I went through the problems I had with what JKR said in great detail earlier in the thread.
That’s a really useful article. Explains how people can have such different views and suggests a way to get around the problem. I hope other people participating in this thread also read it.
I also dug that article. Thanks monstro.
@RickJay, I started detailing my objections to JKR’s writing in post #502.
Yes, thanks, monstro - that article clearly stated a lot of my issues on the subject, and a linked article in it gave me food for thought on the differences of gay rights and trans rights (which harked back on the differences racial civil rights and gay civil rights).
Just as an aside, thanks to @monstro, @YWTF, and @DemonTree for engaging and disagreeing with me and being civil and coherent in your objections and arguments.
This is me too, except personally, my fear isn’t about physical harm (although I’m sympathetic to that). My fear is more political in nature.
The stuff you have in bold is certainly there, and there’s no reason to believe it’s immune from gender identity. We also shouldn’t assume it disappears just because of estrogen therapy and SRS. A person cosmetically changing themselves doesn’t make them a woman in any practical way. Does a misogynistic incel cease to be a misogynist incel just because they give themselves breasts and a neo-vagina? No, it doesn’t; a book is primarily defined by the story it contains, not the outer packaging.
Because the political implications of allowing misogynistic activists to infiltrate and control feminism and other female-oriented causes are too significant to risk, I think it’s dangerous to cede the word “woman” to a male just because they’ve taken pains to look a certain way. Maybe I would feel differently if we weren’t living in a patriarchy still very much poisoned with sexism and misogyny, but we aren’t.
That doesn’t mean I’m totally black and white in my thinking about who can use bathrooms and whatnot. I think we can use some rational criteria for that.
I don’t have a problem with treating male-bodied people as women when they meet certain criteria since I don’t require that female-bodied people have a certain mindset or mien to be called women. I’m under no delusion that there aren’t women who are misogynistic and sexist and horrible people, and I am able to accept that I might have to share a prison cell or dorm room with them or sit across from them at a women’s support group. If I’m not trying to kick those women out of the club, then I can see how it would be inconsistent for me to bar the door to someone who has lived their whole adult life presenting as a woman, including biological modification, who happens to have gender politics I find horrible.
My problem is really only with the males who say they are women and think that’s all they have to do for me see them as such. I don’t have a problem with them identifying however they want to identity. I have a problem with them feeling entitled to be treated as women. In the article I linked to, a couple of male-presenting male-bodied trans rights “women” are cited. If either of those guys came into a locker room while I was unclothed (especially if I was alone), I would feel afraid. The fact that they’d be wearing a Venus symbol t-shirt wouldn’t make that fear disappear. The fact that some guys on the Straight Dope Message Board don’t understand why I’d be afraid in this situation wouldn’t make me less afraid. Even if I knew that this particular “glitterbeard” was sincere in their claim to “woman”, I’d still be afraid, because in my mind I’d be thinking, “OK, what do I do if another guy who looks like this one comes up in here and I don’t know what their gender identity is? If I run out of here before I find out that he’s actually a predatory man rather than a glitterbeard, will people accuse me of being hateful?”
It is true that predatory men will prey regardless. There’s nothing stopping a rapist from coming into the women’s locker room now. But it used to be acceptable for a woman to react in a self-preserving manner when a man would cross the line. She could demand that the male-presenting male-bodied person get out without anyone saying she was being hateful and mean. But now a woman has yet one more reason to second-guess her gut instincts, since if she tells a male-presenting male-bodied person to get out, there will be folks blasting her on social media for being a hateful Karen. How dare she not want to be naked in front of a woman that looks like a 300-lb linebacker! What a silly bitch, to assume that 300-lb linebackers always want to rape you when they are in a women’s locker room!
I think trans allies assume that there will never be transwomen who are male-presenting 300-lb linebackers, so they think it’s a red herring to bring this up in a discussion of women’s fears and concerns. But by saying it’s a red herring, they are conceding the point that there’s a certain ridiculous in saying a 300-lb linebacker is a woman just because he says he’s a woman. Gender ideology is completely neutral towards the idea of a bunch of male-presenting women becoming quite commonplace anyway. If there was suddenly more male-presenting male-bodied women than any other kind of women, we’re supposed to celebrate this because why the hell not? There’s no such thing as a real woman anyway.
So the problem (as I have distilled in my tiny head) is that we’re telling women they’d be a fool to be in a vulnerable position in the presence of male-presenting male-bodied individual she doesn’t know but that she’d be a hateful Karen for not wanting to be in a vulnerable position in the presence of another male-presenting male-bodied individual she doesn’t know. We need to be brave enough to say that this schizophrenic position will result in more harm than the indignity a male-presenting glitterbeard might experience being forced to undress in the men’s locker room.
So this is why for me, the compromise is somewhere between “you can use my space if you don’t have a dick” and “you can use my space if I can’t tell you have a dick”.
This fear is totally reasonable and valid, considering how women have been treated in our society and culture.
Yes this is true. But again the influence of socialization matters on a political level. A pack of misogynistic females could try to command feminism and dictate terms in ways that negatively impact other women. But because women aren’t socialized to automatically defer to other women—and women aren’t socialized to expect deference either—this minimizes the likelihood of a female-led hostile take-over from occurring.
Dynamics are different with trans women. If you have misogynistic trans women who have spent most of their lives socialized as males, and are actually still perceived as males (but no one admits it to their face), then people will tend to defer to them much like they do other males in general. Patriarchy is the invisible 3rd party here. Because of this, the likelihood is high that they will take over things and not lead with women’s best interest in mind.
I appreciate the article you posted because it does acknowledge that “throwing out the wagon series altogether“ is a viable option. There is absolutely nothing wrong with drawing a different line in the sand than someone else, as long as it doesn’t mean completely disregarding the safety and well-being of others. We can allow spaces to be opened up to certain categories of individuals (i.e. treating them like women) without saying these categories are literally women.
You stated this very well. It puts women in a lose-lose position when we’re expecting them to live by faith alone when at their most vulnerable, but in other situations, we expect women to take no chances with their safety around unknown men.
Firstly, I want to clear up any confusion: ‘trans activists’ is ambiguous, but I mean people and groups campaigning for trans rights/causes, not activists who are trans themselves.
Secondly, I can easily believe the majority of trans people do not want Karen White or her ilk to be housed in women’s jails, but these activists have nevertheless been campaigning for changes to law and practice that demonstrably had that result - and in several different countries, too. Maybe they only had good intentions, but you know what they say about the road to hell…
I would want the danger the prisoner poses to be taken into account, too. If I was in jail, I’d be more concerned about whether a potential transferee was violent or had committed sex crimes than whether this person genuinely suffers dysphoria. Plus women’s jails are mostly not set up to hold dangerous or violent criminals. I also think
there needs to be facilities for separate showers, changing etc. If I object to showering with someone who still has opposite-sex genitalia, I at least have the option to stop going to the gym or get changed at home, but prisoners have no choice. There’s also the issue of pregnancy if you’re going to house inmates of different sexes together. How would you deal with that?
You think I don’t have any skin in the game when it comes to how society treats its LGBT members?
This part sounds reasonable to me.
I’m not sure about this part (for those prisoners who are found to be totally legitimate transgender people). Maybe stalls and curtains for showers/changing would prevent this without forcibly othering trans people.
I’m pretty sure sex is already against the rules of prisons. But obviously that’s not 100%. For those rare fertile transgender folks, I’d be open to special rules to minimize the chance of pregnancy in prisoners, though I’d want to hear from some trans folks about what they think (and this last point goes for pretty much anything that affects trans people, just as it goes for anything that affects women).
It’s a lose-lose position that is compounded by the lose-lose situation women are already in. If we accuse a man of rape and sexual assault, then we can expect to either be called a lying whore or endure sermonizing about how we were responsible somehow. If we accuse a man of sexual harassment in the workplace, we get accused of making a big deal out of nothing or not being tough enough.
So as if being called a foolish lying whore crybaby isn’t enough, we’ve got “transphobe” to deal with too.
How are you personally affected by some transwomen being excluded from women’s spaces? How does this affect your sexual or gender identity in any way?
Are you suggesting that people should be required to use the bathroom dictated by their sex at birth?
Wouldn’t you be freaked out if a big bearded guy came into your bathroom or locker room? Because my muscular and bearded nephew would be forced to use the women’s facilities under these laws.
I guess, if I’m parsing what you are putting down, you wouldn’t be threatened by a large muscular man unless he had a penis? But how would you know it’s a transman coming into your locker room and not a biological male troll? I think would be an invasion of their privacy to make him show you his vagina just to make sure you feel safe.
I sort of get what you are putting out there in a theoretical sense and it might even bother me if had had more attachment and possessiveness to my identity as a woman. But it seems like segregation by biological sex causes just as many problems as it solves. Maybe more, because I’ve learned from my nephew that there are quite a few trans men out there, and most of them “pass” easily as men - until they’re forced to use the woman’s locker room.
I think the practical answer is just to make accommodations more private in general - private showers and changing cubicles and separate trans facilities in prisons.
There are lookie-loo men even in the men’s locker room. Any man who goes to the gym regularly will likely notice that there are some men who just continually loop between the locker room, sauna, and shower. I have no doubt that some men would do the same in women’s locker rooms if access was unrestricted. If all it took was them saying that they were women for the day, I’m sure some men would do that.
And as for the lookie-loo men in the men’s locker room, it would be hard to get them kicked out for their behavior. Most of the time, they aren’t walking around excited or trying to hit on anyone. It’s just that after the 5th shower in a row, you start to realize they probably aren’t at the gym to work out. If he did the same in the women’s locker room, it would be hard to get him thrown out even though he would be making the women feel uncomfortable.
I suppose the same could happen with lesbians in the women’s locker room, but I have no idea if that’s as common or not.
I know that for myself, I wouldn’t be afraid about a woman “lookie-loo” because I feel like I would have a decent shot at defending myself against one. Now, I’m pretty weak so it is likely I would be defenseless against the average female lookie-loo. But I know I wouldn’t be able to take on a male lookie-loo if he turned violent. Especially if I’m unclothed.
I’m the kind of person who probably wouldn’t be afraid of showering with a strange male as long as there are other people around. If we abolished all sex segregated places and turned all “Starship Troopers”, then I could see me losing my fear about being naked in front of strange men. But as long as sex segregated places exist, my brain will keep to its original programming: Never get undressed in the presence of strange men. That’s why I think it’s stupid for us to maintain “men” and “women” spaces by saying those spaces were created for people with different (nebulously defined and invisible) mental states. No, they were created for people with different parts. If a person is now a big ole hate-monger for not wanting their parts to be unclothed in the vicinity of someone else who doesn’t have those parts, then we need to stop with the theater and just make everything unisex. I would find this more logical than telling women they are entitled to a safe space while simultaneously telling them they have to open the door to anyone who knocks.
We should not overthink how we’d “police” entry into the women’s restroom or locker room. No one is saying they are going to force your nephew to use the women’s room.
It’s like driving. All drivers are expected to have their drivers license on them when they are operating a moving vehicle, right? That doesn’t mean we have to flash our license to a cop every time we get behind the wheel. But it does mean if we do something that authorizes a cop to pull us over, there may be consequences if we don’t have a drivers license.
Trans women have been using the women’s locker room for ages. Most of the time, they blend in with the rest of the user population so no one knows the wiser. Not standing out as someone of the opposite sex is analogous to driving without a license but not doing anything that authorizes a police stop. No one cares about people flying under the radar.
In this thread, we’re talking about males who are not flying under the radar. Their appearance and genitalia marks them as male, which is incompatible with them being in a female-exclusive space.
The problem with the status quo is that “I’m trans” are the magic words any male questioned in the women’s room can say to justify their presence. This justification can not be verified, so it has to be accepted. This essentially gives him a right to a female-restricted space when he’s not female.
If a man is in the women’s room, there shouldn’t be any unverifiable magic words that allow him to stay. He should be asked to show proof (like an ID) that he belongs there, just as drivers are required to show their license to prove they belong on the road.