Guest post: Case by case by case by case by
Originally a comment by Sastra on Take your inclusion and.
Hannah Blythyn, wrote that their “preferred position was to follow a case-by-case approach, rather than a blanket exclusion of transgender people”.
I’m gobsmacked by people who actually think it’s possible to decide whether to include or exclude trans-identified males from women’s spaces using a “case-by-case approach.” The nature of the claim, that transwomen are a TYPE OF WOMAN, completely precludes it. They’re built like an ox and just as strong? Some girls are big. They completely pass as female and nobody in the woman’s restroom would even know they’re trans? What about those poor transwomen who don’t? Where are we going to draw the line?
I had a conversation recently with a friend of mine who had never even heard of a liberal, feminist critique of including transwomen into all women’s spaces. Her responses were predictable. “There are so few.” “They pass.” “We should accept and love.” “That’s not happening.” And of course “we need to do things on a case-by-case basis, which would eliminate the problems you mention.” But … how?
The case by case approach is puzzling to me.
Are there people who can tell us with anything approaching certainty that a man is going to never offend against a woman? In this case, we are dealing with men who have shown no respect for at least one law or standard of human decency already.
And if we have such experts in knowing which men (or women) are going to criminally offend, why don’t we have those people visiting every high school to pick out the future criminals so the future miscreants can be more closely guided and watched over by the rest of us?
We need to stop this idea that we can let this man in and keep that man out. Once you let one man in, the others that want in will never shut up until they get in too. Simple rule, NO MEN.
I guess it only makes sense in light of Scotland’s FM hopefuls talking about taking TW prisoner placement on a “case by case” basis, right? The whole thing would be a lot less complicated and require less bureacracy if the standard of “women are women, men are men, and ne’er the twain shall be called the same.” (I had to paraphrase my paraphrase because meet wouldn’t have made sense.)
I wonder, when people talk about sports and males moving into female spaces, if the confusion comes from the fact that people actually believe that being transgender is a result of a DSD. I was really confused about that for several years while I was trying to sift through the noise over the issue. And if that’s the case, this may be why many people think it isn’t axiomatic that trans athletes have an unfair advantage.
It doesn’t excuse the fact that they just put up a “talk to the hand” attitude when they hear how it affects female athletes. Education is the key to understanding, and it’s easy to prevent it by calling anyone who objects to trans athletes in girls’ sports a right wing bigot.
You can’t promote unquestioned ‘self I.D.’ out of one side of your mouth, and then suggest ‘case by case’ when the absurdity of the former can’t be denied.
Self I.D. is such a tempting notion. No hormone tests or genital-checking. If every one who said they were trans was actually doing so in good faith, what would the problem be? Pretending that cranks, weirdos, perverts, and violent misogynists aren’t going to be a problem is like saying the Catholic Church should ignore the abuse of children. After all, the clergy idennify as celibate.
I think bathrooms are more complicated than sports.
If a transwoman has done a very convincing job of appearing to be a woman, who is going to know? And wouldn’t it be a bit odd for them to go into the men’s room? But I’m fine with women saying not their problem.
What about transmen? Some of them get pretty big and muscular from taking testosterone. Some of them grow beards.
For example, here’s former FTB blogger Jen McCreight, of “Boobquake” and “Atheism+” fame, now transitioned into Jey:
https://twitter.com/jeymccreight/status/1628762406515007489
Seeing Jey in a women’s restroom probably wouldn’t make most women happy.
So maybe a women’s restroom and an all-sexes restroom?
Skeletor, I think you are falling for the same red herring the TRAs do when they claim sex segregated spaces will need guards and scanners to properly police. The dirty secret is: if someone passes as woman or man, no one will give them a second glance and this has been the case since the very inception of single sex amenities. The TRAs even inadvertently admit this when they say there have been trans people in the toilets all along without being noticed. Yes, because cursory visual appraisal has been considered sufficient all along.
As for trans men, it’s true that women would probably be uncomfortable with them in the women’s amenities as they have a much easier time passing as men thanks to the increased hairiness when on testosterone. And thanks to that ease in passing as male, they will typically enter men’s amenities with no alarm raised. I think it is also worth bearing in mind that while both sets of amenities are divided by sex, the division is primarily for the protection of the female sex from the male. Jey can enter a men’s dunny without causing a stir there, unlike the hulking Ma’ams entering the women’s.
Holms, I think we are in complete agreement. This is effectively treating it on a case by case basis though, at least in some circumstances.