Trans people ‘excluded in heart of democracy’ after Holyrood toilet rule change

[IwantToRetire]

The Scottish Trans and Equality Network has hit out at Parliament bosses’ decision following the Supreme Court gender ruling.

A decision by Holyrood bosses to ban trans people from using the toilets of their preferred gender at the Parliament will leave them excluded at the “heart of Scotland’s democracy”, equalities campaigners have warned.

Holyrood Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone said: “As Scotland’s legislature, it is vital that the Parliament fulfils its legal responsibilities.

“Our officials therefore took immediate steps following the publication of the judgment to review it in detail and to consider its implications for services and facilities at Holyrood.”

Extracts only from https://www.expressandstar.com/uk-news/2025/05/09/trans-people-excluded-in-heart-of-democracy-after-holyrood-toilet-rule-change/

The article title was so heart rendering I had to use it!

But actually more astonished to hear that Holyrood is committed to fulfilling its legal obligations. Strange then that they didn't when the Single Sex Exemptions were an active part of the law, that they didn't feel the need to enforce them!

Isn't Holyrood busily installing new gender neutral toilets which will be available imminently? I'm sure I read that very recently?

Yes. Single sex are available as well as individual mixed sex cubicles, specifically set up so that nobody is left without a space to use.

But apparently this isn’t enough. Men pretending to be the opposite sex won’t be able to engage unless they can use women’s toilets, even though additional arrangements have been set up just for them in case they are uncomfortable with their own sex.

As always, I hope THIS is the overreach that finally gets the whole nonsense these petulant men are demanding thrown out. As always before, I will probably be disappointed.

Just for anyone who hasn't seen it, the then head of Scottish Trans said this about self id in prisons and directly influenced the policy of placing violent male sex offenders in the female prison estate -

‘We strategized – we strategized – that by working intensively with the Scottish Prison Service to support them to include trans women as women on a self-declaration basis within very challenging circumstances, we would be able to ensure that all other public services should be able to do likewise’.

Equality Network and Scottish Trans have both fought for years for the allowance for single sex services and spaces to be removed entirely from the EQA2010. They have also advised the Scottish Government for years as the law as they wished it to be, not as it was -

murrayblackburnmackenzie.org/2022/11/17/women-sex-and-the-equality-network-lifting-the-fig-leaf/

Given how much public funding is handed to both groups by the Scottish Government, what should be happening is a public inquiry as to the misuse of this money.

It’s like a child having a tantrum in the supermarket when told they can’t have something. Best to ignore till they realise they are not in charge.

Yaaaaaaaaaaaaawn.

I think it was Helen Joyce who said (I wrote it down because it made perfect sense to me)

'Being inclusive means there's a space for everyone NOT that everyone should be in the same space'

But we all know that this isn't what is actually wanted and that it's the takeover of women only spaces and the use of the women in it that's the goal

Love that Barbie! The word inclusion makes me suspicious these days but that reframing helps

Exactly. In order to be truly inclusive it may be necessary to be exclusive.

Women can only be truly included if we exclude men from certain spaces

As ever, Helen Joyce nails it. We're lucky to have her speaking out. I'm memorising that for future reference.

'Excluded' apart from the toilets they can use but don't want to. Babies.

It's not about 'just wanting to pee'. They can, there's facilities available. They just aren't getting exactly what they want.

They want validation and to use women. They answer is no, so they lie and throw a tantrum.

They need to grow the fuck up.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5331048-scottish-parliament-new-rules-on-toilet-access

Existing thread

Absolutely this. All day long.

I've come to hate the word "inclusion". Along with "diversity".

.

I agree completely DragonRunor.
There's nothing you can say about TRA hyperbole like this. Full stop.

'Men required to respect women's rights get overdramatic'.

General public: what else is new?

By getting overdramatic, and throwing a gargantuan collective mantrum.

Make it make sense ...

Very simple: Use the toilet you were allocated at birth.

Everyone has a toilet. No one is excluded.

So, according to the Trans group this is a "rushed" decision. It's not if you're a woman, it's actually many years too late! It's not even a decision, it's merely compliance with the law, following having failed to comply since 2010.

Robin "Moira" White (remember him, the lawyer who'd "worked hard" at his transition and said on tv that he was "somatically female?). In the same interview he said that he wouldn't use unisex toilets as they were "ghettos."

Funny isn't it, women fought for single sex toilets to release them from the "urinary leash", to enable them to take part in public life. Disability rights groups campaigned for toilets with disabled access. Groups then advocated for mother (now parent) and baby changing facilities.

Men claiming to be women haven't spent the past 15 years campaigning for 3rd spaces, because unlike the other groups their focus is not their dignity, privacy or safety. They know they'll be safe in women's single sex spaces because they're men. They're not looking for dignity and privacy away from the "male gaze" because they're the men doing the gazing. In fact many of them, most often the most vocal and aggressive, are Agps and cross dressers, for whom being "seen as a woman" particularly by other women, is part of the desire.

They don't want the privacy of a 3rd space, women's spaces are their desired stage, for their performative twisted misogyny.

The performative hyperbole is getting very tedious.

I am rather alarmed at the way Holyrood has taken this on, without complaining at the unfairness of the decision. Why have they suddenly caved in - it’s not like them at all (apart from the odious Maggie Chapman)!

I have too. It occurred to me the other day that "inclusion" gets my hackles up in the way that "holistic" used to when it was used to mean, "As opposed to the formulaic health care YOU offer in the NHS."

@WomanofcustardJohn Swinney is a fairly straightforward man and doesn’t want to get involved in all this, after seeing what the consequences were for Nicola Sturgeon’s career. Although he supported all the nonsense before he became leader and I would probably respect him more if he actually stuck to his guns, but whatever. Coming out swinging at the Supreme Court’s decision would win precious few votes, he’ll leave it to the Greens. And Holyrood itself, as in the building and people who operate the building, is just a public building who has to follow legal guidance like everyone else.

Somatically female my arse. 😆

I hereby declare myself somatically rich. I was just born in the wrong body/life. I demand this wrong be rectified immediately 😠

As an aside, I was at the Queen’s Hall last week and their toilets are a dream: single cubicles, unisex, walls up to the ceilings, sinks inside AND lights outside to show you if they’re empty. This in a space owned by a charity and a listed building (I think, at least, an old one). If every building had bogs like that then this particular issue would simply melt away. Maybe that’s where Trans and Equality should focus their considerable energy?