First off, thank you for taking the time to craft a thoughtful reply, I genuinely appreciate it. It's such a rare trait these days, on any side of any debate.
That said, I feel like some of your own points want to ask some of your other points some questions.
"But if you're alone in a bathroom with one or the other, then your odds of being…
First off, thank you for taking the time to craft a thoughtful reply, I genuinely appreciate it. It's such a rare trait these days, on any side of any debate.
That said, I feel like some of your own points want to ask some of your other points some questions.
"But if you're alone in a bathroom with one or the other, then your odds of being alone in the bathroom with one of them are 100%" this does make sense by itself. But I don't think it disproves my point. Having an actual cis man in the bathroom would make most women more nervous. This is important because it ties to my second point, which I think you misunderstood.
So you have mentioned above how 'trans women have male pattern criminality', and yet you also say this - "If a trans woman passes, they almost certainly already use the women's bathroom without causing any issues." Which, for the record, I totally agree with. I am sure many of us have been in bathrooms next to trans women and have not noticed. So..... what gives? Should we be retroactively horrified? Where was the criminality? If men and women are so deeply different and we simply cannot allow a trans woman to use a 'women's space' - what of all those women who pass and do so, as you yourself point out, 'with no issue'? Doesn't that pretty clearly show it's fine if they are there?
'Ah yes,' you might say, 'but it is the OTHER kind of trans women who are the issue, the kind with the male pattern criminality!' And here we get into the issue of now being 'kinds' of trans women? Delineated by... how well they pass? Why would that be, if a 'man cannot change his essence' - how are these very unique trans women managing to pee next to me in peace? Would a trans woman passing less well be a trans woman who poses more danger to me? ....why??
Then we come to your point of 'oh, trans men don't want to be in locker rooms with cis men'. Why do you think that is? Because they don't feel they belong there, or because they feel those cis men might be hostile to them? What point does that possibly prove other than 'nobody wants to share enclosed spaces with cis men, because they tend to be the most molesty group of people out there'? I can easily imagine a group of gay men also not wanting to share a locker room with cis men, but I would not think that makes gay men 'not really men'.
Thennnn we come to your point of 'oh I don't mind a trans man in MY bathroom, the same way I don't mind a woman in my bathroom, because they do not intimidate me'. I agree. That makes sense. But my point was not about trans men in MENS rooms. My point was about trans men in WOMEN's rooms.
Because the plan of everyone using bathrooms according to birth-genitals means the hurliest burliest beardiest swolest trans man - and there are some pretty impressive specimens out there - gets to be in MY bathroom. Do you see what that does? A guy with a neck beard and arms the thickness of my thigh can come into MY bathroom. And if I go 'Sir this is the ladies' room', he can go 'oh you see I was born with a vagina.'
He can just say that. Do I know if he was really born a woman? Who is going to be checking? Do you get it? If everyone born female can go into a women's restroom, that means that ANY MAN AT ALL can go into ANY WOMAN'S RESTROOM, just as he is, and simply say 'oh I was born with a vagina. This is all from T shots'. You, you personally, could go into a women's bathroom, look the woman there in the eye and say 'yeah, I know it looks weird, but I was actually born a woman', and there you are, a CIS man, in the women's bathroom. Do you get why that is worse than what we had before?
"And more to the point, I've yet to hear *anybody* (and I've ben asking for at least five years now) explain in any kind of verifiable or objective way, what the difference between a trans woman and a man even is!" So on these questions I do agree it is difficult to define things in 'verifiable and objective ways'. It is. Because human beings are really complex and weird. I can try to do so in a roundabout way.
It is my personal belief, from everything I have seen, read and heard on the subject, that male/female is not so much a dichotomy as a spectrum. And yes, 98% of the people will fall relatively clearly on one of the two 'sides'. But that doesn't make it not a spectrum, because you have so many people who clearly don't fit either box neatly. Start just with the recent surge in massive bulky 'muscle mommy' type women in sports (think Ilona Maher for example, or Natasha Aughey, or Alicia Napoleon. Of course these women are women. But we can definitely see that Ilona Maher is, let's say, a different type of woman than, say, Ariana Grande. Women can have different amounts of muscle mass, testosterone, ambition, aggression, whatever. So can men.
Then you come to the cases where the body is clearly confused. You have people born with both sets of genitals. Before, doctors used to just let the parents choose which set to remove, and would raise the child in whatever gender the parents had picked. If that kid grew up to feel differently gendered, would we be surprised? Then we have weird mixes - male chromosomes with female genitals. Female genitals outside but undescended testes inside the body. Is it weird if these people grow up to not feel entirely the gender they are being raised as? Not really. They are the middle ground. Somewhere in between.
My belief is that genitals alone do not make a man. If you god forbid lost yours, you would not stop being a man. If someone had surgically removed them from you at birth, you would also not stop being a man. We all have our spot on the spectrum, that has to do with our body but also our hormones, our brain chemistry, our life experiences.
Some of the differences between the sexes ARE biological - but biology is not fond of strict binaries. We see that in our vast differences. We have very effeminate women, to kind of medium-feminine women, to clearly pretty darn butch women, to very androgynous people, to fairly effeminate men, to regular degree sort of masculine men to extremely hyper masculine men, it's much more than just 'box a and box b'.
Then of course we come to the fact that one thing that happens very often when we start introducing these firm rules about 'women's spaces' is that masculine seeming women - muscular, sporty, short haired type women - tend to start getting harassed about being 'in the wrong bathroom' and suspected of being trans. How would we protect them from this? Do they need to wear transparent pants? Do they not get the same consideration other women get, because they're 'performing their gender wrong'? Because I have heard zero personal experiences from my circle of friends saying a trans woman assaulted them in a bathroom, but I have heard stories from women friends who have been questioned over their gender in a women's bathroom. Even had security called on them. For not 'looking sufficiently feminine'.
I'm pretty sure you at least heard of the case of Imane Khelif, the women's boxing gold medalist at the last Olympics. There was a literal witch hunt after her because she 'looked too manly' to random people. Trying to police allowed levels of 'manliness' in women is not something I will ever be able to get behind, nor would I ever consider it 'protecting women'.
Anyway, very long story short, I personally would be fine with 100% unisex bathrooms, have worked in spaces that had unisex bathrooms, and have had no issues using them. But I am very much against random citizens gatekeeping other random citizens from spaces they feel 'belong to them more', on what are clearly pretty shaky pretenses.
😅 This reply is longer than the original article, so I don't think I'm going to get to every point/question. But I think most of the confusion is just about being pragmatic.
Yes, trans women maintain "male pattern criminality," because they're males. I'm still not sure what magical alchemy you believe happens that breaks trans women free from male patterns of thought and behaviour the moment they utter the magic words, "I identify as a woman."
But as a male, I can confidently report than not all males are rapists. I know that if I used a female bathroom the women in here would have nothing to worry about. I believe the same is true of a lot of men.
So while, in a simple, black and white world, trans women who pass would still all stay out of women's spaces that's simply not realistic.
As you and many others point out, there's no way to police that if a trans woman passes except for genital inspections. And trans women who pass have, at least, demonstrated sufficient commitment over a number of years, that we can be fairly confident they're not just using gender ideology as an excuse to perv at women. In fact, most trans women in this category are gay males. And if they pass, their appearance won't provoke the same reaction than mine did.
But you still haven't explained how trans women who DON'T pass are in any way distinguishable from men. If I say I identify as a woman now, do you unquestioningly believe me? Should I be allowed to use women's spaces with no questions asked? Would you consider any woman who wasn't comfortable with my presence a bigot? Should my desire to use a women's space trump the comfort of the women in them? These are the question you're not addressing.
As for trans MEN in women's spaces, yes, obviously they shouldn't be in there because they WILL provoke the same reaction that I did. But there's a false equivalence here, because you're overlooking the differing functions of women's and men's spaces.
Women's spaces exist to offer women privacy and protection from men. Men's spaces exist to give men a place to go while women enjoy that privacy and protection.
Men's spaces don't become less safe for men if you introduce men in dresses or women with stubble. That's why I think that ideally, men's spaces should be used as an "all gender space" and women's spaces should be for females. Because women's spaces DO become less safe for women (and therefore fail to serve their function) if men can simply opt their way in with a declaration.
I'm not going to get into the male/female spectrum argument except to say that even if we pretend that intersex people break the sex binary (they don't) they have nothing to do with trans people.
Imane Khelif is male. And therefore has physical advantages that should be disqualifying for female sport. Especially combat sport. It is so frustrating and sad that this simple fact has been reframed as "hate."
Never, in the history of sport, has your sporting category been defined by how you "feel" on the inside. Your sex is, in 99.98% of cases, a simple objective, verifiable-at-a-glance fact. And in those 0.02% of cases, like Khelif, it's still trivially verifiable. It just takes more than a glance.
On that note, Ilona Maher is not somewhere on a "spectrum" between male and female. She's female. And I'm sure she'd find it very offensive that you'd suggest otherwise. It's incredibly regressive to look at a tall or muscular woman and discount or diminish her womanhood because of that. Just as it's regressive to look at a boy who likes dolls or dresses or the colour pink and say he's a girl. I thought we'd left thinking like that behind in the 50s.
It seems that everybody who makes this kind argument confuses femininity with womanhood. But femininity is an optional performance that both men and women are free to embrace or reject. I think we'd agree that our society needs to go further to make feminine males and masculine females genuinely accepted in society.
But womanhood, as in the state of being an adult female human being, is not a performance. And isn't delegitimised by being strong or tall or capable. Only by being male.
Effeminate males are still men. Weak males are still men. Gay males are still men. Males with breast implants are still men. As you yourself say, males who lose their penises are still men. So I'm still not clear at what point you think they become women.
Lastly, it's great that you're "100% fine with unisex bathrooms." But your boundaries don't and shouldn't set the bar for all women, right?
So the question is, as I've asked elsewhere, is it reasonable that many women DO want that privacy in a changing room or a hospital or a rape crisis centre?
Is it reasonable for a woman with a disabled, non-verbal child to want to ensure that her child only receives intimate care from another woman? Or for a woman who needs life-saving surgery to request that only women provide intimate care for her without having her surgery cancelled out of spite?
Is it reasonable for a woman who has been raped by a man to refuse to refer to her rapist as "she" in court? Is it reasonable for her to want to recover in a space where she knows she won't encounter men?
I think it absolutely is. And I think they should be able to get it without being demonised or threatened. Don't you?
Ok things are getting good! First off yes, I do apologize for the length- but I really feel this is what it takes to truly discuss these issues, which are full of complexity and nuance. To truly understand the other person’s opinion and to truly investigate our own. One should not be taking up a stance unless one is ready to defend it vigorously- and rigorously.
I massively agree with the pragmatism issue. I think we have to be pragmatic when dealing with these things. But I think the solution you are championing is the least pragmatic of all. It purports to want to get all trans women - even the passing ones who ‘have shown commitment’ and admittedly cause no trouble- out of ‘women’s spaces’, but allows CIS men INTO those spaces, either as security guards hunting down ‘masculine loking persons’ (who more often than not turn out to be just masc presenting women), or as regular brazen cis MEN, who can now claim ‘oh no I have a vagina trust me bro’. When letting everyone go where they more or less look like they belong avoids more unpleasant situations. Not all, because the world is not perfect, but more.
And I get your perspective where you want a special split that is objectively not being discussed in society right now - where everyone except 100% feminine presenting cis women is in men’s bathrooms - saying ‘oh it won’t bother the men’. But I, as you, am not concerned about the men being bothered. I am concerned about all those OTHER people being bothered. I firmly believe anyone who is not a cis man is 98% more likely to seek to use a women’s bathroom specifically to avoid sharing the space with cis men, and not ‘to perv on women’. We have stalls anyway.
This way you create some mystical category of ‘the real true woman’, who is the only one who deserves any social protection or consideration, while everyone else, be it men, trans women, trans men, and to me most crucially just regular-ass women who tent to look a little more masculine- all get to bear the brunt of that ‘special protection’ by being perpetually harassed while trying to pee.
On the subject of Ilona, if you re-read what I wrote, you will see I also said she is clearly a woman. Obviously. And obviously I also feel masculine looking women are just as much women as feminine presenting women. But masculine presenting women are probably the largest victim group of the system you are proposing. Ilona is ok because she is famous. But imagine a non famous woman, built like her with a jawline like hers, walking into a ‘gender-policed’ bathroom.
What do you think happens? You think she is treated with dignity and respect or does she get the security guys called on her? How does she feel when the security guys get there? Is she asked to ‘prove’ her gender? How does she prove it??? This harassment is already happening, and I am pretty confident it largely outnumbers the number of actual assaults by trans women on cis women in women’s bathrooms.
Do we just say that is ‘pragmatically how it has to be’? Or do we reconsider?
Or do we value the safety of masculine looking women LESS than the safety of feminine looking women? If yes, why?
So, you mention that you consider ‘passing trans women to be gay males’. Does that mean you believe gay people DON’T have ‘male pattern criminality’? Why would this be?
‘If I say I identify as a woman now, do you unquestioningly believe me? Should I be allowed to use women's spaces with no questions asked?’ - see, this is really the point. You can do that IN BOTH SCENARIOS. In the ‘only cis females in women’s bathrooms’ scenario you can claim you are a transitioned born female. In the current context you can say ‘you feel female’. In either case CIS MEN CAN STILL LIE to gain access to women’s spaces. The protection does NOT meaningfully increase. But honestly, yes, I believe you more if you are going to the trouble of taking hormone injections and picking out a nice dress. No man who has ever menaced me would have bothered to do that.
I mean the whole idea, knowing how difficult it actually is to gain access to hormone therapy etc, that men would be going through all that just to attack women, when the men who want to attack women CLEARLY HAVE ZERO ISSUES already doing that, is very far fetched. Especially since we know that over 70% rapists never see a day of jail time. Like if I wanted to champion protection of women, I would start there. I feel like the impact might be immeasurably larger.
To your last point, I absolutely agree nobody should be threatened or harassed or denied medical care. Doctors should care for everyone equally and they do every day - Black doctors and nurses treat openly racist people, women doctors treat openly misogynistic men, all doctors treat people even if they happen to have swastika tattoos. The cases you are speaking about sound extremely specific to me, so I will go out on a limb to say they are not a massive problem. What percentage of gynecologists are men? In my experience a fair number. Somehow we’re not up in arms over that. Should we have our pick of doctors? If it is feasible. But I have never picked a surgeon either for myself or my kid. That’s not how hospitals tend to work. Could there be exceptions for especially traumatized people? I am not against it. But seeing how hard it is to get any sort of medical care these days, again, that’s far from our biggest issue.
Do you think more women were ‘in danger of a trans doctor performing an intimate surgery’ on them or were more trans people in danger of being refused treatment because people don’t accept them as ‘real’?
Basically I think we agree on a large portion of the topic. The main difference between our stances is that I am less comfortable with sacrificing a series of minorities for the comfort of one specific group we somehow deem special and particularly vulnerable. Trans people are at a MARKEDLY HIGHER RISK of EXPERIENCING sexual assault and not committing it. Yet we should shove them all in bathrooms with men, who commit the majority of that assault?
Doesn’t sound like fair and equal treatment to me.
"But I think the solution you are championing is the least pragmatic of all. It purports to want to get all trans women - even the passing ones who ‘have shown commitment’ and admittedly cause no trouble- out of ‘women’s spaces’, but allows CIS men INTO those spaces, either as security guards hunting down ‘masculine loking persons’ "
Haha, no, this obviously isn't what I'm suggesting. I think very few people, other than the absolutely most extreme weirdos, want anything like this.
I 'm suggesting an honest recognition that a trans woman is, in fact a man. Because from there, we can have an honest conversation about under which circumstances, if any, a man should be allowed into a woman's space.
You, at least, are honest enough to admit that what you're advocating for is unisex spaces, aka, the abolition of sex segregation. I think this is a terrible idea, but at least it allows us to talk about why we have sex segregation and all the situations in which sex matters more than this meaningless concept of gender.
There are lots of times when I'd rather not use men's spaces. Men's toilets are often super gross, some men are really weird in men's changing rooms, if, heaven forbid, I were ever sent to prison, I'd be terrified to be held in the men's wing and would much rather be in the women's. Male violence is a scary thing. And I say that as a larger and stronger than average man.
But while the problem of male violence absolutely needs to be solved, I don't understand why you think it's women's responsibility to put themselves in greater danger to solve it. You talk about "sacrificing minorities" for the comfort of one specific group, but women are also a marginalised group, and you're talking about sacrificing that very significant group for the comfort of a minority group that you can't even define in a coherent way!
Again, once we can distinguish trans women unambiguously from men, I think we could have this conversation much more easily. But until then, trans women aren't even a minority! Because you're advocating for all men to be treated in exactly the same way.
The percentage of men who would rather not go to a men's prison, say, is roughly 100%. So in your view, why shouldn't they also be able to claim refuge in women's prisons? What's the difference? Seriously, this whole conversation is a waste of time until you address this question: what is the difference between a man and a trans woman? How can we ever tell the difference?
As for Ilona, you say she's clearly a woman (although you also say that she "clearly [doesn't] fit either [male or female] box neatly"), but WHY is she clearly a woman? If, as you claim, male and female are two ends of a spectrum, why do you cite her as an example of someone who is further from the female end of the spectrum than Kim kardashian, say? If someone like Dylan Mulvaney is also a woman, WHAT DOES THE WORD "WOMAN" MEAN???!!!
I'm sure Ilona walks into women's restrooms all the time. She looks like a woman. A big woman, yes, but a woman. Masculine looking women Do, and always have faced more scrutiny in women's spaces. I've heard several stories about that, and usually they're resolved the moment she opens her mouth or the other person gets a clear look at them. Despite the common attempts to obfuscate this fact, human beings are very, very well adapted to distinguish between men and women.
But this is still largely beside the point. Some men are small and slight enough to be able to put on a dress and walk into a woman's bathroom. If they grew out their hair and had a shave, maybe they wouldn't even attract much attention. BUT I STILL DON'T THINK THEY SHOULD DO THIS. Because they're men.
Yes, men can walk into women's bathrooms. I could easily have pushed past that woman and had a pee in one of the stalls if I'd really wanted to. But doing so would have a deliberate violation of women's boundaries. This is not a benign or innocent act. You seem to be totally overlooking this fact. Again, the reason there are all these people asking how to find the "courage" to use women's spaces is because they know they're not supposed to be using them.
I'm happy to admit that genuine trans women (I'll use transsexual for clarity) complicate this dynamic. If someone with diagnosed gender dysphoria, who has undergone treatment and transition, uses the women's bathroom, I struggle to see an issue with that. I know many women in the comments here would disagree, but as we've agreed, chances are they've already shared a bathroom with someone like this.
The issue is this new and insane idea that any man, simply by saying he identifies as a woman, should be treated in the same way. The only way to accommodate this particular brand of insanity is, as you say, to do away with sex segregation altogether. And this would trample over the wishes and boundaries of well over 50% of the population (lots of men would object too) to satisfy the desires of a few people who are confused about the distinction between sex and gendered stereotypes.
Lastly, on male gynaecologists, yes, male gynaecologists exist, but they're largely a hangover from the days when women simply couldn't be doctors. Now that's changed, the majority are women, and I'm pretty sure the trend will grow.
Also, it's fairly routine for women to ask to be seen by a female gynaecologist. And the bigger issue here is that they get to choose. Women in your sex desegregated future, wouldn't get to choose who shared their spaces. Even now, lesbian bars and apps are being shut down if they even attempt to be woman only. Women are being slandered as bigots and having their gym/spa memberships revoked if they object to unambiguous men using their spaces. Men who could easily use the male spaces without any issue.
I always get the impression when I talk to your side of this debate that you're only ever thinking of some dainty, 5'5" twink who would never hurt a fly. And sure, these people absolutely exist. But can you also recognise that the majority of males are not like this. And that there are several counter examples that need more serious consideration than, "just let them do what they want and we'll take action once they rape someone!"?
First off, thank you for taking the time to craft a thoughtful reply, I genuinely appreciate it. It's such a rare trait these days, on any side of any debate.
That said, I feel like some of your own points want to ask some of your other points some questions.
"But if you're alone in a bathroom with one or the other, then your odds of being alone in the bathroom with one of them are 100%" this does make sense by itself. But I don't think it disproves my point. Having an actual cis man in the bathroom would make most women more nervous. This is important because it ties to my second point, which I think you misunderstood.
So you have mentioned above how 'trans women have male pattern criminality', and yet you also say this - "If a trans woman passes, they almost certainly already use the women's bathroom without causing any issues." Which, for the record, I totally agree with. I am sure many of us have been in bathrooms next to trans women and have not noticed. So..... what gives? Should we be retroactively horrified? Where was the criminality? If men and women are so deeply different and we simply cannot allow a trans woman to use a 'women's space' - what of all those women who pass and do so, as you yourself point out, 'with no issue'? Doesn't that pretty clearly show it's fine if they are there?
'Ah yes,' you might say, 'but it is the OTHER kind of trans women who are the issue, the kind with the male pattern criminality!' And here we get into the issue of now being 'kinds' of trans women? Delineated by... how well they pass? Why would that be, if a 'man cannot change his essence' - how are these very unique trans women managing to pee next to me in peace? Would a trans woman passing less well be a trans woman who poses more danger to me? ....why??
Then we come to your point of 'oh, trans men don't want to be in locker rooms with cis men'. Why do you think that is? Because they don't feel they belong there, or because they feel those cis men might be hostile to them? What point does that possibly prove other than 'nobody wants to share enclosed spaces with cis men, because they tend to be the most molesty group of people out there'? I can easily imagine a group of gay men also not wanting to share a locker room with cis men, but I would not think that makes gay men 'not really men'.
Thennnn we come to your point of 'oh I don't mind a trans man in MY bathroom, the same way I don't mind a woman in my bathroom, because they do not intimidate me'. I agree. That makes sense. But my point was not about trans men in MENS rooms. My point was about trans men in WOMEN's rooms.
Because the plan of everyone using bathrooms according to birth-genitals means the hurliest burliest beardiest swolest trans man - and there are some pretty impressive specimens out there - gets to be in MY bathroom. Do you see what that does? A guy with a neck beard and arms the thickness of my thigh can come into MY bathroom. And if I go 'Sir this is the ladies' room', he can go 'oh you see I was born with a vagina.'
He can just say that. Do I know if he was really born a woman? Who is going to be checking? Do you get it? If everyone born female can go into a women's restroom, that means that ANY MAN AT ALL can go into ANY WOMAN'S RESTROOM, just as he is, and simply say 'oh I was born with a vagina. This is all from T shots'. You, you personally, could go into a women's bathroom, look the woman there in the eye and say 'yeah, I know it looks weird, but I was actually born a woman', and there you are, a CIS man, in the women's bathroom. Do you get why that is worse than what we had before?
"And more to the point, I've yet to hear *anybody* (and I've ben asking for at least five years now) explain in any kind of verifiable or objective way, what the difference between a trans woman and a man even is!" So on these questions I do agree it is difficult to define things in 'verifiable and objective ways'. It is. Because human beings are really complex and weird. I can try to do so in a roundabout way.
It is my personal belief, from everything I have seen, read and heard on the subject, that male/female is not so much a dichotomy as a spectrum. And yes, 98% of the people will fall relatively clearly on one of the two 'sides'. But that doesn't make it not a spectrum, because you have so many people who clearly don't fit either box neatly. Start just with the recent surge in massive bulky 'muscle mommy' type women in sports (think Ilona Maher for example, or Natasha Aughey, or Alicia Napoleon. Of course these women are women. But we can definitely see that Ilona Maher is, let's say, a different type of woman than, say, Ariana Grande. Women can have different amounts of muscle mass, testosterone, ambition, aggression, whatever. So can men.
Then you come to the cases where the body is clearly confused. You have people born with both sets of genitals. Before, doctors used to just let the parents choose which set to remove, and would raise the child in whatever gender the parents had picked. If that kid grew up to feel differently gendered, would we be surprised? Then we have weird mixes - male chromosomes with female genitals. Female genitals outside but undescended testes inside the body. Is it weird if these people grow up to not feel entirely the gender they are being raised as? Not really. They are the middle ground. Somewhere in between.
My belief is that genitals alone do not make a man. If you god forbid lost yours, you would not stop being a man. If someone had surgically removed them from you at birth, you would also not stop being a man. We all have our spot on the spectrum, that has to do with our body but also our hormones, our brain chemistry, our life experiences.
Some of the differences between the sexes ARE biological - but biology is not fond of strict binaries. We see that in our vast differences. We have very effeminate women, to kind of medium-feminine women, to clearly pretty darn butch women, to very androgynous people, to fairly effeminate men, to regular degree sort of masculine men to extremely hyper masculine men, it's much more than just 'box a and box b'.
Then of course we come to the fact that one thing that happens very often when we start introducing these firm rules about 'women's spaces' is that masculine seeming women - muscular, sporty, short haired type women - tend to start getting harassed about being 'in the wrong bathroom' and suspected of being trans. How would we protect them from this? Do they need to wear transparent pants? Do they not get the same consideration other women get, because they're 'performing their gender wrong'? Because I have heard zero personal experiences from my circle of friends saying a trans woman assaulted them in a bathroom, but I have heard stories from women friends who have been questioned over their gender in a women's bathroom. Even had security called on them. For not 'looking sufficiently feminine'.
I'm pretty sure you at least heard of the case of Imane Khelif, the women's boxing gold medalist at the last Olympics. There was a literal witch hunt after her because she 'looked too manly' to random people. Trying to police allowed levels of 'manliness' in women is not something I will ever be able to get behind, nor would I ever consider it 'protecting women'.
Anyway, very long story short, I personally would be fine with 100% unisex bathrooms, have worked in spaces that had unisex bathrooms, and have had no issues using them. But I am very much against random citizens gatekeeping other random citizens from spaces they feel 'belong to them more', on what are clearly pretty shaky pretenses.
😅 This reply is longer than the original article, so I don't think I'm going to get to every point/question. But I think most of the confusion is just about being pragmatic.
Yes, trans women maintain "male pattern criminality," because they're males. I'm still not sure what magical alchemy you believe happens that breaks trans women free from male patterns of thought and behaviour the moment they utter the magic words, "I identify as a woman."
But as a male, I can confidently report than not all males are rapists. I know that if I used a female bathroom the women in here would have nothing to worry about. I believe the same is true of a lot of men.
So while, in a simple, black and white world, trans women who pass would still all stay out of women's spaces that's simply not realistic.
As you and many others point out, there's no way to police that if a trans woman passes except for genital inspections. And trans women who pass have, at least, demonstrated sufficient commitment over a number of years, that we can be fairly confident they're not just using gender ideology as an excuse to perv at women. In fact, most trans women in this category are gay males. And if they pass, their appearance won't provoke the same reaction than mine did.
But you still haven't explained how trans women who DON'T pass are in any way distinguishable from men. If I say I identify as a woman now, do you unquestioningly believe me? Should I be allowed to use women's spaces with no questions asked? Would you consider any woman who wasn't comfortable with my presence a bigot? Should my desire to use a women's space trump the comfort of the women in them? These are the question you're not addressing.
As for trans MEN in women's spaces, yes, obviously they shouldn't be in there because they WILL provoke the same reaction that I did. But there's a false equivalence here, because you're overlooking the differing functions of women's and men's spaces.
Women's spaces exist to offer women privacy and protection from men. Men's spaces exist to give men a place to go while women enjoy that privacy and protection.
Men's spaces don't become less safe for men if you introduce men in dresses or women with stubble. That's why I think that ideally, men's spaces should be used as an "all gender space" and women's spaces should be for females. Because women's spaces DO become less safe for women (and therefore fail to serve their function) if men can simply opt their way in with a declaration.
I'm not going to get into the male/female spectrum argument except to say that even if we pretend that intersex people break the sex binary (they don't) they have nothing to do with trans people.
Imane Khelif is male. And therefore has physical advantages that should be disqualifying for female sport. Especially combat sport. It is so frustrating and sad that this simple fact has been reframed as "hate."
Never, in the history of sport, has your sporting category been defined by how you "feel" on the inside. Your sex is, in 99.98% of cases, a simple objective, verifiable-at-a-glance fact. And in those 0.02% of cases, like Khelif, it's still trivially verifiable. It just takes more than a glance.
(p.s. I'm not pulling 0.02% out of my ass, that's the actual percentage of people who are intersex - https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12476264/).
On that note, Ilona Maher is not somewhere on a "spectrum" between male and female. She's female. And I'm sure she'd find it very offensive that you'd suggest otherwise. It's incredibly regressive to look at a tall or muscular woman and discount or diminish her womanhood because of that. Just as it's regressive to look at a boy who likes dolls or dresses or the colour pink and say he's a girl. I thought we'd left thinking like that behind in the 50s.
It seems that everybody who makes this kind argument confuses femininity with womanhood. But femininity is an optional performance that both men and women are free to embrace or reject. I think we'd agree that our society needs to go further to make feminine males and masculine females genuinely accepted in society.
But womanhood, as in the state of being an adult female human being, is not a performance. And isn't delegitimised by being strong or tall or capable. Only by being male.
Effeminate males are still men. Weak males are still men. Gay males are still men. Males with breast implants are still men. As you yourself say, males who lose their penises are still men. So I'm still not clear at what point you think they become women.
Lastly, it's great that you're "100% fine with unisex bathrooms." But your boundaries don't and shouldn't set the bar for all women, right?
So the question is, as I've asked elsewhere, is it reasonable that many women DO want that privacy in a changing room or a hospital or a rape crisis centre?
Is it reasonable for a woman with a disabled, non-verbal child to want to ensure that her child only receives intimate care from another woman? Or for a woman who needs life-saving surgery to request that only women provide intimate care for her without having her surgery cancelled out of spite?
Is it reasonable for a woman who has been raped by a man to refuse to refer to her rapist as "she" in court? Is it reasonable for her to want to recover in a space where she knows she won't encounter men?
I think it absolutely is. And I think they should be able to get it without being demonised or threatened. Don't you?
Ok things are getting good! First off yes, I do apologize for the length- but I really feel this is what it takes to truly discuss these issues, which are full of complexity and nuance. To truly understand the other person’s opinion and to truly investigate our own. One should not be taking up a stance unless one is ready to defend it vigorously- and rigorously.
I massively agree with the pragmatism issue. I think we have to be pragmatic when dealing with these things. But I think the solution you are championing is the least pragmatic of all. It purports to want to get all trans women - even the passing ones who ‘have shown commitment’ and admittedly cause no trouble- out of ‘women’s spaces’, but allows CIS men INTO those spaces, either as security guards hunting down ‘masculine loking persons’ (who more often than not turn out to be just masc presenting women), or as regular brazen cis MEN, who can now claim ‘oh no I have a vagina trust me bro’. When letting everyone go where they more or less look like they belong avoids more unpleasant situations. Not all, because the world is not perfect, but more.
And I get your perspective where you want a special split that is objectively not being discussed in society right now - where everyone except 100% feminine presenting cis women is in men’s bathrooms - saying ‘oh it won’t bother the men’. But I, as you, am not concerned about the men being bothered. I am concerned about all those OTHER people being bothered. I firmly believe anyone who is not a cis man is 98% more likely to seek to use a women’s bathroom specifically to avoid sharing the space with cis men, and not ‘to perv on women’. We have stalls anyway.
This way you create some mystical category of ‘the real true woman’, who is the only one who deserves any social protection or consideration, while everyone else, be it men, trans women, trans men, and to me most crucially just regular-ass women who tent to look a little more masculine- all get to bear the brunt of that ‘special protection’ by being perpetually harassed while trying to pee.
On the subject of Ilona, if you re-read what I wrote, you will see I also said she is clearly a woman. Obviously. And obviously I also feel masculine looking women are just as much women as feminine presenting women. But masculine presenting women are probably the largest victim group of the system you are proposing. Ilona is ok because she is famous. But imagine a non famous woman, built like her with a jawline like hers, walking into a ‘gender-policed’ bathroom.
What do you think happens? You think she is treated with dignity and respect or does she get the security guys called on her? How does she feel when the security guys get there? Is she asked to ‘prove’ her gender? How does she prove it??? This harassment is already happening, and I am pretty confident it largely outnumbers the number of actual assaults by trans women on cis women in women’s bathrooms.
Do we just say that is ‘pragmatically how it has to be’? Or do we reconsider?
Or do we value the safety of masculine looking women LESS than the safety of feminine looking women? If yes, why?
So, you mention that you consider ‘passing trans women to be gay males’. Does that mean you believe gay people DON’T have ‘male pattern criminality’? Why would this be?
‘If I say I identify as a woman now, do you unquestioningly believe me? Should I be allowed to use women's spaces with no questions asked?’ - see, this is really the point. You can do that IN BOTH SCENARIOS. In the ‘only cis females in women’s bathrooms’ scenario you can claim you are a transitioned born female. In the current context you can say ‘you feel female’. In either case CIS MEN CAN STILL LIE to gain access to women’s spaces. The protection does NOT meaningfully increase. But honestly, yes, I believe you more if you are going to the trouble of taking hormone injections and picking out a nice dress. No man who has ever menaced me would have bothered to do that.
I mean the whole idea, knowing how difficult it actually is to gain access to hormone therapy etc, that men would be going through all that just to attack women, when the men who want to attack women CLEARLY HAVE ZERO ISSUES already doing that, is very far fetched. Especially since we know that over 70% rapists never see a day of jail time. Like if I wanted to champion protection of women, I would start there. I feel like the impact might be immeasurably larger.
To your last point, I absolutely agree nobody should be threatened or harassed or denied medical care. Doctors should care for everyone equally and they do every day - Black doctors and nurses treat openly racist people, women doctors treat openly misogynistic men, all doctors treat people even if they happen to have swastika tattoos. The cases you are speaking about sound extremely specific to me, so I will go out on a limb to say they are not a massive problem. What percentage of gynecologists are men? In my experience a fair number. Somehow we’re not up in arms over that. Should we have our pick of doctors? If it is feasible. But I have never picked a surgeon either for myself or my kid. That’s not how hospitals tend to work. Could there be exceptions for especially traumatized people? I am not against it. But seeing how hard it is to get any sort of medical care these days, again, that’s far from our biggest issue.
Do you think more women were ‘in danger of a trans doctor performing an intimate surgery’ on them or were more trans people in danger of being refused treatment because people don’t accept them as ‘real’?
Basically I think we agree on a large portion of the topic. The main difference between our stances is that I am less comfortable with sacrificing a series of minorities for the comfort of one specific group we somehow deem special and particularly vulnerable. Trans people are at a MARKEDLY HIGHER RISK of EXPERIENCING sexual assault and not committing it. Yet we should shove them all in bathrooms with men, who commit the majority of that assault?
Doesn’t sound like fair and equal treatment to me.
"But I think the solution you are championing is the least pragmatic of all. It purports to want to get all trans women - even the passing ones who ‘have shown commitment’ and admittedly cause no trouble- out of ‘women’s spaces’, but allows CIS men INTO those spaces, either as security guards hunting down ‘masculine loking persons’ "
Haha, no, this obviously isn't what I'm suggesting. I think very few people, other than the absolutely most extreme weirdos, want anything like this.
I 'm suggesting an honest recognition that a trans woman is, in fact a man. Because from there, we can have an honest conversation about under which circumstances, if any, a man should be allowed into a woman's space.
You, at least, are honest enough to admit that what you're advocating for is unisex spaces, aka, the abolition of sex segregation. I think this is a terrible idea, but at least it allows us to talk about why we have sex segregation and all the situations in which sex matters more than this meaningless concept of gender.
There are lots of times when I'd rather not use men's spaces. Men's toilets are often super gross, some men are really weird in men's changing rooms, if, heaven forbid, I were ever sent to prison, I'd be terrified to be held in the men's wing and would much rather be in the women's. Male violence is a scary thing. And I say that as a larger and stronger than average man.
But while the problem of male violence absolutely needs to be solved, I don't understand why you think it's women's responsibility to put themselves in greater danger to solve it. You talk about "sacrificing minorities" for the comfort of one specific group, but women are also a marginalised group, and you're talking about sacrificing that very significant group for the comfort of a minority group that you can't even define in a coherent way!
Again, once we can distinguish trans women unambiguously from men, I think we could have this conversation much more easily. But until then, trans women aren't even a minority! Because you're advocating for all men to be treated in exactly the same way.
The percentage of men who would rather not go to a men's prison, say, is roughly 100%. So in your view, why shouldn't they also be able to claim refuge in women's prisons? What's the difference? Seriously, this whole conversation is a waste of time until you address this question: what is the difference between a man and a trans woman? How can we ever tell the difference?
As for Ilona, you say she's clearly a woman (although you also say that she "clearly [doesn't] fit either [male or female] box neatly"), but WHY is she clearly a woman? If, as you claim, male and female are two ends of a spectrum, why do you cite her as an example of someone who is further from the female end of the spectrum than Kim kardashian, say? If someone like Dylan Mulvaney is also a woman, WHAT DOES THE WORD "WOMAN" MEAN???!!!
I'm sure Ilona walks into women's restrooms all the time. She looks like a woman. A big woman, yes, but a woman. Masculine looking women Do, and always have faced more scrutiny in women's spaces. I've heard several stories about that, and usually they're resolved the moment she opens her mouth or the other person gets a clear look at them. Despite the common attempts to obfuscate this fact, human beings are very, very well adapted to distinguish between men and women.
But this is still largely beside the point. Some men are small and slight enough to be able to put on a dress and walk into a woman's bathroom. If they grew out their hair and had a shave, maybe they wouldn't even attract much attention. BUT I STILL DON'T THINK THEY SHOULD DO THIS. Because they're men.
Yes, men can walk into women's bathrooms. I could easily have pushed past that woman and had a pee in one of the stalls if I'd really wanted to. But doing so would have a deliberate violation of women's boundaries. This is not a benign or innocent act. You seem to be totally overlooking this fact. Again, the reason there are all these people asking how to find the "courage" to use women's spaces is because they know they're not supposed to be using them.
I'm happy to admit that genuine trans women (I'll use transsexual for clarity) complicate this dynamic. If someone with diagnosed gender dysphoria, who has undergone treatment and transition, uses the women's bathroom, I struggle to see an issue with that. I know many women in the comments here would disagree, but as we've agreed, chances are they've already shared a bathroom with someone like this.
The issue is this new and insane idea that any man, simply by saying he identifies as a woman, should be treated in the same way. The only way to accommodate this particular brand of insanity is, as you say, to do away with sex segregation altogether. And this would trample over the wishes and boundaries of well over 50% of the population (lots of men would object too) to satisfy the desires of a few people who are confused about the distinction between sex and gendered stereotypes.
Lastly, on male gynaecologists, yes, male gynaecologists exist, but they're largely a hangover from the days when women simply couldn't be doctors. Now that's changed, the majority are women, and I'm pretty sure the trend will grow.
Also, it's fairly routine for women to ask to be seen by a female gynaecologist. And the bigger issue here is that they get to choose. Women in your sex desegregated future, wouldn't get to choose who shared their spaces. Even now, lesbian bars and apps are being shut down if they even attempt to be woman only. Women are being slandered as bigots and having their gym/spa memberships revoked if they object to unambiguous men using their spaces. Men who could easily use the male spaces without any issue.
I always get the impression when I talk to your side of this debate that you're only ever thinking of some dainty, 5'5" twink who would never hurt a fly. And sure, these people absolutely exist. But can you also recognise that the majority of males are not like this. And that there are several counter examples that need more serious consideration than, "just let them do what they want and we'll take action once they rape someone!"?
This is the most civil and reasoned discussion I’ve seen on the topic. Thanks both.