Women-only Cambridge college only has unisex lavatories

[IwantToRetire]

... the current toilet arrangement goes against the college’s own principles of providing a welcoming and nurturing environment for women.

Interim guidance from the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) after the April ruling states that “toilets, showers and changing facilities may be mixed-sex where they are in a separate room lockable from the inside”, citing the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992.

Full article at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/09/20/women-only-cambridge-college-equality-law-unisex-lavatories/
and also at https://archive.is/5Ie3x

But ...

... the college is also coming under fire from pro-trans groups over a new policy which restricts research scholarships to biological women only, following the Supreme Court ruling.

The official policy is here
https://newn.cam.ac.uk/sites/default/files/Gender-Recognition-Policy.pdf

It is simple and requires no proof other than self-assertion to have the wrong sex on a passport or driving licence, so this policy is carte-blanche for anyone of either sex to apply. There's also no requirement for all official documents to agree, so a trans-identifying female applicant who wanted to go to Newnham (realistically more likely to be gender fluid or nonbinary as someone with a masculine gender identity is unlikely to want to) would simply need to produce whichever document has not yet been changed.

I don't quite understand why you are arguing with me. Do you want female people who believe in genderwoo to be excluded?

Not at all!

But your earlier post very simply stated it was for anyone who declared a 'non male gender identity'. Go back and have a look.

Here is the post. You seem to be saying the criteria is for people who 'do not have a masculine gender identity'...but you also, confusingly, suggest that it only for men that don't have a 'masculine gender identity'. I wanted to know if there was anything that suggested that it was open only for males with 'non masculine identities'.

The policy confirms that they let anyone in with a female marker on a passport/driving licence. No “identity” is necessary (technically at least as I’d love to see a Pete the Plumber apply!)

edited for typo

Academics will include males hence the need for unisex toilets, such as non story.

Ok so you're just being pedantically picky.

It is open to men. They don't actually refer to gender identity in the policy, it's just that it is very very easy for a man who believes himself to be not-a-man to get a passport or driving licence that backs up this assertion. I used the shorthand of referring to "men who assert that they don't have a masculine gender identity" rather than going into that level of detail because this level of detail is entirely pointless and a waste of my time and yours. Happy Sunday.

In the article it says some toilets are cubicles opening into a shared space.

So not all fully enclosed cubicles.

Or more willing to put up with other people’s grotty, entitled boyfriends. I remember all too many of these specimens.

I don't see the logic of only having 'unisex' toilets - not to mention the extra expense and disruption.

If it used to be a women-only college, it must have lots of 'standard' toilets which can continue to be women-only.
If it admits men in whatever capacity, there can have some building regs-complaint gender neutral cubicles added to the existing provision.
Or if they have lots of 'standard' toilet blocks, they could designate one as the men's toilet.

What is the justification for removing the single-sex provision, when toilets for men can be provided in addition to, not instead of, women's toilets?

No, it is important for reasons of logicality and intellectual coherence. The fact is there doesn't seem to be much of that about. It is all nonsense and can be shown to be nonsense, which is surely what Newnham will have driven home to them quite soon. Camridge's reputation rests on it being an educational institution of high academic standards and intellectual vigour.

And yes, it has so far been very pleasant. I've just returned from a walk around my local university campus......which is really quite impressive...and it's been a lovely sunny day

So, it wouldn't be open for a woman with a GRC who had changed her birth details and markers to 'male' on her passports etc.

I'm sure the male staff have always used discrete male facilities...long before 'gender identity' and unisex toilets became a thing. The point is, of course, this 'gender identity' thing is incoherent bollocks.....and Cambridge University should not be placating it.

It would be open to a woman with a GRC, since she would have an original birth certificate declaring herself to be female.

So it is open to all women, regardless of gender identity, and also to men who have asserted a womanly gender identity and obtained a new passport or driving licence.

I had a wry laugh at the upset caused by actual-female-only scholarships.

1. Women-only college is actually mixed sex
2. Openly having women-only scholarships as actually mixed-sex scholarships turns out to be bad optics
3. So the women-only-in-name college plumps for actual-women-only scholarships
4. Trans enthusiasts are sad and say so with many words.

Bizarrely, it almost seems like the trans enthusiasts have a point. I mean, if you are happy to turn an entire women-only college into a mixed-sex college to placate the menz, then it does seem a bit odd to hold back on the scholarships. So near, and yet so far.

Did anyone catch Vice-Chancellor Deborah Prentice on Radio 3 Private Passions just now? I turned on towards the end, and just missed what might have been a tangentially-related question. Will listen again in the week.

A woman who has a GRC can change her sex markers, in the same way that men can.

If the case you are positing is the correct one - it suggests that your 'gender identity' is irrelevent if you are female and can be ignored and/or discounted, but if you are male it is somehow sacrosanct? If that is the case it is ludicrously and incoherently inconsistent.

Cambridge really ought to make the college mixed sex - if that is what they really want.....because they are leaving themselves wide open to legal challenge by maintaining this position. It has already been made redundant by the clarity achieved by the Supereme Court ruling.

Or maybe they will revert to 'women only' once any existing male students who were admitted on the basis of their gender identity have graduated?

In my experience this is the usual state of affairs, i.e. trans people of both sexes can in practice pick and choose whichever sex is most convenient at the time. There's no asymmetry here between male and female trans people, or masculine and feminine gender identities, although it is of course less common for transwomen to do this.

If both sexes are using the toilets then they need to be either individual rooms like a disabled toilet is, which either sex can use (ie unisex), or single sex.

I went to a national trust place today where they just had one lot of mixed sex toilets but they’re not separate and enclosed...there’s four cubicles with gaps top and bottom and shared handwashing facilities. Is that allowed in these sort of places? (sorry to hijack thread)

Was this a temporary thing while other facilities were being fixed?

If these are workplace loos for staff, then it's clearly insufficient. If they are just for customers then the rules are.much less prescriptive and it would be necessary for women to argue that this arrangement was unsafe or discriminatory.

I wonder how many male undergrads have actually been admitted to Newnham and Murray Edwards, with or without GRCs? (The ‘logic’ of the latter re self ID iirc was that at the usual age of application - 17/18 - it would be impossible for anyone to have obtained a GRC). It seemed it might have been something being pushed for by the student body but not clear if the academics who get to decide which applicants get offers/pooled/rejected would necessarily have been keen to prioritise males over females. I doubt that data is available but it’d be interesting to know what happened in reality.

So true. I keep forgetting that pulling out some paragraphs always back fires.

Everyone just reads them and thinks that is the entire content.

Never bother to read the whole.

Not to myself, should I start another thread.

Just copy in URL and say you need to read the whole article to be able to comment.!!!

So you haven’t read the policy yourself?

I cancelled our family NT membership in large part due to their idiotic self ID policy. I used to want to support their work but I now feel less inclined if they are happy to undermine women’s rights

Yes, I have, but the point is its lack of clarity or coherence. It seems to be more about signalling the right messages:

"Newnham College was founded in 1871 to promote academic excellence for women, and this remains our goal. Newnham prides itself on offering excellent support and encouragement to all the students it admits.
We are a women-only College, and in adherence to our Statutes we will consider at the admissions stage those who are formally recognised as female and are identified as such on a current passport, driving licence, birth certificate or gender recognition certificate.

Holders of other forms of documentation should consult with the Admissions Office.Once a student matriculates at Newnham, we offer educational support throughout the student’s course. If a student decides to transition to male, then he would be treated as an individual case, and his interests and wishes would be paramount in consideration of appropriate action. If a transitioning student wanted to transfer to a mixed College, then we would offer assistance in that endeavour, following the guidance set out for changing Colleges in the Tutors’ Guide. We would not require a transitioning student to leave Newnham".

The sexes and genders of those to whom all of this may be aplicable are not overtly stated, only implied. What if the transitioner, for example, is a male who has once transitioned to 'female' but is now de-transitining to. 'male'. Is 'He' a reference to a person of male sex or of male gender or of both?