Good Law Project to report Sex Matters over 'deviant' remark

Tell that to Elizabeth Fry. Prisons were mixed sex before they were single sex, and ending that wasn't just a matter of Victorian pearl-clutching about "proper spheres". There are very sound reasons why the Geneva Convention still specifies single sex for imprisonment. If men can, some will.
And I've no doubt that the women who campaigned for women's toilets were also under no illusions about how they'd be treated if they tried to colonise the gents'. Unlike transwomen intruding on women, they didn't have the physical advantage. And perhaps they had a bit of respect for the privacy and dignity of the men they would have been imposing their presence on, as well as for their own. It's not all about violence, sure, but it doesn't have to be. Not unless you're so scared of being thought prudish that you daren't expect - or allow others - any privacy at all.

Men and women do many things together now - many more than were possible in Victorian times; so why this sudden melodramatic screaming about "segregation" in relation to the very few spaces that are still single sex? It seems there's a wilful determination to ignore the difference between women having the use of a temporary refuge from the patriarchal gaze, and women being forbidden to leave it.

But of course, it isn't really about women's rights and freedoms at all, is it? If they were good little girls and let transwomen use the ladies', we wouldn't be hearing a word about "segregation".

The point you're conveniently missing is male violence wasn't the reason historically for sex segregation.

That article doesn't support your point.
"The patriarchy" didn't want women to have public toilets at all, because they would give women more freedom to move about and let them out of their domestic "sphere".
Women - not the patriarchy - campaigned for women's toilets in Britain. It wasn't "segregation" in something they were confined to by men, but something of their own that helped to open up the world. Stepping stones to cross the river on. They're our spaces and were ours from the start.

The women got their way, and for a century or so, the patriarchy were stumped. Pesky women, out and about where we can't get at them!

So the patriarchy told men who liked to dress as women that they could use the women's toilets too. So women could no longer get away from men.

Since we're being French tonight: Plus ca change.

But women are fighting back.

"The article is about the USA, so of limited relevance here."

"Our Patriarchy isn't the same as theirs!"

😂

"In Victorian Britain, most public toilets were designed for men. Of course, this affected women’s ability to leave the home, as women who wished to travel had to plan their route to include areas where they could relieve themselves. Thus, women never travelled much further than where family and friends resided. This is often called the ‘urinary leash’, as women could only go so far as their bladders would allow them."

"However, the plans for a women’s toilet were set back by several years as men opposed the women’s toilets being situated next to the men’s.
In some cases, plans for women’s toilets were deliberately sabotaged. When a model of a women’s toilet was set up on the pavement in Camden High Street, hansom cabs (driven by men) deliberately drove into the model toilet to demonstrate that it was situated in a most inconvenient position!"

https://www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/History-of-Womens-Public-Toilets-in-Britain/

['anhistorique'? Pourquoi pas ahistorical? On jacte le francomouche tout d'un coup, ou quoi?🤔]

The article is about the USA, so of limited relevance here. They are called 'toilets' here, and the presence of the word 'bathroom' when talking about toilets suggests that not just the word, but the argument has been imported wholesale and un-regionalised from the USA.

It isn't a very thorough article, it doesn't seem to go much deeper than to say that women were given separate facilities because they were considered 'the weaker sex', and a woman's place is in the home.

It doesn't seem to be very objective either - and at the end of the article, the author's parti pris is revealed:
Opponents of transgender rights have employed the slogan “No Men in Women’s Bathrooms,” which evokes visions of weak women being subject to attack by men if transgender women are allowed to “invade” the public bathroom.

'Evokes visions of weak women'? Quite the opposite!✊

In fact, the only solid evidence of any such attacks in public restrooms are those directed at transgendered individuals, a significant percentage of whom report verbal and physical assault in such spaces.

No such solid evidence in the UK, whereas there is solid evidence of attacks by transgendered individuals in women's toilets, e.g. Katie Dolatowski who sexually assaulted a 10 year old girl in the women's toilets at a supermarket.

Be careful what you wish for.

You can always rely on convenient assumptions by GC anhistorique 'feminists' that ironically excuse & enable patriarchal influences.

"In fact, laws in the U.S. did not even address the issue of separating public restrooms by sex until the end of the 19th century, when Massachusetts became the first state to enact such a statute. By 1920, over 40 states had adopted similar legislation requiring that public restrooms be separated by sex.
So why did states in the U.S. begin passing such laws? Were legislators merely recognizing natural anatomical differences between men and women?

I’ve studied the history of the legal and cultural norms that require the separation of public bathrooms by sex, and it’s clear that there was nothing so benign about the enactment of these laws. Rather, these laws were rooted in the so-called “separate spheres ideology” of the early-19th century – the idea that, in order to protect the virtue of women, they needed to stay in the home to take care of the children and household chores.

In modern times, such a view of women’s proper place would be readily dismissed as sexist. By highlighting the sexist origin of laws mandating sex-separation of public restrooms, I hope to provide grounds for at least reconsidering their continued existence."

https://theconversation.com/how-did-public-bathrooms-get-to-be-separated-by-sex-in-the-first-place-59575

Michael Foran argues that even if you offer 'equal' services to two separate groups of people, this is segregation and therefore discrimination. In the case of services for (Men + TIFs) and (Women + TIMs) the discrimination (for the women or the men) is on grounds of sex and therefore not permitted.
You can only discriminate by sex with equal services if you have the carve out of Schedule 3 para 26(1) of the EA, and for that you need the services to be separated by biological sex. The EA wouldn't need 26 (1) if 'separate but equal' services for men and women were generally lawful.

https://knowingius.org/p/good-law-project-appeals-failed-review
IANAL so happy for a legal bod to explain this better, or even MF himself!

The point he made - that it is necessary to demonstrate less favourable treatment to claim discrimination - can be used by both parties to make their case.

We are still waiting for a sensible answer on that one. So far, the working theory from Baileyonice (Sanisette Philosopher), seems to be that unless a crime is statistically guaranteed to happen in a specific cubicle, women have absolutely no right to private boundaries.
Imagine genuinely believing that the entire history of sex-segregated spaces, privacy, and safeguarding was just a random mistake because restaurants and bars don't segregate their entire seating areas. It would be funny if the entitlement wasn't so glaring.

So that men can infiltrate them?
So that special men have their girly feels affirmed?

Have we found out why @Baileyonice thinks we have female only spaces in the first place yet?

I did not have any information about how to complain to my local authority that a man with his semi-tumescent penis in full view through the gap in his wrap-round skirt, and with a very unrealistic wig and garish makeup on, was occupying (and manopolising the wash-basins in) a ladies public lavatory.

If I'd had that information, I was aware that making a complaint against him was likely to be regarded as a hate crime, and might lead to me being arrested and charged, rather than to him being taken to court for indecent exposure.

So I did nothing about him except leave as soon as I saw him – which, after the suspension from work and subsequent harassment of Sandy Peggy, I am now aware could also be interpreted as a hate crime....

Sorry, but that (lack of a) statistic really isn't the gotcha that you seem to think it is.

As an aside, since the public lavatory in question is in a shopping centre and is neither owned nor run by the local council, why should I complain the the local council anyway? They would quite reasonably reply with words to the effect "nothing to do with us guv, try next door." https://toiletly.app/blog/uk-council-run-public-toilets-a-decline-and-what-it-means indicates they might well not actually have any council-run public lavatories anyway, but in fact there are a total of two council-run public lavatories in this town, one at a cemetery and one in a park some way from the centre, neither in the least convenient to any shops at all.

Each key laughed individually, choked, and then shook its head

These men are just the worst

When Steph was leading the protest at Portsmouth FiLiA, with the stupid I AM WHO I SAY I AM posters, the obscene pavement graffiti & the chanters drowning out the women inside who were trying to talk about having survived sex trafficking, he said it made him sad to have to do it, because if we were the right kind of feminists he’d have been in there with us.

Did your keyboard explode or implode when you typed that?

If Jolyon Maugham is on here I would like to ask him a question:

If someone was having a cardiac arrest in a non-domestic toilet, would you rather them be in the design I promote, or yours?

Academic studies have shown up to 11% of cardiac arrests are on the toilet - it’s where people rush to when they are feeling ill and people often feel the need to empty their bowels. The Valsalva maneuver (holding your breath and pushing) puts strain on a vulnerable body.

When people collapse on to the floor of a toilet, they can end up being left for hours or days, in busy places like hospitals, schools, council offices, gp surgeries, restaurants. You need to be able to see into the toilet compartment to rescue someone quickly. That is only permissible in single sex environments.

If you really want to use that money for good, look at ways to incorporate the health and safety benefits of single sex designs into mixed sex design and negotiate with people in Building Control to put them in place. But what you are doing at the moment is reducing the health and safety benefits for everyone at their most vulnerable by trying to eliminate the single sex environment around the toilet cubicle.

I shall look at standard deviations in a whole new way...statisticians ! Who knew?

I live in France.

Never seen any unisex facilities. Not one.

In case you were wondering, this is a complete fabrication.

I should have said the TW + biological women arrangement is discriminatory to women if no adequate (in terms of numbers of women) true single sex space provided in addition.

Whether it's discriminatory to men is unclear and might need a legal case (I personally think it probably is).

However as PP says in practice if there were single sex spaces, a TW + biological women mixed sex space, a mixed sex space (plus accessible) then in fact you'd end up with two men's only toilets because for all the handmaidening going on, particularly in places like the NHS, no woman is going to keep using that space when single sex is available.

😂😂😂

Ok you’ve convinced me with your erudite arguments and critical thinking. I doff my cap to you dear Lady Sir.

Noooo. All truth is subjective except my truth.

Our truth is truth but them over there, their truth isn’t truth. They might have the law but they can’t have truth too.