What right to a single sex space do I have and how?

[Avocadowoman]

I saw a comment on another thread and it got me thinking. The comment was (broadly):

'A woman's right to a single sex space cannot co-exist with a transwoman's right to enter a woman's space based on gender identity'.

That is undoubtably true. If a transwoman enters a female space that space is no longer single sex.

However I am unsure what legal rights exist to give women the right to single sex spaces. The trouble seems to be that the law seems to assume that they are something someone will want to provide, and go from there.

Workplace regulations mean I have the right to a single sex toilet at work (but we all know how many workplaces ignore that in their transgender policies).

I haven't looked into prisons legislation.

But I think everything else is based on a providers right to provide a single sex service. If they choose to provide one great, if not I don't think I have the right to one.

If a provider chosses to open a female space to transgender women without a GRC, the people who are being discriminated against (legally) are, I think, not women, but men who would like to access that space but who are turned away and do not say they are transwomen. This makes it much harder to deal with through litigation, I think.

Clearly females are discriminated against in the same way by not being able to go into male spaces if those male spaces are open to transmen without a GRC, but that doesn't help me if what I want is a female space.

If my religion was one which forbade me to (for example) undress with men, then possibly the lack of provision of a single sex space may be discrimination due to my religion - but as it happens that is not my religion so that doesn't help me.

That means that where the single sex space is provided by the government (prison, hospital, school etc) it is the government we can petition to keep those spaces single sex. And that is useful because the government would not want to have a policy that is 'hypothetically discrimatory' if I can put it like that (eg discriminates against a woman who wants to enter a male single sex space, even though that is less likely to happen).

But sports, for example, therefore need to be taken up with each provider/governing body.

Am I missing something? Ot do women actually have very few 'rights to single sex spaces' compared to 'the right to provide a single sex space'?

@BlueLipstickRocks

I'm not disabled and so am acutely aware they are not my spaces to give away. I also don't know how an additional 5000 users would impact current provisions for disabled people

In other words anything that gives some women what they want without compromise.

We already have a law. You may not like it and are free to seek to change it but until then the law recognises transsexuals with a GRC as legally female with certain rights that brings.

So many offering "solutions". We already have one. It's not a brilliant one but it's the law and you don't get to take it back without proper process.

The rest of that sentence which you didn't quote said "so it might be a complete non-starter but in theory might that work?"

I wasn't offering a solution, just asking whether it was a potential viable option that was worth consideration. I'm not sure why my musings and asking questions equates to me taking anything back without proper process.

From what I have seen women can generally spot a mile off who is a risk and who isn't.

I can't take this seriously any more. Blue, you know nothing about women's lives.

Not only can women not tell who might assault or kill them, they regularly fall in love with, and marry them.

Dear lord.

In other words anything that gives some women what they want without compromise.

And this too. Ask yourself why, exactly, women need safe spaces away from men and then frame it again as 'what women want'.

Women don't want to be assaulted by males. None of this is about what women want.

So, Blue or any other transsexual out there, can I ask, if there was a nice, fourth mixed sex additional space designed for people who would be happy to use a unisex space, (so parents out with their young opposite sex children, trans people, people who are not bothered about needing a single sex space) would you use that in preference?

Waits ..

Unfortunately access to female spaces goes much further than toilets. How am I progressive, if my desire to help one group means a female prisoner is forced to share a cell with a stranger whom she perceives to be a man, a sportswoman has to cede her spot in the Olympic squad to make way for someone who is not of her sex class and a female bedridden hospital patient has to pretend that the stranger in the bed next to her is not a man?

Why are you here, BlueLipstickRocks? What are you hoping to achieve?

Why are you here, BlueLipstickRocks? What are you hoping to achieve?

Am I wrong when I am being told that many women want to be able to have reasonable discussions?

Or would you rather I left so you can decide for me?

Women don't want to be assaulted by males

Neither do I.

@Leafstamp, I don't think anyone used that phrase except the poster you quoted themselves. It is not so much hyperbole as it was completely manufactured out of thin air. You cannot talk about women. Others always have to be centred.

The predominantly male legislature imposed this situation on women. They sure remembered binary sex is immutable when they put in the discriminatory caveat that women couldn't identify as male to inherit in a man's stead.

No, we're not anyone's therapeutic aid. Even if the predominantly male legislature thought our rights were not deserving of any respect and dismantled them so easily. We now know we need to stop the erosion of our single sex spaces. And sports, etc. To preserve our own safety, dignity, privacy and fairness.

I made sure to copy Datun's earlier link to FairPlay for women and single sex provision. To have a gander at later, in case for some reason it goes!

Thanks @Cailleach1 - as I suspected - "GCs think trans people are disposable" is from the same phrase book as "GCs commit literal violence" etc.

To go back to the OP, at a guess I think a woman would have to be unable to use a service due to the presence of a male in what she would reasonably expect to be a female only space, and then take the service provider to court for indirect discrimination using either the protected characteristic of sex or religion.

To use the phrase "therapeutic facility" is clearly intended to be inflammatory.

You have the right to hold that opinion but I am not going to respond to such a loaded question.

“ Am I wrong when I am being told that many women want to be able to have reasonable discussions?
Or would you rather I left so you can decide for me?”

That isn’t an answer to my questions.

So Blue what is your solution, especially since very few transwomen are transsexuals? Who is allowed in and who isn't? Who decides?

@BlueLipstickRocks so would you be happy to use a third space or not? Is it women's spaces or nothing?

One page back a post ending in That is the therapeutic goal. was declared to be 'absolutely spot on'. And yet less than a hour later, the phrase "therapeutic facility" is dismissed by the same poster as 'clearly intended to be inflammatory.' and 'loaded'.
Which is it?

Em, you literally gave the response of 'spot on' when somebody said the use of the women spaces as such were part of a therapeutic goal.

Do you find your own post inflammatory? Or just being called out on such an admission?

I asked the 'third spaces' question on another thread.

Blue wants individual unisex spaces, but there can't be single sex spaces provided in addition because, reasons.

& there can't be third spaces because THERE JUST CAN'T, I think was the gist, because, reasons.

So Blue what is your solution, especially since very few transwomen are transsexuals? Who is allowed in and who isn't? Who decides?

There is no easy solution here. For me it's about self contained unisex facilities.

Things I think we can all agree on is that I do not believe a penis belongs in a woman space.

There are clearly things that need looked at and challenges to overcome. I feel that transsexuals are being demonised here as "just another man".

For decades I have seen women fight to escape gender roles and stereotypes ; to prove that women are equal to men in the workplace. Yet I feel that as women look further an escape from those stereotypes it seems acceptable to put stereotypes onto me. I would not for one minute deny male violence but I do not not feel I should be punished for it.

Transgenderism is a damaging ideology that is far beyond an issue over just spaces. A problem isn't solved by pushing it somewhere else. A solution isn't just about toilets and changing facilities it's about re-education starting in schools. It's about breaking down gender roles and stereotypes again. Is not Gender Critical about challenging gender roles and stereotypes - so why is it acceptable to challenge on one hand but promote on the other?

The issue we face right now isn't about the law but about the way the law has been interpreted. The GRA has been ignored, the EA has been twisted to be gender identity rather than gender reassignment as a protected characteristic. Business and Organisations are voluntarily handing things over because they think the law tells them to. If the law as it sits right now were correctly enacted we wouldn't have a problem.

I'd like to see the use of "transwomen" as a collective term for everything under the trans umbrella stopped. To see statistics about offending for example use "transwomen" demonises transsexuals.
I'd like to see some women better understand about trans. It's all too easy to dismiss it.... men v women and gender identity doesn't exist. Its far more complicated than that. Many peer reviewed studies have proven brain chemistry differences amongst transsexuals. That's not someone who "feels like a woman". Dysphoria and dysmorphia are very real and not se easily dismissed. Education is important in moving forward.

Go back 20 years ago and we didn't have the issue we have now. We all knew that transsexuals and transvestites were different. Every single time someone uses the term "transwoman" you're actively putting the two together. Please please start saying transsexual again.

I genuinely believe transsexuals and women have far more of a common goal than many think. Transsexuals have been a huge part of the fight against self ID. Indeed a transsexual testified in court to support Maya! To dismiss a TS person as just another man just isn't a solution.

*Blue wants individual unisex spaces, but there can't be single sex spaces provided in addition because, reasons.

& there can't be third spaces because THERE JUST CAN'T, I think was the gist, because, reasons.*

Please do not attribute views to me that I have never said.

I have said I support individual unisex spaces. I did not comment farther than that.

@Tanith

“ Am I wrong when I am being told that many women want to be able to have reasonable discussions? Or would you rather I left so you can decide for me?”

That isn’t an answer to my questions.

I think it comes down to "do you agree that natal women should be allowed to discuss their needs, their rights under law and what they plan to campaign for that is specifically for their group without the supervision of those not part of that group, but who would like some control over the outcome to meet their own needs?'

Because that's what this wretched law has set us up for.

One page back a post ending in That is the therapeutic goal. was declared to be 'absolutely spot on'. And yet less than a hour later, the phrase "therapeutic facility" is dismissed by the same poster as 'clearly intended to be inflammatory.' and 'loaded'.

I therapeutic goal in respect of daily living is not the same as saying a toilet is being used as a therapeutic facility.