Woman

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

That is an interesting question. In fact I started a thread about it a while ago. It is such a diversion from this one that it makes no sense to start talking about it here - why not start a new one? I'd be very interested to see what you have to say about the way in which some women are refusing to support gender critical feminists.

As for the rest - You are the one saying that women should stand up for themselves:

given that legislation takes time, couldn't women just stand up for themselves a bit?? trisher 17:48

No one has said women haven't stood up for themselves enough trisher 20:20

Are you really saying what you think on these threads, or just scrabbling for something that you think will 'win' the post? You don't seem to be able to remember what you think from one post to the next.

Nobody has said or implied that women are victims - the exhortation that we should stand up for ourselves comes from you, not anyone else.

I am aware that there are those who think that TWAW - their voice is very loud and clear. That they feel like that is not under dispute. What is under dispute, however, is their (and your?) belief that as soon as a man says he is a woman he becomes one, and as such has unfettered access to all (previously) female spaces (define those as you will).

Are you arguing that because not all women will be intimidated by someone exposing themselves that all women should put up with it? What about your hypothetical transwoman who was raped in the male communal changing room of the swimming baths? Why should she put up with deliberate exposure if she can't bear to see male bodies in a more neutral setting? Actually, how would she feel about other transwomen undressing in the female communal changing room if they were still intact males?

11.57 Missed this one?
Wonderful diversion about the choir, the deep voice and the woman’s size.
Does the person with the deeper voice or the large size make you aware that they are trans? (Did you announce you were heterosexual to initiate such a conversation?)
Does the person with the deeper voice and the large size -we have several in a choir where I sing, do anything which makes you feel uncomfortable, e.g. display their bits-male or female.
Do they do anything which makes you want to challenge them?
Does your large muscular friend do anything that would invite investigation?
Have you uncovered suggestion that checks should be made on women in choirs if they are larger or sing deeper.
I’ll digress and join your attempts at diversion, though I’m making it quite clear this is another nonsensical diversion so answers are not necessary.
On the same basis as your questions above, would you have wanted to check the BeeGees when you heard them sing falsetto.

No one has said women haven't stood up for themselves enough
Simply that most violence is domestic- 92% of cases.
That you are focussing on something for which there is little evidence apart from a few individuals who terrible as they are are not typical. And I wonder why you do that.
That actually there are women who will not be intimidated by someone exposing themselves and all women are not victims.
That isn't blaming the others simply pointing something out.
Just as there are women who think transwomen are women, who don't see them as a threat and who are not being eliminated. You are entirely entitled to your opinions but really such personal attacks. Shouldn't feminists support other women no matter how much they disagree with them?

Trisher says, “ . . . couldn’t women just stand up for themselves a bit??”
I wonder what she thinks they should do? Women who have recently stood up for themselves and what they believe, find themselves “cancelled”, removed from office, and accused of transphobia among other things.
In real life as well as on GN they are faced with people who refuse to give unambiguous answers to questions relating to women’s rights to safety and other women’s rights issues and are often offered diversionary tactics instead, to avoid the a straightforward answer.

couldn't women just stand up for themselves a bit??

So that’s where women have been going wrong all this time! We haven’t stood up for ourselves enough. All those women killed though domestic violence, women who’ve been raped but no case has come to court, women subjected to sexual abuse. If only they’d stood up for themselves.

If that’s not a bully’s charter, I don’t know what is.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

You never started answering my questions, or those of anyone else ?

You will never come to understand if you treat all attempt to discuss the issues by your DARVO tactics, but I don't think you want to - you are arguing in circles and making few useful points.

I gained no personal satisfaction from the incident. I mentioned it as it happened as this thread was live. I did not resort to dragging a lesbian affair in a prison that happened 50 years ago into it, which you clearly thought was ok, however.

I wish I hadn't mentioned it, not because, as you slyly insinuate, that it was not true, but because it gave you another opportunity to divert the conversation so that you could attack me and attempt to reverse the situation in the hope of presenting me as the oppressor to your victim, but anyone who has read the thread will see this for what it is.

If you really knew anything you'd know that most violence against women happens in the home and not in public places and it's usually someone the women know, not a stranger.

That is a truly appalling thing to say, you should be ashamed of yourself Trisher for advancing it. Violence against women should be condemned wherever and whenever it occurs. Of course trans violence against women isn't common, the number of men making these claims is very small.

On the basis of your remarks I assume that as most child abuse happens in the home we should not be too concerned any that happen outside the domestic situation, Jimmy Saville, I mean there was only one of him.

Oh I stopped answering your questions Doodledog when the bloke in the changing room shed his budgie smugglers!
I've realised none of you actually want any solutions you just want to frighten each other or condemn transpeople.

If you really knew anything you'd know that most violence against women happens in the home and not in public places and it's usually someone the women know, not a stranger.

The transwoman wouldn't be upset by the sight of a male body, just afraid of being attacked again.
I will never understand why concern for a transperson is regarded as not caring about women. Both matter. Both need protection, but posting unfounded and doubtful scenarios, with no real concept of what can be done or even what you hope can be done is just scaremongering for some strange personal satisfaction.

Indeed, Germanshepherdsmum

trisher, rather than diverting again, would you please answer the question.

Why, in your world, does a transwoman who has been raped have a right to use a female communal changing rooms in case she gets distressed by the sight of male bodies, but a woman who has been raped have to share a ward or a prison cell (or space in a DV hostel) with an intact male?

It's really not a complicated question, but your reluctance to answer it speaks volumes.

I could say that not all transwomen faint at the sight of a penis, but that would be sinking to your level, so I will resist the temptation.

A lot of vulnerable women would find it very difficult to “stand up for themselves”. Why should it be necessary for them to do so in what they quite reasonably expect to be a safe all-female space? Why are you putting the onus on them to ensure their mental and physical safety in such a place? This is clear evidence of your desire to back the rights of trans women over those of natal women.

As far as I know Doodledog no one male or female has the right to decide who is in the hospital bed next to them.

That's fine Mollygo but given that legislation takes time, couldn't women just stand up for themselves a bit??

What an amazing diversion.
Wether or not women would faint at the sight of a penis is your excuse for it being OK for men (and let’s not pretend that transwomen flaunting a penis instead of being considerate are anything but men) makes it OK for men to be in women’s spaces. ????
Is that the best you can do?
Women have the right to women only spaces where they can feel safe, whether the safety involves their mental health, their religion or even their fear of men. Transwomen who wish to access those spaces should not need to make it obvious that they are trans.

I don't think anyone fainted.

While you're here, instead of spinning out one incident, can you please answer the more pertinent one about why it is more important to you that a transwoman shouldn't have to use facilities that she finds distressing than that women should have a say as to who is in the next bed in the hospital, or any of the other examples we have all given over and over.

If you could stick to the point whilst answering, that would be great.

Where in the name of Sylvia Pankhurst are we going to find hen parties of women willing to lurk about in toddler group swimming sessions in case of wandering males? These days most women hold down paid work, and/or have other things to do. Ridiculous.
So Doodledog these intact males only operate on weekdays and during toddler sessions. Hang on aren't the mothers at these sessions women too? Why aren't they working? . OK let's drop the hen parties let's empower these women. Next time a man strips off suppose they all turn round and shout "Oh look a willy!" and make some disparaging remark about it.
I suggested hen parties because I've seen them operate and they terrify men. But a lot of young women don't faint at the sight of a penis.

You've got a lot more patience than me trisher.

When are you going to stop digging Trisher? Are you trying to reach Oz, circumventing current restrictions?

Women will always bear the brunt of transwomen's unquestioned and wholesale inclusion in our safe spaces. We should be free to say no without censure.

So at what point in the process do we accept that a male is actually a female and say that this particular transwoman can have access to changing rooms, hospital wards, prisons, sports etc?

Has he become a woman on the day of his decision to live as a woman? Is it the point where he begins to wears women's clothes, some of the time, most of the time, or all of the time? Is it the point where that individual seeks medical help and begins hormone treatment? Is it the point where he tells his employer/family/friends etc. that he is now female? Is it the point where all official documents are changed? Is it at the point where he undergoes castration and the surgery to invert the penis to create the semblance of a vagina? Is that male ever biologically female?

If Alex Drummond rocks up for a hospital admission, where would we place him? If Eddie Izzard needed surgery would he swap wards depending on whether he was in girl mode or boy mode that day? If it was Wednesday we may place Pippa Bunce on a female ward, but what if today is Thursday?

Granygranby*
What do I think?? whatever floats ones boat.

All good examples, petunia, but also any woman who has been raped by a man - whether or not he identified as female - has as much of a chance to be traumatised and not want to be naked or otherwise vulnerable in front of intact males as a transwoman has.

Given the numbers of women rape victims against the number of transwomen rape victims, it seems to me, even without taking feminism into account, that the former's sensibilities should be prioritised.

A transwoman can always use a cubicle in a swimming pool. A woman has no choice about who is in the next bed in hospital.

“In 50 years have women in any way been damaged by sharing with transpeople?”
Good point trisher.
I’m sure you could produce documentation to support it.
Just because nothing was reported, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It could well have been because in the last 50 years, transpeople transitioned without the purpose of retaining elements of their birth sex with harmful intent.

However, you digress. The issue that needs addressing now is not what has happened previously, but what harm is being caused to natal women now.

trisher - you keep using the scenario of a transwoman being raped when using male facilities. How about a scenario where a woman is raped by someone self identifying as a woman whilst using female facilities? If someone is still physically male then they should not use female facilities . Once they have undergone surgery then, of course, they would be accepted as female.

I would imagine that the two women Karen White assaulted might not share you view Trisher. I would also imagine the woman in a California prison now pregnant with a transwoman 's baby wouldn't either. Maybe not the 79 year old mother of Chris Chan, repeatedly raped by her son.
These women shared with transwomen. Dont they count?

I can't believe that you are making a case for a hypothetical man who was raped in a male changing room to use a communal female one (and so ensure that Muslim women, Orthodox Jewish women and women who may have been raped feel unable to use it), but refuse to accept that women who have been raped should not have to share hospital wards, prison accommodation and DV refuges with intact men.

How can you say that and also that you are not putting men's needs ahead of women?

Doodledog It's you who are using the incident. I've suggested several solutions, asked if you would prosecute a transwoman who used female facilities because she has been raped in the men's. I suppose you would have some sympathy for her, but I know full well that there are others who would use the legislation you propose to its fullest extent and not care if transwomen are raped and criminalised. And the problem with what you might consider quite reasonable legislation is that unreasonable people will use it.

The word women has never been particularly important- 70s feminists rejected it because it had the word "man" in it and made us part of men. They found it offensive.
Real life just means extending the word to accept people who have been with us for centuries and used the same facilities. Jan Morris transitioned over 50 years ago. I'm sure she wasn't the only person. In 50 years have women been in anyway damaged by sharing with trans people?