Would you back self ID if...

[daimbars]

Once a trans women got their GRC they had to wait a period of time (say 5 years) before they were able to have the same rights as all women? For example they would only be able to apply for a job as a women’s officer, appear on a female only panel or to compete in women’s sport after five years of lived experience as a woman?

Someone I know is meeting with her MP to discuss how to propose this legislation. She thinks it will address possible repercussions from self ID and stop it being abused. I thought it was an interesting idea I could get behind.

Kettle really helpful there. Okay well let’s just continue as we are then. People on here are saying they don’t use the loo when they are out and feel really uncomfortable. Can’t see the government banning trans people from using preferred toilets any time soon, can you?

Upstart yeah I know that but that was a toilet with cubicles and shared sinks, not individual cubicles opening onto a public space with no room for people to loiter. You do realise that if male bodied trans people use toilets with shared facilities, it becomes de facto unisex but with no way of ensuring safety.
Maybe everyone is missing my point.

Well the corridor could be deserted and it wouldn't be unusual. Not sure what level of collateral damage of female assaults you'd find acceptable?

We have said no. That is enough. The problem of male on male violence is not our problem to solve. God knows women have tried, and no one listens. Males can solve this problem by allowing gender non conforming men to use the men's toilet in peace. Or make all the men's toilets mixed sex, and leave the women's alone.

It's not something to be negotiated I am not suggesting a negotiation - where there are female toilets but some males are allowed to use them and the question is which ones. I am suggesting that unless we can work out a mechanism by which all males are kept out of female toilets and changing rooms calling them female is deceptive - it allows handwaving of safety issues, it makes them affirmation centres and it means that the males who enter them are those who have the least concern for the rights of women and girls.

If toilets and changing rooms are explicitly unisex the onus to protect the privacy, dignity and safety of users is on those who design the facilities and we could ensure that those important issues are taken into account rather than left to women and girls to attempt to defend against entitled males.

Unless we can wind back to a time when pointing out to a male that he was in the women's toilet or changing room was enough to cause him to leave then I don't see how this fight (toilets and change rooms) can be won.

I know this sounds defeatist. I read a comment from a person bragging about how they and their "trans girlfriends" went to a woman's music festival which was explicitly for females only. Their attitude was that they would not and could not be kept out, and they were right.

Where single sex spaces can be enforced they should be - refuges, prisons, hospital wards, aws, sports etc should be female only, no exceptions.

It's just crazy that this is ever considered our problem to solve in the first place. It's an entirely male problem that can only be solved by males. No 'what if'. No 'how about this'. No. We have boundaries.

We have boundaries but how are we going to enforce them? I am totally behind any practical mechanism to enforce them.

Agree totally Oscarino. It’s all well and good to say ‘no compromise’, but the fact is that this fight was lost years ago. And you are totally right about them being centres of affirmation. People are saying right now that they feel uncomfortable because male people are using single sex facilities. It is not possible to keep them out- both the leading parties have made it quite clear that they would never do that and it would cause huge outrage and backlash. So personally, I think contained unisex spaces are safer and offer more privacy and dignity than what we have now.

It is helpful actually Peak.

It's to show why we have protection in place.

It shouldn't even have come to this. You're coming from a place of 'oh well it's going to happen anyway so we may as well work with it'

I'm coming for a place where I don't want to work with it. For good reason.

We legalise a request now to ask for a GRC and we stop self ID happening.

We had a compromise where we were understanding. It's being fought against by TRA. Ok, they don't like it, they want to destroy every boundary. We don't enforce boundaries by removing them. Every ground we give is not enough and will never be enough. You want to give ground on this, they'll want more.

Male male services mused sex and retain female spaces. What's wrong with that?

No, I am coming from a place where it HAS already happened, is happening now.
On a practical level, what would you do? What is your solution? How do we ensure toilets become single sex once again?

Make it legal to ask for a GRC. In fact, repeal the GRA altogether. It's a bad law.

I don't see how 'some males sufficiently look like women to nter female spaces' becomes 'male women even more at risk by removing female spaces'.

We had a solution. An honour system. TRA don't want this. Don't you understand? Nothing we propose will be good enough. It is all intended to make us run around the houses looking for solutions when it's not our problem to solve.

Make men's spaces mixed sex, retain female spaces, male it legal to ask for a GRC, stop self id. These are my solutions. It's nice of me to come up with them when it's not our problem to solve.

Not male women. Make women. Autocorrect.

But a GRC doesn’t make someone female. It can still violate a woman’s dignity to share facilities even if someone has a piece of paper. And how is that realistically policed? Most public toilets have no guards or attendants. If I am in the toilets and there is a person there who I think is trans, am I meant to confront them myself and demand to see a certificate? What if they tell me to piss off? What if I am not assertive enough to do that (I am not)?
At least with a unisex container cubicle, I won’t need to share any toilet space because i can use the loo, wash my hands and then leave, into a public space.

Make it legal to ask for a GRC. In fact, repeal the GRA altogether. It's a bad law.

I don't see how 'some males sufficiently look like women to nter female spaces' becomes 'male women even more at risk by removing female spaces'.

We had a solution. An honour system. TRA don't want this. Don't you understand? Nothing we propose will be good enough. It is all intended to make us run around the houses looking for solutions when it's not our problem to solve.

Make men's spaces mixed sex, retain female spaces, male it legal to ask for a GRC, stop self id. These are my solutions. It's nice of me to come up with them when it's not our problem to solve.

Reposting in case I get deleted for 'male women'.

No, it doesn't. But when those who sufficiently disguise themselves there's nothing we can do. This solves the problem of those who don't.

Make male spaces mixed sex and retain female. What's wrong with that?

No, it doesn't. But when those who sufficiently disguise themselves there's nothing we can do. This solves the problem of those who don't.

But are you saying it is down to individual women to police this by confronting people who don't look female? A GRC looks like a birth certificate- is it likely the state will require trans people to carry one to prove their status? Them having a certificate doesn't mean anything in terms of dignity anyway. It just means they got a certificate. Can the state realistically ask one person to show ID to another private citizen? What if they refuse to do so?

It may not be our problem to sort on a theoretical level, but practically, it is our problem because nobody else will sort it for us. The government thinks anyone GC is transphobic and I don't think many MPs will vote against self-ID. In any event, these issues are already happening and people are reporting that they feel their dignity is being violated. I am simply trying to address this, looking at things honestly and realistically.

No I'm saying it will have a deterrent effect, of course. You can call a security guard and they are allowed to check. Yes of course the state can request to see ID, it happens all the time.

All those people will not accept any solution which does not,wholesale, accept men self-identifying into women's spaces. We need to fight back so hard against this erasure of female rights that they are content to defend the laws they already have. Which I agree already go way too far.

Okay... Well, time is of the essence to get this brought in then, given that the Women and Equalities minister is going to report on proposed legislation before the summer recess. You would need to get an MP who is prepared to table a private members bill (seeing as the government is going full steam ahead with self-ID).

I have one question though- do you honestly think it will happen, the way things are currently and have been for the past 14 years? Genuinely? It's all very well talking about an ideal scenario but when it's obvious that the complete opposite has already happened, does there not come a point when there needs to be a change in strategy?

Well we are fighting self ID and any changes to the Equality Act 2010 right now. I think that's enough to start with.

We had an honour system and it worked well. We now have no honour system at all.

So what happens when someone shows id stating they are female you ask for a grc and they look you straight in the face and say they don’t have one? Asking for a grc is worthless if you rely on the good faith of the person you are asking for one. How many times have you seen someone say “my drivers licence, my passport, say I am a woman”.

We can’t rely on honour or good faith but we could rely on unchanged birth certificates in situations where there is the authority to access one. I think this is what will protect female spaces - argue that there are spaces that should be for female bodied persons only and that there must be a mechanism to confirm the biological sex, not the gender, not the legal fiction, of those seeking to access those spaces.

There will be fewer spaces if toilets and change rooms are made unisex but those that there are will be secure, and that’s much better for women and girls than the dog’s breakfast we have now.

I actually think most men don’t care about gender non conforming men in their spaces. The issue is that as long as there is a women’s toilet there are going to be males insisting that they be allowed in - and they are not going to be men who give a shit about women and girls. I think the percentage of men that are creepy, dangerous, boundary trampling would be less in a unisex toilet than in a “lady’” toilet.

I've just said: it's a deterrent. Men are less likely to do it if security, shop employees etc can just call them out. And it's a huge zeitgeist signal that women's concerns are taken seriously.

Why the defeatism from you and peak?

There will be fewer spaces if toilets and change rooms are made unisex but those that there are will be secure, and that’s much better for women and girls than the dog’s breakfast we have now.

Yup plus self-contained unisex cubicles could also deal with some of the issues men face when they are out and about with young children. Nobody thinks it's great taking kids into the men's toilet with urinals etc, but at the same time most men wouldn't want to go into the ladies and women would be uncomfortable. So unisex cubicles seem a sensible solution- it won't be possible everywhere obviously but it could be a requirement for any new building.