House of Lords debate on toilets

[Rosearch]

Apologies if this has previously been posted/discussed, but whilst googling to finding something for my DC regarding the loss of women's loos in favour of unisex, I came across this:

hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2020-02-24/debates/D9459D1B-FADF-4765-AB3F-F55D4B322060/ChangingAndToiletFacilitiesInPublicBuildings

A fascinating discussion. As expected, the LD Baroness is fully in favour of throwing women under the bus, whilst Emma Nicholson is of course fully on the side of women. It looks like we have another GC ally in Lord Lucas - Ralph Palmer. A snippet of his comments below, but the rest of what he says is definitely worth reading.

We could do as we have done with disabled toilets and provide separate facilities and label them so that the expectations are clearly that one does not use them unless one needs them. If that is not possible, we could convert the Gents.

Women do not like to be around overt male sexual behaviours in a space that they find hard to get out of. Many men—they have even flashed me—act in such a way, and it seems reasonable that women should have a space where they can be free of that.

OP I haven't time to read this now but will do later. Do you know where this fed into? Was it into the Women and Equalities?

Previous threads about this debate.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3832633-House-of-Lords-Women-Spaces-Hurrah

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3825462-Help-me-reply-to-Lord-Lucas-now-before-debate-on-Monday

Apologies for the repost, had missed the previous ones

I'd not seen this before so thanks for the repost!

I have to say that, with the greatest of respect to Baroness Bloomfield - who seems to be engaging in good faith with the issues - the below is a good illustration of the kind of garble that comes about when the a common understanding of basic (and statutory) words is abruptly pulled out from under people:

"We are committed to maintaining the safeguards that protect vulnerable women and allow organisations to provide single-sex services [so far, so clear]. The law makes it clear that separate male or female services exist for a reason: to provide gender-appropriate services."

And, just like that, I suddenly have no idea whether she is talking about sex-based provision or something entirely more nebulous based on gender norms, or something in between based on Baroness Nicholson's explanation of the requirements under the EA2010 in order to qualify for protection under the characteristic of gender reassignment. I'm not even confident that Baroness Bloomfield knows which she means. Therefore, I have no idea whether I agree with her.

Messy.