What right to a single sex space do I have and how?

*You say not being able to access women only spaces would cause you great distress. I say you being able to access women only spaces causes me great distress.

You apparently don’t care about my distress, and yet you expect me to care about yours. Why?*

That same question goes both ways. You don't care about mine and expect me to sacrifice myself and relinquish my legal protection because some women object.

Datun They are very nice flats and it was quite a few years ago it closed but its interesting how just 1 person changed everything. I bet they'd say no one had an issue though.

So now I’ve got that playing in my head for the rest of the day, thanks Datun! 🤣

That's a definite set of lyrics in there, right down to the sad, empty pub being paved over for a block of flats.

I think this is a really interesting thread - good to see the law laid out clearly.

My question is to @TalkingtoLangClegintheDark why should women worry about post-op transexual people in their toilets? People ask me this all the time - is it just a theoretical argument that female spaces are female and you can't actually change sex, or is there a safety or other reason?

My question to @BlueLipstickRocks is what is your objection to a third space? I totally get that you might not want or might feel unsafe in a male toilet, but I also agree that women (people born female) shouldn't be obliged to provide safety or comfort to you at their own expense. What would be wrong with a third space?

(and thank you for the stats - I really didn't know that there are only 5000 post-op transsexual people in this country. Gosh. )

There are infinitely worse earworms, mind.

This needs to be a campaign in and of itself, IMO. A campaign to enshrine in law women’s and girls’ active right to single sex spaces and services. Not exceptions tacked on, but as a constant. As a human rights issue.

Wish I had the wherewithal to start it myself but I really don’t!

Wtfdoipick

The beginning of that anecdote made me instantly think there's a guy works down the chip shop swears he's Elvis 🤣

Being transsexual is not about a belief in a gender identity. That is profoundly misunderstanding what it means to be TS and diminishes dysphoria and dysmorphia.

My apologies for not properly understanding your situation and the trauma this has caused you. I just presumed that you also have a gender identity and expression that do not conform to your sex class.
However, my question remains " Where do we go from here?"

There was a transsexual used to go to the pub I went to. This person made the women uncomfortable so we started drinking elsewhere, there were no women left so the men followed us to continue chatting us up. Original pub is now converted into a block of flats. This is what happens in the real world, women might not say anything but they change their behaviour which negatively affects them. Problem is certain people don't care that women need to adjust and are negatively impacted because women are a sub species. That message is coming across loud and clear and that confirms some people's biology more than anything else

So stop trying to dictate who should enter our spaces, where our boundaries should be or who gets to call themselves a woman.

Well said, tibtom.

When it comes to my wish for, what I in fact believe to be my human right (whether enshrined in law or not) to, some spaces which are exclusively female, then I don’t see you as qualitatively different from other biologically male people, aka men. That is my truth, my reality.

You say not being able to access women only spaces would cause you great distress. I say you being able to access women only spaces causes me great distress.

You apparently don’t care about my distress, and yet you expect me to care about yours. Why?

This is the problem where your belief in your gender identity is at odds with women's needs for female only spaces

Being transsexual is not about a belief in a gender identity. That is profoundly misunderstanding what it means to be TS and diminishes dysphoria and dysmorphia.

This is the problem where your belief in your gender identity is at odds with women's needs for female only spaces. How do we include you and yet exclude others. What is the solution? In your opinion, your exclusion denies your gender identity and yet to include you, denies women the right to a single sex service. Where do we go from here?

It's a tough one. I, like many women, have never had an issue with transsexuals. Obviously we could never know whether someone was post op or not but we were prepared to go along with it and 'pretend'.

This is partly why many TS feel they pass - because women generally just don't make a fuss unless we feel it's necessary.

It has now become necessary.

For many years, i was one of those who would smile and make small talk at the mirror with a stranger be it a woman or a man clearly trying to pass as a woman. Having seen, read about and experienced the vitriol directed at women, i don't see why i should quite honestly.

And this is where SW etc have shown their misogyny. By insisting that we accept a man in a dress who just wants to wank over the sound of a woman pissing and stick used tampons up his arse as a woman, they have damaged the situation for women and TS alike.

Because I've never known any woman stick someone else's tampon up their arse or wank over the sound of another woman pissing and i doubt any genuine post op transsexuals have done that either.

But I'm fairly sure there are more than 5000 women in the UK who would support it.

And, crucially, many, many more than 5000 women (and girls) who would hugely benefit from it,

Who would not then suffer the negative impact that even just 5000 biologically male transsexual people in women’s spaces could have on them across the course of a lifetime. Because if you think about the numbers potentially affected by just one person across the decades, it’s a lot higher than that 5000 figure.

And I would argue that there’s also the negative “existential” impact in women and girls knowing they’re not really entitled to genuinely single sex spaces, even if they don’t come across a biologically male transsexual or transgender person in those spaces.

We already learn from our infancy in myriad ways that we are and always have been the second sex. Which in and of itself has a deleterious affect on us as human beings. I would argue that knowing that we are not entitled in law to the dignity and privacy of single sex spaces actually compounds that original wound - where as a society we should be seeking redress for it, and to heal it as far as possible, so grievous it is.

That’s if as a society we truly care about social justice at all. If biologically male people care about lifting up the biologically female people they as a class have so brutally and determinedly kept down for so long.

(Btw, I think it was a post of mine that you reference in your OP, Avocadowoman, so I’m very pleased to see this thread!)

The problem is even some GRC holders have not had surgery. I don't want any male without surgery in a single sex space. The law allows for that but the single-sex exceptions have to actually be invoked and often aren't. We need to make the argument that failure to invoke them is problematic, and there are legal arguments to that effect, but it would be a lot easier if organisations were forced to use these exceptions.

Good, I am glad you accept that. So stop trying to dictate who should enter our spaces, where our boundaries should be or who gets to call themselves a woman.

Then stop trying to tell me I'm no different to any man.

Men don't get to dictate for women, I accept that. But women don't get to dictate for transsexuals.

Good, I am glad you accept that. So stop trying to dictate who should enter our spaces, where our boundaries should be or who gets to call themselves a woman.

So it's only 5000 people so that justifies taking away transsexuals rights?

Unfortunately , you never did have the automatic right to use these spaces, there was always a caveat.

So it's only 5000 people so that justifies taking away transsexuals rights?

So 5000 men get to take away the rights of over 30 million women and girls?

I do appreciate that some GRC holders will be unhappy with that as a solution. But I'm fairly sure there are more than 5000 women in the UK who would support it.

So it's only 5000 people so that justifies taking away transsexuals rights?

That's not equality. Men don't get to dictate for women, I accept that. But women don't get to dictate for transsexuals.

Even a year or so ago, I was quite keen on a 'grandfather clause' - repeal the GRA, but allow existing holders, who had applied in good faith & it's not their fault they were sold a lie, the right to be in opposite sex spaces in almost all circumstances.

But I'm afraid I'm just fed up with it now. Single sex spaces where needed should be enforced on the basis of actual sex not legal fiction. Third spaces should be provided for use by whoever wants or needs them, & there's an end to it.

& I do appreciate that some GRC holders will be unhappy with that as a solution. But I'm fairly sure there are more than 5000 women in the UK who would support it.

In fact, I and many others predicted it, some years ago. It was inevitable.

But, as someone else has said, you can't put the toothpaste back in the tube, the genie back in the bottle.

In other words, you can't go back in time. It was still unfair, but fewer people knew about it.

Now they do.