Thanks for this Vintage Paw. I think a lot of what you say is true.
Yep, important to remember that the vast majority of people no matter what orientation are just good decent folk going about there lives with absolutely no interest in you.
What are the benefits of self ID for trans? Being able to escape the medicalisation and beaurocracy of it? Not to underestimate this. A massive thing. Not to have to prove yourself to the state and doctors.
Do you think it will lead to more men just ‘trying it out’ for a short amount of time without any real intention or feeling that they’re a woman (is that a stupid question? It sounds daft). Or that some men may use it as a defence for being in woman’s spaces? What about psychiatric wards or prisons where women are very vulnerable? Or do you think there should be ‘third’ spaces, but how would this work with such low numbers?
This is true. But some women do feel really scared of this, especially if the person is drunk?
Agreed
This is also true. It’s absolutely crazy that the fear is so based around a penis, and whether the thought of a big masculine trans man just isn’t as frightening if they don’t have a penis.
A lot of it doesn’t make rational sense if you try to pin it down. But how would you feel if you were a woman locked in a cell or locked on a ward with a trans woman with a penis? It’s cringey writing this stuff about penises but that is largely what it comes down to, that fear that someone bigger and stronger than you who may want something you don’t want to give could hurt you?
There’s also what was mentioned up thread about voyers and flashers and upskirters and men that like to rub up against you. This shit is *common*. Most women have encountered multiple disgusting men of this kind and they obviously have no morals at all. I’ve been flashed three times in totally different places (on a bridge in Dublin, out running in Leeds and on an estate walking home in Brixton). These men get their kicks from basically shocking women with their dicks. This would be a green card for them? I don’t worry so much for myself as I’ve seen enough dicks to give the disgusted look and get the hell out of there, but I worry for younger girls in changing rooms.
To be clear I’d very much doubt any of those flashers was trans and there’s probably no connection between trans and sex crimes.
As well as stethoscope's excellent contributions, you might find
this post useful to answer some of your questions.
In particular, when you ask "Do you think it will lead to more men just ‘trying it out’ for a short amount of time without any real intention or feeling that they’re a woman (is that a stupid question? It sounds daft). Or that some men may use it as a defence for being in woman’s spaces?" the answer is absolutely and categorically no.
I think the term 'self-id' is confusing. A lot of the current meetings and campaigns and so on are regarding extending self-id to cover applying for a Gender Recognition Certificate. As stethoscope explained, and as the post I just linked to explains, it's not something that all trans people apply for anyway, and is mostly only required to change the sex entry on your birth certificate and a couple of other random legal things. It's not in any way required to live as or identify as your preferred gender.
Self-id already exists, just not for the purposes of obtaining that GRC. So a person can already self-id and change their passport, their banking details, their name, and almost everything else. They can enter any space they want. It's already easy to 'try it out' if someone wanted to (easy being a relative term, considering the discrimination and bigotry that comes with being visibly trans in public). Extending self-id to obtaining a GRC will not have any impact on that. It is, as you suggested, about reducing medicalisation and bureaucracy, both of which can be very stressful.
Unfortunately, some of the anti-trans people aren't arguing in good faith, and often confuse the issue so as to make people believe this current GRC consultation will mean 'men' suddenly turning up in women's toilets and changing rooms and prisons and shelters*. It's a dangerous argument, because the end result is a push to roll back protections trans people already have for accessing spaces that align with their gender, and increases their visibility and puts them at even more risk of being targeted while being visibly trans in public. Some trans people who transitioned early in their lives are able to 'pass' far more easily, and they're not as visible (raising the point that how on earth would you know if there was a trans woman or trans man sharing a space with you?), but many trans people transition later in life, and can often encounter more obstacles and be more visible. Public life is dangerous for them, and conflating the consultation on self-id for a GRC with scares around trans women existing in gendered spaces just puts them in even more danger.
*It's worth pointing out there are already laws in place to allow for individual decisions to be made in terms of whether trans people will be housed in the prison estate matching their gender or not, and in terms of safety re shelters etc. And as regards prisons, prison is an incredibly violent place, and we would do better to focus on prison safety more broadly rather than targeting potential violence from trans women prisoners, otherwise it just seems like a bad faith excuse to further marginalise them.
