[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

I have a couple of questions about this. They are good faith questions not meant as gotchas, but as an attempt to try and understand more about how you think.

Who are these men with all this power to tell women what and what not to think and fear? If you take the lawmakers in this country, for example, all of the men with the power to protect women's spaces, mostly appear on the face of it to be anti-trans. If we're talking about the Scottish bill, then it was the equality act in 2010 that opened up womens spaces, and why wasn't there all this outrage back then rather than being used in a modern day culture war? Was there outrage that I just missed?

Do you think it's men telling women to shut up, or do you think that both men and women can be either pro, or anti-trans and both can express their opinions equally vocally? Do you think that trans rights is a civil rights issue?

A really weird issue I have with all of this, is that the anti-trans community seem perfectly fine with sending a person they consider a woman, into a male bathroom, so don't you think they would be more vulnerable, and yet they seem completely excluded in any discussion?

[ChristmasNeeve]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

I have a couple of questions about this. They are good faith questions not meant as gotchas, but as an attempt to try and understand more about how you think.

Who are these men with all this power to tell women what and what not to think and fear? If you take the lawmakers in this country, for example, all of the men with the power to protect women's spaces, mostly appear on the face of it to be anti-trans. If we're talking about the Scottish bill, then it was the equality act in 2010 that opened up womens spaces, and why wasn't there all this outrage back then rather than being used in a modern day culture war? Was there outrage that I just missed?

Do you think it's men telling women to shut up, or do you think that both men and women can be either pro, or anti-trans and both can express their opinions equally vocally? Do you think that trans rights is a civil rights issue?

A really weird issue I have with all of this, is that the anti-trans community seem perfectly fine with sending a person they consider a woman, into a male bathroom, so don't you think they would be more vulnerable, and yet they seem completely excluded in any discussion?

Well in regards to this tweet I'm pretty sure JK Rowling is talking about a specific set of men on Twitter who constantly lecture women on this topic (Owen Jones being an example) You don't need to have power to tell someone anything.

In regards to specific bills, a lot of this stuff was done under the radar, people have only started realising what changes have been happening in the last few years (I know that's true for me, for example Self ID in Ireland was snuck in on the back of the very popular Gay marriage referendum here, people voted for Self ID without actually knowing they did that. There was actually a report called The Denton report advising activists to use strategies like that in order to change laws.

Anyway, here’s another tip from the document: ‘Tie your campaign to more popular reform.’

For example:

‘In Ireland, Denmark and Norway, changes to the law on legal gender recognition were put through at the same time as other more popular reforms such as marriage equality legislation. This provided a veil of protection, particularly in Ireland, where marriage equality was strongly supported, but gender identity remained a more difficult issue to win public support for.’
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...ans-lobbyists/

Do you think it's men telling women to shut up, or do you think that both men and women can be either pro, or anti-trans and both can express their opinions equally vocally?
I'm not anti trans, I'm pro women just for clarification. Of course there are women on the "other side" too but men seem more vocal to me and obviously a man telling a woman what a woman is or isn't is more jarring.
Do you think that trans rights is a civil rights issue?
No, I don't. I think it's an identity politics issue, trans people already have the same human rights as everyone else.

A really weird issue I have with all of this, is that the anti-trans community seem perfectly fine with sending a person they consider a woman, into a male bathroom, so don't you think they would be more vulnerable, and yet they seem completely excluded in any discussion?

"Anti-trans Community" is an odd concept but anyway, who is "sending" transmen into mens bathrooms? This is an odd question, if a transman chooses to enter the mens toilets they're choosing to take that risk, the women in the womens toilets aren't choosing to have have men in there?

[The Slim Reaper]

Originally Posted by Niamh.

Well in regards to this tweet I'm pretty sure JK Rowling is talking about a specific set of men on Twitter who constantly lecture women on this topic (Owen Jones being an example) You don't need to have power to tell someone anything.

In regards to specific bills, a lot of this stuff was done under the radar, people have only started realising what changes have been happening in the last few years (I know that's true for me, for example Self ID in Ireland was snuck in on the back of the very popular Gay marriage referendum here, people voted for Self ID without actually knowing they did that. There was actually a report called The Denton report advising activists to use strategies like that in order to change laws.

Anyway, here’s another tip from the document: ‘Tie your campaign to more popular reform.’

For example:

‘In Ireland, Denmark and Norway, changes to the law on legal gender recognition were put through at the same time as other more popular reforms such as marriage equality legislation. This provided a veil of protection, particularly in Ireland, where marriage equality was strongly supported, but gender identity remained a more difficult issue to win public support for.’
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/...ans-lobbyists/

Do you think it's men telling women to shut up, or do you think that both men and women can be either pro, or anti-trans and both can express their opinions equally vocally?
I'm not anti trans, I'm pro women just for clarification. Of course there are women on the "other side" too but men seem more vocal to me and obviously a man telling a woman what a woman is or isn't is more jarring.
Do you think that trans rights is a civil rights issue?
No, I don't. I think it's an identity politics issue, trans people already have the same human rights as everyone else.

A really weird issue I have with all of this, is that the anti-trans community seem perfectly fine with sending a person they consider a woman, into a male bathroom, so don't you think they would be more vulnerable, and yet they seem completely excluded in any discussion?

"Anti-trans Community" is an odd concept but anyway, who is "sending" transmen into mens bathrooms? This is an odd question, if a transman chooses to enter the mens toilets they're choosing to take that risk, the women in the womens toilets aren't choosing to have have men in there?

Cheers for taking the time to reply,

[user104658]

Originally Posted by The Slim Reaper

A really weird issue I have with all of this, is that the anti-trans community seem perfectly fine with sending a person they consider a woman, into a male bathroom, so don't you think they would be more vulnerable, and yet they seem completely excluded in any discussion?

There's a bit of a catch 22 on that one - if they're a trans man who is still obviously biologically female and is at risk, in which case it's their choice to use the men's bathroom, not to excuse the risk but it is a fundamental that people have the autonomy to take their own risks but not insist on risk for others. If they look female and would be at risk, no one is going to question them using female bathrooms.

If (like most trans men over time, because T is a helluva drug) they're a trans man who simply looks like a maybe slightly short bloke then they're not actually at increased risk.

I'm just going to veer into what might be considered offensive territory here becauser there's no other way to talk about this part without talking in circles - there's an elephant in the room that some trans people are convincingly the gender they've chosen and some are not. The bathroom issue in general is far more complicated because of that issue - there's no denying that trans women are at SERIOUS risk of harm in male bathrooms either way - "convincingly female" trans women of sexual assault, "clearly trans" trans women because they might simply have an actual violent bigot turn on them.

There's no easy answer but again the point has never been "let's do nothing, what we have is fine" vs "let's forge ahead with everyone using whichever spaces they fancy being in" ... it's MASSIVELY complicated, it needs a TONNE of work in psychology, sociology and legislation to get anywhere close to a solution but people are, frankly, even understandably, impatient. They don't want to slow down. We don't live in a rational world of contemplation and compromise, we live in a world where it's "All, NOW, or you're a bigot!"