jk rowling and the 3 dementors

Actually Galaxy the UNESCO site doesn't mention safety it mentions menstrual hygiene and seperation issues which I suspect in some cases may be cultural. Remember there are still societies where women who are menstruating are considered unclean and a threat to men.

www.theyworkforyou.com is a website where you can find out who your elected representatives are.
It also makes it easy to email them, via the website.

To anyone who is new to this debate, and is wondering if they can take action of some kind -
here is an article with helpful suggestions from Maya Forstater, who is currently in a legal challenge after losing her job for not believing that men can be women.

medium.com/@MForstater/standing-with-jk-rowling-what-can-you-do-b341b324a4b9

They are doing it because its safer for them.

Galaxy I don't know why UNESCO are doing that. It is interesting because of course the reason given in this country for girls being absent during menstruation was the cost of sanitary protection, which led to the Period Poverty campaign I was involved in and which won free products for schools www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/period-poverty-campaign-free-sanitary-schools-amika-george-a9285346.html

Galaxy it was Woodcraft they are different in that they actively encourage children to take part in discussion and decisions about how things are run. It may have been a request from the children that they share dorms. Interestingly it tends to produce some very outspoken and vocal girls who will when faced with someone who tries to impose things on them during sessions will loudly shout out "That's not the Woodcraft way!" They are amazing.

Why are UNESCO saying that governments around the world must make single sex toilets a priority in order for girls to get an education. It us one of their priority campaigns.

I have worked with children for 30 years across a range of organisations involving lots of residential, I have never been aware of any service using mixed sex dorms, whether they were run by education, voluntary sector etc.

Some boys are dangerous and some men are very dangerous.
Utopia is not yet here trisher

Not all boys men are dangerous they just dont wear a sign to tell us which ones are. You do understand that mixed changing facilities etc have higher risk of sexual assault.

It was a genuine question because there is prejudice out there.
I have actually taken mixed sex groups on residential trips both in hostels and camping. With the younger children one of the questions we asked was if parents were happy with them sleeping in mixed sex dorms or tents. A lot of parents were quite relaxed about it. For the older children it was a question of discussing with them and stressing personal responsibility, because we were all aware that it would be possible for anyone to move about during the night undetected. One thing that did impress me was the care and support that they gave each other in a group and this was very evident in the mixed dorm sharers. These children were also very relaxed about the opposite sex and friendships were formed which were not dependent on gender.
Although female only organisations may help with the education and progress of girls I do think it's a pity if they are also regarded as providing some sort of protection for girls from boys as if all boys are dangerous.

Surely the main thing is that lesbians are female. I read some research that suggests girls realise their sexual attraction is to females when they're about 13 years old.
I've no problem with girls sharing dorms at brownie/guide or school camps. I remain concerned that the plan is that if a boy who self IDs as a girl, wants to go to brownie/guide camp, they can do so. That neither the brownie/guides nor their parents are allowed to know that a boy will be sharing their bathroom and dorms.
Going away from home is often quite tough for children. Some girls may be starting periods quite young, even when still in brownies and very likely once they move into Guides. Managing all of that is hard enough without discovering one of your dorm mates is a boy.
If it has to happen, that the needs of the self ID boy girl tops the needs of the others, then I don't see how it's either fair or sensible that the group isn't properly prepared.

It's like saying how would I feel about my daughter being in a room with a tall girl. Tall girls are female, lesbians are female, blond girls are females, conservative women are female. All entitled to single sex spaces enshrined in law.

I would say that lesbians dont commit sexual assault in the way men do. And that obviously lesbians are women and therefore should be in a single sex environment with other women/ girls.

grannysyb if one of the Guides was a lesbian how would you feel about your daughter sharing her tent?

petunia I think I have already stated my views on self identification and gender. But if you want it again I have no problem calling anyone by the pronoun they choose or by accepting they are the gender they choose to present as. I'm certainly not going to start investigating anyone's genitalia to prove anything.

Only read part of this, if I had a young daughter in the Guides, I would not be happy with a male self identifying sleeping in her tent at camp.

Trister-i think to reduce this argument to changing rooms and prisons is to discredit all those people (men included) who have concerns. As a feminist you must be aware of the issues.

We are in a position where even claiming that sex is real and gender is not is seen as reactionary.

So the female only spaces you are advocating to my mind come into two categories one is facilities open to the public like changing rooms, loos etc the other institutions such as prison or refuges. The first I don't think can be sucessfully restricted in any way. The second should have rigorous risk assessments of anyone entering them and should exclude or isolate anyone who is or might be violent (which is what they do.)

I think it's very complex, telling people that a woman is just a man with their penis removed was also a terrible thing to say to people.

petunia

In all these discussions about men thinking they are women and women looking like men and where should they go, we are missing the elephant in the room. While some trans women have the best possible intentions, there are some that don't. These are the ones that cause concern. Unfortunately they are all lumped together. There are violent and unpredictable men, manipulative men, autogynephilies, bullies, together with men who wish to compete against women because its so much easier. Self identification opens up previously held social barriers and anyone who objects is instantly put on the back foot.

we now have a proportion of more politically aware, more aggressive trans woman who is determined to get their own way be it in sport, in employment, in women's spaces. So confident are they in their delusion that some don't even attempt to look like women. One quick look at some of the responses JKT got on twitter will show who these people are.

Fuelled by the massive support of identity politics from all political colours, and various support organisations,this individual pushes at the very limits of our tolerance and shrieks transphobe if someone , such a JKR pushes back. Our problems are, how do we know the difference between the person who has gender dysphoria and those that have their own agenda that is detrimental to biological women. And how we can debate this issue sensibly without threats and tantrums from the transactivists.

Excellent post Petunia??
Debating this issue sensibly is not possible it seems ( for anything) on most of social media. It may be here on GN (although many subjects aren’t.)
Am so pleased that accepting somebody’s self definition is now being looked at again, it seemed last year that politicians were all falling over themselves to agree that men can self identify as a woman, even if they have a penis and a beard and intend keeping things that way.

I think the toilet issue is, in many ways, quite interesting but tends to dominate so much that we loose sight of the other even more significant points.

The loosening of public attitude and the expected reform of the gender recognition act has encouraged the more militant activists to lobby companies and local authorities, so that many have jumped the gun.

Sadly, some of the activists give all trans women a bad name. I caught sight of a Twitter conversation this week put up by a trans woman who said that she craved chocolate as she was on her period. This was clearly nonsense-the trans woman was Jessica Yaniv, who describes herself as “one proud lesbian”. Jessica is a (male born) Canadian journalist. Jessica recently took a number of immigrant beauticians to court for refusing to wax her testicles. ( I cant believe I have just written that sentence down).

This is not a rant against the trans women. It is more to say that if you take away the boundaries and open the gates then its not just the trans women who pass who will come in. Do you allow someone in to female spaces who has undergone full psychological testing, medical and surgical treatment. Or do you say, to Jessica for example, “Hey, you feel like a woman this week. Come on in and make yourself at home”

The rules and social norms that kept the odder ones and the chancers out in the past. But now it seems that the law allows them in, in fact it is positively encouraged. And if you object, suddenly your world collapses and a whole bucket full of brown stuff heads your way.

When the wants of the trans activists collide with the safety and welfare of all women and children, we need the ability to say “Lets press the pause button and think about this” .

pinkquartz thanks for your answer. I really don't think that there is much point in providing special access and making rulings unless it is possible to enforce those rulings and I really don't see how transwomen are going to be prevented from using facilities named as women only. If they look like a woman and can pass as a woman they will be able to use them and only people who don't meet some standard of appearance will be let in which seems pretty strange.
So perhaps in naming a facility as women only but not being able to enforce that could simply lull them into a sense of security which isn't deliverable.

trisher

I am sorry for my slow response....your friend, yes I did make an assumption because you said it was an issue. I can't see this person but I would guess that she looks female.

Our brains pick up so much information that we do not consciously register and I think most of us would know that she is as you say a tall female in flat shoes.
In fact I do dress in a what is mainly a male way myself. flat shoes, short hair and no make up and trousers. Sometimes I do the opposite.

So why did you say there is a problem here?
I was never stopped from going into a loo but I was often referred to as a young man.......

No-one has to conform to a stereotype in order to enter a toilet . We just want girls and women to be safe.

T he issue of "some transwomen conforming more with make up and hairstyles than natal women" is an interesting one. The extremes remind me of Caitlin Jenner whose transition led from healthy looking male athlete, to imo almost a parody of the mythical Hollywood notion of what female/feminine beauty is.

There have always been crossdressers, in every culture. In many cultures men who dress like women have special status, in some cultures, they are entirely accepted. I've no problem with fluidity and wish in our culture our children were less subjected to gender stereotyping than they are.

One issue we haven't discussed on this thread is the high incidence of children who have a diagnosis of ASD who present as trans. We are early on in our understanding, both of trans issues and of autism. An awareness of being different, of not quite fitting in, is a common feature in children later diagnosed as being on the autistic spectrum. How much of that contributes to them feeling just maybe they were born in the wrong body.
Maybe that's another thread though.