Accessible Toilets

[WarOnWomen]

I've just seen this thread by Fair Play for Women regarding their stance on toilets. Maya F is also on the thread clarifying the issue.

twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1312062467191734273?s=21

They are saying that everyone should be comfortable choosing the toilets they want to without being forced to share with opposite sex. Yup. Trans people should also not have to share with people designated at birth. Yup, also agree. Have a mix sex category for people who don't mind and trans people. Sure.

They are saying these facilities already exist. Accessible toilets. This is where I feel lost and let down. These toilets are for disabled people. People worked hard to get these accessible toilets. I don't want my mum having to share these toilets with trans women, anymore than I want them in female spaces. It's just wrong. And don't disabled people have a say as part of the EA2010?

Please tell me I have the wrong end of the stick.

@merrymouse

Anyway, neither Ben Shapiro nor Amy Challenor are, for different reasons, currently closely involved in UK politics at a high level.

No they aren't. Liz Truss is though. Truss runs a think tank which has called for scrapping workplace rights, including reasonable adjustments for disabled workers for small companies, introducing sack at will rules for young people and scrapping gender pay gap reporting. In fact her first move when Covid hit was to suspend pay gap reporting. And I guess this is my real concern about apologism or support for right wing figures in this debate. What compromises are people prepared to make with the right to prevent trans inclusion? What are people prepared to overlook? What are the dangers of presenting someone like Truss as pro-women's rights just because she doesn't like trans people much? How far are people prepared to go to tolerate the growing number of conspiracy theorists in GC circles? Who benefits from trans women and GC feminists being at war with each other?

@jj1968

I've hear plenty of comments from GC activists that Douglas Murray really gets it, or that David Davies is the only man in parliament who supports women. They don't. And neither do the evangelicals that people like WoLF have cosied up to. They are anti-feminists and their role in this conflict has been to disrupt, stoke fears and recruit as I said. Which is why it's so depressing when GC feminists turn to Quillette, The Spectator, or at worst Breibart to bolster the cause.

Why do you find this 'depressing'? Why do you care? You don't appear to be any friend to feminists yourself, so why do you care where we get our news from and who we agree with?

You appear to be here just to mansplain your own thoughts to all the silly airheaded women who can't think things out for ourselves.

We don't have to vote for anyone, we spoil our ballot papers. I will do this next time too. Women's rights is something on which I am so firmly committed that I will not compromise.

Equally, when I have ensured that the rights I am entitled to are enacted country wide, I will campaign for Trans people to have safe spaces. I can't do both at the same time because I will end up being kind and look where that's getting us

And I guess this is my real concern about apologism or support for right wing figures in this debate. What compromises are people prepared to make with the right to prevent trans inclusion?

What compromises do you think we should make on women's rights in order to avoid being labelled right wing?

I have no problem with 'trans inclusion'. I believe people who call themselves transgender have and should have the same rights as everyone else. That doesn't mean that males should be entitled to be legally indistinguishable from women.

jj, all this 'some people who agree with you on gender are baaaaaad!' bullshit is irrelevant.

Bad people also probably agree that water is wet, & they probably don't tend to worry about falling off the edge of a flat earth.

Human beings cannot change sex. Gender is a nebulous & entirely personal experience.

Therefore, in some situations sex is relevant; whereas the only reason anyone's notions about gender are worthy of consideration is the same reason as their religious beliefs are worthy of consideration - because a sensible society defends the rights of others to hold whatever peculiar beliefs they like, & to express them freely, so long as they are not causing danger or significant inconvenience to others.

I couldn't care less if on this issue I'm in agreement with Dracula & in disagreement with the Easter Bunny. We aren't back at school & picking a netball team.

What compromises are people prepared to make with the right to prevent trans inclusion? What are people prepared to overlook?

Re: pay gap reporting. There is no pay gap reporting if you can't recognise sex.

You seem to be confused about the concept of inclusion. I am not being excluded when the council refuse to give me an over 60 bus pass, and a trans person is not being excluded when they can't use a service because of sex.

I suspect that the Labour Party will have to reckon with this sooner rather than later and will acknowledge the conflict of rights. However the Lib Dems may have jumped the shark.

What are people prepared to overlook? What are the dangers of presenting someone like Truss as pro-women's rights just because she doesn't like trans people much?

You have no idea whether Liz Truss has any opinion at all on trans people.

it's so depressing when GC feminists turn to Quillette, The Spectator, or at worst Breibart to bolster the cause.

I presume a left wing publication like the Guardian is OK in your view. So it's OK to read an article by Hadley Freeman or Julie Bindel if it's in the Guardian, but not if it's in the Spectator. Is that right?

www.spectator.co.uk/article/the-oscars-self-defeating-identity-politics

www.spectator.co.uk/article/Why-a-trans-woman-thinks-self-ID-is-a-mistake

I think it's depressing that left wing journalists have to publish in right wing publications because the left wing press has lost its way.

I think it's depressing that left wing journalists have to publish in right wing publications because the left wing press has lost its way.
This

If someone is going round espousing the views of someone like Ben Shapiro

jj are you of the view that the sea is wet, sky is blue, grass is green and the sun is hot? Guess what? If you agree then you too are espousing the views of Ben Shapiro.

Is the Morning Star considered right wing too?

@Aesopfable

Is the Morning Star considered right wing too?

No, but that fact Stalinists might agree with you is not the gotcha you think.

Stalinists??????????????????

No, but that fact Stalinists might agree with you is not the gotcha you think.

Agree on what - that women need sex based rights?

We have established that people across the political spectrum agree that women need sex based rights, however, in the end the validity of the argument always comes back to whether it makes sense.

And to go back to the point of the thread, you can argue all day and all night about whether toilets should be single sex or unisex, but women have no rights if you can't explain in legislation what a woman is.

Well the original point of the thread was should trans women be forced to use disabled toilets. And to that extent I think the derail is relevent because the drift to the right and the blindless to any other political issues but this one I suspect is the reason FPFW and Maya arrived at the conclusion they did.

also @merrymouse I'm not entirely sure what rights you think women have in UK law which are specific to women, unless you count things like maternity pay which are clearly not under threat due to trans inclusion.

Well the original point of the thread was should trans women be forced to use disabled toilets.

I thought the point of the thread was about whether it was appropriate to suggest that trans people should use disabled toilets, since disabled toilets are provided for the needs of disabled people, not anyone who just feels like using them.

@jj1968

Well the original point of the thread was should trans women be forced to use disabled toilets. And to that extent I think the derail is relevent because the drift to the right and the blindless to any other political issues but this one I suspect is the reason FPFW and Maya arrived at the conclusion they did.

Except, that wasn't ultimately the conclusion they reached, it was a point along the way which they reconsidered. No doubt in large part because we don't do blinkered partisanship - people who support them on most matters disagreed on this.

I'm not entirely sure what rights you think women have in UK law which are specific to women, unless you count things like maternity pay which are clearly not under threat due to trans inclusion.

You clearly haven't thought very deeply about this, but I suppose many women take their rights for granted, so I will give you the benefit of the doubt.

It's important to remember that TRAs aren't just asking for trans women to share services, they are going further than that and insisting that women as a sex have no shared qualities - that 'Trans women are women' and that pregnancy is not a condition that only affects women.

There is no reason to believe that any right will exist in perpetuity. We have maternity pay because of the impact of pregnancy on women and their ability to work, and because women can organise as a sex. Pregnancy is temporary and only ever affects a small minority of people at any one time. Take away the ability to talk about sex, and why give this small group of people special considerations? It's not as though there is a right to maternity pay in the US.

However, maternity pay and leave are also a double edged sword. They mean both that women can afford to become pregnant, and that employing women is potentially more expensive for employers. Like it or not more than 80% of women have children (if they didn't there would be an impact on population that would not be without consequence) and they tend to have children between the ages of 25 and 35, exactly the years when most people are trying to find employment and get promotion.

An employer trying to avoid expense can simply choose candidates who won't have to take maternity leave. Of course men can now take parental leave (although that isn't yet paid), but a man won't have to take time off because of e.g. SPD or high blood pressure and no provision will need to be made for breast feeding.

However, because of equalities legislation, it is illegal to discriminate in this way. However, take away the protected characteristic of sex and there is no discrimination. Again, referring back to the Lib Dems, if even talking about women in terms of female biology is transphobic, protecting sex based rights is impossible.

I agree that any one who is perceived to be female can face discrimination on that basis, but equalities law already covers people who face discrimination because they are perceived to have a particular quality.

There are many more examples, the most obvious being sport.

This shouldn't be a problem. Again I'm not being excluded if I can't get an over 60 bus pass. Protected Characteristics are not judgements of value. The exceptions just recognise that different groups have different needs.

@jj1968

Well the original point of the thread was should trans women be forced to use disabled toilets. And to that extent I think the derail is relevent because the drift to the right and the blindless to any other political issues but this one I suspect is the reason FPFW and Maya arrived at the conclusion they did.

No one has suggested that transwomen should be forced to use disabled toilets jj. They should use the toilet that correspond with their sex (ie the men’s), the argument was over whether it is reasonable to use disabled toilets if they couldn’t cope with using the men’s.

However, because of equalities legislation, it is illegal to discriminate in this way. However, take away the protected characteristic of sex and there is no discrimination. Again, referring back to the Lib Dems, if even talking about women in terms of female biology is transphobic, protecting sex based rights is impossible.

But the protected characteristic of sex isn't being taken away, and as the law stands could only be utilised by a trans person with a GRC in very limited circumstances - a trans woman could form part of a class action for equal pay for example, is that really such a bad thing if she was being paid less because of her legal aquired sex? . I don't really see how that is of negative impact. It will still be illegal to deny goods, services or employment to someone based on their physical or birth sex.

I take your point on maternity pay but I think it's a bit of a stretch to say trans rights has the potential to threaten it, no trans woman is ever going to get maternity pay after all bar a leap in technology and it's entirely correct that trans men should qualify I'd have hoped.

I don;t really think it's correct to call the Equalities Act exemptions sex based rights. The sex based right in the EA is not to be discriminated against on the grounds of sex, but pragmatism means that there can be some very limited exemptions to that which apply to both women and men. The danger of framing single sex spaces as s sex based right, is that other groups could do the same. Men could start saying male only workplaces in some professions are a sex based right, or racists could try and claim race based rights on the basis that if it is a proportionate means of a legitimate aim or an occupational requirement then in very limited circumstances it is legal to discriminate on the grounds of race. Maya's case springs to mind, were she to be successul in her appeal and her views were ruled to be protected then her former employers could argue they discriminated against her as a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim - the aim of wanting to project a trans friendly or inclusive organisation for example. So these exemptions need to be used very sparingly, otherwise the entire Equalities Act becomes completely undermined. That's my main concern about the exemptions being reframed as rights.

But the protected characteristic of sex isn't being taken away

That is what TRAs are campaigning for, and they are already persuading organisations that it is transphobic to talk about women in the context of sex. Again, I could find plenty of other examples, but I have already referred you to the Lib Dem definition of transphobia.

I have already referred you to the Lib Dem definition of transphobia.

I'm reading it, and I don't really see the part where they are persuading organisations that it is transphobic to talk about women in the context of sex. I don't think that is an aim of mainstream trans activism, unless I have misunderstood what you mean.

When the law meets reality it becomes an ass

Chaps with beards are chaps - even if they identify as ladies
Chaps with block and tackle are chaps - no matter how many hoops they suggest

Post surgical transwomen (ie guys who are longer physically capable of rape under the legal definition) are another matter
but they are few and far between

and often give the TRA fights a very wide berth
as they just want to get on with their quiet lives