Email from a concerned member.

[kira21 ♡♡♡]

Beautifully put kinz

[stephaniec]

this is hurtful, insulting, and offensive. to me, at the very least. everywhere else in the world, outside of the safe spaces that people try to build for trans people (and like all attempts at creating safety, trans safe spaces aren't perfect, no, but i think the people in charge of them do their best, which is all i think anyone can ask for), those are places where trans people (especially trans women) are thrown under the bus to make cis people feel better.

it doesn't matter whether the experiences that this woman shared are true or false. if they're true—which i have no reason to disbelieve—they're valid, which is fine. it's unfortunate and terrible that she would have her personal boundaries assaulted. but it is not incumbent upon a trans safe space to explain its existence to her, and it is not up to her to question the validity of trans women. she asks,

and that's an attack on the legitimacy of my existence. i mean, my experiences with cis women—ostensibly in feminist spaces—have frequently been no different! i've had invasive questions about my body, suffered emotional blackmail and abuse within relationships that centred around my transness, to the point where my expectations for cis women have been that they will disregard my personal space and my rights to privacy. but i don't say "why are all these cis people i have met all about sex" in my attempts at coalition-building with cis people, because that isn't the point. on the other hand, to walk into a safe space for trans people and say that trans women have hurt you doesn't feel like an attempt at coalition-building or outreach to me. it doesn't mean that what she's said isn't true, but i don't think that means that this is the place for it.

to place the rights of trans women as somehow separate or in conflict with the rights of cis women is especially dangerous in my view, because it's that very same line of thinking that says that trans women are in some sort of inalienable way males who intend to penetrate women's spaces and dominate discourse and make all of the cis women feel unsafe. and in my experience, outside of the very small personal communities that i've established with close friends, when people talk about women's rights, trans women are rarely discussed, rarely acknowledged, and when they are it's frequently been in order to set them apart, and implicitly authorize oppression against them.

any movement for women's rights that don't include trans women with them, just like it should women of colour, just like it should disabled women, just like it should queer women, is no women's rights movement at all. it's an instrument of hostility and marginalization, and a rejection of sisterhood.

I think this is the point, If the OP intention was to find answers to question of everyday occurrence  on the street. I personal don't know why people do the things they do. It just  seems a misguided attempt to find answers to societies problems to bring this to a specific groups web site. on the other hand is it was an attempt  to cause disharmony it succeeded .

[eli77]

To the people on this board, women's rights take back seat to trans* rights.

Good? Like what the hell, dude? Who else gives an eighth of a crap about trans rights other than us?

But you know what, I'll agree with one thing. The auto-denial thing is screwed up and ugly. And I don't like that any more than you do. Victims get enough unbelief and it makes me more than a little nauseated to see it here. I don't know or care whether she is lying. It doesn't mean anything to me. I took it at face value, as you are perfectly capable of seeing from my posts in that thread. As I think it should have been.

But wow, man. Like if I was sexually harassed by a black woman, and decided that the appropriate response was to go to an online black women's community, a safe space, and tell everyone "why are black women always creepy and sexual and threatening"? It might be vaguely understandable, but it's kind of screwed up.

But where the line gets crossed is when she started saying that she'd block trans women from even being in female spaces. That she'd rather see us in danger than feel uncomfortable or unsafe herself. So, I'm sorry, but my priorities are a bit different I guess. Like I'm pretty sure I care more about the trans women who are physically in serious danger in a men's space, than the cis women who are potentially uncomfortable to be around us.

But who knows, I guess because I'm 29, I'm too old and I don't understand and I've never been harassed or anything. Lolz.

Or maybe because I'm a dyke, I just can't possibly understand or anything, can't understand how impossibly creepy it is to have ANOTHER WOMAN COMING ON TO ME. Wow terrified. Cause it's not like I'm the one who actually dates other women and knows exactly how creepy and abusive and dangerous they can be.

I am so tired of this self-hating, self-destructive garbage, not just from you, but from many in our "community." I'm not a freak, I'm not a creep. I'm just a female living my life and I deserve the exact same set of rights as any cis person.

And ya, I'm a feminist. And I will fight to keep spaces for women safe to my last breath. Oddly enough that includes trans women. Because you know, women. Duh.

[Jenna Marie]

I don't necessarily think she was lying... but I do think it's a little rude/demanding to come into this space and demand that we justify that we're not all sexual predators.

(Because if she really wants to see how trans women behave and talk? All she had to do was read a bunch of threads and try to educate *herself.* Maybe the conclusion she would come to isn't the one we'd hoped - I think it would modify her views, but who knows what she'd take away - but in that case there was nothing to be gained for HER from asking us all to be on our best behavior, right? Better to see us "in our natural environment" and judge from that, if she *honestly* wants to know what a whole group of trans women are like.)

And as I and now others have said, cis women have been sexually assaulting, intrusive, and otherwise abusive too. It'd be unfair to judge her by those women, so guess what.

[Brooke777]

But who knows, I guess because I'm 29, I'm too old and I don't understand and I've never been harassed or anything. Lolz.

Wait, if your too old, then I'm too old. Oh dear! And here I thought I was not actually old!

[Tori]

I hope we as a community do not turn this whole TERF thing into a McCarthyistic Red Scare, where everybody is guilty until proven innocent.

This is a perfect example of why we are a support website. We exist to support each other and those who have questions as well, even if we do not agree with the questions or do not think the questions are sincere.

Consider this practice, trans folk. Do we use an unconfirmed threat from such an extreme minority we had to name them TERFs ourselves, as a reason to turn against each other? This TERF threat really bothers me because it seems only the trans community and male-genital-phobic-dingbats empower them. There will always be a handful of feminists that think any penis is a bad penis, and in the grand scheme of things they are so anti-penis, they will look whackadoodle to most anybody else, not just the trans community.

Let us not fear the Boogey Man so much we start attacking each other. Whenever I hear or see the acronym TERF I only hear one name associated with it. She is not doing anything to us that we can't do more effectively against each other. Especially when we are convinced we should be on a witch hunt.

The idea of TERFs being everywhere and out to get us is fantastical. I suggest we rise above it and focus on the established issues our community has to face rather than one woman and her invisible army.

[Heather]

I am NOT  a cultist. I was born differently, thats all. I don't need this stupid community giving me and others like me a bad name we never earned for the sake of being PC and not hurting people cuz it's hurting ME and others like me and I'm sick of it.

I completely agree with you. Last year I went to a trans conference type thing and I was appalled by the behavior I seen! It scares me to think what cis people think about us. I saw cross dressers go into women's restrooms and stand up to pee like they were in a men's restroom. There is no way that should happen and that was just the tip of the iceberg. It's stuff like that makes it harder on people like me who this is not a hobby I really am a woman and live as one. I'll freely admit I don't like just being lumped in with people to whom this is a sexual fetish. Now if that's your thing that's fine but just don't say your like me because your not. I know what I say isn't popular but it's the truth and I'm just trying to live my life the best I can and be took seriously which will be impossible as long as we are all lumped together the way we are.   

[Danielle Emmalee]

Who put you in charge of who gets to call themselves trans and how they should be going to the bathroom?

If people that don't conform to a gender binary bother you, I think it should be kept to yourself.  At least on here.

[Heather]

Who put you in charge of who gets to call themselves trans and how they should be going to the bathroom?

Well women don't stand up to pee! And women close they're legs when they sit down in a dress. But I'm not trans I'm a woman and I'm a woman who doesn't like having to see pee all over a toilet seat and on the floor when she is in a women's restroom.

[Danielle Emmalee]

Oh is that what women do?  Thanks for the info, I'll be sure to file that where it belongs. [/sarcasm]

[Jenna Marie]

Jeez, if people with vaginas don't pee all over the seat and floor, somebody REALLY needs to tell that to all the cis women I share bathrooms with. Yeah, they aren't standing, but you're darned lucky if you've never encountered the "hoverers."

(There's this one person at work... ugh.)

[Heather]

Oh is that what women do?  Thanks for the info, I'll be sure to file that where it belongs.

I'm sorry but as a woman I don't won't men in a women's restroom. And if they do go in there could at least sit down to pee instead of peeing all over the place like a neanderthal.