I wouldn’t be one of these people. Personally, I could totally see myself becoming desensitized to strange male nudity if that became a norm. I would likely avoid situations where I was using the locker room all by myself, but otherwise I’d be down.
The issue (for me) is that as long we continue with the theater of women’s locker rooms, then we maintain the transgressiveness for post-pubescent male bodies existing in such spaces. Transgressiveness appeals to a bad element, especially sex perverts. For male sexual perverts, a women’s locker room is like a locked liquor cabinet to rebellious teenagers. Tell someone with a certain mindset that they can’t come in and that alone will make them want to come in.
So what stops these transgressors from coming in now? Most know their presence will not go undetected and ignored. There will be screaming and much running away. The cops will be summoned. They will be escorted out before they get to do anything “fun”.
But make it so that some males get to come in? Now you’ve made it more interesting. More transgressive. It’s like giving the “good” teenagers access to the liquor cabinet but not the “bad” ones. If you are one of the bad ones, your exclusion won’t deter you at all. It will just piss you off and make you want to rebel even more. “These idiots are stupid if they think that rule is going to stop me from getting what I want.” And they know that they’ve got the upper hand now, because if women play their usual “scream and run away” card, they can just play the poor misunderstood victim card. “I’m a woman, the same as these women who are screaming at me, and here they are transphobing against me. I’ve never been so abused and embarrassed in all of my life!” Even if no rape or sexual assault occurs, they still win because they’ve just made the ground fertile for future rape and sexual assault.
As you know based on previous discussions we’ve had, society teaches women they are responsible for being diligent and minimizing the risks they’ll be victimized by sexual predators. But giving males access to women’s spaces makes it harder for them to do this. It’s setting them up to always lose no matter what they do. If they scream and run away, they are transphobic and they will get blasted on social media. If they carry on as normal, then they were foolish and they will get blasted on the witness stand.
Until sex crimes are taken more seriously, I honestly don’t think women should budge on this issue. Just because boys and men haven’t been able to stop the male predators lurking in their spaces doesn’t mean women should just shrug their shoulders over male predators crossing into their spaces.
Here’s an article on Marshall that specifies their interest is primarily on teenaged girls. (Please note that in spite of this, the authorities are actually puzzling over whether this person should go to a female prison.)
Why would you assume pedophiles don’t have a preference for girls vs boys? Many certainly do. Look at the victimization rates for girls compared to boys. The difference is striking.
Put this person in a men’s locker room, and you’re just endangering young boys, instead.
We have no reason to believe this based on what I stated above, but even if they were an equal opportunity pedo…can you not see how bad this argument is? We don’t want any children endangered, but if it comes down to keeping the predator restricted to one set of rooms (male) versus welcoming them into two sets (male and female) surely you can see the former option is better, right?
At least in the men’s room, there is a chance a bigger, stronger man will catch him in the act and promptly kick his ass. A woman is less capable at fighting a man and may end up being another victim.
Good thing no one made that argument. Only you and @Kimstu seem to think the sex of a pedophile’s victims is more relevant than the absurdity of treating as fact a pedophile’s self-described gender identity.
Changing subjects a bit, it certainly looks like a concerted effort is being made to erase biological sex. I found this article on Twitter.
For those who don’t want to read the whole thing, all you need to know is that ActionAidUK—an international charity that works with women and girls living in poverty—sent this email to a female activitist and survivor of FGM:
ActionAid UK defines women and girls as anyone who self-identifies as a woman or a girl.Allowing self-determination of our bodies is a basic feminist principle. ActionAid UK understands there is no such thing as a ‘biologically female/male body’,and that a person’s genitalia doesn’t determine their gender.
Ergo, the solution to female oppression is for women and girls to start identifying as male. Problem solved.
It’s like saying we don’t want rapists from other countries coming over here. In saying this, are we saying we don’t care if people from other countries are raped? Or are we just saying that we have plenty of rapists in our country as it is, so please don’t add any more?
Supposedly the whole point of having transwomen use women’s restrooms is to protect them from men. This supposition is undermined by saying that allowing men into women’s restrooms is just spreading the harm around.
“We’re going to force you to accept these foreigners into your country without vetting them first. Don’t you dare express concerns about your safety. You aren’t entitled to safety. These foreigners are, however.”
Only one side of this discussion is advancing a position that will almost certainly promote more sexual assault. Whether it is happening to people with penises or people with vaginas, if you let the door to the women’s room be open to anyone, then more sexual assault will occur.
You seem to not care about this. You only seem to care about maximizing the security of less than 1% of the population. You don’t seem to care about maximizing the security of more than 50% of the population…including that less than 1%.
I do care. I want to protect both transwomen and ciswomen. I don’t think allowing anyone into the women’s room does this at all. I think it heightens the risk to both groups.
Which jail do you think this paedophile whose interest is primarily teenaged girls should go to, Miller? That’s not a hypothetical question, the prison service is deciding it now.
I absolutely care about that. Too open a policy will increase sexual assaults - so will too restrictive a policy. There needs to be a balance of concerns. I think I have legitimate concern over exactly who is deciding where that balance lies. I don’t see a lot of concern about trans people’s safety on your side of the debate, and when someone on my side raises a concern, they’re written off as not caring about sexual assaults against women.
What would be your compromise proposal to deal with the concerns expressed on the two sides of this debate? If you were in charge, how would you maximize transwomen’s access to women’s spaces while maximizing women’s safety? I’m not arguing with you or playing “gotcha”. I’m just curious how your ideas compare to mine.
We’re talking about a pedophile who victimizes teenaged girls and allowing them—solely on the basis of them claiming a female gender identity—unfettered access to naked girls in a sex-segregated space.
Rather than engaging the question of whether this is fair to women and girls, you keep harping on the well-being of trans women. It is almost as if you don’t care about women and girls.
Socially, if someone who looks like Paul Bunyun wants you to call her Shirley, call her Shirley, or you’re being an asshole.
I don’t think bathroom laws would actually prevent any sexual assaults, and badly written ones could cause legitimate harm to trans and LGBT people. If you think someone’s in a bathroom under false pretenses, I’m okay with calling them out, but I’m against legislating it.
I’m okay with letting trans people participate in sports if there are criteria in place that ensure they don’t have an unfair advantage. The Olympic standard, from what I understand, seems to be pretty good in that regard. I accept that there might be some sports where trans people are simply disqualified.
In terms of scholarships or other benefits set aside specifically for women, I’m okay with trans women accessing them, and I’m okay with the organizations that administer them applying some fairly stringent gatekeeping before they’re eligible. I’m also okay with no gatekeeping, if that’s how they want to run it.
Prisons are completely fucked from top to bottom. In the short term, I think it should be judged on an individual basis, and people should be placed in the situations that will cause the least amount of harm. But I also don’t trust the prison system to make such judgments competently or fairly, so… yeah, I don’t have a great answer. It can’t be all and it can’t nothing, and we can’t trust the sexual predators in charge of the system to make the right call in between. Short of comprehensive prison reform, I’m not opposed to the idea of trans-only prison facilities, except inasmuch as building more prisons has never solved any of our social problems.
But Stonewall and the other trans rights campaigners are not. They want transwomen to be treated as women in all circumstances, with no gatekeeping. They’d probably concede the sports (while pushing for the most relaxed rules possible), but nothing else.