Woman

Ignoring the diversions for a minute, what about the point that there was a private cubicle option? Would you support a law that prohibited untransitioned transwomen from accessing communal spaces such as I described?

Also, you said upthread that it was in the interests of women to allow untransitioned transwomen into their spaces. Can you please explain how women benefit from having them in hospital wards, prisons, refuges etc, all of which make changing rooms pale into (comparative) insignificance?

It would also clear the air if you could let us know whether you see those of us who keep saying that we are not transphobic, but simply have concerns about language and safe spaces are telling the truth?

If you want to cheerlead each other. . . That’s unfair trisher. I did thank you when you posted about the erosion of women’s employment rights.

I’ve been waiting for a response from you, and from GJ, because she is the one who demonstrates that making assumptions is an OK way to go. Otherwise in response to my post on 5.8.21, we can take it that;

You do think it’s right to deny natal women safe spaces where the admission of some transwomen make the spaces unsafe, and women feel at risk, whether that be hospital, toilets, prisons or other single sex spaces.

You do actually believe that transwomen should be allowed into those spaces until, on an individual basis, a transwoman admitted, harms a natal woman, girl or child physically or mentally.

You do think it’s right that even a small but potentially increasing number of women and girls should be denied the right to compete or win at the highest level by having to compete against transwomen who still have the virtue of having reached puberty as a male and the advantages that gives.

OMG how many times do I have to say it.
It is impossible to police properly places which are accesible to the general public. Transwomen anyway have been using them for years and the number of attacks or any other harrassment by a transwoman is minimal. There is therefore no point in having any law which in anyway resticts access to those places .

In circumstances where women feel genuinely disturbed or upset by a transwoman using the same space, where for example women might not use the space because of transwomen, even those with a GRC can be excluded. I'm happy with that.

Women's sport has for years been subjected to unreasonable and invasive assessments for their gender. At least one woman has been driven to suicide by this. I think that needs sorting before anything is done about transwomen. Black women in particular are affected. I'm far more concerned about what is being done to those women than anything to do with transwomen

I think that needs sorting before anything is done about transwomen.

Humans are capable of addressing more than one problem at a time you know. Women are renowned for their ability to multi-task, I'm sure a panel of women could address the multiple problems in women's sport at the same time.

*OMG how many times do I have to say it.
It is impossible to police properly places which are accesible to the general public. Transwomen anyway have been using them for years and the number of attacks or any other harrassment by a transwoman is minimal. There is therefore no point in having any law which in anyway resticts access to those places.*

Most laws are honoured in the breach not the observance, so that's not a problem. I am losing count of what I said where, but on one of the current threads I suggested that where a transwoman behaves like the ones you describe and is quietly going about her life, there is no issue, but when someone knowingly goes into a protected female space and causes concern, they be charged with a specific offence.

How would you feel about that?

It is an offence to threaten to harm or physically damage another person, regardless of if there is physical contact. So the law already exists Doodledog
Assault is sometimes defined as any intentional act that causes another person to fear that she is about to suffer physical harm. This definition recognizes that placing another person in fear of imminent bodily harm is itself an act deserving of punishment, even if the victim of the assault is not physically harmed. This definition also allows police officers to intervene and make an arrest without waiting for the assaulter to actually strike the victim.

Riiiiight.

Not quite the same thing, though. Do you think that it should be a specific offence for an intact male, however he identifies, to be in a protected female space?

Not particularly it may be a single father finding the only decent loo to take his young daughter to is the women's. Is it fair to make him a criminal?

No, it was a changing room and he was naked. But let's leave this chap out of it - as a general principle, do you think that women should be protected by making it an offence for an intact male to be in their spaces, particularly in a state of undress (and not a member of the emergency services etc etc).

That’s fine trisher. For you, transwomen men achieving to the detriment of natal women is OK until everything else you mention is sorted out.
I disagree.
I think that the problems need to be addressed as they arise and continue to be addressed until they are sorted, with particular attention being given where the initial issue has been exacerbated by new developments and attempts to defeat any system that has been put in place.

There has been a problem with ‘men masquerading as women in order to compete for the laurels of victory . . . back to the early cold war period’ ( see bjsm)
They have tried a variety of strategies to ensure that women are actually women, from making the women competitors parade naked before a panel of female doctors (1966) to using more scientific methods. Unacceptable, I agree, but who caused the need for such gender verification? Certainly not the men who were competing as men or natal women competing as women!
There is even suggestion in the same Bjsm document, that a pre-pubescent sex change would mean the athlete could then compete as a woman and would not have an unfair advantage, but “according to the Stockholm consensus, surgery must include gonadectomy and revision of the external genitalia and hormonal therapy must be administered in a verifiable manner.”
I could discuss the rights and wrongs of such early treatment, but not here.

They did not agree that athletes who undergo reassignment after puberty should be allowed to compete in the same way.

The problems of black female athletes needs addressing. We only see the successful ones so have no idea of issues behind their success other than those also suffered by white female athletes. Unless the problems are also caused by their chances being hampered by transwomen, then this is not relevant here.

As I said at the start I believe the issue of the rights of female athletes should not be addressed in a linear fashion, with new problems having to wait in line until the previous one has been sorted, but dealt with as they occur.

Yes Rosie51 I agree that humans, not necessarily only women, are capable of addressing more than one problem at once. Look at the make up of the IOC.

I was delighted to see mixed teams competing at this year’s Olympics, but the current scenario means that a mixed team could have transwomen and men. Would they win? Would the other teams feel it was fair if they did? Perhaps what we need is for men to see the unfairness and complain.

Doodledog

No, it was a changing room and he was naked. But let's leave this chap out of it - as a general principle, do you think that women should be protected by making it an offence for an intact male to be in their spaces, particularly in a state of undress (and not a member of the emergency services etc etc).

That's funny he's shed his swimming costume since Monday. You know the one
My friend did not need to control herself when she saw a man in a wig and swimsuit with barely concealed tackle in the female changing room. Her three year old was under no illusion either
So perhaps it is best he should be left out of it or I might start to question his existence.

Mollygo my opinions on women's sport are clearly stated while you continue to make statements I have never made I refuse to debate with you.
Would you be happy if I summed up your comments as being quite happy for women in sport to be driven to suicide because you are obsessed with transwomen?

So perhaps it is best he should be left out of it or I might start to question his existence.

I wasn't there, but I took my friend at her word - he was in a swimsuit which he took off to get changed, it being a changing room. A female changing room designed for mothers and toddlers to change in, on the 'female' side of the pool. The male facilities were on the opposite side to avoid instances of people entering the wrong one by 'mistake'. I accepted your suggestion that he may have been pre-transition, but even so, he had the option to use the single cubicles instead of the communal changing room.

So far, I have been accused of holding eugenicist views, of being a keyboard warrior, a racist, a homophobe, having twisted views, being guilty of inaction, a theoretical feminist, and now you are suggesting that I am a liar.

Luckily I'm not easily rattled, but it's not a good look - you'd do better to stick to answering the questions people are patiently putting to you instead of hoping that being offensive will divert the conversation away from the issues.

Not obsessed trisher, any more than you appear to be and I haven’t refuted any of your points, merely said that they should all be addressed at the same time, not listed one after the other. Since you mention women driven to suicide in sport, I’d add that to the list of important issues. I thought you’d agree with that as it means all of the issues you refer to would not have to wait until the issue of men/transwomen has been resolved -and they haven’t managed it since the first half of the last century.
Which statements?
Oh no!
I’ll never find out because you refuse to debate with me. ?
I don’t suppose I’ll ever find where I’ve said that I’m happy for women in sport to be driven to suicide, but since you ask, I’m one of the people on here who doesn’t have a problem giving a yes or no answer and I’m happy to give a straightforward answer.

No I’m not happy for women in sport to be driven to suicide either by their coaches or by other competitors or by levels of stress caused by competition.

I find this thread really depressing. The human race is turning itself inside out and I think I’m just too old to cope. I’m all for freedom of speech and expression but to me it will never be right for an intact man to use single sex spaces intended for women, no matter what his/her stage of transitioning. It’s simply too open to abuse and too much of a threat to women.

Pammie1 at the risk of being criticised for saying so, good post and valid point.

One wonders how female guards can be provided for these hotels to keep these women safe, if we can’t even define what a women is.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/stories-58089029

Why can't we keep the language so that 'woman' and 'female' mean what they have always meant, and use transwoman/transman when that's what we mean?

That way there would be a lot less concern about women being subsumed into a sub-class of 'male' and it would mean that laws could target what they are supposed to much more specifically. In other words, turn the clock back a few years to before Stonewall spun out of control.

Doodledog You keep coming up with such sensible suggestions.

In wanting to be fair to trans people there is a danger of eroding the hard won rights of women. Perhaps there should be additional spaces made available which could be used by all genders but also keeping female (and male) only spaces.

Once a person has undergone the necessary surgery they would be free to use the facilities of that gender

Much the best idea I’ve seen on here, Doodledog.

Doodledog speaks very eloquently for many of us.

But the law says they must live as a woman for two years and produce evidence of that in order to get a GRC. Surgery isn't an option for some and some are just on a waiting list. So because selfID was blocked trans people must use the facilities of the gender they consider themselves they have no other option.
No one is eroding my rights. No one is silencing me. (Although there have been many attempts to misrepresent and castigate me on this thread).
As for your swimming dilemma Doodledog my local pool bans anyone from removing their swimming costume in the ladies communal showers. So that would solve that one.

I’ll say it again. I have looked into this law of ‘living as a woman for two years’ It does not give permission to access sex segregated spaces. It only asks that your gender has been changed on passport, bank account and by other identifying forms like driving licence. The main concern of the authorities is duplicitous identity and money laundering etc. it gives no other rights. Which may be applied for for gender recognition.
I see first hand how trisher diverts and trivialises argument.
There will be no agreement but at least there is some discussion. For that I am glad. Let’s hope women won’t shut up. I call adult females ‘women’ no more, no less. I believe, and know, that woman is a sex class. Males who wish to transition to females call themselves women because they believe there is a valid gender identity which is based on stereotypes. They would like us to call ourselves something else, like cis-women. No chance. We want them to be called trans-women but their call to arms is ‘trans women are women get over it’ So that won’t happen. It is a semantic battle with very real consequences for women. Unfortunately many women don’t believe it is happening because of the cancelling and media blackout but rules and laws are being changed in their name.
The name of this game is: ‘men are women if they say so’ and that is such crap.
Simon Edge has just published a brilliant satire ‘the end of the world is flat’ on the tactics and lunacy of the movement and what drives it. ‘Animal farm for our time.. with jokes’ you can get it on kindle now.

Wow! I thoug