Help me reply to Lord Lucas now before debate on Monday

[refusetobeasheep]

He has responded to my email asking him to ensure the definition of women is born female at birth.

His question: How in a women's communal toilet can you reasonably ascertain whether another person is a woman or not?

Please give me your best answers now before I reply.

Especially safe guarding points!!

Will mention the way men walk, talk, look ... that entirely possible i have not spotted a post op trans before. but i would spot a bearded man or someone who made me as a woman feel unsafe. And the new self -ID would mean I would have to ignore my instincts and happily allow any man who says he is a woman to access my communal changing area / that of my 9 year old daughter ..

Is this any good OP?

medium.com/@katieja/but-how-can-you-tell-7901324d0919

Tell him that as he’s not a woman he won’t know that women have evolved to have hyper awareness of men in all environments as we have to constantly assess the threat they might pose to us. So we can spot a man in a nano second. Trans women do not pass to women.

Also tel him toddlers can do it, dogs can do it, AI can do it. We always know.

Sex segregated spaces are an appropriate safeguarding measure to protect women and children from the small number of men who seek to harm them (the flashers, upskirters, gropers, secret filmers etc) Just as we have DBS checks to ascertain that those adults seeking to harm children may not work with them, in the same way sex segregated spaces where women and girls undress and are vulnerable are a proportionate way of preventing harm.
Then send him the link to this Andrex WaterAid film about Sanjeeda and the need for sex segregated toilets to keep from her harm - ask why women and girls in the UK are having mixed sex toilets / changing rooms imposed on us against our will?

But also, that is such a nonsense question.

Can he really not tell, if seeing women and transwomen which are female and which are male? (Or does it really come down to ' blokes see tits and make up = woman' paraphrasing Posie in the Triggernometry podcast)

That doesn’t bode well does it....

You know I am SO pissed off with the idea that women can’t spot someone who was born Male - I mean ffs!!

I'm not it is bad news - he could be looking for quotes to use in the debate ...

I wouldn't assume the worst, that sounds to me like he could be preparing for the inevitable gotcha question of "but how can you tell without looking in someone's pants..."

Humans have evolved over millennia to be able to correctly sex each other - it is after all essential for the survival of the species.

Occasionally we are confused by a well posed still photo but with movement, sound & smell it is extremely unusual to be unable to correctly sex another human. Our skeletons are different, movement gives clear indication.

We shouldn’t have to tell - no male with good intentions should ever wish to enter our single sex spaces.

I don't need to ascertain that.

I note from the data that social norms hold people to the correct facility, so that assaults are much less common in unisex than in mixed sex facilities. I rely on those norms.

Ridiculous isn't it. Of course women can almost always tell.

But think about all the other social conventions and laws that are on the whole respected in this society.

Millions of years of evolution and being a sexually dimorphic species means we are extremely attuned to discerning male and female. Saying 'but how can you tell' is gas lighting in the extreme. No one has to rely on inspecting genitalia to to determine sex.

And as another poster pointed out, social convention keep men out. You only have to look at the assaults in single sex and unisex facilities to see that. The continued ability to challenge a male in a female only space is essential.

Oops sent too soon!

Was trying to say think about all the other social conventions and laws that are on the whole respected in this society without being constantly policed. Such as cars sticking to the roads and not the bike lane or pavements; walking calmly in crowds and not shoving on packed rush hour trains; not helping yourself to big bouquets from the flowers in your neighbour's front garden; etc etc etc.

How low an opinion of males must one have to think respecting the social norm of "this toilet is for females only" is impossible?

That Katie Alcock article (in Medium, linked above) is superb. Highly recommend.

Based on facial photos alone, humans misidentify around 10% ?
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/TerrenceSejnowski/publication/2216192900SEXNETAANeuralNetworkkIdentifiesSexxFromHumann_Faces/links/54a4afed0cf267bdb90679c6.pdf

But still trying to find anything that says how well we do when faced with a moving, smelling person

Also, apart from being able to tell easily, just knowing we have the weight of the law behind us will help us maintain our spaces. I hate the idea that women will have to be the ones telling men to gtfo of our spaces, but can't see men stepping in any time soon 😡

Exactly catting, and that might be part of the reason social norms work...because any male caught in the wrong place would be assumed to be up to no good

I also think he may be asking in order to have a good rebuttal to the "are we supposed to check people's genitals" nonsense that will crop up.
He seems fairly sane on this:

threadreaderapp.com/thread/1227664630652243968.html

We need the right to challenge anyone we feel uneasy about in a single-sex environment.

There isn't any law that says men must stay out of women's toilets, for example. Our need for and right to have single-sex facilities is implicit. There has never been any need for a law that spells this out, as everyone understood it. But we are now being told that we are not allowed to challenge anyone who we feel is abusing this right.

As for masculine women, yes, it can be embarrassing to be challenged, but, with a few seconds of interaction, the woman challenging her will recognise that she is a woman and belongs in that space. It might not even take a complete challenge, just an "Excuse me," and by the other person's response the challenger can recognise that she is a woman and she doesn't need to continue with the challenge. Avoiding embarrassment.

How: their shape, gait, throat (Adam's apple), wrists and hands, face, voice, movement, height, proportions. Often their smell, too, if they aren't loaded with perfume.

I don't suppose it will convince Lord Lucan, but I was walking up to the gate of my daughter's (all girls) school in the half-light one evening last term. A bunch of kids of about 13 or 14 came out and I knew at once, girls school or not, and before they said anything, and at about 5 to 10yds distance, that they were all boys. I got closer, they spoke - boys.

How did I know? How they moved, not just as individuals but as a group.

As women, we are primed to know. Yes, I might miss a post-op trans person, but that person is unlikely to be a threat to me.

Oh christ, it's like the whole world is falling for the "how do we know?" question.

It would just be bloody nice if we could have a bit of reassurance that we can exclude obvious males tbh - like this one who physically attacked Julie Bindel, yet identifies as a woman.

Thanks all! I've responded, including some of your gems about social convention, safeguarding, Gibbons'** points
and linked to the Katie Alcock article.
If there's a follow up will let you know!

and apologies for the title .. very much doubt Lord Lucan can help us, hopefully Lord Lucas will on Monday!