Thank you for engaging with us.
No, you are right. It's not trans people's fault that certain women have been abused by men. It's not gay men's fault either, nor is it my straight male partner's fault and it's not the fault of any individual man..........but neither is it women's fault. It's not women's fault that trans women are under threat of male violence, and we should not have to sacrifice our single sex spaces because of it.
Your argument of 'but that's not trans people's fault' is a very, very weak one. In the U.K, and I'm sure in many countries across the world, you have to go through a special security check before you are approved to work with children or certain types of vulnerable people. Some people might have to pay for this before they even apply for the job, which they might feel are unjust or they might find it intrusive. Under your argument, it would be ok for me to go to the future employer and say 'But that's not fair!!!! It's not MY fault that there are abusers out there'.
Well no, it's not my fault, but the employer would have a right to tell me that they know it's not my fault, but that does not negate the need for safeguarding for a group of vulnerable individuals. It's a difficult ethical area, but unfortunately these things are needed.
These things are in place for safe guarding. No matter what your ideological stance is. It is simply not ethical nor automatically 'right' to expose around 50% of the population to such risks to ensure the safety of a tiny minority by allowing easier access to the spaces meant to make them safer. It doesn't mean we shouldn't care about trans people - but the erosion of women's spaces like this simply isn't right, particularly if it involves spaces where girls are.
You say that when you're in the toilet you are not aware of the genitals sitting next to you. Well, most women aren't either, because most of the time in the past this has never been an issue. They know those spaces have been a place for women only. Now that is not going to be the case in unisex toilets.
The trouble with all of this is that much of it is solely based on what someone says about themsleves and about their identity, as if that should be taken as gospel. But the thing is, there are many occasions where we rightly cannot rely on what someone says about themselves.
How can we make sure that males are kept out of certain spaces if all it takes is for them to say 'yep, I'm a woman'. Please answer me that. When this question is put to any activist, they do a very poor job of avoiding the issue. They try to downplay concerns about it by saying 'Do you REALLY think a man would do that just to access certain spaces?', which is quite unbelievable because YES they will do, and have done exactly that! Abusers will do anything to access their 'prey', even if it means spending years training in a career that will put them in a position of trust. If a teenage boy says he's a girl and wants to use female changing rooms with the girls, how on earth could you tell if he's just doing that for a laugh? Please do say that changing rooms are cubicles because in the U.K, in my school and in the local leisure centre, they weren't. It was all open.
I would recommend that you read up on -
Statistics relating to male violence
The history of why women's spaces, including toilets came to be in the first place
The sexual violence patterns around toilet areas in third world countries and war zones where women often don't have their own toilets
Voyeurism and the increasing problem of cameras in toilets
Read J K Rowling's full essay, not just her tweets