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 ..

Brief but interesting!

Thanks pombear

Well, I enjoyed that! Thank you for the link :)

Thank you. I listened to the last pat. Brinton and Barker really are anti women having any safe spaces aren't they?

Stonewall should put down its kimono & baseball bat...

Hope that didn't crash into yours' Winesalot - thought it may be useful for those not able to watch right now and of course it'll all be documented in HoL documents better than I just did!

Like you said MrsSnippy, Baroness Barker able to listen to Tanni's speech and then say, pretty much, 'of for goodness sake, do we have to do this all over again' and 'where's the evidence?'

I don't get how Baroness Barker gets to pull out an anecdote without evidence-back-up about masculine-looking women in US toilets, but trashes Lord Lucas for not coming up with a peer-reviewed study on anything that's happened to women in the UK in unisex toilets.

Where has everyone's brains gone over on the genderist bench?

(Cue all the amazing people on the internet who have gathered the evidence, in the absence of any one in office who really should be gathering the evidence)

The LibDems were very much pushing the self identification and 'transwomen are not to be feared' line. But it was interesting to see others push back with the danger of anyone with an abusive intention. It was like a light was being shone.

at the moment we have a serious firefight .... yes indeed!

I know the HoL isn't the place for this, but I wish someone could've called out the LibDems for their Ferrer Pharma £1.4 mill donation for the last election.

The grown-ups are finding their voice again, particularly when they realise there's a lot of people out here who also champion rights, but also safety, privacy and dignity.

Tanni - if there's a remote possibility you follow these boards. not sure if you minded disclosing that information, or you're just open about it anyway. But if it was at all uncomfortable, thank you on behalf of us many of here - you shouldn't have to detail that sort of information, but it properly hit home why female spaces matter.

pombear I could not have it loud enough to hear it clear enough to transcript. And I was doing some work on the side too. So, thank you!!!

I thought the weakest speaker was Baroness Barker by far. It added nothing to the debate except to attempt to shut down debate. I can understand if Lord Lucas was a tad nervous, particularly when discussing flooding periods for women, but most of all because he obviously knew that the two LibDems would go on to minimise and declare that it was all fear and scaremongering.

Thank you pom

Tanni is consistently amazing

We know that the Lib Dems have taken money from pharmaceutical companies pushing transgender ideology......they cannot be trusted. Hugely grateful to all who spoke out today

Thank you all for this. pombear, that was terrific and very good of you to do all that work for us.

(Hey, it worked! I never tried to do that before.)

And thank you your noble lordLucas for bringing this debate to light when women haven't

Agree pombear - incredible to hear the grown ups talking, with nobody shouting "TWAW" or "fuck off and diaf TERF!"

Labour Leadership - take note.

Thank you, Lord Lucas - that was a great opening to the debate. The bottom line (for me) is that no woman should feel she risks seeing male genitalia in a women's changing area. Single sex spaces should be single sex.

Really appreciate the debate and particularly Tanni's comments. What a woman.

OP sorry you’re having a tough time with this. it is upsetting when those close to you can’t or won’t see the issues.

That’s a silly question from your brother though. if we can visually determine the sex of skeletal human remains correctly, why would we not be able to do so at one look with living humans? Humans especially in interaction with others, offer loads of other visual, audible, other physical information as to what their sex is. As PP have said, we have evolved to know the difference.

It’s all part of the validation game to have to pretend that we (as women) would be uncertain about this, or to have to pretend that women in general believe men in general ‘pass’ as women, when we meet them. They don’t pass. That’s fine. It’s inescapable fact after all- humans can’t actually change sex. Sex markers are permanent, real and they are inherent to our physical selves, for so long as our physical selves persist.

You could also your brother if he agrees that in any healthy relationship or situation, nobody should be forced to validate other people at a cost of their own detriment.
If he agrees, then doesn’t it follow that those people looking to obligate or enforce such personal validation under such circumstances from others, should be seen as presenting some serious red flags?

Oops wrong thread!

I'm obviously having a throwback week to my previous transcribing career. Would anyone like Lord Lucas' speech? I've had my tea, and just went through his opening remarks, as I'd missed them earlier on:-

Lord Lucas:

My Lords, recently a number of institutions have converted the communal toilets that are available to the public from ladies and gents as separate toilets to gender neutral.

Is this desirable, is this justified, has there been research as to why this is a good idea, have needs been identified, have women been consulted? My Lords, I'm not aware of anybody quoting any of that sort of stuff. So, let's look at the consequences of these changes. Who is disadvantaged by them? Well my Lords, women who prefer not to be in an enclosed. unobserved space with men. That can obviously apply to women whose religion or custom forbids such things, but there are a number of women who have had uncomfortable experiences with men in the past, there are a number of very strange men in this world and I think it's entirely reasonable for women to want a separate space.

I myself used, found myself using a gender neutral toilet at the Department of Education. I found it a really uncomfortable experience, to come out of a toilet not knowing, if they are of a cubicle not knowing whether you'd frighten some woman who thought she was in a women’s toilet, or was not expecting to be in the company of a man. I do not want to cause that sort of discomfort, it does not suit me just to have gender neutral toilets.

Many women have expectations of toilets being clean places. Most men will know that not all men leave toilets clean, not even in this place. Women do not like to be around overt male sexual behaviours in a space that they find it hard to get out of. There are many men, and I have, who have maybe event have flashed at me who act in such a way and it seems reasonable for me that women should have a place where they can be free of that.

In some places, like nightclubs the ladies can be a source of refuge from some serious unwarranted behaviour, and I don't think any woman wants to wash her bloody underwear where she has flooded after enduring a period in front of men. So altogether, what are we doing? Why are we seeking to make women feel unsafe in the toilet provision we make for them unsafe and uncomfortable. What is the justification for it? Who's gaining an advantage in this process?

My Lords, there are some people who feel they use the toilet that appears to be appropriate for their sex, they will be questioned as to their apparent gender. I can understand that discomfort. There are occasions when one accompanies someone of the opposite gender, when I'm looking after my daughter, or when a carer is looking after someone of the opposite sex, and wants to have a facility where both, both can go.

But I think the people who are genuinely advantaged by this change, are essentially the woke administrators of public institutions. I can see very few people who genuinely benefit from having universal gender neutral toilet provision.

Lord Lucas, House of Lords, part 2

A much better way of catering for these people is to provide a limited gender neutral facility. Either we can do as we have done with disabled toilets and to provide separate facilities, and label them so that the expectations are clearly that you don't use them unless you need them, or if that’s not possible, you convert a gents, and I think pretty well all men could survive having a woman, a brave enough woman, as company in the gents, I don’t think it’s going to upset them. I don’t think they’ve got, I mean, they might, they might be a little ashamed of the way they’re behaving but I don’t think otherwise they’d be disadvantaged. If we're going to provide gender neutral facilities. convert the gents, don't convert the ladies.

And when it comes to changing facilities, I really don't think there is any circumstances under which it’s appropriate that the women's changing rooms should include exposed male genitalia, I really think that’s going beyond what we would all consider is reasonable.
So we should legislate, my Lords, we can't let this train go on. Something that we, a facility that we have provided for women all my life is being removed from them, without their consent, without their consultation, without any consultation at all as far as I can see.

We should legislate. So that organisations that live off public funds should provide women with the toilet and changing facilities that match their established need, and by that I mean is that the organisation should conduct proper enquiries as to what that established need is.

My Lords, the question that goes alongside this is who should use women’s facilities? As noble Lords who listened to my last speech on this subject will know I am thoroughly in favour of breaking down gender boundaries.

I don’t see why we shouldn’t all have the freedom to act and behave and dress in a way which is permitted in a way to anyone of any gender. I don’t think gender boundaries have done us any good in education and careers, I think by and large they have set back women in their ambitions, they don’t make life easy for {?} I think we should do away with them, so I don’t personally have any difficulties with the idea of self-ID as to how we behave in the world and act in the world But that does not mean, necessarily, that we should have access to women only spaces, that I should be able to march into the ladies over there, just because it’s nicer facilities and I feel like a woman right now. Women have facilities set aside for them for many good reasons, as I’ve set out

Lord Lucas, House of Lords, part 3

So there ought to be, I think, a genuine and open discussion as to who should be allowed in the ladies and similar women’s facilities, under what circumstances, and it should be a discussion that takes place without insults. And the first requirement for that is that the government should step up - the government has a responsibility to hold the ring in these discussions. And it has vacated the ring. It has allowed it to become a space for warring interest groups and I think that’s been extremely destructive.

Secondly, I think the principal interest groups, those with the strongest and longest reputations need to commit themselves to discussions .I think Stonewall should put away its kimono and baseball bat and settle down to the idea that maybe it needs to modify its rather extreme views. I think that Fawcett should listen to its founder and the quote that is on the statue in Westminster Square founder Courage calls to courage everywhere and get involved in the discussion in a serious way

At the moment we have a serious firefight, and the people who are getting hurt in this are not the combatants, they are all the transgender and other vulnerable people who are on the sidelines of this.

It is our responsibility as a government and as a society to settle these things in a civilised way and to and produce a civilised outcome. I do think there is the potential for that, if we settle down to do it, we shall be successful My Lords, there are many aspects of the relationships between women and transwomen and men and transmen which needs sorting out. We need to sort out who is allowed to compete in sport, we need to sort out who is allowed in which kind of spaces, what kind of services people are allowed to request as being provided by someone who is of the natal gender that they require. I don’t see why women should be required to provide intimate services such as a search or to someone who is of a gender, of a sex that is not their own I do not see why women should have to be examined by someone who is genetically male if they’d prefer someone is genetically female.

These are difficult questions, I think they need sorting out ,and I really urge the Government to get a grip.

Thanks Pombears. You deserve a

Thanks Pombear

But I think the people who are genuinely advantaged by this change, are essentially the woke administrators of public institutions.

I am in love