Prisons as we currently understand then shouldn’t exist. Not that we don’t have to sometimes incarcerate people, but in a century or two, they will look with disgust at our prison system the way we look with disgust at the torture chambers of the Inquisition.
There isn’t any solution to trans incarceration in our prisons because there isn’t any solution to be found there at all.
I’ve been wondering about this, too. If an atheist had to choose between two rooms labeled “For Jews” and “For Christians”, I think they would rightly be frustrated at those being the only choices and having to pick one of them. I would think agenders would feel similarly when they had to pick between “men” and “women”, since they don’t identify with either.
I dunno. It could be greatly reduced, but as long as some humans are willing to abuse others and men are stronger than women it’s not going to go away completely. Your idea is pretty far out, though it would certainly be fun to try out being the opposite sex for a while. More likely is that we all live in a simulation and half the users look like anime characters or anthropomorphic animals rather than anything real.
Anyway, we’re a long way from that world right now. I hope you can understand a little better my objection to being asked to see/accept someone as a woman purely on the basis of gender identity?
Certainly. Some countries already allow it:
I didn’t. But honestly I’m a little afraid of giving the activists ideas. 
It would be opt-in, obviously. How would you prefer to deal with the problem of some inmates abusing others in prison?
But then I would think you’d have the same concerns as monstro. She has said that she wants the right to look at someone critically when they appear to be a male in a traditionally female space. I would think you would want the same thing if you have those concerns. Say you walked into the women’s locker room and it was deserted except for two people:
In terms of your feelings of personal safety at that moment, would you feel the same in all those scenarios or does it vary based on what the people look like?
I know what you mean.
But it is a valid thing to point out. All the arguments about how dehumanizing sex-segregation is could apply to men just as easily as it applies to transwomen. If we really are supposed to just shrug our shoulders at the penis dangling next to us, why should this shrugging only occur when it belongs to a trans woman? Why give women permission to prejudge men when it’s considered bigoted for them to prejudge transwomen?
It does seem vulnerable women are supposed to assume a different threat level based a person’s gender identity. But I can’t find data that supports a different threat level exists. I can only find data that supports equal threat levels between men and transwomen.
So if women are entitled to fear naked men, they are entitled to fear naked transwomen. Ergo, TERFs have a reason to push against the elimination of single-sex spaces on the basis of women’s safety and security.
If women aren’t entitled to fear naked men, then they aren’t entitled to fear transwomen. Ergo, eliminating gender-segregated spaces is the fairest position.
I would feel fine in the first scenario. In the second and third scenarios, if I saw a masculine cisman (or transman either, having a vagina doesn’t mean they are not men) and there is no indication I can see that they are female in any way in either presentation or behavior, I would report them.
I would report them.
If these individuals found out that you had called the authorities on them and they screamed “TERF” at you and accused you of denying their humanity, what would your response be? After all, there are masculine and androgynous transwomen. Also, if you’re in a locker room and everyone’s naked, it may not be obvious who is “female-presenting”.
If women are always going to be socially permitted to report a masculine male who is in the women’s restroom or locker room and they don’t have to worry about catching flak for this, then I’ll open the door to the women’s space and not be extra concerned about it. But if I’ve got to worry about someone screaming TERF at me for acting on my instincts or I have to worry about the authorities telling me their hands are tied, then I’m not going to be happy. Do you understand why I wouldn’t be happy? I don’t want to be put in a predicament where I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t.
Who is talking about calling the cops on them? If I was in Planet Fitness for example in the women’s locker room and someone who is unambiguously male walks in, I would tell the front desk. It’s entirely possible I could be wrong and if so, I would apologize and go on about my day. And if i’m right, they are kicked out. Not difficult.
Boxing gets by with not just heavyweights and lightweights but also middleweights in between, sure as there are welterweights and flyweights and even light heavyweights and — well, how many categories would you think?
And if i’m right, they are kicked out.
You have way more faith in people than I do. I would not trust an invader to admit to being an invader. And I would not trust that the front desk will always be moved to do something. Not when everyone and their mama nowadays has a camera phone and a social media account. What minimum-wage earning front desk professional wants to risk being blasted on Reddit for asking a potential transwoman what they are doing in the women’s locker room? None of them would.
No one wants to say the wrong thing and get screamed at. And there’s so much screaming. I’m bracing myself for the day when “man” is a bad word when referring to masculine males, because these individuals may be transwomen and their humanities will be crushed if you use “man” to describe them. If I was the front desk clerk at your gym and you asked me to check out the male in the women’s locker room, I’m not even sure I would be brave enough to talk to them. I don’t want to be accused of denying someone’s humanity. Minimum wage wouldn’t be enough to deal with that kind of accusation.
monstro, YWTF and others seem very fixated on the idea that allowing transmen into these spaces will allow intrusions of cismen. As has been pointed out many times now, the system already exists in many place, and there is a lot of data. The issues they are concerned about do not exist.
Equality is not a zero sum game. An increase of privilege for one group does not mean that the original group will lose.
I don’t trust my own society to do right by everyone. And I don’t trust that things are working smoothly everywhere. A lot of data has been shared in this thread indicating that things aren’t so rosy.
Equality is not a zero sum game. An increase of privilege for one group does not mean that the original group will lose.
If the slogan was “Transwomen are transwomen”, I wouldn’t be posting in this thread. But the slogan is “Transwomen are women.” As a woman, I am entitled to be concerned about the possible ramifications of this belief on me and others like. It’s great that you are optimistic about everything. However, that doesn’t mean skepticism isn’t warranted. I think it would be foolish for no one to be wary, given the gravity of the subject matter.
I’m OK with serving as TERFy punching bag if it means I can help your side shore up the weaknesses in its argumentation.
How would he be kicked out if all he has to do is claim to be trans? That’s the entire crux of the debate we’re having: the inescapable conclusion of redefining woman to “a woman is whomever says they are a woman.” If a man is bold enough to enter a women’s locker room, he’s bold enough to know the magic phrase that will enable him to avoid ejection.
There is something ironic about a transwoman prejudging another intact male, just on the basis of how feminine he looks or doesn’t look, as not belonging in a room reserved for undressed females. Like, both of y’all have penises. The same concerns you have swirling in your head when you see what looks like a masculine looking cis man are highly likely to be the same concerns swirling in the head of a woman who clocks you as a male. But only she’s supposed to be the backwards-thinking bigoted one? Maybe she was raised to believe a man can still be a man even if he dresses a certain way; thus, she ignores clothing and grooming when assessing whether a male intruder is present. That sounds pretty progressive to me, but I guess that is wrong. No man would ever think to put on dress and wear long hair, amirite? That’s strictly girly territory.
Affirmation of sexist stereotypes is the inescapable conclusion of all this stuff . But carry on.
In the last couple hundred posts or so, multiple examples have been posted of faux/true transwomen sexually harassing and/or assaulting women in female-only rape shelters. Multiple instances of true/faux transwomen attacking women in prisons have also been posted to this thread. A few hundred posts ago, a story about a transwoman attacking a child in a restroom was also posted.
Yes, in the grand scheme of all crimes committed globally, these are mere drops in the bucket. They are rare. But that doesn’t change the fact that the mere existence of these stories challenge the oft-repeated notion that trans inclusive policies don’t put women at risk. They do. If Karen White hadn’t been placed in a woman’s prison, the women she victimized would not have been victimized. If those men had not been allowed to self-ID their way into women’s shelters, their victims would have not been victimized. It is more than reasonable to conclude from these examples that male predators have and will continue to exploit any loophole they can find. It is not easy for me to shrug this off.
I gave you an example of how it goes already in places that have self-ID laws, like here where I live in California, and it’s still not good enough for you. We have had self-ID here since January 2019 with no problems, just like everywhere else where it’s been adopted. But you say your experience will be somehow different than all the people in this state based on what, feeling like you might not be believed? If you don’t go calling out the wrong people, you are good to go, I don’t know what to tell you more than that. That’s what I’m trying to get at, this is not a problem to anybody but a certain group of people, as most people support self-ID. California adopts self-ID gender recognition law | PinkNews | Latest lesbian, gay, bi and trans news | LGBTQ+ news
It takes more than just someone’s word if the man is making no attempt to pass as female. In the early days of my transition, I looked more like a man wearing women’s clothes since hormones take a while to do their stuff, but I still looked like I belonged there. If I tried going into the women’s locker rooms as how I used to look when I was a man, before I even started transitioning, they would be perfectly in their rights to report me. And just because a woman like me and a cisgender man both have penises, it doesn’t make us both men, as gender is more than genitals.
Again, there is nothing that says a transwomen has to look a certain way. It would be trivially easy for me to find transwomen who present indistinguishable to men; they feel just as entitled to women’s locker rooms as you do.
And why shouldn’t they? If transwomen are women, then they shouldn’t be held to any standards we don’t hold other women when it comes to gender presentation. If a butch lesbian can dress masculine, then so can a trans woman.
The crazy thing is that I totally get the logic of a masculine looking trans woman. It is regressive to pressure transwomen to “pass as female” when they aren’t naturally passable. For me, its their maleness, not their masculine aesthetic, that keeps them from meeting my definition of a woman. For you, it seems to be the aesthetic.
There are always situations where i know it can be hard to tell. I have a lot of friends who are older MTFs who transitioned in their 50s and 60s, and after that much time with testosterone running through their system, all the HRT and surgeries in the world won’t make them completely passable. And some who can’t medically transition at all due to medical issues or lack of resources. But you would still know they were still women if you saw them, they just couldn’t pass as a ciswoman.