J.K. Rowling

[Lwaxana]

Sept 18, 2020 16:38:23 GMT -4 eveschmeve said:

The bathroom stuff is so so ridiculous to me. Are lots of women randomly attacked in bathrooms by trans women? Is this a thing?

If you want an honest answer, then yes. A quick Google search shows a few headlines: Trans woman rapes four year old in bathroom. Rapes ten year old in bathroom. Rapes twelve year old in bathroom. Attempted assault on sixteen year old in bathroom. Gender fluid boy gropes five year old girl in school bathroom. Man in wig spends hours in bathroom videotaping young girls. Man arrested for assault in woman's bathroom tells police, "How do you know I'm not a woman?" Man in dress arrested for stalking fitting rooms and exposing his genitals to children.

And there's attack on trans people in bathrooms as well. Transwomen beaten for using correct bathroom. Two cis women assault transwoman in bathroom. Tran student attacked by boys in school restroom. Transwoman killed in bathroom.

Bathrooms aren't safe!! Stop saying bathroom fears are ridiculous and a fantasy. That's the only thing that pings my alarm bells in this debate. Bathrooms are perfect for predators. The restroom is usually secluded from the rest of the store, the victim already has their pants down, there are privacy stalls, and people don't hang out in them.

Women/people absolutely should trust their instincts if they feel uncomfortable with a person or situation and speak up, get out, or do whatever they need to do without fear of being called irrational, ridiculous, or bigoted. The cost of ignoring your safety to not offend someone or make a scene is too high and too frequently paid. That's why I showed the statistics on violence against women, including trans women.

The argument shouldn't be that bathroom attacks are a fantasy, but that bathrooms are unsafe and that stopping trans people from using them isn't going to change that one way or another. We shouldn't diminish the risks and call valid concerns silly and ridiculous to achieve that. It feels like a complete backslide.

I do think transgenderism is a real thing. If a developing fetus can grow an extra finger or not grow an arm, then why can't it develop the wrong set of genitalia? I don't have any issue with the existence of trans people or their inclusion into an equal and understanding society. But I just want to make sure women's rights aren't shredded to make that happen, not because transwomen are really 'men', but because we live in a male dominant society that still has a problematic relationship with women.

Trans people have existed throughout all of history but in patriarchal societies (like ours) gender was defined as being either male or non-male. Male was the dominant default and then there was everyone else. We still this attitude in race today and tend to categorize people as either being white or non-white. And since our society is so saturated in the white male perspective, it's much easier for black people to understand what it's like to be white, but white people have a harder time understanding the experience of being black. That viewpoint just isn't represented as authentically and equally enough to really know it unless you've lived it. So when transracial people say they feel like a black person, what they really mean is they feel non-white. Feeling non-white isn't the same as being a black person. And feeling non-male isn't the same as being a woman. We don't define ourselves by our absence or lack of something. That's why it's so much easier for trans men to adapt to their gender roles than trans women because society is taught what the white male viewpoint is since birth.

I see modern transgenderism heading in the same direction of that male or non-male worldview of gender. Take for example the debate on menstruation. It's socially acceptable to say men menstruate because it's empowering, but you can't say women menstruate because it's not inclusive. So basically what we're left with are male menstruators and non-male menstruators. That isn't gender fluidity. It's the erasure of anything that doesn't identify as male. The article ladyboy shared on the difference between transracialism and transgenderism mentioned that, unlike transracialism, transgenderism doesn't harm anyone. I disagree. I think the issues of gender are too complex to decide already that it isn't harmful to anyone, especially when women are still oppressed, still make less money, still don't have a political majority, and are still the victims of rape culture.

I want everyone to be happy and have equal rights and be who they want to be. But I also want to make sure that women (all women) don't lose what little voice and influence we have gained in society by supporting and adding to toxic masculinity.

I'm sorry I've offended people. As a survivor myself, I know I can have tunnel vision about these issues, and I am working on having a more open mind.

[ladyboy]

Apr 25, 2019 15:51:47 GMT -4 Lwaxana said:

I want everyone to be happy and have equal rights and be who they want to be. But I also want to make sure that women (all women) don't lose what little voice and influence we have gained in society by supporting and adding to toxic masculinity.

I read this as: I "want" everyone to have equal rights, but not at MY expense, real or perceived. So, sorry. My needs trump yours. But I'll SAY the right things that make me look open and accepting. I'm just actually unwilling to, you know, genuinely respect others and let them have equal rights."

And aligning transgender people with toxic masculinity is just.. not right. I don't even know where to start with that concept.

[eveschmeve]

Scanning headlines and finding examples does not mean it’s widespread. I’m sure there have been instances of it, it’s not to dismiss those. But the question is whether or not allowing trans women to use the women’s bathroom causes more violence or assaults, and there have been studies that have shown they do not.

Here’s just one. And another.

Correlation does not equal causation.

[Lwaxana]

Sept 19, 2020 14:49:04 GMT -4 ladyboy said:

Apr 25, 2019 15:51:47 GMT -4 Lwaxana said:

I want everyone to be happy and have equal rights and be who they want to be. But I also want to make sure that women (all women) don't lose what little voice and influence we have gained in society by supporting and adding to toxic masculinity.

I read this as: I "want" everyone to have equal rights, but not at MY expense, real or perceived. So, sorry. My needs trump yours. But I'll SAY the right things that make me look open and accepting. I'm just actually unwilling to, you know, genuinely respect others and let them have equal rights."

And aligning transgender people with toxic masculinity is just.. not right. I don't even know where to start with that concept.

I guess I didn't realize that by asking society to not ignore or enable the oppression and violence towards women on this journey to equality, we would be denying trans people of what they need. That's an honest perspective and one I'll have to consider more.

[londonstill]

Ladyboy,

You’re replying to me but messing me up with other posters. I’m the autistic with two autistic kids concerned about the huge over representation of autistic people in trans stats. Can I ask why you think there are so many more autistic people who are transgender? I have expressed zero thoughts about trans women and passing or bathrooms.

I don’t think that anyone has said that trans people’s feelings don’t matter but that it isn’t the only consideration and that there should be acknowledgement of competing rights and nuance.

I think that trans women who haven’t gone through male puberty will reduce a lot of the debate around competitive sports.

I find it distressing how many women were really comfortable saying that JKR should shut up and be quiet over something they thought she had said that wasn’t actually based in reality. Women always need to take up less space.

[ladyboy]

I am responding to all the bigoted comments on this thread, not just yours.

[londonstill]

Oh okay, a big collected “you” for the people who disagree with you whatsoever, great. Thanks.

[Mutagen]

I think this discussion is particularly difficult (and not comparable to race or sexual orientation discussions) because "reality of biology" is a source of oppression for trans people AND for those born biologically female (and that is said with the knowledge that those two categories overlap). But the oppression works differently. So it is not always cut and dried who the privileged class is and who the oppressed class is.

I admit that I am frustrated when matters of oppression related to biological sex get dismissed because "you phrased that in a way that sounds TERFy." I'm frustrated that violent and sexually degrading threats against those labeled "TERFs" has been normalized in some activist spaces (and for the record I am saying that as someone who does not agree with TERFs). I'm frustrated that there's no male equivalent for the numerous accommodations cis women/feminists are expected to make -- I don't see men getting harassed off social media for failing to remember that not all men have penises, or gay men shamed because they don't want to engage with vulvas sexually. But lesbians are harassed as TERFs if they don't want to have sex with someone with a penis. As usual women are policed within an inch of their lives while men skate by if they meet bare minimum standards.

Every activist movement has people who act like assholes, and it doesn't invalidate the people or the cause in question. My issues with certain strains of online activism is not a criticism of trans people as a class. The real enemy of all of us is patriarchy...

[ladyboy]

Sept 19, 2020 18:42:03 GMT -4 londonstill said:

Oh okay, a big collected “you” for the people who disagree with you whatsoever, great. Thanks.

No, a collective "you" to the generalized bigoted comments on the thread, not to anyone who disagrees with me whatsoever. I do disagree with the comments, but because they're bigoted, not because since I don't have a problem with my gender identity, I don't bother to understand or respect trans people, which seems to be where the bigoted comments are coming from.

On a correlation between transgender people having autism, I don't know why it's there. I do know that with my child we had one doctor who was desperate to diagnose autism in some form for them, based on one passing comment, even though there had never been any talk of autism in the first ten plus years of their life by any other doctor (or again). There is a correlation between the two, but again, it doesn't mean causation, in either direction. It's an interesting statistic, and I wonder what it means, if anything, but as far as I know no research has shown any deeper connections yet.

[Beyle]

Sept 19, 2020 18:48:29 GMT -4 Mutagen said:

The real enemy of all of us is patriarchy...

Plenty of (White) men seem to enjoy watching the infighting between the rest of us over scraps while they continue to hold all the power, etc.

The worst part is that some of those who are oppressed help their cause without realizing it.