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 ..

How many times has he chatted up a person of the wrong sex for his orientation?

This is perfect!

Women developed the ability to discriminate between males and females because it is a critically necessary survival skill. Not so important for men, so they have neither developed the ability nor see the need for it.

Exactly. Women know because it’s a survival skill.

How many times has he chatted up a person of the wrong sex for his orientation?

Oh yes, this. It makes the point perfectly and concisely.

The answer to the question is another, better question: how can a woman tell the difference between a transwoman and a man? Answer: we can't because they are both biological males.

This. Yes! Excellent point.

A woman has never done the following in a toilet:

• held a sword
• asked me for a tampon
• looked into the mirror with one hand artfully posed at their chin.

artfully posed at their chin. 🤣

• peed from two feet away and missed
• raped someone
• wiped semen on the next bit of loo roll as a 'joke'

• taken a selfie wanking in there to "own the terfs"

• raided sanitary bins for used sanitary wear, to then wear themselves.

Very much anecdotal, but I suspect that men's instinct on this isn't nearly as strongly developed as women's (for good reason since it's more of a safety instinct for us).

How often do you hear, even in humour, stories of men who have been getting acquanted with a "lady" only to discover she isn't? No they won't all be true, of course, but I think it does happen far more often than the reverse. I can only think of one case where it was the other way round tbh.

And the point is that even if we can't always tell, when we can we can do something about it and when we can't and someone is caught then the assumption is that they were up to something they shouldn't have been. Men not being allowed has offered a significant degree of protection for women for a long time. I'll take limiting the number over being able to do nothing at all.

I can tell a cat from a dog but I can’t really articulate why.

It’s a similar thing really.

It's ridiculous to suggest we don't know the difference and I agree that anecdotally men's instincts are less developed in a lot of cases.

I was just reading his twitter thread on this. Most of it is reasonable but I think he has a blind spot on this aspect.

I suppose the reality is that in some very rare cases it might not be possible to tell. In the vast majority of cases however it is immediately obvious - the idea that transwomen pass as women is a complete delusion. This needs to be stressed!

But tell him this question is irrelevant. It is a red herring. The point is we need to have strong legal and social barriers to men entering women’s spaces. Which can be enforced by the courts, who are best placed to judge individual cases. Otherwise you inevitably end up with a middle aged man in a room where teenage girls are getting changed. That’s not right & not something any decent man would want to see.

I have myself been in a position where I was alone in an open plan swimming pool changing room, naked, with an obviously male person (stubble! Chest hair!) recording something in the mirror (me? himself? God knows) on his phone. It was frightening and demeaning. I felt humiliated and afraid. When I complained I was told this person was a transwoman. It happens in real life. It shouldn’t. It will absolutely get worse unless we stop it now.

Ask him if he thinks teenage girls should be able to choose to have privacy from men when undressing. It really is that simple.

How did he know he wanted to date / have sex with someone before clothes were taken off?

Here's the twitter thread. Apols if it's a repost

twitter.com/LordLucasCD/status/1227664630652243968

Even if the odd few males pass well enough to slip by unnoticed women and girls still have to retain the right to challenge males in female spaces if need be.

Not all toilet spaces are equal either. I'd rather they be purely sex based but on a personal level I probably wouldn't take too much notice in a busy services off the M1 on a Sat aft where there are dozens of of cubicles and about 30 people a min going through them. That same space at 3am Sun morning might feel quite different though if the space is very empty and you're the only woman in there.

He has also asked a lot more questions on Twitter,should anyone feel like giving their opinion!

twitter.com/lordlucascd/status/1227664630652243968?s=21

In that long twitter thread he appears to say that women's changing rooms can't be separated along the lines of biological sex, because these things can be blurred.

I cannot see how any fair determination can be made of a person’s sex in circumstances where they are fully clothed – as I assume that women usually are in the open areas of ladies’ toilets.

But seems to argue that women's sports should be segregated by biological sex (well that's something I suppose).

I think we can be sure that transwomen will be allowed into female communal changing rooms, from what he says.

But THEN he says: Communal changing rooms are in some ways safer than toilets – more open – but on the other hand genitals may be exposed, and it is clear to me that exposed male genitals do not belong in women’s public changing rooms

So does he realise that a high proportion of transwomen DO have male genitals (approx 85%).

SO - right at this moment, in these times of apparent craziness where some argue biological sex doesn't exist, I'd straight up settle for "NO PENISES" in women's changing rooms. And a reassurance that I can call someone to have anyone showing a penis in a changing room REMOVED, a reassurance that I would not be called a transphobe, and be removed from the changing room myself.

Self ID should not be introduced, and the Equality Act exemptions should remain - so that I can choose for a biological woman to do my smear test/mammogram/any intimate care.

Myself and my DD were members of David Lloyd btw - which has communal changing rooms and very see through shower doors. I've left now. I'm not running the risk of my 12yr old daughter seeing an adult penis in the changing rooms. Fuck them. I'm going to write to them and tell them that tonight, actually. I should have done it before - they've been ringing and emailing me with offers to come back to them.

What's this obsession with penises?

I don't need to see his penis to know that a person is male.

Here is another man assuming that he knows what goes on in the women's toilets. Here is another man assuming that he knows what we can and cannot do, what we do and don't want.

I don’t see the relevance of the question anyway. Even if every single transwoman passed as female, they shouldn’t be in women’s spaces because they’re MALE.

We don’t say “oh well you can’t tell just by looking who is shoplifting and has stuff hidden in their coat - therefore its pointless that shoplifting is illegal”.

You're right, JellySlice of course - but my obsession with penises stems from only wanting to see one by my own consent, and certainly not in a women's changing room.

If they're not going to draw the line at biological sex, then they should draw it at male genitalia.

Whilst as a man he is unlikely to feel distressed by females, How does he feel about females who identify as men in the men's loos? Does he think he would not notice? Would it make him feel uncomfortable using the urinal? Does he think he won't notice?

I was referring to Lord Lucas's comment on genitals.

Male genitals are irrelevant. Apart, of course, from when we choose to see our lover's genitals and when they are imposed upon us without our consent.

I'd ask why they're asking this question. Because it sounds to me like a response to TRAs trying to say that it's not a watertight system and therefore shouldn't be used.

But, laws or rules aren't expected to instill 100% compliance just by existing. e.g. theft is illegal. The illegality doesn't stop it, but it demonstrates to law abiding people that they shouldn't do it. In my local library, no one shout, There are no signs up about not shouting, and I bet some people do it sometimes. But the culture is not to shout in the library and people for the most part go along with it.

Or the TRAs might be saying that it's an unfair system as some TW do pass (increasingly with kids transitioning before puberty, there will be more who do pass).

Trying to assert that women can always tell is an argument we'll lose, and it's a distraction. The point is THEY know whether they should be there or not, and we make rules and laws for the behaviour we want to see.

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

If services are either separated by gender or sex, then women's sex segregated services are 100% easier to visually police then gender separated services.

How would you visually ascertain someone's gender? clothing, hair, make-up, muscle mass, facial hair, Adams apple, shoes, accessories? Well no because all can belong to either gender.

Sex is the only way we can visually seperate services

Lord Lucas also needs to familiarise himself with the history of women's loos, IMO.

Women created their own spaces in order to be able to participate in public life. It really is as simple as that.

Very little has actually changed since those days - women gained the vote, a few hard won rights, the ability to (largely) be in control of their own fertility - but the threat to women from males persists.

Rape, sexual assault, harassment, abuse towards women, by males, is still epidemic. Women have very little legal redress. Still. An estimated one in ten rapes are reported at all, and of the ones reported, there is a shamefully low number that even go to trial.

An FOI request to the home office showed that a staggering 90% of sexual assaults against women which took place in changing rooms, took place in gender neutral changing rooms. Gender neutral facilities are not beneficial to women. Allowing any males to self identify into women's single sex facilities is not good for women - because then ANY male can gain access - even those who are sexual predators, just by saying "I identify as a woman". Where's the safeguarding?

www.historic-uk.com/CultureUK/History-of-Womens-Public-Toilets-in-Britain/

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/sexual-assault-unisex-changing-rooms-sunday-times-women-risk-a8519086.html