Suppose for a moment in our world where females have no disadvantages in terms of the worst-case scenario in relation to their male counterparts. Let’s also suppose that boys and girls in our world are developmentally treated equally and that when they enter adulthood they share equally in terms of economics, employment and advancement, education, and political representation. Let’s also suppose that females don’t suffer at the hands of male pattern violence because both males and females share equally in terms of strength and are evenly matched to where neither side can overpower the other.
Now ask yourself if - in this imaginary world of ours – it would matter to anyone if a certain number of males wanted to identify themselves as female?
In a world such as this where males and females are equals it realistically wouldn’t matter but, here in the real world it does matter a great deal because women are not equal to men in ways both subtle and overt.
In fact, there are a wide range of inequalities between men and women in terms physical, economic, societal, and political – too many to enumerate in this article but what remains at the heart of it all is the question on Self Identification, or Self-ID: should a man without benefit of gender reassignment surgery have the right to call himself a woman and should that man have the right to access spaces and resources set aside for women?
Some would argue the point that the man in question should have access to those spaces and resources while I, on the other hand, argue the opposite: not only should we not allow this man access to women’s spaces and resources it is dangerous to do so.
I believe women’s spaces such as changing rooms, restrooms, dormitories, and prisons should be segregated based on sex and not allow anyone other than women access to them simply because a man feels like a woman.
Transwomen remain biologically male. Empirical studies also show that most transwomen keep their genitalia and retain a sexual attraction to women. If you believe as I do that that we have designated single-sex spaces for the protection and safety of women from predatory men, then that protection isn’t – and shouldn’t be - removed when a man arrives at them and identifies as a woman.
Either we keep single-sex spaces as they exist in their current form, or we make them mixed-sex spaces and allow predatory men access to them without safeguards and the women can just take their chances.
Which brings me to my point about men who can generously be described as predacious: the motivation of a man who preys on women is his ability of ease of access to women. It has been argued that “nobody wants to be trans” and for some transwomen it’s not a choice but how can we tell the difference between a man who “just wants to pee” and a man who has his desires set on sexually assaulting a woman in an enclosed space?
In 2014, Christopher Hambrook took full advantage of a law in Canada that allows men to identify as women to gain access to women’s shelters where, once inside, he proceeded to sexually assault one of the female residents who was both deaf and homeless. Rather than call the police and have him hauled off to jail for the assault the shelter workers decided it would be better to send him to another shelter where, upon arrival, he proceeded to assault another woman once again sexually.
This is one example in a long list of glaring examples as to why Self-ID is a bad idea and shouldn’t be allowed. A predacious man is predacious and will say or do anything to gain access to his victims. He will pander, equivocate, and outright lie – even going so far as to say he’s a woman in distress or need – if it gets him closer to the targets of his predation. In another glaring example of Self-ID gone horribly wrong, tonight there is a woman sitting in a correctional facility in Chowchilla, California who is pregnant and got pregnant not because she was raped by a male prison guard but by another inmate who self-identifies as transgender.
She was raped by a man regardless of how he identifies. He has a penis, he has testicles and the ability to fertilize female ovum and calling himself a woman doesn’t in any way alter basic and immutable biology because there’s no way a woman, an actual adult human female, could have accomplished this feat.