Don't know how to explain how I feel about the SC decision

[Stripeysuitcase]

Hi,

Sorry if this is the millionth post on this. I am struggling with articulating my feelings about yesterday's verdict, and I'm struggling to discuss it with friends. I am pro womens rights but also pro trans rights, and I can't see how to articulate how I feel succinctly.

To put it very briefly I think anyone should be comfortable in being who they want to be, but not at the expense of someone else's fear/discomfort around who they are. I have been sexually abused and support women's single spaces. I have also been negatively affected by working in male dominated spaces. I feel very clearly that my life would have been far easier and happier had I been born a man.

I can't explain how I feel in that being a woman is about growing up as a woman, millions of little decision I make and have made is influenced by the fact that I am and have always been a woman. That is around fear, discrimination, complexity of emotions, different biological experiences (like periods, strength, body shape) etc etc. I feel that these are mine because I'm a woman, and they can never belong or be properly understood to someone who has grown up as a man.

I don't know why this is so important to me. I feel like I have and want to validate this, to defend it, to be allowed to have my experiences and feel the fear, sadness and pain that has been - and still will be in my future - associated with being a woman.

At the same time I often work within the trans community and they are also completely valid in their experiences and probably feel the same - Not included, disadvantaged, looked down upon. For not the same reasons, but with the same effect on them.

Please, does anyone have any advice as to how to articulate this to friends, family and peers? I really struggle with my words sometimes and have a lot of social anxiety. I am terrified of having any conversations around this.

I feel like I have to pick a side. I don't want to pick a side. I want everyone to be supported in the best way and I don't know how to do that.

So a few places in rural France and one part of Spain. Out of 195 countries in the world.

That hardly makes it a “weird British thing.”
🙄

I'm not sure you are right about that, actually. Providing a space or service to people with a protected characteristic requires you to directly discriminate against people who do not have that characteristic. In order for that to be legal, you have to satisfy the requirements in the Equality Act, namely that there is a legitimate need for such a space or service to exist.

Gender is not a protected characteristic, and women plus trans women is not a coherent grouping. The only people who would want such a category to exist are trans women. It doesn't work for or meet the needs of women, who make up the majority of the group.

The Supreme Court judgment says that if you allow trans women into a women only space, you are defeating the purpose of that single sex space existing, which means you haven't satisfied the requirements of the Equality Act. In other words, if you are going to let trans women in, you can no longer justify excluding other men on the basis of their sex.

Absolutely!

And it doesn't seem to have happened due to the places being progressive, liberal paradises where all men respect women and the sexes coexist in lovely harmony so much as places that were historically so culturally conservative that women were even more of an afterthought than they were in the UK.

I think social norms and expectations will have an important role to play here, rather than reliance on law enforcement. My hope is that the outrageous trolling of women by trans identified men that has taken place over recent years will rapidly become unacceptable at a societal level and that dystopian incidents like We Spa will consigned to case studies in history books.

I don't really understand how you've managed in your job up until now, if you reckon you absolutely can't avoid discussing it? 😳

Quite.

And the fact that mixed sex facilities like changing rooms, hospital wards etc account for a disproportionate number of sexual assaults and voyeurism is no coincidence. Give men the opportunity and they will exploit it.

We used to know this.

We still knew it, we just weren't allowed to say it without risking losing our jobs and being threatened with rape torture and murder by the most marginalised and vulnerable™

https://terfisaslur.com/

Not wanting to derail the thread, but I was reminding myself of the details of the Wi Spa incident and found this fawning rainbow article from the Guardian written at the time of the incident (MN gets an honorable mention as "a platform for UK mothers, which has attracted anti-trans feminists").

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/28/anti-trans-video-los-angeles-protest-wi-spa

It's quite enlightening to read it knowing the actual facts that subsequently came to light, namely that the poor trans woman being harassed by the nasty bigots was in fact Darren Agee Merager, a registered sex offender who was charged with five felony counts of indecent exposure.

OP, if you ever find yourself worrying about whether you should #bekind at the expense of women's rights to safety and dignity, you'd do well to remind yourself of incidents like this and where being kind got us.

I see what you're saying, but you wouldn't be allowing trans women into a women-only space, you'd be creating a mixed-sex space with a particular theme, if you like. It might not be a theme enforceable by the law, but it could still be offered and depending on the organisation could be very well respected by the people using it (I'm thinking of big LGBT community pubs, companies with large office buildings and so on).

This could be rather like the way some shops offer parent rooms (containing toilets and so on) that are mixed sex but open only to parents who have babies and toddlers with them. I'm pretty sure those aren't legally enforceable as spaces that exclude non-parents, are they? Within the internal rules of the organisation they are certainly guidelines that most people abide by though.

I think when it comes to the OP's problem, finding ways in which different types of trans inclusivity can still be supported (even if they don't have the same legal weight as single-sex spaces) might be a way for her to find common ground with people who might otherwise see her as an enemy.

You'd be discriminating against men who know they're men. Women and men who want to be women isn't a coherent group, the judgment goes into it a bit. You're only allowed to discriminate against a group under certain circumstances. And given what we've seen over recent years, some men really don't like other people having stuff they're not allowed to access, so I bet someone would challenge it.

Quite a few women have been very keen over the years to say how utterly unbothered they are about sharing bathrooms and changing rooms with trans women. Well, there's nothing stopping those 'allies' from campaigning to be able to still do that if they want to. The only thing that's changed is that they can't campaign for their preferred shared spaces to be the only bathrooms and changing rooms available. Now there have to be single-sex ones available for both women and men, but that doesn't mean there can't be other types as well, even if they're technically all just different flavours of unisex.

On what basis do you think you can lawfully exclude men from a mixed sex space?

Yep, the Guardian called women who didn't want themselves or their children to have to be naked with a convicted sex offender with an erection, anti trans. The right side of history there.

How do people legally exclude year 11s from sixth form or staff toilets? You can't, you just have a guideline and actually most people follow it most of the time. A company might have some waffle like "the second-floor toilets are unisex but aimed particularly at cis and trans women employees [because you know a company doing this would likely be happy with the word cis], please be courteous and respect this where possible". No pretence at legal enforceability but still something that probably most employees might be happy to go along with.

But again I'm not saying this is something that ought to happen, just that if 'allies' want to campaign for trans inclusive (or maybe trans friendly is a better word) spaces despite the ruling, then maybe this is the sort of thing they could work towards.

Thanks again everyone, particularly @notwavingbutsinking and @WinterTrees , your posts in particular have made me feel a lot better in understanding my feelings.

Also I am really happy to see how kind, understanding and respectful everyone is on this thread, of everyone.

I care about women’s rights in this scenario. Women are socialised to be such apologists for putting their own interests first. I’m beyond pleased with the ruling yesterday.
Everyone else can fk off back to the south of Spain.

Funny you should think you're having trouble expressing this. I think you express your feelings around it very well. They really do echo my own.

In fact, I had the same discussion with my Mum a few months ago - me also saying it's hard to formulate my thoughts into words on it. I think I'll share a link to this thread! Thanks, OP!