Reflections on trans presence at a Dykes Who Hike event

[13RidgmontRoad]

For those who don't know DWH, it's an informal mainly Instagram-promoted event and the organisers, two women in their 20s, arrange (relatively accessible) hikes in locations mainly in SE England. Cost to join is £2 a ticket. Yesterday was the first one I've been on, which was 17 miles (Newhaven to Brighton). Around 130 people attended.

There were 5-6 TW on the hike that I could see; two older chaps, one in a dress and heavy makeup, the other looking very much just like a bloke in men's clothing. Four younger ones who looked like the wind might blow them away.

Older blokey one was very annoying - lots of mansplaining on the Whatsapp group, selfies and borderline inappropriate jokes, generally ignored.

Two of the younger ones peeled off about halfway through as they couldn't cope with the rest of the distance. Remaining younger ones were a couple and kept themselves to themselves. They were rather timid and socially awkward, which was a bit of a contrast to 130 hale and hearty lesbians in hiking boots.

I felt like most of the women there just gave the lot of them a wide berth - bit of polite chat then forward or back to join other women.

The (lovely) organisers are quite young and there's absolutely no way either of them would come out and bar TW. I imagine they'd be terrified to take a view. So it seemed very much like weary acceptance. It was rather interesting to observe.

Yes, it's a type of intersectionality that always seems to centre men.

The organisers should change the name to everybody welcome walking group. dyke a specific word for women who love women and it is clearly not for us/them. Fine, have a mixed group , but there will be consequences for those young women down the line. Don’t use Dyke when it it inappropriate. And men can never be women.

I think it is a not really accurate to conclude “Women generally are the biggest advocates of trans women and fight hard to have them included” from the two data sets you linked to. The YouGov shows more female people than male people will say they will include male people with transgender identities in female single sex provisions, however it is not a majority of female people who agree with this inclusion. It is still a minority.

The data is not specifically asking for lesbian’s support levels for male people with transgender identities being included in female single sex provisions (including female single sex groups for lesbians). Both the sets of respondents were asked about transgender ‘people’. ie: that includes the many female transgender people in the UK population as well.

Just as it would not be an accurate observation to make from this data that lesbians support male people with transgender identities accessing female single sex provisions. Because we have seen that when those specific questions are asked, the support decreases significantly.

Also the Just Like Us research is also limited to one age bracket 18-25 year olds, of which 47% (1736 / 3695) self reported being LGBT. Of those 277 were lesbians and 457 self reported as being transgender. Likely because it was not relevant, the organisation did not publish the proportion of lesbians who were also transgender. Notably, it did not publish how many lesbians were self reported male people with transgender identities.

Therefore, it would not be an accurate statement to make general statements about the wider lesbian (female people attracted exclusively to other female people) population from this data.

I wouldn’t even be confident saying data from that respondent group from the category ‘lesbian’ would map to lesbians of that age group without seeing the % of lesbians from that data who were also male. Additionally, I doubt the integrity of the data collected about sex categories was verified in any way, but could be wrong.

The research is real enough. You conclusion though, “Women generally are the biggest advocates of trans women and fight hard to have them included”, is much stronger with greater optimism than the data would support.

this is the report for Just Like Us and I could not find the data set tonight to look at the raw data.

https://justlikeus.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Positive-Futures-report-by-Just-Like-Us-compressed-for-mobile.pdf

Thanks for parsing that, Helle.

Fair points to a degree, but I'd argue that a larger point may be that the EA is supposed to apply to everyone and therefore should be clear and easily understood.

It shouldnt require teams of lawyers to pontificate on everyday life matters, and a law shouldn't be so cumbersome and complex that people are at risk of falling foul of it inadvertently with incredibly minor acts.

So far, it seems to me to be failing that test very thoroughly. That probably goes for everyone on all sides.

Newhaven to Brighton is my home area. And that is a long distance!! Blimey. I’m from Telscombe.

I think it’s inevitable that you’ll get TW turning up. I mean, it’s the Brighton area, after all!

130 hikers….must have been quite a sight!

This thread hasn’t been quite the pile on to the trans woman at the group that the original poster thought it would be. 🤣

Did you read the OP? I thought it was thoughtful and reflective

the fact is that if you go to an event that is named in a way that makes you think it will be women only and find men there, it is reasonable to have a think about that

There is always issues in drawing conclusions from research that is not supported.

I think that Just Like Us research is problematic because they have an over representation of people who have transgender identities yet it is supposed to be a general LGBT+ study. It really is not useful to draw conclusions from for any separate groups of the LGBT+ and actually even generally, it would still be overrepresenting some groups attitudes and opinions over others.

If there were two trans women in a couple with each other, then they fall under both lgbtq and wlw - so they would be pretty firmly covered by that title.

Nooo… because they are not women. It’d be a gay couple. As in homosexual men. The only criteria to be a “transwoman” is to be a man. So no, wlw would not be appropriate.

I haven't been able to follow this thread since yesterday, but it looks like the word 'apartheid' hasn't been invoked again in the context of women-only groups and spaces.

Hopefully the message has got through that drawing any similarity between trans people in the UK, who have all the same human rights as everybody else, and Black South Africans under the apartheid regime is not just trans hyperbole, it is deeply offensive.

Two men in a couple have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with 'lesbian' or 'women'.

Four men in a polycule, ditto.

I mean you can keep adding men who try to use the words to apply to themselves for infinity and there will still be no women or lesbians involved.

No, they’d be a pair of either gay or bisexual men.

they are not women. They are gay men.

No-one who attended thought it was biological women only. It's literally in the description that you need to read before joining.

And yet they were welcomed in by this large group. Meanwhile the biological sex only group can barely find five pensioners to go for a walk with them. Of all the battles facing us - this is your hill to die on? Bizarre.

One - they can do - they don't want to exclude trans and nonbinary people. So they don't have to. What safety reasons? These are public trails. Do you think they can ban men from public areas? There are single sex hiking groups - you can also create one yourself. You cannot demand an inclusive group ban some of their members because you don't think they should be allowed to attend. It's batshit and it makes GC people look batshit to so cut it out.

Chill dude! You seem very het up. Have a nice cup of tea and moment.

Crikey, you’re quite het up about this aren’t you?

I still think it’s reasonable to reflect on going to an event titled ‘Dykes who hike’ or similar and finding men there. Even if what you’re thinking is ‘I note that in the description the organisers have explicitly said men are welcome and yet this contradicts my understanding of the name of the event’. That is still interesting in and of itself

Two het ups In two posts!

I wonder if we hail from the same part of the world?

Hehe. It is a very niche saying lol.

I'm literally having a nice cup of tea now, thanks. I recommend Betty's - the far superior bag. Are you feeling OK? I know you've been struggling for some time with your own aggressive tendencies. Have you spoken to someone in real life about it? Perhaps go for a nice walk and find a more wholesome hobby? Maybe hiking. There's a great group you could join and learn to co-exist with all kinds of people nicely.

I think you and I have very different interpretations of the word 'interesting'.

Oh dear… maybe chamomile would be better for you. Tea does have caffeine in it which does make some people a bit excitable and tetchy. And a nice lavender biscuit.