Article on "arguing with a TERF"

[MyAmpleSheep]

I love to keep up with the other side, so here's a lot of words just to say "it's complicated." meanwhile he ignores the obvious answer to his own question.

www.fasttrackfemme.com/p/why-you-cant-win-an-argument-with

Where is your evidence of this risk to transwomen in the mens. Your beloved actuarial risk? I want to see proof that the gents is a risky place for transwomen. Then if you show me proof I want further proof that a transwoman is at risk at the theatre or M&S or a country gastro pub before I even begin to think about let them into the women's.

I don't agree that "TW are more likely to be assaulted in a men's toilet" is a given. There are too many variables and not enough evidence.

Nice, then the app would go on to test those different definitions and see how you approach them.
By working with it, you'd manage to create such a well-structured and watertight argument that you could simply put all of it in a PDF. Then, whenever a TRA disagrees with you on something, you can simply drop the document.
Then you sit back and watch: either they aren't intelligent enough to debate its contents, they have the emotional maturity to acknowledge your argument is well-defined, or they actually have the skills to debate it on that deeper level.

That way, you'd save a lot of time and bother, TRAs would save a lot of time and bother, and I think everyone would be happier.

This is why I think such a site would be better than Bennett's concept.

True, it is not a fact.
But the data we do have currently does skew towards that conclusion

Genuine question - what data?

I talked about it earlier in the thread, but The U.S. Transgender Survey (the largest dataset of it's kind) found that nearly 60% of trans individuals actively avoid using public restrooms due to fear of verbal or physical harassment, and nearly 1 in 10 reported being directly harassed, physically attacked, or sexually assaulted in a restroom in the prior year.

As for your second point, the risk profile of a men's bathroom in an M&S or a theatre is much lower than the risk profile in a crowded gastro pub at closing time, a public transit station, or a prison system.
I think that even if someone generally argues for trans women in women's bathrooms, they'd be able to concede there is no need for that at a theatre or an M&S, if we talk about risk alone.

MedicalConsensus
forcing trans women into male facilities where they are statistically more likely to be assaulted.

I think that might call for "citation needed". As I said last time you posted the American survey, which seemed to have been carried out for the benefit of a trans organisation, self-reporting is not adequate as evidence. Also, I want something about public lavatories, not "restrooms".

It also needs more definition. More likely than whom? In the same place, or in what other place? Assaulted in what way? By whom?

Too small a sample of what I would call "actual assault" (as opposed to "he looked at me funny" or "they were muttering" or "someone said are you in the right loo love") probably would not be statistically relevant. Have any trans women (ie men) been sexually assaulted or put in fear of their lives by assault with a weapon, in a Gents? Or had an edged or sharp weapon brandished at them with intent to cause distress or fear? Where is the evidence of this from police records, or videos of the events?

That sort of assault has certainly happened to women in the Ladies; in every case, that sort of assault seems to have been committed by a man, it's true, and often proudly posting videos of their behaviour on social media. But is there any evidence that these men commit similar assaults in the Gents, or is that just fearmongering like the "kids will commit suicide if they don't get what they want" myth? (I always wanted to know whether they would commit suicide by holding their breath – which of course is not possible. It felt about at that level of threat, to be honest.)

That Williams Institute publication is the data? Seriously?

You are right to question this. This is false - there are no statistics for this. The shouting (described as verbal assaults) and rare pushing out (described as physical assaults) are of women trying to get men out of female toilets. So if anything, the opposite is true.

I could give @MedicalConsensus all my research but of course I won’t because a lot of it involves cases at the individual level. I also don’t want to waste effort in this heat if I don’t think it’s going to be used to improve safety.

So a few more to feed into please, this time with a few international examples to show this new problem caused by new designs.

Statistics and info for men and women not to share toilets in a non-domestic toilet situation:

Voyeurism. 100% of voyeurs in prison are male. This is from an interview with Dr Vicky Lister, a research fellow in the School of Psychology at the University of Kent in The Guardian from May 2025. Quotes include: If I’m in a toilet, I will check plug sockets, mirrors, cracks in tiles. It has made me so paranoid.
‘Many had used covert cameras, including one disguised as a shampoo bottle in a public shower. “It’s scary, isn’t it?” she says. “As soon as you start digging, you start to realise. The men I interviewed were saying: ‘Everyone’s probably been a victim at some point.’”’

Unisex toilets links with rapes of children in schools. This is worldwide problem. India has instructed schools to have single sex toilets. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0014292125000030 Using panel analysis and a triple-difference strategy with district-year data, we find that constructing sex-specific toilets in schools significantly reduces child rapes, while having no effect on other sexual crimes (e.g. adult rape). The reduction is more pronounced in co-educational and secondary schools. Conversely, unisex toilets are ineffective, because girls feel unsafe to use them and continue defecating openly. Note the term gender as used here is used in its previous usage as a polite term for sex.

New ‘gender neutral’ designs (which had to be turned into single sex designs) in Tokyo:
This is a design you initially thought a good idea. Note women complained. They quickly had to add extra security guards. Then they turned in to single sex toilets with only a couple of unisex toilets. (What it doesn’t say in this article is that these toilets were also being used for paid sex).
https://japantoday.com/category/national/tokyo-entertainment-complex-remodels-restroom-to-remove-gender-neutral-setup

This is a similar pattern that happens everywhere with these designs - women complain, then add extra alarms/monitors/ cctv although the end result differs - in schools they often restrict times children can use the toilets.
Problems in schools are shown in this article of real-life incidents in Wales:
https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/drug-dealing-drinking-dirt-problems-28517175#googlevignette

To deal with the extra privacy in mixed sex toilets some schools install alarms which manufacturers have designed specifically for ‘gender neutral’ school toilets. These alarms activate with pre-set prompts like ‘help me’ or
‘stop it’.
These are being used in America and the U.K. Heres one manufacturer’s marketing:

“Single-use restrooms in schools are becoming prime real estate for students to vape, vandalize, and more due to the lack of monitoring and witnesses in these restrooms. The shift of schools switching to single-use or gender-neutral restrooms further complicates the security of the school restrooms. This often leads to school restrooms being used for prohibited activities, such as loitering, bullying and aggression, unpermitted vaping, and even as extreme as drug usage and sexual activity. Devices like the HALO Smart Sensor are designed to help keep all school bathrooms safe through:

• Vape and THC detection
• Aggression and vandalism detection
• Motion and occupancy detection
• Alerts for Keywords, Panic Buttons and Occupancy counts
• Keeping bathrooms secure while also protecting the privacy of individuals”

The U.S. Transgender Survey (the largest dataset of it's kind) found that nearly 60% of trans individuals actively avoid using public restrooms due to fear of verbal or physical harassment, and nearly 1 in 10 reported being directly harassed, physically attacked, or sexually assaulted in a restroom in the prior year.

The correct sex 'restrooms' or the incorrect sex 'restrooms'?

Keeptoiletssafe
You are right to question this. This is false - there are no statistics for this. The shouting (described as verbal assaults) and rare pushing out (described as physical assaults) are of women trying to get men out of female toilets. So if anything, the opposite is true.

Thank you for confirming the lack of actual data about actual assaults.

I think that there have been instances of camp gays being assaulted in public lavatories in rough areas. That might be the origin of this perpetual fear. But I think these might go back to the days of gay-bashing, when the sin of being gay was getting young men killed in eg housing estates near Richmond Park, or back streets in Camden Town, or outside pubs after closing time in Holloway. (to name three out of far too many cases, in London alone) and only assaulted in the Gents. Back in those days very few trans people indeed existed at all; they were so rare that finding one to assault would probably have been a great deal too much hard work for yeraverage yob.

Oh well. I went to have a look at the website, and sure enough

"The U.S. Transgender Survey (USTS) is the largest survey devoted to the lives and experiences of transgender people across the United States. The USTS was created by trans people, for trans people."

So about as objective as Trump on the subject of wind power, I expect.

The vast majority of violence and sexual harassment against women goes unreported to the police, and criminologists rely heavily on anonymous, self-reported surveys to understand the base rates, so I think it's a bit unfair to state self-reporting is 'not adequate as evidence,' and demand videos instead.
Bathrooms don't have cameras and I don't know who'd film an attack.

While sure, there is a red flag of bias because of the data's source, it does still stand in the face of no data to show otherwise.

"More likely than whom?" More likely than a gender-conforming male using the same facility, and more likely than if they were using a women's facility.

"In the same place?"
Yes, in the men's lavatory/restroom.

"Assaulted in what way? By whom?"
By men. The 1 in 10 statistic from the survey specifically categorizes physical attacks and sexual assaults, separating them from verbal harassment or "funny looks."

@AskingQuestionsAllTheTime
"So about as objective as Trump on the subject of wind power"

A more fair comparison would be Trump on the subject of Trump

"Bathrooms don't have cameras and I don't know who'd film an attack."

I do. The perpetrator. Proud of himself for "owning the terfs" – even if the people he was terrorising might have been allies or fellow-travellers for all he knew, or even (if they are so realistic you can't tell they are men) other transwomen.

Gender conforming men who are disabled or small or young get assaulted by other men. That's why I asked "more likely than whom?" This of course is an impossible statistic to gather, given the fact that cross-dressing men who have purported to be female have been getting away with staying clear of the men's facilities by colonising the women's ones, so they haven't been in the gents to be assaulted anyway.

I'd say it's likely that disabled or small or young men have been a great deal more likely to be assaulted in the Gents than faux-women, of recent years.

Good point. Yes.

Nice to bring that up.
If a 'yob' will violently attack a man in the Gents just for acting camp, what logical mechanism stops that exact same violent individual from attacking a trans woman?
Afterall, they attack visible gender non-conformity.

Yeah, violent perpetrators in those spaces choose targets based on perceived vulnerability and the ability to dominate them.
A trans woman, who presents with female sex characteristics and is, on average, smaller and more feminine in presentation than the statistical average male perpetrator in that space, combined with everything going on online about what should be done to them, would be perceived by those same predators as an even higher-value target for assault than the average gender-conforming man.

Did gay men expect or demand to use women's toilets after these documented accounts of gay-bashing?

Obviously violent male individuals should not attack TW but the logical next step is NOT to allow TW into women's toilets. As pointed out many times, no other group has expected or demanded this. Why are TW any different?

A trans woman, who presents with female sex characteristics and is, on average, smaller and more feminine in presentation than the statistical average male perpetrator in that space

This is very much a generalisation/assumption.

A trans woman, who presents with female sex characteristics and is, on average, smaller and more feminine in presentation than the statistical average male perpetrator in that space,

Smaller? think back to all the transwomen I've known I don't think so.

A trans woman, who presents with female sex characteristics and is, on average, smaller and more feminine in presentation than the statistical average male perpetrator in that space,

That "and" is doing a lot of heavy lifting

The trans women in my life too are taller than average.
Though size is not all about length, as they are slimmer and weaker than average men, which is exactly what estrogen does.

Beat me to it! Me neither. All but two have been taller than me; and I am not a small woman. (This is only out of a number in double figures, though. And I am not at all sure how tall Jenny Randles is.) And I don't think presenting in a feminine way means the little dears can't fight dirty if they choose.

And it goes on needing to be said: men beating up other men does not mean that women should not be allowed to have single sex spaces. It means men should be punished more rigorously when they are caught beating up other men, and that men ought to police their own lavatories to prevent this from happening. It is not up to women to wipe their botty-bots for them.

I am pretty old, and I don't think I've led a sheltered life, but I've never seen anyone being beaten up in a men's toilet in my lifetime. Drug-taking in cubicles, yes, but not violence. Not saying it never happens,of course, but I certainly don't think it's a widespread problem.