I will protect trans people in single-sex spaces row, new human rights chair says

I agree they are fourth spaces, I tend to use third spaces as that seems to be consistent with others.

I agree there is also the cost.

However, it’s not just about toilets, communal changing rooms concern me e.g. at swimming pools, gyms and workplaces etc. and are where we need a solution. Both Sandie Peggie and the Darlington Nurses needed a female single sex changing room and in these cases providing an option for Dr Upton and Rose which was not the mens changing room was perfectly feasible. NHS Fife witnesses e.g. senior nurses, consultants stated they had dedicated rooms to change in. This suggests there were options to accommodate Dr Upton requiring no more than a room name change.

Damn, she's good.

Or, even simpler

tell the trans identified MALES to go in the MALE toilet

and the trans identified FEMALES to go in the MALE space if they think they are men, otherwise stay in the FEMALE space

Agree on the importance of labelling these as 'fourth' spaces. However, I wonder whether there might be scope for some degree of compromise in, in effect, doubling the number of accessible toilets and merging third and fourth spaces (i.e. allowing the relatively small number of trans-identified people to use accessible toilets, provided there were more accessible toilets so that the larger number of disabled people were not further disadvantaged than they already are.)

I have pages of sexual assaults and deaths in toilets that have made it to court/newspapers and can be officially documented. The deaths are of secondary school pupils, women and men. The sexually assaults are on boys, girls and women.
Do you know who else has been collecting the data of what happens in toilets? No one.
I have asked the HSE, police, DfE, the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, RSPoA. No one knows what goes on in them.

Just to say - thank you for the work you are doing in this area. It is so important and I am grateful for your efforts.
Let us know if there is anything we can do to help, e.g. a crowd funder.

A workable solution is leave most things as they are except the new ‘inclusive’ toilets revert to being single sex. The only mixed sex toilets should be, as it says in legislation, in separate rooms (not cubicles). They should only be after the quotas of male and female toilets are fulfilled or it’s the only provision such as a cafe.

There has never been a time where men and women have had equal provision in this country. Why else was that poor pregnant woman being let into the nice men’s loos at the theatre? But who would have thought non-pregnant theatre-going women were all such meanies they wouldn’t let her pass into their loo lair? Shocking.

Yes, it is ridiculous; but until people disavow the whole concept of 'a trans person' - as some discrete category of human being - that is going to be the only really workable solution.

I'd like to focus on the idea of 'third spaces' as the preferred solution to the problem of men wanting to use the women's toilets.

They are fourth spaces, not third spaces - the accessible toilet for disabled people is the third space in the existing standard configuration: sex-segregated women's toilet, sex-segregated men's toilet, and accessible 'disabled' toilet.

So what is suggested is that every public building which has toilets now has to find the money, and the space, to install a fourth toilet.

This additional facility is to serve the 10,000 people with GRCs [taking the upper estimate] and the maybe 250,000 people who claimed to be trans or something similar at the Census.

So there will have to be fourth spaces installed everywhere, for approx 300,000 people in a population of 68 million?

How can anyone justify, economically or ethically, that level of expenditure and disruption at the noisy and sometimes violent behest of such a tiny percentage of the population, who are perfectly able to use the standard toilets but choose not to?

I have posted this, from Naomi Cunningham, before, but it so clearly gets at the issue of why “passing men have been using your loos forever and you haven’t known it” is not the amazing confidence-restorative that people seem to think it is:

Think about that for a moment, this idea of a man who is “visually and for all practical purposes indistinguishable” from a woman. Lots of women have suffered male violence, and some of those are permanently traumatised to the point that if they are surprised by a man in a supposedly female-only space, they will be retraumatised. These women may need domestic violence shelters and rape crisis services at certain times, but they don’t engage with the world solely as rape or domestic violence survivors. They have ordinary lives, too. They use public toilets, hospitals, gyms; they visit pubs, galleries, cafés, museums, theatres. They don’t wear a special badge or uniform so that we can identify them and make sure we cater for their needs. We don’t know who they are.

Obviously it’s not acceptable to say to such women “You can’t have any single-sex spaces”. But is it better to say “You can have single-sex spaces, mostly. Don’t worry: we’ll only let men use them if they look so much like women that you won’t be able to tell that they’re men.”

Think about that. Think about its power to undermine the certainty of an already traumatised woman that the woman she is dealing with at any given moment is truly a woman. If you’re not shocked by the sadistic, gas-lighting cruelty of that, you’re not doing the thinking bit right. Think harder. Think about it until you are shocked.

Outing is one of those ideas to control the narrative. Why should a transperson have the right to a private life and no one else. Imagine if the person had been using SSS and women find out he’s male. Women are just supposed to say yeh that’s absolutely fine, there has been a man in there for years, but he passed so well we weren’t told. This is a problem created by years of misinformation and abuse of female spaces and the whole idea that some people can hide their sex at the expense of others.

There's plenty to suggest that the same cohort who were anorexic now identify as trans.

Affirming with 'single sex' provision, is enabling harm.

It's hardly protective.

And living in Greenland?

Sorry, couldn’t resist!

As you wish were.

Well precisely. Protection them from what, exactly?

From mean old Terfs who hurt their feelings in the same way that mummy hurts the toddler’s feelings when she says no, you can’t have ice cream for dinner?

Or from the medical industry who tell them that yes, it is possible to “fully change sex” and that destroying their endocrine system and sexual function is the way to do it?

@RedToothBrush
Have a read of the HHS report - page 58 covers the actual outcomes of the kids from the Dutch study

Unemployed and single is not a life goal I'd want for a child

The assumption that 'protecting trans people' leads to better outcomes for trans people is an interesting bias.

We are going to start seeing that affirmation only is likely to be a cause of harm...

Male born trans people
have different needs from
female born trans people

I want everyone safe. But what if the ‘third spaces’ are dangerous spaces, especially for women and children? That’s what my research shows. EHRC is increasing overall risk by increasing the number of dangerous locations.

If anything should be added, it’s more accessible single sex provision.

That would leave mixed sex provision for disabled people with an opposite sex carer, people who need total privacy in order to empty their bowels or urinate, and people who have a fear of using the toilets of their sex. And crucially this provision would be the most visible, scrutinised, cleaned and attended to by employers. See Euan’s Guide Charity for how far we have to go to change for this. There would need to be a code of conduct that people respect the right of others to use the toilet of their sex however they present. And that accessible mixed sex toilets are used by those of greatest need. And I would do some design changes too like add downward facing grills on outer doors and carefully positioned cctv.

The public (usually men) being respectful that toilet spaces are just used for toileting would be the first time in history that’s happened. Men’s behaviour is the main problem that it always boils down to mitigating for, and that includes other males as well, but particularly boys.

This could be the chance to increase visibility and inclusivity for disabled people, medically vulnerable people, women and children who are safer using single sex toilets, designed with health and safety in mind.

It will take years though and most businesses haven’t got the money.

There’s a lot of younger women out there keen to promote gender neutral toilets until the reality of mixed sex private design sets in. Jolyon Maugham needs to research what he is using people’s money to fight for. He is not making toilets designs Heathier or Safer for anyone, though as a healthy male he has less of a problem.

If he really wants to make toilets safer for trans people, he will need to change health and safety legislation, building regs and standards and have a big education campaign on how we can all go to the toilet blocks with gaps above and below the doors satisfied that men won’t listen or view women. And refine the Sexual Offences Act or scrap sections of it because it doesn’t work with single sex designs for a mixed sex environment. Good luck with that.

If there’s any ambiguity of which sexes are outside the toilet door, the designs currently go private. ‘Inclusive’= privacy.

Me neither tbh. They took OUR rights away without a second thought. It's not RIGHTS they're after anyway, it's extra privileges.

That last post came over slightly more ranty than I meant - apologies.

Tonight I have been pulling together a few more cases, before going back to work, and preventable stuff gets to me. Considering you are supposed to be able to access a toilet easily, there are many people that are in a very vulnerable state and aren’t rescued
in time as the fire brigade has had to get involved, once it is ascertained someone is still in the enclosed toilet. There are some talked about new ‘inclusive’ toilets that I know for a fact the staff have no idea how to get into them and would have to dismantle the whole structure. The irony is not lost that you can have a defibrillator in these places too.

I have had correspondence with HSE and the last time they passed me to Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government. I hope they are telling the government that all the building standards and their HSE documents will have to be altered because legislation and HSE say mixed sex toilets have to be private, enclosed and in their own room.

I know which toilet designs are healthiest and safest. I think communal changing rooms are safe and healthy but obviously having them as single sex (with exceptions for children). I know that the common factor for misuse and danger in a public place is complete privacy.

Disabled (non-ambulant) people have to compromise. They can’t have single sex. They often do not have a choice. Their toilets are often the most abused and dirty. For them to have the safest and healthiest toilets they should be included in the single sex toilet block.

Disabled (ambulant) people don’t have the option of a reasonable adjustment of a life-saving door gap if they have a collapsible condition, if all toilets lead onto a mixed sex area. They do have an adjustment that helps - ALL new toilets should be openable from the outside. If someone has a cardiac arrest, hypo, seizure or head injury they need to be rescued asap. But that’s not useful if you don’t know they have collapsed. However, it is so well known that people do collapse in toilets that for new non-domestic cubicles and rooms that it is stated there should be mechanism that opens the toilet door outwards so a body can be retrieved.

Being able to open the door from the outside is already a compromise for women’s safety that has been abused. But that’s why mixed-sex enclosed sound resistant cubicles are worst of both worlds. You can’t tell who is outside either.

People of certain religious groups have no provision if all the toilets are mixed sex.

Age plays into it as well as the sexual assaults of children take place in mixed sex toilets.

Frailer, older people are the ones that statistically have strokes in toilets and falls. Bizarrely ambulant toilets have a hand rail specifically for people who have had strokes but if you did have a stroke a door gap would be more appropriate.

Being female is obviously a big factor. Unisex toilets are hated and resisted worldwide by women and girls. In India, schoolgirls who rather go in the open rather than use the unisex toilets because of rape risks.

There are so many compromises. We already have so many compromises.

A very high % of council-run toilets have closed because of misuse. They cost about £10,000 per toilet per year and more when they are vandalised. Having no provision is a real thing which affects disabled and elderly more so that they are house-bound.

I really, really hope the delay is because all of the above are being factored into the decisions of what to do. I think adding a unisex toilet in certain situations will do more harm than good. And I know that from research that they will cause a lot of harm then be closed down.

There’s a good quote from a book from Rose George that sums it up (and this was 2008 even before gender ideology gathered pace):
'Anthropologists and sociologists should be infesting public toilets. There's nothing else in human society quite like them. Not in society, not quite out of it. Needed but rarely demanded. A place where all sorts of human needs and habitats intersect: fear, disgust, conversation, grooming, sex. It's an ambiguous space that is not quite in the public eye, though the public uses it. A place of refuge and sociability: of necessity and criminality.'

Trans gender people are safest using the toilets for their biological sex. Whether they want to is another matter. 11% of people having a cardiac arrest do so on the toilet. Having a medical emergency like that or an overdose is much more of a risk than being killed (0).

I have looked at all the literature from TransActual and Stonewall. The very worse one in TransActual is an account of a man flashing a transwoman outside the toilet block in protest of them using the ladies. The other from Stonewall (from their 2018 booklet quoted in most of all the replies to Document T consultation) which when you look is two women pushing a transwoman out of a women’s toilet after they all shouted and the transwoman wouldn’t leave. Edit to say there’s also the account of someone being spat at in The Guardian.

In contrast I have pages of sexual assaults and deaths in toilets that have made it to court/newspapers and can be officially documented. The deaths are of secondary school pupils, women and men. The sexually assaults are on boys, girls and women.

Do you know who else has been collecting the data of what happens in toilets? No one.

I have asked the HSE, police, DfE, the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government, RSPoA. No one knows what goes on in them.

That’s why adding a unisex toilet here and there to make the noise go away is so short-sighted.

Also: I really do want everyone to be safe. I am looking at ways to do this. What is wanted can’t override what is needed. I do have ideas of different designs but no one in government is listening.

@Keeptoiletssafe I am aware of the H &S aspects relating to toilets but not all third spaces are toilets e.g. communal changing rooms etc.

What we can’t have is truly single sex spaces and no compromise at all for people with the pc of gender reassignment. The SC was clear the pc of gender reassignment is law and people have protections under it.

I would expect third spaces, including toilets, to require a public debate with input from specialists on the safest design. This is where I expect the EHRC and HSE to both play key roles.

A key concern of mine is the HSE having gone completely silent on this issue. Both Sandie Peggie and Darlington Nurses wanted single sex communal changing rooms. Why has the HSE not intervened?

From a two year academic study: ‘According to survey data, the most frequent locations identified by students as places where sexual harm happens in school were in the toilets (33% of students indicated this in the survey)..’

Nine years ago an inquiry by the Women and Equalities Select Committee laid out the devastating extent to which girls experience sexual violence and harassment in schools: 5,500 sexual offences were recorded in UK schools over a three-year period, including 600 rapes. Those figures were from a BBC investigation where they FOI every police force. They still didn’t get the actual locations as data isn’t recorded this way. This lack of ‘where’ is a massive safeguarding fail has repeatedly been noted by Parliament, Ofsted and recently the Sarah Everard inquiry into women’s safety in public spaces.

This, and safety for all in medical emergencies, is why we need to go back to single sex toilets (with cubicle door gaps within single sex environments) in schools and as many non-domestic places as possible. I have been evaluating the design of the toilets where bad things happen for several years now.

We don’t need more private, mixed sex toilets in public spaces.

There have already been tragedies in ‘gender neutral’ toilet designs. This is why I teared up when the Supreme Court verdict was announced. I know the correct designs save lives and prevent assaults. The tears of relief that I didn’t have to talk about toilets again was short lived though!!