No debate is over at the Guardian

The Guardian has made corrections to the article "in order to more accurately set out the legal position," as they say at the foot of the article.

This amounts to an admission of a pretty serious mistake in allowing the article to be published as it stood. I do hope that this will lead to further scrutiny at the Guardian of their reporting on this issue.

The article is still problematic, but at least the leal position is clearer.

Zoe Williams is living in a very small bubble.

I went to a women only self defence class in our village hall a couple of years ago - you can definitely see the logic for that.

British Fencing has been co-promoting a very interesting project for a few years now, called "Muslim Girls Fence" (which actually covers a wider remit than fencing) - which is explicitly focused on women and girls, for obvious reasons.

By contrast, a fencing club relatively local to me promoted a "women only" taster session on International Women's Day open to "anyone who identifies as a woman".

There are mixed sex situations, some quite intimate, that I'm not bothered about either. What I am bothered about is being in a mixed sex environment when I've been told it's single sex.

Sorry link didn't work, here it again: unherd.com/2022/04/the-week-the-trans-spell-was-broken/?=frlh

By the way, there is another article here :unherd.com/2022/04/the-week-the-trans-spell-was-broken/?=frlh

he thing is that I don't feel personally bothered about single sex spaces in many cases- i don't mind mixed swimming/mixed classes etc and i don't mind for example male doctors for smears etc - but thats my personal view and I can understand that other women/men do - why can't she understand that her experience isn't universal

Indeed. And the majority of sports activities are mixed sex so transpeople are not excluded, they can go to the vast majority of activities.

What transwomen cannot do, is go to activities which are for the female sex. I am less bothered about what transmen do but I imagine they don't barge into male spaces and make it all about them (I wonder why).

Though frankly, I think my workplace could use this, to counter the unconcious bias training that made people feel like they have to go along with whatever wokescolds decide to complain about.

Heard it from a friend, teawamutu, but definitely true.

I agree with you. There aren’t women only spaces anymore in my city as men can declare they are women and enter those spaces. This is a huge step backwards for child and adult human female only services. When I was in the gym changing rooms with a male I stopped going.

Zoe Williams is an intelligent woman

I don't think she is particularly. I think her aggressive delivery is cover for that. I think she's had an expensive education and has relied on being opinionated and 'a character' without ever really understanding or working at what it takes to be a good journalist.

Notcreativeatall

why can't she understand that her experience isn't universal.

This is one of Zoe Williams' biggest character flaws. She's done it with a good few subjects, and I now avoid reading her entirely because of it.

Previous thread: www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/a4375493-Im-disappointed-Zoe-Williams-on-language?msgid=111653031#111653031

Apparently The Guardian are organising workplace sessions so their staff can develop the ability to discuss different views on women's rights and trans rights constructively. Actual working journalists having to be taught how to listen to views they don't agree with - the state of them!

She's doing the job of these predatory men for them. She's actively pushing for men to be in our spaces. What privilege for her to not understand why this is wrong.

The Guardian has always prided itself on its motto "Comment is free, facts are sacred." But specifically on the trans issue it has morphed this mantra into "Comment is free association, facts are a nuisance."

What’s embarrassing here for Williams is that someone actually sent her the thread by Karon Monaghan, leading equality silk, before she wrote that drivel.
And she couldn’t even get the name of the Act right.

@PurgatoryOfPotholes that's really interesting.

The thing is that I don't feel personally bothered about single sex spaces in many cases- i don't mind mixed swimming/mixed classes etc and i don't mind for example male doctors for smears etc - but thats my personal view and I can understand that other women/men do - why can't she understand that her experience isn't universal.

I can’t even wrap my head around the person who doesn’t want anybody trans in their aerobics class...

But that's not even correct - it's not 'trans' that's the boundary, it's 'female' -- now, I can understand that if a woman's been on testosterone for a while, she might appear male enough that there is discomfort, but in practise, it's a much smaller problem than mixed sex.

I'm a leisure swimmer, and given a choice of lanes, I'll pick the ones with women in, because yes, the men as a rule are worse to share with - not as good at keeping the splashing down/staying on their side. Some women actually stop and walk past other people in the lane rather than swim (I'm definitely a slow laner), that's how polite they are.

www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2017/nov/18/cycling-organised-mixed-ride-fitness-zoe-williams

Zoe talking about being intimidated with male riders.

No man will ever feel threatened by my swimming, but I can report that if you are a competent young woman putting your all into hitting a punchbag in a gym, men will come up to use it on the other side, thus knocking it into your face.

They do not do this to men, and in fact, men only ever tried to use the punchbag when they saw women using it. (I paid careful attention to this, and varied my order of use in gym equipment to confirm it.)

At the bottom of each article it has the following:

Susanna Rustin is a Guardian journalist

and

Zoe Williams is a Guardian columnist

Quite.

“Let’s not rehash where faith as a caveat to equality meets its hard limit.”

That sentence of Zoe’s made me angry. There are NINE protected characteristics, under the Equality Act and religion is one of them. If one protected characteristic is always given priority over another, then that’s not equality, is it?

Nice cherry-picking with the “rehash” link too. To add balance, here’s a link to a much more recent court ruling, but Zoe wouldn’t have liked this one:

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/law/2022/jan/06/gay-cake-row-man-loses-seven-year-battle-against-belfast-bakery

Went to a zumba class at a ladies gym a while back. It was a heat wave and we were dancing in sports bras. A man approached the area, stood in the doorway and started holding up his mobile phone towards us - he seemed to be filming us. I asked the instructor, but she said that she wasn’t allowed to ask him to leave. I don’t go there anymore.

Yes, I want women only exercise classes. I want to be able to dance, away from the male gaze. I want to spin around and bend without suddenly coming face to face with someone’s sweaty balls straining against damp lycra.

Why should men have the right to dominate every space there is? We don’t ask for much privacy. Toilets, hospital beds, prison, maybe exercise. It isn’t much to ask for.

And when women’s spaces are opened up to transwomen, rapists, and perverts with cameras, stroll in too.