A Question of Some Considerable Delicacy

[theilltemperedmaggotintheheartofthelaw]

Ever since FWS, we've been told by TRAs that the country is awash with transwomen who are heartbroken and terrified because they've been told to stop using women's facilities, and this has outed them to their colleagues.

I'm finding this hard to believe, because I have virtually never mistaken a transwoman for a woman. There have been previous threads about this, from which I gather that the scientific consensus is that humans are very good at sexing other humans from an early age.

Maybe I am just wrong, though, and have been fooled many times. And maybe some people aren't very perceptive. According to a recent thread, Morgane Oger thinks he could only accurately sex about 70% of a mixed crowd; a PP on the same thread thinks Maya Forstater looks like a man.

So I would like to hear other people's experiences of this (please try not to insult or offend!). Were you ever surprised, when a woman turned out to be a man?

This piece about Kelly v Leonardo reveals the mindset:

https://www.lgbtqnation.com/2025/10/terf-employee-admits-to-secret-cis-only-bathroom-at-work-i-wont-sacrifice-my-privacy-my-dignity/

Kelly also admitted to speculating over her colleagues’ gender identities and tracking their bathroom usage, telling the tribunal that over a period of six to nine months, she identified three people she believed to be trans who were using the women’s restrooms.

This seems to misrepresent what was happening. MK was not speculating: she knew that they were men, surely?

I'm interested primarily in what this means for the law, in particular in relation to Article 8 ECHR (right to private life). TRAs interpret this as an unlimited right to conceal one's sex in every situation. But how can even a limited such right exist, if there is no way in reality that such concealment can reliably be achieved, from everyone, all of the time?

Are they actually demanding the right to force everyone to pretend to be fooled? That's not a privacy right.

Multiple studies and reports show that trans people experience disproportionately high levels of harassment and violence, particularly in public spaces. Trans women are significantly more likely to be verbally abused, physically assaulted, or threatened when using men’s facilities. The concern isn’t about comfort — it’s about avoiding harm.

A trans woman who presents and lives as female is visibly out of place in a male toilet. This can lead to confrontation, humiliation, or even danger. Many trans women also cannot use urinals or other facilities comfortably or safely because of their anatomy, privacy needs, or medical treatment (for instance, post-operative recovery or hormone effects).

Public toilets aren’t just “biological necessity zones” — they’re social spaces with unspoken norms. People are expected to blend in with others of their perceived gender. Expecting a trans woman to use the men’s room ignores how social perception actually works in real life.

So it’s not that trans women won’t use men’s toilets — it’s that doing so often creates unnecessary risk, distress, and conflict. The simplest, evidence-supported solution is to provide adequate single-occupancy or gender-neutral facilities, which benefit not only trans people but also parents with children, people with disabilities, and anyone needing extra privacy.

Again, the real issue is about how the trans community is being criminalised and dehumanised by the media and how frightening it is that it is so contagious. And how it distracts the public from the real dangers of sexual assault.

There is zero evidence that TIMs offend in any different patterns to men. Women want men-free spaces, which is their legal right. What's so hard about that?

Meanwhile if men are having issues in men's spaces because of the behaviour of other men, well that's men's problem to sort out.

Further, I predict a response of "I'm not going to discuss this with you because of your tone", because to actually engage in good faith with the argument would mean having to scramble to put together an argument that including the male sex in female single sex provision is of benefit to women.

It's an impossible argument to make, because the evidence shows that females are actively harmed by male inclusion in these spaces.

Women are not these men's shields. Nor are they their support animals.

Men need to sort out their own problems.

There are better places to play bingo

Can you imagine if the support and campaign groups had spent the previous 10 years campaigning for these facilities? It would have been an excellent start to finding a solution that works for all.

Yes they do

But many trans identified men have stated that they would not use gender neutral toilets when provided as they say they are entitled to use female single sex facilities.

If all trans identified men used gender neutral facilities rather than female single sex spaces there wouldn't be an issue.

It's not being trans that is an issue it's men using womens spaces

Is that you conceding the point? Or a mis-post.

So now the argument is that trans women should be afraid of men in trousers but women shouldn't be afraid of men in skirts. Makes complete sense. Everyone knows that lipstick suppresses testosterone.

Multiple studies and reports show that women experience disproportionately high levels of harassment, violence, and sexual violence in spaces which include men.

So we have single sex spaces to keep the women safe.

Trans identified men could have campaigned for extra spaces, feminists and trans allies were all for campaigning along side them, and the allies said they'd use the extra spaces along side the trans identified people so it wouldn't have been outing. Trans identified people would have had huge support for this!

Instead TRAs sent death and rape threats to the feminists. Apparently it's not about their safety, it's all about unlawful access to non-consenting females.

None of what you wrote is an excuse for throwing women's rights and safeties out the window. While I am sympathetic, male on male violence is not for women to solve by actively harming themselves.

My feminism centres females, not males. Although I'd still be up for campaigning for extra spaces on top of everything else. TRA men don't want that though apparently, they keep wanting access to the women who say no.

Ah, the pre-emptive “you’ll refuse to debate me because I’m right” defence — always a solid sign of confidence in one’s argument. Bold move predicting my response and declaring your own argument unassailable in the same breath. The “evidence” you’re referring to tends to conflate trans women with male offenders, which is rather like banning all politicians because a few are sex pests.The evidence doesn’t actually show that trans women cause harm in single-sex spaces; it shows that men who commit offences do. Which is why safeguarding is based on behaviour and risk, not blanket identity bans.

Oh dear.
So you are saying men are afraid of men; but women shouldn't be because they are wearing a dress! Do you realise how silly you sound? You are definitely a duFFer!

As we've got an entire bingo card of whataboutery as usual, I'm going to ask, again, why, even if I were to accept all the nonsensical, illogical, non-fact-based TRA arguments, males need to be given female rights?
Males have all the human rights that everyone else has; and trans identified males have their own extra rights under gender re-assignment in the EA. They don't need the rights of the sex that they are not.

What total crap is this?

Male politicians aren't allowed in women's spaces either. I can't think of any female politicians who are sex pests. The first trans Assembly Member was has been convicted of several driving offences, and of harassing his ex-wife.

The data on violence against women is indeed serious, which is exactly why safeguarding policies exist and are already written to protect women from predatory behaviour, not trans existence.
You’re absolutely right that women’s safety matters. What’s missing is that trans women are statistically far more likely to be victims of violence than perpetrators (see ONS, Stonewall, and Galop reports). The suggestion that they “chose not to campaign for extra spaces” ignores years of advocacy for gender-neutral and single-user facilities — proposals that are often rejected by the same groups now demanding exclusion.
Also, “TRAs sent threats” isn’t an argument — it’s an anecdote that doesn’t define a movement. Plenty of feminists, including trans-inclusive ones, also receive death threats, often from the same extremist fringes that claim to protect women.
So no one’s throwing women’s rights out the window; we’re just rejecting the idea that fear of trans women is a valid pillar of feminism. Real safeguarding protects based on behaviour and risk, not the shape of someone’s body or the assumptions attached to it.

So still not responding to the what benefit to women question, it's very obvious.

Again trans women are men! There is no difference in reality between a man with a trans identity, and a man with no trans identity. They are both men. Always were, always will be.

There are many groups of male people who could be said to be just as vulnerable as the group you refer to. Those groups of male people have not been given the special privilege of accessing female single sex provisions for their safety.

The question remains, why should any male person be accessing a female single sex space? They shouldn't be. It was never the solution that worked for female people in considering female people's needs.

If there is a safety issue in the male toilets, this needs urgent action. Any group that campaigns for male people and the government at all levels in the UK need to start addressing this.

'Again, the real issue is about how the trans community is being criminalised and dehumanised by the media and how frightening it is that it is so contagious.'

The discussion about female people needing female single sex provisions is not 'criminalising' and 'dehumanising' the trans community. In fact, the female half of that community will benefit from greater understanding about their own needs if they wish to access the provisions for their sex.

However, in the UK male people with the philosophical belief that they are female still commit sex offences at a rate higher than the general female UK population. This is seen from the UK MoJ statistics. Therefore, pointing this out is important to the discussion about these single sex provisions.

'And how it distracts the public from the real dangers of sexual assault.'

And feminists can focus on multiple issues at once.

Trans women are men otherwise they would just be women, @Mamma246 . It's not difficult. Of course they are "conflating" TW with men. Because they are. I'm assuming you are one as well

And I forgot to add the 2023 rates of sexual offending graphic. Here it is

Are you a man @Mama246?
I find it sad and disturbing that a woman can be so misogynistic.

Women's single sex spaces have been deemed necessary on safe keeping grounds.

By what justification would we give this one group of men access?

It’s interesting that one trans politician’s traffic offences is justification for excluding an entire demographic from public life — yet we somehow manage not to ban all male MPs after each sex scandal. Almost as if accountability should be individual, not identity-based.

All too typical unfortunately. The world is full of handmaidens.