I Don't Think Any Female Spaces Are Inherently Safe

Some things just go together. Macaroni and cheese. Peaches and cream. Comedy specials and accusations of transphobia.

It doesn't matter how many jokes there are about black people or women or AIDS or child abuse or religion or the Holocaust, if there’s a single trans joke in the mix, that’s all the media will be talking about.

But as I pointed out in my article, Ricky Gervais’ Trans Jokes Aren’t Funny. That’s The Problem, Ricky Gervais’ jokes about “old-fashioned women” weren’t really jokes at all. Instead, he just repeated, almost word for word, what trans activists are saying on Twitter every day.

And as I also pointed out, while the debate about female-only spaces is inevitably labelled transphobic, the problem—for most people—isn’t trans people at all. It’s the ease with which men can (and do) abuse policies that legally recognise anybody who claims to be a woman.

T wasn’t convinced.

---

T:

I don't think any female spaces are inherently safe. Prisons least of all - behaviour which threatens the safety of another person should be punished and safeguards need to be put in place. But pretending any bathroom or prison is safe for women is kind of laughable yo me. It's still biological men that fulfill the largest threat to women, of the biological kind, or otherwise.

How many women miraculously get pregnant in prisons? How many sexual assaults happen in bathrooms? How about in homes? Maybe we should split homes into female and male residences if we really want to protect women seeing as thats where the bulk of abuse happens. But still, definitely agree that when we switch off the critical parts of our brains, the outcome is never good.

---

Steve QJ:

I don't think any female spaces are inherently safe.

I'm really not sure what point you're making here. No, of course female spaces aren't inherently safe. No space is inherently safe. But one thing we know for certain, so certainly that we've built portions of our society around it, is that some males present a significant danger to females.

There's no way, at least not that I can think of, to completely remove this danger. If it were possible to tell which men are potentially abusive and which ones aren't, that would be great. But as it's not, we offer women privacy from men in spaces where they'll be undressed or alone or particularly vulnerable.

Are you suggesting that we just abandon any attempt to do this because women are more likely to be raped at home? Do you think rape is the only standard by which women's right to privacy should be measured?

As for how many women "miraculously" get pregnant in women's prisons, I'm glad you asked...(https://nypost.com/2022/04/14/edna-mahan-womens-prisoners-pregnant-after-sex-with-transgender-inmate/).

---

T:

My point Steve, is that I think transgender panic is misplaced. And in case you're being deliberately obtuse, biologically male people are routinely arrested and charged for abuse of female prisoners. I would Google it and report for your reading pleasure but I think you're up for that little bit of research. Maybe we should ban male prison guards and cleaners from women's prisons? Now that might do something worthwhile.

The point you missed is I personally believe that if people like you, or everyone's favourite punching bag JK Rowling, really wanted to help women then your efforts are better spent elsewhere than keeping the incredibly low number of "supposedly" rather than "actually" trans women (who seem to be attempting to game the system and who I think should be punished for illegal behaviour, not identity) from accessing "female spaces".

---

Steve QJ:

Maybe we should ban male prison guards and cleaners from women's prisons? Now that might do something worthwhile.

Yes! I completely agree! It's fascinating how people seem to believe that highlighting one problem means I can't also be concerned about others. Let me put it very plainly; I'm against all situations that can easily be taken advantage of by males who want to assault or harass females. But talking about male prison guards doesn't leave women fearing for their jobs or being sent death threats and hate. So I’m writing about this.

And bear in mind, I am a male! This isn't a "panic." This isn't about demonisation. I'm not saying that all males are rapists. I'm saying that sex-segregation exists for very good reason. And I welcome the fact that I'm included in that segregation, even though I pose no threat to women, because I understand that including all males makes women safer and more comfortable (aka, I care about women's boundaries).

I said this explicitly in the article, but it seems it's almost impossible to get some people to hear this (it's telling that even though I repeatedly say "men", all some people seem to hear is "trans women"), so let me try again; I'm talking about men, not trans women, men. The issue is the growing embrace of a legal definition of "woman" that makes "old-fashioned" women indistinguishable from men. By the definition of "woman" written into law in some countries, there is no way to argue that I, right now, am not a woman. It's not simply about rape (though obviously this is a concern), it's about privacy and comfort.

It's about male bodies in changing rooms with women and girls. It's about fairness in sport. Just yesterday, I watched an interview with a woman who pointed out that male police officers in the UK are allowed to carry out intimate body searches on women because a trans officer went to court to fight for the right to do so.

Now, as a male, the idea that I would place my feelings over the feelings and privacy of women in this way is unthinkable. Even if I really believed I was a woman, I would never dream of fighting for this tiny piece of validation, knowing that it would make women uncomfortable.

And again this is the real point. You can say that this police officer is one individual trans woman who doesn't care about woman's boundaries. And sure, you'd be right. But now, thanks to that one person, there is a legal precedent that potentially affects every single woman in the UK. So no, I'm not being obtuse at all. It just feels like you're being short-sighted.

---

The trans debate, at least for the past few years, has been one of the most frustrating, perplexing, self-defeating debacles I’ve ever seen. A heady mix of nauseating misogyny leading to fear-induced transphobia, and both sides failing to think through the simplest implications of their arguments.

But the tragedy, as is so often the case, is that the extremists don’t speak for most of the trans community. And while those extremists alienate everybody who doesn’t agree with 100% of their demands, public opinion is shifting against the trans community in general.

There’s a limit to the sweeping societal changes you can demand, without allowing discussion, before you wear away at people’s empathy. There’s only so long you can scream “transphobe!” at every conflicting opinion before the word stops carrying any weight.

After all, if Ricky Gervais repeating trans activist rhetoric is transphobic, maybe the problem isn’t Ricky Gervais.