Labour have committed to single sex spaces

[flumpetto]

Excluding trans

This is a step in the right direction at long last....

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/keir-starmer-trans-women-labour-b1924832.html

There is an interesting discussion to be had about the significance of appearances (passing 'invisibly' etc) and the impact this has on transgender rights etc, but I don't think this is the thread.
I know Butterfly I said I'd be happy to start a thread with my Qs, I'm super tired at the moment and not able to condense my amazingly compelling thoughts into an OP but one day I will.

There aren't many of us

Somewhere between 200,000 and 600,000 people apparently identify as transgender in the UK. Estimates vary between different sources, but they are all of the order of a few hundred thousand.

The GRA was passed on the basis that only about 5,000 people in the UK would be eligible. This turned out to be a remarkably accurate estimate, since that is the approximate number of GRCs which have been issued to date.

When you say "There aren't many of us" Butterfly, do you mean only about 5,000 or 'only' about 500,000?

It makes a huge difference since under self-ID, any male-presenting male could claim to have a womanly essence and gain a GRC making him legally female. And there's nothing anyone could do to stop him.

Butterfly you say that your presence in female only spaces has harmed no-one, but how do you know that? Moreover, If you are in employment are you categorised as male or female in the statistics which are monitored to ensure equality between the sexes? When you play sport do you play in female only teams? You may think there is no detriment to women by including transwomen like yourself in female only spaces and female only categories but how would these transwomen know ? Will they know how many women will exclude themselves from activities that they see as now being mixed sex? Will they care about the skewing of data on sex discrimination? Do they care that in sport women are competing against people with all the advantages of a male body? Is there really no harm?

@anaily

What a rollercoaster of a thread. Still going to vote Labour, conservatives are worse.

The Conservatives policy is to allow service providers to restrict access on the basis of biological sex provided there is a clear justification. No fudge. If you have a penis, a service provider can stop you going into women-only spaces.

There are many things on which the Conservatives are worse than Labour but I'm not convinced this is one of them.

Your presence has removed a single sex spaces for women. That's harmful, not to you perhaps but to the women

@WhoNeedsaManOfTheWorld

Your presence has removed a single sex spaces for women. That's harmful, not to you perhaps but to the women

I'm increasingly disappointed by how many people think they can read minds or body language well enough to be confident that they haven't harmed others in such circumstances both in the moment and representing a deterrent in the future.

I wouldn't take Whittome's tweet as definitive. Labour's policy is deliberately opaque (the result of McDonnell's well-intentioned interventions in 2019 as I understand it). It can and will be spun both ways by both sides, because that is how it was deliberately written. Nandy and Whittome and Streeting can say TW are included in the definitions of 'women', McDonnell and Duffield can say they may not be. Jess will continue to desperately try to say nothing at all. Starmer will deliberately refuse to clarify, because he's firefighting and doesn't want to open up a new battlefront. Most of the electorate will not change their votes on the basis of this policy, either way, so most MPs can continue to ignore it or pretend it's all very difficult to understand. Judges will continue to be asked to make policy by interpreting a phrase that wasn't future-proofed, and if they're wise they'll keep throwing it back to Parliament, because it really isn't the job of the courts to actually make new policy. What a cowardly mess it all is.

Of course, if a woman would have been harmed in knowing that there was a male in their single sex space, then someone who 'got away' with it would not care about distress caused knowing, even after the fact, that somewhere they felt safe was not in fact safe. That that woman now feels that she cannot trust that anywhere is safe for her.

We have seen this with posters who have discussed their distrust. Their self-exclusion from services they desperately need because they can no longer trust that it is away from any male. It has been allowed to continue despite mounting evidence across many issues. Refuges. Toilets. I mean, girls are rejecting using their school's toilets out of discomfort and embarrassment but they are not even listened too. Instead, lip service is paid, yet they are ignored.

The harm and disrespect of female's needs is very clear when these attitudes come to light.

That someone will continue to act in a way knowing that causes immediate distress to a woman or girl, or would cause distress to a woman or girl if they knew the truth, shows just how much that person values women and girls.

It is always enlightening to see this in action. To see the 'no-one knew therefore no-one was harmed' is the only take out. No thought given to those those who are harmed just knowing that they were, or might be, deceived in this way.

It is always enlightening to see this in action.

It is.

It also proves exactly why female only spaces must be maintained and protected in law: it's real time demonstration of why females need it.

Like paying taxes and obeying speed limits: females having basic equality and humanity happens only when people are legally forced to do it.

While femininity is an arbitrary trait, some of those claiming to be feminine might take heed that it's more than a pretty face and soft voice. If you're going to do femininity properly then you need to adopt the compassion and empathy that women have been socialised into nurturing over the years. Then you might see beyond your own pink, sparkly ego and take a little time to consider the potential impact on others of your own actions such as, for example, inserting yourself into female only spaces.

EmbarrassingAdmissions
Unless you think all spaces should be unisex how can it not be harmful
A TW going into a female space changes the space to unisex

@WhoNeedsaManOfTheWorld

EmbarrassingAdmissions Unless you think all spaces should be unisex how can it not be harmful A TW going into a female space changes the space to unisex

I wonder if you've misunderstood my post as I'm agreeing with you. I regret the ambiguity that lead to a different interpretation.

I was commenting that the individuals who insist that they've caused no harm by their presence seem to believe that they are skilled at mind reading or interpreting body language. I can think of no other explanation as to why they are so confident that they're not causing harm.

I can think of no other explanation as to why they are so confident that they're not causing harm.

I wonder....

There aren't many of us - nowhere near enough to have an appreciable statistical impact worth catering to

Perhaps in the past, but the current direction of travel is that ‘trans’ is a completely meaningless term that can include anyone and everyone.

Karens who are scared of women more feminine than them

Mulling this over, it occurs to me that I have never looked at the performative femininity of men claiming womanhood and thought it was the same as feminine behaviour in women.

Maybe it's because I do not believe that sex stereotypes ought to be imposed on us, or adhered to, I don't believe that feminine behaviour signals sex rather than social norms and expectations. But crucially, feminity is only imposed on female children, and from very early on, so if a woman is very feminine I think no less of her than a woman who has decided to free herself from the constraints of femininity.

We are damned if we conform by being feminine, because that is aquiescence to its limits, and damned if we don't, because society penalises us for not conforming even though we are considered the inferior sex and should behave accordingly.

That same mechanism is not in play for males, so I don't feel the performative femininity from men claiming womanhood threatening in any way. (I understand that other men may find it threatening.)

@merrymouse

There aren't many of us - nowhere near enough to have an appreciable statistical impact worth catering to

Perhaps in the past, but the current direction of travel is that ‘trans’ is a completely meaningless term that can include anyone and everyone.

Helen Joyce covers this so well in the recent episode of a podcast. She lays out quite clearly that the ideology has a wide range of implications.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/4353958-Helen-Joyce-on-Gender-A-wider-lens-podcast-with-Stella-OMalley-and-Sasha-Ayad

@WhoNeedsaManOfTheWorld

The absolute separation of sex and gender would ensure all groups needs were met. Keep the factual sex marker on birth certificates, they should always be truthful, and add a gender marker (for those who believe) onto other documents It could be made much easier to add the gender marker and there could be third spaces. Keep male and female spaces so nobody feels a lack of privacy, safety and dignity and that an ideology isn't forced onto them Simple

Yep, that's totally reasonable, and I can't see that anyone could possibly argue with it.

People are of course free to self ID gender - nobody really gives much of a fuck about gender, we know it's just made up and a soft social category - what matters is SEX and this is the problem - the two terms being confused, collapsed or used interchangeably.

The time I encountered a transwoman in the ladies toilets, I just put my head down and got out as quickly and unobtrusively as possible. As a fairly naive teenage girl, I was confused at what was going on, but I wasn't naive enough to not know that I had to be careful not to antagonise a larger, older male in a confined space, at any cost.

Because women and girls learn self preservation very, very young.

I wonder what the transwoman's account of that experience might be, compared to how I recall it?

EmbarrassingAdmissions
Oops, sorry
I'm blaming a lack of coffee today for my poor comprehension

'Mulling this over, it occurs to me that I have never looked at the performative femininity of men claiming womanhood and thought it was the same as feminine behaviour in women.'

Thats because its nothing like 'feminine' behaviour in women. Men mimic the outward physical appearance, or try to. Femininity for women means caring about others. The two things are nothing like each other.

@ButterflyHatched

Despite the odd clickbait way this has been phrased by the Indy, Starmer has actually just committed to supporting the existing (still vaguely defined, but recently clarified) EA2010 provisions while also supporting Labour's ongoing resolution to reform the awkwardly hacked-together GRA to allow self-ID.

So really, what he's actually said is: business as usual.

As one of those evil devious trans women mentioned above, who has very much benefited from the GRA and happily invisibly passed through single-sex spaces for the last twenty years and harmed precisely nobody, I'm breathing a sigh of relief that Labour isn't detonating existing protections just yet.

There aren't many of us - nowhere near enough to have an appreciable statistical impact worth catering to, politically, in comparison with much larger forces present - but we do exist, and we're perpetually cowering in terror and bracing ourselves for the caustic fallout whenever there are rumblings about GRA reform and EA clarifications, as we're both the awkward speedbump that stands in the way of the formation of the unisex gender utopia and the secret enemy within, invading the sisterhood.

'GRA reform' is one of the more frightening things to read rumbles of in the news, as that's a door that can swing multiple ways, and our voices are always lost in the shouting. Whichever way things swing, it's hard to see change as an inherent positive. Which is an uncomfortably centre-right place to find yourself standing in a polarised world where the right very clearly isn't the one that has even a shred of regard for your safety.

I'd support the provision of self-ID on principle simply because the GRA was always an incomplete hackjob that happened to be quite useful within the paradigm of the time, but I'm not sure how to square the circle and make everyone happy, and I'm not convinced there's a way to avoid the 'Brexit effect' of crystallised reactionary stances and catastrophising hyperbole from both sides overwhelming any attempts to seriously conduct a discussion about consequences.

GRA reform, right now under a Conservative government that is demonstrably hostile to the notion of reform, looks an awful lot like a great way to make things appreciably worse for everyone.

I'm not sure it actually looks much better under Starmer Labour, either.

It clearly needs to happen, but the Appeal to Consequences seems overwhelmingly strong, here.

Lots of word salad to say? I want the status quo? But we are beyond that now, if we keep turning a blind eye we get this shitshow of every man able to use our spaces without our consent. There is no way back to the days when 5000 or so transwomen used our facilities (rarely because there aren't many) Now we have men in prisons, hospital wards, any changing room etc etc. Give an inch, a mile is wanted then 2 miles then 7 miles and on and on until women have nothing and cannot even leave the house.

and happily invisibly passed through single-sex spaces for the last twenty years and harmed precisely nobody

That's not your assessment to make, ButterflyHatched. You aren't the authority as to whether any of that statement is true or not.

@ArabellaScott

The time I encountered a transwoman in the ladies toilets, I just put my head down and got out as quickly and unobtrusively as possible. As a fairly naive teenage girl, I was confused at what was going on, but I wasn't naive enough to not know that I had to be careful not to antagonise a larger, older male in a confined space, at any cost.

Because women and girls learn self preservation very, very young.

I wonder what the transwoman's account of that experience might be, compared to how I recall it?

This. Women tend to get very good at going grey rock, not reacting, not causing a fuss.

And the change from a few TW trying to get on with their lives, to any bearded male who says the words, is why my reluctant 'live and let live what harm' has become a hard no.

I'm not happy about it, but the TRAs are demanding the miles off the back of women ceding inches. So we must get the inches back.

@ArabellaScott

The time I encountered a transwoman in the ladies toilets, I just put my head down and got out as quickly and unobtrusively as possible. As a fairly naive teenage girl, I was confused at what was going on, but I wasn't naive enough to not know that I had to be careful not to antagonise a larger, older male in a confined space, at any cost.

Because women and girls learn self preservation very, very young.

I wonder what the transwoman's account of that experience might be, compared to how I recall it?

This is almost exactly what happened to me too. I was about 14 and out with a female friend. We used some public loos and encountered a transwoman there. We left as quickly as we could and then, once well out of earshot, talked about how uncomfortable we'd felt.

We knew that person was male, and we felt the fear that all women and girls have about being in a confined space with a male person. The encounter may not have seemed harmful to the transwoman, but it was to us. I never used that particular public loo again.

Here's the full text of the relevant parts of the statement by KS, selectively quoted by the Independent who have now changed the headline of their piece from the original.

What do you think he means by "this law rightly assumes the inclusion of trans women, except in specific circumstances" (my bold)