I'm tired of always answering the same thing about trans rights so I'm going to do a thread with the common things I hear against trans rights and my answers to it.

1. It's dangerous for women if trans women use women's bathrooms, they should use the men's
A. There are multiple trans women who have shown this is not gonna work by using the men's in some places and literally being kicked out of the establishment. You just can't always tell

B. Men don't want trans women in their bathrooms either and women don't want trans men. Where do we pee?
C. There is very little sexual violence happening in public places, it mostly happens in homes. If sex-segregating was the solution, the 1st place to do it would be homes

D. "If anyone can put on a dress and use the women's, what's stopping a sexual predator from doing it?" the same thing that's stopping a sexual predator from putting a high-vis jacket and a wrench and pretending to be a plumber to get into the women's.

E. Trans people are actually at much higher risk in the bathroom, particularly if they have to out themselves by using the wrong one. Transphobia is still very common and some people won't hesitate to beat up a trans person if they identify one, no matter the bathroom

F. Public places where sexual violence is common are public transport and the workplace (100% of female users of the Paris Metro had suffered sexual violence in it and 1/3 of women experience sexual harassment at work). Should we sex-segregate those too? Why not?

2. Surely trans women shouldn't use women's changing room, no woman should be forced to see unwanted penises
A. I agree, I'd even go further, no one should be forced to see anyone's unwanted genitalia

B. How does that work in open-space changing rooms? Well modesty is the answer: wrap a towel around yourself. But the real solution, and the one à lot of countries have already gone for, is cubicles. It's just better for everyone.

C. We also have an issue with trans men, they may have a vulva AND a penis, where do they go? What about trans women who have a penis and breasts?

3. Prisons should be sex-segregated, we can't put trans female rapists in a women's prisons, they're gonna rape other inmates!
A. Rapists in any prison are at risk of raping other inmates. Should gay rapist be put in the "wrong" prison because they are at risk of raping inmates?

B. I'm glad you're concerned about sexual violence in prison, but it's largely perpetrated by guards. Putting trans women away from cis women may prevent a handful of women from being raped, but it will do nothing for the thousands of women raped in prison by someone else.

I believe we should find a solution to prevent EVERYONE from suffering violence in prison from EVERYONE ELSE: CCTV, panic buttons, believing sexual survivors who come forward, maybe even rethinking the prison system to not be a dog-eat-dog world!

C. You may think women have "better" prison, but actually a sex or gender-segregated prison system is terrible for women. They are a lot fewer women in prison, so women are usually jailed much further away from home (which means a lot fewer visits from family and friends outside)

It also means a lot fewer prison programs to help with re-insertion once they are out. And it means smaller facilities once inside (smaller libraries, gyms with less equipment, etc). The prison system as it exists is sexist. Against women.

4. Trans women keep inherent advantages from a male puberty, they shouldn't be allowed in women's sports, it's unfair to women
A. Typical "male" advantages such as higher muscle/fat ratio or higher VO2max disappears with HRT within 6 months

B. The "advantages" that trans women keep such as being taller or having a narrower pelvis are not advantages in all sports. Sure you want to be tall to play basketball but have you ever seen a tall Olympic gymnast?

C. No one is arguing for complete unrestricted access to all trans women to women's sports, but the Rugby Federation policy, which has been touted by GCs bars trans women from participating in Rugby both with the women's AND the men's, in all clubs at all levels.

And it only allows trans men to participate with the men's if they manage to convince doctors they can do so (whereas all sports in the UK normally only ask the players to be liable for any damage to themselves when they get involved)

If this policy was implemented everywhere, as GCs would like, this would mean virtually banning all trans people from all sports, at all levels, everywhere. How is that fair? We can find a much more sensible policy than this.

5. Why can't trans people just accept that they are feminine men or masculine women?
A. Because we're not. There are masculine trans women and feminine trans men. Being trans has nothing to do with gender expression or gender stereotypes

B. A vast majority of trans people who physically transition do so because they have gender dysphoria, they suffer serious distress from the gendered characteristics of their body, not because they like dresses and make-up or played with toy cars as kids.

C. Many people for many decades have tried to "cure the trans away" from trans people. Just like gay conversion therapy, it does not work. It only creates more distress. It is accepted as medical evidence. The only cure against gender dysphoria is transitioning.

6. But so many teens are coming out as trans, it's social contagion!
A. If there was a 100x increase in an asteroid falling on your head, that'd still be a tiny risk. There really aren't that many trans teens coming out, and even fewer being prescribed hormones.

B. Trans teens are just lucky to benefit from a society where they know about transness, what it means and how to deal with it, so they have the opportunity to come out earlier than most trans people so far have had. There aren't more trans people, they just come out younger

Many of us trans adults can tell you we had a sense that something was "off" from a very young age. We just hid it away, or explained it away with shitty theories like "penis envy" or a weird manifestation of a Oedipus complex. Spoiler alert, it was transness.

7. But what about the ones who regret it and detransition?
A. There is no medical process where 100% of people are happy with the outcome, asking for it to be 100% of not be is just completely unreasonable. Detransitioners are a fraction of 1%.

And most detransitioners cite social or peer pressure as the reason to detransition (yes, cis contagion is far more real than trans contagion) and will re-transition later. Can you find ANY other medical procedure with such a high satisfaction percentage?

B. Yes, there are some serious consequences to wrongly transitioning and detransitioning. Outside of infertility, they are the same as being forced as a teen to go through the wrong puberty if you are trans. Yet y'all are against puberty blockers...

C. Let's talk about infertility: trans people can almost always regain fertility after stopping HRT if they haven't had bottom surgery. And can definitely regain fertility after stopping PBs. Trans people are also extensively told about it and encouraged to preserve gametes.

D. But fertility isn't everything. We have to deconstruct this idea that having kids necessarily goes through having biological kids. That's something the LGBT+ community knows quite well. It isn't inherently better for kids to have your DNA. Your kids are your kids regardless.

The solution to this issue is better access to fertility treatment and adoption for non cis straight people. (and yes, by better I do also mean free-er)

8. Trans people are erasing what it means to be a woman!
A. Historically, culturally, socially, being a woman has never been exclusively about biological sex, aka developing to produce ova. Caster Semenya is a woman yet she is "biologically male".

If we look back to a few centuries ago when birth certificate weren't recorded and kept as well (or at all), you will see many people "transitioning" by simply changing their clothes. Women who dressed "as men" were able to be doctors, vote, own land, etc because no one

even questioned that they were men: they looked like men therefore they were men and had all the rights and duties that came with the package. Because ultimately, man and woman are social roles, not biological ones. Because no biological function is as imprinted in society.

We have literally developed languages that are gendered, where someone's gender appears in every phrase we make about them. We even gave objects gender (yes, even in English, a ship is a "she"). Given names are gendered. Clothes are gendered. Schools are gendered.

Everything everywhere is gendered. It's literally the first thing we look at when a baby is born "congratulations it's a girl!", why not "congratulations, they have 10 fingers and toes"? Isn't it more important to have a healthy baby than knowing what their genitalia looks like?

The baby's sex is often even announced before baby has time to take their first breath. We have times and times again been more concerned about what the baby's genitalia looks like than their ability to live and be healthy!

B. So no, trans women aren't erasing what it means to be a woman, they are simply stretching an already pretty vague definition. Sure the dictionary says "adult human female" but that's simply not how the word has been used for centuries.

C. And no, trans women aren't taking any body's rights. Because contrary to women dressing as men in the 19th century, there aren't anymore laws that differ whether you are a man or a woman. We all have equal rights under the law.

D. And just as man and woman hasn't always meant sex, neither has legal gender always meant sex. Just like legal parents haven't always meant biological parents. What the state registers someone's gender is only concerns that person and the state, and no one else.

Just like gay parents being able to adopt and therefore having kids that couldn't be biologically theirs doesn't concern anyone but that family and the state. And again, what your legal gender is has no legal consequence.

It just means you don't have to out yourself every time you have to show a birth certificate or a passport. Which, again, is a matter of safety for trans people (cf the 1st question on bathrooms).

E. Cis women are still going to be the vast majority of women. And they are still going to be 100% women. No one is questioning cis women's womanhood or their right to call themselves women. Cis women are women and we really don't want to erase them.

And this has tons of typos / mistakes everywhere. Sorry. I should proof-read myself more.

Added a few things later here.
And also a couple arguments here and there inside the thread. I didn't really plan this through sorry, didn't think it'd get that much attention. Just wanted to gather my thoughts in one spot. https://mobile.twitter.com/JulietteBuet/status/1343440987687964674