Originally a comment by maddog on Everybody across all.

Stephenson added that she believes in the importance of protecting the rights of all, including trans people, in the debate around single-sex spaces.

“The rights of trans people” with respect to “single-sex spaces” include the right of trans-identified women to access women’s single-sex spaces, and the right of trans-identified men to access men’s single-sex spaces. The waffling term “trans people” allows everyone to interpret Stephenson’s statement as supporting their own particular viewpoint.

If “trans people” means, just as it says, transgender people in general, then Stephenson must be contemplating the two different sexes of trans people: ie., those trans people who are of the male sex, and those who are of the female sex. Transgender people who are actually female are obviously included in the set of people entitled to use women’s single-sex facilities.

However, if Stephenson is using the term “trans people” as an equivocation for “trans women” (ie., men), then Stephenson’s statement is far more concerning. Saying “trans people” when the speaker means only “trans women” (men), is a common obfuscation. It betrays that the real purpose of the transgender agenda is to destroy women’s rights. Transgenderism is a men’s rights movement. The men are the only “trans people” who count. Any women who also happen to be transgender are beneath consideration. Their existence doesn’t even enter into the equation. Women don’t matter, same as ever.

I don’t trust Stephenson’s statement. I think she intends to favor the “rights” of “trans women” (aka, men), to the detriment of and at the expense of women, while ignoring “trans men” altogether, and acting as if they are not “trans people.”