Feminists trip on their own feet: Women refuse to share Title IX pool facilities with a transgender woman -- Feminists say "it is very wrong for transgender people to use & abuse Title IX to push their perversion on to Bio women"

TheyCalledMeMad · 2012-10-08T23:04:36+00:00

Well isn't this awkward - the competition between wanting to be politically-correct and inclusive about trans people and politically-correct and inclusive about female people.

If one were to take the article at its word and interpret it as being without bias, then it would be pretty easy to "pick a side" as it were in this particular conflict. But, every single chance the article gets, it tries to portray the individual in question as being creepy and predatory. I really don't know how much of that is truth, how could I, but I can easily detect that an effort is being made to portray this person in such a way.

The comments, unfortunately, are less ambiguous in that they clearly have a strong vibe of "let's blame men for this."

DavidByron · 2012-10-08T23:22:37+00:00

Very funny example of feminist anti-trans hate. But it is hard to say how commonplace the anti-trans hate is in the feminist movement these days. It's a source of considerable humiliation for them as a movement. I suspect if you ran this past /r/AskFeminists they would be all over the trans rights side of it.

oneiorosgrip · 2012-10-09T02:23:15+00:00

[permanently deleted]

builtbro · 2012-10-09T00:02:23+00:00

"Gender doesn't exist! It's just, like, a social construct!"

"OMG get that perverted man out of here! This is a bio-wymyin only safe space!"

I'll take feminist fucktarded phrases for $800, Alex.

E: and "bio-women"? Seriously? That's some funny shit.

Falkner09 · 2012-10-09T01:00:03+00:00

wow, it's rough to see all the nasty things people say about transpeople in the comments. One of them even claimed it was part of some male plot to gain access to young girls. does anyone seriously think that some guy is going to take hormones for 2 years so he can get into a women's locker room? crazy. Although something tells me this isn't representative of most feminists.

the carziest thing though, was one person who said it was a part of a male polt to dominate women by taking their rights away, through becoming trans. apparently, the patriarchy is planning to destroy women's rights by becoming women. riiiiiiiiight. some people need to start reading thinks back to themselves before they hit submit.

AnthonyZarat · 2012-10-08T22:16:30+00:00

Here is the feminist response. Some quotes:

Classic example Trans people trying to erase Biological women
It should serve as a wake up call to Bio Intersex people (wtf is that?!?)
It's shocking that a Trans and the state of Washington is misusing theTitle IX
The state of Washington's Gender Identity law is putting Bio women's Lives in danger
It's also why Trans people will never be protected under the American's with Disability Act and the ADA laws in America cover Intersex people like myself

All of this hysteria because a trans woman wants to use a free pool? The only reason that the pool is free for women (and not for men) is that Title IX gives women a right to the money earned by male sports athletes who people actually pay to watch on TV.

And why is the trans woman a "pervert" just because she wants to use a pool? And why is she "putting Bio women's lives in danger"?

Title IX provides women with free facilities, funded by the work of male athletes. If women refuse to share these facilities with a trans woman, nobody is "denying them access." Their own prejudices and irrational fears are denying them access.

Patrick5555 · 2012-10-09T01:03:45+00:00

Um, the comments are really really fucked up

2012-10-09T05:15:56+00:00

Why do some feminists, radical in particular, have this weird hangup about MTF transgender people? Christ it's not like an exclusive club you're born into, fucking jackasses.

bucketh3ad · 2012-10-09T05:24:40+00:00

It's difficult to see someone's true colors when everything is black and white. In grey areas like this, however, they show up stark.

Apparently, "supporting women's rights" also means "deciding who counts as a woman" and parents voluntarily electing for their daughters to use a separate changing room is stripping those girls of their rights. I'll be sure to keep this in mind next time a feminist trots out the laughable proposition that "feminism helps men, too." Feminism doesn't help anyone with a penis, not even a woman.

inkall · 2012-10-08T23:25:52+00:00

Some of the replies in there would be funny if I didn't have a real fear that the people weren't being sarcastic.

One apparantly "trans" commenter said that as long as the woman in the case is pre-op she shouldn't be allowed to change there. So basically if you have a penis you are a threat but as soon as that is gone you are fine?

It was also said "boys could also find themselves sharing a locker room with an FTM and be shocked by the idea of changing in the same room as someone who was born female."

The reply: "the cross-sex power dynamics are totally different!! Males do not have comparable, justifiable reason to fear female intrusion to private, male-segregated space. When females constitute at least 50% of the world’s sexual predators and rapists AND females control at least 50% of the world’s economic and political power for at least one hundred consecutive years, let’s revisit your suggestion that it’s essentially the same scenario."

All men are sexual predators ... and even if they weren't it would still be wrong to allow it because men hold all the political and economic power. Nice.

Slightly related but often female changing facilities have far more privacy than male. Certainly at school level girls got cubicals to change in, boys got a room with some rows of benches.

Jess_than_three · 2012-10-09T01:42:37+00:00

What. The. Actual. Fuck?!?!

So they stripped the girls of their Title IX right as females to equal facilities and forced them into a small private ancillary facility to the main sports complex. A second-class facility.

The article said that Colleen is a white man who is being a super douchebag and is "infringing" on the rights of the ever-oppressed white, cisgendered women and girls. How friggen anti-trans can this article get?! Any educated person knows that trans women are women, contrary to whatever is in their pants (or skirt. Whatever).

Akskflapqkdbbxb!!!!!!! So much rage!!!!

2012-10-08T23:55:14+00:00

Trans or bio, women are women. so much for equality of gender

tforge13 · 2012-10-09T04:41:55+00:00

Christ, the amount of transphobia lower down on this thread is really upsetting to me. Please, people, why? What's wrong with accepting that this person's a woman? What's wrong with that, tell me, please.

One of my close friends is FTM. He told me about how sometimes when he feels particularly brave, he goes into the men's room when there's nobody in there. Now, I don't know enough about this trans woman in question to give a full analysis, but she very well might have only recently gained the confidence to actually go to a women's pool. It's really horrible, transphobia, because sometimes it feels like people forget the T in LGBTQAPI. Well, they generally forget to worry about anything past the B, to be honest. Pan people are lumped in with bi people, and too many people think asexuals are asexual because of some sexual trauma as a child. It's really saddening to see all this hate getting upvotes. /rant

(I'm so sorry I just really needed to get that out. It's really upsetting to me to see transphobia on a forum I generally respect with all my heart)

viviphilia · 2012-10-09T01:11:32+00:00

TERFs are a minority of feminists. In my experience, most feminists are sympathetic to trans women.

2012-10-09T01:09:12+00:00

What happened was so stupid I had to read it a couple times.

2012-10-09T10:17:03+00:00

Here's the deal.

Feminists work on the premise that women are discriminated against because they are women. How do we know they're women? Appearance and barring that, conformity to localized gender roles. The transgendered face the exact same discrimination that women do, and then some. Why are feminists, or at least these feminists so bothered by having a penis in their pool? That penis belongs to someone who otherwise has to deal with the same problems they do with the notable exception of pregnancy.

Oh irony, your name is political correctness.

TracyMorganFreeman · 2012-10-08T22:56:33+00:00

Another example of why Title IX isn't about opportunity, but about exclusion.

dumbguyscene28 · 2012-10-08T23:42:42+00:00

I do have to wonder how much of this represents blundering on the part of the facility, and attention seeking behavior on the part of the individual involved.

I am not certain why the high school has opted for the lesser facilities and why someone did not ask this individual if she could use the different facilities herself.

Yes, in some ways that might be discrimination against transwomen, but at other times, surely our 20 year veteran understands that discretion is the better part of valor, and knows when to pick her battles.

As a parent, and as a supporter of the LGBTQIA community, I can understand the frustration of the parents and the team.

2012-10-09T03:48:45+00:00

wtf i don't even....

valeriekeefe · 2012-10-09T01:58:15+00:00

You do know this blog is actually a radfem blog, a fringe group of feminists who describe themselves as decidedly anti-trans, right?

It's like comparing the entire MRM to the traditionalists.

MiniMosher · 2012-10-09T03:24:28+00:00

''bio women'' makes them sound like a yoghurt

SteelCrossx · 2012-10-09T01:35:03+00:00

The Washington state law is being used to attach a condition to Title IX equality for females, and that condition is that equal access to facilities for teenage girls is predicated upon their willingness to undress and shower in front of a self-described “kinky” “horny” middle-aged heterosexual man who refers to himself as “a teen girl”.

This is the essence of what I take from this article. While the quotes are diligent in grabbing how this individual describes herself in every other way, if an individual has a penis and is attracted to women they are a heterosexual man. Colleen Francis explicitly described herself as bisexual and transgendered. If a "kinky" "horny" middle-aged lebian woman who refers to herself as "a teen girl" were in that locker room, this would be a non-issue. In fact, it would be so insignificant that no journalist would have tracked down that this hypotethical middle-aged lesbian woman described herself as "kinky", "horny", or "a teen girl" because it couldn't possibly be news-worthy. It is absolutely clear to me that the important part of this story is that Colleen Francis has a penis.

Girls should NOT be shuttled off to inferior sports facilities in deference to one male’s feelings about himself- OR FOR ANY OTHER REASON.

This is the rub. They are not requiring the 'girls' to use the auxilary space. These are full grown women making the decision to not use their own facility because they are "uncomfortable with him being in there, her, being in there and are shocked by it." His feelings don't matter because the 'girls' in this article identify him as male. Their feelings do matter because they are women and there is NO REASON to infringe on their space by making them uncomfortable. The whole conflict is about feelings but framed in a way meant to obscure that.

pokepat460 · 2012-10-09T05:13:31+00:00

I'm torn on this issue. On one hand, I support equality and support treating transgendered people as the gender they identify with. Honestly I find it pretty wierd, but I respect them and think it is disrespectful to treat them as their biological gender if they don't identify with it.

On the other hand, I can totally understand why the girls would be uncomfortable. While Colleen identifies as a woman, those girls probably disagree. Plus, allowing transgender people into the locker room of the gender they identify with would allow the possibility of people claiming they are transgender when they are actually just voyeurs.

However, to say the girls were stripped of their title 9 rights to equal facilities is a lie. They can still use the facility if they want to. They just apparently don't because Colleen makes them uncomfortable. It is their choice to use the alternative facility, understandable thought it may be.

ClaudeKenni · 2012-10-09T07:37:05+00:00

What shocks me most is just how hateful this article, and it's responses are. It would be perfectly possible to have a rational discussion on the issue, but the article just tries to paint Colleen in as worse a light as possible, and misrepresents the situation at every possibility, which I think would push any sane minded person to be against the author.

Transgender issues are complex, and I don't pretend to know a huge amount about them, but to me the only question that needs to be asked seems to be at what point does society consider someone who is transgender to be either male or female. I imagine both a biological answer (pre/post-op as the distinction, or taking HRT as the distinction, for example), or a social answer (whether someone lives their life as male or female) can be argued rationally. I'd like to know what others in the MRM think on this?

2012-10-09T08:21:16+00:00

There is only one solution, segregate all the things!

Who would fault a man for wanting to change genders and go play ball on the other side of the field where the grass is greener and you can demand ~~exceptional~~ equal treatment. I hope transgender people really start sticking it to the feminists and demand equal 'special' treatment, I want to see feminism implode on it's own hypocrisy.

Knight_of_Malta · 2012-10-09T11:50:12+00:00

Yay! Equality!

ZimbaZumba · 2012-10-09T18:30:42+00:00

Simply wonderful. Ideologies base on simplistic notions of the human condition eventually break down absurdly when faced with the realities of the World we live in.

Surely gender is a social construction, she is clearly being discriminated against. Frankly she looks very sweet in her picture. How could they be so cruel. /s

Jess_than_three · 2012-10-08T23:19:53+00:00

This is an issue with the school not doing their homework before contracting the facilities use. As usual, the feminists are irrational children.

GimmeBackMyBullets · 2012-10-09T01:31:11+00:00

Ugh. Burn the witch.

Kazaril · 2012-10-09T05:13:42+00:00

City of toronto schools just changed their legislation on transgendered individuals as to which bathroom they are permitted to use. Specifically it says that a transgendered person can use either bathroom and when confronted just need to say "im transgendered" and everyones supposed to go, oh my bad... apparently nobody sees the potential for a non transgendered individual to use the opposite genders bathroom

theTTPProject · 2012-10-09T05:57:21+00:00

Why do we even have segregated locker rooms in the first place?

Kazaril · 2012-10-09T02:56:26+00:00

Did you read the entire article, in which this individual's background is described? I would not be comfortable sharing a sauna or a changeroom with him (her?) either and I'm an adult, let alone letting my teenage daughter do so. The dude admits to being on psychiatric meds and being a very sexual person who prefers women. This isn't an LGBT issue...this guy seems genuinely off his rocker. There are all sorts of "legit" transwomen who belong in the women's changeroom along with the rest of us ladies. But this guy? Frankly, he strikes me as being dangerous.

emilbusman · 2012-10-09T02:35:23+00:00

Hi, can someone explain to me what's the men's rights issue here? I can't seem to connect the dots.

ErasmusMRA · 2012-10-08T23:55:59+00:00

It's cases like these that move our society forward. Here are my thoughts:

Why do we have separate dressing rooms for boys and girls? Because girls are uncomfortable undressing in front of boys.
Feminists claim gender is a social construct. This is a keystone of their theory that women are oppressed by society through gender brainwashing.
Should dressing rooms be segregated by gender or sex? Does the law make a distinction? Should the law even address 'gender', considering how it's subjective and unverifiable.

Thoughts on transgender people:

If MtF trans people are just "brains in the wrong body", why is it they almost always identify as lesbian or bisexual women and almost always prefer women as mates, even after hormone treatment and sex reassignment surgery?
Mental health professionals consider Gender Identity Disorder to be a mental illness.
There is no objective test one can do to identify GID. It really is "all in your head." If we could determine the 'gender' of a brain with a brain scan, we could scan all babies at birth to treat their disorder from the beginning.
This doesn't apply to intersex people who, by definition, have physical symptoms.

Cases like these expose feminist hypocrisy. Feminists tend to be leftists who are pro-tolerance, pro-minorities and of course pro-women. When their ideals meet with reality they sing a very different tune.

I encourage the LGBT community to separate from the feminist movement to prevent from being sucked into their black hole of hypocrisy.

ENTP · 2012-10-09T02:57:05+00:00

Feminism is transphobic. This is a well established fact.

VerySpecialSnowflake · 2012-10-09T14:11:51+00:00

LOL, MRAs pretending to care about trans people, but only when they think that doing so is sticking it to feminists. Stay classy, Anthony!

valeriekeefe · 2012-10-09T06:52:24+00:00

I love seeing feminists trip themselves up as much as anyone else, is this really a MR issue?

2012-10-09T09:27:11+00:00

I don't understand... Aren't women the equals of men or bio-males in all things and in all ways? I mean really why do we even have separate leagues at all. I think this tranny dudechic ought to be able to swim where he/she wants and frankly we need more women in the NFL.

beedogs · 2012-10-09T09:32:58+00:00

holy fuck. are the comments on that site for real? those people are out of their fucking minds.

TotalFusionOne · 2012-10-09T05:13:12+00:00

I know this isn't a popular opinion in this place...

But a lot of these comments infuriate me as a middle ground male rightist. I personally feel that I just want equality for males and females...yet this thread shows a lot of bias towards males instead of supporting male rights. Just because he is biologically a male doesn't give him a pass on questioning his actions. This is weird, but may be innocent. How it plays out based off of what he does makes the situation. Not just "look at these feminists worrying about a man."

Source: wouldn't you feel the same about a woman doing this in front of your son?

Ps this comment is not towards the comments In the article. Only the article itself.

Funcuz · 2012-10-09T00:53:12+00:00

I dunno . Look , I'm actually a pretty open person when it comes to peoples' sexual orientation . To be honest , I just don't care one way or the other . I'm not so sure about this though . I've always had trouble deciding what to about situations like this : "She's" still a he . I don't want women in the men's washroom and I can understand why women wouldn't want men in the women's washroom . We talk a lot about the gender of a person and I understand that but there's still some very obvious sex organs to deal with .

I don't know ... I wouldn't be comfortable with it so I don't blame anybody else for not being comfortable with it either .

2012-10-09T08:56:07+00:00

This article is good in pointing out the logical inconsistency of feminists when it comes to gender as a social construct (or not). However, almost every trans person I have ever met have been mentally unstable in ways not related to gender. There are a few exceptions, granted.

I see this as only ostensibly a gender issue. The crazy just seems to blow everything else out of the water. I'd expect this to be more in /r/wtf than this subreddit.

Ma99ie · 2012-10-09T00:05:32+00:00

That tranz person is not just your average transgendered person. She describes herself as a polyamourous, kinky, bi-sexual, and lesbian, who just a couple of years ago described herself as a fetishistic cross-dresser and has no intention of getting SRS. She states she very much prefers woman, and his hormones makes her "very horney." This is not the narrative that shows feminism is corrupt. This tranz person appears to be a jerk. She's a f*cking embarrasment to we tranz people. Hell, I wouldn't want this person around my son, never mind a young girl. This person is in no way helping the movement for tranz rights.

Edit: to edit out more inflammatory wording, including mis-gendering

Tullyswimmer · 2012-10-09T02:42:07+00:00

I'm sorry, but even from an MRA standpoint, this guy is a fucking perv who went to extreme lengths.

2012-10-09T03:14:21+00:00

You guys are being whiny, disgusting, male feminists.

"Colleen Francis is a 45 year old man who retired from the US Army after 20 years as a supply sergeant. Married three times, he has three adult children and two daughters aged 7 and 5. His cross-sex hormones are provided by VA Medical, as well as a cocktail of psychiatric meds, lithium and antabuse prescribed for a troubling history that he details at length on a blog at the “Transgender Lesbian Space”of the puddygirl dating site for women. He says he is known as “Fae Raven” (not to be confused with the UK fetish model of the same name) in the “BDSM Community” and describes himself as:

“I am polyamorous, bisexual (I very much favor women though, and my therapist calls me a lesbian…makes me smile) and kinky."

If my daughter was at college and "Colleen" showed up to take a shower, you better fucking believe I'd be pissed. How is this anything but ok? Mensrights is now concerned with the psychology and bullshit surrounding self-made disorders and how we have to be ever so careful to tread the politically correct line?

Yes, you guys are being the male equivalent of feminism here.

Collective82 · 2012-10-09T02:43:22+00:00

You know if I had a daughter using the women's locker room and a guy (person with a penis) was in there hanging complaining that they are a woman despite said physical attributes I'd offer to either A drag his nutty ass into the men's room where people with penises not vaginas should be or offer to fix his obvious physical anomaly right there and then for him. Women's are means vagina area. Men's area means penises area.

Veloqu · 2012-10-09T01:07:56+00:00

This is not r/antifemenism. Take your shit elsewhere, this is why the men's rights movement is looked down upon.

Justice502 · 2012-10-09T09:43:20+00:00

I hate to say this but when you're transgender you're going to have to accept that people aren't going to want their young children to undress in front of you.

I didn't read the probably insane comments, but I wouldn't want my young daughter to undress in front of her/him, sorry if I offend you, but get over it.

Comments