Tag: single sex spaces

Categories
Healthcare Parent

As a grandmother I want the future of my my granddaughters…to include full participation in public life

This matters to me because as a grandmother I want the future of my my granddaughters in particular to include full participation in public life.  The onslaught on the rights of women and children will limit that participation by making single sex facilities unsafe by allowing males free access.  They will also be limited by the removal of women only shortlists and the right to single sex sports.

I have spoken to as many people as I can in my daily life and written to my MP and several retail outlets pointing out the dangers of self idenitfication and the removal of single sex provisions.

I have been dismissed as having a bee in my bonnet which detracts from the overall respect I am shown.

Sophie Smith, Mother, grandmother

Categories
Healthcare Public Sector

I work in a university where there are no female toilets anymore

I care because self id has swept into every single workplace throughout the UK with no change in the law. I work in a university where there are no female toilets anymore, where disabled toilets have been renamed accessible to open them up for Trans/Non binary.

A disabled toilet loses all meaning if you open them up to everyone. They are scarce as it is.

But while it has swept in under the guise of Stonewall training, it cannot be questioned.  You must not speak badly about any aspect.

As it stands there is nowhere a woman can go where a man cannot follow.

I’ve shared posts on social media, shared facts about the equality act, donated to crowd funding.

I am threatened every day on social media. Called a Nazi, told I should be raped, told I shouldn’t have children because I’m a horrible human. Told they will find me and rape me with their “Lady cock” called a bitch, whore, hater of trans women.

It’s never ending abuse.

Eve

Categories
Public Sector

To suggest we can identify out of that oppression is disgusting

I care because young people are being sterilised. Because women deserve and need single sex spaces. Because we are oppressed due to our biological sex and to suggest we can identify out of that oppression is disgusting.

I retweeted JK on my main account and engaged friends using ‘terf’ etc. I’m too tired to worry I’ll lose friends. But I probably wouldn’t discuss at work.

SJ

Categories
Public Sector

I have spoken in my role as a councillor on Leeds City Council

This matters to me because we need and fought for single sex services, spaces and language and I will not give them up.

I have spoken in my role as a councillor on Leeds City Council.

I have been reported to the police, to my employer and threatened.

Sarah Field, Councillor, Leeds City Councillor

Categories
Others

Self ID creates a huge hole in norms of day to day safeguarding

So many reasons. I care VERY MUCH that women’s voices seem to be repeatedly and routinely ignored, disparaged and attacked. I firmly believe that no child is born into the wrong body. I have gay siblings and the idea that they are somehow fundamentally ‘wrong’ strikes me as deeply and distressingly homophobic, and that this opens the door to a warped form of conversion therapy.

I do not think it is possible to change sex, and that one of the worst aspects of this is the potential for exploitation  – financial or emotional/psychological/sexual – of troubled individuals (plus it allows for such horrors as forced sex change /conversion therapy such as is seen in Iran). I think that sexual predators DO go to great lengths to access potential victims and that self ID creates a huge hole in what have been up to now socially accepted norms of day to day safeguarding for women and girls in certain contexts – I believe that both men and women should be able to access single sex spaces and to know that those spaces will be single sex.

It is simply not bigotry to express concerns for the safety of women and girls. It is not hate to state that sex exists and that women and girls are subject to discrimination (at best) BECAUSE THEY ARE FEMALE.

I have done mainly social media, and that mainly (but not entirely) anonymously.

Not experienced consequences on a significant scale – but my partner has struggled with my interest in speaking out about this issue.

Milly

Categories
Public Sector

Everyone has been appalled and disgusted

The protection of the biological definition of women and of women-only spaces, services and sports matter to me as I don’t want men in any place where I or any other woman or girl could be naked, semi-naked or vulnerable.  I want to restore clear, biology-based definitions of men and women.

I don’t think it is right to compel people to behave or speak in accordance with an ideology that they don’t believe in and which is prejudicial to the interests of women, girls and vulnerable adults.  The current situation seems to be a mix of a quasi-religion that allows no heresy and McCarthyism.  Freedom of speech is in danger.

I want to establish the principle that women have the right to say no to men’s demands and that women don’t have to sacrifice themselves to allow men to have what they want.

I have spoken to colleagues and other people I work with – in the high-profile, prestigious place I work there are lots of people who work there who are not employees of the organisation – about the implications of the organisation’s transgender policy which has been dictated by Stonewall. 

Some people have not understood the problem until I pointed it out.  Everyone has been appalled and disgusted.

HR are completely unresponsive on the transgender policy so I formally contacted a very senior (non-HR) member of the staff who I work with from time to time about the implications of the transgender policy.  He listened very kindly and seemed very concerned, but it turns out that he was mainly interested in whether I had been sexually harassed at work (I haven’t). 

However, the transgender policy has been amended, I assume as a result of my intervention to take out the passage “transgender people can have any sexual orientation.  For example, a transgender man (someone who lives as a man today) may be primarily attracted to other men (and identify as a gay man), may be primarily attracted to women (an identify as a straight man), or have any other sexual orientation”.  

The management evidently took notice when I pointed out that the passage made clear that they knew they were expecting people to change their clothes or use the toilet in the presence of heterosexual people of the other sex and that that could make them legally responsible for any harassment. Apart from that keeping the Stonewall Diversity Champion status and appearing woke seem to be much more important that the safety, privacy, dignity and peace of mind of the staff.

I follow gender critical organisations on Facebook and I used to comment on Twitter, but I got barred for speaking up for women.  I also comment on newspaper articles, primarily in the Times. 

I would have had qualms about doing so at work if I had any desire for promotion or if the criteria for my annual assessment were substantially subjective or if I had longer to go until I retire. I’ve also been very careful to keep all my complaints strictly formal and via my work IT network so that if harassment arises it will be possible to trace its source via the network.

I’ve been barred from Twitter and some of my comments on the Times have been deleted.

S, Adult human female

Categories
Lesbians

I was horrified at men approaching me on lesbian dating sites

This matters to me as I feel I would have been put down the trans route if I were growing up today. Typical gender non conforming child who grew into a same sex attracted woman.

I became single after a long relationship and after a long illness I recovered emotionally and physically to go back on the dating scene. I was horrified at men approaching me on lesbian dating sites. Most of them didn’t declare this and I worked it out.

I felt humiliated and a bit scared that I might have met someone in person without knowing they were biological men. It chilled me to the bone. I can now spot them and block them, but it was unpleasant and degrading for me at the time.

One person had been stalking me on line and in my social life – I had that experience from men in my 20’s and 30’s. I found it impossible to understand why they were there in the first place and it led me to question what the hell is going on.

I created a twitter account. I discuss it with friends and family. I also challenge the new norm at work by calling out the ridiculousness of language and mixed sex toilets.

Some friends especially the ‘woke’ younger women are unkind or think I’m old fashioned.

EJ, Proud vintage lesbian who feels like an outsider all over again but this time it’s the heterosexuals who are my allies, magdelen berns appreciation society

Categories
Healthcare Public Sector

The civil service is not impartial while it unquestioningly adopts Stonewall’s ideologies

Women and children’s safety and well-being is being rolled back. In plain sight. The civil service is not impartial while it unquestioningly adopts Stonewall’s ideologies. Women – and lesbians in particular – are afraid of speaking up. I have questioned us using Stonewall for gathering adult experiences on child sex abuse and been accused of being homophobic as a result.

I responded to GRA consultation. I’ve written to and met my MP. I’ve said no at work to the expansion of harmful practices as regards children (giving them unlicensed drugs), and blindly following Stonewall and Mermaids.

I have been accused of being homophobic and of not caring about trans people.

I care because I want to use spaces such as changing rooms, toilets, etc without being harassed and/or intimidated.

I have responded to my child’s school’s consultation on PHSE. I have reminded local organisations about the Equalities Act 2010.

A, terrified public policy woman

Categories
Public Sector

I value my rights and will not sit back while they are stolen

As a girl and woman I am structurally oppressed. I know generations of women and girls have fought and effected change furthering the rights of women and girls. I have joined that struggle and secured sex based rights. I care about this issue because I value my rights and will not sit back while they are stolen .

I have taken direct action , I have written articles I have researched information pertaining to women in prison, female changing rooms etc, I have organised a borough wide meeting alerting the community about the attack on female sex based rights.

I have been blacklisted.

Jill, Community activist

Categories
Healthcare survivor

There is a special bond that forms between women in the absence of men

My adult life has been marred by bullying, invariably by men, especially those in positions of power, but also from those with whom I was intimate.

I experienced verbal and psychological abuse from my husband, directed at me and my children. I was fortunate to be directed to my local DV shelter by a friend. We did not have to move in, but received help from the wonderful women who worked there.

As I age, I find more and more relief in the company of women. There is a special bond that forms between women in the absence of men. The space feels safer and warmer, and women respond differently to one another when not subjected to the male gaze.

That women who need single-sex spaces for recovery can have that taken from them by the insistence by men who claim to be are women is almost impossibly painful. Those spaces have been set up by women, for women. I feel so angry when men demand the right to enter.

I have responded online to consultations, written to MPs and MSPs. I have donated online to campaign for women’s rights. I have spoken out on social media, using my own name, despite threats of violence, and to my career.

Until last year, I was tied up in an unhappy marriage and too unwell to travel. Now coronavirus is interfering with my freedom, but I hope to join up with other women in the near future, either to meet with  ReSisters group, or attend an organised meeting.

I have received public threats on Twitter, both of physical harm and threats to my career, one of which was a credible threat to report me to the governing body of my profession, which fortunately was not carried through.

I am fortunate to have lived in a place where I was physically out of reach for physical threats or UK police reports and therefore I have felt able to speak more freely than otherwise.

Sarah, 50ish human female