( Hollyhock )
This is so true. Cross-dressing men tell you with their behavior what they think of women. Your chances of finding a safe and compassionate male service worker are far better if you pick the man who dresses like he respects social norms.
And there we have it, yet again. A refreshing moment of openly stating it.
People from the “dress as you please” crowd, professed gender abolitionists one and all. Showing that their views are, if anything, the opposite.
So, are gender norms an oppressive construct that we should demolish… or are they a necessary protective measure for you?
Should breaking those norms be celebrated, or is it the sign of danger? Should we be shunned for not “dressing like men should”?
Do you really want to “abolish gender” as so many of you keep claiming… or do you just want to reform gender norms to be less restrictive for you, but remain equally or more restrictive towards us?
Because the way I see it, you actually want to keep them, as a sort of defensive wall around “true women”. But that’s not ‘gender abolition’. It’s just an updated form of social conservatism, and it certainly doesn’t strike me as any sort of actual radical feminism.
( Carrots90 )
Especially dangerous is the man who wants to work at a rape center knowing at least some women will have an issue
( notsofreshfeeling )
As a rape victim, I'd rather be forced to see a normal man than a cross-dressing man who could only ever be in rape crisis work because he gets off on women's suffering.
And you know what? I can understand that. The first part of what you said, that is.
I’m a trans woman. But my feelings about the subject of rape crisis work and our place in it aren’t quite what you probably think they are.
Yes, the ideal is for us to be able to participate in women’s spaces and related activities as any other women.
But we also don’t live in an ideal world.
Rape crisis work is the most sensitive setting one can imagine. It involves dealing with and helping people who have just experienced the worst kind of violation, and are likely in a very vulnerable mental state. They need an environment in which they will feel safe.
Inevitably, some among them will feel unsafe around anyone they perceive as male. Which would include feeling unsafe around many trans women.
First, I’ll give you my personal thoughts and what I would choose, then my general, wider thoughts about the subject. They are not the same.
Personally, I would not work in a rape crisis center, or with women who are rape victims — for a couple of reasons.
One, I am obviously not trained for this kind of work. But even if I was… I might be worried that I don’t have the right personal traits to do this sort of thing right.
But also… I wouldn’t do it precisely because I’m quite sure that my appearance would make the women I’m supposed to help uncomfortable, perhaps even afraid.
And I really, really don’t want to do that. Especially to someone in such an awful position. And I can’t help them if they can’t trust me or are afraid of me.
Fortunately, I have never been raped. I can’t really imagine what it would be like to go through that, and the consequences of it.
But if it happened… I don’t think I would go to a rape crisis center for women even if I could. Because I would dread the prospect of terrifying or making uncomfortable the other women who had gone through the same thing.
At most, if I can’t bear the aftermath of being raped, I’d try to go to a psychologist one-on-one. Or, if it exists, a group that has no gender distinctions. But not one solely for women.
That’s what I would personally do. But that doesn’t mean I’d hold that up as a prescription for other trans women, telling them that they should think or do as I would for myself. They might see things differently, without being heartless or lacking compassion and respect, and that is okay.
For instance, there are those among us who perfectly ‘pass’ as if they were cis women (yes, despite what many GCs/TERFs claim, how “they can always tell”).
Would they make other women uncomfortable, if they have no idea the former women are trans? No. Hence, it makes no sense excluding them from rape crisis centers and such on that basis, either as workers or as those being helped.
Besides, such places don’t just hire any asshole. They vet people, and train them. Cis women need to pass that as well; after all, if you think that there’s no need to screen them and that they can’t be abusive too, then you are hopelessly naive.
But what I outlined still leaves us with a problem. If trans women who don’t look visibly trans are okay, but those that look trans / too masculine aren’t… that’s a very shitty standard. We are literally judging and excluding people by the way they look or sound, and punishing them for not conforming to a certain standard of femininity and an image of what a woman is supposed to look like.
Yes, we are; there’s no way around it, and it should be acknowledged.
And whenever trans women are hit with that sort of thing, it never hits them alone. Butch cis women get caught in that crossfire as well. As all the examples of “gender criticals” accosting and harassing them in women’s toilets have shown.
And even if these ‘masculine-looking’ cis women had a “100% verified female” ID document that was unavailable to trans people the way TERFs want it, their rather masculine look or presentation could still make some rape victims uncomfortable. So, should we ban butch cis women from work with rape victims too?
I already know the answer basically all GCs/TERFs would give: “Of course not. Banning them would be preposteous!”
Even though the same kind of discomfort might be caused.
Which brings us to the point that, for your kind, it’s not really about causing discomfort or fear to raped women.
It’s about trans women being seen as predators by our very nature, and cis women being seen as safe by their nature.
And yes, I already know the prison statistics you would wave in our faces to show how dangerous and predatory trans women are.
Okay. I guess we should also exclude black men from other races’ spaces based on the FBI statistics that show that black men commit a lot more crime in the US than white or Asian ones?
Or that racial profiling is actually entirely okay, because certain races or ethnicities really do commit some types of crime a lot more?
Are we allowed to ask why those statistics are the way they are, and if there might be context that shines a different light on what you deem “obvious”?
May we point out that some studies have shown that the added risk from allowing us in has been… pretty much nil?
Suddenly, when we’re talking about trans women, collective suspicion (and perhaps even punishment) of us is considered to be okay and reasonable. We are all expected to take the fall for not only every crime that our rights might have enabled or could possibly enable in the future. We’re expected to outright accept permanent restrictions upon us on that basis.
And we’re expected to not only agree with that completely, but to not even complain that it is an unfair and unjust standard to hold us to.
After all, to you, we are just men. Nothing but men, now and forever. And not just any men, but particularly awful and dangerous men.
So, as predatory men, the only correct thing to do is to exclude us from “single-sex spaces”… thus violating none of our rights, since we have all the rights we’re supposed to have as men.
Reminds me of that ‘argument’ how same-sex marriage is unnecessary, since lesbian, gay and bisexual people have the right to marry an opposite-sex spouse, just as any straight person. Anything more than that would be… a privilege.
And you TERFs, even the lesbians among you, have used the equivalent of that very same argument against us. “There is no such thing as trans rights; there are only trans privileges.”
Anyway, in that perspective, where we are seen as predatory by our very nature, we can’t ever be considered safe. We are always a (potential) danger, and there’s nothing we can do about it. The only solution that truly works is to completely and permanently exclude all of us from all women’s spaces, up to and including toilets.
But even then, we would still be a danger to you, as you’d still have to face us in public. What then? Would excluding us from “women’s spaces” truly be enough?
After all, the whole POINT of banning us from ‘protected female spaces’ is to ensure the absolute safety of you “adult human females” not just from ‘opportunistic’ cis men, but also us trans women and anyone “born male”.
You folks keep saying, over and over again, that there can be NO compromise, and that ANY risk to you is too much risk, and that you find that intolerable. So many times, you GCs have said that “When women say ‘No!’, then everyone should abide by that, no questions asked.” Of course, in this case you GCs claim to represent the vast majority of women, as usual.
Only your consent matters (as if we’re talking about bodily autonomy rather than communal spaces…), and the views of anyone else on the matter should be ignored. You said ‘No!’; end of story.
So… why stop at “single-sex spaces”?
As long as we exist, we represent an existential threat to you — according to the view of so many adherents of your ideology. So… what do we do about that?
If your safety — whether real or just a subjective feeling of safety — is the ONLY thing that matters and that should matter, then there’s no logical reason to stop at dedicated “women’s spaces”.
Not to mention how you GCs would have no problem to see how forcing a “true” woman into always going to a male toilet, let alone being in a male prison, is clearly dangerous. Yet you have no problem at all forcing someone who outwardly very much looks like and is recognized as a woman into such a place. Just because she has the wrong chromosomes and can’t produce the right gametes.
But I guess a trans woman is almost guaranteed to be a violent brute by her very nature, so that makes it okay.
She’ll just get what she deserves, right? Serves her right for being a perverted “trans-identified man”.
That, too, is a sentiment you TERFs have expressed clearly and unambiguously often enough.
You scream to high heaven about how we and our rights endanger you and make you unsafe.
But what about our safety? Does it matter at all? Does the proven fact that we trans women have an incredibly high rate of getting sexually assaulted mean anything to you?
Or do we go by that old saying: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few”?
In which case you can just tell us: “Tough luck, suck it up, you’re too few and too unimportant to matter, we can’t introduce even minimal risk for the many, even if it would mean a great deal for you and your safety.”
So… I should just accept it as a cold, hard logic. That me and mine should be left out in the cold. Never accepted for who we are, and never given the protection of these spaces which you insist are essential for your protection as women.
Also, back to the original topic… okay, let’s say you exclude us legally from going to or working in rape crisis centers where women are. All of us.
Where would we go, after we’re raped?
To men’s centers? Mixed-gender ones? But what if there aren’t any, as there often aren’t?
One-on-one with a psychologist? What if the waiting list is many months, or even years? What if we can’t afford private ones?
What, we’d open centers specifically for trans people? Not gonna happen; there are just too few of us.
Even the centers meant for cis women are already typically too few in number and strapped for cash; and that’s despite cis women being about 50% of the human population.
So realistically, where would we go?
I already know the typical GC answer to that one as well; you’ve said that sort of thing often enough.
It’s some variant of “I don’t care; it’s not ours to worry about the problems of men. They can take care of their own, or rot as far as I’m concerned.” Even when those ‘men’ were… raped.
What do I even say to that?
Well… after a long time, I’ve decided on an answer. And that is:
I know you don’t believe me… but I care about you and your safety — even though you give zero fucks about mine.
I actually don’t want you to get hurt. Even though so many of you have no problem with me and mine being hurt, and some of you have openly celebrated when we are hurt.
And as I’ve said in this comment, I would hurt myself by not going to rape-related counseling if I thought it might hurt (cis) women by frightening them, even if I had the right to go there.
On the other hand, you TERFs generally have zero sympathy or empathy for when we trans women are sexually abused — as you have said yourselves many times, documented on this very site. We have receipts.
Despite believing that we fully deserve the limited rights women have secured over time, I’m willing to make compromises where they are truly necessary for your well-being. Even though you “only true protectors of women” aren’t willing to do the same at all.
But hey… who cares about all that when you can just stick your fingers into your ears, yell “SEX! IS! REAL!” and ignore our actual views.
As always, you’ll just see what you want to see and not bother to properly talk to us as people, finding out what we actually think.
It may not be the impression you got through the haze of your ideological glasses and the walls of trauma and fear that define you (yes, they do).
Or… you can keep believing that I and others are all just arrogant ideologues out to get you. So, you can safely dismiss us.
P.S. On this topic, I recommend seeing this old quote: https://fstdt.com/H73KMZ9FS$G65
Note particularly the screenshot which the TERFs are responding to, and how much their interpretation of it is divorced from the reality that is right there before their eyes.
It also goes to show that I’m far from alone in my views when it comes to sexual violence shelters and such.