[Jack_]

Originally Posted by Vicky.

Well it doesn't need to be policed though? It hasn't been policed ever and oddly enough trans people have been using their preferred sex areas with no/little fuss? The honour system works pretty well IMO. Granted I only know 2 trans women, but they are both fine with the way things are now...one 'passes' easily, the other not so much in proper lighting anyway, but she has still never ever been challenged in the ladies...I know a load of lesbians also who are extremely butch and have never had issues.

Well that is true, but my point was that as it is we don't - practically speaking at least - separate toilets by sex since the only way anyone self identifies and becomes intelligible to anyone else is through their gender presentation. Nobody knows the materiality of any strangers body until if and when you sleep with them. So thus, if a female who identifies as a woman but isn't stereotypically 'feminine' in appearance were in a woman's toilet - there's no reason why at the moment they wouldn't experience the questioning you mention.

I actually in a roundabout way think I'm agreeing with what you're saying, the campaigns that have brought this issue into public discourse are having the opposite effect in that they are making people realise that for decades they may have been sharing a toilet with somebody of the opposite sex.

I think what I'm trying to say is getting lost in translation cause it's confusing having to address all these different issues at once but as I said before the problem is and always will be the the assumption that a female body must feminine and a male one masculine.

Originally Posted by Vicky.

I don't think there is data on this. Also currently the data would say n o I expect. But...opening areas to everyone would change the data. There are many examples of places in America who have allowed the 'whatever sex you feel you are' and because of this, pervs HAVE taken advantage. There is actually a site that lists all of these instances and there are over a hundred in a short space of time. This tells me that yes, this would be a problem if it happened here.

It's still not an argument that makes any sense to me, because if someone is lurking about with the intention of attacking somebody, they'll do so whether or not a sign on a door allows them in. But if what you're saying is true, that's hence why I'm in favour of unisex toilets - because it would inevitably with more people make them safer.

Originally Posted by Vicky.

I don't really understand this part. Are you going into how 'sex' is a social construct in your dissertation? if so, I know this is personal but when you have done it, could I read it? As I honestly cannot see this at all. Humans are a sexually dimorphic species. Yes you get 'mistakes' of nature which results in some people being intersex. But this does not mean there are more than 2 sexes. Anymore than the fact that some people are born without arms and legs does not mean that human beings do not as a species have 2 arms and 2 legs. Natures 'mistakes' do not change reality. All in my opinion of course. I am open to change too as always but as it stands, I do not believe sex is a social construct. And I don't believe anyone can ever change sex. However I do believe 'gender' is a social construct. And that gender should be abolished completely as this would end so many problems. I kind of feel that for example, a male who likes wearing dresses feels he HAS to say he is trans to be accepted...which is ****ing wrong. If we get rid of the silly 'boys must do X and girls must do X' 'rules' that society has then I think we would see a decline in the amount of people who are 'trans' and it would just go back to those who have sex dysphoria being trans...as trans really is all about the dysphoria and again, I do not understand those who say it is not.

You and anyone else is more than welcome to read it! Provided I'm happy with it of course....there's still a long way to go

Basically, what you discover when you delve deeper into the work on gender is that a lot of scholars have contested the distinction we make between sex and gender in the first place. It's not so much that they outright reject biological differences between humans, more than it is only through the paradigm of gender that we come to understand sex as something presocial. The argument that it is a 'mistake of nature' can also only be understood through discourse also, for what is 'normal' and 'abnormal' in the first place and who determines this, how does it differ across time and space and what agendas are inherent within such discourse? It's a bit like how their are critical disability scholars who reject outright the demarcation we make between 'disabled' and 'able bodied', the former can only be understood in opposition to the latter and that in reality, our bodies and lives are far more complex than such simple divisions (I must point out this is an area of which I've done little reading on though).

Back to sex...you might be surprised to discover that the commonality of intersexuality is more than one might assume, and goes beyond that of genital ambiguity. Further, there have been and are cultures around the world that have not divided gender and indeed sex into a binary, and 'two spirit' people have lived quite happily in society.

I feel like it's better to read something first hand than a secondary account of it (especially from someone typing up a quick response on his phone) so the meaning of someone's work doesn't get conflated though, so I can provide you with some relevant reading in the meantime if you'd be interested.

Originally Posted by Vicky.

I would disagree with this tbh. Most people know for sure if they are gay, straight or bi. Most gay men would be disgusted at the thought of shagging a female person, even if they 'presented' male and vice versa. Lesbians do not do penis anymore than gay men perform cunnilingus. Even bi people my not be impressed by someone who looks female but has a dick. Of course pansexuals are perfectly fine with anyone (within their tastes...not meaning they would shag ANYTHING ) but generally..I do think sexuality is pretty simple. Either you are attracted to the opposite sex, the same sex, or both. Unless I have misunderstood what you are saying here...

I don't disagree that people generally do self identity their sexuality along binary lines, what I was referencing was the work of Michel Foucault, whose series of books The History of Sexuality sought to give a genealogical account of sexuality, and argue that far from the 17th/18th centuries being marked as an era of sexual repression (as conventional wisdom dictates), it actually saw a huge explosion of discourses around sex, through scientific investigation, confession, population management etc etc. It was through these discourses, like the pathologisation of homosexuality, that took sexual desire from being something that one did, to something one was. I would thoroughly recommend reading the first volume, it's not too long and is a fascinating account of how power really manifests itself in society. Here's some good quotes which basically sum up his argument:

Homosexuality appeared as one of the forms of sexuality when it was transposed from the practice of sodomy into a kind of interior androgyny, a hermaphroditism of the soul. The sodomite had been a temporary aberration; the homosexual was now a species.

The appearance in nineteenth-century psychiatry, jurisprudence, and literature of a whole series of discourses on the species and subspecies of homosexuality, inversion, pederasty, and "psychic hermaphroditism" made possible a strong advance of social controls into this area of "perversity"; but it also made possible the formation of a "reverse" discourse: homosexuality began to speak in its own behalf, to demand that its legitimacy or "naturality" be acknowledged, often in the same vocabulary, using the same categories by which it was medically disqualified.