports.

So, perhaps in your hurry to condemn me, you didn’t fucking read the post properly.

I think that poster never bothered to read what I wrote Marie.

No political aims. As I said I’m GC.
I’m just wondering if people on here who say CAIS is male actually admit it’s more complicated than that sometimes?

Many on these boards say CAIS = male.
Many say NO males in women’s toilets or changing facilities.

I’m wondering if that means they’d expect someone with CAIS to use the gents, even though their phenotype is female?
Do you expect that, for example?

If you don’t then I take it you agree with me that the situation is more complicated and nuanced than Y is male in every situation.

I don’t think it’s okay for a transwoman to be in women’s facilities. I think it’s okay for someone who has a DSD to be there depending on the condition.

I have never said that the situation with people with CAIS or Swyers is not nuanced and that they don’t require accommodations.

However, it is you now politicising them.

Read posts more carefully and don't say 'just wow'. It makes you sound like an american teenager

Still no answer then.
This isn’t political. I’m not a TRA, I’m GC.
I think people with DSDs are treated unfairly on here, that’s all.