Help me reply to Lord Lucas now before debate on Monday

Unless you ask to see in someone's pants then you cannot possibly be certain what kind of genitals they have.

And a sign on the door won't ensure that only people with vaginas enter the room.

Signs don't have that kind of power.

If we want to have sex/procreate I’m pretty sure we can “tell”. I’m straight and have never accidentally fancied a woman. Stop pretending to be stupid.

How many times has he chatted up a person of the wrong sex for his orientation?

I would put it another way,
If you allow all the toilets of the UK to become unisex then how are we meant to tell if the man in the toilets is a pedophile, rapist or sex pest.
Why takeaway safeguarding from 52% of the population for the sake of 2% who could have alternative 3rd space provision.
All research shows that shared sex areas has a higher rate of crime against women.

Sorry, I have read everything, but I always think it is a like a mother pretending that their is under five so as not to pay the fare. Probably one or two transsexuals will be able to continue to use women's facilities, but they will be there illegally and not want to draw attention to themselves.

The short answer is we can't, but evolution has enabled us to be pretty certain, and where there is ambiguity we need the law to be on the side of those willing to challenge an apparent male in female spaces. Not a law that terrifies women into thinking knowing someone is male is a hate crime! I'm assuming this Lord Lucan is only a lord because the previous one disappeared?

I see you have already replied, I am such a slow typer! Thank you.

Regardless of the exasperated tone of my previous post I am grateful that he is hosting this debate. And it does appear that he is looking for answers to the 'how can you tell?' inevitable question.

"I would like to see Stonewall lay aside its kimono and baseball bat, and Fawcett hear the call to courage, and sit down together to sort out a commonsense solution." ??

No, I'm not having Fawcett Society or anyone else 'negotiate' on my behalf.
The common sense solution is only girls and women in women's spaces. I am absolutely fucking sick of this constant 'negotiation'.
"What about cockless men"
"What about men who wear dresses"
"What about men who..."
NO.

65 to 70% correct sexing when humans look at movement of lights attached to side of a body

citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.2.266&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Authors use gender, but bio sex is understood, its only in recent times when the terms have gained more precise definitions

Also assumption I suspect is that the person has not been trying to hide their sex

It does look like he is fairly sensible on this but this quote I cannot imagine how, in a pleasant and civilised society, a group of women in a toilet can practically determine that one of their number should not be there explains his question to you.

We women can almost always tell if a person is male or female, regardless of whether they look masculine or feminine.

And My starting position in this debate is that it is not possible to separate humanity into two genders

But he gets that sex and gender are different, so lets go back to separating by sex rather than socially constructed gender presentation. perhaps?

Finally, where he says Some public buildings have converted their ladies and gents communal toilet facilities to gender neutral I have found that in practice it tends to be single sex for males and relabelled ladies toilet marked gender neutral (Derby University Enterprise Centre I'm looking at you). Which is isn't, it is mixed sex.

It's so bloody tiresome!!

Oh christ, it's like the whole world is falling for the "how do we know?" question.

It would just be bloody nice if we could have a bit of reassurance that we can exclude obvious males tbh - like this one who physically attacked Julie Bindel, yet identifies as a woman.

I don't suppose it will convince Lord Lucan, but I was walking up to the gate of my daughter's (all girls) school in the half-light one evening last term. A bunch of kids of about 13 or 14 came out and I knew at once, girls school or not, and before they said anything, and at about 5 to 10yds distance, that they were all boys. I got closer, they spoke - boys.

How did I know? How they moved, not just as individuals but as a group.

As women, we are primed to know. Yes, I might miss a post-op trans person, but that person is unlikely to be a threat to me.

We need the right to challenge anyone we feel uneasy about in a single-sex environment.

There isn't any law that says men must stay out of women's toilets, for example. Our need for and right to have single-sex facilities is implicit. There has never been any need for a law that spells this out, as everyone understood it. But we are now being told that we are not allowed to challenge anyone who we feel is abusing this right.

As for masculine women, yes, it can be embarrassing to be challenged, but, with a few seconds of interaction, the woman challenging her will recognise that she is a woman and belongs in that space. It might not even take a complete challenge, just an "Excuse me," and by the other person's response the challenger can recognise that she is a woman and she doesn't need to continue with the challenge. Avoiding embarrassment.

How: their shape, gait, throat (Adam's apple), wrists and hands, face, voice, movement, height, proportions. Often their smell, too, if they aren't loaded with perfume.

I also think he may be asking in order to have a good rebuttal to the "are we supposed to check people's genitals" nonsense that will crop up.
He seems fairly sane on this:

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1227664630652243968.html

Exactly catting, and that might be part of the reason social norms work...because any male caught in the wrong place would be assumed to be up to no good

Also, apart from being able to tell easily, just knowing we have the weight of the law behind us will help us maintain our spaces. I hate the idea that women will have to be the ones telling men to gtfo of our spaces, but can't see men stepping in any time soon 😡

Based on facial photos alone, humans misidentify around 10% ?
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/TerrenceSejnowski/publication/2216192900SEXNETAANeuralNetworkkIdentifiesSexxFromHumann_Faces/links/54a4afed0cf267bdb90679c6.pdf

But still trying to find anything that says how well we do when faced with a moving, smelling person

That Katie Alcock article (in Medium, linked above) is superb. Highly recommend.

Oops sent too soon!

Was trying to say think about all the other social conventions and laws that are on the whole respected in this society without being constantly policed. Such as cars sticking to the roads and not the bike lane or pavements; walking calmly in crowds and not shoving on packed rush hour trains; not helping yourself to big bouquets from the flowers in your neighbour's front garden; etc etc etc.

How low an opinion of males must one have to think respecting the social norm of "this toilet is for females only" is impossible?

Millions of years of evolution and being a sexually dimorphic species means we are extremely attuned to discerning male and female. Saying 'but how can you tell' is gas lighting in the extreme. No one has to rely on inspecting genitalia to to determine sex.

And as another poster pointed out, social convention keep men out. You only have to look at the assaults in single sex and unisex facilities to see that. The continued ability to challenge a male in a female only space is essential.

Ridiculous isn't it. Of course women can almost always tell.

But think about all the other social conventions and laws that are on the whole respected in this society.