[Tubby Isaacs]

Gender/sex issues aren't symmetrical, never have been.

What I was getting at is that security in terms of eg changing rooms is going to be a red herring. "Security" in so far as it has existed has been largely about custom and social attitude. A single sex space was just a single sex space in a way nearly everyone understood. For that to change (via self-id) is a very big thing, and I don't see much getting away from that.

Are we talking about self-id, or some sort of medical/psychological evaluation? Labour promoted a simplified medical process before the election, but seems to have dropped that.

[Tubby Isaacs]

It possibly came over wrong, but my intent was to get across that - for Bryson - they are a criminal who is trans. They are not a criminal because they are trans. It’s not about pretending the case doesn’t exist, but about framing it in context and not allowing the terrible rare incident to dictate daily life in perpetuity.

Bryson committed crimes as a man, as you say, and rightly never got beyond solitary confinement at the women's prison before being sent to the men's prison. When he comes out of prison his license will no doubt seek to ensure he's kept as far away from women's spaces as possible. And Bryson was an extreme example anyway.

I just don't think you can argue that self-id doesn't expand opportunity for men to harass women somewhere they couldn't do it before. I find it hard to balance this with the undoubted benefit of trans people being able to lead a life they're comfortable with. I don't know you resolve this. Nor do Keir Starmer and John Swinney.

[Crabcakes]

Why did we bother with single sex spaces in the first place then?

I mean it’s a tangent, but - we didn’t. Most public single sex spaces were for men, and women an afterthought (female public toilets only really became anything approaching common after WW1). Then as time went on it was more down to general usefulness to divide space, and it’s only relatively recently where single spaces that have been set up for the protection of the sex rather than for reasons of convenience, prudishness, misogyny (an equal no. of toilets isn’t equality if there’s always a queue for the ladies) etc.,

[Tubby Isaacs]

I hadn't thought of the history like that.

But as you say, women's spaces did come to mean something protective. Not just in terms of changing rooms either. Special times were given over to women only swimming. So we were bothering with single sex spaces when it came down to it.

[Crabcakes]

What I was getting at is that security in terms of eg changing rooms is going to be a red herring. "Security" in so far as it has existed has been largely about custom and social attitude. A single sex space was just a single sex space in a way nearly everyone understood. For that to change (via self-id) is a very big thing, and I don't see much getting away from that.

I think you let people be in the space that suits the person they are. I think you prosecute the rare individuals who take advantage of that as you always would have done. I think you amend the law, or even just the statement, to say when a single sex space is cis only (for example, a rape crisis centre) but that they are the exception for exceptional circumstances, not the norm based on prevention of hypothetical exceptional circumstances. And I think the rest is on societal trust as it always has been.

I am invited to worry by people like JK Rowling that my daughter will be preyed on in a public toilet or changing room by a man pretending to be a woman if trans people aren’t banned from all such spaces. But in the 80s I (or my voting parents) was invited to worry by various Tory MPs about myself being assaulted by gay men in public facilities and indoctrination if society allowed Section 28 to be repealed. I am reasonably sure this apparent doomsday didn’t happen.

Sure, trans people are more visible than ever before, but they’ve always existed, just like gay people existed before 1967 and left handed people existed before people stopped beating it out of them because they thought it was the devil, and dyslexic people existed before society stopped assuming they were lazy and thick. Behaviour doesn’t change based on new legislation that respects who someone is. I have no reason to assume that’s less true for trans people than for any other type of person who was previously “erased” in some way.

[Tubby Isaacs]

I don't know how you get back to the trust there was before. Was it widely understood then that trans people used the facilities of their preferred gender? My guess is that it wasn't, and people would have thought in terms of post-op.

[Crabcakes]

I don't know how you get back to the trust there was before. Was it widely understood then that trans people used the facilities of their preferred gender? My guess is that it wasn't, and people would have thought in terms of post-op.

As far as I understand it, it was don’t ask, don’t tell, mind your own business and so on. Some - many - probably did without being noticed, some might have sought out unisex facilities for their own comfort, some might have e.g. used disabled loos. You could argue it wasn’t even trust but simple indifference of the most endearing sort - it just didn’t register for many people that it was a thing, let alone a thing they should worry about.

It is in this respect like Brexit. Not many people did care until a small number of people demanded everyone care, and now everyone is divided as a side must be taken and a furious amount of energy needs to be used to legislate our way back to more or less square one, because it turns out square one was better for everyone except for that furious minority who are now richer, more famous and have a group of followers for life.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Net immigration was the second biggest issue at the 2010 election after the economy/debt. Once people connected that with Brexit, then the Brexit was coming on to the agenda. It exploded 2010-15 because the Lib Dems were no longer on hand to pick up the protest votes.

[kreuzberger]

It is in this respect like Brexit. Not many people did care until a small number of people demanded everyone care, and now everyone is divided as a side must be taken and a furious amount of energy needs to be used to legislate our way back to more or less square one, because it turns out square one was better for everyone except for that furious minority who are now richer, more famous and have a group of followers for life.

onehundredandeighteeeee!

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Brexit. Not many people did care until a small number of people demanded everyone care, and now everyone is divided as a side must be taken and a furious amount of energy needs to be used to legislate our way back to more or less square one, because it turns out square one was better for everyone except for that furious minority who are now richer, more famous and have a group of followers for life.

Mind if I nick that?

[The Weeping Angel]

Why did we bother with single sex spaces in the first place then? We didn't say "well, men are going to go in there anyway, let's not bother excluding them". I think it's impossible to argue that self-id for women's spaces wouldn't have been a major change. Bryson isn't unique by any means. Men who want to rape and sexually assault use deception where they can get away with it. Same as "Karen White" in prison, and many others who try but are rightly blocked by the Prison Service.

I fully accept that ordinary trans people's lives are made worse by what we have now. But I think the "Bryson doesn't really happen" stuff isn't going to cut it. It is a genuinely difficult issue.

I remember when a certain ex mod tried to dismiss that story as nothing more than dangerous lesbians.

[Crabcakes]

Brexit. Not many people did care until a small number of people demanded everyone care, and now everyone is divided as a side must be taken and a furious amount of energy needs to be used to legislate our way back to more or less square one, because it turns out square one was better for everyone except for that furious minority who are now richer, more famous and have a group of followers for life.

Mind if I nick that?

By all means!

[Malcolm Armsteen]

Ta.