Apparently there has only been one single complaint to English Councils about single sex spaces in 2025

[SingleSexSpacesInSchools]

https://translucent.org.uk/trans-women-and-single-sex-spaces-2026-uk-council-foi-report/

I mean, I wrote about six just on my own so....

How many complaints were actually made I wonder? How have they gone missing?

I know for sure several of my complaints were never documented in official channels , just quietly killed. But I cannot of been the only complainant in England surely?

Hilarious Reddit thread link about this if you want https://www.reddit.com/r/transgenderUK/comments/1tvioe0/trans_women_and_singlesex_spaces_2026_uk_council/

No worries, I can see that you are not arguing with me!

Yes, I agree that there is need for a space for women to discuss post-natal issues without men present. I don't see why there couldn't be two groups a week. One for mums only and one for any carer.

The perfectly 'passing' trans-identified male (transwoman) is actually very rare. Women can nearly always tell when someone is male, even if they have had surgery and cross-sex hormones. You might have noticed on social media that a lot of men who claim to be women are easily identifiable as men, some even keep their beards for example, and others are obviously dressing for a fetish.

I'm afraid that the situation is not a simple as maybe it was 20 years ago; a lot has changed in a very short time due to pressure from activists.

I know this is not quite what you mean, but I must say that as a father when I was looking to be as involved as possible with my two children from birth I found it very difficult to find any groups to go to that we’re welcoming and I certainly never would’ve turned up at one that was called Mum’s and babies or something similar

Fathers are very isolated and it’s hard enough as it is for us to be involved in early childcare

There are cubicles in the mens so if cubicles make women safe surely they do the same for men?

I would say that trans people are isolated, just needing to access spaces but being turned away

To combat the issue you experienced, mum and baby groups have been made accessible for men, and are now parent groups

But toilets, where there is far less chance of having your boobs out or discussing your private parts at length are where the line of protecting women is drawn

Just to clarify, it’s is a physical impossibility for any man to ‘live as a woman’ because to do that you have to be female.

I would say that trans people are isolated, just needing to access spaces but being turned away

I’m not sure what you are basing this idea on. Trans people are centred and celebrated in pretty much any area of life. For such a tiny minority, they wield enormous power. Isolated they are not.

Men wield a tremendous amount of power, yet the women's space mum and baby groups has been made accessible for men

I don’t understand your point. Can you expand please

Well, thats crap.

Trans people can go in the toilet that matches their birth sex. Easy

Dads on the other hand are staggering short changed for parent groups and it really needs to be normalised that fathers can be involved in child care. Fairly sure thats something mothers on this site ask for all the time.

Although we wouldnt know if a transperson is using the toilet as they would be living as a woman

If filters were banned from the internet then these claims would disappear in a puff of smoke.

I think “mum and baby groups” is an imprecise label that encompasses both the types of groups that should be single sex and exclusively for mothers (such as breast feeding support or post natal groups where mums can talk about their experiences of labour/birth injuries etc) and social groups for young children and their caregivers.

The first type of group likely meets the threshold for single sex exemption in the EA.

IMO there is no need for the second group to be single sex. My kids are young adults now so I am out of date but men were rare in the social type group and I think the women were a bit uncomfortable by their presence (possibly evolutionary response when caring for an infant). However, more shared childcare and father involvement is a good thing and dads need social interaction too (as do the infants they are caring for).

The kind of group I mean is where you converse with other parents half a sentence at a time before having to prise your toddler away from snatching a toy from another child and manage half a (cold) cuppa and a custard cream if you’re v lucky.

Anecdotally, a young woman I work with told me that her husband was part of a group of dads who are caring for their babies - so perhaps it’s still difficult for dads to participate in parent and child groups in spite of there being so many more of them.

sorry - I didn’t realise I had so much to say on the topic!

I don't think it is crap

Dad's can form their own parenting groups. Transwomen dressed as women cant go and use a men's toilet.

Its protect women, until its time to protect women? As a new mum, lactating and torn vaginally, I should have a safe space to talk about this with... women. Be they adoptive mums, cesarean mums or vaginal birth mums

Yet women are expected to share the space. How pleasant for an abuse survivor, to be around men at such a vulnerable time.

Its a huge double standard that makes the protect women's spaces claims obsolete.

And let me tell you, a woman who dares complain that there are men at mum and baby groups are ostracised and shamed.

Well. I do.

I never went to a new mums and baby group - for pretty bloody obvious reasons

But I did - go to new parent toddler play thingies. Because I was trying to be an involved parent, meet other parents and be the sort of dad people moan about dads NOT being, on this very site.

Funnily enough I would not go along to a group that set itself up as a place to talk about lactating and torn vaginas - obviously

Women expected to share a space? where the hell do you think I am talking about, I am talking about the weekly meets at the library, or the community centre - I am not at all talking about support groups for mothers who had a traumatic birth?

You seem to be pretty pissed off about this and I assume it's because something happened, well I am sorry, but also I didn't do it I was just trying to be a good dad not force myself into an abuse survivors space. You really need to take a step back and figure out why the hell you're so angry a dad might take his kid to a parents group.

I think @Cantunseeit nailed it. There's a need for two types of group. One for parents of either sex, so that fathers are included, and one just for mothers so they can open up about more intimate stuff in privacy.

It sounds as though the people you are dealing with have muddled up the two things and got it badly wrong. And doubled down and been self-righteous about it too.

Even if the complaints to unitary authorities are small in number, that does not include stores without single sex changing spaces, other local authorities and public bodies, privately run sports/leisure centres and no doubt other places where single sex changing facilities (and indeed third spaces) should be provided.

I can't relate to this forced teaming take

My breastfeeding group was obviosuly for mums and babies only

Our local toddler and parent groups were for everyone with a toddler. In my local groups there were mums, dads, adult siblings, childminders and lots of grandmothers. No way would I have been able to have a in depth conversation about, say, my reconstructed perineum during a session. It's a noisy, messy and dynamic environment and completely different to the breastfeeding groups with babies.

Flight fight and fear reaction. It is well know the majority of women have the flight reaction: you leave the situation. That is because you learn early on from experience that to keep yourself safe you get yourself out of the situation.

So yes you leave and not report the crime. Most women don't report a rape so why do you think women would report voyeurism?

Transwomen dressed as women cant go and use a men's toilet.

Of course they can, men in interesting outfits use the mens without issue. Men on stag dos in manikinis, nurses outfits etc etc. Most men won’t bat an eyelid.

If any man is worried about other blokes talking the mick out of his outfit, he can just do what women are very used to doing all our lives and modify his outfit. I suggest jeans and a jumper - then he can be dressed like a woman (that’s my outfit every day) AND no one will will be any the wiser.

Just looking at this from a safety point of view on spaces.

I went to lots of toddler group. There was a dad or two that came along. The groups were in big halls.

Toilets are vulnerable spaces as they are not as many people about. Sightlines are obscured.

Edit: apologies I quoted the wrong post of yours. I meant to quote your post discussing a toilet space and a toddler group space that’s further down the post history at 08.10

Quite. This person on Twitter keeps posting about going in the men’s and has never had a problem. Plus there are so many men on Twitter so concerned for the safety of transwomen, I’m sure they’re be at least one around to sort out any bother.
nitter.net/rocknroller2019/status/2057511898225008828?

Transwomen dressed as women cant go and use a men's toilet.

Yes they can and they are required to do just that by law, or use a mixed-sex/universal toilet (not the accessible toilet unless they are genuinely disabled).

This is not what they want, but that's tough. It's the law.

I'm not pissed off, Im comparing you saying mum and baby groups (which are put on by the council, its where babies are weighed, where new parents come and talk) are not to be safe spaces so that men can get involved

To complaints about toilets

Only one of those affects women more and it isnt toilets 🤷‍♀️

What if a mum doesnt breastfeed?

When i took dc to be weighed, to discuss birth and see the nurses etc, there were men there

I cant see that as any less an erosion on a womans space than someone who externally appears to be a woman using the loo in tesco 🤷‍♀️

By "mum and baby" groups I thought you meant parent and baby/toddler groups. You know, the kind with toys and snacks.

Turns out you meant the baby clinic run by HVs. At least that's what they were when mine were small!

I mean both!

Spaces for mums to talk about motherhood have gone and now its inclusive for everyone

But to give a more extreme example in relation to some more extreme examples re toilets, I talked about the experience of birth

And tbh, at mum and baby/toddler groups, women talk about women's things - only they cant get too into depth due to the men being there, which is just something thats been lost for us

Thats a womens space that concerns me more really, than public toilets