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Read the entire sentence. They're banning trans people completely from using toilets or doing other sex-segregated activities. Let's set aside sports and consider only toilets. In what way are cis women harmed by sharing toilets with passing trans women? Note that women's toilets don't have urinals, only stalls. Users will never see other people's genitals. If the trans woman passes, other users won't even know she is trans. On the other hand, sharing the toilet with a passing trans man might actually be unpleasant.
I did read the entire sentence and, again, no they're not. Trans people are not forbidden from using toilets. No conservative politician is demanding that trans people be denied access to toilets of any kind. No conservative politician is demanding that trans people be forced to shit on the street. Conservative politicians are demanding that trans people use the toilets concordant with their sex, just like everyone else. You might disagree with this policy, but lying about what it entails helps no one.
But the outcome of some of the competing issues might have that happen.
The Womens Institute might be a good example. Some groups didn't want to include trans-women. They wanted to limit it to biological women (which would include trans men). Not unreasonable in my view at least. Others disbanded over that change.
However some groups didn't want trans-men (because they look like/act like men). So the "anti-trans" women side does have a split here. They don't want biological men in womens spaces, but alot of them also don't want anyone who looks like a man either.
If that gets carried through, neither trans men (biologically female) or trans women (biologically male), get to attend.
While most conservative commentators do want trans people to use the bathroom their biological sex would suggest. That does mean some pretty masculine looking bearded trans men in womens bathrooms and locker rooms. And we've already seen that can be a problem..
This isn't just hypothetical, given the UK supreme court ruling (and draft EHRC guidance off the back of it) says you could ban a trans-man from a mens bathroom (because they are biologically female) AND from a womens bathroom because their presentation as male may make women uncomfortable, so this outcome is legally supported.
See the problem? There are competing strands of what people want or don't want within the broad "anti-trans" tent and the intersection of those might well mean in practice some trans people can't use either bathroom.
Note: I put anti-trans in quotes as a short hand, but I don't think many of these people are necessarily what I would call anti-trans in actuality. I have high regard for many Women's Institute groups and I think both of their positions on the exclusion of biological men and women who look like/act men can both make sense depending on your criteria.
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Do I have to spell it out for you? Can you not infer from context that I meant banning trans people completely from using toilets or doing other sex-segregated activities concordant with their gender?
Trans people are demanding that they be allowed to use the toilets concordant with their gender, just like everyone else.
If they knew trans men existed, they'd want to exclude them from both men's (because "they're women") and women's (because they look like men) spaces. This is not hypothetical. Regarding last year's landmark UK Supreme Court ruling:
What about people like me, who insist we do not have a gender identity of any kind? Which toilet do we use?
Trans activists claim that the women's toilets are intended for anyone who has a woman's gender identity, and that bathroom bans are denying them access to a facility that female people are entitled to. People like me, by contrast, deny that women's toilets are intended for anyone who claims to have a female "gender identity", but are rather intended for individuals of the female sex.
"Gender identity" is an unfalsifiable concept, and basing public policy on unfalsifiable claims individuals make about their subjective inner experiences is a bad idea.
My flippant response was meant to highlight that you're just assuming that your viewpoint on the central topic this entire debate is about is correct and framing it as obvious and uncontroversial.
Indeed, which is why I believe there should be some minimum standards for trans people to be allowed to use their preferred facilities beyond just stating they're trans.
Well, it is obvious and uncontroversial that sex is an objective fact which can be trivially verified and falsified, which "gender identity" is not. Hell, it can't even be defined in a non-circular manner, although countless people have tried.
Testing chromosomes is not trivial. A hundred years ago, Imane Khelif would have been considered a weird woman. No one would to think to classify her as male because she doesn't menstruate. And what about people who have a set of chromosomes other than XX or XY? What about people with mosaicism?
How about defining gender such that "my gender is 'woman'" means "I want to be treated, in most social situations, as you would treat the average person with XX chromosomes (however you refer to such a person)"?
This definition is internally consistent and non-circular. The only problem with it is that it doesn't match how any trans person uses the term "gender identity".
Trans-identified males don't claim that they want to be women. They claim that they are women, in some ineffable sense of the term which transcends mere anatomy.
It also makes every associated word collapse into incoherence. According to your definition, the term "woman" refers to both "a person with XX chromosomes" and "a person who doesn't have XX chromosomes but wishes to be treated as if they did". Doesn't it strike you as strange, using exactly the same word for the thing itself and for people who wish to be the thing itself? Is this how any other word in the English language is defined? The word "billionaire" solely refers to people with a net worth of 1 billion or more; we do not use it to also refer to people who wish they had a net worth of 1 billion or more (for that, we have "aspiring billionaire"). The word "lawyer" refers to someone who is licensed to practise law; we do not also use it to refer to people who wish they were licensed to practise law (for that, we have "aspiring lawyer" or "lawyer in training"). I genuinely can't think of an example of a word in the English language which refers to both the thing in itself and to anyone who wants to be the thing in itself.
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"What about these edge cases that don't describe >99% of the population?"
The existence of some weird edge cases doesn't mean that sex can't be trivially verified almost all of the time.
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...unless they use the one given to them right there, same as everyone else.
It's like saying that you're banning me from using the toilet because I'm a compulsive germophobe and you refuse to have the bathroom extensively fumigated after each person goes in. The facilities are there for trans people, they're allowed to use them, they're throwing a massive tantrum at the way they're allowed to use them. That is not 'banning'.
No, it's not the same as everyone else. They're the only group being banned from using the toilets concordant with their gender.
And if they knew trans men existed, they'd want to exclude them from both men's (because "they're women") and women's (because they look like men) spaces. This is not hypothetical. Regarding last year's landmark UK Supreme Court ruling:
That ruling is bullshit caused by the UK government's inability to ever tell women no, and I do not support it in any way.
As for the rest, trans people are permitted to use the toilets concordant with their sex, as are we all. You know this is what I meant. You may disapprove of my invisible rider that this is a good thing, but saying that trans people are being banned from using the toilet is straight up 100% rubbish and you know it. If you would like to argue that forcing trans people to take two steps to the right and use the toilet associated with their sex is evil, please go ahead and do so.
So what would your preferred policy be on the question of trans men?
You should have been able to infer from context that that was what I meant. The person I was originally responding to suggested anti-trans people just want reasonable minimum standards for trans people to use their preferred toilets (which I would support), but that's false: they want to ban trans people from using their preferred toilets completely.
They're women who want to be (treated like) men. As with trans women, sometimes we can harmlessly and voluntarily indulge this desire, other times not.
The original poster was pointing out that saying, "look, we understand your desire to behave like / be considered as the opposite sex, and don't wish to give you shit over it or impede your daily life, but we both know that biologically this is not true and we need you to use the toilets associated with your biological sex" is considered just as TERFy as "y'all are freaks and perverts, take that dress off".
People are sensitive to the biological sex of the people in whose proximity they are expected to take their clothes off and make themselves vulnerable, especially when that space is by necessity closed off and unmonitored. Therefore, we require people to use the toilet (right there, free, easily accessible) associated with their own sex.
This sensitivity has been heightened by cases like Isla Bryson, the rapist turned trans lady, very blatantly discovering transness to get into female spaces, and heightened even more by the complete inability of many authorities and activists to even acknowledge this possibility, much less to make any plans to mitigate it.
You wade in going 'people are being BANNED' as if this is some terrible deprivation of liberty, and I genuinely don't know if you use this language because the actual requirements are so trivial and so uncontroversial that you need to punch it up a bit, or because you have worked yourself up so much about the issue that you unconsciously act as if trans people are being made to wait on the pavement until their bladders explode.
The original post said:
Which implies that if someone does make a sincere attempt to present as a woman, they should be allowed to use the women's toilet. I agree that there should be standards to prevent bad actors and we shouldn't just take people at their word. But the original post was presenting this as a mainstream anti-trans opinion when it is, in fact, fringe, and most anti-trans activists want to, as you described, ban trans people from using their preferred toilets regardless of how well they pass, how much effort they've put in, or how sincere they are.
In what way is "you're allowed to pretend you're a different gender, but we'll still treat you as your birth gender" better than "you're not allowed to be your preferred gender"? Yes, that is just as TERF-y.
Women are being forced to use men's toilets and men are being forced to use women's toilets, or even being banned from using public toilets completely. This is obviously a bad thing.
You didn't address the question of trans men, specifically, if they should be allowed to use women's facilities if it makes women uncomfortable because they look like men.
Toilets are organised by SEX, as reified by multiple legal rulings. If you would like toilets to be organised by GENDER, then argue for it.
You're allowed to pretend you're a different SEX, but we'll sometimes still treat you as your birth SEX because that is what is relevant, that is what people care about, and that is the biological reality. It is different from not being allowed to pretend you're a different sex because that's disgusting and you're disturbed.
The original poster, who is actually trans, is sane and recognises this fact and wants to discuss how we might live with it while minimally distressing trans people. I don't agree with him/her on everything but I appreciate his/her candour. You are unfortunately proving why it is not viable in the real world, because you refuse to be clear in your language, you constantly make weaselly efforts to misinterpret mine, and you act as if asking people to use the toilet three steps to the left is a terrible, sinful thing rather than a necessary compromise if people want to be treated as a different sex elsewhere.
Women are being permitted to use women's toilets. Men are being permitted to use men's toilets. All fine and dandy.
Again, come on. You didn't just spring into existence in a Bay Area cuddle pile three years ago. You know perfectly well that using biological sex has been the norm for humanity since Adam lost a rib one day. You can talk like normal people if you try. If you would like to make an argument for using your stupid circular definitions then you can, although I've seen enough of those attempts to be pretty sure it won't go well. If you'd like to make a new word for gender-woman then you can. But stop wrinkling your brow every time people use 'women' and 'men' to mean precisely what they've always meant, or hostilely redefining them to make it sound like there's a problem when there just isn't one. After six years it no longer works.
This has not happened and nobody has mooted making it happen. Even the ruling you cited, whilst not a good ruling, was saying that maybe bringing a bearded male-impersonator into a therapy group for people traumatised by males might sometimes be inappropriate. That was it. Frankly, I doubt it's ever going to be relevant since I've known a trans man and they were fooling nobody. But no, women should use women's toilets even though for relevant biological reasons people care about this less.
By "original poster", I meant @SnapDragon who is not trans.
And there are trans men out there who do pass. What about them?
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