Telegraph article: ‘We’re not transphobic, we just want privacy’

Where is DadJoke to explain why Rose is perfectly within Rose’s rights to ogle protesting women as they change into uniform for their work?

Come on, we’re all agog.

And this also applies to senior echelons of the NHS where again boundaries are eroded to the extent that certain NHS Trusts seek to wedge male sex offenders onto women's wards. Who in their right minds would argue this? Yet the sainted NHS does.

www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcare/article/trans-sex-offenders-can-go-on-womens-wards-hospitals-advise-0fmbhm3bn

They need to be offered an alternative place which is actually suitable for getting changed and storing their belongings.

Yes. It's also a worry that there must be some very dodgy senior officers in the College of Policing and other centres of power. The fact that they can calmly utter this pretzel logic despite the awful data about rape, sexual assault & VAWG suggests that there's are some powerful vested interests determined to destroy boundaries for women and girls. Otherwise there's be push back against this from within the police.

So depressing.

I suppose it's no more bizarre than the belief that women should predicate whether they feel humiliated and stripped of their dignity and privacy, and their right to consent, on what a man tells them is happening between his ears at the time, and differentiate between him and all the other men on his expressed inner feels.

The whole thing is insanely misogynistic. Men have the right to believe whatever they want about themselves. They absolutely do not have the right to insist that women enable this belief and provide themselves as resources, and take their clothes off with him (and for him) under threat of punishment of losing the space for non compliance. Whether he's emotionally satisfied by this or sexually satisfied is pretty much irrelevant to the women who do not want to be involved in being props for his inner life at all. And they should not be permitted boundaries based only on how objectively and provably he sexually harasses and abuses them.

Women aren't toys for men that they can play with so long as they don't break them too much.

Hopefully so

What a battle women have due to poor, male centred legislation

Since there is no difference between a man who identifies as transgender and any other man, apart from what is in his head, he appears to be saying that any man is not committing a crime if he enters a female changing room unless there is "an intention to cause harassment alarm or distress".

So according to the police, whether or not a man commits a crime of voyeurism or indecent exposure depends entirely on what he claims to be thinking at the time. Is that really what the law says?

Finally got to read the article corgi, it really is alarming how the needs of the women have been dismissed. Thanks for posting it.

Their thought processes have been addled by Stonewall law training. And pre-existing misogyny.

Why does the Chief Superintendent think that we have single sex spaces in the first place? 😒

All this legal wrangling makes me so angry. One man upsets several women, rendering the place set aside for their privacy and safety useless. Police wring their hands and say its not illegal.

And to say that woman aren't being forced to change in front of him because they've been offered a different place is bs - they were only offered it once they protested, so initially they had no choice!

Excellent summary

Voyeurism is a crime. Indecent exposure is a crime. This perverted man is committing both. "Rose" is only doing this to prey on women.

The simple presence of this person in the changing room would not constitute an offence. Perhaps a contrast is in changing rooms generally people expose themselves (in the act of getting changed) this doesn't mean that everyone who uses public changing rooms automatically commits an offence.

There are cases though of mixed sex changing rooms where men have been prosecuted for exposing themself. A man by mere fact of being in a mixed changing room does not constitute an offence but a man who then exposes himself to a woman is comitting a crime https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/620851/Alisdair-John-Wilson-teacher-career-ruins-naked-in-changing-rooms

Its obvious that Rose knows using the womens changing room is causing harm/distress. If it wasn't known when Rose first started using the changing room, its definitely known now

I'm sick to death of women having to preface everything with "I'm not transphobic". A phobia is an irrational fear. There is nothing irrational about requiring men to stay the hell out of our places, especially those where we are most vulnerable.

Great article but it would have been much more impactful and realistic for the journalist to use correct sex male pronouns for 'Rose'.

I really can’t understand why the arguments in favour of women’s sex-based rights are much further on and well-developed in the public sphere but newspapers still call men 'she/her' in reporting of all kinds.

Some actual human rights (as in the 30 articles)

• Article 5: Right to not be subjected to degrading treatment, (like being required to dress and undress in the presence of a man who wishes to be there or lose access to the space).
• Article 6: Right to recognition before the law (not some more recognised than others)
• Article 7: Right to equality before the law (not only when men don't mind and it doesn't get in the way of what they want)
• Article 18: freedom of belief. Whatever someone else may believe about themselves, you are free to hold your own beliefs and perceptions.
• Article 19: freedom of expression including to hold opinions without interference

Two of the cardinal principles laid down in the text: universality and indivisibility. Rights cannot be ranked in importance with some mattering more than others, and rights apply equally to everyone. Even women.

If men feel they need separate changing facilities to meet their identity based needs for privacy and dignity that is one thing. Removing privacy, dignity, choice and consent from all women in a workplace to benefit that man or men? Is a whole other bucket of crazy .

Agree, Anastomosisrex.

It's an offence if he intends to cause alarm and distress. End of.
It's normal to remove some clothing in a changing room for your sex. Not normal to go into the opposite sex changing room and whip your kit off.
The human rights which are in play are the women's human rights to privacy, dignity and safety. Article 8 rights are absolute. The alternative accommodation offer falls short there (IANAL) and besides that it's clearly a punishment.
The facilities are not "gender neutral", they are women's facilities.

Which means in essence: 'take your clothes off to gratify this man with your body, or lose the space and go and change in an unsuitable place'.

Women excluded from women's facilities in punishment for refusing to serve the man. And it isn't about permitting freedom of choice or self expression for the men, it is about giving men access to women in a state of undress. It's time to stop pussyfooting around this.

But in this case they are not being told to. They have been offered an alternative (but unsatisfactory) place to change.

the person (male to female transgender) also has rights, there are a number of articles under the European Convention on Human Rights which would require careful consideration.

There is no 'human right' for a male to require non consenting women to take their clothes off in his presence. None.

This. Never mind the 'born a male' and 'retains male anatomy' - he is a man. 'Respecting his identity' can come when he can manage some respect for women.

I met with the Chief Superintendent of my local Constabulary. Here is his response to my question regarding this type of scenario:

Finally we discussed a scenario where someone who was male to female transgender entered female public changing rooms and what, if any, offences would take place. Generally in law there needs to be an action which is a constituent element of a crime together with a knowledge or intention of wrongdoing. By way of example Exposure under s66 Sexual Offences Act 2003 requires the prosecution to prove that there was an intention to cause harassment alarm or distress.

In the scenario provided police (and CPS) would need to be satisfied of this intention. The simple presence of this person in the changing room would not constitute an offence. Perhaps a contrast is in changing rooms generally people expose themselves (in the act of getting changed) this doesn't mean that everyone who uses public changing rooms automatically commits an offence. It is also of note that the person (male to female transgender) also has rights, there are a number of articles under the European Convention on Human Rights which would require careful consideration. What is clear is that societal
changes have not caught up and where some buildings have gender neutral facilities not all do.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5172833-female-nurses-have-to-get-changed-with-a-male-they-are-told-to-go-to-another-room-the-man-keeps-the-female-changing-room-to-himself-wtaf-is-going-on