Is it safety or separation?

[OneFlakyMaker]

When opposing transgender people in women's spaces, are you looking for safe spaces or separate spaces?

They may overlap but are not the same thing, and while a lot of the discussion is focused on safety, the tone and some arguments hint that addressing safety won't be enough for many people to feel comfortable. Instead, a place without males is sought.

I read one woman described it "At the club we used the women's bathroom to get a break from interacting with men".

I also never ever said I drop my guard around women.

I am hyper aroused and hyper vigilant at ALL times. Even when in my own home. 24/7 I am never dropping my guard. Ever.

This is such a naive take.

What's wrong with both or either?
You talk as though you think trans women have one iota of compassion for women.
Have a look at India Willoughby's reaction (on twitter) when a woman explained how she experienced such heavy periods that she had to wash her knickers in the sink in the ladies. And how, if males had been present she would have felt so much more embarrassed and uncomfortable. If he really had empathy or relatability he would understand and not have highlighted her tweet to ridicule and show his disgust and innate lack of understanding.

Mine gave me genital herpes and hpv. Bonus.

Taz, I hope that youre okay, and that you find a way through. As for apologising for talking about your experiences, you don't need to. The whole point of this board is to help women.

I am sorry to hear that. That must be difficult for you to navigate then.

However, organisations are expected to provide facilities that are sex segregated based on providing robust safeguarding and they may choose to provide additional facilities for those who are able to use by who reject using the single sex space that has been provided for them.

There is no possible way to provide any 100% safe space with public access. While sex segregation will provide a certain level of safety, it cannot provide 100% safety as yes, there will always be female people who may cause harm to other female people in those spaces. That, of course, is known and understood as a risk that society must accept in using publicly provided single sex spaces.

So sorry to hear that.
Big hug from me. (I am shit at emojis...)

Please show more respect and empathy. „Well“? „You’re lucky“?!?! If you toned down the campaigning righteousness you may even be more convincing; as it is, set against Taztoy‘s posts, yours helpfully exemplify the lack of understanding women in her position face, and the need for society to listen to them.

(This is before we even get to the laughable absurdity of „why aren’t you just as scared of the sex that DON’T commit 98% of sexual assaults and DON‘T have a massive physical advantage over you, too?“ Well, gosh… it’s complicated… 🙄)

You're not as safe in a car as you are in a plane. You're safer on a motorway than on a two way road.
Your argument is pointless. Of course people want to be exposed to the least risk. Nobody will never be exposed to risk.
Were you bored and fancied poking the hornets nest for something to do this morning?

I find the lack of empathy absolutely astonishing

I am actually not sure what your argument is.

Is it that we are never safe anywhere so don't drop your guard, but also that we should not demand that we have single sex spaces because you don't believe they are safe anyway?

For instance, because we cannot get 100% safe, we should not aim to get as high a standard of safety as we can by excluding male people from female single sex spaces? Is that what you are saying? That everywhere may as well be mixed sex because we cannot achieve 100% safety?

Or that we should have single sex spaces that exclude all male people over the age of 8 years old but that we should not feel safe there?

I have to say I felt dead lucky when I was having LLETZ. lying there with my legs akimbo whilst they burnt off the dodgy cells HE GAVE ME.

I felt dead lucky with I had to tell my new boyfriend I had herpes.

never mind explaining how I might react due to the rape.

pure dead lucky me. 🙄

(sarcasm alert)

Legally, it's both. In the UK, the sexes are treated identically in law (tax, pensions, the right to marry, everything), except where the law provides specific exceptions, either for good practical reasons, or because it's what everybody wants and it's harmless.

So, the male primogeniture rule for peerages is considered a harmless tradition, which operates based on birth sex, not GRC gender.

Clubs for people with a shared characteristic (lesbians, Rastafarians, men with sheds) are allowed because on balance they're a social good.

Schemes to boost underrepresented groups (men in nursing, women in parliament) are allowed. The groups can't be merged (eg women and transwomen) because they will be over or underrepresented to different extents and for different reasons.

Service providers can cater for men and women differently and/or separately if there's a good enough reason, including safety, fairness and modesty. It's a given that both sexes are modest about undressing and toileting, and the worked examples make it plain that women fugitives from male violence (eg in DV services) are entitled to exclude anyone who looks like a man, whether s/he is one or not. Similarly, men can exclude women just to protect their modesty, if undressing is involved.

It's hard to see how anyone could object.

I think demanding single sex spaces on the grounds of safety is silly as women harm too. Separation is why it is necessary and there is nothing wrong with that. Its also why I dont believe in communal changing rooms at all (cublices FTW) because I think people should be separated when in that condition of vulnerability. It makes sense to divide changing areas by sex but discourage communal nudity by having cubicles. That would be safer.

This is a very silly post.

But women like me couldn’t cope with all cubicles. So why can’t we have both cubicles (for those who want to use them) and shared single sex spaces for those who don’t and who are happy to take the risk (as you see it) of changing in a communal space?

Again, this is how the pool I use is configured.

And please. Don’t call me silly. That’s diminishing and belittling me and my trauma. Thank you.

💯 this

We have needs and wants and thankfully the SC have confirmed that we have rights, in certain circumstances (which already meet the proportionality test), to single sex spaces, associations, facilties and opportunities.

Have read a bit further and would advise posters not to engage with LoftyRobin. The lack of empathy and focus on goading a victim of assault is increasingly disturbing. I don’t know if the aim is to exemplify their own points about women‘s capacity for unpleasantness in real time, or if they’re a man, but either way, I find it worrying. Meanwhile, the stark difference in tone and content between their own and Taztoy‘s replies frankly makes our argument for us, as such posters do often do.

To be clear. My pool has single sex changing and within the women’s (I’ve never been in the men’s so I don’t know what it’s like) there are both cubicles and communal changing spaces.

So it is because you don't understand crime statistics then.

I beg your pardon?

Was it you who thought that young woman yesterday was a man? Is this why youre now trying to have me frozen out?

There's been a campaign to redefine single sex spaces as safe spaces. This has lead to two things - that these spaces are seen as places for all vulnerable people, and the argument that as nowhere can be 100% safe, they are pointless.

But single sex changing rooms and toilets are as much about dignity, practicality and inclusion as increased saftey. Without these spaces, lots of women wouldnt use gyms or be able to be far from home.

No one is pretending that getting changed in a council run swimming pool is fun, but its more accessible for more women than if it was mixed sex.