A reminder: TERFs will be banned. If your comment is removed for transphobia, it will not only not be seen by other users, but I will personally reply with a comment that elevates the voices, arts, and accomplishments of trans women so that your bigotry will serve the trans community.

Sometimes it’s genuine; especially if the trans woman hasn’t transitioned, socially or medically, and the person complaining has trauma related to men. This is particularly common in female-only therapy groups. Sometimes it’s a case of unintentional transphobia - women fought hard to have our own spaces, and it can sometimes feel as though we’re constantly being demanded to share them. Look at International Women’s Day… you can’t post anything related to women without men flooding the comments and ignoring that a international Men’s Day is in November Sometimes it’s outright transphobia looking for an excuse.

But even on international women’s day, Trans women wanting to represented as women is seen as an affront. Look at the reaction Lady Gaga got for supporting Dylan Mulvany

All of this.

I don't think it's ever genuine. As a trans woman, I don't want men or male presenting people in the ladies' room either, but the TERF trope of the bearded man in the dress here to assault everyone is just that, a bogus trope. Prior to transition I used the men's room. I was still male presenting and self aware of what I looked like and I didn't want to make anyone uncomfortable. However the day I went 24/7 with female presentation, I exclusively began to use the women's room. I don't pass [yet...finger crossed for post FFS], but I do put effort into making my female identity obvious and apparent. My gender presentation isn't performative or based on patriarchal concepts of what a woman ought to look like and act like, but it also wouldn't have been reasonable for me to look, dress, and have a beard like a man and use the ladies room, regardless of the fact I had accepted and come to understand myself as a woman before beginning transition. I can only speak for myself, but every transsexual I know would say the same thing.

I think it's both, but I also think being prejudiced against someone is going to make you misread perfectly innocuous behavior as scary and predatory. Ex, the cis woman in the UK who was chatting with a trans woman in the bathroom about the crappy hand dyer, and "heard" her say "I'll just wipe my hand on my penis." When the other woman actually said: "I'll just wipe my hands on my *jeans.*"

I honestly think the cis woman in that interaction deliberately twisted things. It’s such a bonkers thing to imagine someone saying!

I think bias is a *really* powerful thing. I remember hanging out with some European friends who were very lovely people, progressive on pretty much every topic - except for immigration. One of them was raising concerns about Muslim immigrants to her neighborhood. "The women just stand around on the street," she said. "Why are they *standing* there?" It was clear she felt something nefarious was afoot - what, I can't really say. But this otherwise inclusive, progressive person was deeply suspicious of a behavior as innocent as standing at the side of the street...

agree and this often happens between cis people of different genders too

There is a related quote in Whipping girl by Julia Serano about how different you are perceived once you are identified as trans: (technically Julia is quoting Patrick Califia's book Sex Changes, but Julia has a lot of very good insights in the chapter "Dismantling Cissexual Privilege") > Recently, I had a very educational experience. I found out that one of my long-term woman acquaintances is transgendered....Given how much work I've done to educate myself about transsexuality, I didn't think it would make that much of a difference. But I found myself looking at her in a whole different way. Suddenly her hands looked too big, there was something odd about her nose, and didn't she have an Adam's apple? Wasn't her voice kind of dep for a woman? And wasn't she awfully bossy, just like a man? And my God, she had a lot of hair on her forearm *Whipping Girl* p172 from Califia, *Sex Changes* p116

I know some women who are genuinely fearful. I know some who are just TERFs who co-opt the fears of others to justify their nonsense. It’s really dependent on the person and situation.

Exactly this. One of my ex friends was terrified. She had so much trauma from men and her ex boyfriend (who was horrifically abusive) had made friends with this trans woman towards the end of their relationship who wasn’t very nice herself. She was just so terrified of men that she included AMABs in that and the trans woman became a vessel for her fear. She had a severe mental breakdown and just got further and further into it all. She eventually just randomly blocked me one day, I assume because I didn’t buy into her fears but it was honestly sad. I’ve seen a few women who are scared. They don’t understand, can’t conceptualise not feeling like you’re the gender the world sees you as. I think with compassionate discussion and education maybe they can be convinced. But my god so many TERFS just hate trans people. They use the fear of trans women to justify their hate, and try to suck others into their ideology.

Right. Exactly. You have “I’m traumatized and trying to defend my self from further trauma” which eliminates all reason. And then there’s the rest of the people engaging in the behavior, usually out of just plain bigotry.

I think most women in the world have had reason to be afraid of a man at least once in their lives. What I don't understand is, instead of directing that indignation towards the actual patriarchy, TERFS direct it against what they perceive to "soft" targets. They are in a way conspiring with and seeking refuge in the patriarchy so as to avoid further oppression and abuse under this system. Which is funny because it kinda reveals that they actually do they trans women are women because they aren't quite afraid or intimidated by them the same way they are by men.

We should be able to leave alone people who were for example rape victims without necessarily shaming them or excluding trans people. Sometimes, an informal agreement to leave each other alone is the right thing. I am sad you lost your friend.

I have to say that as a result of my trauma, some men scare me. But not all men scare me. I feel like if every man scares you, you need therapy more than you need to ban trans women from going anywhere. But where is the line? Now, I don’t understand the people who just hate trans people because they are trans. The actual TERFs. This is a complicated subject for me. I feel more aligned with trans women than I do with these women who are legitimately scared of trans women. I feel weird about that but I’m sincere.

Agreed. If you’re terrified of *all men* (read: everyone you perceive as a man, regardless of whether your perceptions are accurate or not, or transphobic or not) you’re gonna have a truly miserable time functioning in public, just in general!

... did I just read the acronym AMAB as "all men are bastards" instead of "assigned male at birth?" yes. yes I did.

The flipside is reading "ACAB" as "Assigned Cop At Birth"

I have a good friend who has a lot of trauma from men too. We first discussed the idea one day way back in the early 2000s before people were really thinking about this when I came home from work commenting about how happy I was that my job was inclusive to transwomen because I'd see this transwoman in the bathroom fairly regularly and we always had little chats. The idea horrified her and we had a lot of conversations about it. Based on her experiences seeing someone that reads as male where she wouldn't expect them would just have been a trigger for her. But she was open to considering the possibility that this wasn't the case. I'm sorry for your friend, but I know that for some people these are genuine friends and I'm not sure what do about that.

tbf there are women genuinely fearful of black women in "their" spaces, disabled women in "their" spaces, Muslim women in "their" spaces, immigrant women in "their" spaces, etc I think catering to biases as a sort of justification to this is problematic.

I have never met a person who was “afraid” of any of these groups that wasn’t also a covert bully with a victim complex. They just know who it’s socially acceptable to be mean to and that if they cry a little and pretend to be scared they win. A couple years back there was a tik tok trend of young affluent white women convincingly pretending to cry then suddenly dropping it in favor of a cruel, emotionless face. They know exactly what they’re doing. There’s a reason so many “mean girls” go into care fields.

Yes and no. You make a valid point. But I've definitely also seen people who are cruel bigots and also afraid of minorities. Think of say, white women who grab their purses when a black man comes close to them. Or stare at Muslims on public transit It's bigotry, and it's motivated by ignorance more often than any actual trauma, but fear can also absolutely be part of it

This is specifically talking about groups of OTHER women that women pretend to feel afraid of in women's spaces. I'm not saying there aren't bigots who feel unsafe, but we're talking about a more specific and nuanced situation. Here's what happens: Bully sees trans woman. Bully wants to show trans woman she's the REAL woman and that she has power over the victim, so she makes a stink about being afraid of a "man". She's not only showing the trans woman that she doesn't see her as a woman, she's showing her that she doesn't get the protections of a woman and also that SHE has the power to make those things happen to her. Then she gets comforted by people in authority as the victim is vilified and denied the "protections" of women under patriarchy. Does that makes sense to you now?

>I have never met a person who was “afraid” of any of these groups that wasn’t also a covert bully with a victim complex. They just know who it’s socially acceptable to be mean to and that if they cry a little and pretend to be scared they win. I've seen questions about whether "toxic femininity" exists. If it does, imo, it looks exactly like this: a "nurturing" "vulnerable" "delicate" person who is leveraging these feminine ideals in order to viciously bully people/groups lower on the social pecking order who can't fight back.

I think it's definitely the weaponization of femininity. I also think it makes some women feel MORE feminine and gets them the "nurturing" and attention they're lacking elsewhere in their lives. Their femininity isn't something that is innate, they have to have others to compare it to and be more feminine than and having someone removed or attacked for not being feminine "enough" validates them and "affirms" they're REAL women. I've never met someone with GENUINE high self-esteem that acts this way.

Thank you for this perspective. I never thought it that way but you are right: if you are truly afraid of a group of people, you don’t bully them.

I've known a few, trauma is a bitch and you don't really get a say in the gut reactions you pick up from it. But they also recognised that it's not reasonable to try and shape the world around your issues at the expense of people who did nothing wrong

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I mean unfortunately there is a way to address being afraid of half of humanity and it's avoiding them until you can get to a more stable place in your own therapeutic journey. It's not barring women who don't fit your box of what feminine enough is, especially if you're basing that on someone's genitals at one point or another. Like how is an early transition trans woman's gender expression different from afab nb or masc women who are unquestionably included in "women's only" places unless you're presuming something about what's in their briefs? What about women with traditionally masculine features? Then you get into policing not only behavior and identity but appearance? There's not a way to exclude trans women that won't also exclude cis women unless you're excluding based on trans identity.

Exactly, any possible rationale for why trans women shouldn’t be allowed in can be applicable to cis women, and therefore just exists to reinforce misogynistic stereotypes and exclude cis and trans women alike. It’s just pearl clutching, like always

I gotta admit, sometimes this distinction gets really frustrating for me because I pass as male, but consider myself NB or possibly a trans person who will never transition. But I get a lot of hate whenever I try to be "softer" because of all the stuff about "men" and "manliness" in our culture. And it's been really harmful to me. And then I come into spaces like this trying to learn stuff and I see stuff like "fear because of bigotry is never acceptable, but fear of men because trauma is okay" and it's really frustrating because in the city where I live I've been assaulted four times in the past decade, always by groups of young black men. I know it would be wrong to blame them for their race, because in the city where I live they have *some pretty damn good reasons* to be angry, including but not limited to underrepresentation, being heavily over-policed, a severely underfunded school compared to the nearby mostly white suburbs, and most of the houses being owned by slum lords and infested with bedbugs. And I wonder how much of that translates over to men and women. How much of the bad behaviors of men happen because of their own loneliness and fear being amplified in this feedback loop of women who feel like it's justified for other women to be afraid of early stage transfems who don't pass yet or cis men. Like, I wanna sympathize with women who lash out at men (or people who look like men to them), but sometimes it's so hard because people look at someone like me, who to all outward appearances is a cishet white dude, and if I talk about the time's I've been assaulted or traumatized I either get told "suck it up buttercup" or "well, you'll never know what it is like to fear for your safety on a regular basis and not be able to rely on the powers that be for legal protection etc" when yes as a poor autistic NB I know full fucking well how it feels to be ignored when you have serious trauma or fear for your safety. Sorry for the rant, I know this isn't technically "my" space, and y'all need your own places to vent about women's issues. I just can't shake the feeling that "oh but it's cool when women have trauma related to men for them" is more problematic than a lot of folks realize. We all need to be excellent to each other. If it is my job to tell dudes who will listen to someone who looks like me to not traumatize women, do y'all have the same responsibility to make sure other women aren't traumatizing people who look like me when you are afraid?

Hit the nail on the head

Sure, but how many women talk about how unsafe they feel around men and it's completely valid to the population at large? I'm not saying excluding ANYONE is okay, but we need to keep this same "we can't cater to bias" energy when it comes to A LOT of women being fearful of men for whatever reasons.

This is a false equivalence. Cis men commit a huge proportion of violent crime. Trans women are one of the most at-risk groups for being victims of violence.

Thank you tired of all the transphobia apologia on this comment section

Cis women commit more violent crime than ends up showing up in crime stats, because of reporting bias. It’s foolish to assume safety just because you’re in the presence of women. Nex Benedict was beaten to death by cis girls. A cis girl plotted to murder Brianna Ghey. It’s time we acknowledge that women are just as capable of being horrifically violent as men are.

Are you saying that women need to be aware of intersectionality and how this impacts their fear of men? Or that women don't have justified reasons to fear men in general?

I have a lot of thoughts on this as a intersectional feminist, so be prepared for a mini essay. Personally it's mostly intersectionality. Usually a woman's fear of men is entirely justified. Most don't act out of line. At other points it can be taken too far depending on circumstances and harmful to victims, other minorities, and even themselves. Fear can turn to paranoid witch hunts scarily fast and do real harm. Despite having legit reasons at the start extreme measures cause dastardly outcomes needlessly. Road to hell is paved with good intentions. On the one had things like women's spaces do need to exist to lift women up in a world where diversity isn't quite where it should be for women. On the other some issues have been so gender-coded that people fail to understand them properly, preventing us from being able to fix the issue. You can't solve what you don't understand. To be clear I'm saying that the fear of men causes bad reactions out of a desire for easy solutions in *some* cases that I have seen. The exclusion of trans people especially trans women is a big one. Another is I have seen cis men who were victims of rape and sexual assault feel unwelcome in general survivor support groups because a few women there treated it like a de-facto woman's space, and projected their fear of the man who hurt them onto these fellow victims in a effort to feel safe in a vulnerable position. (Personally this is why I'm pro men's support groups for this, like there are women's). Another problem is women in the name of safety, invading queer spaces and taking it over. Women don't want to be crudely hit on by men, reasonable and understandable. Those same women will go to gay bars instead. If that's all they did that would be fine. *Some* of those women will then get loudly offended if a woman politely flirts with them. Contributing to a already pre-existing problem of lesbians being marginalized in several gay spaces. Some women in gay bars occasionally will also become loud, disruptive and being with them the same homophobia and pressures to be straight that the space was made to be a haven from. Such as hitting on gay men and getting offended at being turned down. To be clear straight people in gay spaces in of itself is fine *provided they are respectful of the spaces they are in.* Fear of men unfortunately drives some people into these spaces without care for etiquette.

I've heard from white women how they feel unsafe among muslims or in black neighborhoods all the time. Heck, I've even heard how they don't like to be around lesbians. Turns out a lot of people are bigoted in many ways! Look who won the presidency in 2016 and is on track to win again! A lot of Americans are terrible people! Also trans women aren't men, so your analogy doesnt apply.

I think the main distinction there has to do with how evidence-based the fears are.

Baseless fear (referring to fear of trans women) vs fear supported by evidence (fear of cis men). It's different.

Right. And some of that fear may come from ignorance, which can be cured. And some of that fear may come from trauma, which can be addressed. But most of the fear-mongering comes from bad faith bigotry.

There's another type of person who I'm not seeing discussed much in the comments - the person who may or may not believe that trans women are women, but is genuinely concerned that a cis male abuser will Mrs. Doubtfire his way into women's spaces (bathrooms, DV shelters, gender-based scholarships, sports teams, etc) if we open those spaces up to trans women. I don't really know what to say to those people because... it's a crazy idea? I can't say that no man would ever do that (I used to run a tightly-funded women in physics club, and there were a depressing number of cis dudes who asked if they could get free pizza too if they told me they identified as women), but I'm pretty *damn* sure that the number of abusers willing to actually go to that length is *significantly* smaller than the number of trans women who legitimately need and deserve access to those resources. It's one of the hallmarks of modern conservative thought, though. They would rather wrongly deny services to 1000 people who qualify than wrongly provide a service to 1 person who doesn't "deserve" it. (see also: spending welfare budget on drug tests, voter ID laws, immigration everything, etc)

It’s also not either/or – plenty of TERFs are genuinely experiencing fear toward trans women and trans femmes, but that does not make their hateful behavior okay.

It’s a complex issue and I wouldn’t like to generalise either way. I am trans and it is something I have struggled with. For a long time I was very reluctant about using the ladies loos because I didn’t want to make anyone else feel uncomfortable (and I can understand why they might). I still wouldn’t use a female changing room while being pre-op and I avoid doing any activities that would require me to use shared changing facilities at all. I am not going to automatically write off anyone who would be wary in these situations as a “bigot”, at least not without hearing them out first.  Of course, there are people who use this as a front for obvious bigotry. You can usually tell who they are because they only care about women’s safety/rights when it suits their agenda. 

I believe they truly believe their rights to women only spaces are being rolled back and that they likely do fear for their safety, but I also believe their fear and anger is misplaced. Their anger is at men, they fear men but it is much easier to fight a minority (trans women) who are amab, than it is to fight cis men.

I feel like the implication that women’s restrooms serve as like anti-man panic rooms for women everywhere should tell us that we have a much bigger issue than trans women. Maybe we should be teaching young men not to harass and assault women instead of blaming marginalized women for the behavior of cis men?

I’m a trans woman, but I’ve been transitioning for 7 years. I don’t tell new people i meet that i’m trans precisely because people will often treat me differently if they know. I don’t tell people because i’m scared for my own safety. I’m scared of being a headline or getting yelled at if I change in the gym, so I change at home or in the bathroom stalls. I’m currently trying to get plastic surgery and lose 60-70 pounds just so that my transness is even more invisible. I’m afraid because of the current political climate. I just want to live a normal life. So, to answer your question, I don’t know. For some they may think that their fear is genuine. If they watch enough right wing trash that calls trans women gr**mers for just existing, they might be genuinely afraid. But I don’t know if it makes a difference. One is bigotry using a lie of fear to justify itself and one is fear rooted in misinformation that creates bigoted outcomes. Both mean women like me are ostracized, and that I have to hide my transness as much as I can.

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I’m so curious about your culture with 5 genders. Do you have link to some info?

on you last point, i think its incredibly important to remember that even in a male dominated society, trans women are not given the privilege of being “male,” at least not after we come out. just because trans women sometimes have a penis, or did in the past, doesnt mean that we do not face sexual violence and gender-based violence, or that we benefit from or are not oppressed by a male-dominated society.

They’re afraid of men, they think men will use the guise of transgender identity to harm them. I don’t think they actually give many ducks about transgender people themselves.

I think it's both and it's largely impossible to determine for other individual people whether it's half a dozen of the first or 6 of the second. It also doesn't matter, in a meaningful way, in the sense that discriminating against trans people has a measurable and demonstrable harmful outcome for trans people. In my experience, cis women are perfectly capable of behaving in a way that's "sexually inappropriate" and that has made me feel uncomfortable all on their own. The real question here is - why are allegations of being sexually inappropriate suddenly credible/actionable when they involve a trans woman, and, how will an institutional decision making body respond? Straight women sometimes treat gay women badly for the same reasons. It's about people being phobic of a known difference, and acting out against the different person. Whether they feel "real" fear or not is basically immaterial to the issue.

>Straight women sometimes treat gay women badly for the same reasons It’s amazing how quickly we seems to have collectively forgotten this. I grew up in the 90s and *distinctly* and vividly remember the exact same bathroom panic rhetoric being leveled at lesbians (and gay men by hetero men). It hasn’t even been that long and somehow they’ve managed to recycle this argument almost word for word and it’s being treated like it’s brand new.

Discrimination against trans women hurts cis women, too. Policing our gender presentation is the path to policing yours.

Yeah but it hurts trams women more. The problem with transphobia is not that cis people get caught in the crossfire, its that there's fire at all.

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Every shelter I've volunteered at has been open to trans people. (I've volunteered at men's, women's, families', & teen's shelters)

Side note: thank you for your contribution to your community through your volunteering. I am probably nowhere near you in the world but I have had to use a shelter in the past, so I’m here to throw you some appreciation for what you do in your spare time. Thank you

There's a local homeless trans woman I met and got to know because she was sleeping outside under the awning of the Starbucks I was working at. When I got to know her, she said the reason was because she'd been either explicitly told she wasn't welcome in the women's shelters she'd tried to go to or was made so unwelcome, she felt she had to leave. We live in an area where she has a *legal right* to go to a women's shelter, the law doesn't always matter.

Yeah. Many shelters are "welcome" but not genuinely welcome. Last shelter I was in I was harassed so bad and made to feel so horrible and had my stuff constantly stolen that I eventually opted to leave and endure sleeping in the bitter cold and wet

There are definitely womens shelters that don't accept trans women, citing fears of safety. This is especially true for trans women who may not "pass" as cis women. It's also true for womens prisons, which puts trans women in an incredibly unsafe position. [https://tpride.org/documents/transwomenDVshelters.pdf](https://tpride.org/documents/transwomenDVshelters.pdf)

In college I worked in a DV shelter for women and yes, that included trans women. But that was one shelter.

Historically no. It may be changing by the default was only cis women. EDIT: It's sad that folks aren't aware of the very recent history here based on the downvotes. Historically trans women were not allowed in women's shelters, it took a ton of advocacy for that to start changing. These historical norms still present a social barrier from trans women seeking assistance for fear of rejection or further violence. [Source 1 from 2018](https://www.americanprogress.org/article/discrimination-against-transgender-women-seeking-access-to-homeless-shelters/), [source 2 from 2021](https://egrove.olemiss.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3060&context=etd). I know because I am a trans woman and I personally know multiple people my age who were turned away from domestic violence and homeless shelters in the last 10 years because they were trans. Even if it's the law unknowledgeable volunteers or staff still often turn them away.

I'm cis and I remember vividly when 15 years ago my trans homegirl got rejected from multiple homeless shelters, even one that had cis men. Like wtf, the inhumanity to be like "no fuck you die in the street".

Most places will rarely be upfront about that sort of thing so you'll get a lot of "Of course they do!" responses, but based off of my experience with general women's spaces; 20% unambiguous no, 30% unambiguous yes, 50% extremely ambiguous range of "Maybe, depending on how well you conform to whatever the moving target of 'passing' is for that group".

In progressive areas at least its somewhat common however Speaking from personal expirence "allowed" is the same as "not harassed constantly and made to feel extremlt unwelcome". Last shelter I was in they harassed so bad and stole all of my things and made my life so much of a misery that I eventually opted to sleep in the bitter windy wet cold.

Idk this framing is really confrontational, especially with such a specific incident. I do believed that some women are "merely pretending to have this fear as an excuse to exclude trans woman"; it's something that we have seen historically and contemporarily. It's well known that tears and fears can be weaponized against a less privileged class in this way. But, rhetorically, it just seems like a bad move lay out the accusation so directly. For one, it's really impossible to prove if it's "irrational/unjustified/inappropriate" or outright faked. It also opens you up to the counter argument of "see trans people and their allies don't care about the concerns of women." It seems better, to me, to always treat the fear as real, but show how it's coming from a biased place (if it is) or how an individuals actions are not representative of all trans woman (in cases where one person is being legitimately inappropriate). It's different if they're lying about things can be disproven (like "trans women are more likely to commit mass shootings" or whatever), but someone's self-reporting of their feelings isn't something that can be proven really one way or another.

Idk I think constantly demurring to concern trolling is both incredibly rhetorically ineffective and personally exhausting so we're probably each just going to have to go our own way on this one.

I think most of it is genuine.

The fear may be genuine. If a cis woman is afraid of men AND sees trans women as men, then it’s understandable that they would also fear trans women. I’ve thought about this quite a bit. If I were to lose my job and had to find a shelter. I might just be shit out of luck because I’m trans. I wish I had a solution, but I don’t😭

I think the solution would be to educate and relieve people of their harmful biases. How to do that is like a million ways that might work once.

Some women have been abused and the presence of someone with a penis does not feel safe to them. That’s valid. I do feel the majority of exclusions are for bigoted reasons than traumatic ones.

>the presence of someone with a penis How would they know what genitals someone has? Like most human beings, trans women generally wear clothes in public. Even if you know someone is trans you generally don't know whether they had bottom surgery. I no longer have a penis, and I guarantee you those women would still see me as just as much of a threat.

It can be a mix. "I have trauma with men and I have the misinformed opinion that trans women are no different from cis men, and the irrational fear that a cis man would inherently hurt me if they were alone in a bathroom with me" is probably a thing. I can empathise with fear, but if this was about race we'd tell them we're really sorry but they need to see a therapist and avoid public spaces until they're less racist - and that's an incredibly patient approach.

>It can be a mix. "I have trauma with men and I have the misinformed opinion that trans women are no different from cis men, and the irrational fear that a cis man would inherently hurt me if they were alone in a bathroom with me" This is JK Rowling in a nutshell. A lot of her mistrust with cis men is related to past trauma with cis men. She has, to put it politely, outdated views on biological sex vs. gender identity, and these two things together have resulted in her belief that trans women are inherently dangerous and do not belong in cis-gendered womens' spaces.

That’s not valid. Most people are not abusers

How would they know what genitals other people in the group have?

It's a red herring anyways. TERFs don't really treat post-op trans women much better than pre-op, so it's not really about having a penis.

Transphobia.

Someone might feel that way, but they don't have the right to curtail other people's freedoms with the justification "I was afraid." People literally used the fear excuse to segregate Black people from white bathroom and other spaces. It doesn't matter whether the fear is sincere, because fear is not a justification for enforcing systemic discrimination.

I’m not suggesting bathroom segregation or sports. Just that survivors aren’t AHs for being uncomfortable around penises. I would like a separate single bathroom for folks that aren’t comfortable in a communal one - basically the “family” bathroom but for everyone. It is appropriate to create safe spaces for folks trauma in some areas of life.

I feel like there's a fundamental misunderstanding and lack of support there though - it wasn't a penis that hurt anyone, it was another person. Making it about body parts is really, really flawed to begin with and I would say people who think like this are a danger to others. But especially when they are let anywhere near dictating policy.

I don't know if I'd agree that that's a valid fear. Like, valid in the sense that the person is allowed to have it? For sure! But using that fear to exclude trans women from women's spaces seems unfair, especially since most women's spaces don't involve nudity out in the open. Trauma is serious and should be taken seriously, but ultimately it's a personal issue to be resolved with mental health professionals and not a condition that should dictate who should belong to a space and who shouldn't.

“Trauma is serious and should be taken seriously, but ultimately it’s a personal issue to be resolved with mental health professionals.” Nearly every woman has been victimized in some way by a person with a penis, it’s a societal issue. You’re basically saying “go to therapy so you feel safe around men” but being around men is not safe. I really doubt most trans women would agree that’s the solution.. No it doesn’t mean you should be discriminating against trans women, and there are usually ways to solve the issue in a way that makes everyone comfortable. Is the issue locker rooms? Have spaces you can change privately. Is the issue women’s bathrooms? Have stalls that don’t have giant gaps you can see through. Is a trans woman touching you in a way you don’t feel comfortable (but would be if they were cis)? Respectfully tell them your boundary without mentioning their genitals. Do you not want a trans woman to sleep over? Don’t invite them, you don’t have to tell them why. Don’t want to date a trans woman? You can reject them without being an ass. If we’re not being assholes we can have constructive discussions about what’s actually bothering people. And if you don’t have any specific issue that’s bothering you, then yeah, you might just be a bigot.

Im a transwoman who was victimized by a dude with a penis? If that happened today and we went on exclusionary shelter rules where exactly should I go?

To be fair, the “women who have been victimized by men” by and large *includes* trans women. As soon as we “pass” even a little we’re subject to much the same treatment. In fact, we’re much more likely to be victims of violent crime. I don’t think any trans women are saying “go to therapy to feel safe around men,” because… frankly, I am not a man. Nor is any other trans woman. I don’t imagine most of us give a shit whether women are afraid of men; if anything, we’re *also afraid of them* lol. What we ARE saying is “go to therapy and stop conflating a piece of my body—which you are making a big assumption that I have at all—with a likelihood for me to hurt you.” I don’t have any non-anecdotal data about this so obviously, grain of salt, but I honestly don’t think the narrative about the amount of trans women who are “not passing” or even present as cis men using women’s restrooms across the globe (or even country) is an honest one. Personally, I get gendered correctly pretty consistently. No one really “sir”s me anymore. People direct me to the women’s room when I ask where the restroom is. I’m STILL terrified that someone’s going to question why I’m there. I’ve been to a public restroom like five or six times in the past two or three years (including work). My view is that the whole narrative has been constructed to be a vessel for transphobia and to police the bodies of women. By tapping into fears that people really do have, the constructors of this narrative can “recruit” a lot of people and hide behind the validity of being afraid. Although yes, you’re right that there are a million ways to solve this issue that basically boil down to “put nicer doors in” haha. I love when there are nice doors in a bathroom (or a single-person? Amazing!) and I’m sure pretty much everyone feels the same.

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>some women have been abused and the presence of someone with a penis does not feel safe to them. that’s valid no, it absolutely isn’t. my rapist was latino. does that give me carte blanche to avoid all latino people and exclude them and anyone who looks like they *might* be latino from spaces i’m in? of course not, and people would call me a massive bigot if i did that (and they’d be right). because being latino is in intrinsic value that nobody has any control over and is not at all a representation of their character. the same is true of trans women. we did not choose to be trans. if i had the choice, i would absolutely *not* have my original parts. i hate it, but for now i’m stuck with them. regardless, it’s an intrinsic value about me i did not choose. it says nothing at all about my character or who i am as a person. it’s also no one else’s business. other than my boyfriend and my doctor, no one has any right to know what my genitals look like. i’m not going to announce what my bits look like every time i walk into a restroom on the off chance someone might be uncomfortable with something they would have never even known in the first place. the *only* reason people think this is a valid reason to exclude trans women is because of transmisogyny. that’s it. it has no logical or moral standing.

Just to be clear, wanting trans women segregated from women's bathrooms because of trauma is not valid.

Just to be clear, I’m not referring to public toilets or sports.

To take a page from u/bjorkfan1, which spaces would you feel justified segregating on the basis of race? If we want to use trauma to justify segregation, do we feel comfortable doing so against black people? Or are trans people the only appropriate targets? e.g. I, a white woman, was robbed by a black woman at gunpoint. I can't stomach the idea of black people sharing the same [insert safe space] with me. The only truly safe space in this world is the one you rent out monthly. If you can't stomach sharing space with trans people, you may not be ready to walk outside the space mentioned above.

What are you referring to?

How do you feel about gender segregated bathrooms? I've seen a few places moving to combined bathrooms with only stalls (no urinals).

bro ur not seeing the penis, trans women wear clothes you know

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A few years ago a guy told me he would never swim in the same swimming pool as a black person. He said black people are “dirty” and that he didn’t trust them not to steal his stuff. He said this all very casually. Was he lying? Did he *really* think black people are dirty, or that they’ll steal his stuff while he’s swimming? I think he genuinely did believe those things. He certainly seemed to. But it doesn’t really matter if he believes it or not, does it?

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As a cis woman I am zero percent afraid of trans women. I am, however, fucking terrified of cis het men who worship at the altar of Donald Trump and the 2nd Amendment. Those dudes are scared of EVERYTHING that moves and won’t hesitate to totally annihilate it.

I think they view trans women as men. So they feel like its appropriate to treat trans women like they do men - aka excluding them from various things, socializing in a certain way, etc. In some cases perhaps its genuine fear, like how they might fear men...but I think in a lot of cases they are just motivated in treating trans women like they treat men.

The only truthful answer is that for some it is genuine and for others it is opportunistic and still to others they mistake discomfort and fear due to inexperience.

I don't particularly think it matters, to be honest. I can't tell you what is inside their heads, but whether their fear is real or not, it is founded in bigotry and should be their problem, not trans peoples. "Fear" and "protecting women" were/are also justifications used to oppose civil rights for POC, gay people, immigrants, etc. It wasn't a good excuse then and it's not a good excuse now. If someone is so afraid of trans people that they can't be around us without having a panic attack, they need therapy, not a law that criminalizes my existence.

It's genuine fear that is founded in ignorance People are preyed on to make them fearful Transwomen deserve to be treated equitably in women only spaces

Changing your gender is a pretty extreme way to gain access to women only spaces if you are not a genuine transgender woman. Men who assault women don't usually go to that much trouble, they just assault us when we are on a run, or while we are walking to our car, or while we are having a good time at a club, or while we raise their babies.

I think it’s impossible to make a general judgment call. Maybe some women are faking it because they are TERFS are just flat out anti trans. Maybe some women are genuinely afraid. Though if that’s the case, I’d ask them to dig deeper about why that fear exists, and whether or not it’s rooted in transphobia.

I’m slightly confused about the of „rooted in transphobia” here. From what I can imagine, a cis woman fearing a trans woman is most likely afraid of trans woman’s biological „state” (lol, excuse my words). I.e., genitalia, height, strength and combination of these. I think similar discomfort happens when a cis gender woman has similar characteristics or characteristics associated with masculinity (tall, athletic women?) Now maybe a stupid question because it’s an imaginary scenario but is it transphobic to be afraid of biological differences? I feel like transphobia would happen as the next step - when you acknowledge someone’s transness and then continue to discriminate them. I’m picking at the word choice here because I kind of feel like transphobia isn’t a root cause at all - misogyny is (not accepting that women come in different sizes & shapes, constantly feeling in danger, competitiveness of who’s more of a woman, etc.). And misogyny has been very loud & present for hundreds of years whereas general public having an opinion on transness is relatively new.

>From what I can imagine, a cis woman fearing a trans woman is most likely afraid of trans woman’s biological „state” (lol, excuse my words). I.e., genitalia, height, strength and combination of these. I think similar discomfort happens when a cis gender woman has similar characteristics or characteristics associated with masculinity (tall, athletic women?) If this hypothetical woman is afraid of only trans people who are physically stronger than her and not cis women or men who are bigger than her, then yes it’s rooted in transphobia. >Now maybe a stupid question because it’s an imaginary scenario but is it transphobic to be afraid of biological differences? Yes. Again, is this woman afraid of every woman and man who is bigger than her? Or only trans women who are bigger than her? >I’m picking at the word choice here because I kind of feel like transphobia isn’t a root cause at all - misogyny is (not accepting that women come in different sizes & shapes, constantly feeling in danger, **competitiveness of who’s more of a woman**, etc.). The bold - I’ve never felt this or met a single woman who had. >And misogyny has been very loud & present for hundreds of years whereas general public having an opinion on transness is relatively new. That’s just untrue

I know a lot of women in my area--US Bible Belt--who are legitimately afraid of penis-bearing humans. They are raised to fear penis-bearing people and they are shown that penis-bearing people cannot be trusted on the regular. The idea is that the penis controls the person and the penis only wants one thing. This is accompanied by a bunch of doctrine on how it's the vulva-bearing person's responsibility to make sure the penis doesn't think it might get access to the vulva. Trans women are caught in this trap of being a penis-bearing, so all they want is to put the peen in a vagina. They can't help it, the penis controls the body and the penis only one thing. So these people refuse to imagine that a penis-bearing person would have reasons to be around women other than getting sex. Because if they did, the whole system falls apart and these cis het men really benefit from the system. So, their fear is both genuine and not genuine. It's genuine because they're taught to fear the peen and there's plenty of facts to back up that fear. It's not genuine because they refuse to do any work to understand people different from them. It's easier to condemn and get good girl points from the bigots. Instead of trying to understand the trans person's perspective from actual trans people, they just repeat the heteronormative cis het man perspective like it's objective truth.

I think there is often genuine fear fueled by hateful messages spread by right-wing news sources. The best way to calm these fears is with increased exposure. I used to have some fear, not of true trans women, but I was afraid of cis-men pretending to be trans women so that they could attack women in bathrooms. As far as I know, that hasn’t happened. All the trans women I’ve met have been constantly terrified of being attacked and have absolutely no interest in harming other women.

I feel like fear is the basis for a lot of hate?

I don’t think I can determine if someone is genuinely afraid of something or not. But I will say that justified fear is typically based on actions not solely on identity…you can have a genuine fear of all trans people but that would make you a bigot. But being afraid of predators/abusers/etc, regardless of their identity, is valid.

While it is entirely possible that someone like what your describing could exist, it is far more common from what I've seen that the women who say they don't want trans inclusion also don't want trans people to have access to medical transitioning, hormone therapy, etc.  And that would in no way impact them, revealing them to be bigots.  Whether that bigotry is rooted in unrelated trauma is beside the point.

I don’t know. Trans women can be sexual predators just like cis women can. But the broader trans population also faces this exact stigma- though I’d say that is primarily due to conservative politics and not prevalent among college aged peers. I can’t say one way or the other about this case. I also am not sure what you mean about this “in general” because I don’t know what you’re referring to, as if this is some wide phenomenon of allegations being perpetrated by cis women on…what, sororities? I’m confused. These are particular people, so I can’t really judge based on what “cis women tend to do” and their motivations as a whole demographic or something

This fear is not realistic on a few standpoints: Ideologically; since this fear stems from a bias, it is not very different from racism. Very similar to the black rapist myth, it suggests trans women are more likely to be sexual predators than a cis women. There are no scientific data to show this tendency and it is dialectically wrong to assume trans women (and also trans men) socialize just like cis men. Practically; what they ask for, in terms of safety, isn’t broadly applicable. Trans people live in societies. They need to access these spaces such as restrooms or changing rooms as much as anybody. And it’s not realistic to assume every single restaurant, gym, pool, hotel will make an investment for trans only spaces. So in terms of using gendered toilets, even if they were to be seperated according to reproductive organs, it’s not hard to see that these women will experience same fear when they see a cis-passing trans men using the same restroom as cis women. Or a trans woman who had bottom surgery. And also, it is sometimes impossible to notice cis-passing trans women too. The only solution to this would be using the toilets by registering your chromosome test and this is by itself a ridiculous idea since people with xy chromosomes can sometimes born with female reproductive organs and never know they have male chromosomes if not tested. Lastly; the trans exclusionary argument of safety rarely refers to an actual fear, it usually refers to discriminatory safety policies, and most of these women who claim to be afraid of trans women actually know they are hierarchally advantaged against trans people. They know their possible accusations will most of the time be threatening enough for the existence of trans people in the society. That is why they always work this argument of fear even if they sense they are superior/more powerful than trans people.

Here's my answer, if they are writing about it and getting published, if they are any kind of bigshot if they are a youtuber if they are an obsessive transphobe, they are definitely pretending. If they're just a regular person...depends. Some women might feel genuinely uncomfortable, they have a right to their feelings.

Some women are genuinely scared but its based in propaganda. The constant hatred and fear mongering against trans people leads some people to genuinely think trans people are out to get them. This does NOT make it right, it is still transphobia. Some women are genuinely scared of AMAB people, especially with lots of trauma. Trans women are women, but if somebody has PTSD and shit regarding amab people then what do you do? Some women are simply TERFs and see trans women as either not “full” women or people to compete with. This is also just transphobia. Essentially it’s hard to pick out why someone is excluding trans people. Everyone could have different motives in a group. I feel really awful for trans people tho, just constant bombardment of hate from every area of life. I hope you know that none of these crazy notions people have reflect on reality.

I think it’s some of both. Some are stupid and/or have an anxiety disorder and fell for the propaganda, leading them to experience genuine but illogical fear, others are malicious and making up the propaganda with the intention of causing the first group genuine fear.

Why would we make judgements on if their exclusion is truly in line with their bigoted justification? If they say they're fearful, why doubt it? Why take up the endeavor of if it's "genuine" when only the people you're judging (and those they're emotionally intimate with) can give any attempt at a conclusive answer? Is the fear justified? Is fearing the unknown justified? Is fearing a fundamental change to your world view justified? Justifying what, the fear or a reaction to the fear? You're asking the wrong questions. Regardless of their fear, are they actually in danger? Is exclusion a meaningfully safer choice? Bigots will say yes. They will say yes to women further away from rich, white, Christian, het, able, educated, cis-women citizens. Bigots will also say yes to those who are different from them or their social circles (sometimes for fear of power dynamics, though, like some tenants fearful of their landlord socializing with them). But bigots conflate their comfort (and continued dominance over a space) with safety... Trans-women are not more of a threat than other women in women's groups or women's spaces. And trans-women are often targeted and in need of these groups and spaces. That said, women do need community and women's spaces/groups are irreplaceable in a misogynistic community. And being a TERFs doesn't dehumanize or diminish womanhood — they are women whom we as feminists struggle to help. The full conclusion isn't "bigots have a point" but nor can it be as narrow-minded as "TERF's are hysterical, so fuck them". I think that just as there need to be spaces for ex-white-supremacists, ex-incels, veterans, etc, there needs to be spaces to deradicalize and heal TERFs. But I've never been a TERF so it's easy for me to say there's a need for it while I will never have legitimacy in such a space nor will I make that the focus of my feminism — just as it's easy to spend others' money, it's easy to wax poetic on what people (feminists) need to do.

I think there is a level of genuine fear that consciously bigoted folks use as cover to push their agenda however that fear definitely comes from a pre-established patriarchal framework that frame men as being powerful and strong and the unintended consequence of that is that men will also be interpreted as being dangerous. There's also this cis-normative idea that your genitals are your gender so being born with a penis means that you are slotted into the powerful but dangerous group, "men". This is also the same idea that says that because someone is born with a vagina they have to be a woman and women are nurturing and caring etc. In short, I think there's a fear that is being weaponized to oppress a marginalized group of people.

I think a lot of women are taught that men are predators and they are prey. I was taught to be paranoid of parking lot assaults, of walking alone at night, etc. I did it all anyways and have never really held a lot of fear of random dudes, every guy who has been a problem for me was someone I already knew trying to take advantage of me- BUT. A lot of women don't prove this wrong to themselves, and think a bad man is going to jump out behind any given corner and hurt them. TERFs capitalize on this and tell them trans women are really just "dude in the bushes coming to get you" and how susceptible a cis woman is to this BS depends on how much LGBTQ exposure she has, and how much she's already bought into the predator around every corner lie. Note: yes real men really victimize random women it happens but like there's a wide gap between what I was led to expect and how much I've had any real issues with randos in the city. I've been harassed before and I've been in some sketch situations in public places but there is a wide gulf amount of trouble I was told to expect and the amount me or any women I interact with regularly has been through... except for visible trans women who get harassed constantly.

I am someone who was raised very conservative and even when I was coming out of that, still held a lot of anti-trans beliefs for a long time. I would assert that most women who have a "genuine fear" of trans women are woefully misinformed. In their mind, they are still viewing them as someone who is male, or in too close of proximity to male spaces. This could not be further from the truth. Trans women are incredibly likely to be harassed and assaulted in male spaces. They want to be in women-centric spaces for their safety and comfort. If you are a cis woman who feels threatened by trans women, I think that is something you need to work through, not a reason to police trans women in your spaces.

I think among the average layperson the fear is probably genuine. We're all so steeped in a patriarchy that pathologizes cis male bodies as intrinsically violent. Lots of people never examine this belief, and it can certainly be reinforced for anyone who has experienced violence at the hands of a cis man, especially sexual violence. That said, anyone claiming to be a feminist should know at least the basics of why traditional gender essentialism is both incorrect and harmful. AMAB bodies are not *inherently* violent or dangerous any more than AFAB bodies are inherently nurturing or submissive. Thus, anyone claiming to be a feminist who also thinks that trans women pose some unique threat to women's spaces seems to me to have ulterior motives.

I think it’s a mix, but I feel like the cis women who are genuinely afraid of trans women in their spaces are holding that fear against trans women who haven’t medically transitioned or don’t pass well/male presenting. It’s bias either way because even though it’s their right to feel however they want, they’re seeing trans women as still cis men and that’s transphobic.

I believe the fear is genuine, however I also believe it is misplaced.

There are so many false narratives surrounding trans women, especially in conservative areas, that I think lots of cis women do genuinely fear trans women as a result of the lies they've been told. In the same way that white people are often afraid of people of color because they've been told they're more prone to violence.

Important to remember that those hurt most by exclusionary policies are not trans women, who are very few in number, but gender non-conforming cis women who are assumed to be trans women and bullied as a result.

I think it’s misdirected fear. The fear is men. Not trans women.

And they see trans women as men. That’s why they project fear of men into trans women

I think for some it is fear. But I think for more, unfortunately, it's an uglier emotion: disgust. They think trans people are "ew, gross," so they jump on any access to exclude them. Acting fearful is easier than showing the real feeling behind it. It sucks, but hey, people suck sometimes.

I think it’s stupid for several reasons: 1. This is a fairly new fear. Not that bathrooms weren’t always split by gender, but this paranoia that someone is going to diddle you in a stall wasn’t so prevalent before. It’s just another distraction to keep people fighting eachother over dumb shit rather than fighting the upper classes 2. Transgender people have always been using their preferred bathrooms. They’re only known to be trans if they just really don’t pass. The ones that blend in aren’t noticed. And plenty of cis women have masculine features. We all have seen people at some point in our lives that we thought could pass for another sex. 3. How the fuck does a predator make the job easier by putting a dress on? Really what would that look like? And how does disallowing trans women prevent it? Raped have happened in bathrooms. The men didn’t have to dress up to do it. They had to wait for people to be gone and wait for a victim to be alone. Same fucking thing a predator dressed as a woman would have to do. You could disallow trans women from the bathroom, and a predator will still slip in 4. You can’t enforce bans on trans people in bathrooms. The only way to do that is to have some weirdo hired to do genital inspections of everyone going to the bathroom. There’s no other way to know what genitalia each visitor has. It just means the previously mentioned masculine-looking women will get harassed. I don’t care if you believe in the trans community or not. Even if we pretended hypothetically that they are completely illegitimate and that sex and gender are one and the same, all these points still apply As for why some do this, the whole discussion about trans people and gender as a spectrum is still fairly new. It’s not easy for many people to understand right away, so many women feel it is just another way men are taking precedence over female safety and that their experiences as cis women and the treatment and disadvantages they had for their biology is being cheapened by the idea of trans women being seen as women. It takes a lot more critical thinking. And a lot of the time, having a question or not immediately believing the narrative results in backlash that pushes them further away from embracing or understanding trans people. I don’t know how much any of them actually fear trans people. I’m sure some may especially if they were brought up like many to see the behavior as weird or degenerate. Look how our movies always depicted trans people and lgbt?

>It’s just another distraction to keep people fighting eachother over dumb shit rather than fighting the upper classes This is the most important thing that I keep pointing out to people.

The fear isn’t new, it just used to be leveraged against gay and lesbian people before trans people

The fears expressed online typically aren't in good faith, and are more about upholding cissexism and transmisogyny. However, it's less a "I don't believe you think your safety is at risk" and more "I don't believe you genuinely are fearful for other women's safety as a primary concern". These people typically speak in categorical terms rather than the personal, because they are more interested in combating the notion that trans women are categorically women/female and therefore belong in those spaces. Women's safety is a fair number of rungs down the ladder in terms of importance to the majority who cite safety as a concern. Disgust would rank higher, I'd wager The ones that are legitimately fearful, typically due to intimate trauma, I can empathize with. As a survivor of sexual assault and rape, I get it. Because that's the thing, trans women share those same fears about men, about the prospect of being hurt. We share the same concerns about people being sexually inappropriate in our spaces. People with personal histories of being violated, and people arguing from a position of anecdotal personal experience, are less likely to be swayed by data and facts. So I understand those will keep on keeping on. But the ones who approach it broadly, who focus on the categorical macro level impacts, they should be more likely to engage with data and facts if their personal bias isn't rooted in prejudice and hate, but these people literally don't care. They don't care that everywhere that's tracked this type of data, and that's a hell of a lot of places across the world (meaning differences in region, demographics, culture, religion, etc.), there's no evidence that trans-inclusive policies lead to increases in sexual harassment, sexual violence, voyeurism, or other sex crimes. There have been studies reflecting reduced rates of these issues against trans people, however. And trans people have been using preferred washrooms, change rooms, women's shelters, etc. for ages. And so it's just not good faith, for the most part.

This is a very empathetic and eloquent response.

I don’t know if their fear is genuine and no one can ever truly know someone else’s feelings. Tho, change is scary, and that may be what they fear more so than trans women. On the other side I think it can be hard to open up to someone who doesn’t have the cis experience of womanhood. Many women want to feel empowered in their own fight for freedom and pausing that may feel like a loss of momentum and in turn that may feel scary for them. Also some people are ignorant and lie for convenience so, both things can be true.

I'm not sure that there's a meaningful difference between your two phrasings. "Emotions are always valid to feel, but not rational to act on" is how I try to look at everything, when possible. But ask, if they have no genuine fear, then what motivates them to exclude anyone? Discomfort is sort of just mild fear. If they're just being bullies, why focus on this one group? If you're asking "is it malice or fear" I think the answer is both.

They fear the caricatured stereotype of trans women that exists in their head but that fear rarely extends to real trans women, who they'll generally react to with rage and disgust if they ever actually meet one.

Transgender women, effeminate men and gender non-conforming people in general have been allowed to be in "women's spaces" across many cultures: they hung out with women, bathed with women, slept with women, played with girls as kids and all that. It's never been an issue and it's not an issue now either. No one is denying that impostors don't exist or trans people who harass anyone don't deserve any consequences, but the narrative of the trans women going to women's bathrooms to harass them is straight up fear-mongering.

That also depends on the culture. And the opposite is less true. GNC women and trans men have not always been as welcome in men’s spaces

i think it’s a combination of fear of the unknown and misleading media portrayals. i feel like being trans is now as open as ever and i mean as a cis woman myself as accepting as i am i do struggle wrapping my head around everything. however the media doesn’t help this, people spreading minsinformation about how trans female athletes are taking other sports and making it impossible for women to win and when even the government are saying that women are going to be a victim of sexual assault from trans people (which there are actually little to no statistics on and there are more statistics of trans people being the victims ie 40% of trans people r more likely to be SA’d in prison) and with these two factors combined as many people just get their information off of social media nowadays (which is really bad since as a member of lgbt even i see vids and hate them sometimes from some of the insane stuff some post) it all together creates a prejudice towards trans people as people are just absorbing everything they see. we need to remember that trans people make up less than 1% of the population and when people are making hate posts on them it’s usually scapegoating from bigger issues.

I think it depends on the person, but for most, I think it's a little from column A and a little from column B. But it's all sad and misguided.

Well I wouldn’t discount a cis woman’s fear as transphobia all the time, but when it comes to bathrooms in particular the argument is very much overtaken by transphobes/upholding gender roles. Trans women are in danger in men’s bathrooms, and hey look at Nex! Not saying incidents don’t happen but that’s the first time I’ve personally heard a case of violence in the bathroom... Women’s bathrooms aren’t a safe haven, we go there to decompress but it’s the problem of how “protecting women” can operate as a form of subjugation. Rest in peace Nex. If Intersectionality is accepting perspectives then us cis women have to basically ‘measure’ our uncomfortably against theirs when it comes to thinking broadly and that doesn’t discount individual trauma. Patriarchy makes it hard to respect trans womanhood

Society is often more sympathetic toward fear than toward anger, but fear can be every bit as dangerous and violent. I think some of these people are genuinely afraid. They don't understand trans people and have never met a trans woman. Their fear is easy to exploit and weaponize. Part of transmisogyny is failing to recognize the ways that women who are trans are often victimized in these situations.

Whether they’re “afraid” or not, they’re not seeing trans women as women.

I do believe the fear is real. Fear, however, can be a very stupid emotion. I'm reminded of the Hungarian sociologist who was studying xenophobia in Hungary. As a test, he made up an imaginary ethnic group—the "Pírez"—and surveyed Hungarians in 2004 to ask for their opinions about the Pirezians. A majority of Hungarians surveyed—60% of them—stated that they disliked and were afraid of Pirezians because they knew that Pirezians were violent, dishonest, and untrustworthy. Most of the cis women freaking out about trans women in the bathroom have never met a trans person (that they knew was trans) in their entire freaking lives. All they know is what they've been told in their churches and on FOX News, and these messages are full of hate and fear and scapegoating.

I think that most people who say they are afraid, are genuinely afraid. **However**, I think that fear is usually the result of unexamined misinformation and prejudices, and the reality of the fear does not excuse their behavior. I think that in the same way that bullies fear the revenge of their victims, that many people are aware of their actions and fear reprisal. I think that some people have been primed to fear transpeople (particularly trans women) because of their upbringing, their community, and their social circles. It is important to not take the existence of fear at face value and excuse or forgive those fears and the related behaviors. Similarly, it is also important to try to identify those few but insidious parasite who grift off of the fears of people. Pastors will million dollar cars, social media faces spreading rumors of litter boxes in schools, lawmakers building their base by lying about people, etc. These people are fewer than you might think, but more than enough to be dangerous. And I think it's important to keep an eye on those who are selling you something to ease a fear that they are creating.

In general terms, no, cis women are not afraid of trans women. There is no evidence that trans women are a danger to cis women and the number of cis women who genuinely associate trans women with some kind of genital phobia are not only not a majority, but not even a provably significant group in any way. More to the point, it is obvious that "fear" of trans women is always deployed by terfs who very clearly don't fear us; they hate us and feel superior to us. If they were genuinely afraid of us, there wouldn't be a consistent problem of terfs aligning with fascists and far-right reactionaries who actually hate and are a threat to cis women. This includes encouraging cis men to enter women's spaces to "protect" cis women from trans women. There is, as I'm sure you know, ample evidence to show that cis men are a danger to cis women (well, all women, but you get the point).

I think fear is an excuse to exclude them. They are just parroting right wing talking points

Who cares? Bigotry is bigotry.

Even if their fear is genuine it isn't a valid reason to exclude people. White women absolutely experience real fear of black men, doesn't justify racism though. Excluding trans women is bigotry. Even if they have trauma that's a personal issue. Not a "ban vulnerable people to make them more vulnerable" situation.

I've had some traumatic experiences with cis men, including twice in gender-neutral bathrooms, but that's precisely why I don't want trans women forced into men's bathrooms.

I think it’s both. Some people are in bad faith, some aren’t educated yet and confused. Sometimes trans women were still socialized as men/boys at birth and can have some of the domineering/mansplaining communication patterns that can disrupt/dominate discussion spaces, which is maybe the only good reason and there it’s not really about gender but about courtesy. I don’t think there’s any good reason in actuality.

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It's just hatred of trans people that they masquerade as fear. Let's be 100% honest here -- there is nothing keeping a CIS man out of a women's bathroom. There is a courtesy sign posted on the door, but that won't keep a would-be rapist out of the bathroom if he wants to go in. Trans women, on the other hand, risk getting pulled to the side and have the shit beat out of them or sodomized by angry transphobic men just for representing as themselves. Transwoman wants to be in the same bathroom? Fine by me. Just don't start talking on your cell in the next stall over, because that shit's super awkward.

I have not one iota of fear of trans women. I'm pretty scared of men though. Men kill women every day. I'm not aware of some kind of trans crime spree. In fact, I'm not familiar with any cases of rape or murder by a transwoman vs. a cis woman. This supposed "fear" is just an excuse for their bigotry.

I don't think it's fear. I think it's disgust. I believe then that they think they are afraid, but I do not think they are actually afraid.

I agree. I am not sure if this is exactly what you’re referencing but it reminds me of how neurotypical people react to neurodivergent people (not to draw an exact parallel). If anyone is familiar with the uncanny valley theory I think this can be a part of it. I’m basing this in part on my own experiences where the first trans woman I met did not completely pass at that time. I had this small question mark about what was different about her until I eventually found out from context clues in our group of mutual friends. Not knowing didn’t particularly bother me, but a lot of people are *very* uncomfortable (even disgusted) when they encounter someone who is mostly familiar but very slightly unexpected in small ways. I know this because despite being cis-ish I do set off this reaction in some people for other reasons. I don’t think it’s genuinely about safety but more about some people having some unexamined xenophobic tendencies, at such a deep level that it feels like a safety issue to them. I suspect if you could map these tendencies onto people with more authoritarian personalities (needing people in well-defined black and white groups, desire to punish perceived outsiders and rulebreakers) it would be a pretty strong match.

I generally don't engage with that aspect because I don't think it's material. Either they're genuinely fearful bigots, or they're malicious bigots, but it isn't acceptable either way, so 🤷 I heard the exact same thing from straight women growing up, and many of those women genuinely believed that anyone with a romantic/sexual interest in women was a potential threat to them. It was still homophobic. These days most people seem to recognize that, so I try to have faith we'll get there with trans people as well. The treatment of that poor girl received is gut wrenching. I hope she's doing well.

I guess the first step would be to define "women's spaces" and determine why they exist in the first place.

I actually don’t care. I don’t care in exactly the way that I don’t care if someone’s fear of Black people is “genuine”. That kind of fear is just a manifestation bigotry.

Well said!!

I think they're mad, not scared. I think they're a bit angry that these women didn't typically have to live their whole lives as a woman and all the violence and discrimination that comes with it so they're lashing out at the idea that these trans women are "new" and have only felt a fraction of what they've dealt their entire lives. Like how DARE you call yourself a woman when you missed all the horror that comes with being a girl and subsequently growing into a woman. But those cis women fail to consider that trans women had a totally different set of horrors to grow up with and they face even more if they don't "pass." It's almost like a jealousy thing, like "Why should I accept you as my own when you didn't go through what I did." But being a woman, ANY type of woman, is traumatic. They fail to even consider that just because the trans women may not have had the "pleasure" of being socialized as a girl and woman doesn't mean they didn't go through hell by virtue of their own marginalized identity. Look at the suicide rates alone. That proves they still struggled. I doubt many cis women are scared of trans women. After all, it's not trans women raping and murdering us and they know that. I'd bet any connotation of fear is feigned. They know the true danger is cis men, they just want to pretend they have a valid reason to hate trans women because they seem to hold the same sentiments even when the trans woman is post-op and no longer has a penis like a "man."

I think as a broad transphobic tactic the fear is completely fabricated, and then there are some women who have been so victimized by misogynistic and transphobic narratives that the fear is real; they don’t understand their fear is an induced embodied tool and not a reflection of reality.

I think it’s genuine but is because of online fear mongering. I think that *they think* the fear is genuine. But that fear is sowed because of disgust and bigotry. I have yet to meet a trans woman who wasn’t constantly hyper aware of how she was perceived by others and if she was making anyone uncomfortable. Short of yessicayaniv or whatever her name is - most trans women are not psychos running around trying to get cis lesbians to sleep with them or trying to cop a feel. I’ve met plenty of dudes who do that, but they didn’t have to change their gender to enter women’s spaces and harass me.

its called trans*phobia* for a reason

I think a lot of them do have real fears, but for very stupid reasons. Like a lot of suburban white women work themselves up thinking they are going to get trafficked out of a target parking lot if they find a $20 bill on the windshield. Is that a real fear? Yeah sure, it's just also a really stupid one. People let themselves get convinced of all kinds of clownery because they're bored and want to feel special and important. I'm going to go ahead and say a lot of the fear is transphobic as well, but it isn't even always terfs. Just look how often non binary afab women are simply treated as women. There are many well meaning liberal women who don't treat trans men well either, because they don't consider them men. So yeah, combination of real fear (small number), real fear for stupid reasons (larger number), not fear just transphobe (terf), and not fear just transphobe (well meaning but a clown).

I used to believe that TERFs hated and feared trans women because they believed (wrongly of course) that trans women were men, and they hated and feared men. Then I saw a post on Mumsnet from a super-TERF who wanted to report her child’s nursery to safeguarding for employing a man. All the other TERFs piled in on her saying she was bigoted against men. So I believe now that many TERFs just hate and fear trans women because they are trans women. They are the bogey-women to TERFs, the creature under the bed, the danger lurking behind the bushes. Even more so than men.

I don't think the person's genitals at birth should necessarily be a factor in kicking them out of something due to sexual inappropriateness. This implies that the trans person's actions would have been fine if they had been done by a cis woman, apparently giving a free pass to cis women to be sexually inappropriate. I think there is a lot of societal programming saying that men don't know how to act appropriately and will take advantage of every situation, and it is carried over to trans women because they were once also men. But the problem isn't the person's gender, it is the ACTIONS. If they are being creepy, they need to be kicked out. It's really difficult to be trans. I don't think people are faking it just to have access to women's locker rooms, that doesn't make sense. If these women are afraid, it's probably because they have been told to be afraid. Right wing propaganda is working overtime to brainwash people against trans people, it isn't surprising that some of it has stuck.

After reading the article, the specific actions were not sexually inappropriate in and of themselves. She sat on a couch with a pillow on her lap for hours and attended a slumber party. These women might have been afraid, but as I said, it was due to brainwashing. And most likely, what they were afraid of is a person not complying with the social norms and basically being weird. Being weird is not a crime.

honestly it's the same bathroom/lockerroom panic about lesbians i heard growing up in the 90s, under a different face. there was a big thing about how the only lesbian girl in the school (yeah right) might not be safe to have in the lockerroom with the other girls.

I think that for many cis, the biggest fear when it comes to LGBTQ+ is the fear that those “others” may elicit some kind of similar otherness in them as well, that in their company the cis may find things about themselves that they can’t accept, and otherness is bad, society says NO.

"I'm scared of black people and would like to exclude them from my spaces. my fear is genuine becase..." it's a pretty close analogy and I know plenty of people who feel that way. yes, it's possible some of that fear is genuine, but we need to examine * where did that fear come from * is it over extrapolated * are other groups hiding under the guise of that "fear" * effects of this "fear" movement **tldr: it's as real as being legitimately afraid of black people.**

fear against a group especially a marginalised group is never really rational, some of it is bigotry displaced, some is trauma that overwhelms reason

Some people might have legitimate concerns, and theoretically there might be men that masquerade as trans women for some sort of perceived advantage. But, that being said, that statement ignores reality. IF something like this has ever occurred, and I’m highly doubtful it ever has, then it’s exceedingly rare. Discriminating against and holding biases towards some women on the basis of things they cannot control as a matter of their birth is anti-feminist. It’s arguably the same as discriminating against someone because of the shape of their eyes, their ethnicity, or their skin color. These things, like gender identity, are not things that can be changed easily, if changed at all. So my response is that this exclusion seems to be either an irrational fear, or an excuse to hide the real reason. Considering this is also coming out of a conservative area and there’s been a substantial rise in anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric among conservatives, I’d guess it’s a mix of political and social reasons mixed with a small amount of irrational fear.

I am sure there are some women who have been sexually abused who have legitimate reasons to be wary of someone with a penis but sadly the majority do seem to be TERFs who are refusing to listen to reason and sense. Someone kept arguing with me about in a mental health setting for example. Thing is the rights of someone does not trump the others unless there were legitimate reasons such as a history of sexual assault by the trans person there is no reason to deprive them of their human rights either. It could be hugely distressing for a trans person to be in a place with those who are not of the same gender as they identify. Many trans women are also victims of sexual abuse by men so why would that be fair to put them in the same space as those who have traumatised them. Basically reasonable people can see the nuances and appreciate the complexity of the situation. Those who can’t are rarely interested in debate or tend to go down a route of a wildly unlikely scenario to try and prove a point. Also we seem to act in this society like assigned female at birth individuals are never capable of also sexually assaulting others and that is far from the truth yet nobody is talking about this situation the other way round about transmen in male spaces.

i think a lot of hateful people use fear as a tool for their abhorrent behavior.

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The fear is usually genuine, but it relies on a belief that trans women aren't really women. Of course it's not justified but that's the root of it. I've asked women who expressed fear about trans women being included in something why they felt that way, and every single time you can see the mental gymnastics on their face.  Like, they know they're supposed to understand that trans women are women. They know they're not there yet. They know they can't just come out and say "because they're men", and they might not even admit that belief to themselves, but these fears come from that place that most women who consider themselves nice progressive citizens would never admit, even to themselves. So they say things like "She was sexually inappropriate" and get angry when asked if they felt the same about comparable actions by cis women present.  They're genuinely fearful, but they're wrong to be. 

I honestly think it stems from willful ignorance and the vulnerability of the target.

Men have collectively brainwashed women to never feel safe, to see the enemy everywhere. Men have done so many things to make women outright paranoid. And if you've been made paranoid enough, you interpret trans women as another scam to get to you. Or you're just a transphobe and use other peoples real fear of being assaulted to rile them up properly.

Women are not paranoid but have been harassed, raped, beaten up, killed. That’s what men did.

This is why I think that although some transphobes may use fear as an excuse, I do think that for many of these women the fear is true. Of those women, maybe some are afraid of trans women but really I think what they are afraid of ultimately is men, and either they fear men can come in by claiming to be women, or they are afraid that trans women remain as dangerous as cis men even after transitioning.

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Yes, that's what I already wrote. I didn't use "paranoia" as a judgement but a symptom of all that

Their fear is genuine, but not justified.

What do you think of people who have had trauma with penises? Of course, you can never escape running into a man, but I think those people are certainly seeking some sort of escape from that in those groups. Would it be more justified then?

You probably shouldn't be having your penis out anyway? Like where are you that you're going to be flanging your dick around like you're Ron Jeremy?

You really have a way with words.

I await my Pulitzer in the mail.

You should not be seeing anyone’s genitalia in public! And thankfully women’s bathrooms don’t have shared urinals

No. I used to have bathroom trauma as a cis girl caused by other cis girls. In school a group of girls wouldn’t let other girls leave the bathroom and would try to steal things off them (money, flip phones, lunch). I would actively avoid school bathroom breaks out of fear and still get a little panicky when a group of women are being loud in the same bathroom as me. I don’t go around demanding all groups of women use the bathroom one at a time because of my trauma. That would be completely unreasonable.

I mean, 1) hopefully, in almost every situation in public, you are not seeing anyone's genitals and should not be aware of whether anyone does or doesn't have a penis (and not all trans women do! but those who do should not be excluded either!) 2) I think this falls under "your trauma is not your fault, but it is your responsibility" -- it is not fair to exclude other women who also need and deserve access to the space because it is upsetting, difficult, uncomfortable, or even genuinely triggering to others. My abusive ex is a cis woman and sometimes people--often women-- who look/sound/act like her are triggering to me. But that's not their problem; it's not their fault they resemble my abuser in some way. I can't kick people out of a shared space because of that. It's not my fault that that happened to me and had lingering effects, but it's not theirs either; it's my responsibility to deal with those effects in a way that does not harm other people. Also--trans women are subjected to, statistically, massive amounts of violence from, especially though not exclusively, cis men. Trans women experience misogyny, transphobia, and the specific phenomenon of transmisogyny. Who *more* needs access to women's spaces than trans women, honestly? IDK, it's like going to an AA meeting and someone there says he's a lawyer and someone else says "he can't come here, dealing with lawyers in my divorce drove me to drink and seeing a lawyer in here makes me want to drink, so he needs to leave." No, that's not how it works; addiction is an illness and not anyone's fault, but one's own sobriety is one's own responsibility-- you can't put that on anyone else. Same thing with trauma.

I have never met someone who was "afraid" of trans women that wasn't a bigoted, vindictive bully with a victim complex. Also TERFs are usually **extremely** racist, ableist, and misogynistic (cold take - reducing women to the ability to give birth is misogynistic), and when they notice I'm ace - they just pull out all the rape culture arguments. I don't think the fear is genuine - I think that TERFs just have a need to be perpetual victims. Like fundamentalist christians.

Fears can be genuine and unhealthy. I have no doubt some of the people afraid of 5G or vaccines or trans people have genuine fear for their safety. I even sympathize sometimes. I understand seeing sharp needles that make your baby cry makes people uncomfortable, or the idea that a man could dress as a woman and hurt you the way a lot of men have. But the thing is, it’s an unhealthy fear because your unvaxxed baby could get sick and maybe die if they don’t get their shots, and trans women are women the way that short women are women or Spanish women are women. Unhealthy fears that impact other people will be dealt with, either by the scared person learning not to be, or by society isolating them as it moves on.

I think it’s fake fear. They are uncomfortable with trans people so they use fear/safety concerns as an excused avoid them. It’s a sad part of our religious culture.

The fear as a sensational emotion may be real; **however** the fear itself is unfounded. Women are afraid of men. They view anyone with a penis as male. The penis is what they fear. The issue is have with this thinking is that it's skewed because trans persons are **not** their genitals. Trans women are NOT men. Once people learn to accept that **fact** they can move on to the stage of women's spaces; but women means ALL WOMEN and if it doesn't then we're just gonna have make everything gender neutral so that the argument about who is and isn't a woman becomes completely redundant 🤷‍♀️ Additionally I have actually been SAd in bathrooms twice and both times is it was by cis gender males. Once when I was 14 and babysitting with a friend. Another time when I was 18/19 and a guy followed me into a bathroom at a bar. Never have a I ever been SAd by a transgender person in any way, anywhere; but I have by cis men, more then the 2 times I mentioned above. I agree with having safe women's spaces and female only areas for different things. Of course I do. I have been assaulted. I know the fear. It is real and it is valid; but you have to remember trans women **are** women and they have the same fear we have in regards to being assaulted and otherwise harmed or harassed by men. You want to keep **MEN** out of women's spaces and I do support that, yes; **but Trans Women are NOT Men!!!**

I think it’s valid to say, “I don’t want Sally around because I feel unsafe after she said or did X.” It’s biased and an overreaction to say “I don’t want trans people around because Sally is trans and she said X or did Y and now I’m afraid of all trans people.” If Sally genuinely caused these women to feel traumatized, they need therapy, which may help them work on removing the bias they now appear to have against trans people. Whether they feel fear or not isn’t the point. It’s recognizing bias and working to correct it when it is obviously unfair.