WTF Sh*t's F*cked Up and Bullsh*t - a "Who Cares" thread for news

[Han Held]

Not dealing with the same shit we did with Ingrid

That came to my mind too, for whatever it is or it isn't worth...

 

[Han Held]

What if someone does identify as a "radical feminist"?
(Now I don't know if I would call myself a radical feminist but I do want to see full equality)

I'd also like to point out that it seems to me that most, if not all, who are transphobic also seek to sweep intersex people under the mat.

From my perspective the "radical" is a positive ...it's the "trans exclusionary" that's problematic.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

I've been told by a friend that's sliding into exclusionary feminism that there have been cases. I don't think our friendship could survive my asking for specifics -so I haven't.

I've seen no verifiable citations of actual trans women (or trans men for that matter) using access to their gender-appropriate facilities for inappropriate shenanigans. There was one case of an agent-provocateur at a big box store pretending to. I've asked on a number of occasions.

There's been plenty of examples of men walking into women's facilities without any pretense at being anything but men to harass or assault women.

 

[Han Held]

I've seen no verifiable citations of actual trans women or men using access to their gender-appropriate facilities for sexual assault. There was one case of an agent-provocateur at a big box store pretending to. I've asked on a number of occasions.

Same here -but I haven't looked into it for the reason I cited. I suspect if I found anything at all it would be urban-legend level bullshit on some chan or MRA board or someshit...

 

[danielravennest]

A couple of random comments about bath and shower facilities:

* The Atlanta airport has men's, women's, and "family" restrooms in the terminals. The latter is intended for situations when a parent is traveling with a young child of the opposite gender, but doesn't want to leave them alone in the other restroom. I assume it is single-stall size (I've never needed to use it). It may also accommodate handicapped who have a helper of the opposite sex.

* Back when I was active in the SCA, we were camping in tents in large groups for up to two weeks. You quickly got used to seeing more flesh than back home. In college I lived in a co-ed co-op. It was a brownstone owned by the university, a couple blocks from the campus proper. 28 people and shared bathrooms. We all got along. So I think prudery is a social conditioning thing, not biology.

 

[Han Held]

So I think prudery is a social conditioning thing, not biology.

Agreed -but we're all products of the society we come from, as is almost everyone we encounter. So I don't see that going away any time soon, unfortunately...

 

[Innula Zenovka]

Agreed -but we're all products of the society we come from, as is almost everyone we encounter. So I don't see that going away any time soon, unfortunately...

I'm not even sure I'd call it prudery.

People are shy and uncomfortable about their bodies to greater or lesser extents, and we're conditioned, again to various extents, to feel more or less uncomfortable about public, or semi-public, nudity in certain circumstances.

Calling it prudery sounds condemnatory, which I think isn't the right approach -- it's the way some people feel, and some of them, precisely because they're uncomfortable about being thought prudes or overly burdened by ideas of modesty, rationalise (in the sense that Freud used the term, which is finding an apparently rational reason for an irrational impulse or activity) this by explaining their unease and discomfort as a rational response to a fear of being attacked, no matter how unfounded in fact that fear may be.

That's simply the way people are, and we have to work with that.

 

[Clara D.]

Same here -but I haven't looked into it for the reason I cited. I suspect if I found anything at all it would be urban-legend level bullshit on some chan or MRA board or someshit...

It's an anti-trans trope I generally hear from such charming people as Glenn Beck. The TERFs glommed onto it and gave it more momentum.

The scary part isn't the genitals in the stall next to you, it's the whacko with the gun that comes in there to "protect the wimmenfolk."

The imaginary predator in America's transgender bathroom war

A civil rights battle is being fought next to the toilet.

www.usatoday.com

Because of the whole hoopla, even butch/tomboy "real" women end up getting harassed by police.

Some of these are old news, but relevant to the topic:

North Carolina: Woman kicked out of ladies’ bathroom by police after being mistaken for transgender

Charlotte, NC | A North Carolinian woman was brutally ejected from a ladies’ bathroom yesterday after nearby police officers were alerted by local citizens that a transgender was using a public women's bathroom. Linda Hovensky, a 54-year-old resident of Charlotte, was tased multiple times by police

worldnewsdailyreport.com

Police Refuse to Believe Lesbian Is a Woman, Force Her Out Of Bathroom

An unidentified American woman was forced from a public women’s restroom because she could not convince police that she is female.

jezebel.com

I’m a Woman Who Got Kicked Out of Women’s Bathrooms

Our zealous policing of gender norms can have unintended and hurtful consequences.

www.christianitytoday.com

Really, the focusing on genitalia and what's the "proper way" for a woman to look/act does nothing whatsoever for women's struggles with equality and misogyny. All it accomplishes is alienating allies.

 

[Romana]

I've been told by a friend that's sliding into exclusionary feminism that there have been cases. I don't think our friendship could survive my asking for specifics -so I haven't.

I think they are afraid that a cis male would pretend to identify as a woman so that he could go rape them in showers or bathrooms. I'm sure I remember reading some BS like that.
I don't think this has ever happened either. They'd have made sure it was all over the internet.
ETA: I posted this before reading on to this page. Yeah, that's the stuff I remember reading, or enough like it. I remember reading about the pretender Agent mentioned too. But no actual cis-wolves-in-trans-clothing (as it were).
If I lived in I've of those areas, is be afraid to use the restroom in a big box store--because of the vigilantes.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

The scary part isn't the genitals in the stall next to you, it's the whacko with the gun that comes in there to "protect the wimmenfolk."

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

It was the Ambien, amirite?

 

[Free]

 

[Zaida Gearbox]

I don't know why but I thought I was in the book forum. I think that is where I meant to go - the thread Booooooks. So when I saw all the JK Rowling stuff - I was about to say shouldn't this be in PRS? How the hell did I get here? I haz confused.

Not taking a position on the bathroom/sex/gender thing either way... but our local LA Fitness has shower curtains that have a clear window panel about a 3rd of the way from the top. It allows you to see the head and shoulders of a female of average height - which I suppose allows you to know someone is in that particular shower if for some reason you can't hear it. But, I'm taller than the average female. 6'1" to be exact. So, it gives whoever happens to be walking past and outstanding view of my tits. It's why I like to use the handicap shower if it's available - so I can sit down and not flash everyone in the shower area. I'm very uncomfortable getting naked around people other than Hub or possibly my sister.

 

[Han Held]

It's beyond (but includes) the bathroom issue. Basically the woman who wrote Harry Potter is going out of her way to vocally support someone who got fired because they refused to stop harassing transfolk on twitter.

Beyond that (someone else can fill in the details if they wish -I'm not fishing for them) she's also supported a lot of other trans-exclusionists on twitter as well.

I can't think of a witty and appropriate HP metaphor that isn't convoluted as fuck so I'll just cut to the chase; J.K. Rowling doesn't merely believe that transwomen shouldn't share bathrooms -she appears to believe (or at least supports people who believe) that transfolks are completely invalid and have no right to exist. Full stop.

 

[Free]

Meanwhile...

 

[Brenda Archer]

You know it's strange. I see "TERF" floating past my social media at times, recently its been about safe spaces for women or women's sports. But it crops up fairly frequently.

You know what I've never seen, not even once? "TERM" which would be the same but relating to males instead of females.

Im pretty sure that 99% of the time when I see someone using TERF, it's just another way of attacking women.

Cis AFAB here. Why this is relevant will be apparent in a moment. Also, I'm 57 and I've been queer bi identified since my twenties.

There is a long, long history behind exclusion of trans women in pagan and lesbian spaces. I can speak directly to the pagan part, which was typical of the whole for the most part. People had good intentions in that they wanted to set up safe space where women, who in my generation had little to nothing of their own to themselves, could assemble, support each other and in the pagan case, have ritual experiences formed around female energy and female spiritual experience. Many, many of us have been subjected to abuse and silencing by men, and the older of us grew up in churches with no female clergy. We grew up in an atmosphere of abuse and oppression. It was important, and valuable, and necessary, to have spaces for women. We'd never have started to move out of the self-hating patriarchal mindset without it. It wasn't all psychological, either. Before the internet, women only lesbian spaces were vital for community building and networking in a rare setting of safety.

But the thing is this. You cannot get out of your oppression by handing it to someone else, not with gatekeeping, not with narrow definitions of identity, not with fears that the enemy is invading the moment someone slightly different shows up. That way lies fascism. And that's what happened eventually to the TERFS. They started out wanting to advocate for women as feminists, and wound up in league with conservatives (fascism really). If you define women as only those assigned female at birth, you have created some problems for all women:

1) you've given control of who identifies as a woman to the medical establishment (and by extension the government)
2) you've narrowed the definition of woman to an ideal feminine. This is going to exclude a lot of women, not just hetero cis AFAB, but queer women, enbys and trans women.
3) sovereignty over the self. I'm a woman because I SAY SO, not because I'm XX (presumably), not because I was once a potential childbearer, not because I used to have a brain saturated in estrogen, or any other bullshit that gives control TO PATRIARCHY.

Replying to the Rowling thread:


We now know that biological gender isn't a pure binary anyway. But the gender binarists don't care about updated science.

It's not the point anyway. Anybody who is sure she's a woman is a woman in my estimation. We can't gatekeep without denying human self sovereignty and autonomy.

Walling out the feared Other is not making anyone safer, especially in spaces that don't HAVE to be segregated, like a public gathering. It's not going to undo the consciousness raising I did in my twenties to participate in a gathering alongside someone who's only been living as a woman for a short time and may still be learning the ropes. It's not going to endanger me, damage the energy of the space or any such jazz. I am not so weak. While we're so far from the end of patriarchy, we cannot afford to not be warriors. Everyone who wants to take up the banner is welcome as far as I care. My feminism is inclusive.

 

[Arkady Arkright]

It's an anti-trans trope I generally hear from such charming people as Glenn Beck. The TERFs glommed onto it and gave it more momentum.

The scary part isn't the genitals in the stall next to you, it's the whacko with the gun that comes in there to "protect the wimmenfolk."

The imaginary predator in America's transgender bathroom war

A civil rights battle is being fought next to the toilet.

www.usatoday.com

Because of the whole hoopla, even butch/tomboy "real" women end up getting harassed by police.

Some of these are old news, but relevant to the topic:

North Carolina: Woman kicked out of ladies’ bathroom by police after being mistaken for transgender

Charlotte, NC | A North Carolinian woman was brutally ejected from a ladies’ bathroom yesterday after nearby police officers were alerted by local citizens that a transgender was using a public women's bathroom. Linda Hovensky, a 54-year-old resident of Charlotte, was tased multiple times by police

worldnewsdailyreport.com

Police Refuse to Believe Lesbian Is a Woman, Force Her Out Of Bathroom

An unidentified American woman was forced from a public women’s restroom because she could not convince police that she is female.

jezebel.com

I’m a Woman Who Got Kicked Out of Women’s Bathrooms

Our zealous policing of gender norms can have unintended and hurtful consequences.

www.christianitytoday.com

Really, the focusing on genitalia and what's the "proper way" for a woman to look/act does nothing whatsoever for women's struggles with equality and misogyny. All it accomplishes is alienating allies.

Given our new political masters, I wonder how long it will be before we start hearing these stories from the UK ?

 

[Tigger]

Safe from what? What exactly are the dangers that suddenly arise?

The first that might come to mind is the trauma of seeing a penis. Assuming that the restroom or changing room has the normal allotment of doors, this is a minimal risk. I can't imagine there are many transwomen who want to flaunt their penis about, if anything I daresay they go out of their way to keep it out of sight.

The second possibility is a transwoman actually using her penis for a sexual assault on the cis-gendered women within that space. Are there any cases of transwomen engaging in this type of assault? Since sexual assault is already a crime, do we really need any specific legislation aimed at all transpeople to prevent this crime?

Ok so, first why have gender segregated facilities at all, why not just go full unisex? Most such segregated facilities involve some degree of perceived vulnerability. Some people may be entirely comfortable in the presence of anyone but they are probably a minority. Some people are hugely uncomfortable even with just their own gender. But most are probably just comfortable enough in the company of their own gender. Surely part of the point of gender segregation in some settings is to make women feel more comfortable or safer than they would usually feel in the presence of men given the omnipresence of sexual harassment when men are around. Women may well feel defensive or vulnerable in the presence of men surely that is even more the case if they are in a situation where they may be partially or completely undressed?

Second part of this, is the assumption that someone in the female facilities is female. Regardless. The act of entering the female designated facility is a declaration of your self identity therefore there are no men in there only females. I don't believe that.

There are men in the world who are deeply nasty, who will abuse any system for any benefit, men who hate women. This gives them a weapon. By falsely self identifying as female they gain access to places they would not have had access to in the past (victory: man!)
Or if they are challenged for trying to gain access to such places they can cry foul!, Misgendering! which is apparently a crime now (victory: man!). The only people who will always lose out are women. If you think this will not happen, then you have a far kinder view of people than I have.

I understand the desire to allow people to just self-identify but there are no checks, there is no way to determine if the claim is true or if its someone seeking to abuse the system.

E.T.A.
To respond to Beebo's question "Are there any cases..." Yes. One that I have been able to find. Karen White. A prisoner in a male facility who got themselves transferred to a women's facility as they had begun render reassignment treatment since arriving at the prison. White had a history of sexual violence against women and children dating back 20 years. After being transferred White proceeded to commit further rapes on vulnerable inmates. Was Karen White genuinely a transgender person or were they using a claim to be transgender to gain access to vulnerable people ?

Transgender prisoner who sexually assaulted inmates jailed for life

Karen White, 52, admitted sexually assaulting women in female prison and raping two other women outside jail

www.theguardian.com

 

[Romana]

Personally, I'd rather not see anyone else relieving themselves, whatever their gender. But all that's necessary for that is stalls rather than urinals. Who decided that guys had to see each other pee, anyway?