Are you tired of winning?

@FlakyRobin- not sure if you are still reading this now you’ve wound people up, but if you are, I’m one of those people who don’t hate trans people, and do understand that male spaces aren’t safe for transwomen, but it doesn’t follow that the solution is to make female spaces mixed sex. All that does is make people who are female less safe.

toilets and changing rooms seem to be the flash point for trans rights activists, so I’d say the current standard public provision of one large room designed for multiple people to use at the same time (with cubicles around the toilets/changing space that don’t fully enclose that space) doesn’t work for people who are male.

Focussing on trans-women doesn’t work either because these spaces aren’t safe for all men who for some reason are more vulnerable to male violence (effeminate men, older, weaker men, men who are the “wrong” ethnicity for violent men etc). Communal public spaces work for women when it is purely female only but never really work for people who are male.

I would support a campaign to change male spaces to make them safer for all vulnerable males, but how that’s designed and how that’s campaigned for is something men need to lead, not leaving it to women to sort for them. The solution is not “just shove the vulnerable males into female spaces”. For about 10 years this has been the solution and it was shit for women. Men need to sort out their own problems, even if it’s expensive and time consuming.

I am sick of seeing celebrities men who are trans allies saying effectively “women need to let trans-women into their spaces to keep TW safe” not ever “we men need to fix male spaces so TW are safe.”

Fully agree about the principle of no men in women's spaces.

Tbh, I find the "I don't care" argument a bit limited and so often derails a thread.. I'm aware that the 12 year old me would have cared. As would the post partum me, the breastfeeding me, the post op feeling weak and feeble me and maybe in the future, the elderly frail and feeble me - all would care.

Which is why I don't feel the need to tell other women that I don't care. It's irrelevant to the argument.

I was agreeing with your wider point.

I agree with Imdunfer's basic point: keeping men of any kind out of women's spaces is a matter of principle, not case-by-case, 'he's tiny and lovely, he's afraid the men will beat him up in the gents, he has always used the ladies, nobody minds, he wouldn't hurt a fly', because each one of these 'inoffensive, non-threatening' men is a breach of the principle that single sex facilities are divided by biological sex not gender ID, full stop.

TRAs can make the argument that TWs are not on average a threat to the physical safety of women, but it is 100% undeniable that any TW in a women's toilet negates the single-sex nature of the facility.

As Imdunfer says:
The problem is that by letting him in, there is no other male who can be kept out.

You know what I meant and that it was a figure of speech.

And he wouldn't need to wear a skirt.

If we are ignoring sex, a woman doesn't have to present in a particular way to use a toilet, so why should anyone else?

I don't, for myself, care. I know other women do, and that has to be respected. I don't believe the physical threat to me is from slight effeminate men who pass or very nearly pass as women. (And frankly you have no idea whether he would be stronger than me or not, there are many women who are stronger than some men, and even more trained to defend themselves who could put a man on the floor or in hospital.)

The problem is that by letting him in, there is no other male who can be kept out.

I honestly think that it would be a lot easier to win this argument at a policy level if we stuck to that argument instead of the "all men are a threat" argument.

It's extraordinarily difficult to defend a brick shithouse of a man in a skirt using female changing rooms, which is why the trans lobby will never address it.

Even an effiminate small man is significantly stronger than you and is statistically much more likely to commit violence, film you or act in a lewd way towards you than a woman.

It doesn't actually affect me personally at all to share my facilities with an effeminate small man who never strips off in front of me. (I know it does other women and their views should be respected but that isn't my point at the moment).

It does bother me if he strips off in front of me, and once he's been given a green light to be in my space I can't stop him doing that.

And it sure as hell bothers me to have an autogynophile of average male size in my space and once the effeminate small man has a green light I can't keep him out either.

And this is another issue that the trans activists will never address.

I guess this post proves why single sex spaces are essential for women.

Women have fought for certain spaces that are exclusively female because the level of threat to them was so severe that it affected their ability to participate in society if they didn't have them.

Transwomen have routinely ignored that boundary.

The Government has strongly reiterated to transwomen that this boundary is part of women's rights for them to participate in society safely.

Transwomen still continue to ignore the boundary.

This is the definition of red-flag behaviour.

Bet quite a few are. Not by going against the guidance, but there are laws on sexual harassment and voyeurism and we know that some trans identified men use women's toilets and changing rooms for these purposes.

Yes. Poor old Robin would have been better titling his thread
"When will I stop whining?"

Uhuh.

Just popped in to a women's rights forum to remind women that their legal rights supposedly don't work, (yay), and they are so unimportant and useless and not being any kind of barrier to men who don't respect women and want to use them regardless of how it affects women -

and all so unimportant and useless that the OP had to come especially to a women's rights forum and make a post especially to remind them of all this (presumably in case they hadn't noticed or remembered it by themselves). While not really disguising their own obvious ishoos with women.

1/10.

Talking of winning. I wonder whether just a couple of years ago the BBC News would have led with JKR’s words when talking about the tributes to Dolly Parton, as they did last night.

I would also add sexual harassment to the list of the illegals.

As a general point, anyone admiring or supporting breaking the law may want to consider being careful what they wish for. People wising to break other laws will be watching and taking note, don't expect the tigers not to eat your face off when it suits them.

TRAs will never get anywhere this argument while they refuse to accept that an effeminate child who has lived largely like a girl since a toddler is not the same as an autistic teenager who decides they are trans as they approach puberty is not the same as a 40 year old man who is turned on by thinking he's a woman.

And that sharing facilities with a smaller than average male who's been on cross sex hormones all his adult life and had his genitals amputated is not the same as sharing facilities with a brick shithouse of an intact ex men's team rugby player wearing a skirt.

The flaw in the TRA logic is to assume that the two groups are mutually exclusive.

Its why it was never about safety.

Apparently, OP thinks we should get rid of separate male and female provisions and replace them with "people who might feel at risk from others" and "people who might pose a risk to others" on a self identified basis.

😆

That's exactly what they think.

I just don’t think you should expect to always get what you want.

Too late, mate. We have exactly what we want.

Men are not allowed in women's loos.

The end.

I think service providers were confident providing single sex services because they knew men wouldnt complain, and they wouldn't be faced with court costs.

They weren't so confident when excluding men with gender from womens spaces, because these men would complain and the risk of costs was real.

They basically relied on women shutting up and men with gender threatening court action. The guidance let women down by not being clear. The idea that men could, in theory, be indistinguishable from women and couldn't be outed lead to any man using womens spaces when he felt like it. But it was never written as such in the guidance.