UK radical feminists; what to do?

What is it with this mislebelling of thinking biology (reality) is important as 'bioessentialism'? Do any of you TRAs even know the true definition of that term, it's completely disconnected from anything to do with our feminisim.

Not that the TRA lot are interested in concrete, accurate definitions. They'd throw out the dictionary and replace it with a post-it note saying 'language is all made up anyway'.

This is one of the many reasons why I can never take any of you seriously.

Another example would be labelling facilities with urinals as unisex as has been done by some theatres. Men might not find this physically threatening, but they might well be embarrassed.

This choice by the theatres does, however demonstrate the logical conclusion of ‘inclusive’ policies.

'evidence is no broad grass roots campaigning or public awareness from prior to the saturation of anti trans media coverage.'

Thank fuck. The TRAs clearly never realised women speak to each other when no men are present.

If you'd paid attention instead of living a life that deliberately fails the Bechdel test, you may have noticed women meeting, thinking, discussing, planning, and organising.

But all that is invisible womanwork to those for whom might is right, and women mere scenery.

Sure, the point I'm trying to make is that other than the most sensitive or anxious examples, no male was ever put upon by transmales in their toilets, showers, sports, prisons etc.
The most likely situation of distress would be boys who feel uncomfortable if individuals they deep down know to be girls are in their changing rooms, or older men who just fancy some time alone with other older men in their shed, garage or other hobby space.
The boot on the other foot, or should I say the transwoman dainty bowed stiletto heel on the throat of the woman previously unable to object...

I'm one of the few on here being a male who doesn't have any rights, safety or opportunities at risk if a trans occupies a sensitive sex segregated space or activity with me

Your right to privacy is affected, and that is the fundamental reason for single sex toilets.

People have different needs for privacy, and I agree that the impact is not symmetrical, but the law does not require an assessment of risk.

Yep, taking your analogy on, all that Australia have done with sex/gender is effectively "decriminalize fare dodging"

There has been no withdrawal. There never was any right for people who are physically obviously men to use female spaces, they got turfed out on their ear. The fact that a tiny number of very feminine presenting men did it unobserved or without challenge did not make it a right any more than being able to jump the barrier and travel without a ticket on the tube is a right.

And if there ever was a mythical halcyon age where transexuals had surgery and just passed as women, that was all rather blown up by the campaigning of the 2010s for self ID and inclusion of non binary and gender fluid people under the trans umbrella. We aren’t going back.

People still talk about ‘men in dresses’, but presentation isn’t relevant if everyone has the right to use the facility where they feel most comfortable.

All that is left is putting the case for single sex or mixed sex provision.

Apparently Australian law doesn’t allow for any single sex provision. An interesting choice, but anyone expecting the U.K. to do the same will be disappointed.

I'm one of the few on here being a male who doesn't have any rights, safety or opportunities at risk if a trans occupies a sensitive sex segregated space or activity with me.
A woman IDing as a man will never be a potential or real threat to me.
So I can read Greta's narratives with less emotion than most women on here.
Doesn't mean I'm not emotional reading them, but my very essence isn't under threat.
And I'm always fascinated to see new takes on why TERF Island is what it is, and why trans should be no big deal to women.
A while ago on left wing Ian Dunt Substack, it was postulated that if the right wing, previously Murdoch, now Trump and via billionaire JKR, hadn't objected and transphobia hadn't been inculcated over decades, right now British women would have come to terms with new women amongst them.
That's what Greta is saying. That GC takes are the exception to natural law, to the peaceful way of things, to the liberal arrow of history that the Enlightenment West has travelled in. Even to science.
Woman's rights, the sexual revolution, gay rights/marriage, and trans rights were all one seamless inexorable march of the Enlightenment Western ethos.
But whereas almost every other Western country easily and non stressfully ended up granting trans their deserved rights including self ID, the colonial and white supremacist nations par excellence, Britain and America, via top down imposed GC fascist culture have resisted liberalism to impose suffocating prejudice and hate.
That feminism, women (and men) by and large are pro trans, but a small cadre of feminists and their fascist paymasters in both countries imposed their will on the majority.
Ian Dunt readers claim that society was always trans accepting and just fine with the female category including trans women, but this was totally corrupted in the last 30 years, especially the last few years as JKR ramped up, Sex Matters and LGBA arose, Riley Gaines and now Sophie Cunningham lord it.
Look at all those countries who pushed hardest for trans rights and self ID, how happy they are compared to Britain and America.
And in conjunction with this, our unique history of Victorian sexual prudishness, look how the GC cadre are invoking Victorian mores by shouting about how they don't want penises near them, other women in other counties don't have these phallo-phobic Victorian hangups.
...well, I have to say these are interesting takes, make a change from the simple catchy lines of "men can become women, get over it", and the decade long cancel culture period, and watching the predominance of the narrative during Stonewall Era.
Now that's waning, and men can't get women to shut up, different tactics and explanations are needed.
And Greta is proving to be VFM par excellence.
Yes, sex as we previously understood it was thru a colonialist, White supremacist lens. And which countries are best to continue to push this when every other country has moved to greater progressive ethos? You guessed it Ground Zero for racism in the West, Britain and America.
I guess that ties into that accusation of women who won't accept trans women in their spaces, lesbians who won't accept a penis in their bed, of being "sexual racists".
Outside these hotbeds of colonial supremacist sexual racism? The women in self ID Europe, Australia, Canada, NZ etc are very much "nothing to see here", so much more liberated in their welcoming of penises or amputated penises in their spaces
If only GC women knew how they've been conned.
And also that GCs are channeling their Victorian disgust of bodies, penises etc.
No penises in their nurses changing rooms, their Hampstead ponds, their cycling and parkruns, their prisons, their refuges.
According to Greta, women elsewhere lost their phobia of phalluses and embraced phalluses in spaces previously barring phalluses, but GC women today huddle together on MN and Let Women Speak meets, and in courtrooms etc, to invoke the great Queen Victoria and chant "phallo phobia phallo phobia phallo phobia, no phalluses in our spaces"
While women elsewhere were so liberated by the battle to let phalluses in their spaces that they literally became better women than the embittered GCs in Britain and America.
...as I say, I always like an interesting outlier take on things, and thus sure beats "men can become women" and the inability to discuss at all during peak cancel culture.
Basically, in a nutshell, GC is sexual racism culture on a par with the worst racism we all know about, borne out of the unique historical situation of Queen Victoria and our mark on the empire we generated.
Greta's description of GC being bio essentialist label in the light of GC being racist in nature can then only be read one way...Greta isn't the only one who knows their history.

I keep an appropriate spare name handy.

@Gretel346

The harms you want balancing in relation to women's loos can be balanced without physical harm or risk to any party by the provision of gender neutral facilities.

Why are trans people not campaigning for this instead of for the right to use women's spaces?

The harms that I think (?) you, but certainly others, want balancing in relation to women's sport cannot be balanced. Even shooting is split by sex because males will usually outperform females due to the early impact of make sex hormones. Of all the Olympic sports only equestrian activities are not split by sex, because the horse does most of the work. But even then they had to remove the requirement for females to compete with lead weights to even up the weight advantage, because the weight advantage is necessary to balance the strength disadvantage.

In relation to balancing the harm of males being on women only shortlists for prizes and jobs, how can it ever be fair for a man who has lived until his career was well established as a male with all the male advantage that resulted in the creation of a women only shortlist, to decide he is now a woman and eligible to be on women only shortlists?

And how could it be possible to draw a line about how much male experience a person could have before being allowed on those lists? It is impossible to balance that problem.

Frankly, while I'm here, I'm sick to death of hearing the hysterical (oh the irony!). complaints about the withdrawal of trans rights.

There has been no withdrawal. There never was any right for people who are physically obviously men to use female spaces, they got turfed out on their ear. The fact that a tiny number of very feminine presenting men did it unobserved or without challenge did not make it a right any more than being able to jump the barrier and travel without a ticket on the tube is a right.

Male pattern bodies never competed in female sport, they were spotted in the changing rooms. The understanding of DSD conditions resulted in a change for those people and barred those with male advantage from women's sport. That's really sad for them, if they competed without knowing, but this has not changed trans rights.

Finally, you have zero respect for actual women, it shines through all your posts.

In the case of toilets, the balance is whether there are sufficient unisex toilets and whether anyone is excluded by single sex provision.

There is no right to use a single sex toilet for the opposite sex. You can argue all day long about whether any kind of provision should be mixed or single sex, but a service that can be used by anyone of either sex cannot be single sex.

That's because its balancing harm that is the defining qualification not whether people 'approve' or not.

Can you show me where your evidence comes for your bold statements 1. To 4. in regards to toilets?

1. Making the claim that male violence justifies segregation is a door way to a very slippery slope of segregation….hence the far right cheering on this convenient caper.

That slippery slopes can change culture?

"Cultural slippery slopes work through incremental normalization, where small, acceptable shifts in behavior, language, or values gradually erode social taboos and reshape a society's baseline over time.
Unlike a sudden revolution, a cultural slippery slope operates quietly. People rarely notice the transformation while it is happening because each individual step feels too small to fight or object to. [1]
Key Mechanisms of Cultural Slopes

• Desensitization and Habituation: When people are exposed to a new, boundary-pushing behavior or idea repeatedly, their emotional or moral shock fades. What felt radical a year ago feels ordinary today.
• Shifting the Overton Window: The "Overton window" is the range of ideas tolerated in public discourse. Small concessions move the boundaries of this window, making previously unthinkable ideas part of mainstream conversation.
• Incremental Precedent: Every time a society accepts a small exception or a mild boundary cross, that acceptance becomes the legal or social baseline (the precedent) used to justify the next, slightly larger step [0.6.2.]. [1]
• Social Conformity: Humans naturally avoid social friction. As more peers, media outlets, and institutions adopt the new norm, individuals conform to avoid being ostracized or labeled outdated."

1. Nevertheless substantially more sexual violence still occurs in schools & the workplace than public toilets so by GC logic segregation is required but no? Why?

If you have evidence that 1 out of 2 or 3 have been sexually harassed in public toilets I'd love to see it.

https://www.aihw.gov.au/family-domestic-and-sexual-violence/types-of-violence/sexual-violence

1. Re: the comparison is between public toilets & employment/schools not spaces where exemptions in Australia already exist….And yes context matters in terms of proportionality that's why its hospitals refuges, sports & prisons who receive exemptions in Australia. Public toilets aren't because it’s not considered on the same level that requires an exemption.

The evidence? There's been no legal exemption for public toilets in Australia means there's no case law that shows it deserves it.

1. the reason why exemptions don't exist for male teachers or work colleagues despite the exponential increase risk of harm is precisely because harms work both ways & as such rights must be balanced.

The evidence? That there's no harm from saying men shouldn't work with minors? Surely you don't need explaining what that is.

Just to give you the heads up, you are suggesting Amnesty is far right. They regularly have discussed how you need to segregate male and female toilets.

Please provide evidence that this is their official position.

When you centre the feminist struggle only around biological differences it kinda takes away from the bigger ongoing struggle of equality that's legitimised by the sexes commonalties. You act as if this is no longer an issue when it clearly is.

Not clear what your argument is here.

‘Biology’ just refers to material differences.Why would one make provision for or analyse the impact of immaterial differences? How would one identify what they are?

Toilets and changing rooms are single sex because getting changed and going to the toilet are generally regarded as private acts in the UK. The legislation is clear on this and the wording in the 2010 EA borrows from the 1975 sex discrimination Act which said that unlawful discrimination against women does not occur where:

c)the facilities or services are provided for, or are likely to be used by, two or more persons at the same time, and

(i)the facilities or services are such, or those persons are such, that male users are likely to suffer serious embarrassment at the presence of a woman, or

(ii)the facilities or services are such that a user is likely to be in a state of undress and a male user might reasonably object to the presence of a female user.

Women may also be more vulnerable when they are in a state of undress but, going by the legislation, that is not the primary driver of the practice of having single sex toilets.

As far as I am aware Australia also labels public toilets as male and female, although it’s not clear why if anyone can use any toilet.

You now describe your account of gender-critical women as an “everyday theory”, not a scientific one. Fine, but that means it is a hypothesis about women’s motives, not an established explanation. References to British cultural habits do not demonstrate that women who defend sex-based categories are driven by class envy, sexual anxiety or internalised misogyny. I do not need to invent a rival diagnosis of your motives to point out that yours is unevidenced.

Again, I never claimed 'proof'. I simply supported the likelihood based on distinctive cultural influences from other countries. To pretend my theory is totally unsupported by the self evident cultural differences points to denial as a unconscious defence mechanism that distorts objective reality to shield the mind from severe anxiety perhaps?

It is interesting but not surprising watching social constructionists denounce obvious cultural influences when convenient.

I am also happy to distinguish the substantive argument from gratuitous rhetoric. Mocking somebody’s clothes or presentation can be rude and unnecessary. I do not need to defend every expression ever used by every gender-critical person. But that does not make recognising sex an attack on femininity. A woman choosing make-up is not a stereotype; treating make-up, clothing or mannerisms as evidence that somebody is a woman is. Men should be free to be feminine and women masculine without either being told that their presentation reveals an inner sex.

Strawman. I never claimed recognising sex is an attack on femininity. I specifically said using feminine expression/presentation to mock people or claim they are 'brain washed' was.

Your point that behaviour may reflect both biology and socialisation changes nothing here. Average behavioural differences, whatever their causes, do not define reproductive sex and cannot establish that identity changes it.

Strawman. Never stated it did. You may want to reflect upon why you feel the compulsion to misrepresent uncomfortable comments.

Your analogy with religion is revealing. I can respect a religious person without professing their creed, and without reorganising material categories around it. In precisely the same way, adults should be free to identify, dress and live as they wish and should not be harassed. But respecting a person does not require everybody else to adopt that person’s beliefs about sex, or to concede that identity determines membership of every sex-based group.

Strawman. Never claimed it did.

Nor is a female boundary “supremacy”. Supremacy asserts superior status or dominion. A female category protecting privacy, dignity, fair competition, recovery from male violence or freedom of association does neither. Equal citizenship has never meant a right of admission to every group or facility.

We've done this already as in 'proportionality' & the fact GC's don't believe gender qualifies for rights balancing.

I agree that context and proportionality matter. But “proportionality” is not a magic word that completes the balancing exercise. Under section 7B of Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act, reasonableness in indirect-discrimination cases includes the extent of disadvantage, whether it can be mitigated, and whether it is proportionate to the result sought. That requires examining both sides and the available alternatives. It does not mean that gender identity prevails unless women can prove that a particular male is about to assault somebody.

Duh! Welcome to Australia!

Your material on cultural imperialism describes a theory; it does not establish that the theory explains this dispute. To do that, you would need evidence that identifiable media structures manufactured the relevant beliefs and displaced local women’s prior understanding, rather than reporting a dispute that Australian women were already having. Labelling one side “grassroots” and the other “top down” simply assumes the conclusion. Even a genuinely top-down campaign might make a true claim, while a grassroots movement might make a false one.

The evidence is no broad grass roots campaigning or public awareness from prior to the saturation of anti trans media coverage. Now if you are going to pretend mass media propaganda has no impact on public perception, history begs to differ.

www.un.org/en/hate-speech/understanding-hate-speech/hate-speech-and-real-harm

You also say that transgender is a sociological category, not a biological one, and that nobody claims reproductive sex changes. That is an important concession. But it leaves the central question unanswered: why should a sociological identity automatically displace a biological category in provision whose purpose is sex-based? The existence of transgender identities across cultures establishes that such people exist. It does not by itself establish an entitlement to membership of every opposite-sex category.

Because harms aren't a one way street & as such require balancing.
Careful, your bio realist supremacy is showing!

Recognising women as female does not reduce women to reproductive organs. It identifies the sex class historically affected by pregnancy, reproductive control, sex discrimination and male violence. Women do not cease to be cognitively equal because their sex is sometimes relevant. The sexist error was inferring intellectual inferiority from female biology, not acknowledging female biology at all.

When you centre the feminist struggle only around biological differences it kinda takes away from the bigger ongoing struggle of equality that's legitimised by the sexes commonalties. You act as if this is no longer an issue when it clearly is.

Nor does accepting some female boundaries lead logically to segregated streets, workplaces and classrooms. A mixed school can have female toilets and changing rooms. A mixed workplace can provide sex-specific intimate facilities. Male teachers and colleagues occupy regulated professional roles; that does not give them access to female facilities as fellow users. Context-specific boundaries are the opposite of universal segregation.

If the claim is male violence requires segregation then the natural conclusion is it should apply in areas where violence is most prevalent. And if you think sexual harassment & assault only occurs in toilets & change rooms at work & school I have news.

The comparison of sexual violence totals in workplaces, schools and toilets does not establish your case either. People spend incomparably more time at school and work, so raw totals do not provide equivalent risk measures. In any event, toilets and changing facilities concern privacy and dignity, not merely the statistical probability of assault.

Apart from the fact upto 90% of women know their attackers, public toilets don't rate in terms of places where sexual violence occurs. If you can show evidence where 1 in 2 of women are sexually harassed in public toilets I'd be very interested.

https://www.aihw.gov.au/family-domestic-and-sexual-violence/types-of-violence/sexual-violence

Your description of Australian exemptions is also too simple. Federal law contains several differently framed provisions concerning sport, particular accommodation and services, voluntary bodies and temporary exemptions, while state and territory laws also operate. But your acceptance of hospitals, refuges, prisons and sport is significant for another reason: it concedes that recognising sex and excluding members of the opposite sex can be legitimate. That is inconsistent with describing the principle itself as patriarchal, supremacist or the beginning of a slide into general segregation. The real dispute is where the boundary should be drawn and why.

It's not inconsistent because harm not sex is the qualifying factor.

Where harms genuinely operate in both directions, both should be specified and weighed. Private and unisex alternatives matter because they may accommodate gender identity without abolishing a communal female category. Merely asserting that public toilets have not received the same legal treatment as other settings does not demonstrate that women have no privacy or dignity interests there. Existing law is the current legal answer; it is not evidence that the policy balance is morally or politically beyond challenge.

Strawman. Never said it was beyond challenge.

I will concede one point plainly: asking whether you were “a dude” was unnecessary. Your sex cannot reliably be inferred from anonymous prose, and your argument should stand or fall independently of it. Sex realism does not require defending guesses based on writing style.

Appreciate your consistency. And I concede not all gender critical proponents are a monolith of walking inconsistencies.

Likewise, broad democratic consultation is desirable. But the absence of a large, visible campaign is not evidence of consent, and rights claims do not become legitimate only after achieving mass popularity. That principle must apply equally to the adoption of gender-identity policies and to their reconsideration.

Strawman. Never claimed rights require achieving mass popularity to be considered legitimate. My point was about no broad based grass roots activism or concerns.

The excursions into Sal Grover’s motives, crowdfunding and Rupert Murdoch remain irrelevant. If you are not offering them as reasons to reject the argument, they do not answer the argument.

What argument? That's she's a grifter & he's a champion propagandist? I believe that's self evident.

It is also difficult to maintain simultaneously that gender-critical politics dominates the media through a powerful propaganda system and that the movement’s inability to mobilise Australians proves its impotence.

Because distinctive cultural pressures matter like class & victorian vestiges as I have repeatedly said. Australia has a more distinctive focus on egalitarian culture & as such It's know for being more 'easy going' & accepting of diversity so its probably more unlikely to be less vulnerable to scaremongering propaganda campaigns.

I personally prefer change rooms not to be open as like many women find undressing in front of strangers discomforting but its not something I'm prepared to fight a battle on. Its annoying but not so much that I would consider 'oppressive' & I suspect many women don't care about single sex spaces in toilets in Australia as we aren't as precious or demanding on issues we consider as trivial.

@Gretel346
Can you show me where your evidence comes for your bold statements 1. To 4. in regards to toilets?

1. Making the claim that male violence justifies segregation is a door way to a very slippery slope of segregation….hence the far right cheering on this convenient caper.
2. Nevertheless substantially more sexual violence still occurs in schools & the workplace than public toilets so by GC logic segregation is required but no? Why?
3. Re: the comparison is between public toilets & employment/schools not spaces where exemptions in Australia already exist….And yes context matters in terms of proportionality that's why its hospitals refuges, sports & prisons who receive exemptions in Australia. Public toilets aren't because it’s not considered on the same level that requires an exemption.
4. the reason why exemptions don't exist for male teachers or work colleagues despite the exponential increase risk of harm is precisely because harms work both ways & as such rights must be balanced.

It is widely acknowledged much sexual violence happens in the home. Being outside of private place is less risk because there are witnesses.

As an ex-teacher I can assure you all the bad children don’t suddenly become model citizens. One of my challenging male pupils went to prison for murder a few years later. Most teachers will have similar stories.
All the school staff that have been barred for toilet voyeurism that I can find are men (from caretakers to head headteachers). Yet most men are good men. So a way of safeguarding women and girls is to keep the private places they are in a vulnerable situation, private to girls and women.

What do you call a public toilet in Australia? For the purposes of the Sexual Offences Act here it is a toilet to which the public or a section of the public has access. So that’s shopping centres, trains, stations, shops, restaurants, fast food places, hospitals, and could even extend to schools and offices etc. depending on the set up. And public toilets differ by design, location and who can access it. Which components make a public toilet less dangerous than, say, a school toilet that will also differ in the above.

Just to give you the heads up, you are suggesting Amnesty is far right. They regularly have discussed how you need to segregate male and female toilets.

I would really like for you to give me the evidence for your claims. Links to statistics and literature on toilets would be great.

Well quite.

I think it depends who's on a reporting spree because they're not winning any arguments more than policy or even variation between mods

Sometimes posters get away with that type of wording, sometimes not. Depending on a number of factors.

How times have changed!

Oh... I missed that.

No swearing. The f-word is fetish & the c-word is cult.

@Gretel346 - several of your replies contain useful concessions, but those concessions do not lead to your conclusions.

You now describe your account of gender-critical women as an “everyday theory”, not a scientific one. Fine, but that means it is a hypothesis about women’s motives, not an established explanation. References to British cultural habits do not demonstrate that women who defend sex-based categories are driven by class envy, sexual anxiety or internalised misogyny. I do not need to invent a rival diagnosis of your motives to point out that yours is unevidenced.

I am also happy to distinguish the substantive argument from gratuitous rhetoric. Mocking somebody’s clothes or presentation can be rude and unnecessary. I do not need to defend every expression ever used by every gender-critical person. But that does not make recognising sex an attack on femininity. A woman choosing make-up is not a stereotype; treating make-up, clothing or mannerisms as evidence that somebody is a woman is. Men should be free to be feminine and women masculine without either being told that their presentation reveals an inner sex.

Your point that behaviour may reflect both biology and socialisation changes nothing here. Average behavioural differences, whatever their causes, do not define reproductive sex and cannot establish that identity changes it.

Your analogy with religion is revealing. I can respect a religious person without professing their creed, and without reorganising material categories around it. In precisely the same way, adults should be free to identify, dress and live as they wish and should not be harassed. But respecting a person does not require everybody else to adopt that person’s beliefs about sex, or to concede that identity determines membership of every sex-based group.

Nor is a female boundary “supremacy”. Supremacy asserts superior status or dominion. A female category protecting privacy, dignity, fair competition, recovery from male violence or freedom of association does neither. Equal citizenship has never meant a right of admission to every group or facility.

I agree that context and proportionality matter. But “proportionality” is not a magic word that completes the balancing exercise. Under section 7B of Australia’s Sex Discrimination Act, reasonableness in indirect-discrimination cases includes the extent of disadvantage, whether it can be mitigated, and whether it is proportionate to the result sought. That requires examining both sides and the available alternatives. It does not mean that gender identity prevails unless women can prove that a particular male is about to assault somebody.

Your material on cultural imperialism describes a theory; it does not establish that the theory explains this dispute. To do that, you would need evidence that identifiable media structures manufactured the relevant beliefs and displaced local women’s prior understanding, rather than reporting a dispute that Australian women were already having. Labelling one side “grassroots” and the other “top down” simply assumes the conclusion. Even a genuinely top-down campaign might make a true claim, while a grassroots movement might make a false one.

You also say that transgender is a sociological category, not a biological one, and that nobody claims reproductive sex changes. That is an important concession. But it leaves the central question unanswered: why should a sociological identity automatically displace a biological category in provision whose purpose is sex-based? The existence of transgender identities across cultures establishes that such people exist. It does not by itself establish an entitlement to membership of every opposite-sex category.

Recognising women as female does not reduce women to reproductive organs. It identifies the sex class historically affected by pregnancy, reproductive control, sex discrimination and male violence. Women do not cease to be cognitively equal because their sex is sometimes relevant. The sexist error was inferring intellectual inferiority from female biology, not acknowledging female biology at all.

Nor does accepting some female boundaries lead logically to segregated streets, workplaces and classrooms. A mixed school can have female toilets and changing rooms. A mixed workplace can provide sex-specific intimate facilities. Male teachers and colleagues occupy regulated professional roles; that does not give them access to female facilities as fellow users. Context-specific boundaries are the opposite of universal segregation.

The comparison of sexual violence totals in workplaces, schools and toilets does not establish your case either. People spend incomparably more time at school and work, so raw totals do not provide equivalent risk measures. In any event, toilets and changing facilities concern privacy and dignity, not merely the statistical probability of assault.

Your description of Australian exemptions is also too simple. Federal law contains several differently framed provisions concerning sport, particular accommodation and services, voluntary bodies and temporary exemptions, while state and territory laws also operate. But your acceptance of hospitals, refuges, prisons and sport is significant for another reason: it concedes that recognising sex and excluding members of the opposite sex can be legitimate. That is inconsistent with describing the principle itself as patriarchal, supremacist or the beginning of a slide into general segregation. The real dispute is where the boundary should be drawn and why.

Where harms genuinely operate in both directions, both should be specified and weighed. Private and unisex alternatives matter because they may accommodate gender identity without abolishing a communal female category. Merely asserting that public toilets have not received the same legal treatment as other settings does not demonstrate that women have no privacy or dignity interests there. Existing law is the current legal answer; it is not evidence that the policy balance is morally or politically beyond challenge.

I will concede one point plainly: asking whether you were “a dude” was unnecessary. Your sex cannot reliably be inferred from anonymous prose, and your argument should stand or fall independently of it. Sex realism does not require defending guesses based on writing style.

Likewise, broad democratic consultation is desirable. But the absence of a large, visible campaign is not evidence of consent, and rights claims do not become legitimate only after achieving mass popularity. That principle must apply equally to the adoption of gender-identity policies and to their reconsideration.

The excursions into Sal Grover’s motives, crowdfunding and Rupert Murdoch remain irrelevant. If you are not offering them as reasons to reject the argument, they do not answer the argument. It is also difficult to maintain simultaneously that gender-critical politics dominates the media through a powerful propaganda system and that the movement’s inability to mobilise Australians proves its impotence.

Finally, my account of Tickle was not a claim that you personally believe reproductive sex changes. It clarified what the judgment established. The Full Court of the Federal Court—not an Australian “Supreme Court”—found direct gender-identity discrimination. In deciding the statutory question, the majority treated the post-surgery claimant as a woman/female in contemporary Australian legal usage. The Court expressly distinguished that exercise from answering a scientific question. If you agree that reproductive sex did not change, then we agree that a legal classification cannot settle the biological fact or, by itself, answer every policy question about female association.

My position is straightforward: transgender people are entitled to dignity, safety and equal participation in public life. Women are equally entitled to name their sex, organise as females and retain proportionate sex-based boundaries where sex matters. Respect for one group should not require the conceptual or practical disappearance of the other.

Over and out.