Julie Bindel following where FWR lead?

Unfortunately Kemi Badenoch has made the single sex toilet situation worse in many cases, though still proclaiming she made it better. She does not understand or is ignoring the consequences of the toilet designs her department oversaw during the toilet consultations that led to ‘Document T’ for public/office toilets. The ARUP document her ‘Levelling Up’ department commissioned to look at toilet design is a disgrace for safeguarding.

There is a tweet just before the general election that Kemi Badenoch posted of a thankyou card where a woman was thanking her and voting Conservative in the general election. The card from the woman discussed how she had been attacked in public toilets by two men in separate incidents - one of which had tried to bash the door down.

The new designs will make it worse. They rely much more on a perpetrator restraining themselves because a victim has less chance.

The new designs in Document T are more dangerous (than the traditional single sex toilets with gaps under and over the doors/partitions) as even the single sex ones can use the fully enclosed unisex design and are openable from the outside (even when ‘locked’) because of this enclosure. So there’s no need to bash the door down. And ‘perfect’ privacy so the perpetrator can hide in a next door cubicle beforehand, the woman occupant has no warning beforehand of the perpetrator letting themselves in and there is no worry of witnesses as they are private - a great incentive for crime.

Despite pointing out these flaws in the consultation process, evidence of real life stories and data, writing to Kemi Badenoch, other MPs and departments, the designs are unchanged. We then have the Department of Education stipulating this enclosed toilet design for single sex toilets in secondary schools (Dec 2023). That document, under the conservatives, completely ignores safety and health in the toilet section - the words are not mentioned. This is in contrast to the rest of the document where the words safe and safety are mentioned as the priority to a school building/refurbishment programme.

So it’s all well and good saying you want single sex spaces and do two public consultations on toilets but you ignore the warnings to then come up with a ‘solution’ that is more dangerous for everyone (including those collapsing unseen inside the enclosed cubicles through medical conditions/illness/spiking/other drugs/smoke etc) then you are doing more harm than good. FWIW I know several people discussed problems, including a charity, but none of these responses appeared on the write up consultation analysis. Our responses were absolutely ignored - I know because I have the evidence of omission.

To Labour - it would be such an easy fix to save lives and prevent assaults and other crimes. Stipulate door gaps in single sex designs of public toilets and school toilets. Provide a degree of visibility at feet level at least so you can see if someone is in trouble. Safeguarding the vulnerable. If you are unsure, just look at the evidence of what happens in public toilets when you enclose them. It does not matter what ‘sign’ is on the door because criminals don’t take notice. And any medical event certainly doesn’t.

Again: it's a cross party issue. It's complex, long-running, and constantly changing depending on context. It's absolutely absurd to try and suggest that one party is wholly TWAW or otherwise, and it's very tedious to listen to people bang on about how terrible the other party is/has been/will be.

It's just more pointless tribalism that is undermining faith in politics and democracy.

The Education guidelines. The Cass Report. Brought a Section 35 against the Scottish govt's Gender Recognition Bill. Refused to bring in self ID (Truss).

Of course, May also promised to bring in self ID, and Caroline Nokes and Maria Millar were horrendous on the WESC.

Great question.

Sorry for all the typos, btw - I think my keyboard is shot. Might be time for a new laptop.

This. As between the two main parties, this is a non-partisan issue, because they are both broadly socially liberal and happy to help the underdog if it costs nothing. Blair gave us the GRA: Cameron, same-sex marriage.

How could anyone object?

We don't have to vote Tory - and we won't get the chance for a while. But they're the official opposition and it's their job to attack the government on any grounds they can. This topic is tailor-made for it.

It's not like we saw SW being opposed by.... the Official Opposition.

As of now, Labour are fully aligned with SW, and the Tories aren't.

The Tories did drop the ball on this (not just SW but the move to allowing such influence by extra governmental powers.) in large part I think because they became embarrassed to be seen to take a conservative approach. This has been a tendency in government, across parties, for some time, but it fits more with a left wing approach - the idea of collective action but used within the context of identity politics and other special interests. It's not an approach that should fit within a conservative political practice, but it's become normative. They should have pushed back on that but the influence of that approach has been very culturally overwhelming, and also when they did, I think they felt it made them look bad.

They seem now to see what systemic problems it's created within public institutions, so as the opposition one hopes they will be on that.

So someone writes a post saying that it was important that the Conservatives commissioned the Cass report - which is true, it is important. So much that has happened since to push back on GI depends on the Cass report.

Even the little changes in the Labour Party with regard to GI, notably Streeting's change of heart (let's give him the benefit of the doubt that's what it is, and in fact I think that's probably true,) depends on the Cass report.

And the response is "what have the Conservatives done for women?"

Well, clearly, they commissioned the Cass report. What a bizarre comment.

The other major difference between them and Labout was this: while the whole western world was being bamboozled by TRAs, who had was was clearly a very effective strategy that went under the radar until it was almost too late, the Tories allowed dissent and discussion within their own party. Unlike Labour who were too far up their own arses to even anyone to ask a question about something they had decided was righteous.

So that's something else they did for women - they actually allowed them to talk and listened to what they said and engaged in the discussion.

@Sailonsilverrgirl

Of course! Mentioning the fact that a presiding government allowed Stonewall unprecedented power is disengenuous.

Silly me. The Tories couldn't help but support them, they had absolutely no choice. Marie Miller had no choice but to create proposals allowing men into women's refuges. Theresa May had no choice but to propose self ID and Badenoch had no choice but to sit on her hands.

@Sailonsilverrgirl

What do you mean, is that all you've got? They were in government for 14 years so it should be pretty easy to list how they've improved the lives of women in that time.

The cognitive dissonance around this issue is astounding. Under the Tories Trans ideology infiltrated all public institutions such as schools, the NHS, Social services and prisons. If you mention it, you're derailing the thread.

Theresa May wanted to bring in self ID. Let's not forget Maria Miller's proposals which included self ID for 16 year olds and permitted men to access single sex including refuges. Responding to criticism with,

The only negative reaction that I’ve seen has been by individuals purporting to be feminists.

There was no criticism from the Tories about her ludicrous report. In fact Gillian Keegan argued that men were women,

I personally believe if you have gone to that level of, you have got the gender recognition, you have got the reassignment, then you are legally and medically allowed to say that you are a woman

Alicia Kearns campaigned to ban 'conversion therapy'. Badenoch paid lip service to GC beliefs but it's obvious that she isn't a feminist and she changed nothing while in power. Just as Trump isn't a feminist and Farage isn't a feminist, they're just anti Trans or 'woke'.

It's not just on FWR that women have had these discussions, though. They're having them elsewhere - on X, on Facebook, on WhatsApp groups and in real life. Julie isn't so much following FWR's lead as writing about a trend that she's been observing among feminists for some time.

What did the Conservatives do for women in the past 14 years?

It's a cross party issue. Every party has its proponents of 'gender ideology', and every party has 'gender critical' proponents.

JB’s position is captured in the last two lines.

“I can’t bear the thought of teaming up with the Tories. But unless Starmer acts quickly to calm our fears that he doesn’t care about womens’ rights, some feminists might consider doing the unthinkable.“

She points out that the Tories have a chequered history on this issue:

“Feminists must not, of course, forget that the Tories have their own chequered history in the gender debate. The Conservatives have hardly helped reassure worried women on the transgender question. It was Tory MP Maria Miller who, when she was chair of the Women and Equalities Select Committee, kicked off this toxic culture war.
In 2016, Miller chaired an inquiry into transgender equality. It strongly recommended that the UK legally adopt the self-definition of ‘gender identity’, which could render legal sex irrelevant in comparison. The committee stated that official recognition of gender should be based on self-declaration, rather than what it called a ‘medicalised’ assessment. Miller signed off the report advising a change to the Equality Act (replacing the protected characteristic of ‘gender reassignment’ with ‘gender identity’), suggesting that an individual’s feeling of ‘gender’ should take precedence over biological sex.

Feminists complained loudly, but Miller dismissed women’s fury about the erosion of single-sex provision in refuges as ‘extraordinary’ bigotry. At the time, Miller said the only backlash to her report was from ‘individuals purporting to be feminists’.“

She makes clear her view that Labour have let down women on this issue:

“For years, the Labour party was a natural home for left-leaning feminists. But Keir Starmer risks losing these voters if he doesn’t reassure women quickly that their rights are safe under Labour.
^^
The truth is that Starmer’s party has let down women by capitulating to those denying the biological reality of sex. Labour has promoted gender ideology at the expense of women’s rights and women’s safety. The party has failed to resist the ideological capture of British institutions and it ignored the relentless harassment endured by the women who stood up to try and protect their sex-based rights.
^^
Labour did not even protect one of its own MPs, Rosie Duffield, as she faced threats and abuse for daring to speak up for the rights of women.”

Nothing new in the article which hasn’t been discussed previously on FWR.

JB’s key point seems to be this:

“If the party is to retain the feminist vote, Labour needs to get real about biological sex.“

If there’s evidence that they (or any political party) care about “the feminist vote” I’d be interested to see it.

My politics are left of centre but I have appreciated Kemi speaking out consistently for biological sex.

But her recent comments about maternity and her stance around autism support have been absolutely shocking. It’s been a timely reminder for me that although sometimes I think I’m a single issue voter, the reality is that I’m not.

I’m not usually a fan of Wes Streeting either but I think he’s a career politician who will adopt the stance that gets him the most kudos. He’s been pretty strong on sticking with Cass and the ban on puberty blockers so I hope this is an indication that the tide has continued to turn, despite the utterly ridiculous comments about gender/sex from some of the Labour MPs and allies.

Nothing in this world would ever persuade me to vote for Farage/Trump. I was disappointed to see KJK advocating for a man who’s been found guilty of sexually assaulting women.

We all know how GI started in the UK and elsewhere and tried to get it's hooks into legislation and also other para-governmental structures.

None of that fucking matters in terms of who is supporting it, or opposing it now.

Can we please stop having that same disingenuous, derailing, conversation again and again?