Where is the balance and how can we live respectfully with difference? Radical feminist (TERF) beliefs versus transgender beliefs.

JaneJudge, I don't understand. Are you saying there were gender neutral toilets and changing spaces, which everybody could use? Didn't these spaces have cubicles? I've worked in many places, where toilets are gender neutral (ie can be used by everybody) but they have individual doors. When I go to the gym/swimming pool, there's only one big changing room (gender neutral), but there are individual lockable changing rooms.

I work for a large organisation and even where I work which is extremely old, there are still gender neutral toilets and changing spaces. Where there isn't, those people that were assigned a different gender at birth now (as of recently) have to use access toilets/changing (ie disabled) This is a massive U turn as before we were just to accept Dave was now Sharon even if Dave was still wearing a tie.

Common sense wasn't working

It is't about being kind. We all have the capacity to be kind and understanding. It is about being sensible and open minded

LizzieDrip

LaCrepescule

It’s honestly not something I give headspace to. Far more important issues to concern myself with. I’ll join you in the firing squad Casdon.

Put me in there too.

And me. There does seem an excessive amount of post space given to this issue, which I do find a tad boring. I would be more more willing to accept it as a serious issue, if the % of crime Re transgender impinging on single sex space was even measurable, but it is so tiny as to be non-measurable against crime in general.

When does it actually make any difference to you whether a person is accepted as male or female, Doodledog?

The reason this has to be discussed at all is because people don't ave common sense

Transpeople are people whose mental gender is different from their physical gender, surely then they should be able to live across both genders.
'Gender' is a societal concept. It is not possible for someone wo have different mental and physical genders. There are no such things. 'Gender' is about how society expects people of each sex to act - it shifts across cultures, time frames and history.

I couldn't care less what people wear, or how they arrange their lives. If a man wants to wear a pink dress and heels, crochet doilies and read chick lit, or a woman wants to wear boiler suits, drink pints and dig the roads, you won't get any argument from me. Who they have sex with doesn't interest me either. Those things are cliched examples of gender expectations in 21st century Britain. Styles of dress, hobbies and occupations have all varied over the years. Men in powdered wigs and heels were fashionable in the 18th century, and women worked in mines in the 19th. Men still knit in fishing communities. Gender roles are not genetic or fixed.

Most children enjoy climbing - it's just that until recently girls were discouraged from doing so. Enjoying 'boys' games just means enjoying the things that others have said are not for you. It does not make you any different from any other child. Many girls want to be boys - maybe moreso in the past - as it dawns on them that it's a man's world, and much harder for women to succeed.

I agree that we should make it easier for people to stop conforming to gender roles, but that does not mean accepting men as women or vice versa. The two things are very different.

I also Agree with keepingquiet.

Quite a few of us are going to get shot!

can I suggest another view on this subject. Transpeople are people whose mental gender is different from their physical gender, surely then they should be able to live across both genders.

For women that is not a problem. I think all of us have at sometime or another known women who dressed and presented as men, usually in gay partnerships, we have accepted them for what they are in the life they live and treated them as men, at the same time as not batting an eyelid or treating them differently from other women when in the Ladies loo or in medical and other biologically female spaces.

The problem is, that for transwoman that is not true. Someone with a female mind, dressing and presenting as female, is almost entirely unacceptable in male spaces, whether loos, male groups, prisons or the like. They are in fact walking into danger, everytime they walk into a male space.

Surely what we should be doing is working is making men as accepting of transwomen as women are of trans en. It is trans women making the running in this fight, because once they come out as transwomen they are excluded from male life in a way transmen are not. Were men to be as accepting of transwomen as women are of transmen so that men born with a female mind in a male bdy could live between the two worlds as trans men do, much of the heat and point of this problem would go.

MissAdventure

I feel exactly the same.
My grandson's friends were angry that a lad won "girl of the year" or something at their prom.

😲🤬

I don't vote on this issue.
I do vote on anti-racism though, as people born with a certain skin colour cannot choose to be any other than they are.
The same for people with disabilities.
I think the numbers affecting the general population subject to transgender issues are relatively low.
Trans people already have the rights non-trans people have under law but the focus tends to be on sport and which toilet/changing room issues they should have.
I just don't see why other people in the population should be over-concerned about these matters.
Use separate chaging rooms and toilets- most public or even private toilets are non-specific these days anyway.
Live and let live is my philosophy- but if you commit a crime you have to bear the consequences of being your birth gender- the answer is not to break the law and this applies to everyone.
Maybe I'm missing the point here- discrimination is wrong, but some people don't get to make those choices so yes, my focus would be on them rather than those who choose to mark themselves as 'other.'
We're all the same under the skin, with the same needs and wants- we shouldn't make ourselves 'different' and then harp on about it.
Yes, you can shoot me too.

Me too.

I am with Doodledog on this

I feel exactly the same.
My grandson's friends were angry that a lad won "girl of the year" or something at their prom.

Every man too!

"Oh, and maybe respect that, when a woman says that she doesn't want to have sex with a biological male because, actually she's a lesbian; she shouldn't be harassed and publicly humiliated just because she doesn't want any "lady dick"."

This shouldn't even be a "trans" issue. Every woman should be respected for not wanting to have sex with another individual for whatever reason.

Oh, and I absolutely do object to men and boys joining women's organisations. There are women who for various reasons don't want to be in situations where men are present, and there are plenty of organisations that cater for mixed sex groups.

I would not have been at all happy for my 13 year old daughter to go to Guide camp with boys in the tent, and if Gary decided to call himself Gladys it would not have made any difference to my objections.

Casdon

I’ll get pilloried for saying this I’m sure, but it’s not a topic that I’m interested in, I can’t be bothered with all the high emotion and posturing from both ‘sides’ around it, I let them get on with it, and it doesn’t affect my voting pattern, it’s a peripheral issue for me. Shoot me now.

I'm certainly not going to shoot you - unless I get shot too. That's exactly how I feel.

It wouldn't be that difficult to define exceptions, so that (for example) female-only changing rooms remain just that and competitive sports have exclusion rules.

I don't understand all the emotion (and hysteria) around the issue. And I certainly think there are more important "women's issues" to be concerned about.

It would never affect my voting preference.

Bang!

Casdon

I’ll get pilloried for saying this I’m sure, but it’s not a topic that I’m interested in, I can’t be bothered with all the high emotion and posturing from both ‘sides’ around it, I let them get on with it, and it doesn’t affect my voting pattern, it’s a peripheral issue for me. Shoot me now.

Totaly disinterested and occasionaly perplexed.

Shoot me too.

Oreo

LemonJam

As of 2026, transgender women in England and Wales will not be placed in female prisons if they have repainted male genittalia or have been convicted of any violent or sexual offences.

Repainted?😄

sorry for typo Oreo- "Retained" 🥱

I don't identify as a Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminist, and rather object to the idea that people who see sex as biological and don't believe in so-called 'gender' should be labelled as such.

Having said that, I think that everyone should be treated with respect and not discriminated against. I also think that excluding men from women's spaces and from competing against women in sport is not discriminatory - if they have male hormones and a penis they are not women, whatever they may 'feel'.

Unfortunately, there is no political party for which I could vote who is prepared to agree with what I see as a 'common sense' approach. I am a Labour voter, but they don't represent my views on trans issues. I voted for them at the las GE despite that, as there was no conscionable alternative for me. Should one evolve, I would be influenced by it.

Trans issues don't impact on me much at my age, but I fear for my daughter's generation, and for those who follow. If there is nowhere that women can go without the presence of men, and if the language no longer accommodates the concept of women being female and men being male, we will become a weaker section of the human race with none of the women's rights we have fought for for years. There will be no possibility of proving anything, as statistics will no longer separate male behaviour/health/wealth/opportunities from those of female humans.

I don't think that 'misgendering' or 'deadnaming' are real concepts - basically they mean not playing along with someone else's fantasy, and it is ridiculous to make them illegal. I would call Eddie Suzie for the sake of politeness, but would tie myself in knots to avoid referring to Eddie as 'she' when it is clear that Eddie is a man. Eddie would not be treating me respectfully and without discrimination if there were an insistence that I paid homage to what is basically a flight of fancy.

Oh, and I will not declare my pronouns either. I don't care what people call me when I'm not there, and when I am I would prefer to be called by my name. 'She' is the cat's mother, not a name for someone who is in the room. I use 'they' as a plural pronoun or when I don't know the sex of the person or people concerned - I don't like the way we are sometimes coerced into using it as a way of making sex-based pronouns redundant. They are not. I want to know if a taxi driver or doctor (or whoever) is male or female. It may not make a difference to whether I am happy to be treated or driven my them, but that choice should always be mine.

It's an important issue to me, so I wouldn't vote for a party that does not recognise the rights of women and is prepared to ensure that they're maintained.

As for how can we live respectfully with the difference I have nothing to add to Cardamon's comprehensive reply.

What is *repainted male genittalia?* The mind boggles!

LemonJam

As of 2026, transgender women in England and Wales will not be placed in female prisons if they have repainted male genittalia or have been convicted of any violent or sexual offences.

Repainted?😄