Practice English Speaking&Listening with: Dutch: NPO1 Radio debate about the transgender law (English subtitles)

Minister Dekkers works on a new law for better protection ot transgender people.

A letter from a doctor is no longer needed. If you feel like a woman, then you are a woman.

Jurist Caroline Franssen wrote an article for Trouw, shes afraid the new law will cost women their hard fought women's rights.

Welcome to Caroline Franssen and Sophie Scherke and Nora Uitterlind from Transgender Netwerk Nederland.

Mrs. Franssen, you wrote that the minister puts de safety of women aside, what are you afraid of?

I'm not afraid, I notices that the meaning of the word women disappears

and that people with a penis can call themselves women

What will happen?

For example, they can enter changing rooms where you are with your 11 year old daughter

your daugher can walk into a man into a women's changing room

a trans indetified man without surgery

Surgery is not needed according to the minister

The minister says everyone who feels like a women is a woman

Idon't agree, a woman is biological, we are mammals and can't change sex

A man can't become a woman, he can feel like one

he maybe can behave like one, but he can't be one

But there are men who have surgery and transform to women on the outside

Are they women after surgery?

I think they can't become women

but it's a different situation

Are they allowed in a woman's changing room?

So my 11 year old doesn't see a penis

Yes, and your 11 year old daughter can't be raped, because a penis is needed for rape

Mrs. Schers, you are happy with the new law

Yes, big improvement for transgender people

You are a woman, always felt like a woman and had the body of a man

I never had a body of a man. Mrs. Franssen has ideas of when people are men and women

when your man, you're a man. When you're a woman, you're a woman

when you're none, you're none. You know best

That people think about male and female body characteristics is cultural

It was different in other cultures in history

So in fact you don't want to say you're a woman, you're a human

I am a woman, born as a woman

and I am a biological woman

but some have different ideas because of my body characteristics

they said something different when I was born. Not because I wanted it

but because our culture says so and it fixed.

but it isn't fixed.

What do you think about Caroline's comment

about that 11 year old daugher in the changing room

when she sees male body characteristics like a penis

I think it's shocking

discrimination on the ground of body sex characteristics is illegal in this country

If you say now we're gonna pay attention

then the privacy of transwomen decreases

They you say, no matter what's in transwomen's pants, we decide if you're a woman.

I don't want to know what's in mrs. Franssen"s pants, because it's not my business.

I respect her privacy, but she has an obsession with tranwomen's genitals.

That's extremely false to say that I'm obsessed

Biology and chromosomes determine if you're a man of a woman

that's not a feeling, that's a fact

I'm not obsessed, it's a fact

Sophie claims that she always was a women, and I reject that

I say you were born a man

and everything in your body is male

all your chromosomes, organs and every cell is XY

That discussion is loaded, Sophie will say it's cultural

Biology has no destiny, no purpose

Backt to the changing room

Nora Uitterlinden from Transgender Netwerk sits next to me

This situation is very unlikely to happen, that you see a transwoman in a changing room

who is undressing and showing her body

that situation never happens

So the fearhas no basis

It's very rare, most transwomen don't feel safe to undress in front of others

because they can get negative responses

some experience violence

Many transowomen don't dare to go to the bathroom

So the situation is reversed. Not the 11 year old is shocked

but it's unsafe for transwomen

That's not true, because there's not any evidence of violence against transwomen in those cases

maybe in her head she thinks she's unsafe

There are many incidents worldwide in the US, Canada, Scotland and England

where trans identified men were flashing

showing their genitals

Not all trans indentified men have a problem with their genitals

Autogynephiles get aroused by themselves in female clothes

There are also trans identified men who commit violentcrimes

And who misuse the situation

If I am a man and I say that I feel like a woman

then I can enter that changing room, aren,t you afraid of that, Sophie?

No, in no other country with better laws

Men who want to abuse women can simply marry a woman.

That's easier and we don't forbid marriage.

Now follows opnions of people on the streets

Some women care and some don't

Subtitles continue at 10.36

Caroline Franssen, it seems most think it's a not problem for them.

Yes, until they go to prison and meet a trans identified man that commits sexual assould

There are many examples alreay

There are also examples of intimidation in dressing rooms

And if all men can be women, then they can join women's sports

That would be the end of women's sports

because men are stronger than women

that's why we have women's sports

to give them a leveled playing field

Cece Telfer a runner was ranked somewhere above 300

transformed to a woman

and now a champion

Same goes for Rachel McKinnon and other trans identified men and it's absolutely unfair

That's not my opnion, it's proven that it's not fair

Sophie Schers, Caroline mentions examples in prison

of cases that went wrong and it's unfair in sports

You can't check these cases because they don't exist

what is true is that some transwomen are put in men's prisons

where they face violent rapes and murders, that's the reality

If somebody commited a crime against woman, they they are seperated

So the violence is the other way around

In England women shower with transwomen in prison

Women aren't safe there

Managers of prisons warn against it

and what happens is that every man can say he's a woman and it's done in a breeze

This goes way to far

Even for a handicapped parking card you need a letter from a doctor

There's not a single reason to skip that letter from a doctor

I want back to the sports that was supposed to be unfair

Transowmen can compeed since 12 years in the olympics

Mrs. Franssen can't say that she ever saw one compeed there

The ones that are now in the news are just a few

and they do that in their age group and not in the elite sports we see on TV

Mrs. Franssen creates an unfair opposition between cis and transwomen.

What is a cis woman?

That's you, Nora and mrs. Franssen

I strongly object to be called a cis woman, I'm just a woman

I don't mind cis woman, go on...

Trans, cis, we are all women

No, trans identified men are men

I'm going to the police tomorrow because mrs. Franssen is discriminating against me

Mrs. Franssen thinks she can discriminate against me as a woman on ground of my sex

and my gender identity and that's forbinnen in this country

and that's good that we are protected. What she does here and many like her in England

is discrimination of transgender people

We see in England that violence against trans people increases

This is such a false accusation

Violence against transwomen is done by men and not by women

Our opnion, of women that want to protect women is irrelevant and doesn't change opinions of men

and doesn't change violence against transwomen

I get your point, Sophie want to go to the police...

From now on an irrelevant man starts mansplaining and crying transphobia. Not worth making subtitles for.

Bla bla bla bla etc. etc.