The Man Friday campaign is likely to harm cisgendered women

[SarahAr]

Although I applaud the audacity and bravery of the women who decided to identify as men and use the mens' changing room at the Dulwich Leisure Centre, sadly their campaign is misguided and is likely to lead to harm to cisgendered women.

The only law in England and Wales that gives someone who was born male the right to use female spaces, such as changing rooms, is the Equality Act. On the face of it the act only applies to those who propose to undergo, are undergoing, or have undergone a process to reassigned their gender. To understand how it is interpreted though you need to look at the case law. The leading case is Croft v Royal Mail and although it applied to an earlier statute in a slightly different context, it is still good law. This case held that a transwomen would only acquire the right to use the women's toilet at work when she was significantly advanced in her transition.

So the law today does not allow men (or women) to self-id their way into the opposite gender's changing room. And the government has stated that it is not going to change the Equality Act so the law in this area will not change. And as far as I know, no pervert has succeeded in using the Equality Act to access a changing room in the 7 years that the Equality Act 2010 has been law.

The government has announced however that it is considering simplifying the process of changing legal gender under the Gender Recognition Act. However, and this is the crucial point, if a man changes his legal gender to female it does not give him access to female spaces.

There is a myth that with self-identification a man would be allowed to say that he is a women - say on Friday afternoons. However, nothing could be further from the truth. If the process in Ireland is followed a legal instrument - a statutory declaration - has to be filled out in front of a solicitor or other suitably qualified person. And the wording has to say he has a "settled and solemn intention to live in the preferred gender of female for the rest of [his] life". And lying on a statutory declaration in the UK is a criminal offence - punishable with up to 2 years in prison under the Perjury Act.

If a man were to change to his legal gender to female and sneak his way into the women's changing room it would still not prevent him from committing the offences of Voyeurism and Exposure. Both of these offences are drafted in gender neutral terms.

Not only is the Man Friday campaign unnecessary, it is positively harmful. The constant stream of articles in the media saying that men can identify as women on a Friday and use the women's changing rooms have two effects. Firstly, people who work in leisure centres believe this to be the law and stop challenging creepy guys trying to access the women's changing room. Secondly, it gives perverts the idea that they have the legal right to perform perverted acts. (they don't and these acts remain criminal offences)

And this is not just a theoretical analysis - this actually happened in Seattle, Washington. After a prolonged Republican media campaign stating that a new law allowed perverts to access the women's changing room, a man took them at their word and, claiming rights under the new law, decided to change with the women. And the sad thing is that the staff confused by the media coverage did nothing to stop him. But the kicker is that the new law did not allow a man to self-id his way into the women's changing room. And this is not my legal analysis - this is the legal analysis of the Washington State Human Rights Commission.

So in summary women's spaces are not threatened by either the current law or the government's proposed changes. However, if the Man Friday campaign plants the idea into people's minds that men can self-id their way into women's changing rooms, then expect to see perverts take them up on the idea.

My orientation is northeastwards. Respect it or else!

Sadly our young boys are being force fed this gender ideology. Luckily my two young men see it for what it is. Women here are entitled to be concerned, and be firm in our behaviour. Or are we just resentful?

This is what the NHS guide advises girls:
www.mermaidsuk.org.uk/assets/media/17-15-02-A-Guide-For-Young-People.pdf

Trans men: A short back and sides from the barber is the most masculine haircut you can get, so it may be a good place to start. However, keep in mind many men these days have many different haircuts with all lengths. Haircuts look most masculine if the sideburns are cut straight across as opposed to at a pointed angle.
If you’re concerned about what to say the first time, tell the barber you’re playing a boy in a play. Be aware, not many places will cut more than a foot of hair off in one go, especially if you’re young. If you have very long hair you could donate it to a charity like www.locksoflove.org. Wear clothes meant for boys/men.
Patterned shirts and loose fitting trousers will help you hide any curves. A reliable binder like one from ftm.underworks.com will help give you a male-appearing chest. Generally men are more confident and firm in their behavior. They usually take up more space and use calm, firm gestures. Use a more even tone when speaking, as women tend to vary pitch more. To make your voice sound deeper/more resonant, put your hand on your chest and try to get the sound to reverberate there.

Male violence is the greatest human rights crisis the world has ever known. If women talk about the men call us anti male.

10th rule of misogyny: The worst thing about male violence is that it makes men look bad.

It's bad enough that children are taught indirectly to conform to stereotypes without the kind of literal "here are some stereotypes, please try to act them out even if they don't feel natural at all" shite above.

Patterned shirts and loose fitting trousers will help you hide any curves.

That's a normal day for most women I know.

Yawn

You know I want programmes on TV about the entire worlds infrastructure history and you would think when you do that there are only men on the planet. You never see a woman. Why is that? Because we wanted to stay home and paint our nails? We were legally disenfranchised, laws were set up to make it illegal for us to own property, to work, to do anything without male permission. We were deliberately excluded. We had to marry to eat. To be alive.
I joined the Royal Navy in 1981 aged 19 and I was put on a woman's pays scale and given a skirt to wear, on a fucking airfield. I had to find some men's uniform small enough to fit me to avoid the skin on my legs being melted off by tights in case of an avcat fire. This was frowned upon and complained about, I should be wearing stockings and suspenders to entertain the men like a proper dolly bird. I was molested daily at work by my team mates , it was fucking mandatory. So give us a break with this please, we were not all at home having vapours because we wanted to, we were driven mad by the forced captivity. Now even zoo animals are recognised as not being happy in those conditions. We don't despise you, we are just done to death with it. I have three brothers brought up in that era, none of whom can relate to women properly because we no longer submit and my heart breaks for them. But this structural inequality is not something we asked for, it was imposed on us. Because we breed, because we are smaller, and because we can be pushed around.

Goodnight.

Oh dear op. If you were my son I'd be ashamed. Maybe you think that my son is a girl. I'd still be ashamed.

We don't hate transwomen. We hate the evidence we are being given daily that we are not worthy of an opinion. Please don't think that gender ID idea is what every one thinks. We really don't. And you know as well as I do that the vulnerable are vulnerable. The debate is not about a fear or hatred of transwomen. Some men are awful, some women are awful, there a lots of awful humans full stop. We are talking about the awful people that are holding themselves up as role models and that is not all transwomen. Please listen to the balanced posts, people do vent here I know but we actually want a fair solution for all.

I want a mute troll button, so that I don't have to go to the effort of scrolling past their pointless wanking.

thebewilderness, I'm quite disappointed by your term 'male violence' when women have won the right to fight alongside men.

The greatest human rights crisis the world has ever know is male violence. That is an undeniable fact. The only people men kill more often than women are other men.
Your disappointment is irrelevant.

In relation to the millions of men who gave their lives selfishly for our freedoms, includkng yours, I think your comment are highly disrespectful and distasteful.

It has persisted throughout recorded history, that the number of civilian casualties in a war pretty much equals the number of combatant casualties.

Yeah and let’s not forget the millions of women who have died and are continuing to die and suffer permanent, life limiting injuries giving birth around the world. That’s sacrifice. I would imagine the toll of those deaths and injuries vastly exceeds the casualties of armed conflict. But, hey, they’re only women so barely clock a mention unlike all the war dead, who are memorialised in every town and sizeable village in the land.

Women and children often suffer as a result of war - not only fighting in the battles but in the murder and rapes that occur by the 'winners' in the aftermath.

In relation to the millions of men who gave their lives selfishly for our freedoms

You are not seriously piggybacking on the sacrifice of the generations who lived through WW1/2 are you? Men and women fought and died, worked in munitions factories etc. Colossal human loss, sacrifice. Yourebusing that to make what point exactly? All incredibly brave, and absolutely chuff all to do with manfriday. I’d say it’s YOU insulting their memory.

Infrastructure made by men alone? I’m sorry just let me stop laughing for a second. Do you have any idea who does the bulk of the agricultural work in the world? Women. But of course just the men making the infrastructure right. rightyho. Big manly men in the labs. No women at all doing stuff like, oooh, calculating the vectors to get rockets to the moon?
No just men. All by themselves and going home and doing all the childcare and giving birth too! Gosh so brave. They must be so tired.

This kind of comment shows the utter disregard that some men hold women in. You don’t see women, you don’t see what they do and if you do you don’t care or think it’s comparable to the manly inportant work you do.
At risk of quoting an old dictator, women hold up half the sky - but many men don’t seem to see their work.

Rank amateur I’d say. Professional indeed.

Men fight wars so rape is ok?!

I wonder why wars are fought in the first place?

In relation to the millions of men who gave their lives selfishly for our freedoms, including yours, I think your comment are highly disrespectful and distasteful

Oh, get to fuck. Yes, it is tragic for the government to send young men to their needless deaths, as happened in the world wars. But there are few reports of what some of the 'heroes' get up to when they supposedly liberate countries. For example, thousands of German civilian women were raped by the Allied soldiers at the end of WW2. In WW1, women did not even have the vote. They weren't fighting for women's freedoms- they were fighting some stupid ego-driven battle started by a bunch of man-children. The whole 'hero' and 'sacrifice' narrative is necessary in order to justify it all. Britain behaved in the most brutal and disgraceful manner during the colonial era, but we all gloss over that because it doesn't matter if you kill some black or Indian people, right? Even if Britain had lost WW2, there would have been another war eventually, just as there always is. Success is never final. Any freedoms that women have were fought by and won by women themselves.

Selfishly?

Bad typo. It's like when you make a big show of flouncing out of a meeting then have to sneak back in to retrieve your coat.

As a professional man, I would say this ManFriday stunt, it's bordering on illegal as Police are reading this knowing many are falsely creating opposite genders for an hour or so in order to effectively harass men or women, which ever it may be and to cause intentional offence.

They weren't harassing, they were swimming.

Swim England could have invoked the exemptions, they didn't. Although now, funnily enough, they have.

It's not illegal for people to go into the toilet or changing room of the opposite sex.

It does, indeed, depend upon the policy of the organisation.

Trans-activists are deliberately targeting anything to do with women, Hampstead women's pond, lesbian vegan restaurants, bra fitting services for teenage girls, Vancouver women's library, Salford women's resource, women's officer roles, vagina monologues, midwifery services, the women's march, vagina cupcakes, rape refuges, etc.

Anything with the word woman in it.

What kind of credibility does a man have when he goes on national television, actually speaks to a rape survivor on a monitor who has PTSD triggered by men, and still decides he should campaign to insist men counsel women who have been raped by men?

Especially when the defence is how can you tell a man from a woman, because my mum's had a hysterectomy. Ffs.

It's not only nonsensical, it's damaging to women.

The police are already attempting to prosecute women for speaking out about the trans ideology.

The more that happens, the more people realise the implications of this blatant censorship and why women have to be silenced.

Judging from your posts, you're not English. And the tired MRA trope of what about wars, is giving you away.

Fortunately, in this country, women are organised and spearheading some collective activism.

And, in case it has escaped your notice, are 51% of the voting population. Yes, feminists got us the vote. Those pesky women having the audacity to demand a voice.

And if it's has escaped you, pretty much the entire world's infrastructure that you enjoy today is because of the hard work of men, the very men you appear to dispise.

And every single human on the planet was born from a woman. For most of history and still in many countries this is at great risk to her own safety and often not by her own choice.

But hey ho. You carry on telling us woman to hush up because the men are talking.

Shush now women. Men build bridges and building and fight wars. You only make entire humans. What do you know.