Do we now get our spaces back?

The horseshoe theory about political views seems to fit this particular context so that the extreme right and the extreme left are in many ways more similar to each other than the views in the middle. More authoritarian, more absolutists, more politics-is-religion.

Fair point that it tends to be men dictating what goes and what doesn't in faith groups. But on a practical level, unless we're advocating to outlaw the practice of patriarchal religions (not currently remotely feasible), we need to be making accommodations for women who won't be permitted to eg go swimming or use public changing rooms or access inpatient services if these aren't single sex.

I dont think we should use women of faith as an example of why women only spaces are needed. This is because in 99.9% of religions it is men saying women should be segregated / barred because they are unclean or something.

We need to be able to argue that not only young girls but adult women have the right to single sex spaces, not just because of the experience of male violence, but because as biological women we have the right to be in spaces of those who have our shared experience.

(Re-reading with my self-critical hat on.)

Women of other faiths can't be expected to suck it up because belief is a protected characteristic; autistic women, traumatised women etc can't be expected to suck it up because disability is a protected characteristic; I missed off the third major subgroup of women under threat: lesbians.

I really don't want us to sleepwalk into a situation wherein lesbians can be accommodated in their need to exclude males by characterising lesbianism as a belief system.

I wish the policy of 'reasonable adjustments' would be applied to this situation as well as to disability accommodation.

Inclusion is the focus: the equality of opportunity.
Creative thinking and additional to and different from should be provided in terms of more flexible, accessible provisions as opposed to just doing things the way they've always been done.
The focus is on the word 'reasonable' in terms of individual budget, disruption and impact upon service and other users when choosing what is and is not possible to offer
Sometimes the answer will be this particular situation/service cannot meet the needs of this particular individual but others will, with if necessary new situations or services being created.

In essence: where necessary, single sex provision alongside additional provisions.

That this isn't the obvious, automatic common sense way forward that equally values and helps everyone, illustrates what Angry says above.

Female people are so automatically seen as less human, less valid, that no one (other than us, getting a reputation of being foul harridans for doing it) is saying 'hang on a minute, female needs shouldn't be considered and predicated on how males feel about it, what they want females to have, and whether or not they agree to it first'. That right to say no is so unconsidered that we're actually having to fight this battle based on convincing males we really have reasons they agree with to give us permission to have a space of our own.

It's right there in front of us. No is perceived by some, as being rightfully predicated upon male agreement and permission.

Women of faith don't seem to be told that they can get over their faith quite so much, so in purely practical terms it seemed an easier starting point for getting justice, privacy and dignity for all women.

I agree; if we're being pragmatic then women of other faiths are the obvious group to highlight. So much of this shit comes from the Left, and we've seen time and again that they view tolerance of other cultures as far more important than ensuring the safety of women and girls.

Trouble with that is what happens next. We fight to have women of other faiths accommodated, establish faith/belief/culture as an acceptable reason to maintain female-only spaces for those women. Where does that leave traumatised women? It opens us up to having our inability to share intimate spaces with males characterised as a belief.

Equally, if the initial focus is on traumatised women, women who can't demonstrate they've been personally subjected to male violence are left without a leg to stand on. Focusing attention on just one strand of the need for female-only spaces is inevitably going to mean other strands getting shat on.

(No apologies needed; I was pointing out the logical inference rather than the implication and didn't assume any ill intent.)

Two excellent examples there, Michelle, which together illuminate the underlying point I hadn't quite managed to get into words when I typed my previous post.

Roma travellers and women of other faiths can be broadly considered to have a legally-sound reasonable objection because the Equality Act lists belief as a protected characteristic (whether it's cultural beliefs or religious beliefs not being of major significance here).

Women with autism and women with c-ptsd aren't accurately covered by the right to freedom of belief and the right not to be discriminated against due to beliefs. The right to have disabilities reasonably accommodated is the relevant legal wossname.

The point I'm getting here is that my inability to share spaces with males isn't rooted in a cultural norm or a religious belief; rather, it's a lifelong consequence of multiple serious injuries, and as such falls under the general heading of disability accommodations rather than accommodation of cultural differences.

I strongly object to the (no doubt unintended) implication that the women who've experienced male bodies as a weapon, with lifelong consequences, are less important than the women who cannot share spaces with males for religious reasons.

Very much unintended, Tyro, I'm so sorry that's how it came across.

What I meant was that I've seen lots and lots of blithe exhortations to women that they can have therapy, they can work through their fears, they can be kind.

I find that obscene and offensive beyond measure.

Women of faith don't seem to be told that they can get over their faith quite so much, so in purely practical terms it seemed an easier starting point for getting justice, privacy and dignity for all women.

But maybe that's the wrong approach, and we should be arguing strongly and forcefully that it DOES FUCKING MATTER and women's trauma must not be dismissed so that males are not made sad.

Again, I'm sorry

Very well said, Tyro

Two more groups to add to females who cannot grit their teeth and just suck up the disadvantage and unpleasantness of mixed sex spaces for the betterment of male people,

• Cultural groups, Roma travellers being one. We're pretty hot in the UK about respect for this group: does that get hurled aside if it's only women involved, and those women are having boundaries contrary to the preferences of those a small percentage of male people would like them to have?

• MNetters with Autism have spoken a number of times on threads about their challenge with and distress at needing to socially say and show something contrary to the evidence of their eyes, or to enact a belief they do not hold. Likewise women with dementia, Alzheimers, many other disabilities that affect perception and ability to inhibit and control social responses other than their feelings. In any other situation we'd say to demand this of them would be abusive. What changes when it's just a woman with a boundary different to the one a male person would like them to have?

if women's kindness is going to be used to open up sports, rape shelters and wards

To unpick that a little, it went in a flash from #bekind to #don'tyoufuckingsaynotomeyoubitch yes.

But this is what happens when you use special pleading to say more or less, I know this is not ideal for females, I know it might make you uncomfortable (and will drive some females out of a female space, we have no way to track how many, how vulnerable they are what impact this has on those females) but it's a really really hard situation and it would be nice if you'd bend a little and make an exception for just these few...…

Because that entry becomes a right, and male people starting getting understandably angry about why that person can but they shouldn't, and male people can do this so who are these uppity bitches gatekeeping their space and implying one transition is more valid than another, and male people start shouting at other male people about which of them under which circumstances get to do what they want with females and female spaces and - shut up females, you didn't get a say in this to start with, this is nothing to do with you ….

I mean if you put this crap on the relationships board, you'd have an overwhelming vote of call Women's Aid, go on the Freedom Training right now and LTB. This is not sane. Why would any woman enter into this kind of situation and see it as any kind of a good thing? Unless they have some twisted idea of their own virtue in signalling self sacrifice and sacrificing other female equalities and female people to get male approval, and that does happen.

It was destruction tested. It is very apparent that the jolly good chap principle where everyone respects everyone else and doesn't take the piss has failed beyond measure, and it was a bad idea that was very poor in considering female needs, rights and seeing females as equally human in the first place.

Two separate issues.

Female single sex spaces required that meet the needs of all females inclusively of all protected characteristics.

Additional spaces required to meet the needs of people who need alternatives to sex based spaces.

The most obvious one and the one that cannot be swept aside is the religious need for some women of faith to have single sex spaces.

Most obvious, yes. Most likely to be accepted by the general public, yes. But not the only one that cannot be swept aside.

Women traumatised by male violence matter. We might not have a handy label round which to rally and form a coherent political category, but we still matter, and we are still just as excluded by the presence of male bodies as women of other faiths are.

I strongly object to the (no doubt unintended) implication that the women who've experienced male bodies as a weapon, with lifelong consequences, are less important than the women who cannot share spaces with males for religious reasons.

Sweeping aside the female victims of male violence - the women who know through painful personal experience that the male body is inherently a weapon - when the topic for consideration is whether to allow those male bodies into the spaces we rely on in order to have a semblance of life outside the home, isn't acceptable.

It's quite difficult not to infer from that traumatised women are being unreasonable.

Personally, I didn't care about toilets until they started to be the thin end of the wedge - with prisons, refuges and rape counselling firmly at the thick end. Now? I care.

This x100. I still have no personal problem with old school transsexuals using the Ladies - but if women's kindness is going to be used to open up sports, rape shelters and wards to bearded aggressors, then it's a hard no to any male in any female space.

I just hope people are now able to turn to those who were speaking so loudly before and ask ‘why did you do this’? But then they will deny that they ever did.

So far, trans voices have been loud and now women are speaking up and the media can no longer avoid. All organisations that have acted beyond the scope of the EA will have to look very carefully at whether legal challenges can be mounted.

The most obvious one and the one that cannot be swept aside is the religious need for some women of faith to have single sex spaces.

No matter how you look at this, the rights of religious women are equal to trans rights and the fact that a trans person can use other facilities such as gender neutral or unisex spaces whereas a religious woman has no where else, is a very compelling argument and one that the courts could not dismiss easily.

Would say a private swimming pool/club need to follow the law? So there’s your solution... if you want to follow the ‘stonewall’ version then join a relevant club that allows these rules (virgin active said they did didn’t they?).

Otherwise - clubs, pools, classes... just follow the flipping law!

I think this is going to take a lot of legal action.

It needs to be established that women of certain cultures and women with trauma issues rooted in male violence cannot be reasonably expected to share certain spaces with males, and that to accommodate this service providers need to be starting from the assumption that female-only spaces are always a proportionate means to a legitimate end.

The onus needs to be on male trans people to prove, on a case-by-case basis, that their inclusion will not prevent traumatised women or women of other cultures from accessing services. At the moment, women and service providers have to go through the rigmarole of demonstrating over and over again that this male cannot be safely included in certain spaces without excluding some females, and this male, and this male...

Rape crisis centres, swimming ponds, toilets, hospital wards - the default starting position needs to be "no males". And it's going to take a lot of legal cases to build up the evidence needed to establish that as a general principle.

And even with a GRA, you can restrict services to one sex. It's just more difficult.

Personally, I didn't care about toilets until they started to be the thin end of the wedge - with prisons, refuges and rape counselling firmly at the thick end. Now? I care.

In the zealous anxiety to ensure all male people have their needs met, and feelings catered to, some female people are excluded from any provision at all... and we're being told that's a marvellous victory for human rights and freedoms.

The Girl Guides are another glaring example. They use the Equality Act to justify their right to exist and then break it by accepting boys and men.

Sorry, my point relevant to the thread being: the ponds are a very helpful demonstration of actual practice. There's no getting away from it.

I suspect Liz Truss's statement was carefully balanced to wait for the results of the coming court cases which hopefully will start to put pressure back on providers and services that they must not exclude female people from any access by removing single sex options in their rush to ensure male people have their full breadth of choice and valued wellbeing at all times.

This will, eventually, lead to the government realising that in order to allow a female person's needs and wellbeing to met, there will come a point where the word 'no' has to be said to a male person, with a limit placed upon how their needs and accommodation can injustly and unequally impact upon the needs and accommodation of others. Because let's face it, no one is saying the male person's needs should not be met, or that accommodation should be provided that fits that male person's needs; the only limit is at insisting upon a very specific type of accommodation even though it removes accommodation from others.

But the DfE has laid the ground for this. That was how to put down polite, firm boundaries in plain English, in a way impossible to argue with.

But I suspect that facilities like the Ladies' Pond, which we don't have a statutory right to, may not be covered.

That demonstrates, all by itself, just how ludicrously misogynistic and unfair this all is in reality.

Three ponds now that male people may take their personal, preferred individual choice on based on their valued feelings and needs in the moment.

No pond at all that some female people may now use under any circumstances, with their needs and feelings being irrelevant.

You can only celebrate that as a victory for progressivism if you have a very, very distorted view of life indeed.

The work has already begun in some respects.

It can only be done well through a coordinated campaign though. Part of that is writing letters. Anyone up to helping, even just a few here and there, should contact the Baroness to offer. I know she has some help and needs more.

[email protected]

Not a lawyer, but wondering about challenges on equality impact assessments, particularly on women of faiths who can't share spaces with males?

The Ladies Pond was used by Orthodox Jewish women, I think I remember reading, who wouldn't be able to swim in a mixed sex space.