bathrooms for female people, regardless of appearance; not feminine people, regardless of sex

I am a woman with polycystic ovarian syndrome. I have hirsutism and have to shave my face and chest daily, as people do not accept a woman with a beard. I do not believe in gender, as I believe it is inherently harmful to all women and girls, intersex people, homosexual and bisexual men. I have been told many times by uninformed people that this means I am either intersex, transgender or nonbinary. I am not. I have been told that I have more "privilege" than transgender women, despite the fact I am infertile, I have a serious endocrinological disorder, suffer from sex-based oppression etc. Because I am not gender-conforming, I have immense fear I will not be accepted when entering the bathroom that I have the right to enter. Every time I use a public bathroom I am on high alert. If gender did not exist, it wouldn't matter if I had hirsutism.

#australia #gendernonconforming #polycisticovariansyndrome #hirsutism #beard #bathrooms #toilets

appropriate workplace behaviour

We have a man who decided to come out as 'a woman', first wearing lipstick and nail polish, and then moved onto women’s clothing. We were forced at work to share the female bathrooms with this man.

I’m not fussed as to what one wants to do, but I do feel uncomfortable in the workplace having this man tell me what colour lipstick and nail polish to wear, and discuss his bra-fitting experience. Honestly, as a woman I don’t discuss these things with anywone I barely know, let alone a work colleague.

It seems to me that it's about showing and telling everyone what’s going on. Mind you this person still had their long beard! And would talk about war weapons and machine guns. I never felt comfortable. I was worried that I would walk into the bathroom and he would be there.

I feel women are being pushed into something we don’t all want. Our voices are being squashed by a new something I’m not sure about.

#australia #workplace #professionalism #exhibitionism #bathrooms #discomfort

the new trans activism triggering childhood sexual abuse trauma

Becoming aware of gender ideology and the activities of trans activists has triggered feelings linked to my experience of childhood sexual abuse (CSA). I have not felt these feelings so strongly for many years but the sexual objectification of women by AGP men, the threats, silencing, and gaslighting are all very evocative of that earlier experience and have raised my anxiety levels considerably. This in turn has caused a relapse of my physical health as I also live with chronic fatigue syndrome / myalgic encephalomyelitis (CFS/ME). At one point the anxiety attacks and physical and cognitive exhaustion were so overwhelming that I felt in need of crisis support. I looked up my local rape crisis centre as knew that there would be someone at the end of the phone and I just desperately needed a listening ear from a woman who would understand the link between CSA and my response to transactivism and gender ideology. When I found the centre online I was totally dismayed to see that they now offer a service to trans women. I did not ring them as I was really worried that the women staffing the service would not understand my experience and would condemn me as transphobic. At that moment I felt very alone and that this service had been robbed from me. It is hard to convey just how much despair I felt, emotionally locked back into historical abuse by men, and by the current actions of men. I'm now, a few weeks later, in a much better place emotionally but I am still experiencing CFS/ME relapse and don't how long it will take me to recover.

#unitedkingdom #genderideology #safety #triggering #childhoodsexualabuse #trauma #recovery #support