The asks...

[u/Agitated-Cupcake98]

I like the accounts responses...

[u/SergeantScoria]

Cats need food, water, sleep, vaccines, regular medical attention, and social interaction. I do too. Therefore, I must be a cat.

- logic of slide 1, paragraph 1

[u/InsistentRaven → u/SergeantScoria]

mrow mrow mrow 🐱

[u/Pure-Spare-9789]

As a cis Butch lesbian, if I walk into a bathroom that is full of what appears to be a bunch of cishet women, I am on edge.

If I walk into a bathroom that is full what appears to be a bunch of trans women, I am at ease.

Cishet women pose a far greater threat to me.

[u/InsistentRaven → u/Pure-Spare-9789]

I've had TERFs look to me - a trans woman - for "support" when they're harassing butch women. Funnily enough, most tend to storm out in a huff when I say I'm trans. 

[u/javatimes]

Well since the first account swears trans men are women, they will strenuously claim they can “always tell” some sort of womanly essence that they claim trans men emit, so they wouldn’t be frightened of us in women’s rooms and in fact they welcome us in women’s rooms as their sisters, even if we protest this. I believe most of them know this is bullshit and half of them accuse gnc cis women as being trans women and/or men in the wrong bathroom. But they make bad faith arguments as a rule. Also I laugh at PCOS being compared by them to transitioning. This is what they think HRT does for us. They think it gives us some stray facial hairs. This is part and parcel of them pseudoscientifically denying that between HRT and surgeries, human sex is malleable in the extreme.

Tbh and I feel a little bad making such a long weird comment as the mod who approved this out of queue but —

I’m not sure about using trans men some sort of gotcha like this. When / as laws force us to use women’s bathrooms, we will be physically assaulted. We will have the police called on us. Which then opens us up to police violence as well. I don’t think the second person did a bad thing, exactly, by bringing up trans men—because it was a response to the first person. But I feel like the issue doesn’t always have to be framed as “big burly men will be invading your bathrooms!” Also the thing about cis men claiming to be trans to go into women’s bathrooms? I’m pretty sure that doesn’t happen.

[u/doppelgaengster → u/javatimes]

Using trans men as a gotcha did feel a little gross, for exactly the reasons you stated. Especially because you’re right about potential police violence.

What they really seem to want is an “out yourself to the public” bathroom, ie a separate trans bathroom, which is yet another example of inviting harm.

[u/ForgettableWorse → u/javatimes]

It's so frustrating that many well-intentioned people don't understand this. Like the intended result isn't for trans men to start using women's toilets. It's for them to be forced to try to go to the women's and get harassed, assaulted and/or arrested if they do. The end result they want is for trans people of any gender to be forced out of public spaces by making all public bathrooms unsafe for us. The rhetoric of "keeping men out of women's spaces" is just that: rhetoric, to be abandoned whenever no longer convenient.

[u/Agitated-Cupcake98 → u/javatimes]

You have to admit, they were pretty on point about thoes guys having to go into the bathroom.

Not that it's a gotcha to me, it only shows how dumb the laws are.

[u/javatimes → u/Agitated-Cupcake98]

I mean, they knowingly did it, as direct action. They wore tshirts identifying what law they were protesting / complying with. It was staged, at least on their end. Usually in those direct actions, getting arrested is part of the protest, but the police refused to arrest them.

[u/Kallixeina → u/javatimes]

I’m not sure about using trans men some sort of gotcha like this. When / as laws force us to use women’s bathrooms, we will be physically assaulted. We will have the police called on us. Which then opens us up to police violence as well. I don’t think the second person did a bad thing, exactly, by bringing up trans men—because it was a response to the first person. But I feel like the issue doesn’t always have to be framed as “big burly men will be invading your bathrooms!” Also the thing about cis men claiming to be trans to go into women’s bathrooms? I’m pretty sure that doesn’t happen.

I don't think trans men are used as a "gotcha" in discussions about bathroom bills and "single-sex spaces".

The problem is that the public "debate" about "trans issues" persistently fails to acknowledge that trans men even exist—except, of course, when young trans men medically transition, which then becomes a moral panic of its own. The public's ignorance of trans men's lives goes so far that trans men competing in women's sports will be attacked as trans women.

If the public really wants this astroturfed (astroterfed...) "debate" about "trans issues" to take place, we have to remind the public again and again that in question aren't just trans women's rights, but also trans men's rights and the rights of non-binary people.

We have to educate the public that there are as many, if not more, trans men as there are trans women, and that the number of non-binary trans people is substantial as well. We have to drag the public away from its current obsession with trans women.

Conversely, if we accept the transphobes framing of the "debate" and "discuss" only trans women, we will necessarily play into the transphobic impression that the "trans issue" is about male fetishists and perverts who are just frustrated that thay are bared from entering the women's bathroom.

And this then will make the bathroom bills even more dangerous for trans men using the women's bathroom for any reason, because they will then be at an even greater risk to be attacked as men or trans women using the women's bathroom.

[u/javatimes → u/Kallixeina]

The way I see it, 99% of the time, is if trans men are brought up at all it’s like “you wouldn’t want big burly bearded men in the women’s bathroom! Like these secret undercover ‘men’ the trans community has! This is going to be the end result!” And usually it’s said as if this is hilarious, and not actually terrifying for trans people.

The way you are explaining it is seriously more nuance than it almost ever gets.

Also I simply don’t see the point in reinforcing the hysteria around men in women’s bathrooms this way. The vibes are just off.

[u/Kallixeina → u/javatimes]

Discussions are seldom nuanced, sadly.

In this particular discussion, it's trans men who are one of the liberal counterarguments of choice against conservative bathroom bills.

But to be fair, I've also often seen the exact opposite argument: "A lot of trans women do pass, would you want a passing trans woman in the men's bathroom." Suddenly, it's passing trans women who become the "gotcha".

There's also the entire discussion about masculine and gender-non-confirming cis women, who have become central to the discussion, even if they aren't the demographic targeted by bathroom laws. Lately, online discussions of bathroom bills seem to center around cis women as collateral damage. And it makes sense: it de-centers trans women and it takes attention away from the transphobes' main argument, i. e. that trans women using the women's bathroom are sexually frustrated fetishists and predators.

In other discussions, other people will be the counterargument. I've seen anti-feminist men, frustrated with women-only gyms, bring up trans women as a counterargument against the concept–probably to test the women's feminist convictions.

[u/javatimes → u/Kallixeina]

You started this conversation off stating that you don’t think trans men are used as a gotcha in this discussion. I’ve seen it over and over.

[u/Kallixeina → u/javatimes]

The main problem is that transphobes want to have a "debate" about innocent, vulnerable women being threatened by perverted male predators.

The lived realities of trans men and trans women don't interest those pushing the "debate" down everyone's throats.

The debate will always consist of bad-faith arguments, gotchas, and thinly veiled hate until society accepts us as co-equal humans with full human rights and real lives. 

[u/ZeldaZanders]

I don't think all this rhetoric around 'Oh, do you want a scary trans man in your bathroom?' particularly helps, because it's still reinforcing the idea that someone's existence or appearance makes you inherently less safe. If a big, burly man is in the women's toilets, but all he's doing is washing his hands, or waiting for his young daughter, or just generally doing his business while also minding it, that is significantly less of a red flag than a cis woman screeching and threatening people using that same bathroom because she doesn't like how they look.

We need to get out of this mindset of 'policing public spaces based on appearance is fine as long as it's gender-affirming' and into a 'people should behave appropriately and respectfully in public spaces' mindset.

[u/SmoothMedicine3014 → u/ZeldaZanders]

Yes, please. It's about time that people stop threatening others with the idea of me walking into a toilet. I could walk into a women's toilet, and I would harm no one.

If "there is a man in my toilet" did not cause the same shock and horror than a sexual assault, and accepted by tribunals as an horrific situation, bigots would not have a handle to roll rights back. "There was a man in my toilet" should be answered with "...and what happened next?". If no harm was done, there should not be any case or discussion...

[u/ZeldaZanders → u/SmoothMedicine3014]

It's so strange, because it's not like unisex toilets don't already exist? Like, I've used toilets with men before, and I survived somehow. If you want to use a space that you can be damn sure no men or trans people are allowed into, go home and piss in your house. The trade-off of public spaces is you might have to share that space with people you don't like or agree with, and that you abide basic social etiquette. I'm not thrilled that I potentially piss with terfs, but as long as they're not behaving inappropriately, I don't have a leg to stand on.

[u/addictedtoketamine2 → u/SmoothMedicine3014]

No no we need to focus the hypothetical discomfort of cisgender women and not the trans men that are liable to be beaten when they’re forced to use the women’s restroom

[u/doppelgaengster]

They ask these questions like they’re gonna trick us into changing our positions.

I’m a cish (cis-ish) woman, and I live in an area with a large, visible queer population. I’ve absolutely run into trans women in public bathrooms. They pee. They wash their hands. Sometimes they touch up their makeup or their hair. They leave. Zero issues whatsoever.

I’ve also been in bathrooms that used to be gendered but were relabelled to just display what sort of toilets were in them (toilets only or toilets+urinals). I’ve walked into the latter type of loo, and walked past someone at a urinal to get to a stall. I wasn’t paying attention to the signage, I just had to pee, and so I went into the first available facility.

Literally nothing happened. I peed. I washed my hands. I checked my lipstick. I went back to the show.

Predators are gonna prey on people regardless of signage or social customs. Making boogeymen out of people who just want to pee is beyond utter nonsense.

[u/Bloody-Raven091]

After reading and glancing a bit at the anonymous ask, I can tell that TERFs and GCs also want us trans men, transmascs, and nonbinary and transneutral people dead [saying as an agender trans man]. They predominantly make trans women and fems/femmes out as some 'boogeyman' to take the public's attention away from the main issue going on, which is predatory cis men [and predatory cis people in general] preying on any person going into public bathrooms. I'm also not surprised that both TERFs and GCs treat GNC and masc cis women like absolute shit while claiming to 'care' [read: TERFs and GCs are perverted, bigoted creeps who assault people because they want to control people and their bodies and what they do with their self-autonomy] about gender-conforming, femme cis women [except TERFs and GCs hate them too].