This is less "reigniting" and more "pouring gasoline on an already fiercely burning" war. Bathrooms come in roughly two forms: Rooms of multiple occupancy. You open the door and walk in and there...
This is less "reigniting" and more "pouring gasoline on an already fiercely burning" war.
Bathrooms come in roughly two forms:
Rooms of multiple occupancy. You open the door and walk in and there are a set of basins and cubicles and some urinals if this is the gents. More than one person uses the room at any time.
Rooms of single occupancy. You open the door and walk in and then lock that door. There's one loo and one hand basin and there's only one person in the room at a time.
It's very easy to convert the single occupancy rooms into gender neutral bathrooms. You change the sign on the door and you provision more bins.
It's difficult to convert rooms of multiple occupancy into gender neutral bathrooms. This is because cis men pose a risk of harm to women. Transphobes claim that the risk is from trans women, or from cis men who dress as women in order to gain access to these spaces. We know this is a transphobic argument because 1) cis men who want access to these spaces can just put on janitor clothes and carry a mop and 2) cis men pose a risk of harm to everyone else, and if transphobes really cared about safety they'd care about safety of children using male loos.
Gender neutral rooms of single occupancy could increase provision of loos for women, make queuing more equitable (it's a long established problem that women have to queue for longer than men), increase provision of loos for disabled people, and increase safety.
I understand the sentiment and I agree with the statement (read properly) but at the same time I'm not sure how I feel about it because it feels similar to the logic racists use to make statements...
and while it doesn't actually imply "every man is a risk to all women", it could easily be read that way.
I understand the sentiment and I agree with the statement (read properly) but at the same time I'm not sure how I feel about it because it feels similar to the logic racists use to make statements that POC are threatening.
Women have to queue longer because you can fit more wall-mounted urinals in the same space as women's stalls. Gender neutral bathrooms seem to be more stalls (at least the few I've encountered)...
Gender neutral rooms of single occupancy could increase provision of loos for women, make queuing more equitable (it's a long established problem that women have to queue for longer than men), increase provision of loos for disabled people, and increase safety.
Women have to queue longer because you can fit more wall-mounted urinals in the same space as women's stalls. Gender neutral bathrooms seem to be more stalls (at least the few I've encountered) than anything else, which means now everyone is queuing because the space isn't being used as efficiently. If there is a way to avoid that, sure, but I don't like the idea of making things equitable by making it less efficient.
I would highly encourage you to look to actual architects and what they suggest. A group of highly skilled architects and engineers have already decided to look at and tackle the problem of...
I would highly encourage you to look to actual architects and what they suggest. A group of highly skilled architects and engineers have already decided to look at and tackle the problem of bathrooms and redesigned them entirely. The idea that you need to fit more wall-mounted urinals in the same space is simply incorrect and many improvements to throughput can be made simply by signalling and separating the space in a way which allows more people to accomplish what they are there for more quickly.
I was sure someone had figured it out. Thanks for the link. I've used a few neutral bathrooms and found them lacking as they seemed like they'd replaced all urinals with less stalls. We have one...
I was sure someone had figured it out. Thanks for the link. I've used a few neutral bathrooms and found them lacking as they seemed like they'd replaced all urinals with less stalls. We have one in our office that is like that as well and I've found myself waiting outside before.
I know you've elaborated on this before @DanBC but it seems wild to me how mainstream this is in the UK given its relative lack of success in breaking into public discourse in other commonwealth...
I know you've elaborated on this before @DanBC but it seems wild to me how mainstream this is in the UK given its relative lack of success in breaking into public discourse in other commonwealth countries. It may even be worse than the USA on this issue? I know the 'bathroom bill' failed in NC, for example.
So, I want to try to start to answer this. Here's a good, recent, blog post that describes where we are and how to move forward with trans liberation....
Let's look at politics. We currently have Conservative Government in the UK. The Senedd Cymru (Welsh Assembly) is led by Labour. The Scottish Parliament is led by the SNP. Northern Ireland -- well, it's complicated.
The difference is that the logo for the Government Equalities Office had to be removed, because Maya Forstater complained about it and the current government doesn't want to be seen as promoting something like an anti-bullying toolkit to protect LGBTQI+ children from bullying and aggression. Here's a useful thread: https://twitter.com/WhatTheTrans/status/1258154370014871552?s=20
"All pupils should receive teaching on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) relationships during their school years. Secondary schools should include LGBT content in their teaching. Primary schools are strongly encouraged, and enabled, when teaching about different types of family, to include families with same sex parents."
THis bit, however, opens the door to not providing info for trans pupils:
"This means schools are free to include a full range of issues, ideas and materials in their curriculum. Schools are not required to equally weight all of the protected characteristics within the curriculum." (gender reassignment is a protected characteristic).
And this bit is coded transphobia:
"We are aware that topics involving gender and biological sex can be complex and sensitive matters to navigate. You should not reinforce harmful stereotypes, for instance by suggesting that children might be a different gender based on their personality and interests or the clothes they prefer to wear. Resources used in teaching about this topic must always be age-appropriate and evidence based. Materials which suggest that non-conformity to gender stereotypes should be seen as synonymous with having a different gender identity should not be used and you should not work with external agencies or organisations that produce such material. While teachers should not suggest to a child that their non-compliance with gender stereotypes means that either their personality or their body is wrong and in need of changing, teachers should always seek to treat individual students with sympathy and support."
She said this because a few things around transphobia were causing young people (who are progressive and inclusive) to leave the party. This gets a bit complicated, but there are roughly two main things: wings over Scotland, and Joanna Cherry.
Wings: Scotland has had a polarising, divisive, debate about independence from the UK for some time now. One of the prominent people in that campaign is a blogger called "Wings over Scotland". He is notoriously homophobic and transphobic.
But because the debate in Scotland around independence is so fierce he hasn't (as far as I know) been expelled from the party, and many in the SNP reference and support his work.
"Thanks, but no thanks. Hate is as legitimate an emotion as love or indifference and, like our thinking, our emotions are not a police matter. Of course, say we say No to criminal behaviour. But we #SayYesToHate."
We are Fair Cop is a small organisation. One of the people involved is Sarah Phillimore (another barrister). She's recently been suspended from Twitter, and had other social media accounts closed, for transphobia and antisemitism. One notable feature of UK gender critical people is they refuse to condemn racism or sexism or homophobia so long as the person doing it is also transphobic. So, when phillimore got banned a bunch of GCs supported her, and denounced the ban. One of these people was Joanna Cherry.
Supporting someone who got kicked of social media for antisemitism, and the transphobia, seems to have caused her to have been "demoted" within the SNP, so she's no longer on the front bench. (Although she's still an SNP member and hasn't had the whip removed).
That's all a bit complicated (and I'm not great at writing it out) but it's basically she's transphobic, she supported a group who ran a campaign to "say yes to hate" and she supported a person kicked off twitter for antisemitism and transphobia. She then got demoted within her party.
The Green Party is small. They have a a group called Green Party Women. It has two co-chairs. One is a trans woman (we love to see this). The other is a transphobe (because this is the UK). Here's a statement from the transphobe after being elected to the co-chair postion: https://twitter.com/EmmaBatemanGPW/status/1343594020342296577
That article mentions OFCOM (the regulator of broadcast media). The BBC has a long running problem of putting up people with severely polarised opinions in the misguided attempt at balance. So, they'll have scientists on to talk about the mainstream scientific opinion around climate change and global warming, and then they'll have some arsehole from a Koch brothers funded anti-science campaign group. The BBC routinely frames stories in a transphobic way. So does the Guardian.
I mention those two because we kind of expect the right wing press (Daily Mail, Telegraph, Times, Spectator) to be anti-trans. But we don't expect centrist orgs like BBC or left wing papers like the Guardian to be transphobic, yet they are.
Finally, Katy Montgomerie is a woman in the south of England. She is trans inclusive. She has an active twitter presence. She often talks to transphobes on twitter, because they seek her out to confront her. She rounds up the worst discussion on a weekly livestreamed vlog. It's useful to watch because it gives an idea of the current ideas floating around the gender critical movement. https://www.youtube.com/c/KatyMontgomerie
Yes. Also, the court made an order, but they stayed the order until an appeal has been heard. This means that the NHS could continue to provide treatment as they have been doing until the appeal...
Yes.
Also, the court made an order, but they stayed the order until an appeal has been heard. This means that the NHS could continue to provide treatment as they have been doing until the appeal has happened. But they've chosen not to. They've chosen to end all treatment for people under 18.
This situation in England is a bit complicated. For care that isn't trans health care if you're over 18 they assume you have capacity to make your own choices. If you're 16 or 17 they assume you can consent to medical treatment, and that you can decline anything but life-saving medical treatment. If if it's life saving treatment and the child declines it the case goes to the courts of protection for a ruling. If you're under 16 they look at "gillick competence" -- they see if the child can weigh up the information and make a decision. If the child is gillick competent then they can consent to treatment and the parents don't need to get involved (although the treating team will usually try to get the parents involved).
For trans healthcare it was a bit different.
The child would be referred to a gender clinic. These had huge wait lists (over a year, sometimes over two years). This clinic would do psychological and psychiatric screening. They'd provide advice about social transition. (Because for some children this is all they need). And then for the small number of children who needed medication like PBs they'd refer on to an endocrinology clinic. For medication the child had to be gillick competent, and then there had to be agreement from the child, their parent, the doctor at the gender clinic, and the doctor at the endo clinic. There were many hurdles in place.
This is less "reigniting" and more "pouring gasoline on an already fiercely burning" war.
Bathrooms come in roughly two forms:
Rooms of multiple occupancy. You open the door and walk in and there are a set of basins and cubicles and some urinals if this is the gents. More than one person uses the room at any time.
Rooms of single occupancy. You open the door and walk in and then lock that door. There's one loo and one hand basin and there's only one person in the room at a time.
It's very easy to convert the single occupancy rooms into gender neutral bathrooms. You change the sign on the door and you provision more bins.
It's difficult to convert rooms of multiple occupancy into gender neutral bathrooms. This is because cis men pose a risk of harm to women. Transphobes claim that the risk is from trans women, or from cis men who dress as women in order to gain access to these spaces. We know this is a transphobic argument because 1) cis men who want access to these spaces can just put on janitor clothes and carry a mop and 2) cis men pose a risk of harm to everyone else, and if transphobes really cared about safety they'd care about safety of children using male loos.
Gender neutral rooms of single occupancy could increase provision of loos for women, make queuing more equitable (it's a long established problem that women have to queue for longer than men), increase provision of loos for disabled people, and increase safety.
Is there actually any evidence to support this?
I understand the sentiment and I agree with the statement (read properly) but at the same time I'm not sure how I feel about it because it feels similar to the logic racists use to make statements that POC are threatening.
I mean, yes, obviously. That nuance is not lost on me. But nuance is not really the public's forté and making sweeping statements feels counter productive to me?
Yea I think the way it was used in the OP was fine. I was just commenting on your meta-commentary of the phrase.
Women have to queue longer because you can fit more wall-mounted urinals in the same space as women's stalls. Gender neutral bathrooms seem to be more stalls (at least the few I've encountered) than anything else, which means now everyone is queuing because the space isn't being used as efficiently. If there is a way to avoid that, sure, but I don't like the idea of making things equitable by making it less efficient.
I would highly encourage you to look to actual architects and what they suggest. A group of highly skilled architects and engineers have already decided to look at and tackle the problem of bathrooms and redesigned them entirely. The idea that you need to fit more wall-mounted urinals in the same space is simply incorrect and many improvements to throughput can be made simply by signalling and separating the space in a way which allows more people to accomplish what they are there for more quickly.
I was sure someone had figured it out. Thanks for the link. I've used a few neutral bathrooms and found them lacking as they seemed like they'd replaced all urinals with less stalls. We have one in our office that is like that as well and I've found myself waiting outside before.
Maybe if men needed to queue we'd see them pushing for more provision.
I know you've elaborated on this before @DanBC but it seems wild to me how mainstream this is in the UK given its relative lack of success in breaking into public discourse in other commonwealth countries. It may even be worse than the USA on this issue? I know the 'bathroom bill' failed in NC, for example.
So, I want to try to start to answer this.
Here's a good, recent, blog post that describes where we are and how to move forward with trans liberation. https://harryjosiegiles.medium.com/trans-in-the-uk-what-the-hell-are-we-going-to-do-73fef741cef6
Let's look at politics. We currently have Conservative Government in the UK. The Senedd Cymru (Welsh Assembly) is led by Labour. The Scottish Parliament is led by the SNP. Northern Ireland -- well, it's complicated.
Have a read of this anti-bullying material. https://equaliteach.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/FREE-TO-BE-rev5.pdf
Compare it to an older version: https://web.archive.org/web/20200501154031/https://equaliteach.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/FREE-TO-BE-rev3.pdf
The difference is that the logo for the Government Equalities Office had to be removed, because Maya Forstater complained about it and the current government doesn't want to be seen as promoting something like an anti-bullying toolkit to protect LGBTQI+ children from bullying and aggression. Here's a useful thread: https://twitter.com/WhatTheTrans/status/1258154370014871552?s=20
See also the new, statutory guidance for schools around planning Sex, Health, and Relationships lessons: https://www.gov.uk/guidance/plan-your-relationships-sex-and-health-curriculum
This sounds good:
"All pupils should receive teaching on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) relationships during their school years. Secondary schools should include LGBT content in their teaching. Primary schools are strongly encouraged, and enabled, when teaching about different types of family, to include families with same sex parents."
THis bit, however, opens the door to not providing info for trans pupils:
"This means schools are free to include a full range of issues, ideas and materials in their curriculum. Schools are not required to equally weight all of the protected characteristics within the curriculum." (gender reassignment is a protected characteristic).
And this bit is coded transphobia:
"We are aware that topics involving gender and biological sex can be complex and sensitive matters to navigate. You should not reinforce harmful stereotypes, for instance by suggesting that children might be a different gender based on their personality and interests or the clothes they prefer to wear. Resources used in teaching about this topic must always be age-appropriate and evidence based. Materials which suggest that non-conformity to gender stereotypes should be seen as synonymous with having a different gender identity should not be used and you should not work with external agencies or organisations that produce such material. While teachers should not suggest to a child that their non-compliance with gender stereotypes means that either their personality or their body is wrong and in need of changing, teachers should always seek to treat individual students with sympathy and support."
The First Minister for Scotland, and leader of the SNP, recently said that there is no place for transphobia within the party. https://twitter.com/NicolaSturgeon/status/1354521063502336001?s=20
She said this because a few things around transphobia were causing young people (who are progressive and inclusive) to leave the party. This gets a bit complicated, but there are roughly two main things: wings over Scotland, and Joanna Cherry.
Wings: Scotland has had a polarising, divisive, debate about independence from the UK for some time now. One of the prominent people in that campaign is a blogger called "Wings over Scotland". He is notoriously homophobic and transphobic.
https://athousandflowers.net/2017/07/29/if-youre-still-defending-wings-over-scotland-youre-barking-up-the-wrong-tree/
http://www.betternation.org/2014/06/yes-together-robin-mcalpine-wings-over-scotland-and-the-progressive-whitewashing-of-misogyny/
But because the debate in Scotland around independence is so fierce he hasn't (as far as I know) been expelled from the party, and many in the SNP reference and support his work.
Cherry: Have a look at this tweet from West Yorkshire Police supporting transgender day of remembrance: https://twitter.com/WestYorksPolice/status/1329725222338125826?s=20
A perfectly normal tweet showing support for people who are the victims of hate crime, but also hate in general.
Now look at this tweet from a small campaigning group called "We Are Fair Cop": https://twitter.com/WeAreFairCop/status/1329748991060357122?s=20
"Thanks, but no thanks. Hate is as legitimate an emotion as love or indifference and, like our thinking, our emotions are not a police matter. Of course, say we say No to criminal behaviour. But we #SayYesToHate."
Here's a tweet from We are Fair Cop to a barrister and SNP member called Joanna Cherry, thanking her for financial and moral support. https://twitter.com/WeAreFairCop/status/1329156272336363520?s=20
We are Fair Cop is a small organisation. One of the people involved is Sarah Phillimore (another barrister). She's recently been suspended from Twitter, and had other social media accounts closed, for transphobia and antisemitism. One notable feature of UK gender critical people is they refuse to condemn racism or sexism or homophobia so long as the person doing it is also transphobic. So, when phillimore got banned a bunch of GCs supported her, and denounced the ban. One of these people was Joanna Cherry.
Supporting someone who got kicked of social media for antisemitism, and the transphobia, seems to have caused her to have been "demoted" within the SNP, so she's no longer on the front bench. (Although she's still an SNP member and hasn't had the whip removed).
That's all a bit complicated (and I'm not great at writing it out) but it's basically she's transphobic, she supported a group who ran a campaign to "say yes to hate" and she supported a person kicked off twitter for antisemitism and transphobia. She then got demoted within her party.
That's not the end though, because in the UK parliament we have a "Human Rights Committee". https://twitter.com/HumanRightsCtte
They just appointed Joanna Cherry as joint chair: https://twitter.com/HarrietHarman/status/1357626440204881922
Back to UK politics.
The Green Party is small. They have a a group called Green Party Women. It has two co-chairs. One is a trans woman (we love to see this). The other is a transphobe (because this is the UK). Here's a statement from the transphobe after being elected to the co-chair postion: https://twitter.com/EmmaBatemanGPW/status/1343594020342296577
And the Equalities Minister has met with the LGB Alliance. They're a transphobic hate group. https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/5050/uk-equalities-minister-antitrans-group/
That article mentions OFCOM (the regulator of broadcast media). The BBC has a long running problem of putting up people with severely polarised opinions in the misguided attempt at balance. So, they'll have scientists on to talk about the mainstream scientific opinion around climate change and global warming, and then they'll have some arsehole from a Koch brothers funded anti-science campaign group. The BBC routinely frames stories in a transphobic way. So does the Guardian.
I mention those two because we kind of expect the right wing press (Daily Mail, Telegraph, Times, Spectator) to be anti-trans. But we don't expect centrist orgs like BBC or left wing papers like the Guardian to be transphobic, yet they are.
Finally, Katy Montgomerie is a woman in the south of England. She is trans inclusive. She has an active twitter presence. She often talks to transphobes on twitter, because they seek her out to confront her. She rounds up the worst discussion on a weekly livestreamed vlog. It's useful to watch because it gives an idea of the current ideas floating around the gender critical movement. https://www.youtube.com/c/KatyMontgomerie
Yes.
Also, the court made an order, but they stayed the order until an appeal has been heard. This means that the NHS could continue to provide treatment as they have been doing until the appeal has happened. But they've chosen not to. They've chosen to end all treatment for people under 18.
This situation in England is a bit complicated. For care that isn't trans health care if you're over 18 they assume you have capacity to make your own choices. If you're 16 or 17 they assume you can consent to medical treatment, and that you can decline anything but life-saving medical treatment. If if it's life saving treatment and the child declines it the case goes to the courts of protection for a ruling. If you're under 16 they look at "gillick competence" -- they see if the child can weigh up the information and make a decision. If the child is gillick competent then they can consent to treatment and the parents don't need to get involved (although the treating team will usually try to get the parents involved).
For trans healthcare it was a bit different.
The child would be referred to a gender clinic. These had huge wait lists (over a year, sometimes over two years). This clinic would do psychological and psychiatric screening. They'd provide advice about social transition. (Because for some children this is all they need). And then for the small number of children who needed medication like PBs they'd refer on to an endocrinology clinic. For medication the child had to be gillick competent, and then there had to be agreement from the child, their parent, the doctor at the gender clinic, and the doctor at the endo clinic. There were many hurdles in place.
Here's the amendment to the gender treatment guidelines from NHS England: https://www.england.nhs.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Amendment-to-Gender-Identity-Development-Service-Specification-for-Children-and-Adolescents.pdf?fbclid=IwAR0bCvop7iP1PB3WX5OE7Qxw9GHHsH-cZ5khTlDYFbdCaity6pXWNTPgjCA