Woman

I missed that, Germanshepherdsmum. apologies.

On the other hand, Perhaps trisher wants to visit family in Australia. It is probably the only way you can get there at the moment.

MOnica I suggested that umpteen posts back but some people just never give up.

Trisher when in a hole the best advice is to stop digging.

trisher

grannygranby thankyou for acknowledging I do debate and that my suggestion that women empower themselves isn't in any way denigrating women. I do find it a bit difficult when the people I am debating with use personal slurs to silence me. I also don't understand why any suggestion I make is met with "It wouldn't work" but a theoretical piece of legislation which no one has so far explained and which as far as I am concerned is totally impracticable and unworkable is seen as a solution.

You're back to the passive aggression now.

No idea *Doodledog but it was first done about ten years ago (I forget exactly when) so I doubt it. Women who don't want to see other women naked I expect which is justified.

grannygranby thankyou for acknowledging I do debate and that my suggestion that women empower themselves isn't in any way denigrating women. I do find it a bit difficult when the people I am debating with use personal slurs to silence me. I also don't understand why any suggestion I make is met with "It wouldn't work" but a theoretical piece of legislation which no one has so far explained and which as far as I am concerned is totally impracticable and unworkable is seen as a solution.

Ok, but why not just have an expectation that no men would be in there, and save the hassle. The bashful could use the cubicles, and mothers with two or three children to sort out could do so with room to manoeuvre.

Did your pool do this as a result of transwomen causing discomfort to women, incidentally? It seems an odd thing to do otherwise.

Doodledog my local pool did this some time ago. Large notices in the ladies communal showers that no-one was to remove their costume except in the cubicles provided.
Most of us managed.

Doodledog I did say before that the solution to the person with male bits stripping off in a communal area was to ban it for everyone. It does bring up the interesting question of why it is OK for strange women to be naked in front of a 3year old but not men. Surely for most children it's family members only?

Oh, come on. Ban people from stripping off in a changing room? How would that work? You are really clutching at straws here. If a woman takes her children into a female changing room she will expect that she (and they) will see other women in a state of undress. If she's happy with that, it is her decision to make. It is not unreasonable of her not to expect to see an intact male in there, is it?

Also, and I realise that this will infuriate you, but I agree with Oldwoman70 and would venture to suggest that a transwoman who goes into such a changing room instead of a private cubicle is far more likely to be an exhibitionist than a traumatised victim of make rape that took place in the male changing room of the baths.

grannygranby's points about the likes of Suzanne Moore are very valid too. Your suggestion that gender critical women are right wing anti-feminists (on this and numerous threads passim) is either disingenuous or frighteningly ill-informed.

Maya Forstater only won her case for unfair dismissal for saying that women were females. It didn’t change the legislation on the rights of men to self ID into necessarily separate female spaces. There is even a maternity’s hospital in Brighton where the term mother and breast has been outlawed part of the NHS. Birthing parent and chest feeding are the only allowable terms without being charged with transphobia. It was merely questioning this that got jk Rowling cancelled. You know it was her birthday last week and in ‘today’s birthday’ column in the Guardian she was not included. It’s chilling we all used to believe in the guardian now it has been taken over by trans activists. Women reporters like Suzanne Moore treated far worse than gay men who protest but it has meant any debate on the issue is now only to be found on private substacks, the times and telegraph. With dog whistle cries of right wing. It’s a powerful cunning lobby. And you’re right women must stand up for themselves. And trisher you are allowing debate which is so rare

Whenever I am in a (female) communal changing room I find that women tend to be discreet, usually with their backs to the room, and not wander around naked. So if someone self identifying as a woman but who still has male genitalia exposes themselves to all and sundry couldn't it be assumed that they are doing it for some sort of sexual gratification and shouldn't women and children be protected from that?

That is ridiculous! Moreover I usually call all humans 'men' when others are able to be objective in conversations.

Done prisons before M0nica I'm sure the thread is somewhere.
Doodledog I did say before that the solution to the person with male bits stripping off in a communal area was to ban it for everyone. It does bring up the interesting question of why it is OK for strange women to be naked in front of a 3year old but not men. Surely for most children it's family members only?
Mollygo If your friend is really upset about the decision why not support her by bringing a civil case under the Equalities Act? You could Crowdfund to pay for it. I'm sure it would have heaps of support and if there are women who have stopped using the pool because of transwomen it would be a great test case.

Trisher writes:
So lets get one thing straight I believe there are places where women need to be protected and that those spaces include refuges, rape centres, religious centres and any other places where for personal or religious reasons women establish groups where the presence of transwomen might cause a woman not to attend. These places arre already covered by the Equality Act. I think it's perfecly reasonable to ask why that Act isn't being properly implemented.”

Indeed and it was for protesting that this wasn’t happening that maya forstater got the sack. Finally winning her case in the high court. It is still legislated via stonewall’s diversity scheme which the police courts councils political parties have signed up for and pay them shed loads of money to train their staff. Any breaking of these rules snd they are accused of transphobia. You must know this. Males purely on self id are recorded as female their crimes often sexual are recorded as female and they are placed in female jails. That’s why it has to stop.it is a dangerous lie.

Shouldn't women in prison, be protected from genitally whole men identifying as women, or is the threat of sexual attack there part of their punishment?

We know there have been a number of such attacks by such biological men, when incarcerated in women's prisons, disproportionate to the number of such men in this situation. Women in prison, have very limited means of escape from such situations.

Thanks Doodledog, you are so much more measured in your response.

Yay trisher!
Who except you would have thought of pink triangles and relating women’s concerns about the erosion of their right to safety, fair employment (you endorsed that way back on this thread) and their right to compete in a fair playing field, to a different regime. Oops! You’ve used that link before.

Sorry ? about the digression about women’s religion-I was partly expressing admiration of your strategy for diverting a debate.
Oh and that yesterday I was at the gym with a woman who had been affected by the decision to admit even blatantly male transwomen to the women’s pond at Hampstead Heath Ponds rather than them using the mixed pond, a decision which affected use by the orthodox Jewish and Muslim women.
The men there got really cross when self ID women invaded their pool and police removed the self ID women because they might cause a breach of the peace.
To be fair, the Jewish or Muslim men may well fight for the rights of women with regard to religion. I’m no expert on that.

You were doing so well until the pink triangles?.

It's good to see a more rational approach, though, and I am absolutely sincere in saying that.

I think that the reason the Equalities Act is not being used effectively is because there is so much confusion as to what is 'discriminatory' because of Stonewall and other groups' vociferous objection to anything that suggests that men cannot become women at will.

Re the changing room issue - I see your point about religious women not using mixed pools (although in some centres there is more than one pool and times that are designated for different groups), but I still maintain that in a female-designated changing room it is reasonable not to expect to see a man with his tackle out - particularly when children are present. The question of whether it should be called a 'safe space' is largely one of semantics. There should, IMO, be a much more open debate about what is meant by various terms, so that they can be used in a meaningful way by all concerned.

The question of how staff would know who was a transwoman is fair; but outside of situations such as swimming pools where, with the best will in the world it is fairly obvious if someone is male, it won't matter unless someone draws attention to themselves in an obvious way. As we have been saying on these threads for ages, most women probably don't care if we sit next to a bloke in a dress, or a fully transitioned transwoman, or people at any point in between. What we are asking for is protection against men using the trans issue as a loophole to attack (literally or metaphorically) women.

Personally, I also see the change in language as a metaphorical attack, as if it continues women as a separate class will simply disappear. There will be no mechanism for counting instances of abuse, of discrimination, of criminality or all the other things that are used by policy makers. It is not about discriminating against transwomen - it is about protecting the rights of women.

Is this where we can all sit in a circle and sing Kumbaya? ?

Well I absolutely support all of you with your views if I didn't why would I still be on this thread? I'd have abandoned you ages ago.What I am trying to do, strange as it may seem, is to make you realise that actually some of your demands are not only impractical , unenforceable and biased they in fact do absolutely nothing to increase the safety of women.
So lets get one thing straight I believe there are places where women need to be protected and that those spaces include refuges, rape centres, religious centres and any other places where for personal or religious reasons women establish groups where the presence of transwomen might cause a woman not to attend. These places arre already covered by the Equality Act. I think it's perfecly reasonable to ask why that Act isn't being properly implemented.
I do not believe that all the places women access or use are, or should be, designated under that act . So no the changing room in a public swimming baths cannot be designated a safe space. For many reasons including the big questions who will oversee it and how will they ensure no transwomen access it? As for the red herring what about women of other religions? Women of other religions would not use the pool whilst men were being admitted. So it might be possible to set up a women's time, restrict entrance to women only, staff the venue with women and class it under the Equalities Act. One big problem remains of course how would staff know who was a transwoman and how would they challenge them?
So I have suggested that perhaps women's best defence is to protect themselves. This doesn't mean I expect every woman to do so. It is however a lot more practical and much more likely to work than just moaning on about things or proposing unworkable legal solutions.
Of course the problem will always exist of about identifying transpeople. I don't think you can. So perhaps the only solution which would suit most of you is requiring them to wear something like pink triangles. But we know where that originated don't we?

you really don't get it trisher do you? It really is nothing to do with transphobia. We only care about women and children's safety and fairness. We are mammals. The word itself is derived from mammary glands, breasts. We are a sexually dimorphic species These are facts. No choice. Now as the physical task of reproduction is fundamental it takes great toll on the female sex whether her body produces offspring or not. Males do not have this physical handicap. And has to be respected. There is no choice. Women have fought sexism to lessen the difference in the way society treats us. And we have achieved some (not much) leeway: Separate safe spaces because the consequences of rape is profound. we are not talking about feelings here for chrissakes AND in competitive sport because the female body is physiologically different. Yet this new movement wish to take even those protections away. Can you not see what a threat that is to women?

The idea that feminists should always support other women was put forward on another thread about trans rights. Not by trisher, but by a poster with similar views. It is a strategy often used in this debate.

I think it is a dangerous idea (and if memory serves on the other thread the comment was linked to something personal to another poster) so I started separate thread to discuss it, but was threatened with being reported under that silly TAAT rule. Clearly discussing the idea was not comfortable.

The idea that ‘feminists’ should ‘support’ all ‘women’ starts by dividing us into two groups, which are not defined. If you do not comply, you are not a ‘feminist’, and what is a feminist is decided by . . . whom?

As we know, what constitutes a ‘woman’ is now under debate too, so to be a ‘feminist’ you have to ‘support’ . . . whom?

See where this is going? And what does ‘support’ even mean? Who is deciding that?

It’s a meaningless concept, but has fascistic connotations. Divide people into groups, demonise ‘outsiders’ and make it very easy (because of unclear expectations) to fail to comply. If you do fail, by definition you are not in the ‘in’ group, and can be ostracised. Four legs good, two legs bad.

Even taken at face value the idea that all women should support all other women is nonsense. Are men never right? Are we always in opposition to men anyway? What about these much-trumpeted male feminists? And do women think as one? What a depressing thought.

No, the idea was never about solidarity. It is about control by the ones deciding what it is that the rest of us have to support. Some are more equal than others.

Mollygo and Oldwoman70 Thank you. Your last two posts, and others before have been so eloquent in defining the basics of most women's concern about men, self-definng as women using female spaces.

trisher said "most violence is domestic- 92% of cases" if that is the case why would you want to deprive women of safe female only places? I repeat - as long as someone is still physically male they should not use female only spaces.

I also question why you seem to think it OK for someone who identifies as female but is still physically male should expose their genitals to women and children.

Wonderful diversion about domestic violence. If that was what we were discussing, but we aren’t.
So do you think that because some women aren’t intimidated by men exposing themselves-which is actually an arrestable crime, it’s OK. Oh dear.
Because there’s “little evidence” and there are only “a few individuals” you wonder why we are concerned. Oh dear
I’ll digress-I’m beginning to see the value of that strategy.
Compared with the whole population, there are only a few murderers, so should we be concerned?
With regard to feminists supporting other women . . . Are you a feminist? You certainly present as differently feminist from some of my friends and colleagues and some more well known ones I’ve met.
Do you mean supporting all other women or only the ones who agree with you?

And for the nth time, most women have no interest in transwomen except where their rights and behaviour are allowed to take precedence over the mental or physical safety rights, employment rights and rights to compete of natal women and girls. I’ll now extend that to religious rights as well.

Shouldn't feminists support other women no matter how much they disagree with them?

Good heavens, that sounds utterly totalitarian. Should I support a woman who expresses racist views just because she is a woman? Doesn't that mean I would be endorsing racism?

It is the argument used by every group/family that protects a member of that group/family from just punishment if a member transgresses. This is how many paedophiles escaped justice for so long.

couldn't women just stand up for themselves a bit?? Have you learnt anything from life, or perhaps from GN, where women often explain their unwillingness to stand-up to violence or coercion. yet you can talk confidently about 92% of violence to women being in the home, by someone they know.

I find many of the views you have expressed on this thread Trisher quite frightening. Not the specifics of transgender, but the underlying beliefs such as the one I have quoted in this thread, and the one I have queried in my previous thread. It shows a callousness and unwillingness to uunderstand other world views. This is new in you. Ist there a reason?