42 Comments

I look at this situation like I do accessible parking spaces. We designate a few spaces to those who need it and that's it. Transpeople can have their designated all genders bathrooms (so no need to determine how masculine or feminine someone is) while straight men and women have their own spaces. The percentage of transpeople to the rest of the population is statistically very small so our facilities (and social accommodation) should reflect that. If transpeople's argument is we are just there to pee, then where the pee should not be an issue.

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Why do you say “straight” men and women? Are lesbians or bisexual women not entitled to be in single sex female spaces and gay or bi men entitled to be in single sex men’s spaces? Sexual orientation should be irrelevent.

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I have two conflicting reactions to this.

1. There is significant survey data that many trans-identified females do not feel safe in male spaces. And that is the reason why they tend not to use them. In fact the majority of trans-identified people who express a feeling of being unsafe using the spaces matching their gender identity are such females.

I care about the safety of such women and they should therefore have somewhere to go other than the men’s room. This of course includes detransitioners who continue to look male.

2. On the other hand the only way to keep female spaces safe is to maintain a social norm that only females can use them. As Kathleen stock argues, when somebody who looks male uses a female space this undermines precisely the social norm which keeps women safe. So although passing transwomen can be dangerous, appearance does actually have a material impact on the social norm that keeps women safe.

How to reconcile these two problems is extremely complicated. We need to make sure that third spaces are available for women who feel unsafe in men’s spaces but who also fear that their presence in female spaces will be socially disruptive.

Such a physical condition should properly be viewed as a disability and accommodations must be made so that everybody is included in society and treated with dignity.

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I agree that the way forward is third spaces. Some gender criticals oppose this and I think this has a punitive element to it. That if people are going to identify as trans, they should take the consequences of facing hostility and even violence for it. I strongly reject that reasoning.

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There is, however, a question of to what extent should policy accommodate people who make themselves weird. There's a line beyond which we have to fold our arms and say, "Tough," but how do we decide where that line is?

My gut feeling is that trans people should get their third space (but really isn't this at the expense of disabled users?), but it would be good to articulate why we don't also provide - to take an extreme example - play areas for adult babies.

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There are always such questions and always lines that will be somewhat arbitrary and/or have to be judged on a case-by-case basis. This is the messy nature of humans.

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Agreed.

However, it seems to me that there's a practical issue that "woke" Sophists have this rhetorical trick whereby they find a boundary between two categories, demonstrate it's arbitrary and then glibly merge the categories, e.g. fair and unfair competition in women's sport.

Effectively, these people have gone and made the "slippery slope" a real thing. The unintended consequences are that illiberal positions have become easier to defend than compromises... which I find worrying.

Hence me wanting to some principle on which to hang all this.

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The slippery slope has always been real, for just that reason.

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Recently, while visiting a Chicago restaurant, I (a woman) needed to pee. I found two bathroom doors. One was "all genders." Behind that door were several stalls. The other was labeled "Women." Behind that door was one stall. Guess which door had an "endless" wait for someone with a very full bladder? I could not/would not go into the all gender restroom. Instead, I walked across the street and found a proper women's restroom in a grocery store.

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There an awful lot of all gender bathrooms in gas stations. Must make road trips difficult. I actually have two all gender bathrooms in my house. Haven’t been attacked my step sons yet.

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As a person with a disability, I frequently use unisex bathrooms targeted for the disabled. These are ubiquitous in many places, especially due to the fact that people needed to add facilities for the disabled to older buildings where renovation was difficult. These are also useful for parents with children of the other sex or for caretakers with a person of the other sex. I actually prefer these restrooms to going in the restroom with many stalls since these are easier and more comfortable. This type of restroom could be used by the "trans-identified", persons who can't or shouldn't use the restroom of their actual sex. We had such a restroom at church and our TIM member was very happy with it. Only agn males care about being in the women's room. I am for reasonable accommodations for a true disability but women should not be obliged to cater to men's fetishes. At least one unisex, single stall accessible bathroom in public spaces, fixes the issue. Obviously another reason it is an issue for men in women's bathrooms is that agyns want to be in women's spaces but trans identified women just want to pee in a place where they are safe but not making others uncomfortable.

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Bathroom equipment is based on genitalia and purpose. The .1% of the population which may be a woman who wishes to use a men’s facility will use a stall like any shy man might. They won’t use a standing urinal, even a lower boy’s urinal. At an average sporting event of 15,000 people this is 15 people, granted women have smaller bladders due to the presence of different anatomy than men and this 15 may be 30. It is fairly easy for a woman to pass as a man in any case, as with Eliot Page they usually look like a prepubescent boy. Men also have an aversion to curiosity about other men’s genitals in a bathroom for fear of being considered homosexual. They will make no attempt at policing genitalia. In parallel with this is voyeurism. The numbers vary, but the % of women who engage in sexual voyeurism is 5-10%, the chance in the basketball stadium that a female trans voyeuristic fetishist is ogling men in the bathroom

Produces maybe - maybe - one single person. Female transvestic fetishism is very low I’ll neglect that.

By, contrast the .2% of the population who are men who wish to use women’s facilities can only use a toilet in a stall. Furthermore if they follow a typical male usage of a toilet, they may stand, and even leave the stall door open. (I hate walking into an open stall in an airport to almost run into a man pissing, it happens more often than you imagine.) Furthermore a man cannot easily pass for a woman, facial structure at birth forwards make them relatively easy to recognize, particularly for women. At our sporting event it’s maybe 30 - 60 men, but there’s another factor.

Likewise there may be other men who wish to use the facilities at our basketball who are not “trans”, but are heterosexual men who enjoy wearing women’s clothes - what used to be called fetishistic transvestitism - and may do so to go to a women’s bathroom for a sex kick. Men are much more voyeuristic than women - along with exhibitionism often. These men are in addition to the delusional trans. In our sporting event perhaps half the 60 trans men enjoy voyeurism. But interestingly, 2-3% of the general male population enjoys fetishistic transvestism. That’s 10x higher than plain old trans, and in our sporting event, it’s 300-600 men. Assume 50% of those guys are voyeurs, you get 180-360 men who potentially wear women’s clothes and enjoy voyeuristic erotic situations. At one basketball game, the average is one stall for 60 women, game is 2 hours let’s say, let’s say it’s 7,500 women at the game so there are 25 groups of 5 stalls spread over the stadium (women you know better).

Mix it all up and you get for every 250 women going to the bathroom, there could be 1-3 men dressed as a women (recognizably so) specifically getting a voyeuristic kick. Reduce my assumptions by half or more- there is still a high possible rate of men using women’s facilities dressed as women for sex kicks.

That is to say, if there were no constraints on males using female bathrooms.

If any man could go into a women’s bathroom with transvestic clothing on only to observe and be among women in a stall while masturbating without any constraints - you are a woman if you say so - I suspect the 1/250 number would triple.

Imagine you’re one of the 250 women who meets one or more men dressed as a woman masturbating in a stall. Or a child.

It’s astonishing we even discuss the topic .

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A serious flaw in the trans activist movement is the requirement to deny that men will lie and say they are women because they are sexual predators. That doesn’t happen and repeating stats on how rare it is for a trans woman to offend is their standard response. They are being deliberately obtuse at the expense of women’s safety. Any trans man or female NB should be very aware of the extremes perverts will go to get to women. This is a deliberate tactic of the trans movement. It is coming back to lock them the ass as the news reports of just this are starting to pile up. A trans person would call me a transphobic TERF. I don’t think I am, I just want this stupid movement to collapse and be replaced with people who respect women and have some common sense on how to protect trans people. The current strategy does neither. Women and trans people are the ones who pay the price. Third spaces are the answer. If that had been the strategy ten years ago we would be talking about further integration now. Instead women have been assaulted and raped while being gaslit that it wasn’t happening. Now trans people will be paying the price for that even though many have been shouting for the movement to stop because they saw this coming. Because it was obvious.

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Yep, it’s been obvious now for 40 years.

A curious fact is that if you recall the Tuskegee Syphilis Atrocity where they denied 600 men understanding of what whey were doing, and 400 were left untreated for 4 decades, well, that’s “not many” people over a long time, it was “quite rare”. That and other insults to black populations have left many people to this day (the “experiment” ended in ‘72) wary of valuable medical care, because of establishment distrust from factual history.

“How rare it is” in sports, bathrooms, locker rooms and other spaces is irrelevant from law. It’s illegal to trespass in areas not designated for your use.

Handicap access is a law: people who need special facilities do get them. It’s trivial to say that trans are handicapped, because of a fear or devastating psychological condition so that they need private bathrooms. I’m all for it.

As you say, pretending men don’t lie is, well, an amusing tactic which will explode in your face. Where we can’t trust, there is law.

A favorite is “Trans have been doing it and you’re not even aware.”

Breaking the law is a condition irrespective of perception.

Not being aware that someone is stealing money from a bank doesn’t make it acceptable or legal.

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Oh, that is a very good analogy, which I will be stealing! It is applicable to the medical side as well. Over the years nurses, doctors, social workers, admin staff all rotated through. Only one spoke out.

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As usual, a very well argued article. I totally agree about the need for third spaces - however, I believe some/ many trans-identifying males (aka “transwomen”) reject this compromise in much the same way as they reject an “open” sports category in which anyone may compete.

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Exactly

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It is to make a point, not solve a problem. All or nothing makes nothing an option. Which is where we are heading now.

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I don't get it. Trans men look like men don't they? They can use a stall. I don't see see some guy attacking them because maybe there's a vagina under that bearded guy. On the other hand, women know damn well that men have installed cameras, video recorders and even drilled holes in the walls of women's bathrooms to get a peek. Women have been raped in ladies' rooms. I think it's a false equivalency, no? Anyway, I think for most women it's more about change-rooms and lockers than public bathrooms.

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I'm not sure what you don't get and what is a false equivalency?

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Hm. Sometimes I think I’m explaining my thoughts well but it’s in my own head. I’ll try to compose a more coherent response.

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Anne, don’t worry. Your explanation is extremely clear. So much so that even a no English native like me is able to understand it. What is also clear to me, is that not everyone is willing to understand. And, this is the biggest problem of all.

With this being said, I partially agree with you but I believe it is just because I’ve got the impression that you have a more moderate opinion about this whole situation.

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I understood you perfectly.

If a woman, TIF or "cis woman" (quotes cos is a made up term), decide to use men bathrooms is because they are not afraid of being there. Neither the men using this bathroom are not gonna be afraid by the presence of a woman being, with or without beard. Women are stressed and afraid in the presence of a man no matter the make up or operations (you always can tell) because our "life experience" as the woke say. So males out of the women bathrooms and the rest is not a problem of the women/feminist. If men are uncomfortable with TIF going to their toilettes, they should speak for themselves (but they don't speak cos they don't give a damm).

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Lupi I think we’re on the same page, but I think it’s better for me to bow out of these conversations. I’m not up with the acronyms and political jargon. Things have gotten so complicated!

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“Lived experience” is the term, not life experience. We are supposed to be more respectful and give more credence to someone who invokes their “lived experience” than those of us who merely mention our life experience. yah…right…

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Fyi TIF: trans identified female & cos: opposite to trans (also, people without mental issues or fetishism 😉

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I think what I’m trying to say is that regardless of personal feelings, a trans man is not likely to be sexually assaulted in a men’s room. But we’ve seen evidence of men identifying as women simply to gain access to ladies’ rooms for peeping, exposing, or whatever turns them on. Personally I don’t care about bathrooms so much, I’m more concerned about showers, change rooms and spa locker rooms where nudity is common.

Honestly I’m finding the whole debate very difficult, and I don’t understand all the latest lingo. The trans women I’ve known just wanted to avoid attention and live their lives.

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Anne, I'm sorry. I'm worried the shortness and directness of my question asking you to clarify made you feel put on the spot and expected to produce a complex argument of some kind. As though I'd pointed at you and said, "Well, why don't you understand! Explain yourself!"

Nooooo, I misunderstood. I thought you were saying that part of my argument wasn't clear to you and was asking which bit so I could clarify. But having read your exchanges with Marcello and Lupi, I see you were speaking generally to the question of why feminists focus more on women's spaces & trans women and saying that surely this is explained by there being a greater risk needing to be addressed more urgently? Yes, I think that is the core of it too and I think the pissed off lawyer was being a bit disingenuous. That was what I was getting at when I said there's a need to prioritise the primary issue of safety.

I hope you won't bow out of these conversations. If you are finding all of this difficult to navigate and find a way into because of all the counterintuitive language and speaking points everybody already seems to have an opinion on, you are exactly the kind of person I want to include and whose questions and input I want to respond to. Because ultimately, I want to both break down the bits people find confusing and also hear and consider the perspectives of people who aren't culture war writers. I hope you won't feel like you shouldn't comment on anything if you're not sure you have the 'right' language and I'm sorry if I made you feel that way.

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Apology not needed, but warmly appreciated.

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Helen - you’re smarter than me. I’m a woman. Something about all the bathroom drama doesn’t resonate with me. Maybe I’m just stupid or incapable of thinking about it the way the other women do. Based on how they talk about the mere prospect males entering the female restroom and all the hypothetical danger this poses to them - I would think the male restrooms are essentially hellish war zones fraught with perverts & potential predators. Why would anyone feel remotely comfortable allowing children or folks under 18 into the male restroom? Why would we simply dismiss that the notion that these predators & perverts might be a danger to male children?

For example - when someone hears that a ‘sex offender’ has moved into the area, everyone HATES the idea of this person being around any children. They don’t try to confirm what sex of child might be the preferred target of the sex offender. Parents of male children are not consulting the stats & reading that the girls are more likely to be molested & then breathing a sigh of relief. This whole narrative makes no sense to me.

Why would anyone feel comfortable allowing kids in the male bathroom given all these perverts & dangerous men!?

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It's heartening to know there are still women who can see how abhorrently sexist feminism has become.

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These feminists don't oppose "trans" because of any logical, moral or philosophical values that they hold. They do it because they hate and fear men.

That is why the only topics that come up in such discussions are "what is a woman?", "female bathrooms", "female sports", "female spaces".

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I think there is an extra facet to it. They actually hold women above men, think women are better than men, & want special treatment & consideration for no other reason than being female. When you discuss things with them they are perfectly ok with the idea of males having to make sacrifices - including rights - for their benefit, & they think they should be entitled to this purely because they’re female.

I’m a female I just wasn’t raised with this mentality. I do not believe any of these women were actually oppressed by society lol. I don’t see how you have these kinds of attitudes if you were

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It’s actually kind of similar logic to the ‘woke’ people. ‘I’m female & therefore weaker & prone to being oppressed & this was done to me by a male: [insert some horror story they have that you can never argue with if push back on because it’s meant to be manipulative like this]. This is my case for whatever special treatment I’m demanding!’

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Thank you!

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OK how about this: All men under 5'4" are now welcome in the women's bathroom. This solution is 100% FLAWLESS.

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How?

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How much attention should they get?

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They have it exactly backwards. Nobody cares about natal females sincerely cosplaying masculinity in male spaces (except to fear for their safety) because they would lose in sports and are a danger to nobody but themselves. The double standard for transwomen ve transmen is what demonstrates the good faith of gender critical policy.

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I am having trouble understanding the logic in this paragraph:

"Although gender critical feminists do raise the issue of fear and privacy, their primary concern is that of safety from predatory male sex-offenders who will abuse self-ID laws and norms to gain access to women where they are vulnerable and sexually assault them. Women who naturally have more masculine features, women who favour a masculine aesthetic and trans men do not fit this category and so they do not present a danger to women. The fact that they may still make women fear danger is also not something that can be resolved in any way that is ethical by feminist standards or liberal ones."

If I understand this essay, one of its basic premises is that any man's presence in a women's rest rooms causes women to fear for their safety because any man could be a predatory sex offender. It is not clear why women who are likely to be mistaken for men (Women who naturally have more masculine features, women who favour a masculine aesthetic and trans men) do not fit the category of men who present a danger of sexual assault to women. A bloke is a bloke is a bloke.

The fact that the person who looks like a man is actually a woman who naturally has more masculine features, a woman who favours a masculine aesthetic or a trans man is not going to be apparent to other women in the rest room. It therefore seems irrelevant as a distinguishing feature. It would seem that a beardy trans man could elicit the same fear of a predatory sex offender among women in a women's rest room as would an unconvincing trans woman who is obviously a man in women's clothing with a woman's hairdo and makeup.

The rule would appear to be 1) don't use the ladies' if you're a trans woman; and 2) don't use the ladies' if you could reasonably be mistaken for a man because all men are potential sexual predators, not just trans women who are abusing self-ID laws to get access to female-only spaces.

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Hey Ollie, let me rephrase the first sentence and then summarise.

Yes, gender critical feminists do raise the issue of fear which could be presented by both trans women who do not pass and trans men who do as well as woman who could be mistaken for men. However, that is secondary to the primary concern of danger of exploitation by male sex offenders which is not presented by trans men or masculine appearing women. Therefore, we can only mitigate the first concern about fear and need a blanket rule for the second one about danger.

Your last paragraph:

The rule would be 1) Don't use the ladies if you're a trans woman. 2) Do use the ladies if you are a masculine-looking woman and if you prefer to if you are a trans man.

I'm addressing the problem of seeming to negatively 'profile' men or trans women as sex-offenders that's inherent in the blanket rule in another piece. Because that goes against the liberal principle of not ascribing collective blame to a group, surely? I will argue that when it comes to systems, we do not need to have blanket rules because we think all of a group is a danger but because we need to set up systems in ways that protect from people who are. I will be comparing it to patriarchy when men had control over their wives. The vast majority of men did not use that power to be controlling because they loved their lives and weren't bastards but that control still had to go because it made women very vulnerable to the men who were. Some feminists will demonise all men but we should reject this attitude very clearly.

Sometimes, people have to follow rules that protect others even if they are not a danger to others. I remember feeling really indignant and angry when my daughter bounced off the bed into the radiator and got a black eye and I had a letter that a social worker would be visiting. It felt horrible that anyone could believe I'd hurt my child, but then I thought "No, I need to cooperate with this because it is better that they check out an innocent parent than don't check out an abuser." I said this to the social worker and she seemed quite relieved.

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I mostly agree Helen but have a response to this scheduled for publication tomorrow.

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