What about single-gender spaces?

[UnseenParticipant]

This is a huge controversy in Scotland at the moment

But here in the U.S. many women—including, perhaps surprisingly, feminists—support single gender spaces, at least for women. And many women who want such spaces mean women assigned female at birth only. No trans women, no cross dressers, no one who is of ambiguous gender.

Why? So women can have spaces where they can feel completely safe. Safe from rape, of course. However, also safe from being oggled, propositioned, or subjected to becoming objects of sexual interest.

The problem is that well-intentioned legislation designed to protect trans people can be used to make female-only spaces illegal. To be clear, that would include women’s shelters, where women who are dealing with domestic violence can go to feel safe, collect their thoughts, where a healthy attitude toward male-female relations can be worked on.

Now, a matter of equality comes up. What about male-only spaces?

I said earlier that some feminists favor female-only spaces. Here’s one:

BTW, many hetero women go to gay bars to enjoy time with their female friends because for them a gay bar is, relatively speaking, something of a women-only space where they are far less likely to be oggled, groped, or propositioned.

[_Robert_Participant]

Oh, so no data presented on the frequency of these crimes and abuses committed by male to female trans? Shocking. I’d take a guess that it is statistically insignificant, but Phucker (and Putin, LOL) knows his idiotic audience well.

Phucker say he has “enough daughters” to be concerned about this as if just one wouldn’t be enough. What a jerk.

With so many real issues facing us right now, this is the big one. Right.

[UnseenParticipant]

_Robert_ wrote:

Oh, so no data presented on the frequency of these crimes and abuses committed by male to female trans? Shocking. I’d take a guess that it is statistically insignificant, but Phucker (and Putin, LOL) knows his idiotic audience well. Phucker say he has “enough daughters” to be concerned about this as if just one wouldn’t be enough. What a jerk. With so many real issues facing us right now, this is the big one. Right.

Let’s not take this discussion to Russia where, I assume, most of can see actual gay hatred and hostility to LGBTQ+ at play. Let’s stick with Scotland or the U.S., please.

Are women who want spaces where they can be with other women* because they feel more safe and comfortable in such a space bigots?

* When they say “women” they mean women with no invisible asterisk applying to them. No tanssexuals, crossdressers, or people of ambiguous gender (which might include, say, somewhat “butch” lesbians, I suppose).

• This reply was modified 12 months ago by  Unseen.

[jakelafortParticipant]

Yeah i am not feeling it. Separate but equal? One for normals and the other for coloreds? If ya can’t deal with it cuz of your delicate sensibilities or your twisted prurience then go in the bushes or wear an adult diaper.

[—Participant]

People may have all sorts of reasons they don’t want to share space with people of different religions, ethnicities, skin colour, sexual orientation, gender identity or other (typically) protected characteristics. And the root of those fears may be something with which we can sympathize. Maybe a young man was raped by his uncle and he doesn’t want to share a change room with an older man. Maybe a person suffered religious persecution and they don’t want to be alone in a bathroom with someone from that religious background due to associated trauma. Or maybe their reasons are less sympathetic like they’re racist as fuck.

Regardless, the facilities in question are rarely private facilities. They’re either facilities that are publicly owned or fall under human rights acts concerning places of public accommodation. There is an expectation of a certain amount of privacy in those spaces, and that doesn’t change. No law changes to enable peeping over stalls, sexual harassment, verbal harassment, physical abuse and violence. As to whether men could lie to gain access to women’s space, again, no law changes this. A man could say his is a transgender woman. Even easier, he could lie and say he’s a transgender man forced to use the women’s room due to legislation restricting use based on sex assigned at birth.

It is true that transgender women or people pretending to be transgender could do things in spaces designated for women. It is also true that cisgender women can (and do) commit the same crimes whether in the same proportion or not, especially when we are talking about prisons.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2438589/

Rates of inmate-on-inmate sexual victimization in the previous 6 months were highest for female inmates (212 per 1,000), more than four times higher than male rates (43 per 1,000).

That’s a study from 2006, so there is a low likelihood of there being very many trans women or people pretending to be trans women incarcerated in women’s facilities. I’ve seen data elsewhere with similar results. The point here isn’t that these figures are absolute—we know underreporting is frequently an issue with sexual violence—, but that there is a disproportionate fixation on trans women, specifically with a seemingly much lower concern or even awareness of overall violence against women and also against men. Fixating on trans people alone won’t likely make much of a dent in that violence.

Similarly, men (and youths/ boys especially when it comes to sexual offences) are victimized by men, yet we don’t force all men’s facilities to be single occupancy so that men don’t have to be victimized by other men.

Unfortunately, the law cannot be responsive to everyone feeling safe, because we can’t account for everything that might make a person feel unsafe. Likewise, the law can’t guarantee I feel safe in either men’s or women’s facilities, and if I’m being honest, it’s a little anxiety-inducing using either (though more the latter than the former). We also can’t do guilt by association where we create legislative barriers against the innocent based on a public perception of threat. That’s how you end up with things like super fucked up and racist racial profiling practices: a perception that Black and Hispanic men represent disproportionate threat means that the 99.9+% of these populations who are as law-abiding as anyone are also faced with disproportionate risk of being accosted by police for no. fucking. reason. The percecption of the dangerous Black man has been an excuse for racism for far too long. In the 19th and 20th centuries, perceptions of the dangerous, radical feminists led to similar mal treatment. Why do we have to keep repeating this trend over and over?

 

[—Participant]

N.B. With the line regarding sexual assaults in prisons, I am not arguing against the data that women are vastly more likely to be the victims of sexual violence and that the perpetrators are disproportionately male in the general population.

What I am saying is there is a lot of media attention and attention from ‘gender critical’ feminists about transgender inmates in female penitentiaries, and it’s not clear why trans women are singled out when there are almost certainly far more cisgender women (by total number if not proportionately) committing such acts of violence against women in prisons. Why not use the same measures for trans women as are used for cisgender women, and if those are inadequate, why not address the whole issue at once? Forcing transgender women into isolation or into men’s facilities does not seem like it’s going to make a dent in the sexual violence that is occurring.

[UnseenParticipant]

Autumn wrote:

People may have all sorts of reasons they don’t want to share space with people of different religions, ethnicities, skin colour, sexual orientation, gender identity or other (typically) protected characteristics. And the root of those fears may be something with which we can sympathize.

Interesting  Almost unconsciously “reasons” are transformed into “fears.” Like people can’t have actual reasons just like they say. Hmmm

[—Participant]

Unseen wrote:

Autumn wrote:

People may have all sorts of reasons they don’t want to share space with people of different religions, ethnicities, skin colour, sexual orientation, gender identity or other (typically) protected characteristics. And the root of those fears may be something with which we can sympathize.

Interesting Almost unconsciously “reasons” are transformed into “fears.” Like people can’t have actual reasons just like they say. Hmmm

This is a subject matter where you have no skin in the game and I’ve been through a world of shit. Forgive me if not every sentence is perfect. But how about instead of making an insipid inference, you show some curiosity you disingenuous asshole. Get fucked.

[UnseenParticipant]

jakelafort wrote:

Yeah i am not feeling it. Separate but equal? One for normals and the other for coloreds? If ya can’t deal with it cuz of your delicate sensibilities or your twisted prurience then go in the bushes or wear an adult diaper.

Are you so willing to fob off women-only shelters?

[_Robert_Participant]

Autumn wrote:

The percecption of the dangerous Black man has been an excuse for racism for far too long. In the 19th and 20th centuries, perceptions of the dangerous, radical feminists led to similar mal treatment. Why do we have to keep repeating this trend over and over?

It is getting better as sometimes it is the Karens who get in trouble when they freak-out over the mere presence of a black man.

[UnseenParticipant]

A glimpse into the debate in Scotland. (Hope you have a good ear for the Scots accent.)

Scottish Prime Minister Nicola Sturgeon was shouted down at an event this week called Zero Tolerance. It is an event to stop male violence against women and many people came to tell Sturgeon that her gender bills will fail to create safe spaces for women.

A note sent to attendees said that the Prime Minister’s speech was “to create a safe and supported environment for our guests and ask you to support us in this aim by refraining from discussions of the definition of a woman, and single sex spaces, in relation to the gender recognition act.”

The Prime Minister denies having a hand in this but she was still challenged about it by attendees. Many feminists worry that Sturgeon’s gender reform bill, which has not been passed, could be used by violent men to gain access to women’s spaces including shelters and prisons. ”

https://rumble.com/v1yd3t2-protestor-shouts-down-prime-minister-sturgeon-over-gender-recognition-act.html

• This reply was modified 12 months ago by  Unseen.
• This reply was modified 12 months ago by  Unseen.

[_Robert_Participant]

I would think raping women is easy and common enough so that rapists don’t really feel the need to fake that they are trans to gain access to “safe spaces”. If this is your big concern, then you have been manipulated.

 

[Simon PayntonParticipant]

I can see both sides of the argument, of women vs. trans women over traditionally cisgendered female safe spaces.  I assume that 1) trans women need domestic violence refuges just as much as cisgendered women; 2) trans people have a need like everyone else to be considered on equal terms.

However this doesn’t factor in the enormously predatory nature of men and their potentially more deadly behaviour, compared with women.  I think this is basically a form of behavioral patriarchy – coercion and control and punishment/abuse.  Men are monsters and beasts, behaviorally, compared with women, overall.  They would take advantage of any inch given to them in women’s safe spaces.  It doesn’t take much for a pervert to get in.

[_Robert_Participant]

 Men are monsters and beasts, behaviorally, compared with women, overall.  They would take advantage of any inch given to them in women’s safe spaces.  It doesn’t take much for a pervert to get in.

Ah, this kind of fear-based BS doesn’t help.

[_Robert_Participant]

It’s a small % of men that do this stuff. I could just as easily blame their mothers as no man that loves his mother would be doing that. I don’t see any gender as being morally superior.

[Author]

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