I think that 'general support' is what will matter most to a person going down the physical surgery route. — universeness

I’ll say. I wouldn’t have the balls for it, if you’ll pardon the expression.

A trans man will get new prosthetic ones, if they go down the physical surgery route.

Transgender is the umbrella term that includes transsexuals
— Joshs

That doesn't make sense to me, but I don't really know the accepted terminology or its preferred hierarchical order — universeness

Got it from here:

https://www.healthline.com/health/transgender/difference-between-transgender-and-transsexual

Yeah but Healthline Media, Inc. is an American website and provider of health information headquartered in San Francisco, California. It was founded in 1999, relaunched in 2006, and established as a standalone entity in January 2016.
Not the best source for understanding the terms used by the actual trans community.
Better to use something like the transatlantic call in show for such. They may fully confirm you are correct, especially doctor Ben who is med qualified and trans.

If copperhead snakes are hermaphrodites and green turtles change sex, how much relevance does that have to us? There are species that can regenerate lost lost parts, but no matter how inspiring you find regrown tails, you won't be regrowing your foot or arm if it lost.

Likewise, it doesn't matter to me if some geese mate in homosexual pairs. Yes, it's fascinating that gay male geese may go so far as stealing an egg from another nest so they have something to hatch, but so what?

You're not a spokesperson for women on trans rights though, nor is anyone as unsurprisingly their opinions on this and other things vary. Which makes all of that rather patronising, no? — Baden

Are you qualified to judge what can be said about trans people or women, outside of your role in TPF?

Neither I nor anyone else would require any qualification to make the rather prosaic observation in the quote.

You did not preserve the substance of my post and show how women's rights and identity are not under threat.

If you believed woman's rights and integrity was under threat and vulnerable non conforming gay men and autistic people what would you do about it and what would you do to defend these people?

You did not preserve the substance of my post and show how women's rights and identity are not under threat. — Andrew4Handel

What does this have to do with trans people using their preferred bathrooms? Trans men want to use men's toilets, trans women want to use women's toilets. How does any of this affect the rights and identities of cis men and women? Other people using a toilet has nothing to do with you.

I really don't get this obsession with bathrooms. There's a nightclub I sometimes go to where all the toilets are unisex. It's really no issue. It's a just a room with private cubicles and shared sinks to wash hands.

I suspect that more trans women are harassed in men's bathrooms by cis men and more trans men are harassed in women's bathrooms by cis women than cis women are harassed in women's bathrooms by trans women. If you're concerned with people being harassed in bathrooms then it's better to just let trans people use their preferred bathrooms.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-lgbt-survey-idUSKBN13X0BK

Almost 60 percent of transgender Americans have avoided using public restrooms for fear of confrontation, saying they have been harassed and assaulted, according to the largest survey taken of transgender people in the United States.

The survey of 27,715 respondents reached an estimated 2 percent of the adult transgender population in 2015, seeking to fill a gap in data about a severely understudied group whose experiences and challenges from medicine to law to economics and family relations are poorly understood.

The findings by the National Center for Transgender Equality on public restrooms counter the message of mainly conservative politicians and religious leaders that transgender people are the antagonists preying on others. It found that 12 percent of transgender people were verbally harassed in public restrooms within the previous year, 1 percent were physically attacked and 1 percent were sexually assaulted. Nine percent said someone denied them access to a bathroom.

https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/transgender-teens-restricted-bathroom-access-sexual-assault/

Transgender and gender-nonbinary teens face greater risk of sexual assault in schools that prevent them from using bathrooms or locker rooms consistent with their gender identity, according to a recent study.

Researchers looked at data from a survey of nearly 3,700 U.S. teens aged 13-17. The study found that 36% of transgender or gender-nonbinary students with restricted bathroom or locker room access reported being sexually assaulted in the last 12 months, according to a May 6, 2019 CNN article. Of all students surveyed, 1 out of every 4, or 25.9%, reported being a victim of sexual assault in the past year.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8022685/

Also according to the declaration, the idea that protection for transgender people (including using the bathroom without constraint due to gender identity) harms the privacy and security of other users is a myth. Several critics point out that there is no evidence that non-discrimination policies or that explicitly allow transgender people to use restrooms according to their gender identities have led to an increase in the number of sexual harassment cases in bathrooms and women's locker rooms anywhere in the world (Doran, 2016; Hasenbush et al., 2019). States (19) and cities (more than 200) in the US that have passed laws against discrimination against LGBT people show that such measures have not caused any increase in incidences of crime in bathrooms (Maza and Brinker, 2014). This is not surprising, given that the approval of protections against discrimination has no impact on existing laws that criminalize violent behavior in bathrooms. In the absence of real incidents to base trans-exclusionary bathroom policies, anti-trans groups fabricate horror stories about trans-inclusive bathroom policies (Maza, 2014).

Security and privacy in the use of public restrooms are certainly important for everyone—including transgender people. Arguments that unilaterally conceive the access of transgender people to restrooms according to their gender identities as a risk factor for the safety of other people assume, even implicitly, that the transgender population does not deserve to be protected under the same standards as the cisgender population. This is particularly alarming, given that research shows precisely that young transgender people are exposed to much higher rates of violence in US schools' restrooms (middle and high school) than young cisgenders (Murchison et al., 2019).

I really don't get this obsession with bathrooms. There's a nightclub I sometimes go to where all the toilets are unisex. It's really no issue. It's a just a room with private cubicles and a shared sink to wash hands. — Michael

Yeah, I don't get it either. Where I am, most of the bathrooms are unisex. Nobody cares or thinks it's a big deal as far as I can tell.

Yes, they're well-lit public places usually with frequent visitors. Obviously not ideal territory for sexual predators. But suppose there was no one else around, and there was an opportunity, why would it have to be a trans person going in to the bathroom to do it? Why couldn't e. g. a cis man just follow his victim in? The fear is kind of bonkers and is actually likely to lead to anti-trans violence of the type highlighted, making it not just irrational, but dangerous.

If copperhead snakes are hermaphrodites and green turtles change sex, how much relevance does that have to us? — BC

The scientific method involves gathering evidence to support a posit. Using example biological sex systems, present in other species, who exist via evolution via natural selection, IS I think, a valid path to take.

The hermaphrodite exemplars present within other species in the natural world, simply provides evidence that the strictly male OR female binary model of biological sexual identity/reality is not some natural law imperative. It is merely a natural selection.

The evidence of hermaphrodite examples. within the human race, is some further evidence that a single biological sex is NOT some 'natural law,' that we are forced to ossify on.
The human race has demonstrated ability to replace natural selection (or at least compete with it) and impose our own design, at a genetic level, like we have already done with domesticated animals and plants and with our continuous proliferation of technological inventions. We are not completely restricted to the dictates of natural selection, so we are also not completely restricted to the dictates of any notion of a natural law of biological human sexuality.
It is in that space that to me, trans folks have the right to BE!

There's a nightclub I sometimes go to where all the toilets are unisex. It's really no issue. It's a just a room with private cubicles and shared sinks to wash hands. — Michael

:clap: All trains and planes etc have unisex toilets, as do many small businesses etc. There is no suggestion that this causes increasing sexual assaults on women, by deviant men dressed up as fake trans folks.
Such deviant men/women will exist regardless of trans issues.
How many folks here find the following sign unacceptable:

Women's spaces and identities are for biological women. If a trans woman is in a womens toilets, or prison or sports they are no longer single sex areas. No one can or has changed sex so you are giving away women's rights and spaces for no reason. (And gaslighting them in the process)

I would never sexually or physically assault a woman so should I be allowed to use the womens toilets?There is footage on line of men dressed as women mastrubating in public in women's toilets and I posted a story earlier about a woman being raped in a woman's refuge.

But the main thing is the principle of the legal and biological fiction that men become women flying in the face of thousands of years of woman's struggles and now when they fight back for their own spaces and again they are could Nazi Terfs and bigots.

We are literally giving away other peoples spaces and identities to be kind and as I repeatedly mentioned earlier confused gay men with internalised homophobia have removed their penis and testicles because of this ideology and now live with deep regret. How many gay and autistic people doing this is enough?

I know this will always sound heartless BUT, significant social change ALWAYS causes fallout for a myriad of reasons. It's almost a trolly style situation or it can even get as bad as a choice between nuking two Japanese cities and killing hundreds of thousands of civilians or losing even more soldiers and civilians via a mainland invasion of the Japan that existed during WW2.

I don't think welcoming and giving full equal treatment to trans folks, within all aspects of human society, will have a destructive cost, similar to the cost of utterly defeating the rise of global fascism, that culminated in WW2. BUT there will be damage and fallout, before it all settles to a new norm.

Women's spaces and identities are for biological women. If a trans woman is in a womens toilets, or prison or sports they are no longer single sex areas. No one can or has changed sex so you are giving away women's rights and spaces for no reason. (And gaslighting them in the process) — Andrew4Handel

I don't think anybody's really being gaslighted. We live in a diverse society. There are going to be people who can't accept trans and non-binary people, but for the most part, the American society has made room for them (except cases where they don't know where to pee.)

I would never sexually or physically assault a woman so should I be allowed to use the womens toilets? — Andrew4Handel

This is something that would have to be worked out at the local level. There are places where women really aren't going to care. Believe it or not, women, especially the ones who have given birth, don't really have a lot of body-shame.

If we don't let trans people go to the bathroom I'm guessing a few cases of peeing on the floor or explosive diarrhea on the sidewalk should bring the locals around. :razz:

earlier confused gay men with internalised homophobia have removed their penis and testicles because of this ideology and now live with deep regret. — Andrew4Handel

That's something they'll have to work out with a psychologist. Society in general can't be held responsible for the terrible challenges certain individuals face.

So if it's just a matter of born biology, does this trans man have to use women's toilets?

So if it's just a matter of born biology, does this trans man have to use women's toilets? — Michael

For the life of me, I can't discern your point.

It's a question, not a point.

It's a question, not a point. — Michael

In a society that doesn't allow people with XY chromosomes to use the women's toilet, yes, he'd have to pee somewhere else. :up:

In a society that doesn't allow people with XY chromosomes to use the women's toilet, yes, he'd have to pee somewhere else. :up: — frank

He has XX chromosomes. He's a trans man, i.e. born with female genitalia and transitioned to a man by taking testosterone and surgery (at least top, I don't know about bottom).

Should he use women's toilets because he's biologically female?

He has XX chromosomes. — Michael

Then in a society that requires people who have XX chromosomes to use the women's toilet, yes he can use the women's toilet.

Then in a society that requires people who have XX chromosomes to use the women's toilet, yes he can use the women's toilet. — frank

Why are chromosomes relevant? How would we even know what someone's chromosomes are? We don't DNA test people before letting them use the toilet.

And what about people who are neither XX nor XY? Or someone with complete androgen insensitivity syndrome [NSFW], who although has XY chromosomes has external female genitalia?

Why are chromosomes relevant? How would we even know what someone's chromosomes are? We don't DNA test people before letting them use the toilet. — Michael

You have two choices:

1. You can accept that this is a question that will have to be answered at local levels.

2. You can work to establish that a trans person's rights are being violated if they can't use the toilet of their choice. Now you have a crime that's being committed and you can protest it, and work to get it changed.

I don't think much is accomplished by just asking why chromosomes are relevant. Do you?

And what about people who are neither XX nor XY? Or someone with XY gonadal dysgenesis, who although has XY chromosomes, has a defective SRY gene on their Y chromosome and so who's outward appearance is that of the typical XX person? — Michael

Ahhhh! You got me!!!

If you're a trans person who goes to work in Saudi Arabia, you will be very careful about using facilities in such a way that it doesn't bother anyone. For instance, you'll stay in the American compound. If the Saudi authorities find out you used the wrong restroom, they'll fucking kill you.

Local sentiment wins. Yay!!!!!

You have two choices:

1. You can accept that this is a question that will have to be answered at local levels.

2. You can work to establish that a trans person's rights are being violated if they can't use the toilet of their choice. Now you have a crime that's being committed and you can protest it, and work to get it changed. — frank

Or 3) let people use the toilets they're most comfortable using.

Or 3) let people use the toilets they're most comfortable using. — Michael

With your magic wand. Awesome.

In one of the episodes of the transatlantic call-in shows I watched, one of the hosts showed pictures of folks like the trans man that Michael showed, but in a 'dignity spared' way, in various biological sex rule driven poses, in the toilet setting they were being forced to use.
They did seem absolutely ridiculous to me.
This is Arden Hart a transwoman with a penis. The person below is Katie Montgomerie another transwoman who also still has a penis (I think).


Don't you think they would look ridiculous standing in front of a male urinal, pulling up their skirt and having a pee.
Do you think women would be alarmed to see the person in Michaels picture, walk into a female toilet in the hot summertime with his top off, because he has a vagina, they don't know about?

Oh I forgot, just to complete the main hosts of the call in show, This is doctor ben (who has a vagina, shhhhhhhhhhh.)

Do you think women would be alarmed to see the person in Michaels picture, walk into a female toilet in the hot summertime with his top off, because he has a vagina? — universeness

I couldn't care less.

Your calm input is always welcome in such a stormy issue. It's just a pity that so many humans are still so obsessed with fiercely conserving traditional binary sexual identity or are obsessed with fiercely declaring the 'boundaries' of their own sexual identity, as a kind of 'this far AND NO FURTHER' dictate. My personal het cis identity is NOT threatened/compromised/challenged/offended/abused etc by the non-binary sexual identity of a minority group of folks who are just trying to be who and what they are.

My identity is under threat because I am expected to concede my own eyes, conscience, and language in order to play along with a state of affairs I know not to be true. Where I live I am subject to investigation by a human rights council should I refuse to use the language they prefer, or if I refuse to treat them as the gender they are trying to express. I am forced to lie.

trans folks have the right to BE! — universeness

I entirely agree that trans people have the right to BE.

The evidence of hermaphrodite examples. within the human race, is some further evidence that a single biological sex is NOT some 'natural law,' that we are forced to ossify on. — universeness

Yes, there are exceptions illustrated by some species, but a rare deviation from the norm doesn't invalidate the norm. Sex (xx, xy) is nature's most effective way of maximizing evolutionary possibilities in multicellular organisms. If some species have developed other schemes, that doesn't apply to the scheme that most species exist within.

XX and XY is the law (norm) from which a very small number of mammal offspring will deviate. Deviating from the norm is no kind of offense at all -- but it also isn't "normal". From my perspective, it's OK to be "not normal". Lots of people are born with various "not normal" features. Some of the "not normal' features are in varying degrees problematic, and others are not problematic. I was born with defective eyeballs. Normal? No, Problematic? Yes. I was born gay, and belong to the 2% of men who are exclusively gay. Normal? No. Problematic? No. (Other than that if 10% of men are gay, who is getting my share?).

I don't count transgenderism as normal, but also don't count it as problematic. Again, there is such a thing a normal, but bring abnormal isn't automatically problematic. Being born with a very deficient brain is abnormal and problematic. Being born with a very effective really smart brain is also abnormal, but not problematic.