lgbqti+ and JK Rowling

When I was at (army) school between 13 and 15 this group of girls used to pin me down and sexually assault me in front of everyone. This being the 90s everyone (including teachers) found incredibly funny how this was happening to a boy. I spent years having to laugh along with everyone else every time it happened.

I am not victim blaming.

I am sorry if it sounded like that, it wasn’t meant to.

i think we should be in a world where the loos are not used as a “safe space” by people....any people.

I meant go back and work out WHY people are so enraged at the idea of not just having “Toilets for everyone” and redesign it all. Talk to pupils, work out solutions. Make bullying of all kinds and sexual assaults unacceptable. Involve them in solutions. If I was a school head I would just do it (and yes, I have been a secondary school teacher at a comprehensive school) !

And yes, try and respect everyone. We are all people.

They are, already, to most people. Yet they still happen.

The sad fact is that women cannot trust that all men think that sexual assaults are unacceptable. They will never be able to trust that. So there have to be safe spaces for women where they can get away. I'm sure you must have seen the posters on the back of cubicles in bars indicating the safe word that women can give to bar staff to get them out of an uncomfortable situation. That alone tells you why neutral restrooms do not work.

As a woman I feel uncomfortable with gender neutral restrooms, and that won't change just because there is increased education about how sexual assaults are wrong.

The problem is that everyone has different requirements and extremely good reasons for those requirements, and there simply is no single solution that is going to satisfy everyone. To look at just one angle of it, you can't have anything that simultaneously satisfies "I want a place just for my group" and "I want a place that doesn't treat me differently from that group". Whatever you do someone isn't going to be able to get what they want, and if choices need to be made then personally I think we should fall towards the side of safety.

I genuinely don't understand why you can't see this is an issue. Why do you think segregated toilets were introduced? For the protection and privacy of women. They are an enclosed space, often in the basements or other nooks and crannies of buildings, with no cctv covering, almost always without attendants in the modern era, where women could - and have been - sexually and physically assaulted. Segregated toilets are something women in third world countries are campaigning to introduce, because of rapes and assaults, to allow women working outside the home to be safe and to feel safe. Here, some people - those in charge of arts institutions especially - seem to think because we all retweeted 'Me Too' a few years back and read the Guardian, some sort of magic line was drawn, the lion can now lie down with the lamb and men are no longer predatory. This is especially ironic given the stories emerging about major figures in the Old Vic and Royal Court's past. And yes, we know it's only a tiny minority of men who behave like this, but it's not a risk we want to be exposed to.

As for other things women do in toilets, well, besides the obvious there's dealing with periods and associated mishaps, including clothes changes, rinsing clothes in sinks and drying them under the dryer, an emergency place to go when having a miscarriage (probably more common than you'd think), helping children use toilets, and helping daughters dealing with their first periods, simply getting changed, adjusting clothes and making themselves look glamorous or whatever for the day, or in my case and I suspect for others too, as an anxiety sufferer who now finds being out on my own in London incredibly stressful, it's a place to go to calm down and get my head together without anyone in (say) the hip and trendy Royal Court bar looking at me funny.

there you go everyone YOU WON!!!!

Everyone?

When people talk about safe spaces do they literally just mean toilets or are there other panic rooms men don't know about?

And the idea is that if a woman is feeling unsafe or threatened they can retreat to the bathroom and if there is a symbol of a woman in a dress outside that will stop the abusive man in his tracks?

But some men are being clever and not only appealing for laws to be changed so there's less women only rooms but also just wearing dresses and pretending to be women to get past the invisible barrier?

And in every instance this is happening in public and there's nobody else of any gender around to find safety in?

Women's refuges, women's prisons, women's sports facilities including bathing areas and changing rooms, shop changing rooms, examination by a biologically female doctor when visiting GP etc. if requested etc. And while toilets themselves are not covered by CCTV internally, most venues do have some sort of CCTV and patrons and bar staff and shop floor staff etc. who could prevent and report and record suspicious behaviour, like a man making a move towards a specifically woman's bathroom or specifically woman's changing room.



I generally arrive at theatres early and the loos are empty: there's be no-one to shout to for help. It's not scary in venues with segregated toilets because the women's and men's are often on separate corridors and these have FOH staff on all doors or cloakroom staff at the intersection. Because safety.

Men used to ask or make jokes about "why do women in nightclubs go to the toilet together?". The answer was for security in crowded, dimly-lit venues where, in pre-CCTV days, men would sometimes follow women in to toilets, sometimes at their invitation but in the case of my onetime Kilburn local, definitely not.

Is nobody wondering why some trans people are standing with Rowling? Debbie Hayton, Kristina Harrison - others who don’t have their profile, but who I’ve seen tweeting positively today in response to the report in The Times. Hayton certainly isn’t overly keen on Mermaids - indeed, she argued their schools toolkit went too far, and suggested a more moderate alternative. Harrison is calling out Stonewall for their stance on the whole debate too.

For my part, what I found nice about the immediate response to the Times article on Twitter was the number of natal women saying, “Great! Now we’re safe, how do we do the same for transwomen?”

Because we get that transwomen might find men threatening, and that we might share some similar experiences of assault. But you don’t make one group of people safe by making another unsafe. Self-ID would allow any predatory males to say they were transwomen - even though they weren’t - to gain access to women-only spaces. It’s the biggest aspect of what makes it unworkable. Harrison is calling for safe third spaces. Surely that’s a sensible compromise that would work for anyone but the most rabid TRAs?

What the Times report suggests is that the government is sticking to the Equality Act. So they are reaffirming rights already granted to women, under the law.

If it feels like natal women are celebrating this news - and I think that’s premature, because there’s a way to go yet and Labour could try to scupper it all - it’s because we’ve spent so long being told we don’t have the right to any opinion but blind acquiescence with radical trans activism.

It’s because those brave enough to disagree have been bullied with the most vile abuse.

It’s because people like Mermaids have gained such a hold over organisations that we daren’t disagree with some policies in the workplace, even if we’re really uncomfortable with them, in case we lose our jobs.

It’s because when people raised valid concerns with places like the Old Vic over their toilet arrangements, we were steamrollered over and it was inferred there was something wrong with us.

And all for speaking up for something that is already guaranteed to us in law. That’s shocking, and goes some way to showing the scale of the misogyny involved.

Someone finally saw us for what we are - women with legitimate concerns about losing important and valid rights. In all honesty, the mood feels more like relief than celebration.

I very rarely make public comments on threads such as this - because the topic is such an emotive one and I do not wish to cause anyone distress.

However I am concerned with the way that a very recently constructed view of gender has become an almost unchallengeable orthodoxy. The concept of gender which is being 'enforced' is one that is rooted in a very specific set of thoughts from a narrow group of (mainly) US academics - it is not something that has grown up out of the scientific method.

Consequently there have been very few studies into the medium to long term effects of this sort of shift on the individuals or groups involved or into the effect such shifts may have on society as a whole.

Because any attempt to challenge this new orthodoxy is dismissed as being -phobic, it is almost impossible to engage in public discourse around the topic of gender.

I want everyone to be free to live their life as they see fit - free from abuse and discrimination. But I am also wary of the potential for harm with making radical shifts in policy (both in terms of society and medicine) without a fuller understanding of what could happen as a result.

There is growing evidence that there is a growth in de-transitioning. There is growing evidence that gender dysphoria is, for substantial numbers of teenagers, part of growing up and that they can grow out of it. The rush to medical intervention is not helpful in all cases. We need to understand why there are more people questioning their gender identity and why more of those who have transitioned are seeking to reverse those changes.

We also have to be extremely cautious about the growing denial of the concept of biological sex. Yes, there are those with intersex (and related) conditions who don't fit into the traditional male-female binary. But it - to my mind - is wrong to seek to eradicate the idea that biological sex is in any way important.

The issues surrounding Women-only spaces cannot be dismissed - there are genuine concerns about privacy, security and identity that need to be at the forefront of any consideration of change.

People's lives are too important to be the subject of experimentation in terms of public policy. Let us ensure that the best possible protections are enshrined in law - for everyone and let us slow down whilst we look at all of these issues in a calmer and less dogmatic atmosphere. Bad decisions are the inevitable outcome of rushed decision making processes. Look after people and give them the space to be who they are - but take more time to allow for the best policy decisions to be made so that current and future generations can grow up in the best possible society.