Lib Dem’s at it again

Lesbian women have many stories of how they have been discriminated against and subjected to violence in women’s facilities, simply because of their appearance.

This seems very odd. Lesbian women do not look male. They might not choose to look 'feminine', but that is not the same as looking male.

If it were that easy to look male, life would be a lot easier or most women!

Some trans women ARE dangerous males. No more than any other group of male people, but no less. Lying about that just isn't going to work any more. There are the news stories and the statistical data to prove it.

If you create a safeguarding gap, predators will use it. We know that. We also know that grabbing a high vis jacket and mop in order to claim to be an employee is a great deal trickier to get away with, if police are called, than declaring one believes oneself to be a woman. The former can be easily proven, one way or the other. The latter can't ever, in any way at all.

How stupid are the people writing this guff? Do they engage brains at all, when given the talking points?

I also note they focus on loos, and ignore women's refuges, prisons, shared sleeping accommodation and rape crisis centres.

They are an embarrassment. I won't be rejoining any time soon?

There are not many lines of truth in that are there?

So embarrassed that I ever voted for them.

I think it's hilarious how they try to whip up a moral panic about men in hi-vis jackets, mops and pliers or unfeminine women being booted out of public lavatories.

For the umpteenth time, the issue is not really about toilets but about sports, prisons, all-women shortlists and some kind of intellectual integrity which, if you have it, means that you have to accept that transmen will be different from men and transwomen will be different from women and the law has to reflect that, even if this hurts somebody's feelings. This is also about sex-based protections for transmen!

It's just such bullshit.

They're making a lot of claims in that little announcement - none of which I see being backed by any concrete evidence.

Experience where such bills have been debated and implemented
Which bills? In this country? When? Point me to the Hansard record.
Other countries? Where and when? Records of the debate/implementation?
And whose experience are we talking about? Can they be trusted or do they have an agenda?

Such legislation, if implemented, is almost always reversed quickly because of the effects on all women.
Again, which countries and when? Why not tell me this up-front, why make me wonder where/when you're talking about? Leaves me suspecting the answer is nowhere/never.

Lesbian women have many stories of how they have been discriminated against and subjected to violence in women’s facilities, simply because of their appearance.
How prevalent is this? Did it happen before we realised we had to be alert to males appearing in female spaces? Can you cite an example? A court case of an assault? (Not saying it never happens, but I need to see more than a vague assertion.)

It's a tactic I am increasingly irritated by. Assert something as fact but don't provide the details that allow the assertion to be verified. Lots of people would actually trust them to not lie, and accept the assertions as fact. I'm cynical. I know people lie, and until they give me proof, I think they're lying, start to finish, here.

"Liberal Democrat Women strongly reject the apparent proposals which would restrict the ability of trans women to use women’s single-sex spaces."

What proposals? I didn't think new legislation was being introduced?

Why would any man try to declare themselves to be a woman in order to access a woman only space, when it would be easier to simply put on a hi-vis jacket and grab a mop or a pair of pliers?

This is particularly alarming. They could suggest that unisex toilets can be designed so they are safer for everyone, but no, they use the 'women will be attacked anyway' line.

Experience where such bills have been debated and implemented shows that any woman who does not conform to someone else’s idea of what a woman should look or sound like will be subject to challenge. Such legislation, if implemented, is almost always reversed quickly because of the effects on all women. Lesbian women have many stories of how they have been discriminated against and subjected to violence in women’s facilities, simply because of their appearance

Is any word of that true or accurate? Has there been any debate about such bills? When and where? How did the debate 'show' that women who don't conform to female stereotypes will be challenged? Aren't they already challenged? (I certainly have a 6ft tall lesbian friend with very short hair who is sometimes challenged and doesn't regards it as a problem. The only people who do regard it as a problem are men trying to pass as women.

Is such legislation almost always reversed quickly? I'm a lesbian and I know loads of lesbians and I can't think of a single one who's been subject to violence in when using women's facilities.

Where is their evidence? Who are they speaking to? Hmm. [Chin-stroke] Could it be transwomen?

So suddenly they care about lesbians?

A few months ago they were implying that because black women and lesbians were allowed in the toilets/changing rooms, the definition of woman was now so muddled the next logical step was to allow self identifying males in.

Like fuck do they now give a shit about lesbians

Fuck off

But the Lib Dem’s want to be kind.

Ask them what they're doing to 'be kind' to girls. Girls forced to share loos and changing rooms with male pupils, and shamed if they don't meekly go along with it. Girls losing their places on sports teams, or being put off doing sports.

Stay with that line and don't let them off the hook.

This is the subject of a non debate on a local women’s fab group. Our tame Lib Dem councillor and pals are spouting this line, but it isn’t about discriminating against ugly women (basically what they implied by saying non feminine looking) and trans women.

It has made me so depressed, be kind is the mantra. The whole issue of male violence driving women’s fear and trans women’s understandable reluctance to use the gents is ignored. Trans men must be fine as nobody seems to give a hoot about them, who probably set off the same buttons which drive some men to attack feminine looking men.

Nobody seems to realise it will be the ultimate end of female categories for sport, stem scholarship etc.But the Lib Dem’s want to be kind.

Only positive is now my husband has finally got my anger and now realises the mess unfolding. I can’t believe our councillor is so blinkered.

"Liberal Democrat Women strongly reject the apparent proposals which would restrict the ability of trans women to use women’s single-sex spaces."

"Experience where such bills have been debated and implemented shows that any woman who does not conform to someone else’s idea of what a woman should look or sound like will be subject to challenge. Such legislation, if implemented, is almost always reversed quickly because of the effects on all women."

Am I missing something?? Isn't the whole point that new laws aren't going to be implemented? That institutions got ahead of themselves and started acting as though new laws had gone through when they hadn't?
So talking about implementing new bills is nonsense. These are the same laws that have been in places for years, surely.

It's not a very robust line of argument to take is it?

• the new argument that there shouldn't be women only toilets because women will get harassed (!!??)

• that men can do it anyway by being cleaners - certainly I have always seen signs when there is a male cleaner or the cleaner will knock and announce himself.

Its just so awful for them to tie themselves into knots to appease men.