According to a Gallup poll, a majority of people overall would prefer that transgender people should use the bathrooms corresponding to their sex at birth, but a majority of women specifically believe the opposite. 52% of women polled supported transgender people using bathrooms based on their gender identity; only 40% supported transgender people using bathrooms based on biological sex.
Wonder if I'll get away entering a women's bath and claiming I'm genderfluid and feeling like a woman today
It probably wouldn't be as great as great as you think anyway...
@UnderstandMouseMagic: The women's preference you cite is not supported by data. According to a Gallup poll, a majority of people overall would prefer that transgender people should use the bathrooms corresponding to their sex at birth, but a majority of women specifically believe the opposite. 52% of women polled supported transgender people using bathrooms based on their gender identity; only 40% supported transgender people using bathrooms based on biological sex.
Which position is correct is a more complicated issue, but as far as "women's preference" goes, a majority of women support transgender people choosing which bathroom they wish to use.
I'm guessing this is because there's a strong political difference between Republicans and Democrats, and Democrats skew female while Republicans skew male: Republicans favor transgender people using bathrooms based on their sex at birth 71% to 25%, while Democrats favor transgender people using bathrooms based on their gender identity 63% to 29%.
The poll you link to was based in America.
But anyway, 40% of the women in the survey don't agree with transwomen using female bathrooms. If I understand it rightly, they think it should be based on biological sex? Which, if it's representative of the population as a whole, is a darn sight more women than transwomen. So why should they have their preference overided by a minority?
@UnderstandMouseMagic: The women's preference you cite is not supported by data. According to a Gallup poll, a majority of people overall would prefer that transgender people should use the bathrooms corresponding to their sex at birth, but a majority of women specifically believe the opposite. 52% of women polled supported transgender people using bathrooms based on their gender identity; only 40% supported transgender people using bathrooms based on biological sex.
Which position is correct is a more complicated issue, but as far as "women's preference" goes, a majority of women support transgender people choosing which bathroom they wish to use.
I'm guessing this is because there's a strong political difference between Republicans and Democrats, and Democrats skew female while Republicans skew male: Republicans favor transgender people using bathrooms based on their sex at birth 71% to 25%, while Democrats favor transgender people using bathrooms based on their gender identity 63% to 29%.
The poll you link to was based in America.
But anyway, 40% of the women in the survey don't agree with transwomen using female bathrooms. If I understand it rightly, they think it should be based on biological sex? Which, if it's representative of the population as a whole, is a darn sight more women than transwomen. So why should they have their preference overided by a minority?
Because in a democracy, the majority decides (kinda). In your country the majority might be against and perhaps that will be different there, if the topic is even raised.
The notion that males would dress up as women and pretend to be female just to look at women washing their hands (it's not like they can push themselves into the actual booths where you do your thing.. ) in a female only bathroom is so immensely stupid and unfounded I am baffled by its sheer existance.
@UnderstandMouseMagic: The women's preference you cite is not supported by data. According to a Gallup poll, a majority of people overall would prefer that transgender people should use the bathrooms corresponding to their sex at birth, but a majority of women specifically believe the opposite. 52% of women polled supported transgender people using bathrooms based on their gender identity; only 40% supported transgender people using bathrooms based on biological sex.
Which position is correct is a more complicated issue, but as far as "women's preference" goes, a majority of women support transgender people choosing which bathroom they wish to use.
I'm guessing this is because there's a strong political difference between Republicans and Democrats, and Democrats skew female while Republicans skew male: Republicans favor transgender people using bathrooms based on their sex at birth 71% to 25%, while Democrats favor transgender people using bathrooms based on their gender identity 63% to 29%.
The poll you link to was based in America.
But anyway, 40% of the women in the survey don't agree with transwomen using female bathrooms. If I understand it rightly, they think it should be based on biological sex? Which, if it's representative of the population as a whole, is a darn sight more women than transwomen. So why should they have their preference overided by a minority?
Because in a democracy, the majority decides (kinda). In your country the majority might be against and perhaps that will be different there, if the topic is even raised.
The notion that males would dress up as women and pretend to be female just to look at women washing their hands (it's not like they can push themselves into the actual booths where you do your thing.. ) in a female only bathroom is so immensely stupid and unfounded I am baffled by its sheer existance.
Well, most bathroom stalls I'm familiar with, you could crawl under or climb over the walls unless you were a rather large man.
Edit-At least mens' bathrooms. I'm not going to say I've NEVER been in a women's bathroom (once, late at night, in an old and empty building (because late at night) and the womens' bathroom was the one on that floor (old building), and I was curious), but I suspect there's no difference in modern bathroom stall design between men's and women's.
You mean where you live the men's rooms do not have mythical golden tiles, scented perfumes, soft velvet covers on the seats, a well dressed attendant called Jeeves who is handing out tiny preheated towels, a make up specialist, an inspirational coach to make positive statements on shapes and figures, and a personal hygiene dispenser?
@UnderstandMouseMagic: The women's preference you cite is not supported by data. According to a Gallup poll, a majority of people overall would prefer that transgender people should use the bathrooms corresponding to their sex at birth, but a majority of women specifically believe the opposite. 52% of women polled supported transgender people using bathrooms based on their gender identity; only 40% supported transgender people using bathrooms based on biological sex.
Which position is correct is a more complicated issue, but as far as "women's preference" goes, a majority of women support transgender people choosing which bathroom they wish to use.
I'm guessing this is because there's a strong political difference between Republicans and Democrats, and Democrats skew female while Republicans skew male: Republicans favor transgender people using bathrooms based on their sex at birth 71% to 25%, while Democrats favor transgender people using bathrooms based on their gender identity 63% to 29%.
The poll you link to was based in America.
But anyway, 40% of the women in the survey don't agree with transwomen using female bathrooms. If I understand it rightly, they think it should be based on biological sex? Which, if it's representative of the population as a whole, is a darn sight more women than transwomen. So why should they have their preference overided by a minority?
Because in a democracy, the majority decides (kinda). In your country the majority might be against and perhaps that will be different there, if the topic is even raised.
The notion that males would dress up as women and pretend to be female just to look at women washing their hands (it's not like they can push themselves into the actual booths where you do your thing.. ) in a female only bathroom is so immensely stupid and unfounded I am baffled by its sheer existance.
Well, most bathroom stalls I'm familiar with, you could crawl under or climb over the walls unless you were a rather large man.
Edit-At least mens' bathrooms. I'm not going to say I've NEVER been in a women's bathroom (once, late at night, in an old and empty building (because late at night) and the womens' bathroom was the one on that floor (old building), and I was curious), but I suspect there's no difference in modern bathroom stall design between men's and women's.
.. and you think these men dressing up as women to con their way into womens' bathrooms are going to squeeze themselves in under the door to a toilet booth to peek at women doing the dirty? If any male is that intent on preying on women, they can just open the door to the bathroom and do it anyways. This is just a unfounded argument, inflating a hypothetical action that's not grounded in anything tangible.
The fact that even now, long after this first became an issue of public debate, there are no examples of transgender people using the women's bathroom to hurt women, despite the fact that most places have no laws banning MTF transgender people from these places, makes it fairly obvious that this fear isn't grounded in reality. You'd think that a debate this massive would be about a string of serious crimes, but the fact is, all the fears about sinister transgender people committing crimes in women's bathrooms are hypothetical fantasies.
It's one of those "What if X happens?" debates where X doesn't actually happen.
Even if we were talking about real crimes, a law banning transgender people from women's bathrooms would be unenforceable. Even cis-gender men can pass as women by changing their appearance. To prevent this hypothetical scenario, you'd literally need either DNA tests, inspectors, or video camera inside actual toilet bowls to detect hidden males or MTF transgender folks.
The fact that even now, long after this first became an issue of public debate, there are no examples of transgender people using the women's bathroom to hurt women, despite the fact that most places have no laws banning MTF transgender people from these places, makes it fairly obvious that this fear isn't grounded in reality. You'd think that a debate this massive would be about a string of serious crimes, but the fact is, all the fears about sinister transgender people committing crimes in women's bathrooms are hypothetical fantasies.
It's one of those "What if X happens?" debates where X doesn't actually happen.
Even if we were talking about real crimes, a law banning transgender people from women's bathrooms would be unenforceable. Even cis-gender men can pass as women by changing their appearance. To prevent this hypothetical scenario, you'd literally need either DNA tests, inspectors, or video camera inside actual toilet bowls to detect hidden males or MTF transgender folks.
Isn't that what the FBI does?
Female Body Inspector - an old joke that all the juvenile boys used to guffaw at back when I was in grade school...
Isn't whether or not it's an unfounded fear besides the point? People already feel vulnerable and exposed when using the bathroom. Especially so when it's a public one. It makes sense to cling to whatever sense of comfort, privacy and security there is.
This isn't exactly an issue with an easy resolution. If it was, someone would've come up with it by now.
@UnderstandMouseMagic: The women's preference you cite is not supported by data. According to a Gallup poll, a majority of people overall would prefer that transgender people should use the bathrooms corresponding to their sex at birth, but a majority of women specifically believe the opposite. 52% of women polled supported transgender people using bathrooms based on their gender identity; only 40% supported transgender people using bathrooms based on biological sex.
Which position is correct is a more complicated issue, but as far as "women's preference" goes, a majority of women support transgender people choosing which bathroom they wish to use.
I'm guessing this is because there's a strong political difference between Republicans and Democrats, and Democrats skew female while Republicans skew male: Republicans favor transgender people using bathrooms based on their sex at birth 71% to 25%, while Democrats favor transgender people using bathrooms based on their gender identity 63% to 29%.
The poll you link to was based in America.
But anyway, 40% of the women in the survey don't agree with transwomen using female bathrooms. If I understand it rightly, they think it should be based on biological sex? Which, if it's representative of the population as a whole, is a darn sight more women than transwomen. So why should they have their preference overided by a minority?
Because in a democracy, the majority decides (kinda). In your country the majority might be against and perhaps that will be different there, if the topic is even raised.
The notion that males would dress up as women and pretend to be female just to look at women washing their hands (it's not like they can push themselves into the actual booths where you do your thing.. ) in a female only bathroom is so immensely stupid and unfounded I am baffled by its sheer existance.
Well, most bathroom stalls I'm familiar with, you could crawl under or climb over the walls unless you were a rather large man.
Edit-At least mens' bathrooms. I'm not going to say I've NEVER been in a women's bathroom (once, late at night, in an old and empty building (because late at night) and the womens' bathroom was the one on that floor (old building), and I was curious), but I suspect there's no difference in modern bathroom stall design between men's and women's.
.. and you think these men dressing up as women to con their way into womens' bathrooms are going to squeeze themselves in under the door to a toilet booth to peek at women doing the dirty? If any male is that intent on preying on women, they can just open the door to the bathroom and do it anyways. This is just a unfounded argument, inflating a hypothetical action that's not grounded in anything tangible.
No, I don't. I'm on the transgender side. Or at least the "who cares who uses which bathroom" since I am neither trans nor up in arms about them wanting to use the bathroom they want to use.
The fact that even now, long after this first became an issue of public debate, there are no examples of transgender people using the women's bathroom to hurt women, despite the fact that most places have no laws banning MTF transgender people from these places, makes it fairly obvious that this fear isn't grounded in reality. You'd think that a debate this massive would be about a string of serious crimes, but the fact is, all the fears about sinister transgender people committing crimes in women's bathrooms are hypothetical fantasies.
It's one of those "What if X happens?" debates where X doesn't actually happen.
Even if we were talking about real crimes, a law banning transgender people from women's bathrooms would be unenforceable. Even cis-gender men can pass as women by changing their appearance. To prevent this hypothetical scenario, you'd literally need either DNA tests, inspectors, or video camera inside actual toilet bowls to detect hidden males or MTF transgender folks.
Well they have managed to commit crimes in women's prisons.
Interesting. To be fair, though, it's not really relevant to the bathroom debate.
Erm sorry what?
How is it not relevent to take into account that a considerable percentage of convicted men who claim to be, or are accepted as transexual women, are sex offenders? And because of that women have every right to be concerned about moves to force them to accept transexuals into women's private spaces.
There has also been the issue here in the UK that transexual women are also demanding that they be allowed to use women's refuge places. Which has caused considerable push back from those who run the refuges who are pointing out that these are places where women should be able to feel safe. The whole point of them being safe places away from men that men cannot access because they house women who have suffered from serious sexual abuse.
I mean, I'm not getting the sense here that anybody is really being very truthful. Some men have very twisted and sick ideas about sex and how they should behave sexually or treat women sexually. And whether it's PC or not, women do need protection.
Draw a venn diagram and there is going to be overlap between men like this and men who present as transexual women. Just as there would be an overlap between men like this and men who are outwardly ultra respectable and hold down god jobs.
On the one hand you have the @metoo movement and on the other, lets pretend nothing bad can happen. And what's so silly, it's being influenced by which group wins the "marginalised victim group" prize and who's shouting the loudest.
Interesting. To be fair, though, it's not really relevant to the bathroom debate.
Erm sorry what?
How is it not relevent to take into account that a considerable percentage of men who claim to be, or are accepted as transexual women, are sex offenders?
1. First, this statement is groundless, even including your previous citation. Your citation claimed that a large proportion of transgender women criminals committed sexual crimes. This does not establish that a "considerable percentage" of transgender women overall are criminals, whether sexual or otherwise.
Put it this way: most female criminals (and I'm not talking about transgender women here; this is a very old statistic) commit property crimes, as opposed to violent crimes. Does that establish that "many women commit property crimes?" No--it establishes that, of the women who do commit crimes, those crimes are disproportionately property crimes. In order to establish that "a considerable percentage of men who claim to be, or are accepted as transexual women, are sex offenders," you need a statistic on the percentage of transgender women who are sex offenders.
2. In order for these crimes to be relevant to the bathroom debate, the crimes in question need to have been committed in bathrooms.
As for the transgender issue in regards to prisons, I have to agree with the statement at the end of the article: if a transgender woman still has male genitalia and isn't even undergoing hormone treatment, transferring them to a women's prison is a very bad idea to say the least. In addition, I would also forbid any trans women from moving to women's prisons if they had committed any sexual offense against women.
The reason I want to stress this distinction is because the bathroom issue and the ratio of sex crimes to non-sexual crimes among transgender female criminals aren't actually related to each other--the only commonality between them is the underlying assumption that "many 'transgender women' are actually male rapists using transgender identity as a disguise," and I'm very suspicious of that concept. The idea--and I'm referring to a much, much broader trend in the public debate; I'm not talking about this thread itself--seems more grounded in (1) disbelief that transgender identity is even genuine among transgender people and (2) the fear of deviant men, as opposed to (3) a statistically-proven trend that men are getting away with crimes by falsely claiming to be transgender.
There was a South Park episode where Cartman falsely claimed transgender status for his own advantage, but that's the closest thing I can think of to an example of this actually happening. All of the other transgender folks I've known, both on this forum and in real life, have seemed pretty candid about their identity, and none of them have profited from it or used it to get away with anything.
Interesting. To be fair, though, it's not really relevant to the bathroom debate.
Erm sorry what?
How is it not relevent to take into account that a considerable percentage of men who claim to be, or are accepted as transexual women, are sex offenders?
1. First, this statement is groundless, even including your previous citation. Your citation claimed that a large proportion of transgender women criminals committed sexual crimes. This does not establish that a "considerable percentage" of transgender women overall are criminals, whether sexual or otherwise.
Put it this way: most female criminals (and I'm not talking about transgender women here; this is a very old statistic) commit property crimes, as opposed to violent crimes. Does that establish that "many women commit property crimes?" No--it establishes that, of the women who do commit crimes, those crimes are disproportionately property crimes. In order to establish that "a considerable percentage of men who claim to be, or are accepted as transexual women, are sex offenders," you need a statistic on the percentage of transgender women who are sex offenders.
2. In order for these crimes to be relevant to the bathroom debate, the crimes in question need to have been committed in bathrooms.
As for the transgender issue in regards to prisons, I have to agree with the statement at the end of the article: if a transgender woman still has male genitalia and isn't even undergoing hormone treatment, transferring them to a women's prison is a very bad idea to say the least. In addition, I would also forbid any trans women from moving to women's prisons if they had committed any sexual offense against women.
With regards to point 1, I have already corrected the wording to make it clear it related to convicted men in prison who are claiming to be or who are transgender.
Point 2. Sorry what? A sexual attack can only be compared to another sexual attack if it happens in the same type of location?
And regards the last statement, I suggest the criterior " still has male genitalia and isn't even undergoing hormone treatment," to be the deciding rule for any transexual woman using women only spaces. Whereas at the momnt, we have an ongoing push for this to be accepted from any self presenting transexual.
Now as that of course cannot be enforced, then I am not in favour of transexual presenting women being allowed to use women only facilities.
AMAB (assigned male at birth) Genderfluid, to be precise. In essence, my gender identity is not consistent day-to-day. Some days I, as a rather feminine man, perceive myself as wholly a man and desperately attempt to present in a more masculine way to reflect that. Other times I have a strong impulse to transition to female, which often leads to me dressing in drag if it's it all appropriate to the situation and adopting a feminine body language and tone besides. Most of the time, though, I don't really have a masculine/feminine gender identity; I just am.
Coincidentally, I was just writing to a friend on this topic today.
First off, the idea that there is anything about humans (or really life in general) that is strictly binary is absurd beyond belief to anyone with a better than grade school understanding of biology. Others have already covered it, but there are numerous ways that a person can express both male and female characteristics or appear to be the opposite sex from chromosomal/intersex conditions, gene expression issues, to epigenetic development (or sexual development) disorders. There are more than enough "exceptions" to put a nail in the coffin of the gender binary. Humans, and most higher forms of life, are vastly complex systems, and complex systems rarely reduce to less complex models without error.
However, thousands of years of natural selection have created a system that is both reasonably error resistant and tolerant, which is what allows our cultural assumption of binary genders to work the vast majority of the time. The problem is that people forget that it is an approximation that does NOT cover the entire set of possibilities and then get ticked off when someone who doesn't fit neatly within the model demands to be taken seriously.
Personally, I am a chromosomal, and functional/anatomically complete male. However, my body has numerous traits that indicate that I experienced a hormonal development issue in-utero that caused aspects of my body to be feminized. Because of the development period where these traits occur, it isn't surprising that my personality is a blend of masculine and feminine traits. Now, for practical reasons, I live as a man most of the time. I have a wife and family that I am responsible for, and in general, playing along with social expectations makes life simpler. However, there is a female side of me that I also express through writing, game play, and with select friends who I trust to know about that side of me. It is just as much a part of me as my male "persona", and it contributes to my overall personality no matter how I am perceived.
Thus, I don't really feel like any of the common labels accurately describes how I feel, but the closest to how I internally view myself is intergender, or more technically, undifferentiated androgyne.
As for the bathroom issue... Well, once upon a time people were afraid to drink from the same water fountains as other races. It's not all that different, really.
AMAB (assigned male at birth) Genderfluid, to be precise. In essence, my gender identity is not consistent day-to-day. Some days I, as a rather feminine man, perceive myself as wholly a man and desperately attempt to present in a more masculine way to reflect that. Other times I have a strong impulse to transition to female, which often leads to me dressing in drag if it's it all appropriate to the situation and adopting a feminine body language and tone besides. Most of the time, though, I don't really have a masculine/feminine gender identity; I just am.
This is kinda where my question comes in. What's the difference between an effeminate male and born male but "feel" like female? What is "feel" like female? Aren't they actually reinforcing societal judgements? By accepting that playing with dolls, for example, is for girls and girls only? Don't they actually harm themselves by thinking that something is wrong, that they got thewrong body? How does society saying girls play with dolls make a boy who plays with dolls a girl? How does a male know what "female" feels like? You feel like you, and if you think it's a "female" feeling that is YOU making it so. There is no strictly male or female emotion. Is there?
It's a bit hard to describe cross-gender thoughts and emotions if you haven't experienced them, and while you are correct that there is a tremendous amount of commonality (we are all humans after all), there are noticeable differences. Men and women are not exactly alike, and that is a good thing.
Further, you are also correct that there is a lot of societal bull being conflated with gender. Liking dolls doesn't make you a girl, just as liking trucks doesn't make you a boy. The clothes, toys, hobbies, etc., are, in and of themselves, not what is important. What is important is matching how you see yourself to how both you and others perceive you, and those things can alter your appearance such that these two things more closely match. This is the basis for gender dysphoria, which is a real phenomenon. (One of the few such issues to still be found in the DSM)
@_Nightfall_ , thank you for sharing, it can't be easy to talk about, but it was helpful. Also, congratulations, you survived and found some sense of happiness. Too many don't.
I hope I haven't come across as judgmental, we must all be true to ourselves and I'm okay with that. I just try to understand as much as I'm able to.
Great questions, I don’t know if I can answer all of them to everyone’s satisfaction. I am not even sure I should try because well, I would have to talk about my life. My life was not a fun story, I don’t answer questions about my childhood because it sucks all of the happiness out of everyone. No one wants to know but they don’t know that they don’t want to until it’s too late so I keep it to myself. This is not making an attempt at explaining, that might not even be possible, maybe I can give some insight though.
Please edit or remove this post if it is too much. This will probably be long, let me apologize beforehand.
That wasn't too much at all, though you might consider breaking it into paragraphs. That was a tough wall of text to climb over.
That said, a lot of what you wrote resonated, because I had a rough childhood myself. Not nearly as rough as yours, but I'm still dealing with the fallout from it. While I'm not binary transgender, my internal sense of femininity caused a huge amount of problems growing up, and I learned to hide it to my detriment. I only began to realize a few years ago, after failing to emotionally connect to my wife and daughter the way I should have, just how badly I had been scarred. By walling off that part of myself, I walled off so much of my personality that what was left felt like a zombie at times.
I know I'm just some rando on a forum, but for what it's worth, I'm glad you got through it in one piece and discovered who you are. Whether you realize it or not, you bring a different viewpoint to life that has a lot of value. I, for one, am glad you are here.
Thank you for sharing, @_Nightfall_. I'm so sorry you had to put up with so much horrible treatment for no reason. It takes a lot of strength to survive that, and a lot of courage to be open about it.
Humankind has been too afraid to confront these issues until very recently. It's only because of brave people like you that we're finally ending thousands of years of silence, and folks in the future will be healthier and safer because of your courage.
so much horrible treatment for no reason. It takes a lot of strength to survive that, and a lot of courage to be open about it.
i see a lot of reasons: ignorance, conformism, false belief, lack of love and empathy, egoism, and many more.
bad reasons obviously, but reasons, as causes of what happened. as there is and there never will be a good reason for it.
i tell it because so often happens that the tormenter, the oppressor, has been a victim himself in the past.
it is so easy when someone is victim of such a treatment and abuse to remain victim all of his life, hiding a shame that in reality is not his shame. or to become from victim an oppressor himself as reaction.
only exceptional people have the strength to find their way out of that, and to find the strength to be themselves, true to their inner nature, and only they really know the price that they have to pay to do it.
those that do it and that also learn to forgive are giants among the human race.
Comments
The poll you link to was based in America.
But anyway, 40% of the women in the survey don't agree with transwomen using female bathrooms. If I understand it rightly, they think it should be based on biological sex? Which, if it's representative of the population as a whole, is a darn sight more women than transwomen.
So why should they have their preference overided by a minority?
The notion that males would dress up as women and pretend to be female just to look at women washing their hands (it's not like they can push themselves into the actual booths where you do your thing.. ) in a female only bathroom is so immensely stupid and unfounded I am baffled by its sheer existance.
Edit-At least mens' bathrooms. I'm not going to say I've NEVER been in a women's bathroom (once, late at night, in an old and empty building (because late at night) and the womens' bathroom was the one on that floor (old building), and I was curious), but I suspect there's no difference in modern bathroom stall design between men's and women's.
It's one of those "What if X happens?" debates where X doesn't actually happen.
Even if we were talking about real crimes, a law banning transgender people from women's bathrooms would be unenforceable. Even cis-gender men can pass as women by changing their appearance. To prevent this hypothetical scenario, you'd literally need either DNA tests, inspectors, or video camera inside actual toilet bowls to detect hidden males or MTF transgender folks.
Female Body Inspector - an old joke that all the juvenile boys used to guffaw at back when I was in grade school...
This isn't exactly an issue with an easy resolution. If it was, someone would've come up with it by now.
Well they have managed to commit crimes in women's prisons.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/sep/09/sexual-assaults-in-womens-prison-reignite-debate-over-transgender-inmates-karen-white
An interesting fact from this article is this which I wasn't aware of;
“Almost half of trans women prisoners are sex offenders,”
How is it not relevent to take into account that a considerable percentage of convicted men who claim to be, or are accepted as transexual women, are sex offenders?
And because of that women have every right to be concerned about moves to force them to accept transexuals into women's private spaces.
There has also been the issue here in the UK that transexual women are also demanding that they be allowed to use women's refuge places. Which has caused considerable push back from those who run the refuges who are pointing out that these are places where women should be able to feel safe. The whole point of them being safe places away from men that men cannot access because they house women who have suffered from serious sexual abuse.
I mean, I'm not getting the sense here that anybody is really being very truthful. Some men have very twisted and sick ideas about sex and how they should behave sexually or treat women sexually.
And whether it's PC or not, women do need protection.
Draw a venn diagram and there is going to be overlap between men like this and men who present as transexual women.
Just as there would be an overlap between men like this and men who are outwardly ultra respectable and hold down god jobs.
On the one hand you have the @metoo movement and on the other, lets pretend nothing bad can happen.
And what's so silly, it's being influenced by which group wins the "marginalised victim group" prize and who's shouting the loudest.
Put it this way: most female criminals (and I'm not talking about transgender women here; this is a very old statistic) commit property crimes, as opposed to violent crimes. Does that establish that "many women commit property crimes?" No--it establishes that, of the women who do commit crimes, those crimes are disproportionately property crimes. In order to establish that "a considerable percentage of men who claim to be, or are accepted as transexual women, are sex offenders," you need a statistic on the percentage of transgender women who are sex offenders.
2. In order for these crimes to be relevant to the bathroom debate, the crimes in question need to have been committed in bathrooms.
As for the transgender issue in regards to prisons, I have to agree with the statement at the end of the article: if a transgender woman still has male genitalia and isn't even undergoing hormone treatment, transferring them to a women's prison is a very bad idea to say the least. In addition, I would also forbid any trans women from moving to women's prisons if they had committed any sexual offense against women.
There was a South Park episode where Cartman falsely claimed transgender status for his own advantage, but that's the closest thing I can think of to an example of this actually happening. All of the other transgender folks I've known, both on this forum and in real life, have seemed pretty candid about their identity, and none of them have profited from it or used it to get away with anything.
With regards to point 1, I have already corrected the wording to make it clear it related to convicted men in prison who are claiming to be or who are transgender.
Point 2.
Sorry what? A sexual attack can only be compared to another sexual attack if it happens in the same type of location?
And regards the last statement, I suggest the criterior " still has male genitalia and isn't even undergoing hormone treatment," to be the deciding rule for any transexual woman using women only spaces.
Whereas at the momnt, we have an ongoing push for this to be accepted from any self presenting transexual.
Now as that of course cannot be enforced, then I am not in favour of transexual presenting women being allowed to use women only facilities.
Ansolutely no need for an apology. I am glad you shared - I found your post most insightful. Thank you for sharing
And there is need for feeling uncomfortable around here. You are more than welcome here - just as you are.
First off, the idea that there is anything about humans (or really life in general) that is strictly binary is absurd beyond belief to anyone with a better than grade school understanding of biology. Others have already covered it, but there are numerous ways that a person can express both male and female characteristics or appear to be the opposite sex from chromosomal/intersex conditions, gene expression issues, to epigenetic development (or sexual development) disorders. There are more than enough "exceptions" to put a nail in the coffin of the gender binary. Humans, and most higher forms of life, are vastly complex systems, and complex systems rarely reduce to less complex models without error.
However, thousands of years of natural selection have created a system that is both reasonably error resistant and tolerant, which is what allows our cultural assumption of binary genders to work the vast majority of the time. The problem is that people forget that it is an approximation that does NOT cover the entire set of possibilities and then get ticked off when someone who doesn't fit neatly within the model demands to be taken seriously.
Personally, I am a chromosomal, and functional/anatomically complete male. However, my body has numerous traits that indicate that I experienced a hormonal development issue in-utero that caused aspects of my body to be feminized. Because of the development period where these traits occur, it isn't surprising that my personality is a blend of masculine and feminine traits. Now, for practical reasons, I live as a man most of the time. I have a wife and family that I am responsible for, and in general, playing along with social expectations makes life simpler. However, there is a female side of me that I also express through writing, game play, and with select friends who I trust to know about that side of me. It is just as much a part of me as my male "persona", and it contributes to my overall personality no matter how I am perceived.
Thus, I don't really feel like any of the common labels accurately describes how I feel, but the closest to how I internally view myself is intergender, or more technically, undifferentiated androgyne.
As for the bathroom issue... Well, once upon a time people were afraid to drink from the same water fountains as other races. It's not all that different, really.
This is kinda where my question comes in. What's the difference between an effeminate male and born male but "feel" like female? What is "feel" like female? Aren't they actually reinforcing societal judgements? By accepting that playing with dolls, for example, is for girls and girls only? Don't they actually harm themselves by thinking that something is wrong, that they got thewrong body? How does society saying girls play with dolls make a boy who plays with dolls a girl? How does a male know what "female" feels like? You feel like you, and if you think it's a "female" feeling that is YOU making it so. There is no strictly male or female emotion. Is there?
Further, you are also correct that there is a lot of societal bull being conflated with gender. Liking dolls doesn't make you a girl, just as liking trucks doesn't make you a boy. The clothes, toys, hobbies, etc., are, in and of themselves, not what is important. What is important is matching how you see yourself to how both you and others perceive you, and those things can alter your appearance such that these two things more closely match. This is the basis for gender dysphoria, which is a real phenomenon. (One of the few such issues to still be found in the DSM)
I hope I haven't come across as judgmental, we must all be true to ourselves and I'm okay with that. I just try to understand as much as I'm able to.
That wasn't too much at all, though you might consider breaking it into paragraphs. That was a tough wall of text to climb over.
That said, a lot of what you wrote resonated, because I had a rough childhood myself. Not nearly as rough as yours, but I'm still dealing with the fallout from it. While I'm not binary transgender, my internal sense of femininity caused a huge amount of problems growing up, and I learned to hide it to my detriment. I only began to realize a few years ago, after failing to emotionally connect to my wife and daughter the way I should have, just how badly I had been scarred. By walling off that part of myself, I walled off so much of my personality that what was left felt like a zombie at times.
I know I'm just some rando on a forum, but for what it's worth, I'm glad you got through it in one piece and discovered who you are. Whether you realize it or not, you bring a different viewpoint to life that has a lot of value. I, for one, am glad you are here.
Humankind has been too afraid to confront these issues until very recently. It's only because of brave people like you that we're finally ending thousands of years of silence, and folks in the future will be healthier and safer because of your courage.
bad reasons obviously, but reasons, as causes of what happened. as there is and there never will be a good reason for it.
i tell it because so often happens that the tormenter, the oppressor, has been a victim himself in the past.
it is so easy when someone is victim of such a treatment and abuse to remain victim all of his life, hiding a shame that in reality is not his shame. or to become from victim an oppressor himself as reaction.
only exceptional people have the strength to find their way out of that, and to find the strength to be themselves, true to their inner nature, and only they really know the price that they have to pay to do it.
those that do it and that also learn to forgive are giants among the human race.