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.

You have now twice compared women daring to want spaces away from men to apartheid.

If there's any comparison to be made there, it is with black people wanting some black-only spaces in order to escape the relentless pressure of white-dominated society.

Men are not an oppressed demographic in relation to women, however they choose to identify.

Because there is not point having an event for lesbians if men turn up. It might as well just be a walk for anyone.

Not, legally, on the basis of their beliefs.

I do object to this.

They didn't set up a trans and allies walking group - that would be fair enough - they called it Dykes who Hike. But then admit men.

One of the subtle but most far reaching effects of gender ideology has been the loss of social/ therapeutic/ alternative/ hobby and interest groups which used to be female only but are now not guaranteed to be. People say one man ruins it for everyone, but one man does not even have to turn up. For women who are going to a women only event precisely because it is women only, those women stop going if a man might be there. I know because I am one of those women. And no, not all of us have the time or skills to set up these groups, so we can't just ' do it ourselves.'

There's been a near destruction of organised guaranteed women only social spaces.

I don't think it's a particularly legally grey area - I don't think that this group is governed by the Equality Act at all. They're not AFAICS providing a service, they're not a membership group, and they're definitely not an employer or state body etc.

I suppose it's just about arguable that for the £2 entry fee means that the organisers provide a service (guiding the hike) but IF they wanted to make their hike women only - which they clearly do not - then they would have to get past the threshold of justifying it under paragraph 27 of Schedule 3 to the Equality Act. That means justifying that making it women only is necessary and proportionate in pursuit of one of the identified legitimate aims.

That's a very easy argument to make for a rape crisis centre or a changing room but I have huge doubts that it applies to a hiking group, because the sub-para they would need to meet is para 27(4) which is that the service would be less effective if provided to both sexes. Since the other women-only group is demonstrably less popular, that sounds like an argument doomed to fail.

If the group were offering hiking as a form of trauma-informed support for women who had been victims of domestic abuse then that might justify a single-sex service. But for an "informal Instagram event" it seems highly unlikely that it's a service at all, and even more unlikely that they could justify a single sex group, other than under para 30 which is providing services to a group who share a PC. They're not providing it to women but they are, it seems, providing a service to people who have the protected belief of genderism (if they are providing a service at all which as I say I think is a moot point).

I would regard myself as GC but I can't see an issue with this. There are two women leading a group which is flourishing and getting people out in the countryside and making friends? What monsters. If I could get past the phrase "WLW girlies" which sounds like something off a 90s lads mag I'd be tempted to get out there and join them.

Having been on the other side of running community groups, I don't think we (or anyone) can complain that someone else hasn't set up a service we happen to want but don't have time to do ourselves.

I always used to say "It's fantastic you want xyz, we always need new volunteers with enthusiasm and new ideas, how do you want to get started?" - Never saw them for dust 😂

What I think is important is that the current climate of normalising women who do want and are able to put the effort into creating women-only social spaces and resources, or even just want to join them, being called "bigots", accused of "disgust" or worse, having their events disrupted or their providers targeted, is called out and rolled back.

Until that climate changes I can't see how the actual appetite among women for genuine woman-only provisions can be known.

With respect, this is not a comparable situation. The near destruction of women's social spaces is not comparable to Mary and John who would quite like the local community centre to start a book club but they don't want to run it themselves.

And the difference is that ALL of these social groups that I am referring to used to be women only. And all the ones set up since gender bollocks, which are TWAW, would have been women only if TWAW gender bollocks had never been invented.

The problem is that the lie of gender bollocks has led to the near destruction of women only spaces. And in many scenes, especially in the alternative sector, even women who may want to put on female only events are probably too scared to as the scene is so prog left dominated.

I hope you're wrong! The idea that anybody sees any similarity between lesbians wanting a bit of a space that was just for them and apartheid is disturbing.

It suggests that there are people out there who haven't a clue what the apartheid regime was really like, and throw the word around in contexts where it is entirely inappropriate.

If you, and the people you refer to in this post, think that 'one space that is reserved for lesbians' is in any way comparable to the experience of Black South Africans under the apartheid regime, you are displaying either contempt or ignorance.

Let's start with the basic fact that apartheid was rather more serious than a group of lesbians socialising together.

History matters. Words matter. The people who lived through apartheid matter.
The true meaning of the word 'apartheid' matters.

Referring to apartheid in the context of lesbians wanting to occasionally socialise together is insulting both to lesbians, and South African history.

No I cannot see that. Someone being on a dating app isnt pressure to date them.

The fact is that spaces that don't include trans women arent attractive to lesbians. So you can have as many as you want, just nobody wants to be there. They'll all be at inclusive events like the hike.

There is a hike for GC women, nobody is interested in being there.

Of course it is. Set up a singles’ night for “lesbian, non binary and trans women” - of which there are many such events in London - and the very overt implication is that this is your dating pool. Same with apps. Of course you can swipe left on anyone for any reason but the framing is that this is the pool you are in. So now it’s on you as an individual to exclude people who shouldn’t be in there in the first place.

If you can't be bothered to do your own and you're unhappy with who the existing groups welcome along, then your best bet is to just stay home.

So you just say no if you're not into someone. If you feel like someone having a profile on a dating app is pressure, then you lack the capacity to date at all.

Um, no. Just no. Lesbians are women who are same-sex attracted. Very few want men in their spaces. Need? Tolerate? Forced into? Put up with? Happy to have that conversation on different terms, but the idea that lesbians want TIMs in their spaces - ha bloody ha.

I'll be blunter.

If the only people who want to set up women's events are fully TWAW I don't want to force them to run events that exclude TW.

I do want the sexist language that legitimises the belief that TW are W in the first place rolled back in society as a whole. So those events would still happen but described differently.

And in conjunction with that, women who do want to run or attend single sex spaces and events within the law to not be targeted or defamed for it.

Yes they can if they mouth off about other attendees. If you keep your views to yourself, nobody will know and you'll be fine.

Well we see by the fact that lesbians don't turn up at these GC events because they don't want to be there. Hence the other hiking group being older but far less popular. Lesbians on the whole arent into excluding trans women from their spaces.

A better analogy would be going into a hardware store but needing to pass shelves and shelves of high-end Japanese cookware while you browse. They’re in your way, they don’t belong there, but you’re obliged to consider them on your way to the things you’re looking for. Except the Japanese cookware knows it’s not wanted and yet mysteriously keeps turning up.

Meanwhile many lesbian events have just gone underground so that they are only for women. To the detriment of younger women or late in lifers who are left to wade through this nonsense.

The expression of belief is also protected.

Bit threatening, no?

'Mouth off'. Oddly hostile way of describing the expression of belief. But we are used to women's speech being derided and framed in derogatory terms.

Or they like the number of attendees at these events, one of the perks of which is that if you don’t get on with anyone for whatever reason, least of all the blokes in dresses, it’s easy to peel off. Or because they advertise better, possibly because they are younger and use Instagram very well.

I think attributing the success of this group against another solely to the characteristic which suits your argument, with no evidence, is speculative and not that interesting.

Dykes.... So it's a gay women's group for biological women who like to walk? Why are men there, with or without make up, frocks, however they supposedly identify?

Plus before you even get to the store, influential people in your social milieu have continually banged on about how people who don't buy high end Japanese cookware are racists and anti- Japanese fetishists.