Mary Ann Stepenson in The Times - Trans activists wrong to say single-sex code limits rights

[impossibletoday]

https://www.thetimes.com/article/5326e9d1-111a-4b89-96e5-2b826650b5ab?shareToken=a242ec4f7dc3dda137f218da9eb768cd

Mary-Ann Stephenson...

Thank you. Good comments below.

She's absolutely correct when she says: "Recognising women’s need for access to single-sex services doesn’t require us to dismiss the rights of trans people. And recognising the vulnerability of trans people doesn’t require us to dismiss women’s concerns." Such a shame so many on here clearly disagree.

That quote adds up to absolutely nothing, I can see why you responded to it.

Good! This can't be said often enough

Trans Reddit has a lot of posters declaring that they’re still using the incorrect toilets for their sex, which isn’t good.

Where it’s about safety & not just validation or satisfaction, they need to be able to feel safe in their correct sex toilets or have a unisex alternative.

Show me where people disagree. What does that look like to you?

Archive link for when gift token expires:

https://archive.ph/8Pi9c

Well quite. If only trans activists spoke up for eg third spaces and separate demarkation. But by imposing on womens spaces and labelling unfortunately they are choosing to cause conflict.

I don’t think it’s spelled out enough that what MAS means by rights (protection from discrimination, harassment & victimisation) and what the TRAs mean by rights (using the Ladies’) are different things. They’re talking at cross purposes.

Exactly so.

I do admire her patience.

Repeatedly through the article.

Yes T people are very important. No, nothing awful is going to happen (obviously) to T people, that's never at any time been mentioned or even a possibility beyond fantasy
Yes everybody loves and cares about T people
It's just that women matter too.

And the answer cannot be that men are awarded all women's spaces and women are told they don't matter.

Sadly, that's the desired answer. This is a political movement emotionally aged about 2, where if they don't have all of everything all the time it's never enough.

Thanks for the archive @TwoLoonsAndASprout

Well, that's a lot of words to just reiterate that women have rights, trans-identified people have rights, and trans-identified people's wants can't come at the expense of other people's rights.

Basically, "get over yourself, not everything is about what you want." Tedious. How many more years are we going to have to keep explaining this? I expect Stephenson has other things to be getting on with at work?

Transgender rights activists are spreading misinformation about guidance that protects single-sex spaces by claiming it erodes the rights of trans people, the equalities regulator has said.

Mary-Ann Stephenson, the chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC), said criticism of its updated code of practice had made the “real alarm” felt by trans people worse by wrongly suggesting they had lost protections or would face routine sex checks.

She's trying to dial down the hyperbole.

Which is a good thing. But when you've got a lot of people invested in the most transparent hyperbole possible, it's probably not that effective.

It's frustrating, because it's all soundbites. You rarely see a proper discussion about it. Men in the men's, ladies in the ladies but we have mixed sex, gender neutral, etc.

Plus, these are the exact reasons why we have to do it. Here is why you can't allow some men in and not all men.

No, it was never a right for men to access the women's. Look at transactivist groups for that bit of misinformation.

Etc.

There's a lot of pussyfooting and generalisations.

She has however, at least addressed the nonsense of sex tests at the door.

if they don't have all of everything all the time it's never enough.

@Wishesandhorses

Nothing will ever be enough.

If a transwoman wants the biologically impossible (to actually become the opposite sex), for whatever reason, then the only way to square that circle is to abolish sex categories entirely. Make the whole of society, and all of language, entirely sexless and 'gender neutral'. (Hence the Green party voting to ban the words 'mother' and 'father').
Then when all of society and language is sexless, that will still not be enough, because you have abolished the very thing you wanted to become: the opposite sex. 'Gender neutral' when everyone is gender neutral is not fulfilling. It does not meet the need.

So instead the transwoman campaigns for the right to enter women's spaces, i.e. maintaining the sex category of 'women'. But seeing the actual, real, biological women have their own category and facilities, which the transwoman pretends to have the right to access, knowing deep, deep down in the furthest recesses of their mind, that they can never truly belong and be one of them, just drives them completely insane.

Exactly. The concept of womanhood had has to remain in order for them to have it to identify into.

I've said before, that it's never about the space, it's about the women in the space. It's the women that provide the validation. The space is just a room, it has to contain the women to make it desirable.

It's the women and girls who are being used.

I'm still at a loss to know what they think the alternative 'workable' advice should say.

From a practical point of view a facility can be single sex or mixed sex or unisex. There is no fourth option.

She said the code only reflected the Equality Act and those who opposed it were “entitled to disagree about what the law, and to campaign to change it”.
But she said those who wished to reopen the act had “to be clear about what change they are proposing, and how this would impact on single and separate-sex spaces”.

Yup. Campaign to change the Equality Act, but you have to come up with a workable alternative.

Uncertainty about their rights has caused real alarm for many trans people. But some of the commentary surrounding the code has worsened that distress, by alleging that it erodes those rights or requires routine sex checks. Those claims do not accurately describe the guidance.

TRA hyperbole simply distresses vulnerable trans people. They don't even care about the people on their 'own side', let alone anyone else. That is what marks it out as a MRA movement.

Nailed it.

The alternative would be to remove women and gay legal protections in law.

And in effect create a hierarchy in which some citizens get rights and control over others based on self identification.

This is why it would never get through the ECtHR: there is an absolute inability to get the TRA head around the idea that they wouldn't be the sole and only considered group, and given primacy over all others.

Or that a man desperate to get in amongst non consenting undressing women perhaps hasn't quite understood the idea of 'rights' and how they work.

What rights do you feel are being dismissed?

You should probably ask Mary.

You were suggesting that you agree. What do you think?

I'm asking you.

If no rights are being dismissed, then her statement is redundant, right?

Why would she say it if it was redundant? Do you disagree with her?