Are you tired of winning?

I think it's very important to realise that there are a significant number of women who don't care and that they split into two groups.

Those who think that because they don't care no other woman should care. These woman are frequently used in the trans activist fight.

Those who realise that they should care on behalf of all the other women who do care.

The first lot are our enemies in this issue.

The second lot are friends although you have chosen to attack me as an enemy for stating a relevant point. Nice.

The point is that we need to pick our battles in this to be the ones which are easily won.

"Keep that female looking person out of my female spaces" is a difficult argument to get everyone to agree with.

"I don't want to have a huge threatening male in my changing room and I can't keep him out if you give his tiny female looking friends permission to be there" is a slam dunk argument that the trans people won't engage in because they know it's indefensible.

I remember when my son first started going into men's toilets on his own. I was really worried a man would do something inappropriate. I don't know if there are any figures for sexual assault on boys in mens toilets. I would be relieved if it didn't happen.

"I don't want to have a huge threatening male in my changing room and I can't keep him out if you give his tiny female looking friends permission to be there" is a slam dunk argument that the trans people won't engage in because they know it's indefensible.

The problem is, there are ways round this argument.

In a way, the GRA does this. It gives some men government approval to be treated as women in certain situations. It was used for years to suggest that there was safeguarding in place.

We know thats not true, but what if it changed to only be given to passing men, then your argument let's us down.

Its best to be truthful from the start - we need female only spaces, and its impossible to change sex. Otherwise we are creating problems for ourselves in the future.

“Am I tired of winning?” Nope.
Tired of saying no to mediocre men, definitely.

Not so long ago I got into a debate with one of the "I don't care! No women should care!" types. She seemed genuinely not to understand at all why any girl or woman might not feel ok about sharing toilets with males. I gave her a list of reasons why other women and girls may object, including the dignity issue of not wanting to rinse a mentsrual cup/ clean menstrual blood off hands in a bathroom full of men. She told me she would object to seeing that. Perfectly happy for men to be in the women's toilets: upset by the sight of menstrual blood in the women's toilets.

I try really hard to be patient with young women but that one left me feeling contempt of a kind I can't sufficiently put into words.

yes. It is very irritating when some young women don't get it. One has to assume it's because, well, okay let's call it lived experience, hasn't yet shown them the issue.

As Mrs O says above, peoples attitude can change, depending on circumstance. It often does.

Breastfeeding, period flooding, miscarrying, weakened by circumstance, and being elderly and unsure.

You shouldn't really need first hand experience of these things to grasp the necessity of a single sex space

Women who don't care who is in the next cubicle are confused when other women do care, and sympathetic to men who care.

It doesnt make sense. Why arent they dismissive of the men who dont want to pee next to other men?

You shouldn't really need first hand experience of these things to grasp the necessity of a single sex space

All you need is empathy and concern for others...

one of the frustrations about this whole are of conversation for me as a man is that this should not need to be a man v woman discussion - if you care for other people then you think about their needs and it is obvious to anyone with a brain (male or female) that single sex spaces have a long list of reasons as to why they are needed...

ultimately the men who want access are simply demonstrating their inability to care for anyone else other than themselves...

That is indeed a conundrum.

I really don't believe there are lots of women who do not feel uncomfortable or compromised by a strange male being unexpectedly in a female only facility. The women who say they "don't care" have either yet to encounter such a situation for themselves, or else they are thinking of their friendship circle only - if they are thinking at all. They are saying they "don't care" because it is politically correct to do so.

I think you're right about the people involved and all we disagree about is how many would be described as "lots".

It would seem that the trans lobby never have any difficulty finding women in thst group, anyway.

It is more down to a spectatcular lack of honesty, in my view. Or else a wilful limitation of personal imagination.

Try putting those same women into a mixed facility in the night time economy - in a venue with which they are unfamiliar, and in which they find themselves alone with several unknown men. Let's see how comfortable they feel then.

Or perhaps when they are older, or have children, or are out in a busy shopping centre and have to use a large toilet block with shared access for all of the cubicles. I simply don't believe it.

These are often the same women who proclaim they are 'intersectionalist' feminists - and who spend a lot of time talking about 'the patriarchy' and male violence.

I'm sorry you see my words as an "attack" and positioning you as an "enemy". That is not what I said or my intention.
I'm just pointing out that women who say "they don't care" may well care at different stages in their lives for a variety of reasons - that's a legitimate perspective and it seems a shame - given that we agree on the core issue - for you to overreact in this way.

In the very best case scenario.

Alternatively, they know exactly how women feel, and that is the reason they are keen to breach those boundaries.

To be fair they probably are thinking of mixed facilities in the night time economy - but at specific clubs and bars with their friends where they (rightly or wrongly) feel safe.

I did lots of things when I was younger that in hindsight weren't wise, but at the time I just thought I was more evolved.

Lack of honesty I think. Or maybe misplaced martyrdom. They know they do care, or at least have some degree of discomfort, but they think trans people matter more so they deny they even feel it rather than risk opening up a crack in the artifice that trans women are all soft gentle sisters.

Thought you might be amused that your comment was featured on Reddit by an idiot who takes everything literally

https://archive.ph/yxGDt

Well, this will blow his mind then.

Here's a picture of me in the far right vault with all the money I get from the far right (apparently I'm supposed to distribute it to you lot, but I'll just hold on to it for safe keeping).

I'll admit I may have diverted some people's share into artwork and gold statues.

sadly you are right - I try to look for the best in people - and then logic keeps coming back to remind us that actually there are some genuinely nasty / evil people out there...

I don't know how many boys may be subjected to inappropriate remarks or even assault in a Gents, but I suspect the danger of attack by men in male public lavatories is less for an adult TIM than it is for an adult gay man or an adult disabled one.

Men would be likely to perceive a non-passing trans woman as a weirdo and therefore potentially dangerous, and thus not attack him; unlike an effeminate gay (they know about those) or someone disabled (they know about those) he would be an unknown quantity rather than an obvious target.

And the chances are yeraverage man would perceive that extremely rare individual, the TIM who passes as female at least to men, as equally weird for using a men's lavatory, and possibly predatory or in some way a danger, and give him a wide birth too.

Nobody I knew in the 1960s and 1970s who cross-dressed was worried about using the men's lavatories (they wouldn't have dreamed of using the women's: they were not cads nor bounders nor sexual predators) when he was in drag; I would certainly have been told all about it if one of them was!

What an immensely skillful apology Mrs OW 🤣

"I'm sorry you overreacted to what I wrote"

👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻

Oh, do get over yourself.

I think it can be very hard to grasp just how weird some fetishes can be, tbh.

Personality disorder is also very hard to wrap your head round for most people.

In my teens I read a book called (I think) The Joy of Sex, which had a section listing common fetishes. Such as glass, and mirrors, and feathers, and so on; but not leather, which it seemed was thought to be entirely usual and not a fetish at all.