So, do women actually have the right to privacy and dignity?

[Blacklamp]

I’ve been watching the video clip of the Sturgeon / VAWG meeting, and it’s highlighted to me how little focus there has been on the right to privacy and dignity. For valid reasons, the main focus has been on women’s safety; however, I wonder if a result of this is that supporters of self-ID never have to address or justify their views on women’s privacy and dignity.

I think their responses might be a powerful eye-opener to the public, as it’s something almost all women and girls can relate to, perhaps unlike safety.

A focus on privacy and dignity also means that accusations of transphobia in relation to transwomen posing a risk to women, won't derail the focus of conversations about single-sex spaces.

Privacy and dignity are human rights that are continually promoted in the NHS and social care as fundamental to good practice. These rights also influence safeguarding policies.

I’d like to ask Sturgeon, and others . . .
Do women with a lifelong history of sexual violence perpetrated by males have the right to privacy and dignity in single-sex spaces, away from male bodies?

Does a 13-year girl have the right to privacy and dignity, away from male bodies, whilst changing her sanitary towel at school?

Do women without a history of trauma have the right to privacy and dignity, away from male bodies, in the changing area of a sports club, if that is important to them?

I’m guessing the response would be, ‘transwomen are also entitled to privacy and dignity' which of course is the case, but third spaces would fulfil that need. At least that would move the conversation on to the practicalities of third spaces rather than 'nothing to see here . . .'

The alternative response is that women don't have the right to privacy and dignity, away from male bodies. I want to hear them say it.

By the way, I don't want to minimise the efforts of some of the incredible feminists who have addressed the issue of privacy and dignity, but I can’t recall seeing or reading an interview in which supporters of self-ID have been forced to address this issue specifically, because the conversation is usually focussed on safety, and how vulnerable transwomen are.

Talk with these muppets for a while about the need of TQ+ people for considered, careful privacy and dignity. To not be exposed to embarrassment, to not feel anxious, to feel comfortable and safe in spaces...

they will all nod enthusiastically and clap like a bunch of seals. Yes, they'll say. It's so, so important. It's a human right. This should absolutely be ensured.

Then mention that female people need the exact, equal same.

And watch the back flips and stammering and reverse ferreting start.

Because to permit equality to women means saying no to men. And they cannot face that they truly believe that women's privacy and dignity is something in the gift of men to bestow or withhold depending on the convenience to men, and that this reflects that they believe in binary, immutable sex and the value of someone born with a penis above the value and destiny bestowed for a lifetime by being born without one.

A lot of activists at present talk on twitter about there is no right to privacy and dignity because it's fucking inconvenient to talk about and agree with this as a good thing when it prevents male people from doing what they want. Which makes it pretty clear that they know this removes privacy and dignity from women to benefit men's wishes, and are telling you they feel discomfort and shame over it and are having to avoid facing it.

UNITED NATIONS 2014

'School girls—even in developed countries—are refusing to use unisex facilities and skipping school to avoid using these toilets. This means girls are being excluded from formal education and risking being excluded in the future for higher job positions due to lack of formal qualification. “Evidence also shows safe and clean toilets encourage girls to stay in school,” according to the United Nations.'

https://4w.pub/single-sex-toilets-human-right/

And these problems are not only in developing countries.

"Women in the West now have to deal with the very few female toilets available to them being turned unisex. The surveys above also reveal that, even when male toilets are turned into unisex facilities too, women and girls still suffer because most refuse to use the unisex rooms, leading to “urinary leashes.” In the UK theatre The Old Vic, in 2019 women had access to 24 toilets that should be shared with men, and men had access to 42 facilities with urinals that “only they would use.”

Freedom of Information request Sunday Times 2018
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/sexual-assault-unisex-changing-rooms-sunday-times-women-risk-a8519086.html

"The data, obtained through a Freedom of Information request by the Sunday Times, suggests that unisex changing rooms are more dangerous for women and girls than single-sex facilities.

Just under 90 per cent of complaints regarding changing room sexual assaults, voyeurism and harassment are about incidents in unisex facilities."

The problem is that some of these articles are from 4-6 years ago and these organisations have dropped those campaigns and adopted the ideology that says women and girls no longer need dignity and privacy from males.

Which makes clear really that there were never any actual values or beliefs, just a grab of the current fashion.

This has been disillusioning on a vast scale, it really has. The excuse to whizz straight back to good old subordination and oppression of women, and embrace homophobia and racism, while sounding righteous, is one of the nastiest things about the organisations run by people who would tell you in detail how very progressive, liberal and Right On that they are. And they'd all call themselves feminists.

No decent man would force his way into women's spaces such as changing rooms and.so on.