- I got interested in the loss of women-only space when I got an invitation to a 'women's day' event at a college I attended in the late 1970s. The email told me this event was now open to anybody who identified as a woman.
When I attended the college it had only been mixed for a few years. Before that it was male only. Most of the teaching staff were male. My experiences there were, I suppose, typical of the 'liberated' late 70s. There was a lack of appropriate boundaries and male teaching staff made some inappropriate remarks, as well as plying male and female students - on occasion - with too much alcohol plus cannabis. In my first term a 'mature' student forced himself on me sexually. Later, another male student quite unexpectedly hit me across the face.
When I got the invitation to the 'Women's Day' that was now open to transgender women, I suppose my first thought was that either of these two men could conceivably be there - or that there was nothing that could now keep them away.
Shall post the bit about the loss of artistic space later.