The ttraaaanzzz lyffe and TTijmes

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

I would be willing to bet a good deal of money that you have had contact with more such people than you realise

Oh statistically I must have. I'm just not aware of it. I mean I'm still wondering who were the two gay guys in my class in secondary school. There must have been at least one. It would be really weird if there wasn't at least one.

[laverte]

i don't come across well in some of the threads on this subject from the first part of the decade. It took me longer than it should have to slaughter some of the sacred cows (including ones shared by Balderdasha's mother) that were preventing me from listening, understanding and thinking clearly. There were i think three key factors that helped me:

1 i encountered trans women and non-binary people online, and they engaged with me even when i was regurgitating the most boring clichés. They didn't and shouldn't have to do this, but i'm eternally grateful that they took the time, and took me seriously as someone who might be worth the investment. You may know one of them.

2 i got to know a pair of trans men. Taking the gender politics out of the equation made a huge difference, and opened up perspectives that i had rarely seen or heard. And they are fucking ace.

3 It slowly dawned on me that the trans-hostile feminists i was reading and following online were sharing a lot of stories from the Spectator and even from Spiked. Their spokespeople were being approvingly quoted in the Daily Mail. i don't want that shit in my timeline. And it made me ask questions about what their endgame could be. i mean, it's got to end in some kind of repressive, clause-28 type legislation, and i don't want anything to do with that. (Worryingly, there are a fair few Labour party activists among them, anti-Corbynites all. The Labour people on here will have a better grasp of the situation than i do, but i get the impression that there could be an almighty squabble in the party if it wins an election as i suspect Corbyn is favourable to self-ID legislation, which a number of Labour women would consider a hill worth dying on. Trans people themselves will be the main victims of this clash, even if they end up 'winning'.)

[MsD]

I can't speak for all Labour pro-Corbyn women, but I think and hope that the trans-obsessives would be met with withering disbelief that they could make bullying a minority their prime objective when we've got people dying from poverty in this country, and so much violence against women is perpetrated by CIS men. I have some friends who are slightly concerned about the scare-stories about the growing army of Ian Huntleys, but they don't put up much of a fight with me, when I say that's what they are. I don't want to be seen as obsessive the other way myself but I will speak up if someone's putting the boot in.

[MsD]

I mean, they shouldn't be bullying trans people even if all the other problems in the world were sorted, but it's just easier to shut them up with a bit of whataboutery and to let them know this is something that rarely has any impact on our lives as CIS-women.

[Balderdasha]

I meant to say DM, I'm really sorry to hear about the email mix up. Privacy and security is something the GIC really, really should have been prioritising given their role.

[Balderdasha]

The first time I came across any kind of terf propaganda was at university, 14 years ago. Germaine Greer gave some sort of talk, basically outing a fellow professor for being male-to-female trans, and complaining that she shouldn't be allowed to have a pastoral role at Newnham College which was all female, as apparently she wouldn't understand young women. I remember thinking back then what a horrible person Germaine Greer was. Surely the trans professor would be an ideal role model for any young woman experiencing any type of identity crisis or struggling with gender expectations? Also, at the time there were very few female physics professors. I was unsure who Germaine Greer was proposing to replace her with. The physics professor took it all in her stride (on the surface at least) and came across as very calm and professional.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

hmm I saw Germaine Greer speaking when I was in college, and she was a charismatic and fluent speaker. The thing was that the overwhelming impression I left with though was of her glibness and casual cruelty. Two things that sat very uneasily with the things that she was ostensibly talking about. She reminded me of Eamon Dunphy doing a bit. It was a very educational experience, and taught me to be considerably more careful to parse the statements of people who ostensibly were saying things I agreed with.

That situation you describe there balders is super grim. She's trying to ruin someone's life for attention. No more, no less.

[Bizarre Löw Triangle]

I can't speak for all Labour pro-Corbyn women, but I think and hope that the trans-obsessives would be met with withering disbelief that they could make bullying a minority their prime objective when we've got people dying from poverty in this country, and so much violence against women is perpetrated by CIS men. I have some friends who are slightly concerned about the scare-stories about the growing army of Ian Huntleys, but they don't put up much of a fight with me, when I say that's what they are. I don't want to be seen as obsessive the other way myself but I will speak up if someone's putting the boot in.

Think that's an optimistic outlook. Certainly for my my local momentum group is very terf sympathetic and one of the most obnoxious and openly far-right-sympathising ReSisters chapters is functionally an outgrowth of local Labour/Momentum organising.

Not saying that's true as a whole - I think the local Young Labour org is pro-trans, but transphobes are protected and enabled within the party structure.

[Stumpy Pepys]

d) she thinks some predatory males choose to become trans women in order to access female-only spaces. I don't even know where to begin in combating that belief.

If gender is based on self-identification, then that's going to happen occasionally. (In fact it has happened.)

My issue with the focus on trans rights is that it seems to disproportionately impinge on women's rights.

[laverte]

That’s chivalrous of you.

But not for this thread, which is about the obstacles that trans people face and the support they deserve.

[johnr]

Think that's an optimistic outlook. Certainly for my my local momentum group is very terf sympathetic and one of the most obnoxious and openly far-right-sympathising ReSisters chapters is functionally an outgrowth of local Labour/Momentum organising.

Not saying that's true as a whole - I think the local Young Labour org is pro-trans, but transphobes are protected and enabled within the party structure.

Yes, there's a fair few - older, it might be worth mentioning - Corbyn-supporting folk who have been anti-trans in my CLP (even employing the 'toilets' trope). Boy , I've had some arguments. Encouragingly, they've gone a bit quiet on this, I think they might be realising that the tide is against them, and/or that they're wrong.

[Amor de Cosmos]

How common are gender neutral toilets in the UK?

[TonTon]

How common are gender neutral toilets in the UK?

Every house and flat I've ever been in had at least one, so pretty common

[Amor de Cosmos]

Yeah OK, but you know I meant public toilets right?

[TonTon]

Of course. I just like to remind the ludicrous people that they are actually fine with it in reality.

[Balderdasha]

It's a mixed bag with gender neutral toilets. In London / South East I'd say about fifty fifty are gender neutral. The far bigger issue as far as I'm concerned is when they don't put the baby change area in a gender neutral toilet, but stick it in the female toilets instead. Like men never have to change a baby's nappy. It's medieval.

[TonTon]

That’s chivalrous of you.

But not for this thread, which is about the obstacles that trans people face and the support they deserve.

Agreed it's not really not for this thread - I just wouldn't want anyone thinking that ignoring the post meant I was agreeing with it.

[Furtho]

I was in a café a little while ago which had a gender neutral facility. I overheard a lass trying to describe the arrangement to her boyfriend and she couldn't think of the term "gender neutral" or indeed "unisex". The best she could come up with was "dual purpose".

[Amor de Cosmos]

It's a mixed bag with gender neutral toilets. In London / South East I'd say about fifty fifty are gender neutral. The far bigger issue as far as I'm concerned is when they don't put the baby change area in a gender neutral toilet, but stick it in the female toilets instead. Like men never have to change a baby's nappy. It's medieval.

That seems pretty good in comparison to Vancouver. Here you'll find them in trendy restaurants, coffee shops and other small stores but rarely in larger buildings.

There's also a degree of confusion and added difficulty here, particularly in shopping malls. Most were built with a separate disabled toilet room, then they added a changing table (and stuck an appropriate sign on the door.) Now they've added a "gender neutral" sign to the same room. It's not clear whether that applies to the room's usage in general, or just to people in wheelchairs and babies however. I'm assuming everyone, which is irritating if you have a disability as the regular toilets are often inaccessible. This type of "immobility creep" is becoming a real factor. YVR, for example, recently removed several disabled parking slots and replaced them with charging points for electric cars.

[ursus arctos]

That is definitely a thing here as well. A larger toilet that was legislatively mandated for disabled people became a "family" toilet with a changing table and now a gender neutral toilet. Though I tend to only encounter that at museums or stadia (I haven't shopped in a mall in yoinks). And virtually all of the restaurants we eat in regularly have always had gender neutral toilets without advertising them as such because they have fewer than 25 tables and never more than two toilets.

[delicatemoth]

Can I be clear and say that anyone who is still pushing the toilets nonsense is a person to be dismissed and ignored? The American religious right have actually admitted that they made this up to try and hoodwink foolish people. It's like creationism.

I'd hoped that this thread would be beyond that tbh, as laverte said - "about the obstacles that trans people face and the support they deserve." But it appears some things need restating.

Anyone labouring under the illusion that baiting trans people is somehow 'progressive' (an increasingly meaningless word) needs to read Katelyn Burns' article linked in the first post. To the religious right, you are useful idiots in their battle to strip LGBT people of protection from discrimination (coming up on October 8 in the US Supreme Court) and make life harder for gender non-conforming people. For them, 'butch'-looking cis women getting grief in toilets isn't a bug, it's a feature, especially as there is also a racist dimension to this.

I'm annoyed but sadly not surprised to learn that municipalities regard impinging on disabled people's amenities as the path of least resistance.

[Stumpy Pepys]

Can I be clear and say that anyone who is still pushing the toilets nonsense is a person to be dismissed and ignored? The American religious right have actually admitted that they made this up to try and hoodwink foolish people. It's like creationism.

No, it's not about toilets, but toilets are part of a wider debate regarding safe spaces for women in general—prisons, women's refuges and suchlike.

It's not clear whether the trans-lobby believes such safe spaces should exist or not.

[delicatemoth]

I'm not answering troll questions for the hundredth time*, go and do some reading. Your oppositions are nonsensical ('women' versus 'trans'). I really thought we could have a thread here without this beneath-basic bullshit. There is no 'trans lobby', no-one gets paid to defend their own existence. Prisons are very far from being a safe space for anyone, and anyone actually bothering to reflect might perhaps notice the presence of actual male staff in women's prisons. Refuges have been running for years with procedures in place to try and ensure women who use them are protected from potential threats of violence whatever the source and have years of dealing with trans people without problems, but a few media fuckwits stir up a non-existent threat for clicks and Internet Man above me wants answers!

One effect of this is to make services difficult to access for trans people. I recall needing rape counselling, but not knowing if I could apply to standard Rape Crisis orgs or not. Luckily I'm in London, so there was GALOP (who are great). If I'd been somewhere more isolated this would have been difficult.

I don't expect any of this to register with troll, because it never does. The things they raise are made up. It's like having a thread on vaccination where someone keeps posting "But vaccines might cause autism!!!!!". So I'm engaging 'ignore poster', and I feel that if this thread is to have any point then perhaps a mod should take action against obvious trolls and ill-wishers.

*Actually it looks like I am! Wooo!

[laverte]

Do you mind if I like the heck out of that post ?

I’m in favour of safe spaces, generally, and trans women need access to them more than most. Gatekeeping is always counter productive anyway and always targets the most marginalised.

ETA am reading CN Lester at the moment — on your recommendation ? Always learning something from personal testimony even when it seems ‘obvious ‘.

[Stumpy Pepys]

I'm not answering troll questions for the hundredth time*, go and do some reading. Your oppositions are nonsensical ('women' versus 'trans'). I really thought we could have a thread here without this beneath-basic bullshit.

Did it occur to you that I posted the question because I wanted to know?