[Jamie89]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

See..how I think on this is that people like your friend will have been using their preferred sex areas for years and noone will have been any the wiser. if you 'pass', noone will bat an eyelid. People like your friend do not need laws passed that allow basically anyone access to the opposite sex areas. This push for self identification I just don't understand. 'Genuine' transfolk...they do not need these laws as they are just quietly getting on with their lives, not shouting on about how unfair everything is. So who exactly do these laws help? I know 2 transwomen who are disgusted at the way some have been going on recently and feel that the way this is going is going to harm them in the long run...as they have never had any issues, never been 'called out' or anything, probably as they do 'pass', or one definitely does, the other you may do a bit of a double take but realistically, noone is going to say anything about a masculine looking woman in the loo/changing area as you do get masculine looking females...so unless (if she still had a dick) she was swinging a penis around or something, again it wouldn't be an issue. So basically, IMO the only people these self-identification laws will help, are those who wish to abuse it.

So if there has to be a blanket rule so to speak..I would go for post-srs is fine. But before all of the transactivists started bleating on about self identification and gender trumping sex...everything was ticking along pretty nicely. Its kind of an honour system...genuine transgender people will use where ever they feel they fit in best. A law is not needed for this. A law only allows pervs to take advantage

Obviously this wouldn't be the case in schools as everyone in the school would know what sex the kid actually was unless they started transitioning as a toddler (which is ****ing wrong) but I don't really see a way around this except for having a further option for 'transkids' or letting them use staff facilities if they don't want to use the ones for their own sex. The answer definitely is NOT to remove funding for schools who refuse to let kids into either loos/changing areas. That was a ridiculously stupid move on Obamas part.

I also really dislike when gay rights are brought up in relation to this issue. Mainly as...gay people were not wanting the rights of others taken away, they simply wanted to be treat as equals. Noone else had to lose protections and such. Also so many aspects of the whole transgender thing are homophobic...so many of my friends on facebook are up in arms about it and most do not even understand why T was added onto LGB given they have nothing in common and the first 3 are sexualities where transgender is not. To explain this further...the push for 'transing' children and getting them onto (dangerous) puberty blockers...if left alone to develop the huge majority of those who are dysphoric as kids/teens will simply grow up to be gay/bi adults, not trans at all. But once on blockers 100% of people go on to 'transition' as adults. So effectively, while the transactivists push for puberty blockers and such in young people, this is little more than conversion therapy. Secondly, the treatment of lesbians by 'lesbian' transwomen (aka...straight males...) is horrendous. I personally know 3 lesbians who have had issues with this, one of those was seriously assaulted for being so 'transphobic' as to refuse to shag someone with a penis (who did not mention said penis until it was...unveiled so to speak). Apparently being a lesbian is transphobic in itself, and should be known as vagina fetishism. Cuckoo or what :S There are hundreds of stories online from lesbians of similar treatment, so I would wager a guess that this is NOT rare, its not a 'couple of crazies' and that it seems to be the current mainstream thinking among transwomen, unless its the same couple of crazies moving up and down the country and to other countries constantly treating lesbian women this way, which I doubt. It would be amusing to see a transman trying to tell gay men that they should be shagging people with vaginas otherwise they are horrible bigots...I wonder how that would go down

I actually think the problem is with those who are 'transgender' not 'transsexual'. The second are those who actually suffer crippling dysphoria and deserve sympathy and respect, those who truly do feel 'trapped in the wrong body'. The first lot, are the ones who claim there is such thing as 'lady dick' and harass lesbians for not liking penis. The second lot appear to be those pushing for access to female areas. The first have been welcome there for years...

I get that trans issues are different to gay issues in that sexuality isn't the issue for trans people, but in a social respect they're interlinked and I'd guess that's to do with them feeling more welcomed in and a part of the 'gay community', and I think that's because there are a lot of similarities in terms of experiences. Trans people face a lot of similar struggles to gay people such as coming out, rejection from family and friends, workplace issues etc, so since a lot of gay people also have experience of those things they can empathise in a way that straight people might not be able to. Or at least historically gay people faced those things a lot, it's obviously much better now. But yeah I've heard the "they shouldn't be included they're not like us" thing from gay people before too but in my opinion that attitude goes against the whole idea of what LGBT should be about which is just a group of people who find an affinity in each other because of similar things they've been through and are supportive of each other, not necessarily having to be limited to strict definitions of sex/gender/sexuality but like I mentioned, societal issues too. So I think comparisons are fine if there's a comparison to be made, it's not taking away from anything else or taking away from gay people, or using gay people or anything like that, and I don't think they're looking for rights to be taken away from anyone. There's a lot of things I don't really know a lot about or disagree with such as puberty blockers and transing children, but on the whole I think trans people just want to be accepted, yes there'll be groups and individuals who push for things that they probably shouldn't, but the majority are just normal people who want better lives and treatment from society. The examples you've given about lesbians' experiences and 'vagina fetishism' etc all sound awful but I'd still argue that those people aren't representative of ordinary trans people and I would be shocked if it was the mainstream thinking amongst trans people, they're just normal people and on the whole they don't think differently to you or me. It's the crazies and the perverts who attract the attention though, but they're in every walk of life and examples could be made against gay people, straight people, any group of people. I would imagine however that many trans people suffer from psychological issues and this is just me guessing but just from looking at the suicide rates there's obviously something wrong there, so maybe something like that could go some way to explaining the 'crazies', I don't know I'm just thinking out loud. Basically though I think that if we had a more trans accepting society there'd be less psychological issues amongst trans people and we'd see less examples like those not more.