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Post by crowblack on Aug 13, 2023 15:56:33 GMT
Where is the room coming from at most London theatres coming from? Old Vic had a refit, using money fundraised specifically with the words more women's toilets. Could have added extra space then. Young Vic has four toilets 'blocks' - could have left two womens, one men, one unisex, but they instead made one of the women's unisex too so in practice - I've seen this - men use it, even though there is a male (now unisex with urinals and cubicles) block right next door to it (in practice as we all know, there are long queues for the women's toilets, short queues for the men who take less time to 'go', apart from The Inheritance where the audience was almost all male and there was no queue at all for the women's) There are listed venues with limited space that have, as I said in an earlier post, kept the women's single sex and made the male toilets open to all. Tate - I think - has, or had, female, male, unisex, and disabled with entrances close together. All these points have been made before on this very very long thread.
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Post by Jon on Aug 13, 2023 15:59:11 GMT
Stop saying trans people are banned from using single sex toilets, it's clearly not true. It's what Kemi Badernoch is saying and the new ECHR guidance from a few months was impyling as well. Nothing in the press release suggests that whatsoever. Either you're making things up or stirring the pot.
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Post by theatrelover97 on Aug 13, 2023 16:22:44 GMT
It's what Kemi Badernoch is saying and the new ECHR guidance from a few months was impyling as well. Nothing in the press release suggests that whatsoever. Either you're making things up or stirring the pot. In her Telegraph article she says Trans people should use segregated unisex cubicles like an train or plane toilet is.
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Post by Jon on Aug 13, 2023 16:33:01 GMT
Nothing in the press release suggests that whatsoever. Either you're making things up or stirring the pot. In her Telegraph article she says Trans people should use segregated unisex cubicles like an train or plane toilet is. Does the article in question say that trans people are banned from using single sex toilets because if it doesn't then you're not telling the truth.
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Post by theatrelover97 on Aug 13, 2023 16:39:57 GMT
In her Telegraph article she says Trans people should use segregated unisex cubicles like an train or plane toilet is. Does the article in question say that trans people are banned from using single sex toilets because if it doesn't then you're not telling the truth. The entire article tone makes it very clear what she means. Nobody reading it would think she supports trans people using the toilets of their gender identity.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Aug 13, 2023 16:54:55 GMT
Does the article in question say that trans people are banned from using single sex toilets because if it doesn't then you're not telling the truth. The entire article tone makes it very clear what she means. Nobody reading it would think she supports trans people using the toilets of their gender identity. Post a link to the article please. This is a very contentious subject so it’s helpful if people post links to sources and don’t selectively quote or paraphrase . Thank you.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2023 17:19:53 GMT
A lot of sports crowds are heavily male orientated but that would make sense as it gives women a safe space. I meant in the actual competition: males who identify as women or girls have been allowed to enter - and, unsurprisingly, given their physical power advantage, win - women's sports categories. In the UK this is now being addressed by specifying that women's sport is for females, and the men's category has been retitled 'open' so theoretically anyone can enter that regardless of how they identify. I've heard of some theatres that have already done similar with toilets - kept the women's women's, renamed the men's block 'unisex'. Thanks for confirming what you meant GMT. That makes perfect sense, a lot of elite female sports stars have openly said they would be concerned about competiting against people who have transitioned. Sharron Davies the former swimmer who herself was a very fit and strong woman and was even briefly a female Gladiator in the 1990's has been vocal about this. Caitlyn Jenner was a male Olympic Decathlon champion in her former guise and former top cyclist Robert Miller also transitioned in recent years. Most famously the tennis player Renee Richards who turns 89 next week was stopped from entering various tennis events in the 1970's after she had transitioned from being Richard Raskind in the mid 1970's. As Richard had been an elite amateur player there was a fear that Renee even in her mid to late 40's would be too strong and powerful for the female players of that era. In hindsight the treatment of Renee is now seen as harsh and she was eventally allowed to play on the women's tour when they realised she wouldn't beat all before her but still got into the world's top 20 aged 45 and subsequently coached Martina Navratilova to a couple of her many Wimbledon titles. Vanessa Redgrave played Renee in a TV movie called Second Serve in 1986 which I'll have to check out.
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Post by theatrelover97 on Aug 13, 2023 17:30:31 GMT
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Post by sph on Aug 13, 2023 17:40:46 GMT
Not sure that's always the case. Plenty of trans women do pass after surgery and voice work They'd have to be very short, with small hands, small feet, narrow shoulders, wide hips, a lot of facial bone surgery - Asian 'ladyboys' might do but not Europeans.
That's simply not true. There are plenty of cisgender women who are tall, have large hands, large feet, or broad shoulders etc, and plenty of cisgender men who don't. No one has a magical built-in radar that accurately tells you who is trans and who isn't.
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Post by Jon on Aug 13, 2023 17:55:54 GMT
Does the article in question say that trans people are banned from using single sex toilets because if it doesn't then you're not telling the truth. The entire article tone makes it very clear what she means. Nobody reading it would think she supports trans people using the toilets of their gender identity. An article's tone is not the same as an actual law which as I far as I can see has not been proposed nor does it is exist.
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Post by toomasj on Aug 13, 2023 18:20:44 GMT
Venues could simply do what they are now starting to do in UK sports: one block of female sex-specific toilets, another block labelled 'open - cubicles and urinals' for males however they identify or dress, and females who id as men if the male users are ok with sharing a space with them too. This seems an obvious solution.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Aug 13, 2023 18:22:25 GMT
It is not behind a paywall for me and I don’t think the Telegraph will be treating me as a special case, however just in case I’m going to quote them. Under normal circs please link instead of quoting. Kemi Badenoch’s piece in the Telegraph:
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Post by oxfordsimon on Aug 13, 2023 18:24:14 GMT
Venues could simply do what they are now starting to do in UK sports: one block of female sex-specific toilets, another block labelled 'open - cubicles and urinals' for males however they identify or dress, and females who id as men if the male users are ok with sharing a space with them too. This seems an obvious solution. But it isn't a solution. I wouldn't want to use a urinal in a mixed space. And I suspect I am not alone in that. Some men might be but that isn't enough to justify making the men's toilets open to all.
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Post by crowblack on Aug 13, 2023 18:28:37 GMT
No one has a magical built-in radar that accurately tells you who is trans and who isn't. I think many people, especially women, can tell. People with intersex conditions like XXXY syndrome plus surgery can pass but that's rare - and that's not what we're talking about here. Females who take testosterone, grow beards, go bald, drop voices, have surgery, 'pass' better, but they are not the issue when we're discussing concerns around women's safety in single sex spaces (btw, re - sports, once female to male-presenting transitioners start taking testosterone, they are no longer allowed to compete with women because of the obvious advantage that confers, similar to Soviet era Olympic doping).
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Post by Jon on Aug 13, 2023 18:32:23 GMT
Thanks BurlyBeaR for showing the article in question and thus proving that nothing in the article is suggesting a ban on trans people being allowed to use single sex toilets.
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Post by crowblack on Aug 13, 2023 18:37:58 GMT
But it isn't a solution. I wouldn't want to use a urinal in a mixed space. And I suspect I am not alone in that. Some men might be but that isn't enough to justify making the men's toilets open to all. What's the situation at the Young Vic or Royal Court? Anecdotally I hear that women won't go in the former-men's-now-unisex, but I've seen men (who dress like men) use the former women's toilets as well. I don't know who decided to put urinals by the sinks at a trendy local venue but it's been that way for a decade now - despite comments on tripadvisor by both women and men that it's nasty. When I go there to see a show, I call into the single sex traditional loos at a nearby venue first.
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Post by sph on Aug 13, 2023 19:04:27 GMT
No one has a magical built-in radar that accurately tells you who is trans and who isn't. I think many people, especially women, can tell. People with intersex conditions like XXXY syndrome plus surgery can pass but that's rare - and that's not what we're talking about here. Females who take testosterone, grow beards, go bald, drop voices, have surgery, 'pass' better, but they are not the issue when we're discussing concerns around women's safety in single sex spaces (btw, re - sports, once female to male-presenting transitioners start taking testosterone, they are no longer allowed to compete with women because of the obvious advantage that confers, similar to Soviet era Olympic doping). I fear you may be overestimating your ability to "spot" trans people, unless there's some kind of secret handshake all the biological females know. My question is though, say you have a trans woman who has lived happily as a woman for 30 years. Has had surgery, hormones, is as feminine as any other woman you'd walk past in the street, just as an example. Would you be ok with her using the female toilets?
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Post by crowblack on Aug 13, 2023 19:49:15 GMT
My question is though, say you have a trans woman who has lived happily as a woman for 30 years. Has had surgery, hormones, is as feminine as any other woman you'd walk past in the street, just as an example. Would you be ok with her using the female toilets? I'd be fine with male born people like April Ashley or Jazz Jennings as I know their 'story', that they've had surgery, in Ashley's case ( don't know about Jennings), was attracted to men. I've lived in houseshares with gay men, one of whom sometimes 'crossdressed', as we'd call it then, and as I knew their sexual orientation felt perfectly safe with them. What's become evident over recent years is that the definition of trans has shifted from 'transsexual', generally same sex attracted and having surgery, to the far wider and looser term 'trans' which now includes a lot of heterosexual males who have no intention of having what's euphemistically referred to as 'bottom surgery', are 'intact', and are sexually aroused by women, use terms like 'cotton ceiling', and also use very misogynistic, sometimes violent language towards women (on social media, many are the 'anime avatar' users). Like many women, I do not think these new style 'trans' individuals' motivation for wanting to get into spaces where women get undressed are in good faith: we've seen a lot of evidence that it is not. And they have muddied the waters for what we did consider 'good faith' male born individuals who used women's facilities, in small numbers, and with little fuss. My personal feeling is that, if they are no longer able to easily access women's changing rooms, toilets, prisons etc. many of these opportunistic heterosexual males will move on to some other activity and we'll get back to talking about people with genuine gender dysphoria.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Aug 13, 2023 19:54:09 GMT
If this discussion is going to continue please dont directi your comments towards other members. By all means quote and make a counter argument, but please avoid the “you” word. This is a contentious and sensitive subject, if members can’t conduct themselves appropriately the thread will be removed.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 13, 2023 20:18:43 GMT
The issue with mixed toilets is always a delicate one and being able to spot who might be a trans person is something I'd not back myself to do in a majority of cases. A transvestite yes but not a transexual person - maybe theatres will be okay when the Rocky Horror Show is in town as everyone will be in costume and no-one would bat an eye lid.
Straight and gay men and women share bathroom spaces and I'm sure a lot of women wouldn't have a problem with shared facilities with men in a gay club but the issue is really it being a way for predatory men to occasionally put women in danger. This is the reservations I have about it and I assume a lot of women's groups do. People don't take the decision to transition lightly and if they are prepared to have bits added, cut off they deserve our respect and full rights.
This isn't about someone identifying as something and living their life as their genetic sex in every other way. The person who identified as a cat for example would they expect a litter tray if they visited the theatre!
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Post by sph on Aug 13, 2023 21:37:24 GMT
My question is though, say you have a trans woman who has lived happily as a woman for 30 years. Has had surgery, hormones, is as feminine as any other woman you'd walk past in the street, just as an example. Would you be ok with her using the female toilets? I'd be fine with male born people like April Ashley or Jazz Jennings as I know their 'story', that they've had surgery, in Ashley's case ( don't know about Jennings), was attracted to men. I've lived in houseshares with gay men, one of whom sometimes 'crossdressed', as we'd call it then, and as I knew their sexual orientation felt perfectly safe with them. What's become evident over recent years is that the definition of trans has shifted from 'transsexual', generally same sex attracted and having surgery, to the far wider and looser term 'trans' which now includes a lot of heterosexual males who have no intention of having what's euphemistically referred to as 'bottom surgery', are 'intact', and are sexually aroused by women, use terms like 'cotton ceiling', and also use very misogynistic, sometimes violent language towards women (on social media, many are the 'anime avatar' users). Like many women, I do not think these new style 'trans' individuals' motivation for wanting to get into spaces where women get undressed are in good faith: we've seen a lot of evidence that it is not. And they have muddied the waters for what we did consider 'good faith' male born individuals who used women's facilities, in small numbers, and with little fuss. My personal feeling is that, if they are no longer able to easily access women's changing rooms, toilets, prisons etc. many of these opportunistic heterosexual males will move on to some other activity and we'll get back to talking about people with genuine gender dysphoria. I think this post gives more clarity and understanding than any of your others on this subject, so thank you. And to an extent I do understand where you are coming from. I think though, that the perception of gender is going to change a lot in the coming years, as it already is, and as a society we will see some of those changes appearing more and more.
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Post by max on Aug 13, 2023 21:39:53 GMT
Thanks BurlyBeaR for showing the article in question and thus proving that nothing in the article is suggesting a ban on trans people being allowed to use single sex toilets. Badenoch's phrasing is vague when it comes to people who are transgender. Male and Female must have dedicated specific spaces, but transgender people must have "privacy". What that means exactly is left for a future chapter: Under the Equality Act anyone (at any point of transition) is able to use the bathroom they consider is right for them. A two stage strategy for this announcement would be: Stage 1 today. Then a few days for the truth of the Equality Act to be circulated. Stage 2 is then performative horror from the government that "lefty lawyers" scupper their common sense, greeted by calls in the Mail and on GBNews to rip up the Equality Act It's true that there is no ban on Trans people using single sex toilets. Yet
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Post by crowblack on Aug 14, 2023 7:11:13 GMT
Badenoch's phrasing is vague when it comes to people who are transgender. Many people's phrasing is vague when it comes to transgender. That's the issue: we used to understand it as people with gender dysphoria seeking and obtaining permanent lifelong physical changes, in good faith, to present more like the opposite sex and personal legal changes to accompany that: people like the late April Ashley. Now it's an ever expanding and increasingly vague, undefined umbrella, achieved by simply announcing you're changing your pronouns or name, if that. No need to even shave your beard off, apparently.
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Post by max on Aug 14, 2023 10:27:24 GMT
Badenoch's phrasing is vague when it comes to people who are transgender. Many people's phrasing is vague when it comes to transgender. That's the issue: we used to understand it as people with gender dysphoria seeking and obtaining permanent lifelong physical changes, in good faith, to present more like the opposite sex and personal legal changes to accompany that: people like the late April Ashley. Now it's an ever expanding and increasingly vague, undefined umbrella, achieved by simply announcing you're changing your pronouns or name, if that. No need to even shave your beard off, apparently. I completely agree that the apparent singular premise of 'Transgender' is now diffuse. Though there would always have been more areas of grey, they weren't as publicly known, proudly worn, and campaigned for. The main one that used to be surfaced was easier for many to understand:'born in the wrong body so changing socially and physically under medical supervision'. I don't think that Badenoch's vagueness was in acknowledgement of areas of grey though. When the Deputy Chair of the Conservative Party said that without Brexit the next election would be fought on 'small boats and Trans debates' I believed him. Vagueness & no specifics on transgender people's use of public bathrooms (despite putting forward their 'best practice' solution entirely due to the Trans problem') is just setting the dial on the timebomb. This time the announcement was on the day of the worst ever NHS Waiting List figures. The Daily Mail or Telegraph will already have the article ready for whenever episode two is most usefully released, featuring a catalogue of bathroom horror stories and lambasting the 2020 Equalities Act. But, we'll see.
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Post by kathryn on Aug 23, 2023 14:50:40 GMT
They'd have to be very short, with small hands, small feet, narrow shoulders, wide hips, a lot of facial bone surgery - Asian 'ladyboys' might do but not Europeans.
That's simply not true. There are plenty of cisgender women who are tall, have large hands, large feet, or broad shoulders etc, and plenty of cisgender men who don't. No one has a magical built-in radar that accurately tells you who is trans and who isn't. Evolution has primed us to be extremely good at distinguishing between the sexes. Because it’s obviously beneficial for the survival of the species to know that. Interestingly research shows that women are better at it than men, though. Most women in most cases can do so at a glance, in real life. There’s a thousand different cues we use without conscious thought. Male and female body configurations are so different, even things like how we breathe are different (it’s to do with rib cage and diaphragm shape and size).
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Post by kathryn on Aug 23, 2023 15:17:10 GMT
I fear you may be overestimating your ability to "spot" trans people, unless there's some kind of secret handshake all the biological females know. My question is though, say you have a trans woman who has lived happily as a woman for 30 years. Has had surgery, hormones, is as feminine as any other woman you'd walk past in the street, just as an example. Would you be ok with her using the female toilets? Identifying sex accurately is one of those things that biological women *are* better at than biological men. It appears to be related to evolutionary pressure because women are at far greater risk of violence from men than other women, and devote far more resources to partner selection because their biological investment in producing offspring is much higher. From a reproductive point of view women would waste a lot more time and effort if they couldn’t easily identify males and be at a higher risk of not surviving long enough to have children. And that goes back to way, way before we had social signifiers of gender like clothes. Personally I’ve never had a problem with trans women who were clearly invested in passing as women using the ladies loo. Their investment in passing always included a desire not to draw attention to the fact that they are not biologically female. Unfortunately that is not the only type of ‘trans’ out there any more and being given permission to use single-sex spaces. We used to call the other type ‘cross-dressers’ or ‘transvestites’, and recognise that for those men the motivation involved sexual arousal to some extent. Those men typically didn’t make a true effort at passing; drawing attention to themselves is part of what excites them. They tend to be obvious from their manner of dress. There’s actually research that shows this link between exhibitionism and cross-dressing. I feel very uncomfortable with sharing single sex facilities with a male who is likely to be getting off on being seen there. I have no desire to be drafted into someone else’s fetish.
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Post by sph on Aug 24, 2023 0:40:20 GMT
We can discuss the many cues that we take from spending time with others that denote to us, in whatever manner, their biological sex, but regardless of its perceived accuracy, it is not entirely foolproof. There will always be a woman who is tall or deep-voiced or broad-shouldered who may be stopped and questioned by someone who is not as able as they think to identify a trans woman.
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Post by crowblack on Aug 24, 2023 9:53:30 GMT
There will always be a woman who is tall or deep-voiced or broad-shouldered who may be stopped and questioned by someone who is not as able as they think to identify a trans woman. And if that happens she will say, oops, apologies, I thought for a moment you were male (because men do try to get in here sometimes, despite the signs on the doors*), and the other woman will say that's fine, I understand, it happens from time to time because I'm tall and I dress quite butch (btw, when you stay 'stopped and questioned' you make it sound like it's the Gestapo!)
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Post by kathryn on Aug 24, 2023 19:57:08 GMT
We can discuss the many cues that we take from spending time with others that denote to us, in whatever manner, their biological sex, but regardless of its perceived accuracy, it is not entirely foolproof. There will always be a woman who is tall or deep-voiced or broad-shouldered who may be stopped and questioned by someone who is not as able as they think to identify a trans woman. It’s a very rare woman who is tall and deep voiced and broad shouldered and has very narrow hips and male-type brow ridge and jawbone and a male-sized skull and an adam’s apple and bony wrist joints and large hands and no breasts. And then, once she walked a few steps forward, she’d also need to be walking with a male-style gait. Men and women have different biomechanics and move differently. Of course it’s possible that someone will be Mis-sexed - some people in theatres can’t even read their seat numbers correctly, after all. But it’s because everyone is so hyper aware now that it’s a possibility. Which is entirely the fault of the activists who decided to push this particular boundary for making people paranoid.
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Post by sph on Aug 24, 2023 22:41:00 GMT
I have seen people misgendered by others often enough to know that it happens. I have seen women with short hair mistakenly addressed as sir in a customer service setting when it is obvious to me that she is in fact a cisgender woman, and not trans. The situation can be quite embarrassing. That is where the issue lies. You may have faith in your ability to identify everyone's sex or gender, but have you met the Great British public? Are they all as able as you? Probably not.
Also, I'm not so sure I'd agree with you regarding how happily women take it when someone tells them "Oops, I thought you were male!"...
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