Single sex spaces

[piloswi]

I’m confused with single sex spaces and trans people and what people want.

My understanding is everyone must use the single sex space of their biological sex (I might be wrong). This is only spoken about in terms of trans women now having to use men’s toilets, etc. But this means trans men must use women’s toilets. So someone who looks like a man but biologically isn’t but mostly (imo) you can’t really tell with trans men whereas you often can with trans women.

Is this what the majority want? Surely if people are worried about ‘predatory men’ pretending to be a trans woman to use single sex spaces then they could equally claim to be a trans man as you can’t really ask them to prove it can you?

I guess I’m just wondering if I’m missing the point the point? Are the majority happy with this? I’ve seen posts of people being very happy with the ruling but only have spoken about trans women.

I don’t want this to be a trans bashing thread. Just would like to know what people would like to see as their ideal for single sex spaces while still respecting people

We have to get men to behave better. The more you go in the gents, the more the need for third spaces will be seen- or alternatively men’s behaviour will change and they will back you up.

All this, #ProtectTheDolls. You need a good stickering campaign. We’ll back you up- we like a nice sticker. All your friends can also sticker the gents as they go about their day. Honestly there’s a huge amount of goodwill out there for you- loads of demonstrations in your support.

And as for avoiding using toilets- yes. That’s normal too. There just aren’t enough, and women are likely to need them more frequently and more urgently than men, and with no discreet alternative in an emergency.

Men designing and expecting the rest of us…

there is no ‘rest of us’ - a trans woman is simply a man - in fact being born a man is the one criteria needed to allow someone to call themselves a trans woman. So if men are the problem - then trans women are a part of that story…

I would like to see the evidence that trans women spend their time in fear and trembling using the gents - I have seen no evidence and as a man I have been in a lot of gents in my life! I can totally see other men taking the micky out of them for clothing etc. but violence and oppression to the point that a trans women can’t enter a gents without being in fear of their life?! Until some evidence is shown to back that up I will have to disagree…

any transwoman can just wear jeans and a jumper and they will look like any other man - even if they have had artificial breasts - there are plenty of flabby men! And the recent topless demos show that they rarely look like women! So totally their choice how they present - if a man walks into a gents in a mini skirt, fish net tights and a crop top in some female parody while still being obviously male (gait / hips / Adams apple / etc) then they are setting themselves up - their choice…

third spaces are not needed - we have gents for men and ladies for women - two biological sexes / two type of loo, you use the one appropriate to your sex.

I also think this 'allyship' @Hapii describes doesn't hold much water.

1. I have no more in common with a transwoman than I do with any other man

2. A huge amount of trust has been lost due to the position the trans movement has taken thus far. The movement has shown zero regard for women's rights. Why would I think that's changed? Why would we think we owe anything when women have been treated so badly?

I genuinely appreciate your frustration, I have want some official figures to give more weight to the discussion.

The 2021 England and Wales Census reported about 262,000 people identified as having a gender identity different from their birth‐registered sex—roughly 0.5 % of the population aged 16 and over. That includes:

~48,000 trans women (0.10%)

~48,000 trans men (0.10%)

~30,000 non‐binary individuals (0.06%)

~18,000 others who wrote in a different identity

Among younger people (16–24 years), the percentage is higher about 1 % identify as trans .

For context, estimates from earlier reports suggest there could be 200,000–500,000 trans people in the UK , but there's no definitive count.

Trans people represent a very small minority of the population, and the latest census data is imperfect, especially for those born outside the UK or whose first language isn't English. That matters because it highlights that this isn't about inflated numbers or political messaging, it’s about real people threatened in everyday spaces.

To be honest, I don’t fully know how the TRM specifically shaped each legal shift in the UK. It's complex and I don't follow them. What I do know is that:

The Gender Recognition Act 2004 came in response to the Goodwin v UK case, a European Court of Human Rights decision that found denying legal recognition of gender was a violation of rights.

More recently, legal adjustments for example around definitions in the Equality Act have evolved under pressure from various advocacy groups and public debate.

I don’t have a direct understanding of how much TRA activism versus judicial rulings or policy reviews influenced these changes but I’m open to exploring that if it would help this discussion.

To be perfectly honest, I think the whole thing is actually offensive to women but I'm also fully aware that's not going to change how others feel so I have to suck it up to a certain degree. I have to let others live the life they want even if I don't like it.

It's the same as any other life choice / belief really. I have to respect it even if I don't have time for it. My interest is in protecting women and girls from this nonsense because it's already dominated a huge part of my family life without regards to how it impacts women and their own self worth and sense of self.

So in pragmatic terms third spaces are the only solution that works for both parties and negates the most extreme element who want to 'stealth' and use the women's because transwomen are being 'so persecuted and erased' because it shows them up this group as wanting to use women in facilities not just wanting to pee.

I really am done with being asked to fawn over it and give oodles of sympathy. You need to deal with your own health and beliefs without putting it onto women to deal with. We've done enough and we've got enough on in terms of our own problems already.

I don't owe anyone anyone emotional labour or sympathy. As I said, I do feel appeals to sympathy by males on this are still low level attempts to guilt and force team.

If that seems cold, I really don't care. There's a million and one other 'good causes' out there all vying for attention and frankly there are others that I think more support due to affecting such a small number of people and really aren't taken anywhere near as seriously as they should. I'd rather focus my effort there.

It's not like there's a shortage of 'woke bros' out there to tap up for support on this.

What Red said.

@Hapiiif I link to it, it will get this comment deleted but if you search on Change.org there is a petition by transwomen Miriam Yardley and Fionne Orlander for just what you are asking for - additional mixed sex spaces. Perhaps you and, if you know of any similar minded trans people, could sign and publicise. Women shouldn’t have to do the work for you - no one other than women campaigned/fundraised/organised to get rape crisis centres and domestic violence shelters/refuges - we got off our arses and did the work necessary.

I am largely uninterested in what men who identify as women do when they stay out of our spaces and stop pretending we have anything in common. I don’t bear the more reasonable individuals any personal ill will, I just don’t see it as an issue for women to have to be involved with, after we have our stuff back. If other women want to, that’s entirely up to them.

Any man that enters a woman's single sex spaces is predatory. That's why we don't want any in.

Thank you. I’ve already signed that petition and will keep sharing it with others. I’m doing what I can to push for solutions that keep everyone safe, because the more we work together where our goals overlap, the more likely we are to see real change that protects everyone.

A census which has since been discredited including by the office of statistical regulation for how it gathered that data - specifically because of the transgender question…

eg only 10% of people in the census don’t have English as a first language - yet 29% of the transgender population! When you then correlate that against the stats for trans gender people the correlation is more to white / middle class people, making that discrepancy even bigger!

then factor in that a large proportion of those who identify as pre teens revert post puberty…

so I think we need to take any such figures with a large pinch of salt

This is not a problem for women to solve. This is male on male violence and it's up to men to find a solution. Go and speak to men about this.

Once again.

I'm not sure we have shared goals.

All this 'work together' stuff is force teaming.

We don't have to. Our goal is simply that men stay out of the women's. We support third spaces as an idea but this doesn't mean it's up to us to do the leg work for that in practical terms.

You mistake our acceptance that third spaces are the best solution as an offer of shared labour.

It is not.

From Julia Long.

It's really very simple. If men pretending to be women feel uncomfortable using the men's toilets, they can stop pretending to be women.

Why are women being asked to provide solutions or support for a very male issue?

If this issue has been ongoing for so long, why haven’t any of those male people started to actively group together and start campaigning. Starting with their MP’s! Then large organisations. Get them to start ‘you can pee next to me’ campaigns.

Now is a great time to start! But don’t expect women to come up with a solution to solve the issue.

I'm unconvinced about a campaign for more 'third spaces' which are actually fourth spaces - the existing third space is the accessible toilet, which is for people with disabilities who need it, and is not a compromise space to placate able-bodied transpeople.

Hapii points out that a maximum of 0.5% of the population identify as something resembling 'trans' - both the terminology and the figures are debatable.
The idea that there should be a massive campaign to provide fourth spaces, at huge expense in terms of money and disruption, for such a tiny proportion of the population, is difficult to justify.

On another thread we have a transwoman who is adamant that he will never use any of these 'third' spaces because he is a woman - not a biological woman, mind you, but a woman nonetheless - and he will use the women's toilet, regardless of women's wishes or the Equality Act 2020 or the UKSC ruling...

So we are left with whatever % of the 0.5% of transpeople who are like Hapii, transwomen who do not use the women's toilet, as justification for providing fourth space unisex toilets alongside the men's, women's and accessible toilets for transpeople who may, or may not use them.

That seems like a weak argument for such a big investment.

I agree. Don’t bring this male-on-male issue to women to solve.

@Hapii “I am asking how we can protect those places” - there is no “we” here. Team up with your fellow men to fix this.

Just an idea. You and your fellow men who identify as not men could go into men's toilets and take videos of yourselves peeing sitting down and doing your make up. Then post it on the Internet and be very vocal about the fact that you will continue to use these spaces and not feel intimidated.

Also, perhaps you should focus on getting the MRA's who advocate for violence against the women who have spoken up on the need for single sex spaces on side before you come here asking for support.

Men designing a world for themselves and expecting the rest of us to fit in.

You are one of these men, hapii.

I love a statistic as much as anyone, but the idea that TRA haven't the influence to create a solition to their problem with single sex spaces when they managed to get governments to issue them with fake birth certificates is laughable.

https://mirandayardley.com/en/a-plea-for-third-spaces-for-transmen-and-transwomen/

https://www.change.org/p/boris-johnson-a-plea-for-third-spaces-for-transgender-men-and-women

When JK Rowling first started posting GC feminist content she said (paraphrasing) she would stand beside trans people in support of their rights. Most of us started out in a similar position (I certainly supported Mir and Fionne 5 years ago when they tried to petition for additional provision).

Unfortunately (for newly arrived trans folk looking for allies) many of us are now too tired to stand beside anyone else (after battling to have our own rights recognised for a decade, whilst being persecuted by men who claim to be women for having the audacity to draw a boundary between male and female) so you’ll need to get your fellow trans folk on side and get the campaign going. Once it’s up and running any women with enough energy and good will left to do so will sign your petitions etc.

We still need to establish a need before anyone is forced to spend money pampering the whims of an extremely tiny minority…

where is this male on male violence happening? How often? With what results?

if it is simply that a man wearing a fetish outfit is teased in the gents then the traditional male response would be “grow a pair” (bit unfortunate if you actually chose to have them chopped off!).

I don’t know a single man who would offer violence to another man let alone someone clearly suffering from some form of mental health condition - even men can be compassionate and sensitive.

I often am the only person in the gents and if someone else comes in the gaze rarely goes above their shoes - we certainly don’t talk to each other! So perhaps tone down the high heels to avoid comment! You definitely don’t see chaps engaging in conversation…

so until any evidence is produced showing this to be an issue we need to see it as simply another plank in the arguments of trying to validate a trans woman as having changed… firstly they insisted on being called women - the Supreme Court ruling knocked that one on the head, so now we are seeing alternative attempts - this one is the ‘but we are not men, we are one of you’ nope - still a man

Catching up with this thread...

Though the conversation moved on, it occurs to me that the poster flagging the difference between purpose vs function was making an insightful distinction, although not the one that was intended.

Evolution doesn't start with an end goal in mind and think up a solution to meet it. Evolution doesn't have a mind, it is just the name we give to a hugely complex multi-intersecting process of trial and error.

So while I entirely agree that this was not the sense in which "purpose" was being used when that poster seized on it as an opportunity for bad faith misrepresentation, if you consider "purpose" as synonymous with "intent", then unless you believe in a Creator/Designer it is correct to say there is no purpose behind our natural anatomy.

However fake anatomy only ever comes into being by conscious choice of a human. It does have a Creator/Designer. Therefore I would say it does have a purpose. Without a human's desire for it to exist it would not exist, and therefore that human's purpose for it is relevant.

So for that meaning of purpose, questioning the purpose of fake anatomy is a valid question in a way that questioning the purpose of natural anatomy is not.

So ironically, in trying to obscure the difference between real and fake anatomy that poster actually hit on a fundamental difference between them.

Going back then to deal with the supposed "gotcha" of women (original sex based meaning) who have medical procedures to repair or create female anatomy, the poster's argument was that any question about the purpose of fake anatomy in the male could equally apply to the female.

At which point I say "yes it could".

The critical word here being fake.

What is not valid is what that poster was doing in comparing fake pseudo "vaginas" surgically created in men to natural "blind vaginas" in women with congenital defects or post-hysterectomy. The latter was always there, only thr forner was created with intent for a purpose.

But to the valid comparison of a medical practitioner attempting to create a surgical pseudo vagina in people of either sex (noting that even taking on board that women (osbm) can need such surgery the number of female people who have no vaginal structure at all to start from and need the whole structure created feom scratch in the same way any male person would is surely incredibly small) I would entirely expect that practioner to have an informed conversation with the person in question regardless of their sex to understand their expectations and yes, purpose in having the surgery. These are not trivial interventions so the person undertaking them needs to consider whether they are worth doing.

And yes, for the small number of female people born with vaginal agnesis, undoubtably sexual function is a driver for many of those who chose medical intervention.

And on how to ensure trans women feel safe in the men's,

Anyone else notice the assymetry between how assured TRAs have been that they could muster the social and legal power to get women to accept trans women in the ladies, and how impossible they claim it will be to get men to accept trans women in the gents?

Almost as if they know very well which group has the power to say no and which one doesn't.

But our goals don't overlap.
Women don't need third spaces, we just want men to stay out of our single sex spaces, and we have enough on our plate defending those.