New boss of EHRC on Laura Kuenssberg tomorrow (Sunday December 14)

[mzdemeanour]

Just noticed that Mary-Ann Stephenson is being interviewed tomorrow morning. Heard a brief bit on the news and she seems to be talking about following the law on single sex spaces/services. Should be interesting especially following the developments this week.

The TRAs on Reddit aren’t happy (when are they) and are threatening deliberately clogging up toilets in their impotent rage, so that will be lovely.

https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/s/jettwhI1ph

From you, not her.

She’s doing the dance of neutrality, which makes everybody uneasy, uncertain which way she is going to swing, and whether she will choose to protect her career or protect their rights (perceived or actual).

Bloody hell, Eresh, what a bunch of wallies.

And yes, if they start sabotaging mixed sex facilities, where women and children go, businesses will have to address that. Either by employing more cleaning, or reverting back to single sex.

Frankly, there can't be enough of them for it to even present the smallest problem.

I knew they would never be satisfied with compromise. From that reddit thread:

"If you've got, you know, two self-contained cubicles, one of which is labelled men and one of which is labelled women, then the most sensible thing in those circumstances for a service provider to do is to make both of those unisex."

wow thanks all problems solved.

fuck Mary Ann Stephenson, fuck the BBC, fuck anyone who swallows this absolute fucking bullshit.

I mean, there's a lack of a poker face, and then there's that 😆

We need to just let this play out. All the wailing about having nowhere to go and not being able to participate in public life is nonsense. The public will see soon enough what they think of third spaces.

Did you see how they reacted to Simon Jenkins silly article about how all the transwomen he knows are very discreet? Basically, the reaction was who the fuck is this cis het man to tell us that we have to be quiet and discreet 🙄

@Shortshriftandlethal Unfortunately this is what the trans activists on Reddit think of following the rules:
"Goodwill? GOODWILL?!
I believe I speak for the vast majority of us when I say we're not staying out of the appropriate facilities for our gender and if they want to keep us out they're going to have to use force."
It needs to be law not just down to them doing the right thing, because they won't and are prepared to use force.

Violent men determined to enter women only private spaces, and bragging about it online?

Absolute twats.

I think it's a good approach, she has to show she is even handed about protected characteristics. So takes a reasonable, middle ground attitude which is promoting more unisex spaces then just let the TRAs have plenty of airtime for their tantrums. Best way for people to see that this is not about them having nowhere to go. And also businesses will soon wake up to discontent from customers if the spaces are not clean. Then we get back to single sex, or maybe 1 female plus 1 unisex, that makes sense too.

I’m not sure why you seem to be attributing something to me when I didn’t say it. Neither did I condone stinky toilets. I merely commented that a couple of facilities I am familiar with are acceptably clean.

I don't think she is neutral at all on sex based rights, it is just that she has to show considersation, also, for the protections of other groups. That's her role.
Considering others needn't have to mean under-mining women.

She has to be diplomatic. She cannot go in with all guns blazing.

That's their choice...but then they will also have to accept the consequences of their actions. I'm sure most are just mouthing off...and when it comes down to it, would certainly hesistate before breaching the rules...once 'the new rules' are established.

I could never work out why Starbucks, Nero and so on put so much effort into branding and making their cafes appealling with sofas and wfi, and then had such horrid dirty messy toilets, more like a garage toilet than a nice cafe.

It took me an embarassingly long time to realise that it was because they were mixed sex.

And that while they were grim to me, from the perspective of their male clientele the toilets were totally normal, perhaps even better than normal, and the cafe management may not even realise how grim the female clientele found them.

I just watched the programme on catch-up and I thought Mary-Ann Stevenson was fine. Not too dogmatic, not too smooth, pragmatic and restrained. I think it is the approach needed.
(<Crosses fingers behind back>)

If toilets are not kept clean then we need to complain, and escalate complaints if necessary. Most of us have access to a range of shops, cafes, clubs and pubs. The competition amongst them is fierce and we need to tell them that toilet facilities can be a deciding factor in where we spend our money

I am not sure that MAS is gender critical. The point has been made, when people were trying to make out she's some sort of terf, is that she respects the right of individual beliefs, but that no one belief should take precedent over another.

But on reading the thread, all I kept thinking it that in terms of the law, it only cover around 10,000 holders of GRC.

The vast majority of those insisting on "their" rights are in fact insisting that their life style choice (to no coform to gender stereo types) is the equivilent.

So everyone, whether EHRC, the Supreme Court, are actually misrepresenting the need.

The question is why cant people who are what used to be called "gender benders", behave as "gender benders" did. They didn't demand to use the toilets of the opposite sex, because the whole point was to show that whether you were born male or female, you didn't have to dress, behave or have interests that society told you you should have because of your sex.

In fact this was a far more revolutionary position as it meant men who wore "female" clothes etc., would use men's toilets.

This generation are effectively saying society imposed norms are their goal.

Wow, echo chambers aren’t healthy, kids

" Then we get back to single sex, or maybe 1 female plus 1 unisex, that makes sense too."

I think that's a good solution where there's two existing multi-cubicle M/F toilets.

Like sport: have a protected female category plus an open category for everyone else who want to opt in (men, TIMs, the colourful new genders, non-binaries etc). If men have an issue with sharing their spaces, they can fund their own legal battles.

Better than the bonkers situation we've all lived through before the Supreme Court clarification set various dominoes toppling, where women's stuff became everyone's stuff, and men's stuff was unaffected.

(<Crosses fingers behind back>)

Sorry, didn't mean to imply that I don't believe what I said, more that I really, really hope that it turns out to be a fair description of her.

I thought the BBC article was nice and clear for the most part. However, they edited the headline. First off it was "Equality boss expects people to follow rules over single-sex spaces." Excellent message. Then it changed to "'Toilet police' not expected over single-sex space guidance, equality boss says." Much less helpful.

Plus I really really wish she hadn't said anything about defaulting to so-called "gender-neutral". A number of news outlets have picked up on this as their main headline, e.g. https://www.gbnews.com/news/trans-gender-neutral-toilets-male-female-mary-ann-stephenson-equality

If there are just two toilets, stick to single-sex FGS. I do not want to share toilets with men who piss all over the seat. Three times I've had this lately, and if it happens again I might just be chasing some man down the train our through the restaurant, shouting, "Come back and clean up your piss you disgusting pig!"

Plus, it's a bit worrying that if this view is being promoted, organisations will take that as a message to just convert all their many toilets to mixed-sex.

Not listened to this but might be interesting?

https://x.com/i/status/1999767300027634109

Sorry I thought if would give the link to something more public than twitter.

Also on facebook https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1475303404334862