Trans women and single-sex spaces

What is the problem that stops trans people using toilets etc that could be exclusively allocated to their chosen gender?
Biological men and women have forever used their spaces, no problems!
Why the problem now, why can't trans people fix the problem and stop insisting on wanting what others have?

I don’t see men having to have their sex defined in the High Court, unlike the case today defining what is a woman

I for one know what a women is, as do the rest of the female population, unfortunately some males seem to think that by putting on a dress they should have entry to our spaces…

Doodledog

If you aren't interested, I don't know what to tell you.

If your friend is male, there is a choice. Either go to the Ladies and make women feel threatened, or use the Gents and take responsibility for the choices made by assuming the identity of a woman.

What do you think your friend should do?

Your question was answered by Doodledog but it appears you didn’t answer hers…why would that be?

You friend has two choices, Gents or Ladies. Women have only one.

Both my trans friends would, even at a second glance, be assumed to be female. I knew them for a couple of months before I was fully aware and only because of something they said. One is an alto in one of the choirs I sing in and nobody bats an eyelid that she uses the Ladies’ loos and changing rooms. It seems some people on here would seriously expect her to use the Gents?

Luminance

What an interesting topic. I work with a few lovely trans people, all of whom feel rather too uncomfortable to use single sex spaces. However as one quite rightly pointed out, criminals do not pick and choose which laws to follow. Having a door marked "women" or "biological women" does not create a magical barrier from which criminals bounce. You see, that is the nature of criminals. Treating every person you believe looks masculine for whatever reason as a potential threat will not deter criminals. They have come to threaten you and will not be deterred by outrage at their presence. As women did we agree that harm to minority groups were a part of feminism or rather, did we build our feminism against real threats to ourselves with no harm to innocent people? I will think on it more.

Exactly. But some would rather suffer from actual criminals than try to make safe spaces for all.

Cabbie21

Could someone please enlighten me as to where my trans friend should go to use the loo and touch up her make-up, if there are no unisex cubicles?
Or which changing rooms my trans relative should use, now that he has the appearance of a man?
I do not judge. I just want to be more aware and understanding.
I asked this about 7 pages ago and it has not been answered.
I am not interested in all the theories or arguments.

You are interested in people being able to get on with their lives Cabbie21, so am I.

Sadly, it's obvious that a group on GN do not care about others rights, only their own opinions. There seems to be a group - not always exactly the same people - who are far and even hard-right on here. They are determined to exclude any discussion but their own on some threads.

Groups are often distinguishable by their specialised vocabulary. This group fights for the use of far-right jargon or vocabulary as a way to identify those with views in common and attempt to silence those who aren't, "people like us".

This could be compared to the ever changing "u" and "non-u" that flagged the difference between the aspiring middle-class and the working class ("Phone for the fish knives, Norman"). You find it in schools too. If you have five school in one town each will be able to identify the other by the "insider language" used.

Sadly, they are not interested in your friend and, should you or I start another thread remotely connected to their pet topics, my experience is the will try to take that over too.

As Professor Winston says, you cannot change your biological sex. Common sense and factual.

I accept that some men want to dress in women’s clothes but it doesn’t change their sex.

9.45 today , supreme Court ruling on legal definition of " Woman"
This will decide how we proceed with everything I suppose in life that affect biological women

Transwomen are men, they have no place in women's spaces. I for one am not suggesting the removal of unisex spaces, I am suggesting the provision of unisex spaces and single sex spaces. If you allow some men in women's spaces you may as well allow all men in. I don't hold to the deeply sexust view that clothes, etc make you a woman.

Disagreeing with you is not the same as feeling discomfort, Luminance. It is simply disagreeing with you.

Nor are my comments ‘a way of turning the tide against your words’, whatever that means - I was just countering your point of view by providing my own.

I wasn't assuming a transperson was a thief and fail to see why you assumed I was, I just countered the "magic barrier" claim. If you've read my posts you will see I have a relative engaged to a transman, which is a closer connection than "working with lovely transpeople".

Well, I would of course lock my doors and windows to deter a thief but it would be rather illogical to assume a trans person a thief too just because most thieves are men. No I am not being patronising but I recognise that as an interesting way to turn the tide of other commenters against my words. I have never been in a situation before that talking to other women about a topic of feminism caused discomfort so quickly.

Luminance

What an interesting topic. I work with a few lovely trans people, all of whom feel rather too uncomfortable to use single sex spaces. However as one quite rightly pointed out, criminals do not pick and choose which laws to follow. Having a door marked "women" or "biological women" does not create a magical barrier from which criminals bounce. You see, that is the nature of criminals. Treating every person you believe looks masculine for whatever reason as a potential threat will not deter criminals. They have come to threaten you and will not be deterred by outrage at their presence. As women did we agree that harm to minority groups were a part of feminism or rather, did we build our feminism against real threats to ourselves with no harm to innocent people? I will think on it more.

My husband and sons are all lovely people. None of them would want to cause alarm or discomfort to anybody. Should they be allowed to use female facilities?
Having a door marked "women" or "biological women" does not create a magical barrier from which criminals bounce. And uttering the magic words 'I am a woman" does not change anyone's biological sex.
Criminals do what criminals do. A determined thief will gain access to your home, does that mean you leave the windows and doors unlocked or do you do your utmost to deter them?

Cabbie21 A transwoman on X Fionne Orlander who "passes" very well uses the male toilets even when dressed in very pretty feminine outfits. Fionne says they have never been bothered by anyone whilst doing so.
Whilst I can agree that I'm going to be inconsistent I'd say a transman who looks like a man should use the male facilities. I have a relative (female) engaged to and living with a transman who does precisely this. Transmen are rarely large enough to present a danger to natal men and there don't seem to be cases of fake transmen assaulting or otherwise hurting natal men. The same cannot be said of transwomen unfortunately. Transwomen, no matter whether their intent is good or bad, are generally much bigger and stronger than women. If there aren't mixed sex or so called "gender neutral" facilities available I'd prefer they respect women by using the male facilities. Increasingly separate female facilities are becoming quite rare. Indeed photos appear on the internet quite frequently that show two doors, one marked male or men, and the other with symbols for women and men and non-binary so in that case pick what you will.

I don't know if you mean to sound patronising, but 'you see' certainly comes over that way.

We know that criminals, by definition, don't obey laws. But if we change laws so that it is not a crime for men to be in women's spaces, that point is moot.

No, men are not included in feminism (intersectional or otherwise). They can form their own pressure groups. The Trans movement has tried to colonise the language, so women can't even discuss things properly. The clue about feminism is that it is female - which means pertaining to those humans with XX chromosomes, not pertaining to males.

What an interesting topic. I work with a few lovely trans people, all of whom feel rather too uncomfortable to use single sex spaces. However as one quite rightly pointed out, criminals do not pick and choose which laws to follow. Having a door marked "women" or "biological women" does not create a magical barrier from which criminals bounce. You see, that is the nature of criminals. Treating every person you believe looks masculine for whatever reason as a potential threat will not deter criminals. They have come to threaten you and will not be deterred by outrage at their presence. As women did we agree that harm to minority groups were a part of feminism or rather, did we build our feminism against real threats to ourselves with no harm to innocent people? I will think on it more.

If you aren't interested, I don't know what to tell you.

If your friend is male, there is a choice. Either go to the Ladies and make women feel threatened, or use the Gents and take responsibility for the choices made by assuming the identity of a woman.

What do you think your friend should do?

Could someone please enlighten me as to where my trans friend should go to use the loo and touch up her make-up, if there are no unisex cubicles?
Or which changing rooms my trans relative should use, now that he has the appearance of a man?
I do not judge. I just want to be more aware and understanding.
I asked this about 7 pages ago and it has not been answered.
I am not interested in all the theories or arguments.

Mollygo

Lathyrus3

Oh Nazi Germany always gets dragged in at some point.

🙄

True.

Oh yes.

With a side order of accusations of racism and homophobia. It was just a matter of time, really - I'm surprised it took so long 🤔

I have posted my thoughts on this matter a million times, but the bottom line (for me) is that single sex spaces exist because it became widely recognised that women are at risk from men. I will point out that this means not all women and not all men, to save the inevitable stating of this obviousness.

In order that women can go about life without male escorts, when we are vulnerable, eg when in states of undress, when ill, when locked up, when alone in isolated places (such as Ladies loos in many venues which are upstairs, or along corridors away from other punters), when we prefer to be amongst other women (eg when dealing with periods, in rape suites, in DV hostels and so on), for many years we have been afforded the right to exclude men from these limited spaces.

The vast majority of men understand this and approve, because they have enough empathy to understand why it is necessary.

All of a sudden, coinciding with a rise in misogyny worldwide, these places are threatened. Women, if the New World Order were allowed to prevail, would have nowhere to call our own.

Institutions such as the WI have men in charge, teenage girls can't get changed without men watching, sportswomen are forced to compete against sportsmen, who have different bodies and hormones, so have the advantage in most cases. Women's prizes and shortlists (many of which allow a female voice to be heard in the Arts) are no longer for women only, and social science research is stymied because it is not clear what is happening to women (as men can identify as such and skew the figures). As a result, legislation to give equality to women is stopped in its tracks. Children are given treatments which mess with their bodies, and are encouraged to go behind their parents' backs to get binders and to 'socially transition'.

Why is this? Why do men who 'know they are women inside' feel no empathy for women who just want limits on where male-bodied people can go? If they were 'real women' they would absolutely understand. Why can't men dress as women, call themselves women but use the facilities that align with their bodies? Why is it women who are expected to take the risk of having men in our spaces, and not transwomen who don't want to take the risk of using the Gents?

Could it be because this is a patriarchal society and men always call the shots? I think so.

RosieandherMaw

^Segregation took place in Germany. Perhaps you would be be happy with a UK version of the "Nuremberg Laws" that applied to Jews from 1935. Or, perhaps you are "not against" something similar to the Jim Crow Laws through which African Americans were forced to use segregated facilities and services, intermarriage was prohibited, and they were denied suffrage. Or maybe you'd prefer something like apart apartheid, which applied segregation including political, social, and economic discrimination against the non-white majority in the Republic of South Africa^
Oh FFS , get real.
Safe spaces for battered or abused women and girls, safe spaces for maternal and gynae health care, single sex wards, safe segregated (yes - on the basis of sex) changing areas for those who have to change into or out of a uniform at work - .and you rabbit on about Nazis and apartheid?
Somebody has lost the plot.

Well said, RosieandherMaw, Terribull, Lathyrus, Galaxy and others!

What an over the top analogy you make PN shock To compare the absolute need for women only spaces/services relating to the physical health of women with specific needs that can only pertain to their sex, as indeed men have theirs. to Nazi regimes and racial segregation.

It really is quite an appalling analogy but perhaps PN may not understand what it was like to live under that regime, so could be excused.

Do people understand what damage it does using the word nazi when it doesn't apply. I mean nobody but nobody takes it seriously anymore. Which in itself is dangerous because of course there are actual nazis out there.

Segregation took place in Germany. Perhaps you would be be happy with a UK version of the "Nuremberg Laws" that applied to Jews from 1935. Or, perhaps you are "not against" something similar to the Jim Crow Laws through which African Americans were forced to use segregated facilities and services, intermarriage was prohibited, and they were denied suffrage. Or maybe you'd prefer something like apart apartheid, which applied segregation including political, social, and economic discrimination against the non-white majority in the Republic of South Africa
Oh FFS , get real.
Safe spaces for battered or abused women and girls, safe spaces for maternal and gynae health care, single sex wards, safe segregated (yes - on the basis of sex) changing areas for those who have to change into or out of a uniform at work - .and you rabbit on about Nazis and apartheid?
Somebody has lost the plot.

Lathyrus3

Oh Nazi Germany always gets dragged in at some point.

🙄

True.

Oh Nazi Germany always gets dragged in at some point.

🙄

What an over the top analogy you make PN To compare the absolute need for women only spaces/services relating to the physical health of women with specific needs that can only pertain to their sex, as indeed men have theirs. to Nazi regimes and racial segregation. What would be the point of a trans man, previously a woman going to a men's clinic for example and asking for their prostate to be checked, when they haven't got one, anymore than a trans woman, born male would need a cervical smear. But do we ever hear from demanding trans men, I think not, the arguments generally go one way. Hence the ridiculous hyperbole that sometimes emanates when comparing the fact that in certain contexts because of defining physical characteristics, which can't be replicated no matter how many GRC one waves in the air. There is a need and a desire for separateness in certain contexts. How is that tantamount to the extremes of the Nazi ideology and racial segregation. Nobody here is asking for the sexes to be segregated in most other aspects of life, but those relating to privacy, safety and dignity and that is extremely paramount in some cultures. I think you will find that many members are or have been married or living with a member of the opposite sex, so that rather discounts the argument that we want to be segregated off from men. However, that does not mean we want to be adjacent to some random bloke when we are in a state of undress in a changing room, or lying ill in a hospital bed.