Why are separate spaces for trans people unacceptable (to trans people)?

[Superlambaanana]

There's a thread on AIBU about people's network's views on the trans debate and a poster suggested trans people ought to campaign for separate spaces - trans toilets, trans sporting events etc.

Is anyone campaigning for this? And if not why not? I'm not clued into the detail of the debate and am genuinely interested. Is it just impractical (cost, insufficient numbers for competitive sport) or is it ideologically unacceptable?

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Where did anyone say 'bathrooms' were a sacred space? Seems a bit strawman.

Men of any identity need to stay out of women's spaces of any sort or description. Toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards, prisons, sports teams, book clubs, whatever. Women's spaces for women only.

It comes up pretty frequently tbh!

Those that saying that men can come in assault women don’t get it.
A man in a dress can come in and do other things and they are being allowed to do it. So they can sit in their cubicle and get off at the sound of women peeing, or peek at them, or take photos under cubicles or root about in bins or pee with the door open so a woman sees or try to have a conversation about periods with them. All with certain members of society saying that’s okay.
I don’t think some people realise that engaging with women in a woman only space is a sexual thrill for some. It’s not all about rape.

That's just not realistic in some of the scenarios you mention though.

Male cleaning attendants, plumbers etc have a legitimate need to be in a women's loo. As do women with small boys. As do male security staff and paramedics in emergencies. And if the men's loo is out of order, then everyone has to use the women's (or vice versa).

Male doctors, nurses, orderlies, visitors etc are all found on women's wards in hospital, and it would be unrealistic to remove those. The NHS can't afford to keep more staff than it needs on the rota just go ensure a sufficient provision of male and female staff.

Sports teams, book clubs etc I completely agree with you - easy to do. But I think the absolutist approach of "no men ever on women's hospital wards, no excuses etc" is setting up to fail, because it's trying to apply a broad rule to what can be some very messy and unpredictable human situations. We don't live in an ideal world where we can afford to have surplus female and male doctors on call (for example), and therefore there will always be males on women's wards and females on men's wards. I don't think it does us any favours to ignore the reality.

Even if you could station Layla Moran on the doorway of every woman's space, and she could soul check and confirm, absolutely, that this particular male person with a TQ+ identity was a lovely, gentle soul with nothing but pure and good intentions (despite the high likelihood of Malaga Airport being relevant which makes believing that fantastically naive)....

there are still women who can no longer use those spaces because however the male perceives himself, whatever language he uses, however charming and delightful he may be, the fact is that he has now made the space mixed sex which excludes some women. And many women will be uncomfortable and feel unsafe, and have lost privacy and dignity. Because he cannot disappear his sex no matter how much he wishes it.

The first job of a woman's single sex space is to work for and be inclusive of all women.

Why are we fucking up women and their provision and inclusion just because a very small percentage of men want to use them and their spaces? And let's be honest about this: it isnt about wanting a women's space because the inclusive mixed sex women's spaces won't do, it is about dominating, controlling and owning all women's resources and the women in them. Why are male wishes and demands seen as so very much more important than women's equality, access, inclusion, safety, dignity and privacy, never mind their wishes? Why is this bloody awful male behaviour from a tiny minority being so indulged at the expense of half the population?

The sheer sexism of this is mind boggling.

And those things have happened to me in women's only spaces already.

Another question in terms of how in works in practice - what is to stop a man pretending he is a 'Trans man' to access a woman's space? How many people are legit going to stop and question them? And how many women will be harmed by this approach, e.g women with PCOS and facial hair or women who prefer to look androgenous/masculine?

I just honestly dont see how it works practically on a day to day basis.

FWIW I do think there should be sex protected spaces, and its already apparent there is a huge issue with self ID. in terms e.g prisons.

I do not claim to have the answer, I just dont know how it works in practice.

Well it's pretty simple in practice.

1. you make it very clear in the press and in law that male people of any identity may not enter designated female only spaces, which are clearly labelled as such. Ensuring that both male and female population are aware of this boundary.

2. You do the kind of public awareness campaign that got men into female spaces in the first place, only this time you teach the general public that some women need single sex facilities for their inclusion and access, and that there are mixed sex spaces available for TQ+ people, and that decent people do not remove other people's access or force/deceive their way into other people's spaces for their own jollies. You help the general public re establish a belief that to remove other people's equality and access is a shameful thing even when it's women and it involves saying no to male people with TQ+ identities . And yes, let's be honest, we are talking about the few with no respect for other people's needs or boundaries or rights and a belief that some will continue to try to deceive others and go into spaces that they know full well they should not. As car jackers will try to break into cars, knowing that the car is not theirs, and they should not.

3. You label a designated space clearly. This re empowers women and staff of the place to tell male people to leave a space that is designated female only. And should the male person refuse, then they can be banned from the organisation/space/police called. At this point anyway only the most determined boundary breakers are going to be trying it.

Rape crisis services, refuges, toilets, changing rooms, leisure centre swims - mixed sex women's and female only need to be two separately provided things. That would be actually inclusive. And yes it will take time to reset the boundaries that have been trashed, but a hell of a lot of it will happen at the point the law and policy requires that female only facilities are not entered by those who are male, regardless of any wiggles of language, identity, certificates and legal fictions, or anything else, and that female humans have rights too . The sheer amount of wailing and kicking off across social media at any hint of such a boundary shows that this would have a great impact all by itself. If public support went against trashing access for vulnerable women in the name of male rights..... there wouldn't be a lot left.

Tulips I don't know how old you are so I don't know have far back you can remember but prior to the recent TRA movement it worked. It just did.
Cleaners, maintenance men etc there were signs 'these facilities are cleaned by members of both sexes" (god we all used to agree that there were two sexes!). "A male workman is under taking work in this toilet" etc.

Female only hospital wards don't mean no male staff they mean no male patients (the ability to request female staff and get female not Nigel in a wig).

I promise before someone decided to declare that it 'complicated' it was actually really, really simple.

Yes, it was really simple.
And the fact that @Cazpar cites examples of men doing their jobs, thus being a recorded presence in a women's space, rather than just some random bloke says it all. There's no comparison.

All in response to the men can't/won't change we are far from reaching a point where they don't need to keep changing, but they have changed over my life span. Back in the 80's and 90's catcalling and horrible sexual comments dressed up as 'bantz' were everywhere, all the time. You literally couldn't walk past a building site/white van without hearing wolf whistles and vile comments. I genuinely can't remember when I last heard a cat call/wolf whistle. Now I appreciate that as a 50 something women I am now invisible and so immune to this sort of behaviour but I don't hear it aimed at the young woman around me.
Decent men have realised it's not OK and have stopped, the not so decent ones can't be as blatant because they would stand out. I'm sure they are still awful and sleezy on the sly but I'm pretty sure if my slimy first boss is still working he no longer says "while you are down there" every time a young woman gets a new ream of printer paper from the box on the floor. Shudder.

I'm not sure where you live but I experience the opposite. Still get catcalled and the last ten years been actually harrassed, followed and groped more on the street than I did in the 90's

Considering I am in my late 40's it's getting ridiculous and it means young women must suffer even more.

Yes a ‘female’ sign on a toilet door doesn’t stop a man with bad intentions coming into the toilet, but it does mean that women feel able to confront men they do find in there.

Yes toilet/changing rooms/hospital wards will often have male staff in them but that is not the same thing as some random bloke.

For example, if I went to have a gynaecological examination there is a good chance that I haven’t previously met the doctor doing it. They would introduce themselves and then I’d happily let them give me an internal examination, whether they were male or female. There aren’t many other men I would allow to touch me in that way within 5 minutes of meeting them. There is a whole set of circumstances and social norms that have led to that happening. I know that this person is a professional and I have consented.
If there is a sign outside a toilet saying that there is a male cleaner in attendance and I still decide to use the toilet then I am consenting. I’m saying that I’m fine with that and this is just a man going about his job.
When a man decides to use the women’s toilets I am not able to consent.

Wow really - south east still travel into London occasionally but no longer a regular thing. Honestly cannot remember when I heard a wolf whistle last. I'm office staff in a business that has 60+ tradies and I have not had a single complaint about cat calling etc in the 8 years I've worked there and people complain about everything from the valid (bad driving, swearing, parking etc) to the frankly bat shit (the lads having lunch in their vans, some of the tools not be electric we haven't done stuff we aren't contracted to do /that would be illegal) to the conflicting we start too early, we start too late, we finish too early we work too late.
So I'm pretty sure that if our lads did catcall I would have heard about it.

I don't think toilets are seen as 'sacred spaces' at all. Why do you think we have single sex facilities in the first place? And what has changed that means those reasons no longer apply?

'It' has been working well my entire life. I can't remember a time when it didn't work well. The very rare occasion ( I'm not even sure i can recall one) the 'rule' may have been infringed then people were emboldened to call it out. Social disapproval is a strong de-motivating force.

It’s potentially dangerous to blur societal boundaries. Up to about 10 years ago, most men would have felt extremely uncomfortable going into a women’s space such as women’s toilets or a women’s changing room. Very few would have felt at ease doing so. This is at a subconscious level.

Now that boundary has been blurred, and there is less of a subconscious barrier to going into a women’s space. It may even be slightly less for an old man like me; I’m quite sure it’s less for many of a younger generation for whom the old societal expectation is less clear cut.

You could say the same about many other societal changes. Some of those changes may be positive, such as the lowering of barriers to women in STEM. But we have moved far too fast on “gender” issues, and without proper scrutiny. The GRA enabled this; “no debate” and the coercive effects of “preferred” pronouns, “be kind” and the demonising of any dissent as “transphobia" have all resulted in a societal change with negative consequences, particularly for women, and, of course, children and vulnerable adults caught up in this unquestionable ideology.

Another question in terms of how in works in practice - what is to stop a man pretending he is a 'Trans man' to access a woman's space? How many people are legit going to stop and question them?

This argument always makes me laugh. It’s basically saying you must accept men who pretend to be women in your space because if you don’t you will end up with men who are pretending to be women pretending to be men and that’s MUCH MUCH worse.

Another aspect of these types of toilets is safety. When I worked in a building with toilets the public could use, myself and my colleagues had to frequently climb over the partitions to access someone in a toilet who had collapsed, due to ill health, drug misuse etc. We were alerted to someone being in trouble because other users could see under the doors and let us know. We could climb over and move the person so the door could be opened without hurting the person lying on the floor.

With celling to floor doors and partitions, none of that can happen. The likelihood of alarms in each cublicle (like those in accessible toilets) to alert someone is vanishingly unlikely.

The spaces are single sex for the service users obviously, we're not suggesting harems where no male plumbers or paramedics are allowed to step foot.

FFS, the strawmanning is all over the shop today.

If I was a male person into exhibitionism or voyeurism or some similar things I'd love a change in the implicit social contract about single-sex spaces which would make it much harder for women or girls to question my presence in some space where they might be vulnerable for my specific interests. I could set up in peace etc. and I could argue that anyone who objects to my presence is a bigot.

More space to go spinny? 👗

Larger mirrors for selfies? 👀

Colonisation of women's spaces is the ultimate aim of the AGP and Misogynist

This

THIS!!
All day long

The issue is shown very clearly with the swimming ponds

There are three spaces - male, female, mixed.

Job done you would think.

Nope. The trans women want to use the women's one not the mixed one. The result of this is that some women who cannot be in the presence of men in a swim suit (for reasons of religion, fear of make violence for example) now can't go at all