Hostelling Scotland allows men to self ID as women and have access to women's dorms and shower rooms

You see to me this is another one that's like Parkrun - absolutely solvable with everyone happy, provided what everyone wants is a comfortable & safe sleeping environment and no one is more interested in performing some sort of validation exercise or something more sinister.

You just make sure there's 'open' accommodation. In a small hostel, a few single rooms. In a massive one, an open to everyone dorm as well as single sex provision.

If you 'identify as female', no problem, here is a sleeping space open to women. (Same obviously in reverse for a woman who identifies as male).

I can't see much reason to be obliging to anyone male who says 'sorry, that isn't good enough, I want to sleep with OTHER WOMEN, damn you!'

'Other women' have a right to say NO to that.

Is there not some kind of trade description angle we can go at? M&S, youth hostels, GG none of them want the broader public to know things have become mixed sex - presumably because they know people actually want single sex. If forced to describe things honestly as mixed sex I think they would change their policies rather thsn alienate their clients/customers...

With a hostile ( typo but too good to delete) hostel why they are offering is mixed sex or mixed sex but they sell as single sex/gender.

Why should young people have to boycott a service? The service provider needs to change the policy.

Oh yes, Queasy - and it's in the nature of Alpine climbing that you are not there by yourself, you are always with your climbing partner(s). (Well, it is possible to climb solo, but relatively rare).

I've also walked out of a hostel in Amsterdam when I just had one of those "more red flags than a Soviet May Day parade" moment with the two rather skeezy looking guys behind the front desk. I just thought "no way am I staying in an unlocked dormitory, even if nominally single sex, in the same building as those those two." I spent three times as much on a hotel room, but I felt safe.

Why don't we boycott YHA and let the female dorms get taken over by self identified men? Talk of shooting themselves in the foot.

Fermats I’m assuming you also knew before signing up that the dorms would be mixed?

Surely the solution is to have strict single sex dorms and in larger hostels where space allows to also have a mixed sex dorm with an 18 year minimum age?

Agree and it's what you tend to get in backpackers hostels.

I have actually used mixed dorms in mountain huts in the Alps - but everyone tends to be clothed and in sleeping bags, they've hiked 3000 feet up from the valley to get there so probably haven't got the energy to do anything other than sleep, and the warden's going to wake you up at 4.00am to start off up the glacier in the dark!

(Though on the whole, due to innate Scots meanness coupled with a dislike for other people's snoring, I much prefer bivouacking outside.)

What are your thoughts on the mixed sex dorms that are quite common in Europe? I refuse point blank to use them but my husband (not British) is happy to use them and sees them as the norm. He says there are often women in them, but notably never alone. They often have little cubicals rather than completely open bunks.

Surely the solution is to have strict single sex dorms and in larger hostels where space allows to also have a mixed sex dorm with an 18 year minimum age?

It’s infuriating that rather than this you’re presented with mixed sex dorms parading as single sex.

This is a nationwide policy that we have put in place to help us to create a safe and welcoming environment for all of our guests.

They've failed. The proposed environment is neither safe nor welcoming for females.

Well done to ManFriday for their continued work with this.
Women should have the right to have safe sleeping, changing and showering spaces that don't include anyone with a penis.

sex = gender and gender = whatever the person says it
That seems to be the formula they are working from. As sex is still a protected characteristic, they are surely in breach of the EA.

Hostels are not necessarily safe for women and girls anyway, so allowing for self-IDers in, is a recipe for disaster.

Even without self-ID the following:
1996, 13yo Caroline Dickinson raped and murdered on a school trip in France
As it turns out, the perp had a history of doing similar
2016 British backpacker Mia Ayliffe-Chung stabbed to death in a hostel by a stranger
2018 South Africa, two teenaged girls‚ aged 16 and 17 found dead in a hostel, the alleged perp is the ex-boyfriend of one of the girls

Seems like we need MORE safeguarding in hostels for women and girls, not less.

Absolutely leyat.

The trans lobby got too confident. Everyone too scared to offend, too ready to be PC, saw they could get what they wanted so fast - they wanted more, so they pushed for this to be enshrined in law - by changing the GRA- because it was already happening due to the way the EA is interpreted, and in doing so has exposed the reality and toxicity of the situation.

I just get a chill at the thought of some of the predators (not genuinely trans people, but rather predators cynically exploiting self-ID) who will end up in women's dorms.

A few years ago I had a very disturbing conversation with my nephew. Nephew was (horribly) subject to child sexual abuse at the age of about 10 or 11 (the sort of "trusted adult on the fringe of the parents' circle of acquaintances" form of CSA) - not enough proof to prosecute (which is infuriating but not exactly a surprise to anyone on here, I guess). Nephew (now an adult) and I were chatting on the phone one evening, and he mentioned how he had, years later, come across this man in a youth hostel dorm!

Now it is of course beyond horrible that this sort of predator can gain easy access to male victims... but to double the number of potential victims by allowing them into women's dorms as well just beggars belief. Also, my nephew's experience gives the total lie to the idea that everyone you encounter in a youth hostel will be a nice wholesome individual.

(Incidentally I am beyond furious at the twat upthread who said we should just not go hostelling. Where do they draw the line? As another poster said, should we sit at home in self-imposed purdah? If I'm going to be asleep and vulnerable, I want the space where I'm asleep and vulnerable to be single sex not mixed.)

I've been posting on this for years, the problem for me is how we proceed with anything when there is no language or ability to describe the cunty half of the population as a group.

This is non trivial and everything flows from this.

Impact assessments..

With austerity didn't the govt say yes we're done a "gender" (sex) equality impact assessment but we aren't going to tell you what it says as we feel it gives the wrong impression...!

So if the govt can wibble out of these, surely others can too?

*by default not be default

Thanks.

So basically it as I thought, is the trumping of sex with 'gender reassignment' that we are considering here at the present time...that's how it is justified?

I just suddenly considered that somehow these organisations thought self ID had already gone through. But it has be default with the lobbying and scaremongering by trans groups. In this case, proposals to self ID and change the GRA make no difference in that case, because what they want is already happening with the way the EA prioritises GA because of current discourse surrounding trans issues...?

Remember there are two types of self ID. There is the self ID to get a gender recognition certificate which is what is being considered now. And then there is the woolly definition of "gender reassignment" in the EA which allows self ID by the back door by not allowing any gatekeeping.

but are they actually saying you have broken the EA if you do not introduce self ID at the present time? Before it has been approved?

The problem is that if an organisation chooses not to use a single sex exemption and risk a court case, they have to allow self ID. I think the balance is wrong.