"Regressive and sexist"

I have every sympathy with the difficulties trans women face and I am sure I will have unknowingly come across them in my day to day life. If someone I knew felt the need to change sex I would support them 100%.

However, whilst the majority of trans women are not a danger to women there have been documented occasions when some claiming to be trans have carried out assaults on women. Is this to be looked upon as an acceptable risk?

The majority of men do not present a risk to women but they are not allowed into women only spaces because a minority may take advantage

I would suggest third spaces male female and mixed sex. All laws are difficult to enforce, look at the laws around rape, that doesn't mean we don't try to make good laws. I would also suggest we start challenging the misogyny that is the term living as a woman.

A third set of toilets labelled "mixed sex" could be useful to everyone when there is a long queue for the ladies and only a few mintes before the interval ends!

Here is an excellent article giving the views of Simon Fanshawe OBE, a co-founder of Stonewall UK.

www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,cofounder-of-stonewall-calls-for-calm_14648.htm?fbclid=IwAR0LxnqvJjXiPnqgkjsiS_PgyElYpYMAPtxbJCSlbPqKzuGkoEsjSwaLnPY

Fanshawe believes that the Stonewall of today is undermining the rights of lesbians and putting women and girls at risk by “unthinkingly” merging the rights of lesbians and gays with those of trans people

A trans woman trying on women's clothes cannot go into the men's changing room, because the attendants will see a woman and bar the way

Really?

But the attendants won't bar the way into the women's changing room to a man who looks exactly like a man but says the magic words "I am a woman".

So the transwoman simply has to say "I am a man".

And that is the dilemma.

This is a good read
www.holyrood.com/inside-politics/view,cofounder-of-stonewall-calls-for-calm_14648.htm?fbclid=IwAR279CjTxy_1mm-UJOwhspawZ-Qy34Yx2HRBqM2W_ES2W1j9_SkauXOdYeA

Sorry FarNorth still better twice than never?

"I think the gender debate is so infuriating, not just because TRA’s assertions and demands are often crazy, but because they don’t even agree with themselves. The whole thing is contradictions, conflation and incoherence. So I have some questions"
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1190769090056589312.html

These questions are worth considering.

I was thinking about the long history of LGB rights and how it was alleged when the law was changed and homosexuality was not illegal how this would destroy society and the family. That there was to begin with a huge focus on promiscuity, and the bathhouses and clubs opened. But over the years things have calmed down and now same sex couples are sometimes more lasting than hetero marriages. So I wonder if we are now seeing the extremist point of trans genderism and things will gradually settle down.

Perhaps things will settle down as it becomes clearer that trans people are no more one homogenous mass than that homosexuals are, as was feared, a single army of clones all hell-bent on seducing every straight man they met and sullying the pure minds of innocent children.

I still think it better that potential problems are identified and solutions found before legislation is passed.

I don’t agree that the position re trans rights is analogous to gay rights. Trans women are wanting to take rights away from me - decriminalising homosexuality, legislating for same sex marriage didn’t impact on my right to practice heterosexual sex nor marry someone of the opposite sex. But the TRAs want to take away my safe spaces -they are hell bent on taking away my privacy, dignity, safety.

trisher, have you read what Simon Fanshawe had to say - posted above?

The Simon Fanshawe article is brilliant.

It was hard in the days when people had to hide their truth.

It also reminded me that you don't who people really are on here.

I nam happy for people to live as they want to live. However, why shoudl the minoritys always have free reign to bully the majority? This is what is now happening. Bullying, wither way, is wrong. Women, those who were born that way, especially those who have suffered abuse, should be able to feel safe in female only spaces. I fully support transgender rights, but not at the expense of the rights of someone else. Anyone going through the process of gender reassignment, should have our support, but it shoudn't be so damn easy for people to just 'identify' as someone else. I identify as rich and skinny - however - I still can't fit into those size 10s or afford that tropical island. A bit of understanding flowing back the other way wouldn't hurt.

He says what I have been trying to say for ages.

"I think the gender debate is so infuriating, not just because TRA’s assertions and demands are often crazy, but because they don’t even agree with themselves. The whole thing is contradictions, conflation and incoherence. So I have some questions"
threadreaderapp.com/thread/1190769090056589312.html

Thank you FarNorth for including this link. It is again (like the Simon Fanshawe interview), what I was struggling to say but I am too clumsy to say it this well.
Also I am on the outside of things these days While
both of these men have their fingers on the pulse
It was a real relief to read this and Simon Fanshawe

I do fail to understand why anyone should expect TRAs to speak with one voice. All movements have members who are seen as extremists and there are conflicts in every movement. There were splits in the Gay rights movement, some men thought (and still think) there is no such thing as bi-sexual and such men are gays in denial. Gay men and lesbians have had many conflicts.
I read Simon Fanshawe I thought he was interesting but I noticed although he objected to self IDing he didn't actually say what might be used instead. I do agree about free speech and I would like to see a lot more discussions.

I read that sex attacks were up 98% in mixed gender/gender neutral spaces. And those were last years figures.
Now i have four young granddaughters and I want them to be safe.

Women deserve to feel safe.

Women now have to fight back again or we will lose our safe spaces.
M&S think they are being "current" but it looks like they have shot themselves in the foot.

Here is an article by a young woman who has detransitioned from being a transman.

"I knew I was a boy, because I loved cars, and trucks, and mud, and boxing, and girls. I knew I was a boy, because I didn’t ‘act’ like a girl - nothing about my character ‘felt’ girly, and trans ideology says everyone feels their gender. I didn’t feel like a girl."

medium.com/@charlie.evans/the-medicalization-of-gender-non-conforming-children-and-the-vulnerability-of-lesbian-youth-10d4ac517e8e

I am glad that she was able to backtrack before harm was done. It might be that in ten or twenty years there are going to be some very distressed people who have been on hormone blockers.
I do recognise some of her thoughts and feelings. How harmful to alter a young person's brain. I don't know if they are ever able to grow past this?

I’m not quite sure that this thread is really about trans people, because it seems everyone agrees that a trans person living as a woman is okay in female only spaces, precisely because they are living as a woman. I think the problem really is that women are uneasy about a man, living as a man, that he only has to say the magic words ‘I’m identifying as a woman’ and he is then allowed to use female only facilities. These are the men who may abuse women in the female only facilities. This seems to be the problem to me. A genuine trans woman, who is living as a woman, isn’t a threat to other women, I think.

If this link works this is another reason why women need female only changing rooms and its not about transitioning

twitter.com/iamredacted/status/1191491832938717185

It's also about safety for everbody, trans or not- While a trans person might have the legal right to use specific restrooms it doesn't protect them in the restrooms- If attacked, by law, the attacker can claim past sexual trauma as the trigger/cause-

Traumatized people are triggered by identifying a body type, not identidy- If a trans person living as a woman is obviously male bodied a traumatized woman could view the trans woman as a threat-

Nearly every woman has "at least" been sexually "taken advantage of" by a man in their lifetime- That is of course no fault of trans people, but walking into their correct bathrooms can make them sacrificial lambs by law-

it seems everyone agrees that a trans person living as a woman is okay in female only spaces, precisely because they are living as a woman.

I don't agree with that but, obviously, if a person looks like a woman I wouldn't know any different.