Let's run a thought experiment.
What would my life look like if organisations like @SpeakUp4WomenNZ and @Womans_Place_UK got their way and all the policies they advocate for regarding transgender women were put into place?
How would this affect me?
Firstly, I would no longer be able to participate in women's sporting activities.
I would be shunted to either men's teams - where I would be the worst participant due to my lack of endogenous testosterone - or I would only be able to participate in mixed sports as a male.
For a lot of people, this probably doesn't seem that bad. But having to be marked as 'male' to participate in any kind of sporting activity would not feel great.
I'd also be suddenly segregated from my peers and friends - other women - and that would suck.
But it gets worse.
To get changed for those sporting activities - say swimming - I would be forced to use either male facilities or gender-neutral facilities (if available).
Because neutral facilities are not always available, this would mean baring my breasts and vagina to a room full of men.
I'll tell you now, I'd refuse!
There is no way in hell I'm getting changed in front of 1-30 strange men when I have a woman's body!
So where neutral facilities aren't available, I can't participate.
Oh sure, I could awkwardly change in my car or something, but would you?
But we'll get to these 'clever alternatives' later on.
The next part of our journey brings us to identification.
Under this regime, I would not be allowed an 'F' marker on my identity documents, such as passport or birth certificate.
This instantly limits my travel options.
On top of that, every time I show my ID, I'm immediately opening myself to being discriminated against. Any business, employer, facility or event run by a prejudiced person will now have the option of discriminating against me - of refusing me service or participation.
This would also extend to housing. So now I'm in a position where it's more difficult to find a place to live, to get a job, or to generally participate in life.
My life gets incrementally more difficult with each step.
Which brings us to bathrooms.
Unable to use female bathrooms, I now have to either risk using men's bathrooms as someone who is female in appearance, or find neutral facilities (if they exist).
This restricts my ability to move around freely in society. It makes just PEEING an extra difficulty in life.
But I can still exist in this society, right? One where going to the toilet, finding employment and housing, participating in sport, or accessing basic services is now more difficult?
Sure I can.
But it's a second-class existence compared to someone who isn't transgender.
But wait! What about healthcare?
In this brave, transphobic new world, I would no longer have access to hormones. HRT would be reserved for cis women. Transgender surgeries would be banned.
As osteoporosis progresses in my bones, I seek black market medication to function.
Black market medication I may no longer be able to afford, with my job prospects and housing situation in the toilet. Sports is now a laughable pipe-dream; my bones will shatter in contact sports - especially with males.
If I have surgery complications, I must pay my own way.
That is, if I can find anyone who can treat me.
And should I be sexually assaulted in this uniquely bigoted society, I will not be permitted to seek out crisis services for women, even if I was raped vaginally.
I'm unequivocally barred from 'sex segregated' services.
My best option would be the few men's support groups for survivors of sexual abuse. Which is better than nothing, right?
Except I was almost certainly raped by a man, and now I'm expected to talk about my rape to a room EXCLUSIVELY full of them; a demographic I no longer trust.
I'm better off trying to deal with this myself.
And if I'm the subject of intimate partner violence, it's the same deal. I'm either banned from appropriate services, or I'm just on my own.
On my own, with dwindling resources in a society EXPLICITLY DESIGNED to be hostile to me.
And that's my real point here.
I could still survive in this scenario. I've already transitioned and I'm smart. I could find 'clever solutions' to a lot of these explicitly hostile changes, but that doesn't make them ANY LESS explicitly hostile and dehumanising!
This is a society where transgender people will struggle pretty hard.
This is a world where transition no longer looks like a viable option. It's a world where our mentors and elders eventually die off, from poor healthcare and poverty.
It's a world designed to eradicate us.
This is the world that these people want. Where it's so damn hard to be transgender that people with gender dysphoria just give up.
And the ones that manage to transition with black market drugs and back-alley surgeries are still seen as pariahs, and never allowed a real life.
So resist them.
What they want is an end of our existence.
They're not fighting for women's rights. They don't care about 'women and girls'.
They just want transgender people exterminated in the nicest and least violent way possible - and with the least blood on their hands.
You can follow @CateSpice.
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