Gender again. Sorry!

[theclaud]

Do you think a paralysed girl or woman who needs intimate washing should have the right to insist that her carer is female if she wishes, as opposed to someone who is male or simply identifies as the female gender?

Ignoring the 'paralysed' bit, which is there for emotive purposes (a bit like men justifying their sex-buying habits by harping on about the needs of hypothetical quadriplegics), does this right exist currently - in hospitals, for example? I mean, I can obviously refuse whatever care is offered, but if the available person providing it is male, can I demand that he is replaced with a woman?

 

[icowden]

In toilets? In real life, not in a heavily filtered static image? The vast majority of the time yes. Women who identify as men often pass as male more easily, but that's a question for you men as to whether you are happy with them using male facilities.

Which really is quite a simple answer. Men generally speaking don't care who uses their facilities. We have the advantage of being male you see. If anything I'd have thought a Trans Man would be incredibly intimidated by using a mens toilet as not all men are the kind, generous and open types you find on this forum.

With regards to vice versa, Trans Women are generally very easy to spot.

 

[Bromptonaut]

Ignoring the 'paralysed' bit, which is there for emotive purposes (a bit like men justifying their sex-buying habits by harping on about the needs of hypothetical quadriplegics), does this right exist currently - in hospitals, for example? I mean, I can obviously refuse whatever care is offered, but if the available person providing it is male, can I demand that he is replaced with a woman?

FWIW my partner was in hospital over Christmas with Pneumonia. At her worst she was unable to walk* and struggled to use a commode. The Health Care Assistant helping her pull her pants up was male.

* Funny thing how one's profession intrudes in such circumstances; I found myself thinking that's what a slam-dunk for 12 points in PIP Descriptor for Moving Around looks like...

​

 

[icowden]

Ignoring the 'paralysed' bit, which is there for emotive purposes (a bit like men justifying their sex-buying habits by harping on about the needs of hypothetical quadriplegics), does this right exist currently - in hospitals, for example? I mean, I can obviously refuse whatever care is offered, but if the available person providing it is male, can I demand that he is replaced with a woman?

Care is provided as needed. If you particularly want to be cared for by a person of your own gender, that can be requested. I'm not aware of people requesting the opposite gender but if a health assessment felt it was warranted, I would have thought it could be done.

 

[icowden]

FWIW my partner was in hospital over Christmas with Pneumonia. At her worst she was unable to walk* and struggled to use a commode. The Health Care Assistant helping her pull her pants up was male.

However, if she had felt uncomfortable with that she could have requested a female HCA if one was available.

 

[Bromptonaut]

However, if she had felt uncomfortable with that she could have requested a female HCA if one was available.

I doubt whether one was available and certainly not without causing significant perturbation to both her own treatment and that of others.

 

[AuroraSaab]

Under the Equality Act as it currently stands, many things like intimate care and women only wards are a right. Men who identify as women can legally be excluded from such single sex spaces and such jobs. Trans activists wish to remove these exemptions. Unfortunately the influence of Stonewall and co means many organisations are under the impression that they have to allow trans identifying men access when that isn't the case.

Any person should be able to request same sex carers, including men. The more serious the disability, the more important having that choice is. Here is a woman, paralysed from the neck down, describing her intimate care and why it is so important to her to have a female carer.:


View: https://twitter.com/hen10freeman/status/1603022204467351556


"Because this intimate personal care (washing, catheter, using a pump for faeces) is a total giving over of trust and lack of dignity - even with women and my own mum I find it hard. However, I do not have the luxury of stepping away, it’s necessary".

Huge difference between a one off incident of a male carer helping you pull your pants up and requiring regular intimate care

 

[mudsticks]

He is. And he will ride a bicycle at any time of the day or night. My point is that if you are going to have cycling forums, they really ought to include members who have interesting or singular perspectives on, well... cycling and forums. On these eligibility criteria he knocks it out of the park, and yet he (and other valuable contributors) are excluded (often by technocrats who rarely have anything interesting to say about anything) and often impugned or misrepresented by people who don't know what they're talking about. It's to the detriment of the forum. I take a very different position to Sam on the subject under discussion, but posting things on CC has long been one of the ways I work out what I think about things. If you don't create a meaningful community where complex subjects can be ranged over, unpicked, skimmed, plumbed, or allowed to ping off in other directions, it's hardly surprising if what you get is entrenchment, amongst the community and at the margins of it.

Agree,
Having to 'splain or work out my position on things with a fairly randomly opinionated selection of persons is (mainly) why I'm here too.


I've got a whole heap of people close by who will roughly agree a roughly similar position to my own if I just want 'agreeable' conversation.

That's not always the case here.

 

[winjim]

Mr C, I'm talking about next to not in front of/behind. I honestly find it hard to believe that you don't make the instantaneous milli-second-long safeguarding assessments that we all make when we are out with our kids all the time. Perhaps your partner was doing it.

We all know it's men that are the risk. Not all men but enough of them for it to be a problem.

Parenthood is a constant dynamic risk assessment. I can't imagine I would consider a man watching a children's film to be enough of a threat to need to mitigate it in that way.

ISTR there is some evidence that children benefit from spending time with fathers compared to mothers precisely because mothers are more risk averse so fathers are more likely to expose the kids to risk. Teaches them where the boundaries are. The example I remember is rough & tumble play and knowing when to stop, that sort of thing.

 

[newfhouse]

Wherever they want, you started the 'traditional feminine looking' bollock$.

It's the ones that were born with a pair of balls that shouldn't be in there.

That’s not an answer to the question I asked.

 

[AuroraSaab]

Parenthood is a constant dynamic risk assessment. I can't imagine I would consider a man watching a children's film to be enough of a threat to need to mitigate it in that way.

Isn't that because you've already made that automatic safeguarding decision? You've assessed the risk. He's in a children's film with his family so he's probably OK. What about the middle aged guy who's definitely on his own watching the Paw Patrol Movie? Do you sit next to him or does your toddler? Would you be happy for older kids to sit next to a lone man if they went to the cinema on their own?

Why are women more risk averse? In terms of safeguarding do you think it has to do with experience, experience which is borne out by statistics?

 

[newfhouse]

The vast majority of the time yes.

generally very easy to spot

So you’d make a visual assessment, but through an abundance of caution you may end up considering a (biological) woman dangerous simply because of how she looks. Is that right?

(Edited for clarity.)

 

[winjim]

Why are women more risk averse?

Sperm is cheap, eggs are expensive.

Essentially the same reason you perceive men as a threat, basically.

 

[Ian H]

However, if she had felt uncomfortable with that she could have requested a female HCA if one was available.

My recent experience is that there weren't any male nurses available (two female nurses discussing a male patient who objected to them performing a pretty intimate procedure on him).

 

[mudsticks]

Sperm is cheap, eggs are expensive.

And to be fair to AS men are far far far more likely to be the perps of abuse of women and children rather than vice versa..

And yes I know that women can be abusers too, I am aware of that , but the risk from men is disproportionate.

As women , even if brought up by progressive mother's who are fully on board with the principals of equality, we are taught from a young age, to be more cautious, more watchful take precautions.
Especially around men.

That's not for no good reason.

It can't just be dismissed with the relative value of gametes or physical workload childbearing, or even the (sometimes) greater investment of mothers in childcare.

It goes far deeper than that.