Does anyone ever have a "are we the baddies"* moment?

I wonder if applications to study at Bristol will fall off a cliff , like at Evergreen State ?

Doubt it. It's just plain old fashioned misogyny, and women have always had to deal with that in academic institutions.

I wonder if applications to study at Bristol will fall off a cliff , like at Evergreen State ?

Surely Ls and female Bs don't want blokes in their changing rooms?

It’s also not clear how the instructions on the Bristol uni poster help trans women, if your idea of a trans woman is Hayley Cropper. It’s just permission for every incel to do whatever they want wherever they want, and then claim victim hood if challenged.

I just wonder about all the "LGBT+" labelled propaganda. How much input do the LGBs have? Surely Ls and female Bs don't want blokes in their changing rooms?
Nope, I've never felt like a baddy. We're entitled to pen1s-free spaces...

Indeed andy

Reading that recently had a very chilling effect on me. Particularly the reporting of it.

Helleofabore

That also happens to be the most sinister one.

Oh... don't forget ...

1. If you leave because you are uncomfortable, this will be considered a micro-aggression and may be noted and reported. You are NOT allowed to leave or show that you are discomforted in anyway as it will be considered hostile and equivalent to wanting that person to not exist.

That sign makes no sense. They are saying people are going into the loo that doesn't match their gender (not sex)? Why? So e.g. a transwomen in a men's toilet?
Or do they literally mean that a gender can somehow match a sign? How would you tell - do they mean the colour of the sign, or the font?
Also what's "you you"?

1. If the stranger's presence means you have to leave, we don't care. There aren't any other facilities. If you have a disability, history of trauma, race or culture or faith that means you're excluded - that's your problem.

1. If you get harassed, threatened or assaulted, we still don't think you should worry. You can always call the police.

How dare they suggest I would assume someone's gender. I wouldn't assume their gender, heaven forfend, but I might think that their sex doesn't match the sign on the door

A society at the university of Bristol put these up.

Sometimes I think about doing a slow hand clap and saying, "Well played, male sex class, well played. You oppressed females from time immemorial and when females began to fight back and demand their rights, you clung onto your privilege for all you were worth. And when females finally prevailed, but knew there was still much work to do, you invented a loophole that rendered women's rights meaningless, because you said anyone could be a woman. Not content with rendering those rights meaningless, you managed to make females the baddies for resisting their own erasure. And your crowning achievement, and the one that must really give you the greatest satisfaction, is that while it is true many females were brave and risked their safety and reputations to retain their rights, you somehow convinced many more women to cheer you on while you dismantled all the gains that women have made in the past century. Well played, male sex class, well played."

Great post justaftb
A female colleague of mine said she wasn't comfortable using the gender-neutral toilets because one particular male colleague always managed to coincidentally go to the loo at the same time. Nothing you could pin a harassment case on, but she felt uncomfortable and her only way to avoid that situation was to seek out the female toilets on my floor.

This reminds me of one of my least-favourite arguments, that 'well if anything inappropriate happens (with males in female spaces) of course you just report it, so problem solved'.

The category of "nothing you can pin a case on" is huge and unsettling.
In any toilet (female or mixed sex) if you saw a large male person(s) following a teen girl to a toilet and lurking around, you would have no idea whether their inner gender identity was male or female and therefore whether this was potentially inappropriate or not. Certainly not something you could call the police on - or now even make any comment on, as they might be female.

You'll notice the expectations differ hugely on a sex class basis

It is always, always the prioritisation of the male wants over the needs of females.

Once you see it, it cannot be unseen.

This is argued with by first, that these women don't actually exist. And when posters point out the evidence that they do, and indeed some of the women talking here are some of those women... .

they're instructed that it's their fault that they are excluded, and that they need to abandon their faith/culture/get over their trauma/somehow get over their disability and its implications/ stop wanting privacy and dignity, and it's their fault if they lose access because they can't.

You'll notice the expectations differ hugely on a sex class basis.

Another excellent post justaftb.

The be kind inclusive brigade will never accept that their inclusivity results in excluding vast numbers of women who for whatever reason simply cannot use so-called gender neutral facilities, nor can they use single sex facilities that pretend to be single sex but in reality aren't because they allow transwomen in. If truth be told they don't fucking care about those women, they are only interested in the men and their wants and desires.

We are not the baddies.
Sex is real. Pretending people can change sex instead of giving them proper mental health support to manage their dysphoria is unkind.
Breaking down gender roles is a good thing, e.g. men don't cry, can't wear make up, women can't drive tractors etc.
Single sex spaces are a good thing.
Most people I know agree with the above, in fact I can't think of anyone who doesn't, young or old. The only question I have been asked is why aren't womens groups fighting this. Which is pretty annoying!

Thank you to those who said they liked my post. It drives me up the wall that in this debate, those that are pro gender identity politics think they do not have to 'show their workings'.

Two years ago, I was more or less neutral on this, leaning towards 'be kind'. But it was 'no debate' that turned me, or when some debate was consented to, the inability from their side to explain WHAT makes a TWAW a woman without resorting to stereotypes or feelings, or WHY we should suddenly accept that because of how they present, some males can access single-sex spaces created for female people.

I don't personally spend much time thinking about about changing rooms, toilets, etc. but the very idea that people will argue for males to be allowed access to women's refuges or prisons and ignore the vulnerability of the females who use the refuge or are incarcerated in the prison, is beyond bonkers. To justify that access because the male person 'feels' that they are a woman and that feeling trumps the feeling of fear that a female in those places have about being in proximity to a male body. To reject third spaces because by not accommodating someone in the facility that they 'feel' reflects their gender identity will make them feel invalidated trumps actual fear that females might experience.

(Sorry, I'm going on a bit but have a lot of thoughts!)

Regarding 'no debate' and lack of rigor in the arguments from proponents of gender identity politics, I believe that refusal to consider the issue from every side and weigh up the pros and cons as well as model all the possible outcomes results in poorly thought through decisions being made. A small example from my life to illustrate this. We have to go back to about 6 months before the pandemic as it concerns the building I worked in.

The building has 6 floors and houses a variety of business. The company I work for is the largest tenant and occupies 2 and a half floors. On each floor, when you come out of the lifts, there is a set of toilets on either side of the lift. The toilets to the left were designated for male use and those on the right for female use. Each toilet block contained about 6 cubicles with shared sinks, mirrors, etc. Very common set up. I assume the male toilets had urinals, but I never entered them, so am none the wiser. Anyone could use the toilets, they weren't for specific companies, but I guess people used the ones nearest to them on their floor as it just makes sense. As I work in a very male-dominated industry, the female toilets were never very busy and I would always recognize other users as they worked for my company.

After the refurbishment, all the toilet blocks on every floor except one were designated as gender neutral. I happen to work on the floor where the toilets remained male or female. There was no staff consultation on the change, no surveys to gauge attitudes. I expect (hope) that the owner did some sort of assessment, but once the new toilets were unveiled it was with the message that it makes for a more inclusive workplace. And I don't doubt it was done in the spirit of inclusiveness, but it is an instance of where the thinking seemed to stop once they started making their list of pros for the changes and the first pro they came up with was 'Inclusive' and then they stopped thinking.

In practice, here's what happened. As the toilet block on my floor was the only one still designated exclusively for women, suddenly it was busy and there were lots of women in there that I knew did not work on my floor. And these were not the purse-mouthed, spoilsport TERFs that you might expect. Our company is the most boring one in the building, the rest of the building is filled with media companies, the head office a trendy fashion brand aimed at young women, and various other 'cool' industries where the employees are young and woke and wear rainbow lanyards and who seem to delight in their bending of gender norms. While waiting for a cubicle to become free one day, one of these young women turned to me and said that the women in her office hate the gender-neutral toilets and they prefer to take the stairs a couple of floors to use the ones on my floor. They don't like the wee on the seats (was never an issue before the change), they don't like touching the sanitary bins because they can't be sure that they haven't been sprayed accidentally by pee, too. A female colleague of mine said she wasn't comfortable using the gender-neutral toilets because one particular male colleague always managed to coincidentally go to the loo at the same time. Nothing you could pin a harassment case on, but she felt uncomfortable and her only way to avoid that situation was to seek out the female toilets on my floor.

It seems that no one thought through or modeled possible outcomes of what that change would mean or if they did, they didn't care that effectively, males in the building had a choice of 11 toilet blocks they could use including one male-only toilet block, while women's options were much limited by the reasons the felt uncomfortable using the gender-neutral toilets. I also imagine that any transwomen who work in the building also felt disadvantaged because in order to be sure to not be in the toilet block with a male, they would have to come to the floor I work on and use the block there. (Transwomen were using the female toilets without issue before the change.)

No one I spoke to about it could offer what advantage the change made. Male colleagues weren't crazy about it either and on most floors, there seemed to be an unspoken agreement that males would continue to use the block previously known as male, and ditto for the females. But, you can't police everyone and some males were happy to use either or they were new and didn't know or were a visitor. Because obviously you couldn't say, 'I know the sign says gender neutral, but actually, on the lowdown the men use this one and the women the other', because there is the possibility if someone reporting you to HR for not being inclusive.

So, there seems to be a free pass from considering all outcomes and consequences once an idea is considered 'inclusive' according to gender identity politics. People who are incapable of thinking through outcomes or who refuse to recognise conflicts or engage in good faith to reach compromise, these people should not be allowed anywhere near decision making when it comes to public policy (I'm looking at you Stonewall).

It is depressing and extremely concerning that certain posters either cannot understand or are wilfully ignoring basic safeguarding rules in favour of a certain group. Do they not read or hear the news? Do they not see what happens when certain groups are given a free pass? Do they not care about the damage inflicted when this happens, or is the ideology they hold more important to them?

If the last is the case then words fail me.

I think your analogy with royal princes and catholic priests works very well justaftb. Both groups are also a minority, and have sometimes suffered discrimination.

A difference would be that it is never suggested that either category can be defined subjectively. I would guess that few posters on this board would ever expect to successfully identify as a royal prince or a catholic priest, regardless of whether they wore a crown or a collar.

Deliriumoftheendless

justaftb excellent logical thinking and explanations, thank you

It is in the interest of some posters that we keep debating the same topics over and over. The deliberate misrepresenting of our position so that we have to come back and point out that is not what we said. The 'gotcha' questions that are not gotchas because our position is based in logic and reason so we can always deconstruct what they say and point out the obvious flaws. I am sure they delight in the fact that we spend our time explaining the same things over and over. They are not interested in being convinced. They hope that answering their disingenuous questions will keep us from more important activities.

But as multi-tasking is a one of those special 'womanly' skills, we manage to repeatedly show up their weak arguments at the same time as holding down jobs, doing the majority of domestic chores, looking after children and elderly relatives, running PTAs, being the backbone of communities, as well as fighting to protect women and children.

And every time one of them posts a disingenuous question or tries to lead us on a merry dance with circular questions or refuses to answer OUR questions, it opens the eyes of the women who were on the fence and came here to see for themselves what bile those terrible GC women that they've heard about are spewing, only to find that the GCs are the only ones making any sense at all.