Trans women are women, is the biggest oxymoron ever written.

That did not happen 40/50 years ago so I do not know if or when that was introduced or why.

As I said earlier we were asked NOT to use the ladies prior to GRS even though that was very difficult as there were very limited single cubicles.

Please explain to us how requiring males to use the women's loo, changing rooms, and other facilities, for two years to demonstrate "living as a woman" was a positive safekeeping outcome for women and girls. Quite the opposite and indeed how we got to where we are now.
It could be worse is not an argument.

I don't see how gatekeeping of GRC had had a positive effect on women's and girls safety.

The GRA activity removed women's and girls ability to have sex segregation when they wanted it.

I actually don't care where trans women go. They don't want to pee or change with men. Fine, I totally get that. Sort something out like women had to. Their discomfort at sharing with other men does not mean they get to co opt ours.

Yes. It's a good thing. Self ID is bad for transsexuals, children and women.

I did not say they purposefully created the gatekeeping to help protect women. I don't know either way. Just that it has had a positive effect in that regard as well.

Certainly compared with what could be coming next if self ID goes through.

Yes, that safeguarding stops people making mistakes and transitioning inappropriately.

But it IS safeguarding for women - too - in very real ways because the consequence of letting through all these people and legalising their presence as women amongst women is surely no less important to you than it is to them?

Bullshit. They never gave a moments thought to women and girls when they designed the process. Nor did they when they wrote the GRA. All they cared about was screening out those men who may regret, for their own good and the reputation of the practitioners.
The discussions and papers written in the early days demonstrate this.

I don't want to let transsexuals in. I want a third space for them. I want to be able to have men removed from women's toilets and changing rooms and other appropriately female spaces without fear of committing a hate crime. I know some will flout it, but less, and there will be disincentives.

Realistically, how do we provide much needed and wanted safe environments for women and girls, that let TS in but excluded every other male?

I think it would be more honest, and safer for women and girls, if we acknowledge that we don't have and we are not entitled to sex segregation save for a few situations. But I'm not even sure what these situations are - it's not prisons, hospital wards or mental health units.

Safeguarding and gatekeeping are two very different things. Yes, gatekeeping might make safeguarding easier - but they are not at all the same.

Not sure what to say except transsexuals totally support the safeguarded spaces and need for them to have been built into the GRA.

They rightly protect the things that can be protected within the law - such as refuges, shortlists and sports. And we are also happy to talk about codifying them more fully rather than leaving them to interpretation as many places do right now almost presuming self ID exists so why have any proper rules.

I guess the division is between those who feel the GRA itself should never have been passed. And even should now be repealed. Or that any transsexual should have ever entered a female toilet at any time in history and those who have are acting improperly.

Of course, I see the reason for that argument and why some of you strongly believe it. Though I doubt the GRA in of itself actually changed what happened in that respect before or afterwards.

My suspicion is that far more than 4990 transsexuals were entering these spaces the week before the GRA was passed and still were the week after the GRA was passed.

It was not a law that caused that to occur. Or the removal of a law that would therefore really stop it now.

in fact my belief is if it was 'banned' then the ones who would comply would be the 'good guys' who would go to that trouble feeling guilty and the ones who wouldn't would be the ones demanding validation and seeing this rejection as a challenge. So I doubt such an edict would actually help resolve the situation. It could conceivably make it worse.

Though other things might, of course, help - like alterations to the whole structure of provision of such facilities. Which is a long term and reasonable goal. But will not happen quickly given cist implications in a post Brexit era.

It is easy to argue about hypotheticals as to what should or should not have ever happened - but in the real world we live in now, let alone 40/50 years ago when single disabled toilets were scarce, post operative transsexuals were likely not going into the men's toilets much if ever at all.

Not for any negative reason but out of consequence of the transition process that operated then surgically to normalise a life and blend in and that was not going to happen otherwise.

Though it was instilled into you not to use the ladies pre surgery for sensible reasons which was widely followed.

That seemed a fair compromise to us I think as the whole point of medically assisted transition was not to create a cultural revolution decades before the world would have a clue what that meant but to blend in, heads down and live as normal a life as possible.

In a world where there was no legal recognition for decades to come that meant society making accommodations, as it did. Perhaps we did not see that to the degree that we should have done, I don't know.

Changing most paperwork (including passports) depended entirely on medical support to do so and not on any law. The GRA really made little difference to the legal paperwork side other than the birth certificate thing that only 3000 have ever had altered even now.

So the GRA really changed little in terms of day to day life for transsexuals. Other than alter pension and marriage rights for some. Decisions on use of toilets, on which ward hospitals decided to put you in etc were always self determined - by the TS themselves in the first case and hospitals in the second.

In both cases genitals likely played a part in that decision making.

It is easy to theoretically rewrite the rules as if this was all starting over today. Which it may be given the change in scope , if self ID comes in and alters the landscape.

How much any government would commit to do when it would involve imposing restrictive changes retroactively I am not sure.

Some more control over spaces is pretty likely I would imagine - if not legally done then self imposed on site - if self ID comes in, because of course I can see how this removes any vestige of reassurance and leaves an almost zero tolerance response as a likely consequence.

It is obviously a difficult position for me to be in, as it is hard to argue I do not have any self interest.

Though I would deal with it in the way I have everything else in life. An advantage of not being new to this and having lived a long time realistically aware of the accommodation involved both with and without legal protections. And always with the aim of avoiding confrontation.

Cannot truthfully say I would be thrilled but equally I also understand entirely why such moves might be made by you.

I am not going to argue against anybody fighting to do what they think is right. But, trying to put any self interest aside, will say that I think it unlikely any government will actively repeal laws that are really there because of human rights conventions that they will probably not consider removing.

By all means try if you see that as a winnable fight. But I think the realistic battle is the one to fight and worry about changing anything else afterwards.

It will in my view be far easier to do that reasonably if you are dealing with 5000 transsexuals than it would be with 500,000 in the wider trans umbrella post self ID.

That's the one thing I am very sure about.

Someone just posted the following on the Penny Mordaunt thread and it's what I believe we need to remind people of whenever there's discussion of 'keeping women safe' in the context of changes to the GRA:

TRAs (though not all trans women) insist they belong in the sex class called "women". So the glaring black hole, from which no logic will escape, is that once you accept that people can identify in the class they feel they belong you can no longer provide single sex spaces.

Trans women who believe they are women will insist they are women and may not be excluded from single sex facilities. How then, does any organisation - DV refuges, Girl Guides etc. refuse to accept a person who says they are a woman if the law says they are a woman and should be treated in the way they identify themselves?

How does any male entering women's space help women and girls?

I see how gra helps TS, but don't pretend it does any favours to women.

Hi home, I hope you don't mind me butting in, I have been following the thread and reading your posts and I think there might be a bit of cross purposes between posters with safeguarding and gatekeeping? This conflation might be what's driving the continued discussion on this point.

I guess we will have to agree to disagree that the gatekeeping helped women as well as trans people,

I think many women might have felt quite a bit less safe if some of those I saw whilst being assessed had been able to legally transition.

I was certainly pleased that they were sensibly deterred.

So - surely - you can see how this process was protective of women by preventing the transition of people who were deemed by the assessment process of being a problem.

No. The process protects TS from making decisions that they are likely to regret.

The process doesn't protect women and girls, but it was never intended to.

What test could ensure that a male person would never be a danger to women and girls?

But it is to protect women and girls, too, or rather was.

You have to bear in mind that I transitioned a very long time ago when this was new and a great deal more was done about it than now. Including attempts at what today would be called conversion therapy.

Surgery was very much a last resort and a no other option solution to which doctors then only were led if they saw no other way to try to create a reasonable chance of a happy life.

The 90% turned away was a figure quoted by doctors to me and to my parents (I transitioned young for 45 years ago so they were involved in all of this throughout). Both in the first clinic I was at and where I was tested and the psych unit where I spent weeks under assessment. When I was transferred to Charing Cross to go on the surgical pathway I was told similar things.

And I saw this happen during all this time as it worked to gatekeep away people who were clearly sexual fetishists. And others who would have been a danger to women if allowed to transition because they had heavy psychiatric issues either because of, or that was causing the misperception of being trans.

Bear in mind that then - over 30 years before the GRA existed - the whole point was to blend in, accept biology and try to get on with your life quietly because if you did not want to find yourself in a legal quandary then you had to just do that and not cause a fuss.

The whole point was to live a normal life and not be noticed or make yourself look different. It was all about fitting in and being stable.

Whereas today it looks more about being different and calling attention to that difference via 101 flavours of gender, or however many there are this week.

Nobody was allowed to have surgery without signing a waiver to say that they understood they were not actually changing sex. That alone would rule out half the applicants.

So - surely - you can see how this process was protective of women by preventing the transition of people who were deemed by the assessment process of being a problem.

But that is the point of safeguarding. It was a process that filtered out 90% of those who wanted to 'change sex'

I've never seen this figure quoted before.

The process is to protect the TS, to ensure that they don't make mistakes they may live to regret. Quite right too, the process is for TS.

The process is not designed to protect women and girls, it doesnt even pretend to protect women and girls.

If there was a test to show which males are harmless to women and which ones are dangerous,why wouldn't it be used for the general public?

But that is the point of safeguarding. It was a process that filtered out 90% of those who wanted to 'change sex'. Because the process deemed them inappropriate to transition - for instance because they had a sexual fetish. So psychological assessment stopped the ones that had major issues or could not accept reality that biology never changes. Something the gatekeeping also insisted upon acceptance of before approval.

Yes, that safeguarding stops people making mistakes and transitioning inappropriately.

But it IS safeguarding for women - too - in very real ways because the consequence of letting through all these people and legalising their presence as women amongst women is surely no less important to you than it is to them?

Safeguarding? When I talk of safeguarding on fwr I mean the safeguarding of women and girls not TS.

Zutt, who wants to remove sex segregation in limited terms?

As far as I can see the only changes being planned are in who or how and how many gain access to a GRC. Not to change any of the exemptions that apply there.

The problem seems to be that if self ID replaces gatekeeping and swells numbers by an unknown amount that the control over those spaces will be much harder if not impossible.

Vicky, I agree entirely on that which is why I am flat out opposed to self ID replacing safeguarding.

I would not want to be negotiating that away any more than you do. But the reality is it might just happen if we do nothing to make clear the strength of feeling.

Yes, we can all, and many have submitted letters to MPs, but in the end the government will do what it thinks is popular.

And a debate on here with them involved would at least make clear the strength of feeling on these issues from women AND from transsexuals and just might have influence on thinking.

Mumsnet as a force is far bigger and more persuasive to government thinking than any number of individual letters to our MPs.

Zutt - nobody has any right to redefine woman and you should say that. And I WILL say that. But what matters is how to get across to government how and why people feel as we do on something they seem to be treating as a minor tweak to smooth over bureaucratic difficulties.

I just thought a debate on here would air these issues in front of the right eyes and ears.

If it was a stupid idea then I certainly won't push it again. But I am concerned that this is all just inevitably moving in one direction right now.

We either have female only spaces, or we don't.

Certain people want to remove sex segregation, but in limited terms. But it's still the removal of sex segregation.

It is simply a case of conflicting interests. It is pernicious to try and dismiss the interests of any one group. All interests should be listened to and explored.

How many interest groups are there that have a right to redefine 'woman' and take away female only spaces?