jk rowling and the 3 dementors

SueDonim it's quite simple whatever transwomen are called, whatever spaces are made available, whatever small adjustments are made, women, transexuals, homosexuals and other minorities will continue to suffer and be killed unless we can change things radically. Because that is what patriachy encourages and that is how it works.
Galaxy the law already rules against rape unfortunately because of the way it is implemented and our confrontational legal system it doesn't work. It's a patriarchal system.

trisher

So there is to be no adjusting anyone's thinking? I would hope everyone was able to learn more and to adjust, if not necessarily completely change their views.
Any attacks by anyone on another person whatever their sexuality, gender or body form is wrong.
But while some women are focussing their fight for equality on the aggression and arguments found on twitter others are really trying to stop the backlash and change policies. The establishment, men in power like Trump and other leaders are the people we should be opposing. There may be a few transwomen who are a danger to women but most aren't . I've written about how to tackle on-line abuse,it's up to the individual what they do. But demonstrating and writing about the real restrictions women and LGBT people still face and maintaining that fight is more important.. www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/11/from-slurs-to-sexual-violence-women-human-rights-defenders-come-under-global-attack/

This is why I added the bit about ‘adjusting thinking’ to my post, it was in response to trisher’s post.

Why on earth would I want you ( or anyone else) to be ‘swapping hate mail’ ( as you suggest) ??

pinkquartz..spot on, safe spaces for women are an absolute must.

trisher, one problem with blaming the patriarchy without looking at men who rape and murder, is the vast majority of men who don’t rape and murder.

Iam64 in that statement you show that you have no understanding of how patriachy works. Patriachy is a system which means some people are valued above others. The most valued people are of course rich white men, but that does not mean all men prosper under the patriachy indeed there is evidence that men are suffering more now than ever in the past. There are more male suicides, young men are acheiving less in education and cancer deaths are higher. This has resulted in the formation of mens groups seeking to support men. The patriachy of course would set these against women's groups because that is how it works. Feminist thinking says if men become more able to be open and honest about their feelings and are encouraged to recognise that masculinity does not need to always be demonstrating strength and dominance men will not only become less violent but will be happier and live longer.

I am not against mens group at all. Why on earth would I be. Support groups for mens mental health, prostate cancer etc and guess what I dont think women should be anywhere near those groups.

Did I say you were against mens groups Galaxy?

You said the patriarchy would set them against womens groups. I am saying that feminists such as myself support those groups. I think men are entitled to single sex places for privacy and dignity.

I wasnt saying why on earth wouldn't I be to you , more a question to myself if you see what I mean.

trisher - I do understand the patriarchy, honest.
I'm not sure why you set yourself against other feminists in this way.
It's as though you believe you're the only person who views the world in the right way, that the rest of us don't get it, don't understand reality and only you can help us change out ways and belief systems
A men's group meet at my house every two weeks, and have done for 25 years. Well, currently, they meet on zoom of course.
Our town had one of the first groups set up to support men who were physically and emotionally abusive towards their female partners. The man who set it up had completed one of the courses we (women) had been running.
Its rather patronising and dismissive towards other feminists posting here, to suggest we just don't get it. We have a range of views on this and we're entitled to hold them.

Iam64 I apologise if you thought I was preaching but you did say blaming the patriachy wouldn't help the majority of men who don't rape and murder.
I must say that if we are looking at majority views and actions the majority of transwomen do not threaten women in any way and are in fact a very abused minority.
As for the patriarchy setting groups against each other look at the comments about the link I posted to WIRE and "Smash the Patriarchy".
I still don't understand two things about those who think it is necessary to provide segregated toilets and changing rooms for natal women. Firstly what evidence is there that the trans women who have been using female toilets for years, both before operations were available and after, have committed any assaults on women? And secondly how will you identify the women admitted to spaces reserved for natal women? Will my friend who is 6ft tall, strongly built (particularly when she's going to the gym) with very short hair who wears trousers and shirts with flat shoes have to carry her birth certificate with her for fear she is challenged when using the facility? Or will you simply say she has to use the unisex toilet because she doesn't look like a 'proper' girl?

Trisher

many of your comments are disengenuous to my mind.
If a TW is presenting and living as a female then why not just use a safe female toilet or changing space?
This has been the way for decades.
However A 6 foot tall, short haired person, with muscles,and flat shoes is not presenting as female.
So there is the hard nub of it.
She should not have to appear as a stereotyped female but also will not be safe possibly in a mans toilet.
So what is the solution?
More discussion is needed BUT the answer is not to erode all female safe spaces for the incredibly small amount of people who are choosing to live this way.
Also if your friend still has a penis why can't they just use the mens loo?
why make life harder?
Is this issue a crusade?

If I saw a person as you describe peacefully using a loo I wouldn't be worried or concerned.
When someone is looking for trouble you can usually tell you know.
If your friend is a peace loving individual then I doubt she will be challenged beyond a quick glance.
All of this has been stirred up so much by aggressive TW's who to be blunt behave like men do.

And I don't understand why you don't understand the need for safe female spaces.
I don't need to look for evidence that TW's attack women...It never entered my head..but it has happened and has been reported in newspapers.
Because there is always someone who does the bad thing and spoils it for everyone.

BTW you mention "feminist thinking" as if it were just one idea...feminist thinking is actuallyas varied as the people who are feminists

pinkquartz However A 6 foot tall, short haired person, with muscles,and flat shoes is not presenting as female
But she is female. That is the point. She comes from a family of tall people, her brothers are 6ft 2 and 6ft 4. She has the family trait of easily gaining weight which she chooses to tackle by exercise not diet, so she has muscles. She has never liked make up. But you have already cast her as trans gender. She isn't. Just because people don't look like the accepted way women should look it doesn't mean they are not born women. It just goes to show how divisive having toilets that discriminate will be.
The only atacks I have seen refered to by transwomen have been attacks in prisons where there is a culture which often exposes women to risk.

trisher, at what point do you say an individual becomes responsible for their own actions? I have direct knowledge of two trans women who used their status as trans to intimidate, assault and control others.
You say the only attacks you have seen referred to as being carried out by trans women have been "attacks in prison where there is a culture which often exposes women to risk". Research and my experience has been that many women who are imprisoned have serious mental health problems, addictions, and a very high proportion experienced physical, emotional and sexual abuse in their adult lives as well as when they were children. The attacks you refer to were, if memory is correct, committed by at least one man who self ID as a woman and had a history of committing sexual offences.

Was he responsible for his attacks?

Of course he was responsible for his attacks Iam64 the degree of responsibility would of course depend upon a psychiatric evaluation and I won't pretend I have any expertise at all in that area. I agree many women who are imprisoned are there because of multiple problems, but so are men.
How many times do I have to say that any assault by any person on another person is wrong before people take that in? I have never condoned violence of any kind be it individual, group, or state sponsored.
I see no one who is advocating these safe spaces for women is going to explain to me how they would deal with women who do not conform with the accepted idea of how a woman should look.

They are women. No one cares what they look like. I have no accepted idea of what a woman should look like.

In all these discussions about men thinking they are women and women looking like men and where should they go, we are missing the elephant in the room. While some trans women have the best possible intentions, there are some that don't. These are the ones that cause concern. Unfortunately they are all lumped together. There are violent and unpredictable men, manipulative men, autogynephilies, bullies, together with men who wish to compete against women because its so much easier. Self identification opens up previously held social barriers and anyone who objects is instantly put on the back foot.

we now have a proportion of more politically aware, more aggressive trans woman who is determined to get their own way be it in sport, in employment, in women's spaces. So confident are they in their delusion that some don't even attempt to look like women. One quick look at some of the responses JKT got on twitter will show who these people are.

Fuelled by the massive support of identity politics from all political colours, and various support organisations,this individual pushes at the very limits of our tolerance and shrieks transphobe if someone , such a JKR pushes back. Our problems are, how do we know the difference between the person who has gender dysphoria and those that have their own agenda that is detrimental to biological women. And how we can debate this issue sensibly without threats and tantrums from the transactivists.

Well we debate it like we have on here. We let people speak. We acknowledge that people hold different views to us. We dont make threats. We say things like biological sex is real and the sky doesnt fall in.

I also think it's very important to say that transwomen were sold this crock of nonsense, in order to access treatment they were told to live like a woman, access womens spaces etc. There is no such thing as living like a woman, its sexist nonsense and it's not fair that transwomen were told this.

petunia so do we legislate on the grounds that some people are violent or abusive whatever their gender? Or do we legislate for the majority who are not any of those things? Does the fact that some transwomen are violent mean that. others are prevented from using certain changing rooms and natal women who don't conform to stereotypes have to carry evidence of their birth gender to use those changing rooms. Of course then there is the possibility that some trans women conform more with make up and hairstyles than natal women. So would everyone have to carry ID or face inspection?

No it would operate in the way its operated since women first campaigned for womens toilets ( they burned the first ones down I believe) if a bloke accidentally walks into the female toilet, someone will say mate the gents is over there. He will usually say oh God sorry. If someone challenges a woman who is in the womans toilet she says I am a woman and off we go. We manage, I accidentally walked into the male toilet last time I was in a pub, I felt so idiotic that I failed to speak, fortunately the 2 blokes in there felt it necessary to say sorry for being exactly where they should have been. We managed to sort it out and I went to the female toilet. It's not difficult.
We legislate for the minority of men who are violent that was part of the reason for sex segregation. And actually toilets are simple to sort, you have male female and gender neutral. The real difficulties continue to be sport, prisons, crime statistics (something which often gets overlooked) and so on.
We legislate all the time on the fact that some people are abusive, all the time, it's why we have DBS checks.

T he issue of "some transwomen conforming more with make up and hairstyles than natal women" is an interesting one. The extremes remind me of Caitlin Jenner whose transition led from healthy looking male athlete, to imo almost a parody of the mythical Hollywood notion of what female/feminine beauty is.

There have always been crossdressers, in every culture. In many cultures men who dress like women have special status, in some cultures, they are entirely accepted. I've no problem with fluidity and wish in our culture our children were less subjected to gender stereotyping than they are.

One issue we haven't discussed on this thread is the high incidence of children who have a diagnosis of ASD who present as trans. We are early on in our understanding, both of trans issues and of autism. An awareness of being different, of not quite fitting in, is a common feature in children later diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum. How much of that contributes to them feeling just maybe they were born in the wrong body.
Maybe that's another thread though.

trisher

I am sorry for my slow response....your friend, yes I did make an assumption because you said it was an issue. I can't see this person but I would guess that she looks female.

Our brains pick up so much information that we do not consciously register and I think most of us would know that she is as you say a tall female in flat shoes.
In fact I do dress in a what is mainly a male way myself. flat shoes, short hair and no make up and trousers. Sometimes I do the opposite.

So why did you say there is a problem here?
I was never stopped from going into a loo but I was often referred to as a young man.......

No-one has to conform to a stereotype in order to enter a toilet . We just want girls and women to be safe.

pinkquartz thanks for your answer. I really don't think that there is much point in providing special access and making rulings unless it is possible to enforce those rulings and I really don't see how transwomen are going to be prevented from using facilities named as women only. If they look like a woman and can pass as a woman they will be able to use them and only people who don't meet some standard of appearance will be let in which seems pretty strange.
So perhaps in naming a facility as women only but not being able to enforce that could simply lull them into a sense of security which isn't deliverable.

I think the toilet issue is, in many ways, quite interesting but tends to dominate so much that we loose sight of the other even more significant points.

The loosening of public attitude and the expected reform of the gender recognition act has encouraged the more militant activists to lobby companies and local authorities, so that many have jumped the gun.

Sadly, some of the activists give all trans women a bad name. I caught sight of a Twitter conversation this week put up by a trans woman who said that she craved chocolate as she was on her period. This was clearly nonsense-the trans woman was Jessica Yaniv, who describes herself as “one proud lesbian”. Jessica is a (male born) Canadian journalist. Jessica recently took a number of immigrant beauticians to court for refusing to wax her testicles. ( I cant believe I have just written that sentence down).

This is not a rant against the trans women. It is more to say that if you take away the boundaries and open the gates then its not just the trans women who pass who will come in. Do you allow someone in to female spaces who has undergone full psychological testing, medical and surgical treatment. Or do you say, to Jessica for example, “Hey, you feel like a woman this week. Come on in and make yourself at home”

The rules and social norms that kept the odder ones and the chancers out in the past. But now it seems that the law allows them in, in fact it is positively encouraged. And if you object, suddenly your world collapses and a whole bucket full of brown stuff heads your way.

When the wants of the trans activists collide with the safety and welfare of all women and children, we need the ability to say “Lets press the pause button and think about this” .

petunia

In all these discussions about men thinking they are women and women looking like men and where should they go, we are missing the elephant in the room. While some trans women have the best possible intentions, there are some that don't. These are the ones that cause concern. Unfortunately they are all lumped together. There are violent and unpredictable men, manipulative men, autogynephilies, bullies, together with men who wish to compete against women because its so much easier. Self identification opens up previously held social barriers and anyone who objects is instantly put on the back foot.

we now have a proportion of more politically aware, more aggressive trans woman who is determined to get their own way be it in sport, in employment, in women's spaces. So confident are they in their delusion that some don't even attempt to look like women. One quick look at some of the responses JKT got on twitter will show who these people are.

Fuelled by the massive support of identity politics from all political colours, and various support organisations,this individual pushes at the very limits of our tolerance and shrieks transphobe if someone , such a JKR pushes back. Our problems are, how do we know the difference between the person who has gender dysphoria and those that have their own agenda that is detrimental to biological women. And how we can debate this issue sensibly without threats and tantrums from the transactivists.

Excellent post Petunia??
Debating this issue sensibly is not possible it seems ( for anything) on most of social media. It may be here on GN (although many subjects aren’t.)
Am so pleased that accepting somebody’s self definition is now being looked at again, it seemed last year that politicians were all falling over themselves to agree that men can self identify as a woman, even if they have a penis and a beard and intend keeping things that way.