Single sex spaces aren’t just about safety – they are about community

[IwantToRetire]

The origins of this debate are difficult to trace, but they start somewhere around the late 2010s following the government’s public consultation into reforming the Gender Recognition Act of 2004. Led by then equalities minister, Penny Mordaunt, the consultation sought to understand public sentiment around simplifying the process to allow individuals to legally change their gender. ‘Trans women are women and trans men are men,’ Mordaunt famously told parliament during a debate on the topic in 2018.

Since then, much of the conversation has centred on the ideological divisions between trans-rights campaigners who want access to single-sex spaces (including women’s toilets, women’s sports, and women-only boards and panels), and women’s rights activists who want to protect them. For the latter group, the issue of protecting women from violence – male violence in particular – has been paramount.

These places should not be used solely as hideaways from the world, in which victimised women take shelter, but rather as places to cultivate and perpetuate female solidarity, camaraderie, and joy.

https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/what-will-labour-do-about-women-only-spaces

Please note! these are just a few paragraphs I have picked out. And may not be what others would take from the whole article.

Text is also available at https://archive.ph/hBbPz

These places should not be used solely as hideaways from the world, in which victimised women take shelter, but rather as places to cultivate and perpetuate female solidarity, camaraderie, and joy.

Bookmarking to read tomorrow but I hope to god they're not talking about loos.

These spaces were not created out of a desire to validate one another’s gender identity, but from the need to be seen and heard.

This comment resonates with me, in mixed sex spaces the male of the species tends to dominate the conversation, activity etc.

It started well and I thought it was going to be explaining why things like breast feeding groups, women's institute etc should be single sex biologically but then it completely lost track with the complementing women and sharing sanitary protection. I ended up not convinced that its not trying to say that transwomen should be included to participate in the camaraderie because safety isn't the only thing that matters.

Women-only toilets are not just a shelter away from the harassment of men. They are also the location in which a canon event can take place: that of one woman complimenting another over the colour of her dress or, more seriously, coming to her rescue with a spare sanitary pad.
Isn't this a TRA argument? They are all keen to share their sanitary items with women; not realising women hardly ever do this.

I think this article is missing a few important points;

1. If you remove single-sex spaces then you exclude some women from society - for starters I no longer go to my favourite cafe, local theatre, swimming pool or use changing rooms in shops as they are now mixed-sex. Now times this by 34.5 million women in the UK and you have a major problem, you are looking at the destruction of society as we have known it. (Yes, yes I know not all women)
2. Women have not been consulted, just expected to deal with it on top of having to deal with everything else which is offensive and makes women worry.
3. When women state they want single-sex spaces and point out they are now excluded from their own spaces, the answer should not be aggression, name-calling and acts of violence!

What a weird article. I'm about to spend most of the day at a craft guild meeting where all the members are women (though I don't think men are barred), so when I saw the thread title, I thought 'Yes! Absolutely!'. But the bit about complimenting a woman on her outfit anc sharing sanitary items sounds exactly like a men's / transwoman's fantasy of what goes on in women's loos. Ridiculous, and kind of patronising.

I am astonished that this was written by a woman. She suggests we need to have female only spaces so we can...share cooking hacks like how to peel garlic?! Is this for real? Was this written in the 50s?

The bottom line is this. Women do not need to justify why we want female only spaces. It is simply enough that we want and need them.

If any justification should be required: it is for our safety, privacy and dignity.

Men don't need to know what we are doing in the loos or changing rooms. They can piss off with their voyeuristic curiosity. (But I can tell them this for free: we aren't discussing peeling garlic.)

Overall I agree with that article. I don't think it is saying that women's toilets are necessary for camaraderie, but that women's spaces in general are about more than safety. Safety is the foundation of growth. It should be implicit in women's spaces, giving room to cultivate and perpetuate female solidarity, camaraderie, and joy. You may not have social chat with strangers in the loos, but I'm sure many of us have recognised or been a woman or child needing help and offered our support.

The environments that allow us to cultivate and perpetuate female solidarity, camaraderie, and joy extend beyond toilets. Spaces such as lesbian bars, breastfeeding cafes, the WI, DA refuges, women's sports - all spaces that have been invaded, colonised and damaged by trans ideology.

The writer is naive, though, if they think that trans identified people will use community spaces aimed at them. Women seek community with other women because of our shared experiences. Trans people seek community with members of the opposite sex because they lack those shared experiences and are trying to experience them vicariously. Or envy them and therefore need to destroy what they cannot have.

There’s something about the energy in a woman (as in female ) only space.
When I was one day overdue with DC3 I took DC2 to our regular toddler group which was normally a mix of mums and dads. That day by coincidence it was all mums and we spent the session sharing birth stories. It felt like a very intimate feminine space and somehow seemed to ease me into the mindspace of birth- she was born that evening! Obviously I know it didn’t literally bring on labour but having even one male there would not have allowed that atmosphere to develop.

Addiction support groups is another one. The atmosphere is totally different when it's women listening to women, versus mixed-sex groups.

Problem is when it's advertised as women-only it's a magnet for TIMs. We want a space away from creepy men and then the creepiest type of the lot wanders in, trying to insert themselves in our conversation.

"Critics of this stance will call it elitist and idealistic. They will say that it is privileged and entitled to demand female joy at a time when transwomen are also being victimised by a harsh and violent world. To this one might respond – with civility and kindness – that there is more than one solution to this problem. Biological women’s spaces that exclude transwomen do not have to prohibit the formation of transwomen-only spaces that may very well exclude biological women. Biological women’s spaces do not have to exist at the expense of transwomen-only spaces. So on and so forth."
I think this is brilliant.
Female joy, exactly.
As Sal Grover, "Because we want them."

coming to her rescue with a spare sanitary pad.

Oh not this one again. I'm late 50s and have never, ever, given or taken sanitary protection from some randomer, or even a friend, in the ladies.

I suppose there could be a new bonding opportunity in reminding other women who have been targetted that they should never ever use a tampon offered by a stranger.

Me neither. We don't have wet t shirt competitions or pillow fights in there either.

It is a bit odd, isn't it? I was waiting for her to go on and talk about the spiffing midnight feasts with tucker smuggled in from the dorm that go on in women's toilets...🙄

The article just doesn't hold together well, the author seems not to have a solid take on the issues in question:

... They will say that it is privileged and entitled to demand female joy at a time when transwomen are also being victimised by a harsh and violent world. To this one might respond – with civility and kindness – that there is more than one solution to this problem.

That would not be my civil and kind response to someone who claims that 'transwomen are also being victimised by a harsh and violent world.'
I would quote the writer's own words
One in four biological women will experience domestic abuse at the hands of a male perpetrator at least once in their lifetime. A minimum of two biological women are killed by a former or current male partner every week.
and ask what the comparable stats are for transwomen.

It's as if she has taken random bits of argument from here and there and put them side by side.. Odd.

*They will say that it is privileged and entitled to demand female joy at a time when transwomen are also being victimised by a harsh and violent world. To this one might respond – with civility and kindness – that there is more than one solution to this problem.

That would not be my civil and kind response to someone who claims that 'transwomen are also being victimised by a harsh and violent world.' *

Mine neither. Nothing wrong with finding joy in a harsh world.

Men's misery is not women's problem to solve. We are not service humans.

I'm happy to support someone in finding their joy, but not to sacrifice myself for their quest.

My hijabi colleague used to adjust her headscarf in the ladies toilets. Taking it off, redoing her hair in the mirror before refitting it.
She would not be able to do this in a mixed sex space.

In fairness I've overheard women talking to friends in adjoining cubicles about unexpected periods, leakages etc - just not to random strangers.

But I agree parts of the article feel a bit under informed, e.g. it talks as if it all started with the public consultation and Penny Mordaunt 'around the late 2010s' when surely it was the recommendations of the Women and Equalities Select Committee chaired by Maria Miller in 2016?

Maybe that's pedantic of me but the more I read, the more I felt I knew a lot more about the topic than the writer did.

The author works for a centre-right think tank. The Conservatives are no better than Labour when it comes to Women’s Rights.

Labour seems to be moving in the right direction at the moment, in regards to puberty blockers. I wonder how long that will last.

Yeah. Been tried many times.

Only stupid paranoid old bats want privacy from men, and this is bad and they should be forced to expose their bodies and deal with it. Reframe the trauma! (but this applies only to women presenting boundaries to men who want to use them and find their 'no' really bloody inconvenient. Men with interesting identities get what they want and their feelings matter, they don't have to reframe anything.)

And female spaces are a place of community, joy, pillow fights, sharing lipstick, cavorting in babydoll night dresses and expressing the special essence of femininity and how can you deny that experience to men who identify as women?

Ffs. You have to wonder what some people are smoking.

Yes, she's picking on Labour party members' use of the phrase "women's safe spaces." And pointing out it's so much more than that.
I think that's a really good thing. Hold the politicians' feet to the fire. Call the TRAs bluff - here, have some trans-women only spaces! I don't understand the negative reaction here.
(And appreciating the commentary of someone from a dreaded right with think tank doesn't mean I suddenly want her preffered economic policies enacted, or that she can't have anything useful to say).

I don't understand the negative reaction here.

I can only speak for myself. But in my opinion this author has got it entirely the wrong way round when she says we need female only spaces for "joy".

No. We need it for the opposite. When we are feeling pain, grief, fear. We need a space away from leering or curious male eyes.

Examples given above include breastfeeding clinics (breastfeeding can often be a time of anxiety and physical pain). Addiction support. Rape survivors' support. Enduring miscarriage. Injury. Trauma.

I'm happy to share my joy with men, sometimes. I'm not willing to share my pain, grief or fear with men. That is when I need privacy and dignity.

When you examine the real reasons (in my opinion) why women need female only spaces, as I've outlined above, then you can see why it is ludicrous to talk about women sharing tips for peeling garlic.

You think she gets it than the last couple of paragraphs she totally turns it round to the conclusion that we should allow trans woman into women’s spaces.

@Hoosemover no I'm saying that the last couple of paragraphs don't make it clear. It would be really easy to turn it around and say because its not about safety transwomen being women (they're not) should have the right to join in with these bonding and joyous sessions.