Women are a minority view so should be disregarded

Burnham’s going to have to get used to smear campaigns … Keir Starmer’s been the victim of them for almost 2 years!

I know, LizzieDrip, but it doesn't make them any less tedious.

In a 2022 meeting with the Manchester Youth Combined Authority, Burnham stated that trans women should be permitted to use female toilets. He dismissed concerns from gender critical activists as stirring up culture wars. He elaborated on these views by stating that the idea of restricting single sex spaces only to biological women was a ' minority view'. Regarding safety concerns, he suggested that cases of falsely identifying as transgender to abuse such spaces as "tiny". Furthermore he called for a "new consensus" to end the polarised and terribly hateful debate reaffirming his support for trans rights.

Clearly there have been bell weather legal cases since 2022 and organisations, institutions and political parties are in a process of adapting policies etc accordingly.

However having said that, in context of what Burnham actually said in 2022- how many people each year in the UK do falsely identify as transgender to abuse female spaces - is it 'tiny' as Burnham suggested in 2022? If not tiny, what evidence is available to prove him wrong?

There is a proportion of the UK population that is gender critical, does not support the rights of trans people and encourages hateful debate. Is this a minority of the population or a majority? Burnham wanted to end this polarisation in 2022. Was he wrong? If so, should the polarisation and hateful debate continue and to what benefit?

Yes it is a terribly hateful thing for women to talk about the need for spaces without men. What awful witches we are.

🧙‍♀️🧙‍♀️🧙‍♀️!

Good post, LemonJam. Thank goodness for reason.

I don't want a man in toilets, however Andy and others might think..We have a right to be respected and listened to.

If I’m out and need a lavatory, I as happily use a uni-sex lavatory as any other.

No fuss, no bother. Other women don’t seem to have an issue either.

I can think of a number of these uni-sex lavatories. The doors to the cubicles all face the street in full view of the passing public, how is that less safe because they are uni-sex? It is nonsense to suggest that they are.

Arundel and Fordingbridge are examples. Google earth them and it is clear that they would pose no bigger threat to any female.

Unless he changes his views on womens rights and makes himself clear on his stance, he is set to lose a lot of votes come an election, he wont get my vote with those views.

Perhaps the court cases where a trans has attacked a female in a single sex space could be highlighted snd we can make further judgement on the level of risk.

Our great grandmothers may have bravely fought for Women’s Rights all those years ago. Who would have thought that in 2026 the battle would still be rumbling away.

As Professor Winston said (not exactly his words) you can remove or add to parts of the human body but you can’t change the biological sex.

The ridiculous thing though is that women are considering refusing to vote for Burnham, because a few years ago he suggested that single-sex spaces pose little risk to females, but the argument does contribute to division in society.

Housing, poverty welfare etc all get overlooked. How self indulgent and shallow.

My right to vote on my beliefs whitewavemark2, im not shallow or self indulgent( harsh comment!)

Yes the rights of women to have spaces without men ( refuges, prisons, etc) is important to me, as are gay rights, the ability for people who hold a protected belief to speak without being accused of hateful behaviour, truth rather than ideology, the ability for women to give consent without consulting men, all those things are
important to me. How shallow for people not to be concerned about some of those issues.

I look at risk, and make my judgement from that.

So as an example
On balance poverty causes a much higher risk to an individuals welfare than the lack of single sex spaces does to females.

The result of poverty to children can and is devastating, so inequality imo a much bigger issue.

So I recognise that there is a a risk attached to single sex issues, but not at the level of other risks.

That is how I judge who to vote for.

We do have that right, and objecting to men in our spaces, children being mutilated and allowing the language to erase women is not ‘stirring up culture wars’! I can’t believe we are back to having to point that out.

I am in no way agreeing with Burnham if he said what he’s accused of saying, but I do think we need to remember what it was like when anyone speaking out against ‘be kind’ was accused of committing ‘actual genocide’ and people were sacked for refusing to declare pronouns or teach biological reality.

It’s easy to preach now about what politicians should have done in the face of all that (and I agree that more of them should have spoken out), but when you are trying to right so many other wrongs, and when you know that speaking out would condemn you to political exile, it’s perhaps understandable that you mince words and toe lines and generally prevaricate. It wasn’t right - it was a betrayal of women - but I don’t think a single high profile politician did otherwise without being sidelined (did they?) I always felt that most of them were well aware that women don’t have penises and men don’t have uteruses. Of course they were, but saying so would totally eclipse anything else they were saying, so they took the line of least resistance and prevaricated.

It’s back to pragmatism again, and I don’t for one second believe that this being dragged up now is happening out of principle - even where that principle is strongly felt - it’s a distraction from the fact that he has a good chance of winning the by-election. If biological realists (a term far more accurate than ‘TERFs’) exclude any politician who has said ridiculous things on the subject of ‘gender’ we are looking at a very small pool to fish from, at a time when the UK is approaching crisis point.

I’d like to see him retract it all, but (a) it would create a smokescreen and his other policies would be sidelined, and (b) he would be accused of committing ‘screeching U turns’ which is currently seen as akin to ordering the slaughter of the innocents, just as biological realism was a few years ago.

Many of us on here will know colleagues who bitterly resented having to state the obvious and put ‘she/her’ on emails and Teams/Zoom screens (thus colluding with the notion that sex is a choice and being female is optional), but they did, as getting a salary to pay the bills and feed the children had to take priority. I refused to do it, but I don’t crow about it or see myself as having higher principles - I was older, not career-building, and much easier to ignore. If I’d lost my job I wouldn’t have starved. The stakes were much lower for me.

All the same, on this tiny corner of the Internet I was vilified by some - compared to the KKK, ridiculed, accused of homophobia and racism - no insult was too ludicrous. All I (and others) did to deserve that was to keep reiterating that men can’t be women. I wasn’t trying to run a council or get elected, so I could shrug it off, but it would have been a huge distraction if I had been trying to get other messages across.

That's fine, it is actually fine for someone to say they won't vote for him because of his running shorts, there is thankfully no law saying otherwise. None of us as far as I am aware live in the constituency under question so in this battle, none of us have a vote anyway.

Rosie Duffield, and Joanna Cherry are the only ones I can remember
who spoke out. There was one more female labour mp, but I can't remember her name!

Bridey

Unless he changes his views on womens rights and makes himself clear on his stance, he is set to lose a lot of votes come an election, he wont get my vote with those views.

He won't get my vote with those views either.

Whitewavemark2

If I’m out and need a lavatory, I as happily use a uni-sex lavatory as any other.

No fuss, no bother. Other women don’t seem to have an issue either.

I can think of a number of these uni-sex lavatories. The doors to the cubicles all face the street in full view of the passing public, how is that less safe because they are uni-sex? It is nonsense to suggest that they are.

Arundel and Fordingbridge are examples. Google earth them and it is clear that they would pose no bigger threat to any female.

I can only say that I've never seen these 'unisex' toilet cubicles - god knows it's getting harder and harder to find a public toilet these days anyway. But the issue is not with this kind of toilet - it is about biological men (who claim to identify as trans) asserting their view that they can use female single-sex spaces. The minute you let a man - any kind of man - into a single sex space for women, then it is no longer a single sex space. The law here in Scotland has been quite clear on the issue - but these men are quite vociferous in their assertions that nothing and no-one will stop them using female facilities.

Tbh I've used toilets abroad that men and women and everyone else uses and never felt threatened. As long as there are doors on the cubicle it's fine with me. I think a lot of people have been unable to decide definitely about these issues, even the Supreme court is being challenged on it's decision. Perhaps it's because I don't see every male as a potential rapist or abuser that I find other issues are more important to me.

Trans women have been using female toilets for a long time. I haven't heard of any issues but I can understand there is some danger there from those with ill intent.
A trans woman came into the toilets I was using. I was alone in there at the time. Just used the toilet, hand washed and out quickly. Should I have confronted him/her and asked him to leave?
I'm not sure how to get round this problem?

I wouldn't advise confronting men who are using womens spaces, but some people do.
The way to get 'round this' is for people to follow the law, this is relatively easy to enforce with single sex spaces such as prisons, refuges, etc. With regard to toilets, unisex toilets exist, and people of both sexes are free to use them, what the supreme court ruling has clarified is that men are not allowed in spaces designated for women.

Whitewavemark2

The ridiculous thing though is that women are considering refusing to vote for Burnham, because a few years ago he suggested that single-sex spaces pose little risk to females, but the argument does contribute to division in society.

Housing, poverty welfare etc all get overlooked. How self indulgent and shallow.

I agree. Personally, I think it's ridiculous (and I'm as entitled to my view as anybody else).

Galaxy

I wouldn't advise confronting men who are using womens spaces, but some people do.
The way to get 'round this' is for people to follow the law, this is relatively easy to enforce with single sex spaces such as prisons, refuges, etc. With regard to toilets, unisex toilets exist, and people of both sexes are free to use them, what the supreme court ruling has clarified is that men are not allowed in spaces designated for women.

I'll remember that advice if I ever see anybody to whom it applies, so thank you. I honestly don't think I have ever encountered any male using a female-only space, but there's a first time for everything.