Naomi, I'm not going to engage with the death threats issued to JKR for the obvious reason that I shouldn't have to explicitly condemn them in order for it to be assumed that I do. There are horrible people, and there are transgender people, and there is inevitably some overlap; but I'm not answerable for that just because I have one aspect of my life in common with such people.
It's a shame that you don't see the similarities between how the word "parent" can have multiple meanings, and how the word "woman" can have the same, but there we are. I've made my point. I hope that you can understand where it's coming from, and perhaps in time understand that the loudest voices in a given community aren't always the most worth listening to. Oh, and I trust that you'll enforce the
Site Rules as they apply to trans people :)
NJ:
// ...[the SNP's bill] requires nothing other than a declaration from a man “I am now a woman” and they have unfettered access to women-only spaces. //
This was never true. What the bill would have done was reduce the barriers required to obtain a Gender Recognition Certificate. But, in the first place, a GRC isn't required to enter women's spaces, for essentially the same reasons that a birth certificate isn't required either; secondly, possessing a GRC isn't a guarantee to enter women's spaces, because sex-specific restrictions can still apply in cases where they are deemed appropriate. So already you're starting off from a misunderstanding.
// You came into this debate and told us all you were a transgender woman. Until then it was an abstract debate, at least inasmuch as it did not involve anybody personally on here. //
I think by now it's been established that I was already an AnswerBank member before this debate started; that I've been an AnswerBank member for a long time, during which multiple debates
on this topic have occurred; and that, at least to anybody who was paying attention, I've long had a personal interest in this topic. And indeed, sporadically, there have been a handful of other accounts created by people on the trans spectrum at some point. So it isn't just my entry into the discussion that made it no longer abstract -- and, since I started out by agreeing that the specific topic of this rapist is one where common sense clearly should apply, it's not like there's no scope for agreement on certain issues even among those approaching from wildly different angles.
// .... a man making a polite request at his local Debenhams to use the women’s changing rooms? That would make it OK? What if some women already there object? //
There's never any harm in asking. If the answer is "no" then you move on to a different shop, if the answer is "yes", then the staff are OK with it; and when the staff literally asked me if I wanted to try the clothes on without my having to, why wouldn't I say "yes"? So far, the answer has only been "no" once, and that was around a decade ago. I'm failing to see the problem here -- it's evidently self-policing. Also, if some fellow women customers did object, then for my part I'd respect their wishes and come back at a later time (although perhaps it would depend too on what the attending staff said).
I'm not trying to cut down debate. I'm just asking you not to patronise me.