NanaDana
You don't get to choose your biological sex. That is determined for you by your chromosome make-up at the moment of conception. What you do get to choose is whether or not you live your life in either a male or a female gender style. If you're a biological male and want to adopt the persona of a woman, that doesn't make you a biological female, and it certainly doesn't give you the right to "access all areas" which are reserved for biological females. All you have done is to exercise your freedom, at least in this country, to make a lifestyle choice. Essentially, this is all that Kathleen Stock is saying.
If you're a biological male and want to adopt the persona of a woman, that doesn't make you a biological female, and it certainly doesn't give you the right to "access all areas" which are reserved for biological females. All you have done is to exercise your freedom, at least in this country, to make a lifestyle choice. Essentially, this is all that Kathleen Stock is saying.
Basically I think that is all most of us are saying NanaDana.
Other than that I don't think anyone's trying to invalidate or disrespect trans women's lifestyle choices, but certain posters will insist that we're part of the 'Gender-Critical' group - or are transphobic, in spite of this.
I'm sure that, like me, those of us who've experienced the heady days of the 60s and early 70s, those of us who knocked around in 'gangs' or groups going to folk clubs / jazz clubs / pubs / late-night coffee bars in Soho, etc, mixed with others in their gang who were lesbian, bi, and those who were obviously gender-fluid... this was all part of that era where we threw off the stereotypical constraints of the late 40s and 50s. It's nothing new, many of us were rubbing shoulders with trans gender folk before all the labelling took hold. They were our friends, our 'gang' mates.
Women just want their safe-spaces to be - for women and girls, and don't want to continually have to justify the need which leads to accusations of phobia and discrimination, when it's nothing of the kind. It gets so tedious.