"Biological sex is a multidimensional variable with various components" - Thread 2

[MissScarletInTheBallroom]

The last thread ended with Tandora attempting to sidestep the question about what she would say if her daughter had been raped by a trans woman in a female only space and no longer believed that trans women should be in female only spaces as a consequence.

Her last reply was along the lines of, "The same thing I would say if she had been bullied by a green person at school and said she no longer wanted to go to school with green people."

@Tandora can we have a serious answer?

Fair enough.

Fat fingers but again, if the cap fits!

Yes. Again that's not about men 'not being nice' though is it? It's about social norms around privacy and dignity.

How about this example, Tandora?

• A group counselling session is provided for female victims of sexual assault. The organisers do not allow transsexual people to attend as they judge that the clients who attend the group session are unlikely to do so if a male-to-female transsexual person was also there. This would be lawful.

I don't disagree with that provision.

However, it's not about whether 'men' or trans people, are or are not 'nice', it's about what people feel comfortable with.

Well that is why we have safeguarding so they can't just access any single sex spaces they want. It is much easier to enforce this when we keep all men out and don't make exceptions for those who claim a special identity.

This person is clearly not participating in good faith and is an obvious troll. I’m out.

I’m talking about myself there not other posters BTW.

Like if female nurses felt uncomfortable with males in a female only changing room?

So why do you want to ride roughshod over the confort of women. Why is the preference of a small minority of men more important than the needs of women?

A couple of things here.

Firstly, the trans activist lobby were specifically advised to use prisons as their Trojan horse.

Get those in positions of power to accept trans identifying men, even rapists, being housed in women's prisons. Female prisoners genuinely ARE among the most vulnerable people in our society (unlike trans identifying men), have no real voice and no one to advocate for them, so it is fairly easy to get this one through by stealth because most people won't even be aware of it.

The risk assessments done when deciding whether to place male offenders in women's prisons related SOLELY to the risk to those male offenders of being housed in a men's prison rather than a women's prison. Unsurprisingly, the risk assessments found that they would be safer in a women's prison. The risk assessments did not consider the risk to the actual, real women AT ALL.

Then, once you have got the establishment to accept that violent men who have been convicted of sex crimes against women should be housed in women's prisons with women who cannot escape, just as long as claim to identify as women, it's much easier to get them to accept that men who aren't serving custodial sentences for violent crimes should be allowed to use women's toilets and changing rooms with women who can simply stay at home if it bothers them that much.

I disagree this is rationally connected to 'safeguarding', it's about social norms around privacy/ dignity.

I’m a little unclear why, if men are fine and not more inherently likely to commit sexual assaults because they are male so many transwomen claim to feel unsafe with them. Someone should inform them that sex separation is just about service provision. I wonder what different service Dr Upton feels he receives in the female nurses changing room.

And, small niggle. It’s the Equality Act

Are we back to " reframe you trauma" again.

SP's actions were (in my view obviously - as I was accused of libel for expressing opinions about this on another thread) driven by transphobia.

Her behaviour was unacceptable and constituted harassment. If she had genuine concerns she would have handled the situation in an entirely different way.

DU also has the right to be comfortable at work.

And many women here are telling you that they don't feel comfortable sharing such spaces with trans identifying men.

I don't accept that accepting and including trans people is "riding roughshod over the comfort of women". Maybe some racist women would be more comfortable with segregation of 'green' people. I wouldn't support that either.

She doesn't need to have a reason you consider valid to not want to take her clothes off in front of a male colleague.

"I don't want to" is a good enough reason.

"You, as my employer, have a legal obligation to provide a female only changing room for your female staff to use, and a changing room with Beth Upton in it is not a female only changing room" is an even better one.

The only person guilty of harassment is Beth Upton, who kept a list of names and dates of women who avoided using the changing rooms when he was in there because they didn't want to take their clothes off in front of them.

If Beth Upton can only feel comfortable at work as long as his unconsenting female colleagues are forced to strip off next to him, he's not suitable for any form of employment in which people are required to get changed at work.

She wasn't required to take her clothes off in front of DU. That's not what happened.

Beth Upton specifically complained about her refusing to get changed in front of him.

If a man wants to rape a woman in a toilet he will do so - he does not need to pretend to be trans.

A crime requires motive, means and opportunity.

Safeguarding tends to be about about reducing the opportunity, particularly if there are means.

A private space like a toilet is a means. So it's necessary to reduce the opportunity.

If a man is able to loiter in a toilet waiting for an opportunity to isolate a woman, he can commit a crime far more easily than if he will get thrown out the moment anyone sees him in there, or entering there.

The argumentative trick Tandora is employing here is the same as for the 'existence' above. Tandora quantifies NOTHING.

Reducing opportunities or risks, crimes or accidents one-hundred-fold counts for nothing if any still occur.

You reduce road deaths by a huge amount by mandating seat-belts? So what, some people still die.

So if nothing is quantified, there is no measure of success or failure, therefore nothing Tandora suggests can be worse than an alternative in practical terms and outcomes. The only argument is about feelings, or appeals to abstract ideals.

Given the support the NHS Trust has provided Dr Upton I think it’s clear that if SP’s behaviour was as you described she would have been disciplined. Rather than cleared of misconduct. We don’t need to depend on ‘your view’.

Anything on why ‘transness’ which I believe you claim has a biological component, reduces the potential threat of a male?

No that's not a fair characterisation of the situation. There was a pattern of behaviour where SP was making it obvious that she held DU in contempt. DU felt intimidated and harassed, so she took notes on those behaviours.

We don't have single race spaces, and this is expressly prohibited in the Equality Act as an exception to the principle that you can have spaces for people sharing a protected characteristic.

If you believe this is remotely equivalent, why are you not complaining for the whole section to be repealed so that all spaces have to be inclusive of everyone? Why are you not campaigning for the total abolition of all single sex spaces, as well as all LGBT spaces for that matter?

No that's not clear at all.

They suspended DU and look what has happened to them.

The political, legal and policy context in the UK at the moment is exceptionally hostile to trans people.

Sandy Peggie felt intimidated and harassed by Beth Upton's behaviour.

The Darlington nurses certainly felt intimidated and harassed by "Nurse Rose" prancing around in the women's changing rooms with his genitalia visible, asking why they weren't getting changed yet and talking about how he'd stopped his cross sex hormones because he was trying to get his female partner pregnant.