What is clear here, is nobody posting “intel” or “research” has the first clue about what good research is.
Using a load of media links to press reports means very little. It proves only that women are being assaulted by men. That we already know, and for the most part the venue is irrelevant to the issue being discussed here. The key question is, are these attacks more or less common since GN spaces became more available. Not, are more taking place in these spaces, but are the attacks more common. E.g if 100 women were being attacked before GN spaces and 100 women are being attacked after GN spaces, reverting back to single sex spaces might make a woman feel safe but her risk of being attacked remains the same, it just would happen outside of that particular space. How many attacks were taking place in SS spaces before v how many are taking place in SS spaces now?
Of course there is a rise in the number of women surveyed who would prefer a SS space. To suggest this is directly attributed to a rise in attacks is false. First off, we haven’t established an actual rise in attacks, but even if we did, would that rise be enough to want someone to express a preference for SS spaces? Secondly, how can we say the actual number of attacks has any bearing at all on their preference? Isn’t it far more likely that someone who hasn’t looked in to anything in any depth, but is bombarded daily with rhetoric on social media about how wrong GN spaces are, will say they want SS spaces. It’s a common phenomenon where people express a fear of crime which is totally out of sync with actual crime numbers and that is attributed to what they are being fed on TV, in the news, on social media. If you are told an area you are in is unsafe, you will hurry through it and report it felt unsafe.
Until someone points to “then and now” research of statistics which have been contextualised and adjusted for norms, saying GN spaces have led to an increase in attacks on women.
What is clear is, the only reason this is a hot button issue is to feed the culture wars that benefit some people either in power or trying to be, and those people have absolutely no interest in protecting women.