Of course women will be safer

[HardyKoala]

Following the Supreme Court ruling. I’m flummoxed by the amount of women I considered intelligent friends, posting rubbish about how women are actually no safer and this ruling is just anti-trans. I just don’t understand how intelligent women are coming to this conclusion.

The main argument seems to be that men will be men and will still rape and assault.

Of course they will.

But now, they can no longer just assert ‘I am a woman’ and automatically be able to enter women’s spaces unchallenged to do this. And this did happen, a few examples below.

They will no longer be able to enter women’s changing rooms and film teenage girls naked. They will no longer be able to enter the women’s toilets in Morrisons unchallenged and sexually assault a 10yr old girl. They will no longer be able to be housed in women’s prisons raping vulnerable women in the shower. This will all stop.

Yes, I do understand the negative impact on a few trans women and I feel for them, but why should ALL women put themselves and their daughters at risk for this tiny minority? I just don’t get it. If you’re campaigning for anything, campaign for 3rd spaces surely? But don’t campaign to allow any man the right to enter women’s spaces.

I have no issue with trans people in any way (I know a few) but I just can’t understand this argument that all women should be more at risk. Of course most trans women aren’t a threat. But men pretending to be women for access to women ARE a threat. And this ruling makes it harder for them to rape and assault us.

The amount of friends I’m seeing posting this rubbish has thrown me. I feel like I’m in an a weird alternate reality.

It’s not just about sexual assault.

I don’t want to get changed in front of men. When I shower at the gym, I don’t want any blokes around, I would be uncomfortable.

I don’t want my elderly mother to be nursed by a male who will be providing her with intimate care.

I don’t want my pubescent daughter to have to deal with sanitary rustling in a cubicle with a man next door.

All of these situations now won’t happen due to the ruling.

Remember the video…. Consent is a cup of tea….. I don’t consent to men in my female spaces! That’s it and that should be enough!

Utter bullshit.

Exactly. I had some bright spark say to me re transmen: 'How do you feel that someone who looks like a man can now use women's toilets'?

Because, for the millionth time... they have a VAGINA!!! Seriously... how loudly do we have to say it for the people at the back!?!? 🤦‍♀️

But don't you get changed in a cubicle? I dont want anyone seeing me naked frankly All nurses provide intimate care regardless of their sexuality

Most of the women on Mumsnet who talk about trans issues are in some vein aligned with being "gender critical" and feminist though. So yes, you would say masculine/butcher women won't have an issue, because that's part of the feminism. I think sometimes people forget that there are swathes of women in the world who don't align with this and who absolutely do judge masculine and butch women and are hostile towards them. It's not necessarily you or the women here who will be demanding to know they are "really female" or not.

I spent a lot of teen years being called a boy by people with narrow views of feminity. Of course it happens.

You've even used too tall as a way of telling a man from a woman FFS!

Because the vast majority of men are taller than most women. Hope that helps.

No I’ve visited 2 gyms in the last week ( a Village and a council run gym) and both had open plan changing rooms. Both had shower cubicles with curtain / door but then I had to get changed in the open.

i can 100% guarantee you my elderly mother would request for a female nurse for intimate care - this matters greatly to her

There are nurses who would like to get changed in privacy, but unlike you and your cubicle, they can't because of men invading their changing areas. They deserve the dignity and respect they give their patients. Don't you agree?

Try reading up on what is happening to nurses in Darlington and in Fife. HTH.

There is a fallacy of absolutism that some people have tried to used to convince women that they should not be campaigning to have their single sex spaces remain single sex. It is based on the premise that if you cannot prevent ALL male people who may harm females from entering, why should we even try.

It also revolves around 'policing' entry. Hence you get those thought terminating statements about 'genital inspections', usually followed by the equally thought terminating accusation about obsession about genitals when they were the one who introduced it into the discussion.

Before there was this re-education process started by organisations, governments and media, female people felt confident that there were options available to any female person if they encountered a male person in a female single sex space. We could ask them if they were in the right toilet if we felt safe to do so. We could turn around and leave. We could announce to all in the toilet that a male was there so every one knew. We could stand at the doorway and say to women and girls 'There is a man in there at the moment'. We could get security. We could call the police.

Then the re-education process started. Including signs in the toilets telling female people that they have to make male people welcome because it is not up to us to know whether someone is a woman or not. There was even a university who put in their campus toilets that any micro aggression towards a male person in the female toilets would be considered 'hate'. I mean, that is rather threatening in itself.

Then came the news reports of male people being so sad and aggrieved because some one didn't allow them to use the female changing or fitting room. All written to evoke sympathy for that male person. Or when a male person has exposed themselves or has been caught watching women and girls, it was all just a normal part of using the changing rooms.

And of course, women who complained were suspended from their jobs, or were the ones asked to leave the venue.

Now female people don't feel confident about what they can do. Now some younger female people have been educated that this new male freedom is righteous and should be considered normal. We have a generation of young people, both male and female, who have very low personal boundaries and they don't know that they do. They have been educated that these low boundaries are normal.

So, yes. Women and girls knowing that if they enter a female single sex space that has been designated as such under the EA they should only find female people will make them safer. We can start having confidence again that we can act as we did in the past.

Will there still be male people entering who should not be there? Yes. Of course there will be. I don't know one person who has campaigned for female single sex spaces who believes that there will be this miraculous gate that will prevent those male people from entering. We never had that gate in the past, we cannot expect that gate in the future. It was never about the gate.

It is about giving female people to the confidence to act if a male person enters. It also sends a very clear message to those male people who want to act within the law now that this is expected of them.

Reading this like this over the last few days has left me wondering what it was like when it was made law that women couldn't be beaten or raped by their husband's. Clear legislation matters.

Whether you want to get changed in a cubicle or not has no bearing on what other female people want or need.

Many gyms and sports facilities or even the NHS have communal single sex changing areas. Just because you don't want to use them, why should the space be configured around your preferences. Sometimes the shower cubicles are too wet to get changed in. Sometimes there simply isn't enough cubicles for the number of female people needing them at the time.

It doesn't matter. The spaces are there and if they are designated as single sex, they should be. It is irrelevant that you don't want to use them.

I requested a woman when arranging my smear test. I should be able to do that and be confident that they won't have a penis. I should have the right to make that decision about my own body without being accused of being a bigot.

This ruling has nothing to do with toilets, or changing rooms etc. This law does not make it impossible for trans people to go into those spaces. This law doesn’t, in itself, protect single sex spaces.

The ruling means that organisations must now re-draft policies to ensure both women and transgender people are included in provision.

The ruling means if you want to hire a woman for a job using the exclusions within the equality act, you don’t have to consider a trans woman for the role.

So many posts on this and people (on both sides) shouting about winning and losing yet it seems so few people actually understand what the ruling is.

Enormous TRA straw man.

99.9% of the time within 10 seconds of looking at a person it’s blindingly obvious if someone is trans.

Yes that includes muscular trans men. There are so many obvious physical characteristics such as skull, hands, limbs, torso.

A butch lesbian or a GNC biological woman is still obviously a women. People spouting about short hair/androgynous clothes are full of shit.

I have zero issues with trans men in women’s toilets, and women do not need to “look woman enough”.

Its obvious when a woman was born a women.

My sister got accused of being a bloke once. She just said ‘no I’m not’ and carried on. No drama. She laughed about it. I’d rather someone call me a bloke than plenty of other stuff.
This argument about all these butch women being thrown out of toilets is a really feeble attempt to get rid of single sex spaces. And how way many women are genuinely going to get violent if they see someone in the loo who think is a bloke? All that will be hurt is feelings.

This!! 👏👏

I feel like we are now going to have to prove ourselves as women.

The ruling makes it clear that if an organisation wishes to use the exceptions under the EA to designate a space to be single sex, it can. So, yes, it DOES refer to toilets and changing rooms. And yes, a designated single sex space does exclude male people of any identity.

Please stop spreading misinformation.

Did you have to before women were told that they could not react if a male person with a transgender identity entered the space?

I think your post may be hyperbolic.

Why?

But now, they can no longer just assert ‘I am a woman’ and automatically be able to enter women’s spaces unchallenged to do this.

So on that basis you would envisage a guard on all women only spaces with the authority to check the genitals of anyone they suspect of not being a woman?

Apologies if this has been covered already, I haven't read the full thread.

Did we need them before women and girls were told that they needed to welcome male people with transgender identities into the female single sex spaces?

Or did you just pick up on some extreme transgender activist discussion points and think this was a convincing point for you?

You've even used too tall as a way of telling a man from a woman FFS!

I remember people using the same argument to insinuate that Daniel Radcliffe's girlfriend was actually a man.

I really don't care about the ruling much, but do think people underestimate how/what other people who aren't them and don't think like them act/think.

Transpeople are 0.5% of the UK population I think it is?

And the average height for a man in the UK is 5'9". So a man 5"4' or under is 5 or more inches shorter than the average.

The average height for a woman in the UK is 5"3'. So 5"10' or taller is at least 7 inches taller than the average.

And yet multiple posters this week know people who are both way outside the average height for their sex, and are also part of the extreme small minority of people who ID as trans, plus are in the even tinier category of transpeople who 'pass' totally as the opposite sex.

You don't think that's amazing? I think it's amazing.