- Why not?
- How does your lovely friend feel about frightening vulnerable women? How lovely is that?
- Your experiences don’t entitle you to give away women’s rights.
This is one of the trickier arguments because it is really just a very pointed version of “be kind”. A variation on it is to show you pictures of women and transwomen and ask which of them should be allowed to use the ladies. (The answer is – whichever of them is an adult human female). But it depends on the idea that the person you are speaking to is entitled to give away the rights of women he doesn’t know and who may have all kinds of reasons for being scared of male-bodied people in their private spaces. So why can’t they #BeKind to that person?
Removing women’s rights to challenge men in their spaces is a safeguarding risk (see below, lots on bathrooms there). In fact, it means the space isn’t a woman’s space any more. In which case, it isn’t safe for women OR transwomen. So “sorry, yes, your friend needs to use the men’s, maybe you could go with her to make sure she is safe… or maybe ask Stonewall to campaign for third spaces? And while you’re at it – you #BeKind.”
Forward to “No man is going to change sex just to access women’s spaces, that’s mad!”
Back to introduction