Good Law Project to report Sex Matters over 'deviant' remark

[IwantToRetire]

In its assessment of the EHRC guidance, Sex Matters took issue with the following phrase: "It is unlikely to be either practical or appropriate to approach any particular individual to make enquiries about their sex in relation to facilities, such as toilets, which are incidental to the primary service.”

The sex-based rights group responded in a publication entitled <a class="break-all" href="https://archive.is/o/lLjDq/sex-matters.org/posts/updates/sex-is-not-special-category-data/?ref=ed_latest" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">"Sex is not a 'special category' data", saying: "There is no legal basis for this instruction, which in effect licenses men to enter women’s facilities and claim that it is inappropriate, possibly unlawful and a breach of their human rights to challenge them."

The group further stated: "Telling staff supervising single-sex spaces that they must second-guess themselves when they become aware of a man engaging in the deviant behaviour of accessing a female-only space, or risk breaching data-protection law, will lead to unwanted conduct related to the protected characteristic of sex that is likely to meet the definition of harassment in the Equality Act. It 'violates a person’s dignity or creates an intimidating, hostile, degrading, humiliating, or offensive environment'."

From article at https://www.thenational.scot/news/26143769.good-law-project-report-sex-matters-deviant-remark/
and at https://archive.is/lLjDq

I don't have strong feelings about toilets.

I just think Keeptoiletssafe makes very good arguments about toilet design, it's clear that many people don't want to share toilets with the opposite sex, and per the Equality Act, that is all the justification you need for toilets to be single sex.

However, what really, really doesn't make sense is the argument that some men should be able to use women's toilets because they are safer than men's toilets if any man can use them. That is just an affront to logic.

Hallelujah you are almost getting it.
PRIVATE.
look back at my picture
which ones private?

So you are going back to the argument that there is no need for single sex toilets, this time because you think that it is unlikely that a crime will be committed in a public toilet.

But that wasn't what I asked.

I think you said that you understood that some women were wary of sharing public toilets with men, but then said

rather I don't hold the same safety risk expectations from trans women

How would one know the difference?

Baileyonice. is there any way you can bring yourself to accept the words "one female child of ten being sexually assaulted in a public lavatory intended for women only is one female child of ten too many"?

Not all rapists or would-be rapists confine their raping to their own homes, even if it is statistically more likely that they will.

In this particular case the offender was a man dressed as a woman. He might not have been able to get into the facility past the child's mother if that had not been the case; the mother would certainly have kicked up a row if an obvious male had walked in after the child. Morrisons' staff might even have gone in and removed him before he had time to assault and terrify that child. (And good for the child, who fought back and escaped even when threatened with a knife; but I wouldn't stake my life, or even tenpence, on her not having nightmares about the events.)

Just to add to that, a reminder that recently men (who identify as ‘transwomen’ on entering the women’s toilet and ‘detransition’ on leaving the toilet) have been convicted as men, of crimes such as sexual assault and voyeurism on women.

edit: they didn’t make any attempt to look feminine or like a woman btw

I have to go and do things now.
When I come back, will Baileyonice have replied to my direct questions?
I know I can be annoying, a bit like a 3-year-old constantly asking 'But whhhyyyyy?'
but it's the way my mind works - dig down to the basics of an issue, see what the foundation is, and is it solid? because if not, the edifice won't stand.

In this case, what is the reasoned argument for changing the established configuration of men's/women's/ accessible, which works for the huge majority of the population?
So far the only answer has been 'arguments against the EHRC guidance', but no indication of which one.

It’s getting more and more laughable and absurd. I’m off as well.

At least people may look at this thread and see who is thinking of health and safety of everyone. It might change people’s minds on which design of toilet to install and for that, I am grateful.

the mother would certainly have kicked up a row if an obvious male had walked in after the child

Until recently we have been moving away from that assumption, and towards the idea that it is wrong to question anyone's gender identity.

This certainly seems to have been the policy of the courts and police, although I think guidance has now changed?

I suspect this thread is being used as a sounding board for some kind of university dissertation/thesis

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/new-poll-shows-most-people-prefer-single-sex-toilets-and-changing-rooms/

The vast majority of people prefer single-sex toilets and changing rooms and, even when you dig down into the younger generations and the Green voters, it is only ever minority numbers (well below 50%) that think transgender people should use whichever facilities they prefer.

Oh, now you are just spoiling someone's argument with facts. You meanie!

A multi-thousand word rant on why women shouldn't have rights that inconvenience men, and why women are inexplicably unhelpful when it's explained to them that they should wish to embrace the loss of their rights and equality? And the risk of being raped?

My sympathies to those who have to do the marking. The cost-benefit is probably something that the university should be considering.

Except that "sounding board" implies an intention to listen to feedback. I don't think that's happening.

I can't believe I need to explain this.

Please don't. You have delighted us long enough.

I really don't understand the point of all this.

The law has been confirmed. Women's equality to men with gender identities has been confirmed. Women's right to have single sex spaces where those men aren't has been confirmed.

Going on at random people on an anonymous forum does nothing to change this. Particularly on a women's rights forum where oddly enough, the main consideration is.... women.

I was thinking more like year 9? Perhaps that's why no answers to some pretty pertinent questions- they have very little life experience so far ?

I think maybe you're just posting articles and philosphical points off a kind of cheat sheet, and you don't actually know the context of any of this stuff.
One of Paglia's contrarian assertions was that wealthy young women at liberal arts colleges in the USA would find it empowering to engage in sexual / sexualised labour for pay. It's pretty seedy, but she could be dreadfully edgelordy. And there were young women who wanted to show they were cool, sex positive feminists and not one of those daggy old safetyist feminists, who engaged in camgirl work and similar. They weren't motivated by a need for money, these were wealthy young women. It was a deeply strange chapter in the histoy of third wave feminism. I assumed you'd know what I was talking about because you linked to the Paglia article.
Rest assured, I wasn't making any reference to the debasement of society. Just of academia.

Glad to see that Google is still working for you.

I’m confused. Did Paglia say the correct response to women-only dormitories and curfews was to allow men who wanted to do so to invite themselves into those dormitories? I’m struggling to see the relevance.

This is a test post to see if I am allowed to post on this thread. (I had a post auto-hidden at 9.46 today and I don't understand why. There was nothing rule-breaking in it.)

EDIT: So this posted fine. I wonder why I was auto-hidden before. It happened immediately I posted, so it wasn't hidden as a result of a complaint.

This Camille Paglia?

Feminist Camille Paglia On Transgenderism: ‘The Cold Biological Truth Is That Sex Changes Are Impossible’ – Feminist Legal Clinic

As has been noted before she is a provocateur, so it might be difficult to pin down her exact stance, but I think she identifies as an androgynous lesbian? Whether or not anyone else would describe that as transgender is debatable, but the concept of gender identity is personal and subjective.

It's not unusual for feminists to refuse to be classified by a gender identity. The main point of contention is whether they believe it's helpful to classify anyone else by gender identity.

She certainly doesn't argue that sex is unimportant or changeable, which is more relevant to this discussion.

We're used to mansplaining. Knock yourself out.

Surprisingly the article
How did public bathrooms get to be separated by sex in the first place?
was written by a Professor!

At least there was this:
Disclosure statement
Terry S. Kogan is on the advisory board of Equality Utah, an LGBT advocacy group.

but you'd still expect more academic rigour and depth of analysis, wouldn't you?

I suppose it could be used as an example of what not to do when writing a university dissertation/thesis, e.g. don't cherry-pick historical examples that match your conclusion, and ignore all the rest.
People do that when they are writing polemics, but in an article with a title like
'How did something happen historically', you'd expect the conclusion to match the examples, not vice versa.

So are you saying people are never attacked in public places? But that would mean TIM are not attacked in public places either so will be perfectly safe in male facilities right?