Reflections on trans presence at a Dykes Who Hike event

[13RidgmontRoad]

For those who don't know DWH, it's an informal mainly Instagram-promoted event and the organisers, two women in their 20s, arrange (relatively accessible) hikes in locations mainly in SE England. Cost to join is £2 a ticket. Yesterday was the first one I've been on, which was 17 miles (Newhaven to Brighton). Around 130 people attended.

There were 5-6 TW on the hike that I could see; two older chaps, one in a dress and heavy makeup, the other looking very much just like a bloke in men's clothing. Four younger ones who looked like the wind might blow them away.

Older blokey one was very annoying - lots of mansplaining on the Whatsapp group, selfies and borderline inappropriate jokes, generally ignored.

Two of the younger ones peeled off about halfway through as they couldn't cope with the rest of the distance. Remaining younger ones were a couple and kept themselves to themselves. They were rather timid and socially awkward, which was a bit of a contrast to 130 hale and hearty lesbians in hiking boots.

I felt like most of the women there just gave the lot of them a wide berth - bit of polite chat then forward or back to join other women.

The (lovely) organisers are quite young and there's absolutely no way either of them would come out and bar TW. I imagine they'd be terrified to take a view. So it seemed very much like weary acceptance. It was rather interesting to observe.

Does this data show that:
Lesbians on the whole arent into excluding trans women from their spaces. ?
If so, it is good form for the poster to point out where in the research this is to be found.

"when the law is quite clear on what that should mean"

This is a small informal hiking group and it is not subject to the Equality Act.

There is a growing perception among GC people that every time someone utters the word "woman" or "lesbian" the Equality Act pops up like the Microsoft paperclip and gets involved, and this is damaging (albeit not as damaging as the belief amongst genderists that where the Equality Act does get involved this is somehow equivalent to a genocide.)

If I go for a walk and to the pub with six friends and I describe this as a women's hike then it doesn't matter whether I am right or wrong about this. I might be walking with two men, two women, a German Shepherd and a Shetland pony. If I say on Instagram that people are welcome to join my women's hike and that it is open to men, women, German Shepherds and Shetland ponies, then there is no legal effect.

If I run an NHS ward, a disabled women's guild, a homeless shelter, a factory full of employees or a swimming pool, then it DOES matter because these are services, employers or associations which ARE subject to the Equality Act. The definition of "woman" or "lesbian" matters hugely in these circumstances, which is what the SC case was about, but individual private citizens are welcome to be wrong on social media to their hearts' content.

Actually no as the group is over 25 members then they are subject to the equality act.

OP if I had seen it I wouldn’t have attended, the alphabet soup that comes up after a quick Google would make it a hard no from me. I would find it very hard not to take issue with a man in a dress believing he is a woman when it would be plain for all to see that he is indulging a fetish that requires the handmaidens to fawn about how brave he is.

Hiking dykes states it is a hiking group for lesbians and clarifies that to be ‘same sex attracted we welcome same sex attracted women who are biologically female’ seems infinitely preferable to the other group in my opinion.

Nope. The requirements to be an association under the Equality Act is that you have at least 25 members AND there is an application process (admission to membership) AND it is regulated by rules AND it involves a process of selection. Section 107(2) Equality Act if you are interested. https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2010/15/section/107

It’s not small though. It’s 130 people and they’re charging a fee. Does that not then fall under providing a service and therefore subject to the equality act?

Given that they havd queer as a included group, they aren't turning anyone away.

The test would be if they excluded anyone.

I did have a think in a post earlier about whether it could conceivably be considered a "service".

That would be defined by s.31(2) - "A reference to the provision of a service includes a reference to the provision of goods or facilities"

Self-evidently they're not providing goods. Facilities? No. Admittedly services "include" goods or facilities and are not restricted to those, but is this seriously the provision of a service? Maybe, maybe, guiding a hike would count - but to be entirely honest I think this is too great a stretch. The £2 doesn't buy you expert advice on technical hiking, or a broom-wagon to help the stragglers, or anything of that nature, it looks much more like a nominal charge to ensure that people who say they're coming actually turn up. If you professionally guide people up Ben Nevis you might be said to be providing a service but if you have a hobby and encourage others to join you I don't think that could conceivably count.

Even if they were providing a service - which I don't think that they are - it would have to be mixed sex unless they could justify a women-only provision under paragraph 27 to Schedule 3, which they can't.

They are providing guided hikes for a fee and have admission rules.

If 120 attend, that isnt a small informal group. Its nothing like 5 besties going on a walk.

Just because its not a difficult walk, doesnt mean its not a service. They obviously have a route planned.

Why couldn’t they provide a women only service? It would be perfectly reasonable for safety reasons etc to provide a woman only hike in the same way women only bike rides are provided.

I think it could be considered a service to facilitate meeting others.

Of course its possible to have a woman only group of any size. Just as its possible to have a LGBT group, like this.

This is an LGBTQ group, they just call it dykes to limit the number of men, but i bet they dont turn anyone away.

There is nothing about lesbians in here. The study simply seems to show that most 'cis' women recruited (and if they recruited by asking for 'cis' women then they have already skeewed their data) consider themselves to be more inclusive than the average 'cis' women. In the same vein as most drivers consider themselves to be better-than-average drivers. Plus some very creative accounting in Study 4 to alter the pie chart 😳

They don’t though, when it comes down to it

https://www.them.us/story/cis-trans-dating

Virtually all heterosexuals excluded trans folks from their dating pool: only 1.8% of straight women and 3.3% of straight men chose a trans person of either binary gender. But most non-heterosexuals weren’t down for dating a trans person either, with only 11.5% of gay men and 29% of lesbians being trans-inclusive in their dating preferences. Bisexual/queer/nonbinary participants (these were all combined into one group) were most open to having a trans partner, but even among them, almost half (48%) did not select either ‘trans man’ or ‘trans woman.’

I seriously disagree - meeting others is not the purpose of the "service", the hike is. If every group where you met other people and might make friends amounted to a service then that's almost everything.

As I said above, it would be possible to justify a women only hiking group as a service if - for example - the service was the provision of trauma-informed support for women victims of DA whilst hiking. Or if a professional outfit was running a hiking holiday and felt that women were under-represented and that they would feel safer in a single sex group, then sure, that would be sufficient justification.

But I don't think that this is a "service" in the same way and the best reason for them not to provide a women only service is that they clearly don't want to. It's not mandatory!

Most people don't see twaw as women 'for relationship purposes'.

Not that post. The one previous to it, and so many others. Mocking and sneering. It comes across as defensive, at best.

Is this the research that Lexible is referring to?

https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/Internal_ViewsOnLGBT_230803.pdf

if so maybe I don't understand it very well. I think it is saying that 32% of male respondents and 45% of female respondents regarded 'trans' people positively which doesn't exactly feel like a slam dunk win to me. I'll admit I'm finding the document quite hard to read so may have got this round my neck

and for what it's worth, the fact that a man turns up to an event that bills itself as for lesbians tells you rather a lot about that man. I think it would probably be a hiding to nothing trying to enforce them staying away, but if they had an iota of self awareness they wouldn't be there. There is a gay hiking group round here that I simply wouldn't dream of going to. it's not for me. not everything can be for everyone.

being the kind of person who foists yourself on people who don't want you there is often a punishment in and of itself (in the style of being Arnold Rimmer)

That's the raw data. This is the article. The main point to note is that it doesn't distinguish between TW and TM.

https://yougov.com/en-gb/articles/45983-what-do-lesbian-gay-bisexual-and-transgender-brito

Any man who wants to trespass in women’s spaces, especially those where we are vulnerable or not fully clothed. Irrelevant whether he is pretending to be a woman or not.

Jorts

Oh dear me, how very wrong can one be?

I am a lesbian and for clarity a man cannot be a woman, it is biologically impossible to change sex.

There are a myriad of words that can be used to describe a man dressing in women’s clothes but a woman is certainly not one.

I've only skimmed through the last few pages to catch up, but @Lexibletheflexible is clearly on a mission to educate us. We might need therapy or help, we might not be very well. A bit like Victorian women who failed to comply with what's good for them.

Not to mention the relentless racism of Lexy's "if (even) black women can be women, then men can be women, and excluding one group is just like excluding the other". They seem to be completely lacking in historical awareness, or they'd know that comparing black women to men is an old, old trope.