I didn’t say anyone would demand them to drop trou. Just that short of doing so, there’s really no way to prove that someone’s pulling a fast one. So all those asshats who rant and rave about pervs coming into the ladies room disguised as transwomen, well – they don’t seem to realize that then pervs won’t HAVE to disguise themselves, if these dumbasses get their way. They can just walk right in, and then lie if called on it.
@Guinastasia , can you answer the hypothetical I posted earlier? No one has addressed it but maybe you will.
We can talk theory all day long. We can talk about the butch lesbians unfairly pegged as men and we can talk about men impersonating trans men. Yes, all these scenarios do and could happen and yes, they would be unfortunate in their own way. But none of these scenarios have direct relevance to the issue of primary concern to me, as a woman and a mother of two girls.
I need answers to the questions in bold.
I’m sorry, but I fail to find anything in that story that shows that the man was using transgender as a “get out of trouble” card.
From the article:
The victim described the suspect and Walmart employees found him in the store. That’s when Brown had some questions for store managers. He wanted to know why there wasn’t a transgender restroom at the Walmart.
So you must think he was only making idle small talk. Okay.
Again, you’re arguing against things no one is arguing.
We aren’t saying that perverts will disguise themselves. We are saying they will very frequently walk right into the room dressed like men, because in a world where anyone can say they are a woman to get into the women’s room, a pervert doesn’t have to wear a disguise. All they have to say if someone looks at them askance is “STOP BEING A TERF!!” Cuz only TERFs would equate a masculine male with “man”, you see. We’re supposed to be totally nonchalant about the obvious male in our presence on the very slim change he might be an undercover woman. We’re supposed to believe that chance, however slim, is still greater than the chance he’s a male pervert–even though male perverts are definitely more than 1% of the male population.
I’m saying that this is bullshit and I’m tired of pretending it’s not just so people won’t think I’m against trans rights. If I absolutely must have an obvious male in my presence in a space when I’m naked and vulnerable, then I shouldn’t have to worry about the woke police clucking their tongue at me if my emotions aren’t 100% happy-happy joy-joy. It shouldn’t be a big deal for me to tell someone who has a big exposed dick in the women’s locker room to please get behind a curtain or please wrap themselves with a towel or please step out into the hallway until the little girls in the room have left the room. As long as I’m not violently attacking them like I’m supposed to believe would happen if they used a men’s locker room, they should count their fucking blessings.
If women not only have to take anyone who walks into their space but also take them happily and eagerly while giving up all their rights to have any say-so over what happens in that space, then we aren’t talking feminism and female empowerment. We’re talking about the continued oppression and silencing of women. Because if this is how it’s going to be, then it will be obvious that women feelings don’t matter, their security doesn’t matter, and nothing they want matters. All that matters is for a very small population of human beings to get exactly what they want.
I’m not an asshat for being bothered about this. It’s OK that you aren’t bothered by it, but I’m not an asshat for having these feelings and for wanting others to at least be sympathetic to them.
Fine; don’t listen to my wholly valid points. I implore you, though, to listen to women.
…is that “listen to all women”, or it “listen to the women that happen to agree with RickJay?”
Or, “for all we know”, his offense had jack-shit to do with “this climate”. Predatory men have been seeking out opportunities to victimize women since literally forever. It’s simply your hypothetical speculation that support for transgender rights is somehow increasing the risk to women in any realistic way.
D’oh! Sorry monstro, dumb of me, I still haven’t entirely got the hang of the new quote system yet.
Well, you don’t seem all that eager to allow me as a (fellow cisgender) woman to have an equal say with you about “what happens in our spaces”? One of the least reasonable things about the “gender critical” movement, ISTM, is the way that a lot of its advocates seem determined to appropriate the concept of “women’s viewpoint” specifically for their own viewpoint, dismissing or ignoring the many, many other women who have different viewpoints.
If it’s also acceptable for a woman to say that to a cisgender woman who’s showing her genitals in the women’s locker room when the objecting woman doesn’t want her little daughter to be getting an eyeful of coochie, then I don’t have a problem with that.
In fact, I think we’d all be better off if we recognized that “modesty” or “prudishness” is a broad spectrum and we should all make allowances for other people’s different positions on the spectrum. Just because you have a vagina instead of a penis doesn’t mean that everybody else in the women’s locker room necessarily wants to see it. So if the new “social rule” is that anybody’s allowed to ask anybody else to be a little more discreet about their nudity in the locker room, and anybody’s allowed to have whatever they got indiscreetly flappin’ in the breeze in the locker room as long as everybody else there is fine with it, okay by me.
Nope, not really, although it’s only showing one page. Is this another Rowlingesque snitty fit about the fact that some document is discussing in a clear, informative, respectful way aspects of the female reproductive system without explicitly identifying its target audience as “women”?
Because, speaking as somebody who’s had a cervix from birth and known about its function since middle-school sex ed, I understood that explanation about cervical screening and its relevance just fine, even without slapping the “woman” label on it.
Yeah, RickJay doesn’t seem to have any interest at all in “imploring” anyone to listen to women like me who object to “gender critical” ideology.
Of course, I have no problem with RickJay personally opining that other women who disagree with me about that are better worth listening to than I am. But I have quite the problem with RickJay implying that only the views of other women who disagree with me qualify as “women’s views”.
It’s a new rule to expect people to think that they have a responsibility to use the restroom of their biological sex irrespective of whether that conflicts with their lived gender identity.
Transgender women, for example, have been using women’s restrooms for as long as there have been women’s restrooms. Yes, they’ve done so on a kind of oblivious sufferance from the larger community that didn’t suspect they were transgender. But nobody was telling them “Hey, if you’re somebody who has a penis, even if you present as a woman and everybody around you believes you’re a woman, it’s your duty to use the men’s instead of the women’s restroom, because restroom assignment is about biological sex rather than perceived identity.” That part’s quite new.
There are black folks who don’t mind Confederate memorials. They don’t mind Confederate flags being waved in their face either. They don’t see them as racist symbols. They see them the same way a lot of white folks see them. As symbol of rebellion and state’s rights. They are embarrassed when black people make a big deal over this stuff. They wish those black people would just shut up and stop being asshats. “Stop saying anti-Confederacy is a black people’s view!” they say. “Y’all don’t represent me!”
In the discourse over what should happen to Confederate memorabilia in public spaces, do we decide that it must not be a big deal since not all black people are offended by it and the ones who aren’t must know best? Or do we decide that the black people who are offended might just be sensitive to the issue for perfectly valid reasons? In any discourse, those who are upset and offended should always be listened to more attentively than those who don’t care. We don’t design the dinner menu to please the diners who are indifferent to just about everything. We design the dinner menu to accommodate those who have sensitivities.
I’m finding all this sudden “transwomen have always used women’s restrooms!” lecturing to be a bit crazy-making. I’m not an idiot. Neither is Demon Tree or YWTF. A person would have to be an idiot to not know that transwomen have been using women’s spaces since the beginning of time. This conversation has never been about those transwomen. We are talking about supposed transwomen who don’t present as women, who aren’t making any attempts to “do woman” who are allowed in women spaces the same as any other transwoman or ciswomen. We are talking about male-presenting males who appear in woman spaces because the cultural climate is not the cultural climate of just five years ago, when a woman could be upset by the presence of such an individual in a woman space and not be called a TERF. It used to be acceptable for a woman not to want to shower with a stranger with a penis. Now we are being told that such a woman needs to get a life. She needs to get with the woman dick program and stop being an old-school robot. These are new ideas that have not been vetted by society. Most women are not even aware they are a thing.
The inclusion of literally anyone in woman’s spaces is what is new. You know this is new, and yet you’re acting like I’m saying something stupid here. In the days of your youth, your parents probably did not teach you to welcome any male that came sauntering into your locker room or restroom. And yet, Kimstu and Guinistasia, neither one of you strike me as being hateful creatures just because you were programmed in this way. So why are you guys acting like being guarded about giving males free access to the women’s locker room or restroom is a sign of hatred or bigotry or backwardness?
It’s the lack of compassion that’s so frustrating here. I presented very reasonable social rules upthread. Only an extremist would think those social rules are hateful or “asshatish”. And yet I’m being lectured to like I’m a hateful asshat, no different from the hateful asshats that don’t support any trans rights.
The silence from you about my proposed social rules, Kimstu, makes me feel like there is no point in my side coming to the table to negotiate. It is obvious to me you don’t see any women that don’t agree as you do to be stakeholder. It seems like you’re OK that the final decision about who gets to be a woman has already been made without getting buy-in from women as a whole. And if I say I’m not OK with this, then instead of us dialoguing it out so you can assure me my concerns are valid and deserve to be listened to, I get patted on the head and told that those monsters I’m telling you I’m afraid of have always lived under my bed, so don’t be so silly.
It is shitty when men downplay women’s concerns like this. It’s not any better when another woman does it.
No. The leaflet is not clear and informative, because in the section on ‘who we invite’ it doesn’t mention anywhere that (for ordinary cis folk) its women and not men who need cervical screening. It’s not just a complaint about terminology, the leaflet is not doing its job of informing people. Sure, you already know that it’s women who have a cervix and women who are invited for cervical screening, but not everyone has good sex ed, not everyone had any sex ed at all. The leaflet isn’t aimed only at those who are already well informed. Important medical information is supposed to be written in simple language so people of low literacy or speaking English as a second language can understand it, it is not supposed to leave them guessing about who needs screening due to political correctness.
The NHS disagrees with you; when it was pointed out to them, they reissued the leaflet with that section modified to say women between 25 and 64 will be invited for screening. I hope that after considering, you’ll agree there is nothing disrespectful about that.
So you too think he was just making idle chitchat when he complained about the lack of transgender restrooms?
Ok.
I want someone to explain why everyone is supposed to fall in lockstep with the trans activists’ mantras about gender–mantras like “anyone who says they are a woman is woman”–while all other mantras are to be abolished.
I’m specifically talking about this mantra: “Women are an oppressed sociopolitical group and thus its members are entitled to special protections that shouldn’t be given to everyone who demands it, because then those protections will become illusury and its members will always have a reason to be afraid and distrustful of the system.”
Several police forces in the UK are already recording the sex of suspects and convicted criminals as whatever they say it is. You already saw that the BBC article on Julie Marshall didn’t mention that she is transgender (nor include her old name, which makes it harder to link offenders to any crimes before transitioning). As far as the activists are concerned, ‘transwomen are women’, these crimes are committed by women and it’s transphobic to distinguish them in any way.
On the subject of crime, here are an interesting pair of stories:
Sounds very reasonable and sympathetic. Here is the article from when this prisoner was originally sentenced:
Maybe now it is clearer why authorities are reluctant to move them to a women’s prison?
A summary of the whole thing:
I especially want to stress something from the last paragraph:
I don’t think this has come up much in this thread, but if a person with a penis is acting inappropriately or creepily in the women’s bathroom or locker room than I don’t really care whether they genuinely suffer from gender dysphoria or not. I want to be able to complain about them and not be called a transphobe or told we just have to put up with it.
…you aren’t supposed to do anything. You aren’t expected to fall “lockstep” into a mantra (that nobody actually uses). There isn’t a mantra that says “anyone who says they are a woman is woman." I just googled that and that sentence (on my search) had zero hits.
The mantra that does exist is “transwomen are women”, which means something different to the mantra that you used. And that isn’t just a trans activist position. Its an intersectional feminist one.
This is a discussion board and a forum where people are allowed to and encouraged to share their opinions. You are allowed to disagree with me. But I’m allowed to disagree with you. We don’t have to come to a meeting of the minds.
I’ll go on the record for this: this “mantra” of yours should not be abolished. Feel free to repeat it and argue it and defend it as much as you like.
And when we say we don’t want someone like this in women’s prison because it means putting women at risk, countering that viewpoint with “but what about the pervert’s safety in men’s prison!” is just…wrong. Women’s spaces should not be used as a refuge for males who represent a danger to us. If where to house a violent male comes down to only two options (men’s prison or women’s prison), there shouldn’t be any question as to what the right answer is. That this is even subject to debate underscores how surreal the times we are living in have become.
Uh…he wasn’t caught in the bathroom. He doesn’t say “I’m transgender so I belong in that bathroom” He doesn’t appear to have altered his appearance in any way. He hid in a stall until he attacked a woman. He was arrested.
How could he use the “transgender defense” to get out of an assault charge?
Looks to me like a man hid in the women’s bathroom until he assaulted someone. Something that any man can do at any time.
I find these example reminiscent of the Fox News segments on “crimes by illegal aliens” segments that are designed to promote the narrative that all immigrants are criminals.
I would also add to this that I don’t want their behavior to have rise to the level of OMG CREEPY! before a critical mass of skeptics can be bothered to care. Because at the point, harm will have actually occurred. Doing anything that is threatening to most reasonable women should be cause for reprimand and/or removal from a specific women’s space, IMHO. We shouldn’t have to convince men that something was creepy before a male is disallowed from a locker room. Because if that’s the bar that must be met, then we’re in a situation where the privileged class gets to tell the oppressed group how it’s gonna be. We’re just repeating the oppression that occurs outside women’s spaces inside women’s spaces.
Outside of women’s spaces, women are always expected to produce irrefutable evidence that they are being creeped-on. If they can’t produce this kind of evidence, they are generally dismissed as lying whores. Meanwhile their creepers go on to be president of the US or Supreme Court justice. I don’t want that pattern to be replicated in women’s spaces because that pattern is one the worst things about being a woman. Like, a woman shouldn’t have to explain why it’s creepy for a naked male to be hovering outside of her changing stall. She also shouldn’t have to explain why she finds it creepy for an individual she knows to be in possession of a penis to keep making eye contact with her as she undresses herself or her daughter. She shouldn’t have to wait for that naked male to catch a fucking clue to the ways of womanhood all on their lonesome. She should be able to snatch that person up verbally and let them know their behavior is unacceptable in that particular space. Women should be setting the codes of conduct in their spaces. And since ciswomen are the dominant group, they should be dictating the norms, not the very small minority who has invited themselves in their space and feels entitled to privileges with complete indifference to how it makes anyone else feel.
When trans rights activities and their allies assure me that it will be the dominant class of women who will be in charge of what happens in their spaces rather than the jerks who yell TERF every five minutes, then I’ll feel like trans rights is sufficiently pro-woman. But if all I keep hearing is “BUT WHAT ABOUT HOW TRANSWOMEN FEEL!!”, I am not going to move to this position.
Sure. I’d do that too. But “acting inappropriately” is the key phrase. If a woman was running around the ladies room flashing her genitals, approaching strangers…I wouldn’t feel like “I can’t say anything because it’s a ladies room and she has a pussy”. It kind of surprises me that their are people so easily cowed that they might feel that way. Maybe we should lock all women out of the women’s room, that way none of them can act out and make people uncomfortable.