Gender, and politics

[juliet]

According to a leak in the Sunday Times (and let us set aside how bloody annoying it is to constantly be finding out about policy by 'leaks' to the press), the proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act to make life a bit easier for trans people, are not, despite the consultation showing 70% support for them, going to happen. And not just that, but there are suggestions that things may be made *more* difficult for trans people.

This is all aimed pretty squarely at trans women (and trans children; there's also a risk of treatment being made even harder to get for trans kids which, given how hard it is already, is pretty horrifying). It will, of course, affect other trans people. (As it happens, it is unlikely to affect me personally, as a non-binary person who is pretty invariably read as a woman, except for the emotional impact of the whole shitty business.)

I find it hard to write about this, partly because of how very distressed it makes me. Scared for my friends, and for the kids I support via Mermaids. Sad and confused that this strange thing has happened in some strands of British feminism that has led to this place where some people believe that in order to protect cis women they need to further marginalise trans women. (And other trans people, but this particular debate is squarely focussed on trans women and largely ignores trans men and non-binary people other than to paint them as deluded; as above, that doesn't protect them from its effects and impacts.)

Laurie Penny has written an excellent (long) article talking about how British feminism got here and why the transphobia currently highly visible in some strands of British feminism is bullshit, so there's all of that; she's saying it better than I can.

Self-ID (which is still a legal declaration with legal force, not, like, something you print out off the internet) has existed in other countries for years, with no ill effects or resulting issues. The 'safety' issue is a massive red herring. Men wanting to abuse women don't *need* to pretend to be women and sneak into women's toilets to do so; it's not like rapists and other sexual assaulters generally face any significant consequences for their actions. How about we focus on that? In any case, when was the last time you got asked for your ID (still less your birth certificate) to go into a public lavatory? If you do start asking people to prove their gender before entering a single-sex public space, who do you ask? Everyone? People who don't look 'feminine' enough? Whose body shape doesn't match your expectations? (Whose expectations?) How the hell can this possibly be 'feminist'? (This sort of toilet policing has already started happening to cis women who don't 'look right', indeed happened to a butch lesbian friend; and the N Carolina 'bathroom bills' were unworkable and were in the end struck down.) Women's refuges have been including trans women for years, because trans women, like cis women, can be victims of domestic violence.

Trans women get this much scrutiny precisely *because* of misogyny and the patriarchy: it's the same damn struggle. Trans rights are human rights; trans women's rights are women's rights; black trans lives matter; and this is all intersectional. That's it.

Comments

[lilysea]

I'm a 43 year old cis woman.

I have been made to feel unsafe and/or groped by cis men
on buses
on trains
in pubs
in pedestrian underpasses

I have never been threatened or groped by a cis man in a woman's toilet.

And I have never felt threatened by a trans woman ANYWHERE.

The panic over trans women in women's toilets is ridiculous...

[slightlycanted]

Sorry it's all so draining and distressing. I find it more emotional than other struggles that affect me; I'm annoyed but incredulous at sexism and homo/biphobia but this really gets under my skin. Have popped off some letters.
Wishing you support and good chocolate.

[laurashapiro]

Damn right, and I am so sorry that our fucking stupid country is exporting its patriarchal bullshit this way.

[rydra_wong]

I find it hard to write about this, partly because of how very distressed it makes me.

Yeah. It's been hitting me hard, and I have some idea of why in my case but it's tricky to explicate without making it all about me in ways it isn't (given that I id as cis, if gender-non-conforming). But it's been fucking me up.

[rydra_wong]

Women's refuges have been including trans women for years, because trans women, like cis women, can be victims of domestic violence.

Yeah, my work stuff involves some stuff with organizations supporting survivors of IPV and/or sexual violence, including refuges.

So I know that in the actual field, this is a non-issue. The laws as currently written would potentially allow refuges to exclude trans women, I believe, but they're generally not choosing to do that and it's fucking FINE.

There are a tonne of major issues deeply concerning the people running refuges right now (many of which involve the fact that the sector's been GUTTED by austerity); inclusion of trans women really isn't one of them.

Also: people who have survived violence are not thereby made into perfect pure passive saintly victims. So all of these organizations have to have mechanisms and processes for handling it if a servicer user's behaviour is potentially risky or harmful to other services users.

It's not that everything is perfect and safe and harmonious just as long as you don't have any of those Eeeevil trans women in the space, nor is anybody's safety preserved in any way by excluding trans women.

FUCK. This is such a non-issue on the ground, for the people who are actually running the refuges and fighting for the rights of survivors.

Which is evidence that the people trying to weaponize it don't really give a shit about protecting survivors.

[emperor]

It's really shitty :(

[rydra_wong]

Trans women get this much scrutiny precisely *because* of misogyny and the patriarchy: it's the same damn struggle.

Yes, it's the time-honoured patriarchal game of policing who's a Real Woman and who's failing. Which has never, ever benefited women, and I have no clue why some cis women imagine it's going to start now.

[elisi]

Seems we spent our days in the same unhappy place. :(

[sfred]

...when was the last time you got asked for your ID (still less your birth certificate) to go into a public lavatory? If you do start asking people to prove their gender before entering a single-sex public space...

One of my worries is that they'll try and close loopholes around this by requiring a gender recognition certificate to change the gender on a passport or driving licence, which will fuck over a whole load of people (including me, but others will have it worse).

[flick]

I think this is partly addressed at me? (And sorry for the slow response: it's never a good day when there's an ambulance involved.)

I don't think you're deluded. I don't know exactly what your thought processes are other than a passing mention here of questioning your gender earlier this year; I'd intended to grab half an hour with you at Easter, in fact, but there we go (I chickened out at Dublin, which I regret). If you asked me to guess, I'd say that you don't feel any resonance with modern stereotypes of womanhood (and possibly motherhood), so you've made the logical choice to disassociate yourself from them. I do get the logic, but I think a better choice (especially, given your position of relative privilege) would have been to stand up to those stereotypes and be a good counterexample. IDK, I may be totally off base there: if things ever get back to normal, maybe we could still grab that half hour?

FWIW, I'm personally relatively unconcerned about women's toilets, because I personally am also in a position of relative privilege. I worry more about places such as prisons, and school changing rooms, where that privilege is largely absent.

If you're interested in another long article, please do read the one I linked to. I'm sure you'll disagree with a lot of it, but it might help you to understand where people are coming from.