Number one:
The way the trans-hostile people frame opposing views is profoundly malicious and disgusting, and antithetical to everything this forum stands for. For example, Post #13,738 above.
Declaring that men can be women, and thereby erasing women as a distinct sex class, is the most misogynist thing a person can do.
Number two, and bear with me because this has a few parts:
If a man dresses as a woman in order to sexually assault women in bathrooms, part a, that is not a trans woman. That is a cross-dressing cis male rapist. Part b, that's already illegal. Part c, the number of times it has been documented to occur is vanishingly small. Part d, bathrooms have stalls and nobody is ever forced to see anybody else's genitals.
No True
Transwoman Scotsman is a terrible argument, and it's not just about bathrooms. It's also about prisons, DV and rape shelters, locker rooms, store changing rooms, sports and so on.
How do women tell whether the man dressed as a woman is a rapist, a voyeur or a "true" transwoman? We can't tell, and we shouldn't have to sacrifice not just our safety but our privacy, modesty and dignity just because some men believe that they can be women. How many attacks and instances of voyeurism is enough before you listen to women?
Number three:
Why is a trans woman less deserving of "comfort" than a cis woman? Do trans women not have equal rights? Where is a trans woman's "safe space"? Because I can assure you, it certainly isn't in the men's bathroom.
Everyone is deserving of equal comfort and equal rights, including the women whose feelings you so blithely dismiss. There is no right to use the single-sex space of the opposite sex. You say that men's bathrooms are not a safe space for men, implying that men are inherently violent, but you aren't joining the dots to see that if men are indeed inherently violent, then men shouldn't be in women's bathrooms. Women should not be the victims of that male violence. Neither should men, but that isn't a problem for women to solve. Advocate for third/gender neutral spaces. Impress on your fellow men the importance of #BeKind to other men. Start a campaign saying that as men, you are accepting of transwomen peeing next to you in your male facilities.
Number four, since I'm on a roll and this will almost certainly be the last time I put myself through posting in this horrid thread:
Sports governing bodies should be determining who gets to play, certainly not governments. The number of trans people competing at elite levels is vanishingly small. The concern over trans people in sports isn't about elite competition, which is where gender biases can come into play. It is being used to prevent children from participating.
It is sports governing bodies that are making the rules.
Elite sports start in grassroots sports, which is why the same rules must apply. Children are not being prevented from participation. Boys play in boys' or mixed teams, girls play in girls' or mixed teams. But boys don't get to play in the girls' teams or vice versa.
Number five:
Why are you so concerned with another person's genitals and/or chromosomes and/or hormonal patterns and/or secondary sexual characteristics (whatever it is you mean by the term "biological sex" this week) anyway? Isn't that kind of intrusive? Isn't it none of your damn business? Isn't it a matter between a person and whatever medical health professional under whose care they are? Isn't it subject to basic privacy, not to mention doctor-patient confidentiality?
Women have fought long and hard to get separate toilets/locker rooms/sports. The urinary leash is returning for women because men now want to use our spaces. We don't want the genital inspections that TRAs fantasise about, we just want men to follow the law (where applicable) and the social contract that everyone needs to follow in order to live harmoniously on our crowded planet.
Men - all men, however they dress or identify -
know that they make women uncomfortable or scared if they are in a women's single sex space. Some men don't care about the women's feelings, some get off on that discomfort. Most men, thankfully, do care about it so they self-exclude from women's spaces. All men should self-exclude from women's single-sex spaces.
Finally, since I believe it should be said out loud:
I think you know that I'm fully supportive of science, but in this particular specific case I don't give a ◊◊◊◊ about the science. I happen to think it largely agrees with me, but that's irrelevant because whether a human being has the right to exist as a person is not a matter of science. It is a matter of conscience, society, and basic human dignity. The right for a person to exist as their authentic self is greater than all arguments. If your response to this is "but wait, what about..." know that you have already lost. Personhood is not up for argument.
Nobody suggests that transwomen shouldn't exist as people. Nobody is denying their personhood. But they aren't women because they are male. And they have every right to exist, dress however they choose and be as happy in themselves as they can be. But not in the very few female single-sex spaces that exist - these spaces exclude males and they exist for good reasons; not just safety but also for modesty, dignity and privacy.
If you do not fully and 100% support a trans woman's right to be a woman in all functional ways in society, then I cannot respect your arguments, regardless of what they are. You and I cannot be friends. I will engage with you with basic politeness in other threads - most of you - but know that this is a courtesy. I don't like you and I believe that your views on this matter should be marginalised. You should not be engaged. You should be ostracised. And that is why I will not participate any further in this thread.
I find this attitude utterly bizarre. I have friends and family - people whom I like, or even love - who hold different political and religious views than I do. We know that we don't agree but we don't let it damage our friendships, nor do we seek the ostracisation of anyone because of their religious or political views. The idea of unpersoning someone for holding a view which is "worthy of respect in a democratic society" to quote an important judgment in the UK is anathema to me.
Trans women are women. The end.
No, they aren't. They cannot be women - no human can change sex - and as I said above, seeking to make men part of the sex class of women erases that sex class.
