Volver I'm sorry you feel patronised, I'm sure that is not the intention of any poster here. I wasn't seeking to make an analogy between the suffering of the women of Afghanistan, Ukraine and the subject up for discussion and how it affects the women of Scotland, but merely to say when any woman/girl suffers at the hands of the patriarchy then for me it doesn't matter where the victim emanates from, I empathise with her situation as another woman.
I don't often contribute to these threads I think there are a lot of excellent posters, Doodledog, Smileless, Chewbacca, FarNorth, Iam64 and may more who saliently put forward a point of view I'm always in agreement with.
Gender recognition and the access to a women's safe space by male bodied persons is a huge issue for women, some may say it's a lot of fuss about nothing. I go swimming possibly 3 times a week so it focuses my mind when I'm getting dressed and undressed as to how and I imagine the other women there would feel if a male bodied person were to be able to access our designated female only area, and no I don't expect that to happen any time soon, but there is a possibility that could be a reality sometime down the line. It was indeed a reality for those who competed against Lia Thomas who felt very uncomfortable when Lia Thomas didn't take measures to hide their male genitalia around those women. I also look at this through the prism of my 12 year old granddaughter's eyes rather than my own, because I know her generation will be far more affected by any changes in legislation surrounding all of this. I know from taking her swimming with me, she automatically makes for a curtained off cubicle, self consciously private, she has expressed that she certainly wouldn't want to share a changing room with a male bodied person. It's not really about the sharing of toilets, I've been to many of late where those are a floor to ceiling cubicles that can be accessed by male or female, not a problem, it's so much more than that, it's about feeling and being vulnerable, not feeling safe. Magnified by thousands if you had been someone who had suffered sexual assault or rape. All of us here no doubt read about the woman on a hospital ward who was raped and then that was refuted, it could have happened on a women only ward! later it was revealed that ward also accommodated at the time of the assault a male bodied transwoman. . This to my knowledge has only happened once, but that is once too often and potentially there will be other scenarios where girls and women could be put into dangerous situations, so yes from that point of view, bearing mind Scotland is further down the road with the whole gender recognition issue, it is of interest to as fellow women.
.