I don’t think the fear is of transwomen themselves; the fear is of men exploiting the loophole. I don’t think that’s necessarily an irrational fear.
Ugh…that is a snake pit of trouble…
My view, which is by no means shared by even a significant proportion of transwomen, is that carry letters could be used in some circumstances to separate out and protect transsexuals. Most transsexuals I know take offense, or are miffed at least, at having to carry “papers.” In fact, none of my trans friends agree with me on this subject. But in the near-term it really might be the best solution, until society finally changes enough to allow all its members to enjoy its rights and privileges. I’d make it so a carry letter is carte blanche and discrimination against a holder of such becoming a serious sex discrimination violation.
For those who do not know, a carry letter is issued by a psychologist or psychiatrist, on their professional letterhead, and states something like “I certify that Jane Doe, also known as John Doe, has been diagnosed as a transsexual woman under (code) who is currently undergoing transition to female. As part of this transition, they are required under WPATH guidelines to live as a female during such a time period as needed prior to the next phase of their transition. Please show all possible courtesy to this person, and if you have any questions please contact my office at -” I would say not even a majority of transsexuals have them, and those who do often do not carry them.
What are the stats on how often that happens? How many women have been raped by men pretending to be women in spas, in the last decade in the US? You don’t believe it’s irrational, so perhaps you have some idea? Because I honestly do not.
I think you’re misinterpreting this fear. It’s not about being afraid of a transwoman in the locker room, it’s about being afraid of a man in the women’s locker room – and not being medically qualified, or in a context, whereby at a glance the average person can tell if that person with male primary and/or secondary sex characteristics is a man or a woman. If I see someone who looks male in a women-only area (especially if I’m already naked), I’m not going to be considering whether this person is a man or a woman, I’m going straight into fight or flight mode fearing that I’m about to be attacked. Not that I’m about to be attacked by a transwoman, either, that I’m about to be attacked by a man.
It’s not transphobia. It’s not knowing that you’re trans. And in a lot of cases a person has no way to know that at a glance.
Not the point. If I see someone male in appearance in the women’s locker room, I’m not considering how exactly they got there either. I won’t bloody well care if they got in pretending to be a woman, or if they clocked the door attendant. Criminals have this way of sneaking or forcing their way into places they don’t belong. They do so quite often.
Unfortunately, very true. Some states make it very difficult to get female IDs without surgery, a court order, or both. Whereas carry letters are very easy to get for true transsexuals.
Possibly.
I guess in my head I’m picturing a case where a transwoman who “passes” and has already started transition is getting undressed, not someone who looks totally male. That may be a false assumption on my part.
Its’ not apt at all. First, transgendered people are not segregated from locker rooms; they are just not allowed to go into whatever room they choose. Second, not every instance of segregation is unlawful, unreasonable, or unwarranted. We often separate by gender, age, qualification, etc. Some of those distinctions are more reasonable than others, but immediately reaching for the Black civil rights analogy every time someone is discriminated against is foolish, and entirely unfair to everyone who lost their lives fighting for civil rights.
I am hardly asking you to solve the world’s problems. All I am asking is why it’s fair to tell a private business they need to cater to any random person’s definition of gender? Especially since we often don’t tell them they need to build a ramp, or serve people naked people, or not hire criminals. Why is it fair to say to some people that they cannot do EVERYTHING they want, but not others? Where is the line?
So again, what prevents any male who claims they are female from going to a woman’s spa?
What differs is two things.
Firstly, in this case the point has a bit more reality to it.
Secondly, a societal norm or rule that is out and out aimed at discrimination against an identifiable group is different, ethically speaking, from a societal norm or rule that has the unintended effect of discriminating against an identifiable group.
Where a rule was always intended to discriminate (as in the case of rules banning Blacks from lunch counters or neighbourhoods) is seems to me a good case can be made that changing the rule is ethically mandated - even if no actual real-life Blacks wanted to eat at those lunch counters or live in those neighbourhoods. To change the rule, in that case, simply sends the right message, and so is good in and of itself.
However, where a rule was not created to discriminate but only has discrimination as an unintended effect (as I believe is the case with sex-segregated spas and the like), the question of whether or not to change the norm or rule, it seems to me, is one of reasonable accomodation - meaning, in part, wieghing the balance of convinience for and against changing the rule or norm. Part of that weighing and balancing exercise has got to be, logically, how many of the formerly discriminated-against group would use the facilities if the rule was changed. If the answer is ‘practically none’, it seems to me that the exercise is over.
As I’ve said above, I believe that actual cases of transwomen raping women are vanishingly rare. Let’s just accept that as true, for the purposes of argument.
There are two possibilities here: (1) get rid of the rule altogether; and (2) create a targeted exception to the rule for transwomen.
I do not believe (1) is warranted. The fear of transwomen specifically I can accept is quite irrational (at least, any more than fearing any other woman). However, it is (sadly) not irrational for women to fear men. So the “rule” as such makes a certain amount of sense.
That leaves creating a targeted execption to reasonably accomodate transwomen who happen to want to use the facilities - point 2. I could get behind that, except for one thing: implementation strikes me as unrealistic.
Creating an exception to the general rule that naked men are not allowed in the women’s changeroom to accomodate persons who simply appear to be men based on their genitals may be somewhat impractical, as it would require some sort of public verification that this person is, indeed, a genuine transwoman.
The point is not that women specifically fear transwomen, but that they fear anyone with male genitals in “the woman’s naked space” and, unless the whole transwomen thing is carefully explained to them, many women are unlikely to distinguish between “transwomen with male genitals - okay” and “some guy dressed up as a woman in the woman’s changeroom - not okay”.
How would such public verification be done, so that women using the changeroom know of it? I go to an athletic club. In my club, one simply walks into the “men’s area”, disrobes, uses the locker, then goes to the spa zone which has steam room and therapeutic whirlpool. I’ve never been in the woman’s, but I imagine it is the same. No-one checks you specifically as you go into these areas.
I suppose one could place at attendant at the entrance of each area to check one’s ID (as Sevencl has suggested), but that would require considerable expense. Is it worth it, when we know that it is “vanishingly rare” for transwomen to use the facilities?
Why is it that an emotional response ( fear, discomfort, whatever ) to being around people with different genitalia nude is irrational, while an emotional response ( fear,discomfort ,whatever) to being around people with the same genitalia nude is not?
And just to get off track a little- I don’t think the main reason for segregated locker rooms , showers, etc is fear. It may be a small part of it, but I don’t believe that most women would be comfortable using unisex showers and locker rooms even if the only penises in there belonged to people they know and trust. It’s legal for women to go topless in New York, and there’s little chance of one being raped on 8th avenue during rush hour- but you still don’t see it.
I don’t think the fear is that assault would actually occur. In most spas, actual assault is unlikely for the simple reason that they are public places with lots of people, including attendants, walking through them.
I would surmise it is more a generalized discomfort created by the fear of the possibility of sexual assault or harrassment in the back of their minds - even if that possibility is, practically speaking, unlikely.
Men, as a general rule, do not suffer from this discomfort (or at least, that’s been my experience).
How about “trust but verify.” Allow them in until someone complains, then and only then is ID checked. The person must show either a carry letter on physician’s letterhead, or a government-issued ID. As I said, physician’s carry letters are very easy for real transsexuals to get; a CD or man pretending to be a woman could forge a carry letter, sure, but then they could also forge a driver’s license if they really wanted to…but that’s the case with anything like this; no system is perfect.
And if no one complains…obviously it wasn’t an issue.
And then we get to the point of legalities, which is a problem in the here and now. One transwoman who is very close to me was born with and still has male genitals (albeit, insubstantial), but has enough of an intersex condition that she is legally female - drivers license, CCH license, work ID, passport, etc. all say “F”. This isn’t a hypothetical, this is a woman I see every weekend at dancing and had dinner with last Wednesday. Yet if she were to disrobe fully in a spa, some might freak out…but how does the spa owner tell someone who the state and Homeland Security both assert is female that they aren’t female, and not risk a lawsuit? (a rhetorical question or sorts, true)
Because this is a situation which exists right now, places like spas etc. need to have a policy in place.
Brick:
We’re talking about transsexuals. Use that, not “transgendered”. Different thing.
First point: we disagree on the black analogy, then. I don’t see any difference whatsoever between the two situations. As for being unfair to people who lost their lives - 1 in 12 transwomen in the US are murdered. A lot of them because they drew attention to themselves fighting for our rights.
Second: no one needs to change anything to “cater to” transsexuals. Most places have one room for women, one for men. We’re not asking for special treatment, just to be allowed to use the right one in peace.
Third: that’s so ridiculous I’m not even going to address it. Slippery slope to anarchy from a discussion about who can use what bathrooms? Come on.
Fourth: the fact that a real transsexual will have ID (or as Una Persson accurately noted, “carry papers”. If someone is upset by what they perceive as a man in a female space, these can be produced.
Doreen - I’m not sure I understand your first question. Could you elaborate please?
Apologies if I missed anything addressed to me, there were a lot of posts while I was away.
Well, a person has to go through a great number of transitional phases to get to the point of passing. Someone who started hormones a month a go will look vastly different than someone who’s been on hormone therapy for a year. Someone may be in transition, may even pass fairly well while clothed, but not so much when undressed just because hormonal changes take so long.
I am honestly sad that things are this way, but someone who is or can be mistaken for a man in the women’s locker room is going to create quite a scene (to put it mildly) whether they intend it or not. I don’t think such a scene is going to be beneficial – or even neutral – for anyone involved. But until such a time that sexual violence is a rarity, this fear of assault is neither irrational nor unreasonable. Misunderstandings can arise as a result, but this doesn’t mean that women are stupid or bigoted for fearing for their safety; the reality is that crimes happen, and you just can’t know at the time whether this situation is a crime or a misunderstanding. And to be blunt, by the time you figure out it is a crime, it’s probably too late to decide you want to fight or flee, it’s already done. You can only prevent it by acting before it happens, which means sometimes non-criminals get an uncomfortable spotlight shone on them.
On preview: good lord you people type fast. 
Setting aside for the moment that you’ve moved the goalposts of discussion from transgendered to transexuals, and a spa to bathrooms, and the US to the UK…
Where do you carry your papers when you’re nude?
Believe me, I know this profoundly well. The stories I could tell…
In your purse. Where do you carry your purse? In your gym/spa/whatever locker. Or was that a facetious question?
If someone wants to complain and the manager says “say, would you mind…” they go back to the locker. This applies to men too; switch purse with wallet.
This is getting a litle annoying. The OP is talking about transgendered, as are many, many people knowledgeable about the terms. If you believe the terms should be used differently from how they’ve been used throughout the thread, then make your case. Please don’t just announce that people are using the terms wrong and expect everyone to believe you. A bit of poking around online finds no consensus among the trans community about how these terms should be distinguished.
It was a little facetious, because I’m picturing the fluttering in the henhouse that’s likely to lead to the manager needing to ask to see the papers, and it just sounds like a clusterfuck in the making. The papers are in the lockers and the lockers are locked, in another room, while the women in the spa are screeching and clutching their metaphoric pearls and ducking behind the half walls for cover… And then what? The manager announces to the room of women, “Oh, it’s okay, she has papers!” 
I think the whole fear of rape thing is a red herring, by the way. In my estimation, it’s more about women not wanting to be seen nude by a man (or someone they perceive to be a man) that they’re not sexually involved with, rather than fear that they’re going to be attacked in a public place. After all, these same women are okay with the same men wearing shorts and a t-shirt next to them in the dry saunas on the other side of the wall. Why aren’t they afraid of being raped there?
The OP wasn’t sure of specifics. I defaulted to transsexual, because I doubt a crossdresser would try to use facilities intended for the gender they imitate, for exactly this reason.
Heh. Point being, how well someone passes is not necessarily an accurate yardstick of whether they’re trans. And making up rules (or exceptions to rules) that are predicated on how well one passes while naked or otherwise, still presents the same problems for those who pass less well. Those who pass would have it a bit easier – they’re less likely to be perceived as a man walking into the women’s locker room. So maybe this conversation is less about them than those who don’t pass as well.
And regardless of how you distinguish the two, I’m not sure why we can’t or shouldn’t also discuss how these things affect the transgendered as well as how they affect transsexuals.