Signed.
Like others, I cannot understand even starting from the premise that says women can't talk.
And of course this directly affects women. We are talking about rights specifically designed for women.
Partly because of their biology (maternity leave, breastfeeding protocols etc) but also rights about their privacy and safety.
Women don't require privacy and safety from tigers, or tarantulas.
There are only two cohorts involved in this. Men and women.
As I, for one, am sick to death of the sudden desperation to minimise male violence, because it has acquired a new format.
Men identifying as women don't suddenly stop being men. Either biologically, or in practice.
Of course this isn't about demonising men with gender dysphoria. Who could ever think that?
But we don't segregate on the basis of peoples thoughts.
It would be brilliant if we could.
We segregate on the basis of biology, which results in specific needs, and the irrefutable evidence that one cohort is at risk from the other.
And that risk does not have to be actualised.
The vast majority of the time it's the knowledge of that risk that means women require privacy when they are in a vulnerable or intimate situation.
The fact that this seems to be news to some people, or suddenly requires a whole fresh set of justifications, is astonishing.
We really are going backwards.
It's beyond belief that we are discussing male access to rape refugees. We shouldn't have to have rape refugees. They shouldn't have to even exist.
The reason they do is because the inherent power dynamic between men and women is exploited by men.
Again, and I can't stress this enough, there are only TWO cohorts here.
For the person who thought no-one would take advantage of this. A transwoman in Canada tied up rape refuge for 12 years because they demanded to work there.
Took it all the way to the Supreme Court.
Do you seriously think this person had an ounce of empathy for women? It cost the rape refuge thousands of dollars.
The legal framework allowed a man to do something that most people wouldn't have countenanced.
He was displaying obvious entitlement, misogyny and appalling self obsession. Which should have excluded him instantly.
But the law wasn't able to acknowledge or recognise it.
If you make a law that allows this to happen, it will happen.