TRAs appropriate "Safe Spaces" phrase

[IwantToRetire]

As we know many politicians use this phrase to avoid having to say single sex ie biological women only

How strange (not) that it is now being used as a campaign to create "safe spaces" for trans people in local communities!

No suprise to find the campaign started in Bristol.

https://www.bristol247.com/lgbtq/features-lgbtq/safe-spaces-the-group-calling-for-bristol-businesses-to-support-trans-rights/

'Safe spaces' predates the movement against trans ideology..and was part of the culture of safetyism that arose in the early/mid 2010's.

It was highly annoying when Starmer started using the term when really he should have been saying 'single sex' spaces, which is far more accurate.

The culture of safetyism was one that sought to censure and to shield the fragile from views that they didn't like; or from being confronted with challenging ideas.

So the businesses that sign up for this are put on a list which will be published.

I wonder what assurances carys is giving those that don't sign up that they will be left in peace.

Given the actions of various TRA groups.

Meh. They can have their "safe spaces". Women require single sex spaces that allow us privacy, dignity and safety from unknown men - no matter how short their skirt or what colour their nail varnish is.

Simples.

Considering anyone going into a business premises should be able to take it for granted that they will be safe, what exactly is the point of these signs. Are they actually saying that these businesses will break the law to appease their tra customers?

Yes they are,

The point is those on FWR know that the politicians use of the phrase "safe space" was a distraction from having to refer to sex.

But to the majoirty, including the MSM, "Safe Spaces" is the media short hand for safe (single sex) spaces.

And clearly using the phrase is deliberate in the same way as so many people think sex and gender is the same thing thanks to the TRA agenda.

Being on FWR means we can seen round.

But to many this will just be another use of weasal words to make people think something is something it never was.

Yet again the concept or even need to women to have "safe spaces" is being erased in the public mind to be replaced by the need of the most "vulnerable" group of people.

So yet again the well oiled TRA PR campaign is reshaping the public perception.

@IwantToRetire

I agree, it is just another set of words that the TRAs are looking to redefine with trans people at the forefront.

Thanks - much better expressed in a short straight forward way.

More than happy for them to have ‘safe spaces’ as long as TW stay out of our single sex spaces

The use of ‘safe spaces’ as opposed to ‘single sex’ was of course entirely deliberate because everyone should be safe.

Yes like businesses give a shite either way mostly.

it was a PR virtue signalling opportunity, that is going out of fashion.

And add the risk of losing insurance and potential litigation this is not going to gain traction with business's large and small.

personally never expected the SC ruling would be an overnight sea change.

But i am happy to wager that this time next year we will see a significant shift.

As pp said “safe spaces” was a fashionable buzzword before trans hit the mainstream and before the Labour Party started to use it as a fudge for single sex spaces. It goes along with feeling “unsafe” when someone disagrees with you. It was quite disingenuous of Labour to use it for this meaning. The sex fudge that they favoured pre SC ruling.

We should absolutely encourage ‘safe spaces’ to be available for trans people, so they don’t feel they can use the single sex spaces which the rest of us find convenient. Trans allies can use the ‘safe spaces’ too, to help them stay safe <feel I may have missed the point 😆>

Yes, one of the more egregious areas of misuse was uni events where ‘safe space’ seemed to equate to ‘being shielded from being exposed to different opinions’. Fortunately the idea that free speech and challenging ideas are kinda vital in unis is reasserting itself.

Kier Starmer kept using this annoying, patronising term during the election campaign and he was legally inaccurate. Single Sex Spaces not Safe Spaces.

Everyone keeps missing the point.

Being on FWR you know of a more complicated history.

But as we know right up until the Supreme Court ruling "Safe Sapces" was the Labour misnomer that they sold to the public was that women were therefore protected.

No newspaper ever challenged that.

It is the same as all those women who still think Women's Aid is Refuge, which means even though they are a rich corporate entity they get more publicity and money.

So what is going on here is about the public discourse, not what is happening in the (sorry to say) quite narrow world of women's sex based rights.

It is not accident they have used this. Just more appropriation.

Something else they want to make all about them.

The term “safe spaces” is much broader than the use Labour made of it. It comes from American “social justice” discourse. It was already being used in the sense of discourse rather than actual safety and had been for years when Labour started to misuse it.

https://thepeerreview-iwca.org/issues/braver-spaces/braver-spaces-vs-safe-spaces-for-lgbtq-in-the-writing-center-theory-and-practice-at-the-university-of-kansas/#:~:text=The%20dichotomy%20between%20safe%20space,at%20a%20larger%20global%20level.

You might not have been aware of it then @IwantToRetire but I was, and it was partly what was so insidious about Labour’s more recent use of it as a way to avoid saying single sex spaces. So no, the TRA group isn’t necessarily “appropriating” they are using it in the same hyperbolic sense.

Exactly.

As people with dysphoria can be either sex, does this mean they are campaigning for unisex facilities separate from single sex facilities to help them to feel safe?
Do people with dysphoria trust all others who say they have dysphoria and want to only share facilities with those with the same condition?
(Surely some will have dysphoria, some will be making it up, how can they tell?)

I remember in the Bailey tribunal there was a TRA who said the building (Garden Court Chambers) wouldn’t be “safe” for a planned TRA group meeting with her there. As if they were at physical risk from Allison Bailey in a legal office.

Yes, ‘safe spaces’ had been appropriated in the ‘public discourse’ in the U.K. years ago by the deplatformers etc, including transactivists but also other groups eg antisemitic. It’s become a banal ‘snowflake’ phrase - imo at this point the transactivists are welcome to it, but we need to push for clarity and the use of ‘single sex facility/service’.

A paradox then. Anywhere that’s marked a ‘safe space’ on these terms is likely to be unsafe for women.

(1) The term ‘psychologically safe space’ was originally used to refer to the psychological environment that supports high performance, innovation and learning. They were defined as spaces where people feel free to speak up with ideas, questions or concerns without fear of punishment or embarrassment.

(2) Spaces designed to provide a refuge from judgement, criticism and uncomfortable thoughts and feelings get called ‘safe spaces’. These conditions align with conditions created for the purpose of respite and healing.

(3) ‘Safe spaces’ can refer spaces where steps are taken to minimise physical harm.

Each of these can exist in isolation. 1 and 3 can be paired, as can 2 and 3. 1 and 3 conflict.

When ‘safe space’ is thrown into the mix, I always ask for clarification. People often state all 3 purposes, and I point out that 1 and 2 conflict. They tend not to like this, especially when 1 is highlighted as reflective of psychological safety. People often operate under the misguided assumption that psychological wellbeing is supported under conditions of 2.

Just to repeat because many on FWR are well informed they then presume the general public is.

In terms of main stream media, media discussion "safe spaces" only made headlines when Labour started using it.

So it has nothing to do with whether I know about its history, or anything else.

Most people do not do detail. They dont have time. They have other priorities.

If you aren't aware of campaigning, or use of weasel words then you are never going to be able to counteract the narrative that those you disagree with are using.

This isn't about an esoteric university debate.

Being on FWR is obviously positive etc..

But to use it as the yardstick by which issues are being discussed by the public and the media, it just out to lunch.