Let's have a poll!

I used to think third spaces were a possible way forward. I must have been on glue. Apart from the fact that this wouldn't afford the validy validating validation trans people require from their opposite sex, what is it we are actually saying?

... That extra facilities should be built, taking space away from some other service, especially for people with a certain erroneous belief about themselves. How fucking mad is that?! Loads of people believe things about themselves that aren't true. Doesn't mean we run around building expensive accommodations, removing resources from other people, to help them live their fantasies.

I'm picturing restaurants with second kitchens for all the self-identified chefs, corporations with hundreds of CEOs, all but one of whom qualified for the role by saying "Huh, I could do his job", airlines handing half their scheduled flights over to Xbox Flight Simulator pilots, Secretaries of State for Defence who identify as intelligent (oh, wait ...) and, of course, local authorities should build dozens of glittery castles staffed by handsome flunkies for all the self-identified princesses out there.

Nope. The very idea of special spaces is absurd. It's one more example of how badly this farrago has fucked up our minds, values, and common sense.

I voted "other" as I would go for a 2.5 option. I think transpeoole should be accommodated to feel comfortable, so third spaces, but I also think that bring trans should be an identity people are open about.

You should be able to say "I'm trans and I prefer to be called she", rather than just pretending you are a woman, or expecting everyone to state their own pronouns/be called they.

Just like disabled people might need to say "I'm visually impaired so I appreciate if you can do x,y,z" or "I prefer to be referred to as a wheelchair user, rather than in a wheelchair". You can't expect people to know how you want to be referred to and the world works best when we communicate openly and honestly.

There's always a legitimate and proportionate reason to exclude men from women's spaces, because they're men and the spaces are for women. As soon as a man enters a women-only space it's no longer a single sex space. If there's a legitimate and proportionate reason for a women-only space then there can be no legitimate and proportionate reason to allow men into it.

@DadJoke Hi yes I can pretty easily outline the places I think are legitimate to exclude TW - any and every service that claims to be a single sex women's service. If there is a valid reason for a space or service to be sex segregated, it should be exactly that, segregated by sex. The vast majority of services and public spaces aren't segregated by sex and so trans people aren't inconvenienced there.

I mean using pronouns and new names, supporting them to attend events for their acquired sex, generally creating an inclusive atmosphere for trans people wherever that doesn't cause a dignity or safety issue for women.

It's not just dignity or safety though is it.

It's things like, oh I don't know, Phillip Bunce, the Head of Global Markets at Credit Suisse being on the Financial Times 2018 top 100 women in business list.

He's not even a transwoman. Or a woman.

He just sometimes comes to work in a dress.

Personally I don't think transwomen should have access. I don't think any woman has been disadvantaged because she 'felt like a woman'. It's broadly a combination of socialisation, education and presumed fertility. None of which apply to transwomen.

It also raises the question of what about the nbs? Do the male NBs have access or just the female ones, because if it's just the latter, that acknowledges the issue is sex-based.

@Underthinker Can you outline the kinds of situations where you'd see it as legitimate and proportionate to exclude TW from women's spaces?

The first thing to say is that providers can chose to exclude trans women from women's spaces - they do not have to. So, a rape crisis center can be trans inclusive or trans exclusive (LAP). Various sporting bodies can decide whether transgender people can compete and under what conditions, and religious bodies can exclude transgender people if that's what their beliefs say. I don't have an issue with these. There may well be other examples.

That's what transgender people want ie transwomen (men) want to use women's toilets which would make them mixed sex. Same with changing rooms, etc.

So keep separate single sex for biological women who want/need them (space 1)

and single sex spaces for biological men who want/need them (space 2)

and accessible spaces for those who need them (space 3)

and mixed sex spaces for people of any gender, non binary, no gender, gender allies, women happy to share with transwomen, men with small children, etc. Lots of people would use them I'm sure (space 4)

Other:

As their preferred sex when it doesn't matter. If people are willing to go along with the pretense or where they pass. I run a club with lots of trans members, it's not an issue (but I have had to stand up for other people's right to 'misgender').

3rd spaces for toilets and prisons.

Sex based in sport, medical equality programmes and anywhere else it really matters.

i’d probably go with option 2, but i also think it’s a farce that men can wear a dress and a bit of lipstick and we’re expected to pander to it by calling them she and her. people can do what they like but i don’t feel other people should be forced to play along with it.

I have actually plumped for option 3 now on the basis that it talks about accommodations.

So as their birth sex, with accommodations. Accommodations would be ensuring women are at disadvantaged for failing to be feminine, that men aren’t disadvantaged or treated rudely for being feminine, and that everyone is respectful to everyone else.

It sometimes feels as though the options are presented as ‘give trans identifying people everything they ask for’ and ‘isolate and shame trans identifying people’.

Option 2 suggests that they be [t]reated as their acquired sex in most social and work contexts.

So does this mean the Women's Institute and similar organisations have to accept male transitioners?

Should transwomen have access to programmes designed to address underrepresentation of women in a particular workforce?
On this one - on the face of it social, but we need to dig into why women are disadvantaged in the first place. And a lot of that comes back to biological differences one way or another. Not least previous current or potential for future pregnancy.

Can you outline the kinds of situations where you'd see it as legitimate and proportionate to exclude TW from women's spaces?

I find that some advocates of the status quo are exploiting the inherent ambiguity- they claim that single sex spaces are theoretically possible in order to sound reasonable, but actually there are vanishingly few circumstances where they'd actually accept exclusion was reasonable.

If a “single sex space” is open to anyone of the other sex, it’s a mixed sex space.

I voted 3 because even though 2 sounds better on paper it leaves the door open to endless lobbying about what qualifies as a situation where ‘biology is important’. And we have seen how the trans lobbys behave…

Lots of crap polls on the Internet get multiple responses, and none of them tell us anything. That's why proper researchers take time to develop robust surveys,

I can't think of any group for women in which it would be appropriate to include a man just because he claims to want to be a woman.

I was struggling with this too. Everything I can think of is either sex-based or about being in a minority group in a workplace. And being a woman is a totally different experience to being a tw, so not sure a woman plus tw group focused on issues of being part of a minority makes much sense (and again the minority woman experience comes down either to sex based issues or else to sexist/gendered workplace assumptions which will be different for woman/tw).

I won't. HtH.

The option of the current law - access to all single-sex spaces unless there is a legitimate and proportionate reason to exclude them is not there. So it's "other" for me.

I won't be bothering. Nonsensical poll as it stands without clarifications.

Besides, I think all six of us have voted already. (Excluding Lark and her alleged socks)

The value would be that without answers to some of these questions the poll is pointless. A definition of who you mean by 'trans people', for example, would seem pretty central to how many people would answer the poll.

Similarly a better defined idea of what you imagine the social & work contexts are where people should be treated in a particular way or have access to particular services or groups may influence how people answer. Should transwomen have access to programmes designed to address underrepresentation of women in a particular workforce? Are those the groups you mean?

It's entirely disingenuous to say 'here's a poll, but I'm not prepared to flesh out what I mean by the options'