Transwomen are not women - X (XY?)

[JoeMorgue]

Also call me when a transwoman volunteers to get 3/4th pay to better fit in with her new sisters.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Until I see evidence of a evil plot by non-trans male predators to get into the ladies' room by dressing as a woman and claiming to be trans, I think its just hysteria.

Lol, framing the concerns of females about their risk in vulnerable spaces as "hysteria". No misogyny in that at all, nope, no way, no how.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Trans "ideology" hasn't declared that female-only space have to go. They have declared that transwomen ARE women, and should be allowed in female-only spaces.

Let me get this straight... You're saying that you'll allow us poor hysterical empty-headed females to keep our female-only intimate spaces... but only if we let in any male that says the magic words and insists they are "women"?

Thank you, Mr. Man, for making sure us ignorant womenfolks know our place.

 

[Emily's Cat]

We haven't yet established that all transwomen are MEN and must be treated as MEN.

I see good arguments on both sides.

What do transgender identified males share in common with females that they do NOT share in common with males?

How do you tell the difference between a transwoman and a man?

 

[Rolfe]

Also call me when a transwoman volunteers to get 3/4th pay to better fit in with her new sisters.

Or when one of them takes on even a fair share of housework and childminding. One of the constant features of the transwidow narratives is that the AGP man spent hours (and a lot of money) trying to attain his unattainable ideal of looking like a female prostitute, and refused to do any housework on the grounds that it would spoil his manicure.

 

[Emily's Cat]

Proof?

Got a news article?

Spend some time browsing through Women are Human

Search twitter for "that thing that never happens"

Read through some of the articles on Reduxx

Claiming you won't believe it until someone shows you proof, while simultaneously relying on your ignorance to avoid actually finding out is not a good faith engagement in this discussion.

 

[Emily's Cat]

God, there are about twenty Twitter threads collecting such articles together, mostly getting very long by now. "That thing that never happens has just happened again" is the usual comment. It would be funny if it wasn't so serious. If you really aren't aware of this, you're too naive to be in this thread, quite honestly.

It's like insisting that we must show them... while also squinching their eyes tightly shut and screaming "la la la I can't hear you" at the top of their lungs. As if they not having seen it first hand makes it not real. It's the same justification used by people who insist the moon landing was faked, really..

 

[Emily's Cat]

Transwomen for the most part act and think like your average woman.

Oh, please, do educate us on how the average woman acts and thinks. You, being a male, must surely be an expert on "what womens be like", right?

 

[Emily's Cat]

I am not yet completely convinced, but a fair argument can be made that transwomen should be treated as women.

And what argument would that be? If it's a fair argument, you should be able to replicate it here and make your case, shouldn't you?

 

[JoeMorgue]

Well part of it is the whole "Oh well if they are doing bad stuff that aren't really, bonafide True Scotsmans Trans" that they either A) actually believe or B) use as an excuse.

I've been critical of a lot of arguments in this discussion that boil down to "Hey can we somehow just define 'rapist' as its own gender?"

 

[Emily's Cat]

Not going to discuss the obvious.

It's certainly not obvious to me, nor I suspect to many others in this thread. You refusing to be explicit suggests that your premise is based on nothing more than zealous faith.

The issue is whether we should TREAT transwomen as women. A fair argument has been made to the affirmative.

How should you treat women? What is the argument?

 

[JoeMorgue]

*Laughs* Everyone is asking the trans side the same question over and over and we are never going to get an answer.

We are never, ever going to get an answer on what factor of the other gender trans people want to... lay claim to I guess (not 100% what I'm trying to say but in the ballpark) and this entire argument is just so much... nothing until we get an answer on that.

 

[Emily's Cat]

I don't treat men and women differently. What exactly am I supposed to do here?

Don't point and laugh, don't beat people up. That's really all that's required in terms of how you treat people who are transgender.

Granting them rights to use facilities that are separated by sex, however, is a completely different topic.

Although... I will say that if males were more accepting of non-conforming males in male spaces, that would probably help. So encourage your fellow males to be more tolerant of males in dresses and lipstick when they enter male-only intimate spaces, and perhaps start campaigning to keep males from raping other males with whom they are incarcerated?

 

[Emily's Cat]

Yes, by giving them assess to women-only spaces.

I hold the door open for women AND men, as its polite.

Alternatively... stop making male-only intimate spaces unsafe for non-conforming males!

 

[Emily's Cat]

They dress as a women, they undergo hormone therapy and surgery to make them look like a physical woman, they live their lives as a woman, they identify as a woman and with women.

Does that mean that females who wear trousers and loafers aren't women?

Does that mean that if a white person undergoes surgery to make them look like a black person, they actually become a black person?

What does "identify as a woman" mean?

 

[Rolfe]

Well part of it is the whole "Oh well if they are doing bad stuff that aren't really, bonafide True Scotsmans Trans" that they either A) actually believe or B) use as an excuse.

I've been critical of a lot of arguments in this discussion that boil down to "Hey can we somehow just define 'rapist' as its own gender?"

The argument goes something like, but you must think of the poor "true trans" person above all. You can't exclude "her" from your spaces because you have this paranoid fantasy that predators will "pretend" to be trans in order to access vulnerable victims.

Then we show the bazillion cases where men identifying as transwomen have assaulted, raped, etc etc, and suddenly these people are "not true transwomen" and should be excluded. But without explaining how it is possible to exclude the bad actors while allowing the hypothetical "true trans" person in, or how this sudden declaration that the bad actors aren't "really trans" squares with the earlier declaration that it's hysteria to imagine that predators would pretend to be trans to gain access to victims.

The fall-back when pressed is that everyone who wants into women's intimate spaces should be allowed in, and then when they commit a crime they should be "dealt with". Apparently no consideration is given to the effect of allowing bad actors into these spaces until they commit a crime, or the trauma of apprehending them and getting a conviction. Or that in a situation where anyone who says he's a woman is a woman, voyeurism and flashing are no longer crimes.

 

[Emily's Cat]

It would make them feel better.

Yep. The feelings of males are more important than the rights and safety of females. Males have a right to feel good about themselves, but females have no right to safety, privacy, or dignity if it makes males feel bad.

As far as I can tell, that's really the main argument. There are also some claims about safety for trans people (ie, transwomen who are forced to use male spaces are supposedly attacked for doing so), but that seems to be a secondary one.

Yep. Transgender identified males can't use the male-only intimate spaces, because they're afraid that males will hurt them.

Females who don't want males in their female-only spaces, because they're afraid males will hurt them, however, are bigoted evil transphobes who don't deserve any compassion or consideration.

 

[Emily's Cat]

This doesn't take into account men who feel they were born into the WRONG body and need to undergo hormone therapy and surgery to become the person they truly are and were meant to be.

It is not possible to be born in the wrong body. A person who feels as if they are in the wrong body has a mental disorder.

Brains lie. My brain absolutely insists that I'm about four inches taller than I am in reality. I am frequently surprised that I can't reach the top shelf at the grocery store. I'm shocked when I see pictures of me alongside other people I know, because my brain insists I'm much closer to their height than the photo shows.

That does NOT mean that I should get surgery to make my legs longer, and it certainly doesn't mean that I should insist that everyone around me PRETEND that I'm 5'5" instead of 5"1'.

Reality exists outside of my brain. My brain's false perceptions and errant beliefs do not alter that reality one whit.

 

[Emily's Cat]

You may not be comfortable, but it's a common enough thing. It typically happens when there are long queues at gigs, theatres, cinemas and so on. I'm pretty sure I've seen it at the Natural History Museum where I recall the toilet facilities being inadequate. Normally there is some assertive woman who leads the charge. My mother has definitely joined the line of women going to the gents. I've never seen any protest.

Completely aside... this does happen, although it is almost always limited to crowded events. And there's a very good reason why - ther've even been some studies on it.

In short... the actual facility availability isn't equal. Sure, there are probably the same number of rooms labeled "mens" and labeled" womens"... but with each of those facilities, the actual number of receptacles isn't even. Frequently, the male restroom will have only slightly fewer stalls with toilets, and will have at least as many urinals as they have stalls. Female restrooms only have stalls. Stalls take up more space, but in most buildings, the male and female restrooms have the same square footage. That means that for example, an average theater restroom for females may have six stalls, while the male theater restroom has four stalls and six urinals. That allows up to ten males to use the restroom at a time, whereas only six females can do so.

And that's before we take into consideration the time involvement, compliments of anatomy. If all a male has to do is pee, they can use the urinal. It's generally a quick unzip, pull out, pee, insert, zip up operation. For a female, pants need to be partially removed or skirts pulled up, then undergarments need to be partially removed - add more time if the female is wearing tights or hose. Then that clothing needs to be put back on. The entire process of removing clothing from the area of fire is longer for females than it is for males.

So the net result is that female restrooms have fewer receptacles than male restrooms do, AND females need longer in order to use those receptacles on average.

So even if a building has the same number of rooms set aside for male and female toileting... the actual utility of those rooms is very different.

 

[Rolfe]

They also say women need to use the toilet more often. I don't know if that's true, although during pregnancy it's obviously a factor. On the other hand I can go all day without visiting the loo, while men of my own age are constantly paying a call.

But simply on the points you make, the point has been made frequently that facilities need to be rebalanced so that there is more actual space on the women's side, to make the actual availability even. For men to try to capitalise on this long-standing problem to claim that men's toilets have been shamelessly appropriated by women, as if this is somehow equivalent to men invading women's spaces for their own sexual, fetishistic gratification, is unworthy.

Another thing that has struck me is the frequent complaint from women who have encountered venues where all facilities have been rebranded as mixed sex, is that men - apparently normal men, not weirdo freaks in heels and lipstick - then swan into what used to be the women's facilities, making the queues there even longer, as the women are understandably reluctant to swan into the formerly male facilities, which still have open urinals. What is even going on there?