There's something racist about toilet provision in the UK.

[The13thFairy]

Am I being unreasonable to think there's something racist about 'oh, women and men can use the same toilets' here in the UK, when in developing countries and refugee camps, providing clean, safe and separate facilities for girls and women is seen to be of the utmost importance - because we know those foreign fellas will prey on them every chance they get; peeping, assaulting, you name it. Our British chaps, though, wouldn't say boo to a goose! Perfectly safe. Won't cause a moment's unease. Totally trustworthy, every man jack of them.

I don't think anyone on this thread is so thoughtless or unaware that they don't understand the difference between the situation for women in developing or war-torn countries and here in the UK and Western Europe.

What you are using this patronising argument to avoid discussing is the fact that when they are working in the developing world these aid charities can clearly. define what a woman is, and what dangers she faces. But here in Europe it suits them to argue, in court, that men who identify as women are women and should have access to spaces where women with their pants down, or naked in changing rooms and showers. They are discounting the risks and the feelings millions of women in order to pander to the feelings of a small number of men.

I think you've got the wrong end of the stick (though the OP is worded confusingly).

It's not 'other countries are being racist by sex segregating their toilets'. It's 'how come people think mixed toilets are safe here when they acknowledge they're not safe in developing countries '?

Women in all countries are safest in single sex facilities, but how come it's not ok to point that out about the UK but it is OK to about other countries? Do people who think mixed sex is fine here but not somewhere else think UK men are safer to women than foreign men are?That's the racism bit.

The quoted person had stated that other countries were being racist by segregating males from female toilets.

Western organisations such as Amnesty are being racist about 'other countries' by segregating males from female toilets in those countries.

She didn't say other countries but organisations may be.
Demanding mixed spaces in UK but segregated elswehere suggests they think men in UK are not danger but the ones elsewhere are.

Women are viewed as lesser and are seen as a man's possession in some cultures/countries. It's not too hard to see that some men from certain non westernised/non first world countries may not have the moral /societal barriers in place around rape.
Not all cultures abide by UK laws and values you know ?

UK rape stats are not exactly shining example of respect towards women or aboding by law or having moral/societal barriers around rape... Looking at overal UK sexual asaault and harassment rates, we absolutely should have segregated safe spaces and harsher laws.
At least 25% women over 16 have been assaulted or raped. Some reports indicated 90%+ being sexually harrased. The rape per capita here is masaive for western developed democracy

Women are viewed as lesser and are seen as a man's possession in some cultures/countries. It's not too hard to see that some men from certain non westernised/non first world countries may not have the moral /societal barriers in place around rape.

We may have legislation in place to give women equal status in the Wsetern world, but plenty of men in the western world still view women as lesser, still see women as a man's possession, still lack the moral /societal barriers in place around rape.

Or are you implying that rape is an issue specific to the developing countries?

This is exactly the racism that the OP is pointing out!

Thanks for making it clearer.

I think it's an insult to UK women. We're seen as a soft target (liberal, mostly non religious, probably think we're all 'easy' with loose morals so don't deserve protecting) we as a nation don't command respect. It's why we're not given it.

Minorities living in the UK command respect, they make sure our society adjusts for them. We do it, everytime, even when it doesn't suit the majorities needs.

And that's where we need a backbone and to care less what we might be labelled as and say "yes ok, that sounds reasonable, we'll try that " or "no, a full burkha won't work in this society " (for example. But, people are too scared. It's balance what we're looking for. And sometimes the means "no". Other countries dare say it. We don't.

They're not being racist.

Most people agree that we need single sex spaces here.

The issue has been over the past 10 years or so that 'woman' was redefined as a category that also included any man who declared himself to be a woman.

The West still recognises the risk to women from men but contorted itself into all manner of pretzels to pretend that some men had become women in order to silence women's objections and allow those men to do what they wanted.

It wasn't that they decided that British/Western men were less of a risk than men from other cultures but that they pretended some men were no longer men.

No, the countries are not being racist. Amnesty are being racist by claiming women in developing countries need single sex provision but women in the western world do not. They literally spoke at the Supreme Court stating women in the uk do not deserve single sex spaces. I just want to know why that is. Surely all women deserve privacy, safety dignity of single sex spaces?

I'm not sure they are. I think the point is that if you're a person arguing that British women do not need single sex toilet provision so we should allow transwomen in, or only have unisex toilets, then why are you not arguing also that women in other countries don't need single sex provision? What so special about UK men compared to men from abroad that they are safe? And are you ideas that they are safe based in racism against men from abroad. It's a convoluted way of coming at it, but I think the point actually is, if women from other countries need single sex spaces then so do we.

They literally spoke at the Supreme Court stating women in the uk do not deserve single sex spaces. I just want to know why that is. Surely all women deserve privacy, safety dignity of single sex spaces?

This isn't accurate, and for the sake of accuracy I hope you don't mind if I correct it. Interested organisations were invited to submit legal arguments to support their application to have their evidence considered by the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is all about clarifying the law: it doesn't make new law.

The SC considered all the submissions from interested parties and decided which had merit based on the legal arguments put forward. A number of submissions were discounted, including the Amnesty International argument which I suspect (happy to be corrected if I'm wrong) was binned because it was based on Stonewall Law. Stonewall Law is a mashed-up version of the law that Stonewall has been saying is 'the law' for years. It's not the actual law and it has brought a number of organisations into disrepute when they've followed it. Sussex University and the Open University are two organisations that have lost millions because they preferred to believe in Stonewall Law rather than the law itself.

We don't actually know what Amnesty's intervention to the court was, because unlike Sex Matters and the lesbians interveners, Amnesty has chosen to keep their intervention confidential. All we know is that it was in support of the word sex in the Equality Act being based on what it says on a government certificate, rather than on biology.

The effect of that , if the judges had been swayed by it, would have been women not being entitled to single sex spaces, because those spaces would also have been for men with gender recognition certificates. We don't know what they said but that was the argument they were supporting (the argument the government was making).

Thanks.

👏 👏 👏

We don't know what they said but that was the argument they were supporting (the argument the government was making).

The Scottish government. Just to clarify.

My post was worded confusingly, and I apologise. I got the idea and ran with it, when it would have been a better idea to sit down with it, and hone my words. Thanks to those of you who gleaned what I meant and put it much more succinctly and articulately than I did.