No. We need to stop this. I'm a man who has never and would never lay a finger on a woman. I am not being discriminated against because I'm not allowed in female-only spaces. This is nothing like racial segregation and it's offensive to pretend that it is. Female-only spaces exist for good reason. Racially segregated spaces did not.
If you've managed to come out of your experience (which I'm truly sorry about) without feeling uncomfortable in private spaces with people with penises, I'm genuinely happy for you. But it's not fair to simply ignore and abuse women who don't feel the same way. I'm absolutely baffled at how you don’t see this more clearly than I do. I’m not arguing for a ban on trans women in female spaces, I’m arguing for a safer standard of womanhood than “I say I’m a woman.” And I’m arguing for a good-faith conversation about this obvious safeguarding concern that isn’t dismissed as bigotry.
Also, how many cases of sexual assault do you need before you don’t dismiss them as outliers? Would you be willing to say to the women and girls who have been assaulted that their experiences were outliers and can be safely ignored? Would you tell the teenage girls who were horribly let down by the affirmation only model of trans care that they were “irresponsible”?
It’s not a “handful.” Visit the r/detrans community on reddit. Search for “detransition” on YouTube or Twitter. There are thousands of people, mainly girls, all telling a similar story. Seriously! Why aren’t you concerned about these women and girls as well as trans people? Why is this a zero-sum game in so many people’s minds??!!
And yes, actually, I mentioned that Lia Thomas came sixth in her next race in my article on trans sport. I'm not trying to misrepresent the situation. It's just that this isn't the point. Lance Armstrong came third in the Tour de France in 2009. Are we arguing that that makes the advantages he gained through drug cheating fair?
I'm not saying Lia Thomas is a cheat, she hasn't broken any rules. But rules that allow males to compete against females are unfair. The entire existence of female sport is predicated on this fact. And numerous female athletes, to the limited extent that they're able are speaking up about this. I will never understand why, as a self identified feminist, their voices aren't important to you as well.
Finally, there are a thousand different worthy topics I could write about and haven't written about. Some because I don't know enough, some because there are already lots of people doing fantastic work talking about them, and some because my writing about them won't have any impact on the people thousands of miles away who are perpetrating them.
This, however, is a topic that many people are too afraid to speak up about, that is materially affecting women's lives right now, and that there are relatively easy things we can do to address. That's why I've decided to write about it.
It's also a topic that will lead (and has already led) to backlash against the trans community, because I think the majority the general public are unaware of the degree of reality denying that's happening. Lia Thomas has done noticeable damage to public perceptions of trans people. I'm so bewildered that so many people can't see this.
A conversation that denies reality or ignores the feelings of one vulnerable group because of the feelings of another is going to fail. Neither women nor trans women will benefit from that.
