Another BBC mess: "Do you think it’s right to tell transgender people which toilet to use?" Let's ask some men...

[BridgetYourFortyDaysAreUp]

https://genderblog.net/bbc-gender-apology-row/

From Nick Wallis' Genderblog:

On 6 August 2026, BBC Three Counties local radio station, which covers Bedfordshire, Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire, ran a half hour current affairs chat on the Jonathan Vernon-Smith Show. The midday item was posed as a question: “Do you think it’s right to tell transgender people which toilet to use?”

The first contributor put on air to talk about that question were Robin Moira White, a male barrister who claims to be a woman. Robin advocates for men to be able to use women’s toilets and does so himself. The next guest was Nora Padilla, a full-time policy officer at the campaign group TransActual, which also advocates for men to be able to use women’s toilets. Then we heard from “Michelle” from Watford. Like Robin, Michelle is a man who claims to be a woman and – surprise surprise – advocates for male use of female facilities....
[my bold]

And the story goes on. And gets more and more damning for the BBC. The useless, ridiculously activist, taxpayer-supported BBC... Still.

It’s an anonymous internet forum… get a grip. I wasn’t suggesting she has no need to ever be weary, just that’s it’s perhaps not proportionate here

Notable that this life lived as a "woman" has been less than 10 years. No actual experience whatsoever of how trans identfyig men may or may not have been treated in women's spaces in some mythical pre-TERF past.

Oh, we are all fucking weary. Trust me.

Yeah, men thinking they have the some sort of master objective overview that gives them the authority to deicde when women's feelings or perspectives are valid and when they are not has been pretty standard misogyny forever as well.

'Some men are misogynists. Get over it'.

Not proportionate says a male person who makes it clear that they will access female single sex provisions despite knowing that doing so is likely to cause harm to some female people and that they, as a male person, are acting without regard to female people’s consent by accessing those very provisions?

Thanks, I will make my own judgment on whether I consider my reaction to the knowledge that you cannot respect female people’s boundaries as being proportionate or not. You again have just used the same type of language that many male abusers use to female people, whether you intended that or not.

Yep.

Male language patterns and reactions to women saying ‘no’ just keep on replaying.

@NotTodayTy - why did you transaction? Before you did anythng to your body, what in yourself led you to conclude you must be a woman and therefore must transition? How do you think that thing you recognised in yourself relates to the existence of female people?

No man has ever been or will ever be a girl or a woman. He cannot know what it means to be female.

Even if a thousand people were deceived by his presentation, it would not make him female or allow him to feel what its like to be a woman.

This isn't a judgement, an opinion, or anything other than a very simple statement of fact.

If our species were different and we had great difficulty telling the difference between men and women (In this scenario we would probably be an endangered species) it would still be necessary to define male and female humans.

What is interesting is just how some male people seek to exert control over female people’s reactions to their presence and their words… while denying that people in their everyday life might understand very clearly that they are a male person but feel the need to affirm that male person’s subjective reality as if it is somehow material reality.

Imagine that…

It started quite young when I noticed I was different to the other boys. I just didn’t fit it and I was severely bullied for it. I didn’t have any shared interests with the boys and realised I had better friendships with girls. I really became aware that I should’ve been born female when I was around 11/12 years old and started to become uncomfortable with how my body was going to develop. I don’t have much else I can tell you other than I just kind of knew at this point.

How is that list coming on?

Ready to educate us with all those other changes that oestrogen hormone in female quantities makes to a male body?

Male breast development that resembles female breast development but is not female breast development. ✔

Soft skin ✔

A penis that doesn't taste or smell like a penis when testosterone is not replaced by estrogen ✔

Fat redistributed around the body if that male person decides to not undergo fitness training ✔

What else?

And

How do these changes make a male person a female person?

Late twenties/early thirties nowadays is just when life starts to get complicated for women. Someone pretending to be a woman will never be confronted by the conflicts and tradeoffs imposed by biological reality and the emotional constraints involved in balancing reproductive choices, career and family life.
A man cannot live as a woman in any meaningful way.

But you didn't. You just felt uncomfortable with the male stereotypes presented to you. So you decided that 'not that' = female. It doesn't, you're just a different kind of man.

You knew that you were unhappy being considered a male person.

Rejection of your concept of being male didn’t make you female in any way. You were and are male, just not following stereotypes that you believed were male stereotypes. Surely someone explained that there are many ways to be a male. Even the very male concept of declaring that you are somehow female enough to be female.

Only a male person would describe themselves as somehow being female enough to claim to be female when they are not female at all.

Telling women what female is is incredibly male behaviour. And fundamentally incorrect.

@NotTodayTy

Can you answer my question as to whether there are any female only spaces that you feel it would be inappropriate for you to enter. We know you think toilets are fair game but what about changing rooms? Or hospital wards? Or sport categories? Do you acknowledge that there are any places you shouldn't be able to go?

Once again, male privilege shows.

It's an anonymous internet forum promoting women's rights, that men with malicious intent duly target on a regular basis for a whole raft of disturbing reasons.

Your "get a grip" shows just how differently you experience things to a majority of women. That you don't immediately realise one of the reasons behind Arabella's warinessness (and weariness) - or don't care? - is telling. That you don't read her post and think, "What have I missed?" or consider interested empathy, but instead assume her unreasonableness with such rude confidence, speaks volumes as to a privilege so rock solid in this respect at least that you just don't see it.

And your "disproportionate" shows that, once again, even here, you consider yourself the arbiter of women's perceptions: of what is and isn't rational for us to think and feel, without understanding what it is to be us.

I don't like the predator/prey analogy, but do think it's regrettably apt. Females, subject to a lifetime of the male gaze and extreme physical vulnerability to male heterosexuality, simply don't experience the world as you do. We don't live in fear for the most part (although this, too, is largely determined by how lucky we've been and not much else) - but the risk assessments we carry out? The air we breathe. Many of us don't even realise. I can't imagine what it would be like to have male strength. (I also don't presume to think I can imagine it, let alone tell men how to experience it).

Again, this isn't to dismiss your own particular issues and challenges. But it is to say how offensive it is to say they're the same as ours to a degree that legitimises taking our words and hard-won rights, and telling us how to feel about that.

Maybe Ty could demonstrate being a decent person by staying out of single-sex spaces for female people. Ty can always use unisex spaces or male single-sex spaces.

This.
This thread is reminding me of a post I saw somewhere on Mumsnet, from a woman who goes jogging. Her husband suggested she could vary her usual route by going through some nearby woods he was familiar with.

She told him that she didn't go there because she didn't feel safe there. He was taken aback; the thought of whether they might be safe or not had simply never occurred to him.

She was taken aback too, that he was so completely oblivious to something that is second nature for women to consider.

This post above and “No, you’re just asking us to put ourselves in degrading and unsafe situations. Why specifically should I care what GC women want?” take on significance when you start reading back the thread.

How misogynistic is it for male people to make respect for female people’s needs contingent on whether those all those female people comply with the demands the male people make?

So female people who reject a male person’s subjective reality as being material reality is not be worthy of respect. And the control of female people’s reactions really has continued over the life of this thread.

It is remarkable when you see the pattern. And yet, it is questioned that female people act in ways that indicate compliance to male people’s identity demands.

Yep.

Yes, I do avoid certain situations. I wouldn’t take part in women’s sports because it doesn’t feel appropriate and I don’t care for sports. I also wouldn’t use a communal changing space where there is nakedness. I don’t swim anymore because I’m anxious about the changing arrangements and it’s easier to avoid it. To be clear, I don’t think there would be an issue in a changing room, but I don’t want to risk making anyone uncomfortable

So if you c dot you are not a woman, evidenced by your avoidance of sone women’s spaces, why do you think you should be in any women’s spaces. You are not a woman.