Trans women and single-sex spaces

Luminance

Doodledog I understand that completely. I have not spoken of trans people losing any rights, I have stated that the rights trans people have as a protected group be respected. That is not the same thing at all. I am listening attentively but I would ask that my views be represented as they are. This is assuming that no one actually wants to take away the rights trans people do have and that isn't what is causing confusion.

Right. So as you understand the issue, how would you deal with it? How can the rights of transpeople be respected without taking those same rights from the women who want same-sex spaces?

It is not realistic to compel everyone to instal unisex toilets, and in any case they are not what women are asking for - we want the right to deal with periods and to relieve ourselves privately, without men being present. Many men will prefer not to have to use cubicles as urinals are faster and easier to clean. Biologically men and women are different, and no more so than in their lavatorial needs.

I understand that there are those who want to feel that everything is 'fair' to everyone, and that would be good in an ideal world, but this is one of those situations where it is just not possible, as what is being asked (ie that men can become women by saying they are). It would be less frustrating, therefore, if instead of refusing to engage with the issues and talking vaguely about removing protections or rights, you would say how such protections can be continued whilst still respecting the needs of women. I am sure than nobody on this thread wants to remove protections from anyone, and the implication that we do is very annoying.

Doodledog an excellent post. Thank you for clarity

Yeah I really wouldn't be following Indias legal advice, this is what I mean about causing damage to people.

Doodledog I understand that completely. I have not spoken of trans people losing any rights, I have stated that the rights trans people have as a protected group be respected. That is not the same thing at all. I am listening attentively but I would ask that my views be represented as they are. This is assuming that no one actually wants to take away the rights trans people do have and that isn't what is causing confusion.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202504/medium-adoo75-img-8523.jpeg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/202504/medium-7zxel4-img-8522.jpeg

Here’s s couple of examples of that bloke India says on X.
Obviously trying to encourage mutual support.

Luminance

Doodledog I do not understand why you would ask me such a question to be quite honest with you. More or less are both options I wouldn't choose. I feel every one has a right to be safe and feel safe. Neither must take anything from the other to achieve that. Existing organisations such as Refuge feel that is achievable and rightly so. I believe on the whole the NHS is working to achieve that. On the topic of Easter Sunday, I do have an egg I am looking forward to so I will have to exercise patience.

I asked you the question as you do not appear to understand the reality of the situation.

Women had separate spaces for the limited occasions when we are vulnerable. Men decided they wanted access to them, so our rights to those safe spaces was removed at a stroke, leaving nowhere for us to go without the presence of men. It became very difficult to object to having males in changing rooms, wards, prison cells and public toilets.

Now the law has been clarified and we have the right to those spaces back, and we are told that this is damaging because the men who took those spaces from us are having their rights taken away - the right to impose themselves into our safe spaces. They can still use the spaces designated to their own sex - they are not losing that right, but they took that right from women. It is simply not possible for women to have safe spaces and simultaneously for men to be legally allowed to access those spaces, however much you insist that it should be.

I do understand your points, Glasweegran. It must be difficult for people in the position you describe. But no more so than it was for women who had our rights removed to accommodate them in the first place. The difference is that when women complained about that we were called TERFs, Nazis and transphobes, but the TW who are losing the right to take our rights are assumed to be victims.

Does anyone still using Twitter/X know what India Willoughby has had to say about any of this? I don't use it, so I don't know, but I would be interested to hear. India was the one who deliberately refused to use so-called 'gender-neutral' toilets to prove that there was a right to use the Ladies'. Eddie Izzard has done likewise - because he could. I do feel for those who have passed themselves off as women for a long time. I really do. But on the whole, if they continue to be unobtrusive and non-confrontational I don't think there will be many issues. If they start behaving like Eddie and India, however, women will have a right to call security, who will have a right to remove them.

The situation now glasweegran is that a vulnerable woman in a women only space, can now ask that the threatening "big, bearded, bad man" be removed as the law protecting his possible dangerous agenda is no longer applicable.

Mollygo

That’s OK Liminance. I didn’t expect you would answer.

Would you like to ask me a question that does apply to something I do think instead? Or would you like to re-word the question to ask me if I do think what you asked me to explain?

That’s OK Liminance. I didn’t expect you would answer.

Mollygo

Luminance,
You don’t have to explain it. In fact I didn’t think you would be able to do so.
Why should I answer? is a familiar response.
A bit like Stonewall’s no debate stance.

I cannot answer a question that is not pertinent, it is impossible. The small passage you quoted retained the same meaning with or without the context.

vegansrock

Perhaps we can stop all that nonsense like “ people who menstruate “ in health literature- there’s a perfectly good word for such people - women.
Also perhaps we can stop the hysteria amongst some teens “finding their gender identity” being supported by schools in changing names/ pronouns/ damaging their perfectly healthy bodies even without parents knowledge.

100% agree. Especially on language when we're constantly told its less than 1% of the population that are trans, and yet language pertaining to women (not men usually) has been butchered in the name of inclusivity.

No Glasweegran their right to be in women's safe spaces has just been removed. Those safe spaces were never theirs, they were and are for women.

However gender dysphoria is a real condition. And while biological sex dictates many aspects of a trans persons life, this is a condition that is happening for a biological reason and therefore requires a level of medical care and a level of social acceptance in order for trans people to function in society safely. Society itself must work towards being a "safe space".

Luminance,
You don’t have to explain it. In fact I didn’t think you would be able to do so.
Why should I answer? is a familiar response.
A bit like Stonewall’s no debate stance.

Galaxy

They haven't lost any rights, the existing law has been clarified. Those who told men that they could be women have caused this situation.

Quite right.

Glasweegran
As for those currently saying they won't abide by the ruling..... remember that these are people who have just been told their right to be in their safe spaces has just been removed.
Just as they took away the right for women to be in safe spaces which they had previously had.

Perhaps we can stop all that nonsense like “ people who menstruate “ in health literature- there’s a perfectly good word for such people - women.
Also perhaps we can stop the hysteria amongst some teens “finding their gender identity” being supported by schools in changing names/ pronouns/ damaging their perfectly healthy bodies even without parents knowledge.

They haven't lost any rights, the existing law has been clarified. Those who told men that they could be women have caused this situation.

Mollygo

^Neither must take anything from the other to achieve that.^

How do you do that?
Certainly women haven’t tried to take anything away from trans that women had and trans didn’t, so what aren’t trans going to take away from women?

Could you explain for example, what women were taking from TW in order to have male free safe spaces?

Why should I explain this? I am not saying it isn't a valid question but how does it apply to me?

Elegran the Equality Act as whole protects many marginalised groups, including women. I would not want any group as whole to feel the way I have felt as a woman. Anyone who agrees with me on my rights is not my enemy and does not "look bad" because someone else of the same marginalised group does not respect my rights. Does that make sense?

Mollygo

Glasweegran
Don't you think it was the lack of thoughtfulness towards women and non-harmful trans which caused the problems in the first place?
It’s fine talking about too much reaction, especially if you include the reaction by TRA to people speaking the truth and defending women’s rights-reactions like death threats and cancelling aimed at innocent people.
Luminance mentioned somewhere about the need for mutual respect.
Where is the respect for women from those TW/TRA who are still stamping their feet and shouting that they won’t take any notice of the ruling.

No-one should be abusing others, but let me give you an examples.
I put a comment on Mumsnet a while back that was supportive of transpeople. I made no threats, no personal attacks, though I did say that there was a lot of anti-trans content there (because there was, people organising co-ordinated attacks on trans supportive people and organisations) I received 400, yes really 400 replies attacking me for it. Some went so far as to suggest I should "take a long walk off a short pier" for daring to express my views, or some trying to research who I was so that they could trash my opinion. I never saw the worst comments because the admin had removed them by the time I looked. I got abusive personal messages too, and just one from a transmum saying thank you for being a lone supportive voice. I never went back to Mumsnet. Effectively "cancelled"

That's just one example.

People make it sound like it's all one way nastiness, and when you stand on the other side you find it's really not.

As for those currently saying they won't abide by the ruling..... remember that these are people who have just been told their right to be in their safe spaces has just been removed, and many people are taking this as removing their right to exist as who they are at all. (even though the ruling doesn't say that at all).
I have a trans woman friend who was too scared to go out with workmates last night because she had no idea what was going to be the reaction in public and simply because she had there was not going to be any toilet she could use without getting abused for being a woman in the gents or a transperson in the ladies, or even an able bodied person in a disabled toilet. That's happened to her overnight.

I know lots of the coverage says that the judgement is "clear and concise" but in practice, her birth certificate says female, and so does her passport, which is all still legal, but now after many years, she's supposed to be using the gents? She is very distressed by this.

It's wildly impractical too. No-one at a changing room door has any facility to check who is trans and who isn't, so women that look less than girly are going to get challenged and abused too. We are right back to judging womanhood on appearance something we have tried to get away from for decades.

There are so many issues with what this ruling has done.

So it's now a situation where big bearded bad men can walk in the ladies announcing they are transwomen, way easier than having to go through years of public transition to do that. So it actually makes the changing room and toilet problem worse.

Perhaps you can see why some people might be upset about this. If I were a trans person, I might use some swear words about it too.

Neither must take anything from the other to achieve that.

How do you do that?
Certainly women haven’t tried to take anything away from trans that women had and trans didn’t, so what aren’t trans going to take away from women?

Could you explain for example, what women were taking from TW in order to have male free safe spaces?

A slight correction in last sentence to "more ready to be helpful to people they know and like than to those who rant against them"

Luminance posted"I think the comments on current threads I have visited that state that the actions of a few make "all" trans people look bad in some way or that all trans people should be standing up to condemn the actions of others are an issue. That type of thinking is rather what led us to the equality act in the first place."^ but I would say rather that "the actions of a few" are the issue which made us need the equality act in the first place. They turned a quiet bloodless change from a scene where most people were aware of the presence amongst them of people who preferred to live as the opposite sex, but didn't see them as a threat, into one where there were agressively posturing exhibitionists treating it as all-out war between trans and non-trans.

As for the transwomen who "pass" safely - no-one says they have to come up from behind the parapets with all guns blazing and fight a very public campaign, but more that they could keep communicating with their friends and colleagues, could mention who and what has been helpful to them in integrating into the neighbourhood and/or workforce, while contributing practical details which could make life easier for all. After all, their own comfort and happiness is at stake, and others will be more ready to be helpful to people they know and like to those who rant against them

The NHS is working to achieve that? Hmm, given NHS Fife's recent behaviour, I won't be holding my breath on that score.