[Boiler]

Use a cubicle in the men's.

That's not going to fly; the traps in UK city centre businesses are usually disgusting or occupied for narcotic purposes. Or both.

So what do you do if you want to take a dump?

[The Weeping Angel]

Oh Look.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyw9qjeq8po

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has released interim guidance on how organisations should interpret the UK Supreme Court's ruling that a woman is defined by biological sex in law.

The new guidance, external says that, in places like hospitals, shops and restaurants, "trans women (biological men) should not be permitted to use the women's facilities". It also states that trans people should not be left without any facilities to use.

The EHRC said it was releasing interim guidance because "many people have questions about the judgement and what it means for them".

Guidance on when competitive sports can be single-sex will be published in due course, the EHRC said.

Last week the Supreme Court found the terms "woman" and "sex" in the 2010 Equality Act "refer to a biological woman and biological sex".

This means, for instance, that transgender women, who are biologically male but identify as women, can be excluded from women-only spaces.

As part of the judgement, Supreme Court judge Lord Hodge stressed that the law still gives protection against discrimination to transgender people.

The EHRC - which enforces equalities law and provides guidance to policymakers, public sector bodies and businesses - said the impact of the ruling was that "if somebody identifies as trans, they do not change sex for the purposes of the [Equality] Act, even if they have a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC)".

[Abernathy]

Yes, noted. Do you actually have anything to say?

[The Weeping Angel]

Yes, it's a fair approach to the issue that will get people on both sides frothing at the mouth with rage.

[The Weeping Angel]

[Crabcakes]

Use a cubicle in the men's.

That's not going to fly; the traps in UK city centre businesses are usually disgusting or occupied for narcotic purposes. Or both.

So what do you do if you want to take a dump?

You do what many people pushing for this interpretation of law actually wanted, which is far beyond any notion of safe spaces: you either live with a level of discomfort other people don’t have to, or you don’t go out at all in the first place.

[Crabcakes]

Yes, it's a fair approach to the issue that will get people on both sides frothing at the mouth with rage.

It’s far too simplistic though. A thoughtful, fair approach based on our current (inadequate) law would be, as suggested earlier, to say that single biological sex spaces can now exist without being automatically discriminatory, but they do not *have* to be single biological sex.

This [edit: by this I mean the ECHR interim guidance] is the ‘everything must be labelled’ approach that makes trans people have a third space all the time, thus marking them out. And do we really expect councils, hospitals, schools etc to instantly commence a building programme of third space toilets? Of course not. Slap an extra label on the disabled loos and job done.

[Andy McDandy]

As you said, it's not about solving the problem. Same as asylum seekers in hotels, small boats, and so on. Throw up 'solution' after 'solution', all as half-arsed and half-baked as each other. Get the public reaction moving towards "Oh God, what are the trannies banging on about now, bunch of perverts?". From there it's a small step to "Why can't they all just go away?", and that's it. Job done, next minority group please.

I think, sadly, that we on the left/progressive side, in general, have a greater respect for the truth than the right. We don’t want to lower our standards, and we believe in a level of basic human decency. We also believe that "the truth will out" and everyone will come round to our side naturally. We can't do 100% cynic. That makes us very bad sometimes at dealing with bad faith actors, as we know they're not here to respectfully debate but we still think that if we set a good example they'll follow it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That's awful by Maugham. I know politicians have to let a fair amount go for the principle of free speech and comment, but Starmer would be within his rights to suet. A report has already refuted this. And for vulnerable people, the last thing you do is put suicide in their head like that.

You can argue that it's awful for young trans people not to have the (rare) option of puberty blockers. That's easily understood. Why do what Maugham's doing?

[The Weeping Angel]

He does it because he's a self aggrandizing narcissist who thinks that he will save the trans community.

[RedSparrows]

As you said, it's not about solving the problem. Same as asylum seekers in hotels, small boats, and so on. Throw up 'solution' after 'solution', all as half-arsed and half-baked as each other. Get the public reaction moving towards "Oh God, what are the trannies banging on about now, bunch of perverts?". From there it's a small step to "Why can't they all just go away?", and that's it. Job done, next minority group please.

I think, sadly, that we on the left/progressive side, in general, have a greater respect for the truth than the right. We don’t want to lower our standards, and we believe in a level of basic human decency. We also believe that "the truth will out" and everyone will come round to our side naturally. We can't do 100% cynic. That makes us very bad sometimes at dealing with bad faith actors, as we know they're not here to respectfully debate but we still think that if we set a good example they'll follow it.

There's something to this (caveated that the more ideological someone is - that is, to a committed, rigid world view, the issue of truth becomes more problematic. 'Centrists', left and right, can all fall prey to this).

I think the assumption that 'truth will out', a classical supposition, is key: for Aristotle and the rest knowledge is virtue, in a sense (if I remember my ancients correctly) - knowing is part of knowing how to live. I subscribe to this. But I also subscribe to a more modern 'what in the fuck where is the truth and how can I even tell if I have it'. It's hard (impossible?) to reconcile these, and that's just one part. The more public, sore and discussed part is that which concerns us Clever Clogses: many more thoughtful types (primarily NOT on the right atm; those few that remain have gone very quiet after their defeat by populism) are, yes, having to confront how to deal with people who don't - and don't want to - accept the world is complex whilst retaining a sense of the importance of that complexity. The easy answer is to respond with reductive, simplistic bullshit of our own. To argue with pigeons. And then you've lost the thing that underpinned your moral and political activity, to lose an argument with a force that never gave a shit any which way.

[Crabcakes]

This, from Ian Dunt, is an excellent breakdown of what was actually said by the supreme court, the misinterpretation of it so far, what will happen next, and how Starmer and Labour have run away from the issue and the risk they’ve now left themselves open to.

https://iandunt.substack.com/p/everythi ... know-about

[The Weeping Angel]

[Crabcakes]

This guy is a bit of a prick at times, but the experience of his wife is the direct effect of the black and white interpretation of the SC ruling. Busybodies, jobsworths and bullies taking it upon themselves to become the gender police.

[kreuzberger]

This is both heart-breaking and was marked as nailed-on inevitability.

For the record, I don't wish a similar fate on her accusers - I refuse to debase myself with their values.

[Abernathy]

Is JK Rowling really a “transphobic, cruel, nasty person who enjoys hurting innocent people”? ( to quote one comment randomly plucked from social media)

I do not think that she is. She has a point of view, that differs in some respects from other views. But she isn’t Adolf Hitler or the devil incarnate.

The vitriol being launched at her is getting well out of hand.

https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/03/20 ... hjTt6NcyUw

[Andy McDandy]

Given her reaction to the recent court ruling (posting a picture of her cracking open a bottle of champagne), that's clearly taking pleasure in trans people's discomfort and unease.

People have opinions on all manner of things, but when you devote so much effort to pushing your opinion and lashing out at anyone who disagrees, it goes beyond opinion and into obsession.

[Abernathy]

Given her reaction to the recent court ruling (posting a picture of her cracking open a bottle of champagne), that's clearly taking pleasure in trans people's discomfort and unease.

Is it? More a mild celebration of having had her point of view (for the holding of which she has suffered astounding levels of vitriolic excoriation) publicly affirmed in a court of law, I would say.

People have opinions on all manner of things, but when you devote so much effort to pushing your opinion and lashing out at anyone who disagrees, it goes beyond opinion and into obsession.

I agree, but I’m not sure that characterising Rowling in that way is entirely fair. If you read her original essay (link in the OP), it’s clear both how she was originally drawn into taking a view publicly on the issue, and how the circumstances of her personal history (survivor of both domestic and sexual abuse) have shaped and influenced her thinking on the issue.

Maybe hitting back at vitriolic excoriation with a smidgin of your own vitriol is allowable, or at least forgiveable.

[The Weeping Angel]

Is JK Rowling really a “transphobic, cruel, nasty person who enjoys hurting innocent people”? ( to quote one comment randomly plucked from social media)

I do not think that she is. She has a point of view, that differs in some respects from other views. But she isn’t Adolf Hitler or the devil incarnate.

The vitriol being launched at her is getting well out of hand.

https://www.thepinknews.com/2025/03/20 ... hjTt6NcyUw

Quality journalism here from Pink News, in which they quote what some random people on Twitter have to say. Rowling branded this news site a clickbait comic, a very apt name.

[Crabcakes]

If Rowling was still at the stage of her original essay, I’d be inclined to agree she’d been if not unfairly maligned then the very least disproportionately so. However, that was some years ago now and she has doubled and tripled down on behaviour that can’t be explained in any other way than she simply does not like trans people. She’s picked fights with trans people on social media out of nowhere. She’s openly and deliberately misgendered people - including multiple cis-gender women who she has decided aren’t feminine enough for her. She does not apologise for any issues of mistaken identity. She is deliberately funding projects that don’t just exclude trans populations (but let’s be honest here, it’s pretty much just trans women she has an issue with) but actively seek to roll back trans rights and ensure only single sex facilities exist.

Like Linehan, or anyone else who has become radicalised in any other arena, it’s perfectly possible to see where the fork in the road was. But to suggest she’s now not well down the darker path that was on offer to her is, to put it mildly, being extremely generous. When people show you who they are, believe them - and she has repeatedly shown who she now sadly is.

I put this to you - if we saw Farage posting images of him having a cigar, a drink and blatant delight about the deportation of refugees, would that be “mild celebration”, or tasteless gloating? Because both that fictional scenario and the real post from Rowling involve rights and freedoms being taken away from an already frequently victimised minority to the open glee of bigots. So why argue it’s OK for Rowling, yet we can see Farage for what he is?