Last week’s supreme court ruling sent shock waves through the UK’s trans community. The unanimous judgment said the legal definition of a woman in the Equality Act 2010 did not include transgender women who hold gender recognition certificates (GRCs). That feeling was compounded when Kishwer Falkner, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, which is preparing new statutory guidance, said the judgment meant only biological women could use single-sex changing rooms and toilets.
And apparently this is going to cause issues for those men who have been posing as women for years.
The fear is back. The fear I had when I first started my transition in 1979, that people will hurt me,” says Janey, who is 70. She has been living “happily and independently” as a woman for nearly half a century. Based in London, she still works in the mental health sector and is part of a large and accepting Irish family. She is also transgender. “I still go into the women’s toilets at work, but when I open the door there’s that little voice inside me: ‘Will someone shout at me?’,” she says.
What are you planning to do it there? If it's just 'use the toilet', it's unlikely. If it's to pose in front of the mirrors for a selfie to show how you're in a women's toilet like so many of the exhibitionist freakshows on Twitter and Instragram, then no.
Janey’s colleagues don’t know she’s trans (Janey is not her real name).
Don't they? I wouldn't bet on that.
It’s the fragility of rights that scares her. “Just look at what is happening in the US – what worries me in this country is that it’s all about trans people now, but this is the start of something. Rights can be knocked out in a second.”
You never had a right to invade female spaces. You're a man.
Diana James, 66, a domestic abuse worker, says the supreme court judgment has been “a tremendous shock” to mature trans women in particular. “These are women just living their lives, coming up for retirement, pottering around their gardens, and suddenly their safety and security has been removed.”
What about the safety and security of women who don't want them in their spaces, Diana?
In the intervening decades since her own transition in the mid-70s, James has witnessed “an incremental increase in rights and understanding” for trans people. “The path forward wasn’t rushed but in gentle increments, so some people who had concerns could discuss them.”
And have them belittled and ignored in favour of the utter madness that has become the trans rights movement? Gee, thanks awfully...
Christine Burns, a retired activist and internationally recognised health adviser, charts “a fairly straight line of progress” towards the passing of the Gender Recognition Act in 2004, which allowed trans people to change gender on their birth certificate, marry to reflect their chosen identity and gave them privacy around their transition. That legislation “mattered so much to people” says Burns, while acknowledging that only a minority of the community have gone on to apply for a GRC.
Well, clearly it didn't matter as much as you thought.
She points to another significant social shift in the mid-00s. “The oddity is that the Gender Recognition Act changed lives, but the emergence of social media made it possible for there to be a revolution in how trans people engaged with the world.”
And we saw how they engaged with the world and realised just what we were expected to invite into our private spaces. And a brave bunch of women went to the Supreme Court to put an end to it.
Do any of the trannies have proper jobs?
ReplyDeleteI'm rather curious what kind of pension a "retired activist" gets.
DeleteI suspect a lot are in local councils or the civil service...so no!
DeleteI've always said there needs to be a societal consensus on at what point a MtF transitioner would be acceptable in female spaces. The lack of consensus appears to be the ability to declare yourself a Woman without any physical change. If the transitioner went through surgery and appeared as fully female, there would be no problem. The simple answer is "lose the penis". That way, the majority of the issues would evaporate.
ReplyDeleteThe inability to go through surgery seems to show a timidity to actually fully transition. Either because the desire to change is pushed by fetishism, or the transitioner is not body dysmorphic and the pressure to change is coming from a feeling of "otherness" as with Autism. The autistic transitioner feels they cannot be accepted as male and therefore feels like transitioning to female would solve all the issues. Which it doesn't of course.
At heart, it's a mental issue, but unlike, say, anorexia, the 'treatment' seems to be agreeing with them, rather than pointing out how detached they are from objective reality.
DeleteIf you look like a woman, act like a woman and speak like a woman, why should anyone question you using a female toilet? The same goes for men (although we hear very few complaints from trans men about their not being able to use the urinals any more).
ReplyDeleteToilets aren't that big a deal as female toilets have cubicles - for people who genuinely want to appear female it's relatively easy to blend in. The problem exists in female changing rooms where the naked male genitalia is definitely identifiable and unwanted.
DeleteWell, quite! Have I ever shared a public toilet with a man who thinks they are a woman? Probably, because if they are there to use the toilet for its intended puropose and not pose for photos for their social media, and they have made an effort to look female, I probably wouldn't notice.
Delete“ What about the safety and security of women who don't want them in their spaces, Diana?”
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely.