Janice Turner in the Times today

Female safety takes precedence always and every single time. I want this to be a priority forever.

Stonewall started pushing their trans agenda about 10 years ago. The cricket captain you mention was deliberately pretending to be a woman and cheating in their sport long before then.

I hope those councillors are absolutely mortified at having their nonsensical obfuscations aired openly in the Sunday Times for all to see.

Yes, and I don't think anyone on this thread would disagree with that. But it's never enough, is it?

Entirely fair. I have no issue with trans people being provided with unisex alternatives to single sex space (provided that single sex space is not replaced entirely to facilitate this).

I can certainly see the utility for people who are distressed about their sex and for those who are medicalised and could be unwelcome or even intimidating (in the case of male passing trans-identified women) in single sex spaces for their own sex.

It's compromises on both sides.

A compromise by trans-identified people by asking them to accept that their sex is relevant in some settings.

And a compromise by society by providing people who are distressed at the prospect, or would feel and potentially look out of place in single sex faciliities for their own sex with a unisex alternative.

I have a friend who mentors a young woman refugee. This young woman swims and swims, in one of these boroughs, before college every day. She also has specific trauma, and when she saw this news she asked my friend to find out whether male bodied people would now be in the showers and changing room.

My friend asked on a local Facebook group that often discusses council goings on but was not even able to ask for the answer without being attacked and her post removed.

Is the culture war changing?

Janice stating that Samantha Niblett is top seed in Stella Creasy's 2026 virtue signalling Olympics is so on the money.
The alt right in politics is currently totting up the ledger on the left establishment refusing to budge on this, even when the SC has ruled unequivocally, and Phillipson published the official advice.
Once that ledger is complete, and if the alt right ascend to power, we'll see the mother of all battles on the law being changed on illegals, leaving the ECHR etc.
The left establishment will not budge on this, so something will have to make them budge. And everything else the left won't negotiate on.

To be pedantic they aren't, because men and women are not the same and the reasons for single sex provision are not the same. As long as no drugs are involved, I don't think anyone cares about the existence of an open division for sport, for instance.

However, the rationale behind single sex toilets is privacy, which does apply equally to both sexes.

I am disappointed that nobody has asked for Mothin Ali's opinion on this.

These councils are declaring that they don't respect the right of religious people to know whether they are doing something that might be against their religious principles.

Which says absolutely nothing about female to male trans people so I still don't see the point your post was making.

All trans people should be subject to the same rules.

Because women who say they are men are zero threat to men?

If Stonewall had campaigned for third spaces in the first place, or for trans people to be safe & welcome in the spaces for their own sex, this might never have been a problem.

I have no sympathy to spare. I’ve run out.

A lot of them are doing a lot of things. Some very bad indeed. But "they" aren't all the same, especially the people who transitioned many years ago.

I feel quite sorry for the ones who were quietly pretending to be women, never held a banner or tweeted a hateful statement in their lives, who were assured by Stonewall that they had every right to do what they were doing and then suddenly have been told that they don't.

I've heard of one who captained (I'm sure that's relevant btw, that a male became captain) a local cricket side for 20 years who suddenly isn't allowed to play for that team any more. I do believe that there are some who would be very afraid to use the men's loos in the local authority toilet blocks that you used to see everywhere in town car parks.

It is a complete mess, and I blame Stonewall for this and I'm beyond cross that they are throwing everything now into getting the law changed instead of doing the right thing for everyone.

Tbf, a lot of TRAs haven't been working seriously on trying to change the law; rather, they've been trying to pretend, and to convince the unsuspecting to believe, that the Law is and always has been what they would like it to be.

I think the compromise she refers to is to stop fighting to get the law changed so they can legally use women's spaces and work instead on getting and using gender neutral
facilities.

The compromise would be in the agreement to stop trying to change the law, which they have every right to try and do.

Of course it has never been legal, or fair, or appropriate to use the facilities designated for the opposite sex.

The main compromise, i suggest, lies in giving up trying to force people to validate or accept your/one's private belief.......by just accepting that you can get on with your life in the same way as everyone else does, and in such a way which respects that others also have specific rights and protections too.

There are established protections for those with trans identities...that has not changed. Everyone has the same civil rights.

It seems the precedent those councils seek to establish is that, if you don't agree with a law, you don't have to obey it.

Sounds like a dangerous precedent.

Have you written back providing reasons why this would be highly inappropriate in a multi-cultural borough like Lewisham?

I don't think I was aggressive, although I was definitely blunt. I apologise if I came across that way.

You said JT expected trans identifying people to compromise, not actual women. I was saying I couldn't see much compromise was required when they had changing rooms available and every single swimming session bar one person week.

if you live a fantasy life, you can't expect others to share your fantasy

no-one changes sex

if you want to pretend you have - you compromise

MoistvonL wasn’t being aggressive. But I think we’ve all discovered that transgenderists routinely take the slightest query or hint of a different opinion as an attack. Which all helps to build their fantasy of scary women intimidating men. That is just nonsense, but more harmfully it also increases the fear and sense of victimhood you instil into confused young people.

a country can remain progressive and democratic while still legally protecting biological women's spaces

Encouraging in the respect you highlight... But what's with this implicit mutual exclusion of "progressive and democratic" and women's rights? That secondary status of the PC of sex is just built right in, isn't it?

Thanks for the share token. I completely agree about being grateful to live in the UK.

I went down a rabbit hole with Google Gemini this morning trying to find out about legal action regarding single sex space in countries in Europe, prompted by reading up about the gym owner in Germany, Doris Lange, who has been in a legal battle to stop an entitled man using her women only gym.

I asked what the prospects of success were for GC groups in the EU, and the answer was that there is little prospect of success regarding top-down directives from Brussels (no surprises there) but there are better prospects at the national and local level (such as the June 2026 Lady's First gym appeal, which ruled that stating biological facts is a protected right under freedom of expression (so you can call a man a man without committing a crime). This part of the response heartened me:

1. The Blueprint Effect of the UK ModelThe single largest driver of potential success for European groups is the rising prominence of the United Kingdom's legal framework. Because the UK successfully decoupled administrative "gender markers" on paper from physical access to "biological single-sex spaces," European groups have a practical, proven legislative blueprint. They are successfully convincing center-right European politicians that a country can remain progressive and democratic while still legally protecting biological women's spaces.