To be shocked by a transwoman guest on Jeremy Vine today asking a female caller what sex she is - and whether she’s “been tested?”

It wouldn’t really because some women don’t have periods or give birth (and they are not trans women)

So grants to every business in the country to build or segregate off an entire area for unisex toilets? When were you last in a pub? Most are old buildings with zero room for anything like that. Like I say, a great solution but entirely impractical

In the same way they are now, female sign on one communal area, male sign on another and 'all genders' on the area designated unisex. I really don't see an issue.

The court has ruled on what the government meant at the time of the law being created. Nothing more or less.

And is then, like me, a woman assigned female at birth who is more at risk of abuse in women’s toilets than they were before the ruling. I’ve been chatting to him tonight actually to keep me sane while this thread has been running and I’ve chosen to engage and his view is that it’s like Victorian lesbians - no one gives a shit if women don’t conform to sexuality/ gender norms. Just like lesbianism was never made illegal, it seems there’s different rules here for trans men and maybe that’s correct?

The only people who have ever challenged my sex were women. If you want it to be weird for men to ask to see your fanny in public toilets, then women need to stop asking to see people’s fannies in public toilets.

I think I’m less confused and more just bloody knackered. Im currently up breastfeeding and thinking god I hope by the time this baby is my age, we’ve put all this to bed. I agree with you though there’s been a swap somewhere but I don’t think it’s more men wanting to be women, there’s always been them. I think it’s more people deciding that particular group of people are the singular biggest threat to women which allows so many other shit things society does to women to fly past us while we’re all busy working out who has a penis and who hasn’t. It’s just so shit.

Seems to me that the response of some TRAs to the recent ruling is this. If you don't accept me in to a space where I can see your fanny, you must show me your fanny to prove you have the right to not show me your fanny.

I sound batshit but no more so than all the rest of it.

And according to this ruling he should use the women's toilets. And has every right to do so.

It's a bit strange but ever since the Thatcher years, I've felt as though we were all under immense pressure to dress and behave like men. I wear what are effectively men's clothes, and feel constantly bad for being "only a woman" and a SAHM at that.

Now suddenly things have changed and somehow the men want to be women and people are looking to see if we are female and "properly female" at that. It's all really confusing I think.

I still will have to wear men's clothes because if I put on womens' clothes then I look ridiculous. They kind of make me look like a drag acctress, whereas men's clothes make me look comfortably feminine.

Nobody would ever doubt that I'm female though. I mean it's patently obvious that I'm a woman, and a downtrodden one at that because I've spent my whole life appoligising for being not as good as a man.

Gawd I'm confused.

Which is right - no amount of women asking me if I’m a man or not would prevent that rape from happening though, that’s the point.

Ive just been trying to count and I think I’ve had someone say something to me 13 times since 2015, not all in toilets. I’ve never had anyone directly ask ‘are you male?’, but I’ve been called a pervert while washing my hands, I once had a woman in a changing room say ‘shouldn’t you be in the men’s? There’s little girls changing in here’ and I’ve also had a woman come up to me on a train and say ‘I’m not being funny but you don’t pass you know, I know what you are’. I had a teenager call me a tranny in the street once, then I ordered a mojito at a bar on holiday (I was wearing a women’s swimming costume) and a woman said ‘funny drink for a bloke, that’. Before 2015 I’d had a few incidents of being misgendered and called ‘he’ but it never felt deliberate, just people giving me a passing glance and assuming. That always hurt but it wasn’t malicious so easier to move on from. It’s the viciousness towards me I struggle with when I’m genuinely not a bad person and these people don’t even know me. I’ve given them no reason to be cruel at all.

It’s not the actual cubicles that are the problem it’s the communal areas, how do you propose those are separated off?

I am choosing to hope this is the outcome, too. I do think we need to take responsibility for our own behaviours though. No TRA is forcing a woman to call me a pervert in a public toilet while I wash my hands privately. We have fought for autonomy and it’s important we own our actions and our words now we have the freedom to act and the voices to speak. It is not the fault of trans women that some men impersonate them to abuse women. Yet it’s me and trans women who are hurt by the SC ruling and while I do believe that hurt is required to protect women in some circumstances, I don’t believe abusing masculine women or even trans women who are not interacting in any way in public places helps more than it harms. I hope women simply don’t do it or if they do, they do it kindly just in case they’re wrong, and they so often are.

The absence of proportionality and nuance in conversations like this hurts all of us and I just hope by knowing people like me exist, it makes people think twice about challenging people they think are trans.

The aggressive tactics of activists have ramped up fear. How long this continues to be an issue and women stay vigilant and you are at risk of being challenged will depend a great deal on how long the TRAs continue to put up a fight.

💯👏👏

YABU to be shocked by anything a TRA says

That wouldn't be necessary. You'd just need to repurpose a certain number of existing toilet facilities as unisex.

At the end of the day, for a multitude of reasons, biological women ARE entitled to have access to single sex spaces without fear of intimidation from biological men, however they choose to present.

So we can either create unisex spaces - or end up in a stalemate, which I don't believe anyone truly wants.

I'm genuinely sorry if this makes things harder for you. However the sooner the ruling is accepted and its meaning complied with, the sooner we can start the journey back to a time when if women saw a non stereotypically female person in the women's toilet, their first thought wouldn't be that she was a man. All the fuss and demands by male people to access female spaces has drawn a great deal of attention to it, and resulted in a lot of opposition. The aggressive tactics of activists have ramped up fear. How long this continues to be an issue and women stay vigilant and you are at risk of being challenged will depend a great deal on how long the TRAs continue to put up a fight.

Simple but not practical. How do you propose those third spaces are created in every restaurant and public space up and down the country? The disabled loos is a bad choice, disabled people already have to queue behind parents changing babies much of the time which is a pain - do we give every business a grant to create unisex toilets?

I agree with very large aspects of that ‘no’, it’s right that there’s been a recalibration. Of course some
people will be angry but I know many, many more are just really scared.

I say sinister because, to me, it's almost cult like. At the very least it's intimidating which is precisely why biological women are against biological men having access to female-only spaces.
Surely the most logical step forward - for EVERYONE - is for there to be a third space!? Nothing is stopping anyone being the woman they want to be in a unisex toilet which everyone, whatever their gender, is welcome to use.
This leaves female-only spaces for biological women who don't wish to share with biological men. It's really very simple.

The irony of being mis-nationalised (not a thing) in a conversation about how you’re regularly
mis-gendered.. it’s almost as if making assumptions about people with absolutely no clue about who/ what they are makes you wrong more often than right.. mad.

I think we are going to see increasingly bizarre behaviour tbh.

For nearly a decade now all that has been pushed is an ideology that states you can be anything you want and the media, education system government, employers etc are cheering you on and cancelling anyone who says “now wait a minute”.

All of a sudden someone has told them a resounding “No” it’s not surprising certain groups are kicking off and throwing tantrums

Oh mate, I’m from Stoke on Trent. Nice try to discredit another woman because she doesn’t fit your narrative though because of course we should all think feel and act exactly the same way and exactly how society pressures us to. YAY FEMINISM.

Which is why I think the SC ruling is a good thing overall and support it, despite the fact it makes my life inherently more miserable. My hope though is that it doesn’t embolden women to challenge people they think are men, who are just washing their hands and leaving and not posing any risk at all. That’s me, I’d love to feel comfortable going to the ladies in public but I never will and I accept that. But sometimes I need to piss while I’m out and about and when that happens I genuinely make myself as invisible as I can and pray no one comes in while I’m in there. I’m ok feeling like that but I’m now really worried the instances of women feeling ok challenging me are going to increase a lot and there’s no amount of making myself invisible that’s going to help.