Men ‘should accept trans women in changing rooms’ The Times 07.05.19

The original article is here.

A radical feminist said that men should learn to accept trans women in male changing rooms rather than potentially “endangering” women by allowing biological men into female private spaces.

Meghan Murphy, editor of Feminist Current, a blog and website, has been invited to the Scottish parliament to give her views on “how transgender ideology affects women’s rights”.

The journalist, who is banned from Twitter, said biological men should not enter “women’s spaces” such as domestic abuse shelters, prisons, toilets or changing rooms.

She was blocked from the social media site for life for using the male pronoun when referring to Jonathan Yaniv, a self-identified trans woman who attempted to sue 16 female beauticians in Vancouver for refusing to provide “Brazilian” bikini wax services.

MSPs are debating plans to allow people to declare trans status as well as biological sex on the 2021 census.

“That’s the kind of crazy consequence of sex self-ID we want to stop,” she said.

Ms McAlpine added that “extremists” were trying to shut down debate and “smear” people like Ms Murphy who have concerns about biological males accessing female services.

Rhiannon Spear, an SNP councillor and chairwoman of Tie, a campaign for LGBT-inclusive education, said Ms Murphy’s views were based on “scaremongering regarding gender-specific spaces”.

Ms Murphy has said trans women should be restricted to men’s private spaces, and called for a government education campaign to urge men to accept people who do not fit gender stereotypes in male private spaces.

She told The Times: “In most cases trans women are obviously male, so I don’t think it would be too much of a concern for them to use the men’s facilities. The idea that a man wearing a dress would be harassed by other men is awful, but feminists have been fighting hard to make sure society is accepting of people who step outside gender roles.

“I don’t think the solution is to somehow pretend these people are the opposite sex and make women and girls vulnerable, and endangered in a lot of cases.”

She added: “The problem is men. If trans women are afraid of being assaulted by men, and women are afraid of being assaulted by men, then education needs to happen around men.”

Ms Murphy said the “trans identity” question on the census would only provide useful data if it came with a clear definition of who can identify as trans.

She said: “Trans activists say that it is all to do with self-identity, and governments are accepting that, but if a man just feels like identifying as a woman one day so he can go into a woman’s space, is he transgender?

“These ideas haven’t been sorted out because there hasn’t been much public debate, certainly in Canada where there was no real public consultation until a couple of us spoke up. Now we have this legislation based on this word that there is no clear definition [of].”

Ms Murphy is suing Twitter, claiming that Jonathan Yaniv did not seem to specify female pronouns and that the offending tweet predated Twitter’s recently updated “hateful conduct” rules.

She said people who had called her transphobic had often reviewed their opinions when they engaged in respectful debate, and urged Ms Spear and other critics to attend her public appearance in Glasgow on May 24.

Ms McAlpine said: “Twitter executives were criticised at Westminster’s human rights committee last week for banning feminists who made factual statements about biology, while failing to act against violent and misogynist posts directed at women.

“It is not ‘hateful’ to say someone with male genitalia is in fact male, as Meghan does. It is not ‘transphobic’ to ask how allowing any man to ‘self-identify’ as female, and then access single-sex services, can be good for the privacy, dignity and safety of women and girls.

“On these questions the vast majority of Scotland’s people are with Meghan and the extremists trying to smear her know that. They will say anything to shut down debate.”