Everyone should watch this and if they are from the Uk they should feel embarrassed and asamed. I've given up with this country so I don't give a shit..If I want Netanyahu to be my Prime Minister ......well I'd shoot myself first.
Viewcode this came on at the end of your entertaining Prada clip.....
Re the police - and indeed other public services - what @Nigelb said in response to my comment on the previous thread goes to the heart of the issue.
"It ought not to be difficult to understand that training to deal with existing prejudices cannot mean replacing them with new ones."
It ought not to be. But I rather fear that that is exactly what has happened. Too many public services have adopted new prejudices and created conflicts of interest which impede the proper exercise of their functions.
Exactly. In the rush to avoid being seen as racist the police have now been totally captured by a narrative that only whites can be the bad guy in a situation like this.
Its also why we have so many happy to comply with the latest DEI bullshit around 'gender' to the utter disregard of womens' rights.
Our Uni is planning on not following the recent government advice, it seems.
"On 21 May 2026, the EHRC Code of Practice following the Supreme Court's ruling defining sex within the Equalities Act (2010) was presented to Parliament. With this news, we want to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring dignity, safety and respect for all people on campus, including our trans, non-binary and intersex staff, students and visitors. As a University, we have zero tolerance for harassment, intimidation, or discrimination, including transphobia, in line with our Dignity and Respect Policy, and we will act where concerns are raised.
Parliament now has 40 days to consider the Code of Practice before a date is set for it to be enacted. The EHRC Code of Practice will automatically come into force if Parliament does not pass a resolution against it within 40 days. We will use this period to consider all of the implications of the Code for the University.
In the meantime, students and staff should continue to use the gendered spaces - including toilets and changing rooms - that align with their gender identity. No one should be questioned or challenged for doing so. If anyone does experience questioning, confrontation, or behaviour that makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, this can be reported immediately through the Support and Report tool so that appropriate action will be taken.
In addition to gendered facilities, all gender toilets are available across campus. These can be located using the campus map, if you prefer to use them.
We believe that actions speak louder than words when it comes to pursuing equity for LGBTQ+ people within the University community. Discussions are currently underway with Campus Infrastructure, Campus Services, and the Health and Safety Team to establish a clear, long term University policy for toilet provision across campus."
Look at it this way. They are giving women a cast iron case for indirect discrimination claims, reporting to the HSE for breach of health & safety rules (a criminal offence) and possibly also a breach of the regulations in place since October 2024 to take steps to prevent sexual harassment of staff.
This will provide lots of work for all my lawyer friends specialising in this area of the law.
They are also facilitating criminal offences such as voyeurism and indecent exposure and in breach of their safeguarding obligations to students.
Telling a woman faced with a man staring at her while she is changing that she must not query his presence or challenge him is to undermine the steps she needs to take to keep herself safe. It is grotesque advice. Utterly grotesque. It tells women - put up with fear, risk or crime - and don't you dare do anything to protect yourself because the feelings of the man making you feel at risk are more important.
I'd like to ask men here with daughters? Is that what you tell them? Is that what your advice is? And if it isn't why is it ok for a place which has a duty of care to them to give such advice?
I'd go with Linehan's tweet, the one that got him into trouble with the police (and which the police have grudgingly admitted was a wrongful arrest)
"If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls."
Its a joke, but it portrays real situations.
Linehan is talking balls I'm afraid. A woman will challenge but will not be violent because she knows that in a physical confrontation with a man she will lose. So she will try to defuse or flee. That then is used by activists to say women don't object which is nonsense too.
Women rely on men behaving decently and no men, whether trans or not, should go into a women only space and universities and others need to have procedures which reinforce that decency and so not put the onus of challenge on women or actively tell them not to. What this university is doing is telling women to put up with indecent behaviour and, far from reinforcing equality, it is putting the demands of a subset of men above all other considerations, including the law.
He's joking, of course.
I agree with you, and strongly support Sex Matters, but I do think that the 'toilet thing' is focused on much too much.
Years ago women and men toilets were kind of loose terms I think. I mean, in pubs and clubs I saw women use the men's loo many times (no one cared). Sure men using women's loos was uncommon (and sometimes a genuine mistake) but they'd get a bollocking at the most I think.
I don't recall women's loos every being described as a 'safe space'. When did this change?
I think things were better when we were relaxed and cool about such things rather than being all legalistic and censorious.
There didn’t used to be a group of fetishistic men who would get off on being in the women’s room, making the women uncomfortable at best, and victims of indencency or sexual assault at worst.
I think this is exagerrated.
What do you mean by 'fetishistic'?
That there is a sexual motive to their actions.
Yes that's what I thought you meant. But is it true? I know there are exceptions but men who identify as women are not at all sexually motivated to use the women's facilities. They want to re-affirm their chosen identity, surely? They may be genuine/narcissistic/deluded but such people are not a threat to women are they.
There has been a lot of spin around this (when isn't there). Like the idea that thinking you have been born in the wrong body isn't a mental condition (activists got the UN to change definitions). No-one gets to choose their gender, you are born with it.
Around sexual motivation for cross dressing there has been a similar effort to decouple from sexual desire, to give it the very spin that you have used 'to affirm their gender identity'. Yet sexual offending among trans women is rife. And you can also look at the record of these men when placed into womens prisons to see their true selves come out.
What's your evidence that sexual offending among trans women is rife? (Not anecdote, please.)
I don't have time to dig into the data - feel free to do so and correct me if you like. The multiple of anecdote is of course data and there are LOTS of anecdotes (or rather prosecutions). Of course 'rife' is a tricky word. What does it actually mean in scientific terms?
The Origin Story podcast has 2 episodes on JK Rowling, and episode 2, https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/j-k-rowling-part-two-transparent/id1624704966?i=1000768586929 , tackled a number of talking points relevant here. They describe a much cited Swedish paper, used by gender critical activists to argue that transwomen have the same offending rates as cismen, and thus much higher offending rates than ciswomen. They also point out the limitations with the study. But even if you take that paper at face value, it isn't, AIUI, saying the same as your claim here.
I am not aware of any evidence that supports your claim here.
Depends how you define rife, doesn't it? Also I would note that times have changed recently. We have moved from trans being a somewhat niche thing to something that became a social media contagion. Note all the celebrities endorsing and validating and indeed how many have trans children. Arguably the recent rise in autogynophiles may well lead to an increase in sexual offending in time, but it is a recent phenomonen.
You picked the word "rife", so presumably you had some idea what you meant!
Yes, who is trans has changed a lot, which makes data from earlier studies possibly irrelevant (which is one of the issues in the Swedish paper mentioned). The claim that trans is a social media contagion, however, is very controversial, to put it politely. A key study there is also discussed in the podcast I linked to. Basically, there's little evidence for the idea of a social contagion. But trans being more accepted is, of course, going to see more people coming out as trans.
Autogynephilia is also, at best, very controversial. It's not an accepted diagnosis in the DSM, but it is a popular idea in gender critical circles. If autogynephilia is a thing, I don't know why you describe it as a recent phenomenon. Blanchard coined the term in the 1980s and, in his theory, it was a thing that had long existed, not a new phenomenon.
I'm no expert in any of this, but my understanding is that most of what you've written above is very questionable and not evidence based.
Could some Latin lovers give me some help, please?
In the Style section of the May 5th New York Times, in "What We Love About the First 'Devil Wears Prada'", I found this sentence: When [journalist] Andy [Sachs] scoffs at a room of Runway employees choosing between two very similar belts, Miranda soundly decimates her with a monologue about the ubiquitousness and utility of fashion
I can guess what the Maya Phillips means, but I couldn't help trying to translate what she wrote. The best I could come up with something like this: Miranda gave Andy weight loss surgery, perhaps using ultrasound.
No doubt some of you can do better than that.
It's a reference to the cerulean top monologue/speech. It was inserted for reasons I forget but it's an absolute banger, and one of two great dialogues in the file (the other being Stanley Tucci's advice to Andy - basically "toughen up, buttercup"). The speech is in the YouTube below.
"...oh okay I see you think this has nothing to do with you you go to your closet and you select I don't know that lumpy blue sweater for instance because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back but what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue it's not turquoise it's not lapis it's actually Cerulean you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002 Oscar De La Renta did a collection of Cerulean gowns and then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent wasn't it who showed Cerulean military jackets (I think we need a jacket here) and then Cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers and then it uh filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you no doubt fished it out of some clearance bin. However that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs, and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when in fact you're wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of "stuff..."
‘ NEW: No 10 finally confirms that Keir Starmer uses *disappearing messages* function - meaning that countless exchanges with Mandelson may have been lost’
HMG should not be using disappearing messages and should not be using WhatsApp at all. Still, lessons will be learned...
No10 said that this means “some material may no longer be available, for example, where devices have changed or messages were set to disappear for legitimate reasons.
“But we also recognize there are lessons on record keeping, archiving, and the use of secure systems going forward.”
I'm not sure which mob Zia Yusef is connected with but someone like that would persuade me to vote Tory to ensure he got nowhere near power. A trully nasty piece of work. Does anyone here have anything good to say about him? God help the UK if that's what passes as a British politician
I don't know if it is his official role in the Reform leadership, but he certainly seems to see it as his role to be the unpleasant troll of the group. So unfortunately by responding and getting angry at him we're probably doing what they want for some reason, as he goes out of his way to be unpleasant, whereas though a lot of people dislike Farage he likes to present a more avuncular image.
He is Reform UK's Spokesperson for Home Affairs. He was previously Head of Policy.
I'm not sure which mob Zia Yusef is connected with but someone like that would persuade me to vote Tory to ensure he got nowhere near power. A trully nasty piece of work. Does anyone here have anything good to say about him? God help the UK if that's what passes as a British politician
He was on World at One which may have inspired your post. The presenter mentioned that Henry Novak’s (or poor Henry as Zia kept calling him) father had made a statement saying that politicians should not politicise his son’s death, Zia completely ignored this and carried on politicising Novak’s death. He really is completely rancid, Trumpian politics made British flesh.
He signed a letter from “Shadow Chancellor”, was very odd
Re the police - and indeed other public services - what @Nigelb said in response to my comment on the previous thread goes to the heart of the issue.
"It ought not to be difficult to understand that training to deal with existing prejudices cannot mean replacing them with new ones."
It ought not to be. But I rather fear that that is exactly what has happened. Too many public services have adopted new prejudices and created conflicts of interest which impede the proper exercise of their functions.
Exactly. In the rush to avoid being seen as racist the police have now been totally captured by a narrative that only whites can be the bad guy in a situation like this.
Its also why we have so many happy to comply with the latest DEI bullshit around 'gender' to the utter disregard of womens' rights.
Our Uni is planning on not following the recent government advice, it seems.
"On 21 May 2026, the EHRC Code of Practice following the Supreme Court's ruling defining sex within the Equalities Act (2010) was presented to Parliament. With this news, we want to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring dignity, safety and respect for all people on campus, including our trans, non-binary and intersex staff, students and visitors. As a University, we have zero tolerance for harassment, intimidation, or discrimination, including transphobia, in line with our Dignity and Respect Policy, and we will act where concerns are raised.
Parliament now has 40 days to consider the Code of Practice before a date is set for it to be enacted. The EHRC Code of Practice will automatically come into force if Parliament does not pass a resolution against it within 40 days. We will use this period to consider all of the implications of the Code for the University.
In the meantime, students and staff should continue to use the gendered spaces - including toilets and changing rooms - that align with their gender identity. No one should be questioned or challenged for doing so. If anyone does experience questioning, confrontation, or behaviour that makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, this can be reported immediately through the Support and Report tool so that appropriate action will be taken.
In addition to gendered facilities, all gender toilets are available across campus. These can be located using the campus map, if you prefer to use them.
We believe that actions speak louder than words when it comes to pursuing equity for LGBTQ+ people within the University community. Discussions are currently underway with Campus Infrastructure, Campus Services, and the Health and Safety Team to establish a clear, long term University policy for toilet provision across campus."
Look at it this way. They are giving women a cast iron case for indirect discrimination claims, reporting to the HSE for breach of health & safety rules (a criminal offence) and possibly also a breach of the regulations in place since October 2024 to take steps to prevent sexual harassment of staff.
This will provide lots of work for all my lawyer friends specialising in this area of the law.
They are also facilitating criminal offences such as voyeurism and indecent exposure and in breach of their safeguarding obligations to students.
Telling a woman faced with a man staring at her while she is changing that she must not query his presence or challenge him is to undermine the steps she needs to take to keep herself safe. It is grotesque advice. Utterly grotesque. It tells women - put up with fear, risk or crime - and don't you dare do anything to protect yourself because the feelings of the man making you feel at risk are more important.
I'd like to ask men here with daughters? Is that what you tell them? Is that what your advice is? And if it isn't why is it ok for a place which has a duty of care to them to give such advice?
I'd go with Linehan's tweet, the one that got him into trouble with the police (and which the police have grudgingly admitted was a wrongful arrest)
"If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls."
Its a joke, but it portrays real situations.
Linehan is talking balls I'm afraid. A woman will challenge but will not be violent because she knows that in a physical confrontation with a man she will lose. So she will try to defuse or flee. That then is used by activists to say women don't object which is nonsense too.
Women rely on men behaving decently and no men, whether trans or not, should go into a women only space and universities and others need to have procedures which reinforce that decency and so not put the onus of challenge on women or actively tell them not to. What this university is doing is telling women to put up with indecent behaviour and, far from reinforcing equality, it is putting the demands of a subset of men above all other considerations, including the law.
He's joking, of course.
I agree with you, and strongly support Sex Matters, but I do think that the 'toilet thing' is focused on much too much.
Years ago women and men toilets were kind of loose terms I think. I mean, in pubs and clubs I saw women use the men's loo many times (no one cared). Sure men using women's loos was uncommon (and sometimes a genuine mistake) but they'd get a bollocking at the most I think.
I don't recall women's loos every being described as a 'safe space'. When did this change?
I think things were better when we were relaxed and cool about such things rather than being all legalistic and censorious.
There didn’t used to be a group of fetishistic men who would get off on being in the women’s room, making the women uncomfortable at best, and victims of indencency or sexual assault at worst.
I think this is exagerrated. What do you mean by 'fetishistic'?
That there is a sexual motive to their actions.
Yes that's what I thought you meant. But is it true? I know there are exceptions but men who identify as women are not at all sexually motivated to use the women's facilities. They want to re-affirm their chosen identity, surely? They may be genuine/narcissistic/deluded but such people are not a threat to women are they.
Not all such people, sure, but the activist group members very much fall into that category, they *want* to make regular women uncomfortable. @cyclefree will probably say that having a penis means you shouldn’t be in the women’s room, which in my mind seems to be a reasonable place to draw the line.
There’s even a medical term for it, autogynephilia, as distinct from gender disphoria.
In fairness to m'learned colleague @Cyclefree, she insists that the status of "biological male" is set at birth (conception?) and is not altered by any genital surgery. Your statement seems to believe that trans women without a penis are still allowed in women's toilets. If my preliminary reading ( @RochdalePioneers and @malcolmg asked me to look into it ) is correct, they are not.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the current legal position was that, after the redefinition of the terms of the Equality Act to achieve internal consistency, anywhere where gendered facilities are required in law now has to split those facilities on the basis of biological sex (whoever the judges decide to precisely define that if a case ever comes to court). That doesn’t currently extend to places where facilities are offered to the public by a venue without legal obligation for them to be split by gender.
So, for instance, changing rooms in Marks & Spencer can be split any way M+S management prefers, subject to meeting their duty of care to staff and the public, because there’s no law that states that M+S must supply changing rooms divided on the basis of (biological) sex. Meanwhile changing rooms in workplaces & hospitals must be split on the basis of biological sex, because they are required by law to exist & the Equality Act now states that the division on the basis of sex must be biological sex.
Have I mis-understood?
My understanding is slightly different. The purpose of the Equalities Act is to prevent discrimination by sex. It provides a number of carve outs so that you may but are not obliged to discriminate by sex in specified situations, for example in provision of education, sports, changing rooms. The direction from the Supreme Court is that this discrimination may only be made on the basis of biological sex and not gender. ie you discriminate by sex or not at all. Many organisations will decide not to split services by sex even if they can, either because they don't agree with the discrimination as currently allowed or it's just easier not to go there.
There are a small number of government regulations that mandate separate facilities for men and women that are outwith the Equalities Act.
‘ NEW: No 10 finally confirms that Keir Starmer uses *disappearing messages* function - meaning that countless exchanges with Mandelson may have been lost’
‘ NEW: No 10 finally confirms that Keir Starmer uses *disappearing messages* function - meaning that countless exchanges with Mandelson may have been lost’
HMG should not be using disappearing messages and should not be using WhatsApp at all. Still, lessons will be learned...
No10 said that this means “some material may no longer be available, for example, where devices have changed or messages were set to disappear for legitimate reasons.
“But we also recognize there are lessons on record keeping, archiving, and the use of secure systems going forward.”
The key lesson has been learned, by the look of it. By the PM, if not by his underlings.
(And, whilst some communications clearly ought to be recorded and, in extemis, published... Expecting every thought and every bit of chat between Muggins and Buggins to be available in that way is nuts, isn't it? It will be more romantic to go back to the good old ways of whispers in the gents or scribbled notes passed around in St James's Park, but is it really going to make government better?)
‘ NEW: No 10 finally confirms that Keir Starmer uses *disappearing messages* function - meaning that countless exchanges with Mandelson may have been lost’
HMG should not be using disappearing messages and should not be using WhatsApp at all. Still, lessons will be learned...
No10 said that this means “some material may no longer be available, for example, where devices have changed or messages were set to disappear for legitimate reasons.
“But we also recognize there are lessons on record keeping, archiving, and the use of secure systems going forward.”
Could some Latin lovers give me some help, please?
In the Style section of the May 5th New York Times, in "What We Love About the First 'Devil Wears Prada'", I found this sentence: When [journalist] Andy [Sachs] scoffs at a room of Runway employees choosing between two very similar belts, Miranda soundly decimates her with a monologue about the ubiquitousness and utility of fashion
I can guess what the Maya Phillips means, but I couldn't help trying to translate what she wrote. The best I could come up with something like this: Miranda gave Andy weight loss surgery, perhaps using ultrasound.
No doubt some of you can do better than that.
It's a reference to the cerulean top monologue/speech. It was inserted for reasons I forget but it's an absolute banger, and one of two great dialogues in the file (the other being Stanley Tucci's advice to Andy - basically "toughen up, buttercup"). The speech is in the YouTube below.
"...oh okay I see you think this has nothing to do with you you go to your closet and you select I don't know that lumpy blue sweater for instance because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back but what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue it's not turquoise it's not lapis it's actually Cerulean you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002 Oscar De La Renta did a collection of Cerulean gowns and then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent wasn't it who showed Cerulean military jackets (I think we need a jacket here) and then Cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers and then it uh filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you no doubt fished it out of some clearance bin. However that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs, and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when in fact you're wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of "stuff..."
Re the police - and indeed other public services - what @Nigelb said in response to my comment on the previous thread goes to the heart of the issue.
"It ought not to be difficult to understand that training to deal with existing prejudices cannot mean replacing them with new ones."
It ought not to be. But I rather fear that that is exactly what has happened. Too many public services have adopted new prejudices and created conflicts of interest which impede the proper exercise of their functions.
Exactly. In the rush to avoid being seen as racist the police have now been totally captured by a narrative that only whites can be the bad guy in a situation like this.
Its also why we have so many happy to comply with the latest DEI bullshit around 'gender' to the utter disregard of womens' rights.
Our Uni is planning on not following the recent government advice, it seems.
"On 21 May 2026, the EHRC Code of Practice following the Supreme Court's ruling defining sex within the Equalities Act (2010) was presented to Parliament. With this news, we want to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring dignity, safety and respect for all people on campus, including our trans, non-binary and intersex staff, students and visitors. As a University, we have zero tolerance for harassment, intimidation, or discrimination, including transphobia, in line with our Dignity and Respect Policy, and we will act where concerns are raised.
Parliament now has 40 days to consider the Code of Practice before a date is set for it to be enacted. The EHRC Code of Practice will automatically come into force if Parliament does not pass a resolution against it within 40 days. We will use this period to consider all of the implications of the Code for the University.
In the meantime, students and staff should continue to use the gendered spaces - including toilets and changing rooms - that align with their gender identity. No one should be questioned or challenged for doing so. If anyone does experience questioning, confrontation, or behaviour that makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, this can be reported immediately through the Support and Report tool so that appropriate action will be taken.
In addition to gendered facilities, all gender toilets are available across campus. These can be located using the campus map, if you prefer to use them.
We believe that actions speak louder than words when it comes to pursuing equity for LGBTQ+ people within the University community. Discussions are currently underway with Campus Infrastructure, Campus Services, and the Health and Safety Team to establish a clear, long term University policy for toilet provision across campus."
Look at it this way. They are giving women a cast iron case for indirect discrimination claims, reporting to the HSE for breach of health & safety rules (a criminal offence) and possibly also a breach of the regulations in place since October 2024 to take steps to prevent sexual harassment of staff.
This will provide lots of work for all my lawyer friends specialising in this area of the law.
They are also facilitating criminal offences such as voyeurism and indecent exposure and in breach of their safeguarding obligations to students.
Telling a woman faced with a man staring at her while she is changing that she must not query his presence or challenge him is to undermine the steps she needs to take to keep herself safe. It is grotesque advice. Utterly grotesque. It tells women - put up with fear, risk or crime - and don't you dare do anything to protect yourself because the feelings of the man making you feel at risk are more important.
I'd like to ask men here with daughters? Is that what you tell them? Is that what your advice is? And if it isn't why is it ok for a place which has a duty of care to them to give such advice?
I'd go with Linehan's tweet, the one that got him into trouble with the police (and which the police have grudgingly admitted was a wrongful arrest)
"If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls."
Its a joke, but it portrays real situations.
Linehan is talking balls I'm afraid. A woman will challenge but will not be violent because she knows that in a physical confrontation with a man she will lose. So she will try to defuse or flee. That then is used by activists to say women don't object which is nonsense too.
Women rely on men behaving decently and no men, whether trans or not, should go into a women only space and universities and others need to have procedures which reinforce that decency and so not put the onus of challenge on women or actively tell them not to. What this university is doing is telling women to put up with indecent behaviour and, far from reinforcing equality, it is putting the demands of a subset of men above all other considerations, including the law.
He's joking, of course.
I agree with you, and strongly support Sex Matters, but I do think that the 'toilet thing' is focused on much too much.
Years ago women and men toilets were kind of loose terms I think. I mean, in pubs and clubs I saw women use the men's loo many times (no one cared). Sure men using women's loos was uncommon (and sometimes a genuine mistake) but they'd get a bollocking at the most I think.
I don't recall women's loos every being described as a 'safe space'. When did this change?
I think things were better when we were relaxed and cool about such things rather than being all legalistic and censorious.
There didn’t used to be a group of fetishistic men who would get off on being in the women’s room, making the women uncomfortable at best, and victims of indencency or sexual assault at worst.
I think this is exagerrated. What do you mean by 'fetishistic'?
That there is a sexual motive to their actions.
Yes that's what I thought you meant. But is it true? I know there are exceptions but men who identify as women are not at all sexually motivated to use the women's facilities. They want to re-affirm their chosen identity, surely? They may be genuine/narcissistic/deluded but such people are not a threat to women are they.
Not all such people, sure, but the activist group members very much fall into that category, they *want* to make regular women uncomfortable. @cyclefree will probably say that having a penis means you shouldn’t be in the women’s room, which in my mind seems to be a reasonable place to draw the line.
There’s even a medical term for it, autogynephilia, as distinct from gender disphoria.
In fairness to m'learned colleague @Cyclefree, she insists that the status of "biological male" is set at birth (conception?) and is not altered by any genital surgery. Your statement seems to believe that trans women without a penis are still allowed in women's toilets. If my preliminary reading ( @RochdalePioneers and @malcolmg asked me to look into it ) is correct, they are not.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the current legal position was that, after the redefinition of the terms of the Equality Act to achieve internal consistency, anywhere where gendered facilities are required in law now has to split those facilities on the basis of biological sex (whoever the judges decide to precisely define that if a case ever comes to court). That doesn’t currently extend to places where facilities are offered to the public by a venue without legal obligation for them to be split by gender.
So, for instance, changing rooms in Marks & Spencer can be split any way M+S management prefers, subject to meeting their duty of care to staff and the public, because there’s no law that states that M+S must supply changing rooms divided on the basis of (biological) sex. Meanwhile changing rooms in workplaces & hospitals must be split on the basis of biological sex, because they are required by law to exist & the Equality Act now states that the division on the basis of sex must be biological sex.
Have I mis-understood?
My understanding is slightly different. The purpose of the Equalities Act is to prevent discrimination by sex. It provides a number of carve outs so that you may but are not obliged to discriminate by sex in specified situations, for example in provision of education, sports, changing rooms. The direction from the Supreme Court is that this discrimination may only be made on the basis of biological sex and not gender. ie you discriminate by sex or not at all. Many organisations will decide not to split services by sex even if they can, either because they don't agree with the discrimination as currently allowed or it's just easier not to go there.
There are a small number of government regulations that mandate separate facilities for men and women that are outwith the Equalities Act.
Yes - I should have added that any split M+S makes has to be justifiable under the Equality Act. Which is of course why so many of these places are implementing gender neutral changing - they hope it will enable them to avoid the entire controversy.
The Gender Crit crowd are having none of this, naturally, so those shops are going to find themselves the targets of action & I expect a push for gendered changing to made explicitly required in law. I expect the next Reform government to be particularly receptive to this lobbying.
Re the police - and indeed other public services - what @Nigelb said in response to my comment on the previous thread goes to the heart of the issue.
"It ought not to be difficult to understand that training to deal with existing prejudices cannot mean replacing them with new ones."
It ought not to be. But I rather fear that that is exactly what has happened. Too many public services have adopted new prejudices and created conflicts of interest which impede the proper exercise of their functions.
Exactly. In the rush to avoid being seen as racist the police have now been totally captured by a narrative that only whites can be the bad guy in a situation like this.
Its also why we have so many happy to comply with the latest DEI bullshit around 'gender' to the utter disregard of womens' rights.
Our Uni is planning on not following the recent government advice, it seems.
"On 21 May 2026, the EHRC Code of Practice following the Supreme Court's ruling defining sex within the Equalities Act (2010) was presented to Parliament. With this news, we want to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring dignity, safety and respect for all people on campus, including our trans, non-binary and intersex staff, students and visitors. As a University, we have zero tolerance for harassment, intimidation, or discrimination, including transphobia, in line with our Dignity and Respect Policy, and we will act where concerns are raised.
Parliament now has 40 days to consider the Code of Practice before a date is set for it to be enacted. The EHRC Code of Practice will automatically come into force if Parliament does not pass a resolution against it within 40 days. We will use this period to consider all of the implications of the Code for the University.
In the meantime, students and staff should continue to use the gendered spaces - including toilets and changing rooms - that align with their gender identity. No one should be questioned or challenged for doing so. If anyone does experience questioning, confrontation, or behaviour that makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, this can be reported immediately through the Support and Report tool so that appropriate action will be taken.
In addition to gendered facilities, all gender toilets are available across campus. These can be located using the campus map, if you prefer to use them.
We believe that actions speak louder than words when it comes to pursuing equity for LGBTQ+ people within the University community. Discussions are currently underway with Campus Infrastructure, Campus Services, and the Health and Safety Team to establish a clear, long term University policy for toilet provision across campus."
Look at it this way. They are giving women a cast iron case for indirect discrimination claims, reporting to the HSE for breach of health & safety rules (a criminal offence) and possibly also a breach of the regulations in place since October 2024 to take steps to prevent sexual harassment of staff.
This will provide lots of work for all my lawyer friends specialising in this area of the law.
They are also facilitating criminal offences such as voyeurism and indecent exposure and in breach of their safeguarding obligations to students.
Telling a woman faced with a man staring at her while she is changing that she must not query his presence or challenge him is to undermine the steps she needs to take to keep herself safe. It is grotesque advice. Utterly grotesque. It tells women - put up with fear, risk or crime - and don't you dare do anything to protect yourself because the feelings of the man making you feel at risk are more important.
I'd like to ask men here with daughters? Is that what you tell them? Is that what your advice is? And if it isn't why is it ok for a place which has a duty of care to them to give such advice?
I'd go with Linehan's tweet, the one that got him into trouble with the police (and which the police have grudgingly admitted was a wrongful arrest)
"If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls."
Its a joke, but it portrays real situations.
Linehan is talking balls I'm afraid. A woman will challenge but will not be violent because she knows that in a physical confrontation with a man she will lose. So she will try to defuse or flee. That then is used by activists to say women don't object which is nonsense too.
Women rely on men behaving decently and no men, whether trans or not, should go into a women only space and universities and others need to have procedures which reinforce that decency and so not put the onus of challenge on women or actively tell them not to. What this university is doing is telling women to put up with indecent behaviour and, far from reinforcing equality, it is putting the demands of a subset of men above all other considerations, including the law.
He's joking, of course.
I agree with you, and strongly support Sex Matters, but I do think that the 'toilet thing' is focused on much too much.
Years ago women and men toilets were kind of loose terms I think. I mean, in pubs and clubs I saw women use the men's loo many times (no one cared). Sure men using women's loos was uncommon (and sometimes a genuine mistake) but they'd get a bollocking at the most I think.
I don't recall women's loos every being described as a 'safe space'. When did this change?
I think things were better when we were relaxed and cool about such things rather than being all legalistic and censorious.
There didn’t used to be a group of fetishistic men who would get off on being in the women’s room, making the women uncomfortable at best, and victims of indencency or sexual assault at worst.
I think this is exagerrated. What do you mean by 'fetishistic'?
That there is a sexual motive to their actions.
Yes that's what I thought you meant. But is it true? I know there are exceptions but men who identify as women are not at all sexually motivated to use the women's facilities. They want to re-affirm their chosen identity, surely? They may be genuine/narcissistic/deluded but such people are not a threat to women are they.
Not all such people, sure, but the activist group members very much fall into that category, they *want* to make regular women uncomfortable. @cyclefree will probably say that having a penis means you shouldn’t be in the women’s room, which in my mind seems to be a reasonable place to draw the line.
There’s even a medical term for it, autogynephilia, as distinct from gender disphoria.
In fairness to m'learned colleague @Cyclefree, she insists that the status of "biological male" is set at birth (conception?) and is not altered by any genital surgery. Your statement seems to believe that trans women without a penis are still allowed in women's toilets. If my preliminary reading ( @RochdalePioneers and @malcolmg asked me to look into it ) is correct, they are not.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the current legal position was that, after the redefinition of the terms of the Equality Act to achieve internal consistency, anywhere where gendered facilities are required in law now has to split those facilities on the basis of biological sex (whoever the judges decide to precisely define that if a case ever comes to court). That doesn’t currently extend to places where facilities are offered to the public by a venue without legal obligation for them to be split by gender.
So, for instance, changing rooms in Marks & Spencer can be split any way M+S management prefers, subject to meeting their duty of care to staff and the public, because there’s no law that states that M+S must supply changing rooms divided on the basis of (biological) sex. Meanwhile changing rooms in workplaces & hospitals must be split on the basis of biological sex, because they are required by law to exist & the Equality Act now states that the division on the basis of sex must be biological sex.
Have I mis-understood?
I think so - according to the SC ruling. The GLPvsEHRC case also discussed toilets and may have added some further bits. I think I looked into this as part of "Your Friend Susan" - available from all good purveyors of fine articles - but I am working at the moment and cannot quickly answer.
I also have to point out that law is not what it says on the page but is what lawyers and judges say it is, and later case law may supersede this.
Re the police - and indeed other public services - what @Nigelb said in response to my comment on the previous thread goes to the heart of the issue.
"It ought not to be difficult to understand that training to deal with existing prejudices cannot mean replacing them with new ones."
It ought not to be. But I rather fear that that is exactly what has happened. Too many public services have adopted new prejudices and created conflicts of interest which impede the proper exercise of their functions.
Exactly. In the rush to avoid being seen as racist the police have now been totally captured by a narrative that only whites can be the bad guy in a situation like this.
Its also why we have so many happy to comply with the latest DEI bullshit around 'gender' to the utter disregard of womens' rights.
Our Uni is planning on not following the recent government advice, it seems.
"On 21 May 2026, the EHRC Code of Practice following the Supreme Court's ruling defining sex within the Equalities Act (2010) was presented to Parliament. With this news, we want to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring dignity, safety and respect for all people on campus, including our trans, non-binary and intersex staff, students and visitors. As a University, we have zero tolerance for harassment, intimidation, or discrimination, including transphobia, in line with our Dignity and Respect Policy, and we will act where concerns are raised.
Parliament now has 40 days to consider the Code of Practice before a date is set for it to be enacted. The EHRC Code of Practice will automatically come into force if Parliament does not pass a resolution against it within 40 days. We will use this period to consider all of the implications of the Code for the University.
In the meantime, students and staff should continue to use the gendered spaces - including toilets and changing rooms - that align with their gender identity. No one should be questioned or challenged for doing so. If anyone does experience questioning, confrontation, or behaviour that makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, this can be reported immediately through the Support and Report tool so that appropriate action will be taken.
In addition to gendered facilities, all gender toilets are available across campus. These can be located using the campus map, if you prefer to use them.
We believe that actions speak louder than words when it comes to pursuing equity for LGBTQ+ people within the University community. Discussions are currently underway with Campus Infrastructure, Campus Services, and the Health and Safety Team to establish a clear, long term University policy for toilet provision across campus."
Look at it this way. They are giving women a cast iron case for indirect discrimination claims, reporting to the HSE for breach of health & safety rules (a criminal offence) and possibly also a breach of the regulations in place since October 2024 to take steps to prevent sexual harassment of staff.
This will provide lots of work for all my lawyer friends specialising in this area of the law.
They are also facilitating criminal offences such as voyeurism and indecent exposure and in breach of their safeguarding obligations to students.
Telling a woman faced with a man staring at her while she is changing that she must not query his presence or challenge him is to undermine the steps she needs to take to keep herself safe. It is grotesque advice. Utterly grotesque. It tells women - put up with fear, risk or crime - and don't you dare do anything to protect yourself because the feelings of the man making you feel at risk are more important.
I'd like to ask men here with daughters? Is that what you tell them? Is that what your advice is? And if it isn't why is it ok for a place which has a duty of care to them to give such advice?
I'd go with Linehan's tweet, the one that got him into trouble with the police (and which the police have grudgingly admitted was a wrongful arrest)
"If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls."
Its a joke, but it portrays real situations.
Linehan is talking balls I'm afraid. A woman will challenge but will not be violent because she knows that in a physical confrontation with a man she will lose. So she will try to defuse or flee. That then is used by activists to say women don't object which is nonsense too.
Women rely on men behaving decently and no men, whether trans or not, should go into a women only space and universities and others need to have procedures which reinforce that decency and so not put the onus of challenge on women or actively tell them not to. What this university is doing is telling women to put up with indecent behaviour and, far from reinforcing equality, it is putting the demands of a subset of men above all other considerations, including the law.
He's joking, of course.
I agree with you, and strongly support Sex Matters, but I do think that the 'toilet thing' is focused on much too much.
Years ago women and men toilets were kind of loose terms I think. I mean, in pubs and clubs I saw women use the men's loo many times (no one cared). Sure men using women's loos was uncommon (and sometimes a genuine mistake) but they'd get a bollocking at the most I think.
I don't recall women's loos every being described as a 'safe space'. When did this change?
I think things were better when we were relaxed and cool about such things rather than being all legalistic and censorious.
There didn’t used to be a group of fetishistic men who would get off on being in the women’s room, making the women uncomfortable at best, and victims of indencency or sexual assault at worst.
I think this is exagerrated. What do you mean by 'fetishistic'?
That there is a sexual motive to their actions.
Yes that's what I thought you meant. But is it true? I know there are exceptions but men who identify as women are not at all sexually motivated to use the women's facilities. They want to re-affirm their chosen identity, surely? They may be genuine/narcissistic/deluded but such people are not a threat to women are they.
Not all such people, sure, but the activist group members very much fall into that category, they *want* to make regular women uncomfortable. @cyclefree will probably say that having a penis means you shouldn’t be in the women’s room, which in my mind seems to be a reasonable place to draw the line.
There’s even a medical term for it, autogynephilia, as distinct from gender disphoria.
In fairness to m'learned colleague @Cyclefree, she insists that the status of "biological male" is set at birth (conception?) and is not altered by any genital surgery. Your statement seems to believe that trans women without a penis are still allowed in women's toilets. If my preliminary reading ( @RochdalePioneers and @malcolmg asked me to look into it ) is correct, they are not.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the current legal position was that, after the redefinition of the terms of the Equality Act to achieve internal consistency, anywhere where gendered facilities are required in law now has to split those facilities on the basis of biological sex (whoever the judges decide to precisely define that if a case ever comes to court). That doesn’t currently extend to places where facilities are offered to the public by a venue without legal obligation for them to be split by gender.
So, for instance, changing rooms in Marks & Spencer can be split any way M+S management prefers, subject to meeting their duty of care to staff and the public, because there’s no law that states that M+S must supply changing rooms divided on the basis of (biological) sex. Meanwhile changing rooms in workplaces & hospitals must be split on the basis of biological sex, because they are required by law to exist & the Equality Act now states that the division on the basis of sex must be biological sex.
Have I mis-understood?
My understanding is slightly different. The purpose of the Equalities Act is to prevent discrimination by sex. It provides a number of carve outs so that you may but are not obliged to discriminate by sex in specified situations, for example in provision of education, sports, changing rooms. The direction from the Supreme Court is that this discrimination may only be made on the basis of biological sex and not gender. ie you discriminate by sex or not at all. Many organisations will decide not to split services by sex even if they can, either because they don't agree with the discrimination as currently allowed or it's just easier not to go there.
There are a small number of government regulations that mandate separate facilities for men and women that are outwith the Equalities Act.
Yes - I should have added that any split M+S makes has to be justifiable under the Equality Act. Which is of course why so many of these places are implementing gender neutral changing - they hope it will enable them to avoid the entire controversy.
The Gender Crit crowd are having none of this, naturally, so those shops are going to find themselves the targets of action & I expect a push for gendered changing to made explicitly required in law. I expect the next Reform government to be particularly receptive to this lobbying.
Gender neutral facilities can be an option but simply putting an all-welcome sticker over the existing one on the door does not make it gender neutral.
Neutral facilities must be single occupant use behind a lock. Including the sink.
Many places have that for eg disabled facilities, so they can be gender neutral and open to all. But if you have communal sinks, then it must be one sex or the other, not neutral.
Re the police - and indeed other public services - what @Nigelb said in response to my comment on the previous thread goes to the heart of the issue.
"It ought not to be difficult to understand that training to deal with existing prejudices cannot mean replacing them with new ones."
It ought not to be. But I rather fear that that is exactly what has happened. Too many public services have adopted new prejudices and created conflicts of interest which impede the proper exercise of their functions.
Exactly. In the rush to avoid being seen as racist the police have now been totally captured by a narrative that only whites can be the bad guy in a situation like this.
Its also why we have so many happy to comply with the latest DEI bullshit around 'gender' to the utter disregard of womens' rights.
Our Uni is planning on not following the recent government advice, it seems.
"On 21 May 2026, the EHRC Code of Practice following the Supreme Court's ruling defining sex within the Equalities Act (2010) was presented to Parliament. With this news, we want to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring dignity, safety and respect for all people on campus, including our trans, non-binary and intersex staff, students and visitors. As a University, we have zero tolerance for harassment, intimidation, or discrimination, including transphobia, in line with our Dignity and Respect Policy, and we will act where concerns are raised.
Parliament now has 40 days to consider the Code of Practice before a date is set for it to be enacted. The EHRC Code of Practice will automatically come into force if Parliament does not pass a resolution against it within 40 days. We will use this period to consider all of the implications of the Code for the University.
In the meantime, students and staff should continue to use the gendered spaces - including toilets and changing rooms - that align with their gender identity. No one should be questioned or challenged for doing so. If anyone does experience questioning, confrontation, or behaviour that makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, this can be reported immediately through the Support and Report tool so that appropriate action will be taken.
In addition to gendered facilities, all gender toilets are available across campus. These can be located using the campus map, if you prefer to use them.
We believe that actions speak louder than words when it comes to pursuing equity for LGBTQ+ people within the University community. Discussions are currently underway with Campus Infrastructure, Campus Services, and the Health and Safety Team to establish a clear, long term University policy for toilet provision across campus."
Look at it this way. They are giving women a cast iron case for indirect discrimination claims, reporting to the HSE for breach of health & safety rules (a criminal offence) and possibly also a breach of the regulations in place since October 2024 to take steps to prevent sexual harassment of staff.
This will provide lots of work for all my lawyer friends specialising in this area of the law.
They are also facilitating criminal offences such as voyeurism and indecent exposure and in breach of their safeguarding obligations to students.
Telling a woman faced with a man staring at her while she is changing that she must not query his presence or challenge him is to undermine the steps she needs to take to keep herself safe. It is grotesque advice. Utterly grotesque. It tells women - put up with fear, risk or crime - and don't you dare do anything to protect yourself because the feelings of the man making you feel at risk are more important.
I'd like to ask men here with daughters? Is that what you tell them? Is that what your advice is? And if it isn't why is it ok for a place which has a duty of care to them to give such advice?
I'd go with Linehan's tweet, the one that got him into trouble with the police (and which the police have grudgingly admitted was a wrongful arrest)
"If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls."
Its a joke, but it portrays real situations.
Linehan is talking balls I'm afraid. A woman will challenge but will not be violent because she knows that in a physical confrontation with a man she will lose. So she will try to defuse or flee. That then is used by activists to say women don't object which is nonsense too.
Women rely on men behaving decently and no men, whether trans or not, should go into a women only space and universities and others need to have procedures which reinforce that decency and so not put the onus of challenge on women or actively tell them not to. What this university is doing is telling women to put up with indecent behaviour and, far from reinforcing equality, it is putting the demands of a subset of men above all other considerations, including the law.
He's joking, of course.
I agree with you, and strongly support Sex Matters, but I do think that the 'toilet thing' is focused on much too much.
Years ago women and men toilets were kind of loose terms I think. I mean, in pubs and clubs I saw women use the men's loo many times (no one cared). Sure men using women's loos was uncommon (and sometimes a genuine mistake) but they'd get a bollocking at the most I think.
I don't recall women's loos every being described as a 'safe space'. When did this change?
I think things were better when we were relaxed and cool about such things rather than being all legalistic and censorious.
There didn’t used to be a group of fetishistic men who would get off on being in the women’s room, making the women uncomfortable at best, and victims of indencency or sexual assault at worst.
I think this is exagerrated. What do you mean by 'fetishistic'?
That there is a sexual motive to their actions.
Yes that's what I thought you meant. But is it true? I know there are exceptions but men who identify as women are not at all sexually motivated to use the women's facilities. They want to re-affirm their chosen identity, surely? They may be genuine/narcissistic/deluded but such people are not a threat to women are they.
Not all such people, sure, but the activist group members very much fall into that category, they *want* to make regular women uncomfortable. @cyclefree will probably say that having a penis means you shouldn’t be in the women’s room, which in my mind seems to be a reasonable place to draw the line.
There’s even a medical term for it, autogynephilia, as distinct from gender disphoria.
In fairness to m'learned colleague @Cyclefree, she insists that the status of "biological male" is set at birth (conception?) and is not altered by any genital surgery. Your statement seems to believe that trans women without a penis are still allowed in women's toilets. If my preliminary reading ( @RochdalePioneers and @malcolmg asked me to look into it ) is correct, they are not.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the current legal position was that, after the redefinition of the terms of the Equality Act to achieve internal consistency, anywhere where gendered facilities are required in law now has to split those facilities on the basis of biological sex (whoever the judges decide to precisely define that if a case ever comes to court). That doesn’t currently extend to places where facilities are offered to the public by a venue without legal obligation for them to be split by gender.
So, for instance, changing rooms in Marks & Spencer can be split any way M+S management prefers, subject to meeting their duty of care to staff and the public, because there’s no law that states that M+S must supply changing rooms divided on the basis of (biological) sex. Meanwhile changing rooms in workplaces & hospitals must be split on the basis of biological sex, because they are required by law to exist & the Equality Act now states that the division on the basis of sex must be biological sex.
Have I mis-understood?
My understanding is slightly different. The purpose of the Equalities Act is to prevent discrimination by sex. It provides a number of carve outs so that you may but are not obliged to discriminate by sex in specified situations, for example in provision of education, sports, changing rooms. The direction from the Supreme Court is that this discrimination may only be made on the basis of biological sex and not gender. ie you discriminate by sex or not at all. Many organisations will decide not to split services by sex even if they can, either because they don't agree with the discrimination as currently allowed or it's just easier not to go there.
There are a small number of government regulations that mandate separate facilities for men and women that are outwith the Equalities Act.
Yes - I should have added that any split M+S makes has to be justifiable under the Equality Act. Which is of course why so many of these places are implementing gender neutral changing - they hope it will enable them to avoid the entire controversy.
The Gender Crit crowd are having none of this, naturally, so those shops are going to find themselves the targets of action & I expect a push for gendered changing to made explicitly required in law. I expect the next Reform government to be particularly receptive to this lobbying.
Gender neutral facilities can be an option but simply putting an all-welcome sticker over the existing one on the door does not make it gender neutral.
Neutral facilities must be single occupant use behind a lock. Including the sink.
Many places have that for eg disabled facilities, so they can be gender neutral and open to all. But if you have communal sinks, then it must be one sex or the other, not neutral.
I was thinking of changing rooms above, so the sink thing doesn’t apply, but yes - this is my understanding too.
‘ NEW: No 10 finally confirms that Keir Starmer uses *disappearing messages* function - meaning that countless exchanges with Mandelson may have been lost’
HMG should not be using disappearing messages and should not be using WhatsApp at all. Still, lessons will be learned...
No10 said that this means “some material may no longer be available, for example, where devices have changed or messages were set to disappear for legitimate reasons.
“But we also recognize there are lessons on record keeping, archiving, and the use of secure systems going forward.”
Could some Latin lovers give me some help, please?
In the Style section of the May 5th New York Times, in "What We Love About the First 'Devil Wears Prada'", I found this sentence: When [journalist] Andy [Sachs] scoffs at a room of Runway employees choosing between two very similar belts, Miranda soundly decimates her with a monologue about the ubiquitousness and utility of fashion
I can guess what the Maya Phillips means, but I couldn't help trying to translate what she wrote. The best I could come up with something like this: Miranda gave Andy weight loss surgery, perhaps using ultrasound.
No doubt some of you can do better than that.
It's a reference to the cerulean top monologue/speech. It was inserted for reasons I forget but it's an absolute banger, and one of two great dialogues in the file (the other being Stanley Tucci's advice to Andy - basically "toughen up, buttercup"). The speech is in the YouTube below.
"...oh okay I see you think this has nothing to do with you you go to your closet and you select I don't know that lumpy blue sweater for instance because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back but what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue it's not turquoise it's not lapis it's actually Cerulean you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002 Oscar De La Renta did a collection of Cerulean gowns and then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent wasn't it who showed Cerulean military jackets (I think we need a jacket here) and then Cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers and then it uh filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you no doubt fished it out of some clearance bin. However that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs, and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when in fact you're wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of "stuff..."
‘ NEW: No 10 finally confirms that Keir Starmer uses *disappearing messages* function - meaning that countless exchanges with Mandelson may have been lost’
HMG should not be using disappearing messages and should not be using WhatsApp at all. Still, lessons will be learned...
No10 said that this means “some material may no longer be available, for example, where devices have changed or messages were set to disappear for legitimate reasons.
“But we also recognize there are lessons on record keeping, archiving, and the use of secure systems going forward.”
Could some Latin lovers give me some help, please?
In the Style section of the May 5th New York Times, in "What We Love About the First 'Devil Wears Prada'", I found this sentence: When [journalist] Andy [Sachs] scoffs at a room of Runway employees choosing between two very similar belts, Miranda soundly decimates her with a monologue about the ubiquitousness and utility of fashion
I can guess what the Maya Phillips means, but I couldn't help trying to translate what she wrote. The best I could come up with something like this: Miranda gave Andy weight loss surgery, perhaps using ultrasound.
No doubt some of you can do better than that.
It's a reference to the cerulean top monologue/speech. It was inserted for reasons I forget but it's an absolute banger, and one of two great dialogues in the file (the other being Stanley Tucci's advice to Andy - basically "toughen up, buttercup"). The speech is in the YouTube below.
"...oh okay I see you think this has nothing to do with you you go to your closet and you select I don't know that lumpy blue sweater for instance because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back but what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue it's not turquoise it's not lapis it's actually Cerulean you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002 Oscar De La Renta did a collection of Cerulean gowns and then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent wasn't it who showed Cerulean military jackets (I think we need a jacket here) and then Cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers and then it uh filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you no doubt fished it out of some clearance bin. However that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs, and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when in fact you're wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of "stuff..."
Re the police - and indeed other public services - what @Nigelb said in response to my comment on the previous thread goes to the heart of the issue.
"It ought not to be difficult to understand that training to deal with existing prejudices cannot mean replacing them with new ones."
It ought not to be. But I rather fear that that is exactly what has happened. Too many public services have adopted new prejudices and created conflicts of interest which impede the proper exercise of their functions.
Exactly. In the rush to avoid being seen as racist the police have now been totally captured by a narrative that only whites can be the bad guy in a situation like this.
Its also why we have so many happy to comply with the latest DEI bullshit around 'gender' to the utter disregard of womens' rights.
Our Uni is planning on not following the recent government advice, it seems.
"On 21 May 2026, the EHRC Code of Practice following the Supreme Court's ruling defining sex within the Equalities Act (2010) was presented to Parliament. With this news, we want to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring dignity, safety and respect for all people on campus, including our trans, non-binary and intersex staff, students and visitors. As a University, we have zero tolerance for harassment, intimidation, or discrimination, including transphobia, in line with our Dignity and Respect Policy, and we will act where concerns are raised.
Parliament now has 40 days to consider the Code of Practice before a date is set for it to be enacted. The EHRC Code of Practice will automatically come into force if Parliament does not pass a resolution against it within 40 days. We will use this period to consider all of the implications of the Code for the University.
In the meantime, students and staff should continue to use the gendered spaces - including toilets and changing rooms - that align with their gender identity. No one should be questioned or challenged for doing so. If anyone does experience questioning, confrontation, or behaviour that makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, this can be reported immediately through the Support and Report tool so that appropriate action will be taken.
In addition to gendered facilities, all gender toilets are available across campus. These can be located using the campus map, if you prefer to use them.
We believe that actions speak louder than words when it comes to pursuing equity for LGBTQ+ people within the University community. Discussions are currently underway with Campus Infrastructure, Campus Services, and the Health and Safety Team to establish a clear, long term University policy for toilet provision across campus."
Look at it this way. They are giving women a cast iron case for indirect discrimination claims, reporting to the HSE for breach of health & safety rules (a criminal offence) and possibly also a breach of the regulations in place since October 2024 to take steps to prevent sexual harassment of staff.
This will provide lots of work for all my lawyer friends specialising in this area of the law.
They are also facilitating criminal offences such as voyeurism and indecent exposure and in breach of their safeguarding obligations to students.
Telling a woman faced with a man staring at her while she is changing that she must not query his presence or challenge him is to undermine the steps she needs to take to keep herself safe. It is grotesque advice. Utterly grotesque. It tells women - put up with fear, risk or crime - and don't you dare do anything to protect yourself because the feelings of the man making you feel at risk are more important.
I'd like to ask men here with daughters? Is that what you tell them? Is that what your advice is? And if it isn't why is it ok for a place which has a duty of care to them to give such advice?
I'd go with Linehan's tweet, the one that got him into trouble with the police (and which the police have grudgingly admitted was a wrongful arrest)
"If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls."
Its a joke, but it portrays real situations.
Linehan is talking balls I'm afraid. A woman will challenge but will not be violent because she knows that in a physical confrontation with a man she will lose. So she will try to defuse or flee. That then is used by activists to say women don't object which is nonsense too.
Women rely on men behaving decently and no men, whether trans or not, should go into a women only space and universities and others need to have procedures which reinforce that decency and so not put the onus of challenge on women or actively tell them not to. What this university is doing is telling women to put up with indecent behaviour and, far from reinforcing equality, it is putting the demands of a subset of men above all other considerations, including the law.
He's joking, of course.
I agree with you, and strongly support Sex Matters, but I do think that the 'toilet thing' is focused on much too much.
Years ago women and men toilets were kind of loose terms I think. I mean, in pubs and clubs I saw women use the men's loo many times (no one cared). Sure men using women's loos was uncommon (and sometimes a genuine mistake) but they'd get a bollocking at the most I think.
I don't recall women's loos every being described as a 'safe space'. When did this change?
I think things were better when we were relaxed and cool about such things rather than being all legalistic and censorious.
There didn’t used to be a group of fetishistic men who would get off on being in the women’s room, making the women uncomfortable at best, and victims of indencency or sexual assault at worst.
I think this is exagerrated. What do you mean by 'fetishistic'?
That there is a sexual motive to their actions.
Yes that's what I thought you meant. But is it true? I know there are exceptions but men who identify as women are not at all sexually motivated to use the women's facilities. They want to re-affirm their chosen identity, surely? They may be genuine/narcissistic/deluded but such people are not a threat to women are they.
Not all such people, sure, but the activist group members very much fall into that category, they *want* to make regular women uncomfortable. @cyclefree will probably say that having a penis means you shouldn’t be in the women’s room, which in my mind seems to be a reasonable place to draw the line.
There’s even a medical term for it, autogynephilia, as distinct from gender disphoria.
In fairness to m'learned colleague @Cyclefree, she insists that the status of "biological male" is set at birth (conception?) and is not altered by any genital surgery. Your statement seems to believe that trans women without a penis are still allowed in women's toilets. If my preliminary reading ( @RochdalePioneers and @malcolmg asked me to look into it ) is correct, they are not.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the current legal position was that, after the redefinition of the terms of the Equality Act to achieve internal consistency, anywhere where gendered facilities are required in law now has to split those facilities on the basis of biological sex (whoever the judges decide to precisely define that if a case ever comes to court). That doesn’t currently extend to places where facilities are offered to the public by a venue without legal obligation for them to be split by gender.
So, for instance, changing rooms in Marks & Spencer can be split any way M+S management prefers, subject to meeting their duty of care to staff and the public, because there’s no law that states that M+S must supply changing rooms divided on the basis of (biological) sex. Meanwhile changing rooms in workplaces & hospitals must be split on the basis of biological sex, because they are required by law to exist & the Equality Act now states that the division on the basis of sex must be biological sex.
Have I mis-understood?
My understanding is slightly different. The purpose of the Equalities Act is to prevent discrimination by sex. It provides a number of carve outs so that you may but are not obliged to discriminate by sex in specified situations, for example in provision of education, sports, changing rooms. The direction from the Supreme Court is that this discrimination may only be made on the basis of biological sex and not gender. ie you discriminate by sex or not at all. Many organisations will decide not to split services by sex even if they can, either because they don't agree with the discrimination as currently allowed or it's just easier not to go there.
There are a small number of government regulations that mandate separate facilities for men and women that are outwith the Equalities Act.
Re the police - and indeed other public services - what @Nigelb said in response to my comment on the previous thread goes to the heart of the issue.
"It ought not to be difficult to understand that training to deal with existing prejudices cannot mean replacing them with new ones."
It ought not to be. But I rather fear that that is exactly what has happened. Too many public services have adopted new prejudices and created conflicts of interest which impede the proper exercise of their functions.
Exactly. In the rush to avoid being seen as racist the police have now been totally captured by a narrative that only whites can be the bad guy in a situation like this.
Its also why we have so many happy to comply with the latest DEI bullshit around 'gender' to the utter disregard of womens' rights.
Our Uni is planning on not following the recent government advice, it seems.
"On 21 May 2026, the EHRC Code of Practice following the Supreme Court's ruling defining sex within the Equalities Act (2010) was presented to Parliament. With this news, we want to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring dignity, safety and respect for all people on campus, including our trans, non-binary and intersex staff, students and visitors. As a University, we have zero tolerance for harassment, intimidation, or discrimination, including transphobia, in line with our Dignity and Respect Policy, and we will act where concerns are raised.
Parliament now has 40 days to consider the Code of Practice before a date is set for it to be enacted. The EHRC Code of Practice will automatically come into force if Parliament does not pass a resolution against it within 40 days. We will use this period to consider all of the implications of the Code for the University.
In the meantime, students and staff should continue to use the gendered spaces - including toilets and changing rooms - that align with their gender identity. No one should be questioned or challenged for doing so. If anyone does experience questioning, confrontation, or behaviour that makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, this can be reported immediately through the Support and Report tool so that appropriate action will be taken.
In addition to gendered facilities, all gender toilets are available across campus. These can be located using the campus map, if you prefer to use them.
We believe that actions speak louder than words when it comes to pursuing equity for LGBTQ+ people within the University community. Discussions are currently underway with Campus Infrastructure, Campus Services, and the Health and Safety Team to establish a clear, long term University policy for toilet provision across campus."
Look at it this way. They are giving women a cast iron case for indirect discrimination claims, reporting to the HSE for breach of health & safety rules (a criminal offence) and possibly also a breach of the regulations in place since October 2024 to take steps to prevent sexual harassment of staff.
This will provide lots of work for all my lawyer friends specialising in this area of the law.
They are also facilitating criminal offences such as voyeurism and indecent exposure and in breach of their safeguarding obligations to students.
Telling a woman faced with a man staring at her while she is changing that she must not query his presence or challenge him is to undermine the steps she needs to take to keep herself safe. It is grotesque advice. Utterly grotesque. It tells women - put up with fear, risk or crime - and don't you dare do anything to protect yourself because the feelings of the man making you feel at risk are more important.
I'd like to ask men here with daughters? Is that what you tell them? Is that what your advice is? And if it isn't why is it ok for a place which has a duty of care to them to give such advice?
I'd go with Linehan's tweet, the one that got him into trouble with the police (and which the police have grudgingly admitted was a wrongful arrest)
"If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls."
Its a joke, but it portrays real situations.
Linehan is talking balls I'm afraid. A woman will challenge but will not be violent because she knows that in a physical confrontation with a man she will lose. So she will try to defuse or flee. That then is used by activists to say women don't object which is nonsense too.
Women rely on men behaving decently and no men, whether trans or not, should go into a women only space and universities and others need to have procedures which reinforce that decency and so not put the onus of challenge on women or actively tell them not to. What this university is doing is telling women to put up with indecent behaviour and, far from reinforcing equality, it is putting the demands of a subset of men above all other considerations, including the law.
He's joking, of course.
I agree with you, and strongly support Sex Matters, but I do think that the 'toilet thing' is focused on much too much.
Years ago women and men toilets were kind of loose terms I think. I mean, in pubs and clubs I saw women use the men's loo many times (no one cared). Sure men using women's loos was uncommon (and sometimes a genuine mistake) but they'd get a bollocking at the most I think.
I don't recall women's loos every being described as a 'safe space'. When did this change?
I think things were better when we were relaxed and cool about such things rather than being all legalistic and censorious.
There didn’t used to be a group of fetishistic men who would get off on being in the women’s room, making the women uncomfortable at best, and victims of indencency or sexual assault at worst.
I think this is exagerrated.
What do you mean by 'fetishistic'?
That there is a sexual motive to their actions.
Yes that's what I thought you meant. But is it true? I know there are exceptions but men who identify as women are not at all sexually motivated to use the women's facilities. They want to re-affirm their chosen identity, surely? They may be genuine/narcissistic/deluded but such people are not a threat to women are they.
There has been a lot of spin around this (when isn't there). Like the idea that thinking you have been born in the wrong body isn't a mental condition (activists got the UN to change definitions). No-one gets to choose their gender, you are born with it.
Around sexual motivation for cross dressing there has been a similar effort to decouple from sexual desire, to give it the very spin that you have used 'to affirm their gender identity'. Yet sexual offending among trans women is rife. And you can also look at the record of these men when placed into womens prisons to see their true selves come out.
What's your evidence that sexual offending among trans women is rife? (Not anecdote, please.)
I don't have time to dig into the data - feel free to do so and correct me if you like. The multiple of anecdote is of course data and there are LOTS of anecdotes (or rather prosecutions). Of course 'rife' is a tricky word. What does it actually mean in scientific terms?
The Origin Story podcast has 2 episodes on JK Rowling, and episode 2, https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/j-k-rowling-part-two-transparent/id1624704966?i=1000768586929 , tackled a number of talking points relevant here. They describe a much cited Swedish paper, used by gender critical activists to argue that transwomen have the same offending rates as cismen, and thus much higher offending rates than ciswomen. They also point out the limitations with the study. But even if you take that paper at face value, it isn't, AIUI, saying the same as your claim here.
I am not aware of any evidence that supports your claim here.
Depends how you define rife, doesn't it? Also I would note that times have changed recently. We have moved from trans being a somewhat niche thing to something that became a social media contagion. Note all the celebrities endorsing and validating and indeed how many have trans children. Arguably the recent rise in autogynophiles may well lead to an increase in sexual offending in time, but it is a recent phenomonen.
You picked the word "rife", so presumably you had some idea what you meant!
Yes, who is trans has changed a lot, which makes data from earlier studies possibly irrelevant (which is one of the issues in the Swedish paper mentioned). The claim that trans is a social media contagion, however, is very controversial, to put it politely. A key study there is also discussed in the podcast I linked to. Basically, there's little evidence for the idea of a social contagion. But trans being more accepted is, of course, going to see more people coming out as trans...
There are very few (aka no) reliable statistics, let alone historical statistics, for reasons which should be quite obvious.
Re the police - and indeed other public services - what @Nigelb said in response to my comment on the previous thread goes to the heart of the issue.
"It ought not to be difficult to understand that training to deal with existing prejudices cannot mean replacing them with new ones."
It ought not to be. But I rather fear that that is exactly what has happened. Too many public services have adopted new prejudices and created conflicts of interest which impede the proper exercise of their functions.
Exactly. In the rush to avoid being seen as racist the police have now been totally captured by a narrative that only whites can be the bad guy in a situation like this.
Its also why we have so many happy to comply with the latest DEI bullshit around 'gender' to the utter disregard of womens' rights.
Our Uni is planning on not following the recent government advice, it seems.
"On 21 May 2026, the EHRC Code of Practice following the Supreme Court's ruling defining sex within the Equalities Act (2010) was presented to Parliament. With this news, we want to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring dignity, safety and respect for all people on campus, including our trans, non-binary and intersex staff, students and visitors. As a University, we have zero tolerance for harassment, intimidation, or discrimination, including transphobia, in line with our Dignity and Respect Policy, and we will act where concerns are raised.
Parliament now has 40 days to consider the Code of Practice before a date is set for it to be enacted. The EHRC Code of Practice will automatically come into force if Parliament does not pass a resolution against it within 40 days. We will use this period to consider all of the implications of the Code for the University.
In the meantime, students and staff should continue to use the gendered spaces - including toilets and changing rooms - that align with their gender identity. No one should be questioned or challenged for doing so. If anyone does experience questioning, confrontation, or behaviour that makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, this can be reported immediately through the Support and Report tool so that appropriate action will be taken.
In addition to gendered facilities, all gender toilets are available across campus. These can be located using the campus map, if you prefer to use them.
We believe that actions speak louder than words when it comes to pursuing equity for LGBTQ+ people within the University community. Discussions are currently underway with Campus Infrastructure, Campus Services, and the Health and Safety Team to establish a clear, long term University policy for toilet provision across campus."
Look at it this way. They are giving women a cast iron case for indirect discrimination claims, reporting to the HSE for breach of health & safety rules (a criminal offence) and possibly also a breach of the regulations in place since October 2024 to take steps to prevent sexual harassment of staff.
This will provide lots of work for all my lawyer friends specialising in this area of the law.
They are also facilitating criminal offences such as voyeurism and indecent exposure and in breach of their safeguarding obligations to students.
Telling a woman faced with a man staring at her while she is changing that she must not query his presence or challenge him is to undermine the steps she needs to take to keep herself safe. It is grotesque advice. Utterly grotesque. It tells women - put up with fear, risk or crime - and don't you dare do anything to protect yourself because the feelings of the man making you feel at risk are more important.
I'd like to ask men here with daughters? Is that what you tell them? Is that what your advice is? And if it isn't why is it ok for a place which has a duty of care to them to give such advice?
I'd go with Linehan's tweet, the one that got him into trouble with the police (and which the police have grudgingly admitted was a wrongful arrest)
"If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls."
Its a joke, but it portrays real situations.
Linehan is talking balls I'm afraid. A woman will challenge but will not be violent because she knows that in a physical confrontation with a man she will lose. So she will try to defuse or flee. That then is used by activists to say women don't object which is nonsense too.
Women rely on men behaving decently and no men, whether trans or not, should go into a women only space and universities and others need to have procedures which reinforce that decency and so not put the onus of challenge on women or actively tell them not to. What this university is doing is telling women to put up with indecent behaviour and, far from reinforcing equality, it is putting the demands of a subset of men above all other considerations, including the law.
He's joking, of course.
I agree with you, and strongly support Sex Matters, but I do think that the 'toilet thing' is focused on much too much.
Years ago women and men toilets were kind of loose terms I think. I mean, in pubs and clubs I saw women use the men's loo many times (no one cared). Sure men using women's loos was uncommon (and sometimes a genuine mistake) but they'd get a bollocking at the most I think.
I don't recall women's loos every being described as a 'safe space'. When did this change?
I think things were better when we were relaxed and cool about such things rather than being all legalistic and censorious.
There didn’t used to be a group of fetishistic men who would get off on being in the women’s room, making the women uncomfortable at best, and victims of indencency or sexual assault at worst.
I think this is exagerrated. What do you mean by 'fetishistic'?
That there is a sexual motive to their actions.
Yes that's what I thought you meant. But is it true? I know there are exceptions but men who identify as women are not at all sexually motivated to use the women's facilities. They want to re-affirm their chosen identity, surely? They may be genuine/narcissistic/deluded but such people are not a threat to women are they.
Not all such people, sure, but the activist group members very much fall into that category, they *want* to make regular women uncomfortable. @cyclefree will probably say that having a penis means you shouldn’t be in the women’s room, which in my mind seems to be a reasonable place to draw the line.
There’s even a medical term for it, autogynephilia, as distinct from gender disphoria.
In fairness to m'learned colleague @Cyclefree, she insists that the status of "biological male" is set at birth (conception?) and is not altered by any genital surgery. Your statement seems to believe that trans women without a penis are still allowed in women's toilets. If my preliminary reading ( @RochdalePioneers and @malcolmg asked me to look into it ) is correct, they are not.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the current legal position was that, after the redefinition of the terms of the Equality Act to achieve internal consistency, anywhere where gendered facilities are required in law now has to split those facilities on the basis of biological sex (whoever the judges decide to precisely define that if a case ever comes to court). That doesn’t currently extend to places where facilities are offered to the public by a venue without legal obligation for them to be split by gender.
So, for instance, changing rooms in Marks & Spencer can be split any way M+S management prefers, subject to meeting their duty of care to staff and the public, because there’s no law that states that M+S must supply changing rooms divided on the basis of (biological) sex. Meanwhile changing rooms in workplaces & hospitals must be split on the basis of biological sex, because they are required by law to exist & the Equality Act now states that the division on the basis of sex must be biological sex.
Have I mis-understood?
If you put a sign on the door indicating "men only" or "women only" then that is sex discrimination. The Equality Act allows certain exemptions that make sex discrimination legal. One is toilets & bathrooms. FWS decided that the Equality act works according to Biological sex. Thus if you put "men only" or "women only" (or pictures of men etc.) on a door it has to follow the law and the EHRC guidance and be based on biological sex. You cannot ever put a sign on the door saying "whites only" because that is racial discrimination, and the Equality Act provides no such exemptions for that.
‘ NEW: No 10 finally confirms that Keir Starmer uses *disappearing messages* function - meaning that countless exchanges with Mandelson may have been lost’
Re the police - and indeed other public services - what @Nigelb said in response to my comment on the previous thread goes to the heart of the issue.
"It ought not to be difficult to understand that training to deal with existing prejudices cannot mean replacing them with new ones."
It ought not to be. But I rather fear that that is exactly what has happened. Too many public services have adopted new prejudices and created conflicts of interest which impede the proper exercise of their functions.
Exactly. In the rush to avoid being seen as racist the police have now been totally captured by a narrative that only whites can be the bad guy in a situation like this.
Its also why we have so many happy to comply with the latest DEI bullshit around 'gender' to the utter disregard of womens' rights.
Our Uni is planning on not following the recent government advice, it seems.
"On 21 May 2026, the EHRC Code of Practice following the Supreme Court's ruling defining sex within the Equalities Act (2010) was presented to Parliament. With this news, we want to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring dignity, safety and respect for all people on campus, including our trans, non-binary and intersex staff, students and visitors. As a University, we have zero tolerance for harassment, intimidation, or discrimination, including transphobia, in line with our Dignity and Respect Policy, and we will act where concerns are raised.
Parliament now has 40 days to consider the Code of Practice before a date is set for it to be enacted. The EHRC Code of Practice will automatically come into force if Parliament does not pass a resolution against it within 40 days. We will use this period to consider all of the implications of the Code for the University.
In the meantime, students and staff should continue to use the gendered spaces - including toilets and changing rooms - that align with their gender identity. No one should be questioned or challenged for doing so. If anyone does experience questioning, confrontation, or behaviour that makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, this can be reported immediately through the Support and Report tool so that appropriate action will be taken.
In addition to gendered facilities, all gender toilets are available across campus. These can be located using the campus map, if you prefer to use them.
We believe that actions speak louder than words when it comes to pursuing equity for LGBTQ+ people within the University community. Discussions are currently underway with Campus Infrastructure, Campus Services, and the Health and Safety Team to establish a clear, long term University policy for toilet provision across campus."
Look at it this way. They are giving women a cast iron case for indirect discrimination claims, reporting to the HSE for breach of health & safety rules (a criminal offence) and possibly also a breach of the regulations in place since October 2024 to take steps to prevent sexual harassment of staff.
This will provide lots of work for all my lawyer friends specialising in this area of the law.
They are also facilitating criminal offences such as voyeurism and indecent exposure and in breach of their safeguarding obligations to students.
Telling a woman faced with a man staring at her while she is changing that she must not query his presence or challenge him is to undermine the steps she needs to take to keep herself safe. It is grotesque advice. Utterly grotesque. It tells women - put up with fear, risk or crime - and don't you dare do anything to protect yourself because the feelings of the man making you feel at risk are more important.
I'd like to ask men here with daughters? Is that what you tell them? Is that what your advice is? And if it isn't why is it ok for a place which has a duty of care to them to give such advice?
I'd go with Linehan's tweet, the one that got him into trouble with the police (and which the police have grudgingly admitted was a wrongful arrest)
"If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls."
Its a joke, but it portrays real situations.
Linehan is talking balls I'm afraid. A woman will challenge but will not be violent because she knows that in a physical confrontation with a man she will lose. So she will try to defuse or flee. That then is used by activists to say women don't object which is nonsense too.
Women rely on men behaving decently and no men, whether trans or not, should go into a women only space and universities and others need to have procedures which reinforce that decency and so not put the onus of challenge on women or actively tell them not to. What this university is doing is telling women to put up with indecent behaviour and, far from reinforcing equality, it is putting the demands of a subset of men above all other considerations, including the law.
He's joking, of course.
I agree with you, and strongly support Sex Matters, but I do think that the 'toilet thing' is focused on much too much.
Years ago women and men toilets were kind of loose terms I think. I mean, in pubs and clubs I saw women use the men's loo many times (no one cared). Sure men using women's loos was uncommon (and sometimes a genuine mistake) but they'd get a bollocking at the most I think.
I don't recall women's loos every being described as a 'safe space'. When did this change?
I think things were better when we were relaxed and cool about such things rather than being all legalistic and censorious.
There didn’t used to be a group of fetishistic men who would get off on being in the women’s room, making the women uncomfortable at best, and victims of indencency or sexual assault at worst.
I think this is exagerrated. What do you mean by 'fetishistic'?
That there is a sexual motive to their actions.
Yes that's what I thought you meant. But is it true? I know there are exceptions but men who identify as women are not at all sexually motivated to use the women's facilities. They want to re-affirm their chosen identity, surely? They may be genuine/narcissistic/deluded but such people are not a threat to women are they.
Not all such people, sure, but the activist group members very much fall into that category, they *want* to make regular women uncomfortable. @cyclefree will probably say that having a penis means you shouldn’t be in the women’s room, which in my mind seems to be a reasonable place to draw the line.
There’s even a medical term for it, autogynephilia, as distinct from gender disphoria.
In fairness to m'learned colleague @Cyclefree, she insists that the status of "biological male" is set at birth (conception?) and is not altered by any genital surgery. Your statement seems to believe that trans women without a penis are still allowed in women's toilets. If my preliminary reading ( @RochdalePioneers and @malcolmg asked me to look into it ) is correct, they are not.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I thought the current legal position was that, after the redefinition of the terms of the Equality Act to achieve internal consistency, anywhere where gendered facilities are required in law now has to split those facilities on the basis of biological sex (whoever the judges decide to precisely define that if a case ever comes to court). That doesn’t currently extend to places where facilities are offered to the public by a venue without legal obligation for them to be split by gender.
So, for instance, changing rooms in Marks & Spencer can be split any way M+S management prefers, subject to meeting their duty of care to staff and the public, because there’s no law that states that M+S must supply changing rooms divided on the basis of (biological) sex. Meanwhile changing rooms in workplaces & hospitals must be split on the basis of biological sex, because they are required by law to exist & the Equality Act now states that the division on the basis of sex must be biological sex.
Have I mis-understood?
My understanding is slightly different. The purpose of the Equalities Act is to prevent discrimination by sex. It provides a number of carve outs so that you may but are not obliged to discriminate by sex in specified situations, for example in provision of education, sports, changing rooms. The direction from the Supreme Court is that this discrimination may only be made on the basis of biological sex and not gender. ie you discriminate by sex or not at all. Many organisations will decide not to split services by sex even if they can, either because they don't agree with the discrimination as currently allowed or it's just easier not to go there.
There are a small number of government regulations that mandate separate facilities for men and women that are outwith the Equalities Act.
The purpose of the Equalities Act is to prevent discrimination by sex and several other characteristics including gender, sexual orientation, race, religion, pregnancy etc. It's not just about sex.
There are explicit carve outs for age and disability (positive discrimination) plus other exemptions if they are a proportionate way to achieve a legitimate aim, or are a requirement of other legislation (employment, health and safety etc).
The recent High Court judgement I think was a very narrow clarification that the word "sex" when referring to the protected characteristic of sex, meant biological sex. That's all. Gender is still a protected characteristic and cannot be discriminated against unless it is in a proportionate way to achieve a legitimate aim, or as a requirement of other legislation (employment, health and safety etc).
NB IANAL but the legislation and the court judgement is fairly simple English.
Also has zero intelligence* or military experience.
America's new spy chief:
✔️ Investigated for manufacturing fake mortgage fraud allegations ✔️Responsible for Trump's AI Jesus post ✔️ Treasury Secretary told him "I'm gonna punch you in your fucking face" and "I'm going to beat your fucking ass." https://x.com/jonfavs/status/2061806302201008498
Could some Latin lovers give me some help, please?
In the Style section of the May 5th New York Times, in "What We Love About the First 'Devil Wears Prada'", I found this sentence: When [journalist] Andy [Sachs] scoffs at a room of Runway employees choosing between two very similar belts, Miranda soundly decimates her with a monologue about the ubiquitousness and utility of fashion
I can guess what the Maya Phillips means, but I couldn't help trying to translate what she wrote. The best I could come up with something like this: Miranda gave Andy weight loss surgery, perhaps using ultrasound.
No doubt some of you can do better than that.
It's a reference to the cerulean top monologue/speech. It was inserted for reasons I forget but it's an absolute banger, and one of two great dialogues in the file (the other being Stanley Tucci's advice to Andy - basically "toughen up, buttercup"). The speech is in the YouTube below.
"...oh okay I see you think this has nothing to do with you you go to your closet and you select I don't know that lumpy blue sweater for instance because you're trying to tell the world that you take yourself too seriously to care about what you put on your back but what you don't know is that that sweater is not just blue it's not turquoise it's not lapis it's actually Cerulean you're also blithely unaware of the fact that in 2002 Oscar De La Renta did a collection of Cerulean gowns and then I think it was Yves Saint Laurent wasn't it who showed Cerulean military jackets (I think we need a jacket here) and then Cerulean quickly showed up in the collections of eight different designers and then it uh filtered down through the department stores and then trickled on down into some tragic Casual Corner where you no doubt fished it out of some clearance bin. However that blue represents millions of dollars and countless jobs, and it's sort of comical how you think that you've made a choice that exempts you from the fashion industry when in fact you're wearing a sweater that was selected for you by the people in this room. From a pile of "stuff..."
‘ NEW: No 10 finally confirms that Keir Starmer uses *disappearing messages* function - meaning that countless exchanges with Mandelson may have been lost’
‘ NEW: No 10 finally confirms that Keir Starmer uses *disappearing messages* function - meaning that countless exchanges with Mandelson may have been lost’
‘ NEW: No 10 finally confirms that Keir Starmer uses *disappearing messages* function - meaning that countless exchanges with Mandelson may have been lost’
HMG should not be using disappearing messages and should not be using WhatsApp at all. Still, lessons will be learned...
No10 said that this means “some material may no longer be available, for example, where devices have changed or messages were set to disappear for legitimate reasons.
“But we also recognize there are lessons on record keeping, archiving, and the use of secure systems going forward.”
That should have been obvious a decade ago. WhatsApp should be banned, everyone in government should be communicating on Teams or similar, linked to gov email address.
Re the police - and indeed other public services - what @Nigelb said in response to my comment on the previous thread goes to the heart of the issue.
"It ought not to be difficult to understand that training to deal with existing prejudices cannot mean replacing them with new ones."
It ought not to be. But I rather fear that that is exactly what has happened. Too many public services have adopted new prejudices and created conflicts of interest which impede the proper exercise of their functions.
Exactly. In the rush to avoid being seen as racist the police have now been totally captured by a narrative that only whites can be the bad guy in a situation like this.
Its also why we have so many happy to comply with the latest DEI bullshit around 'gender' to the utter disregard of womens' rights.
Our Uni is planning on not following the recent government advice, it seems.
"On 21 May 2026, the EHRC Code of Practice following the Supreme Court's ruling defining sex within the Equalities Act (2010) was presented to Parliament. With this news, we want to reaffirm our commitment to ensuring dignity, safety and respect for all people on campus, including our trans, non-binary and intersex staff, students and visitors. As a University, we have zero tolerance for harassment, intimidation, or discrimination, including transphobia, in line with our Dignity and Respect Policy, and we will act where concerns are raised.
Parliament now has 40 days to consider the Code of Practice before a date is set for it to be enacted. The EHRC Code of Practice will automatically come into force if Parliament does not pass a resolution against it within 40 days. We will use this period to consider all of the implications of the Code for the University.
In the meantime, students and staff should continue to use the gendered spaces - including toilets and changing rooms - that align with their gender identity. No one should be questioned or challenged for doing so. If anyone does experience questioning, confrontation, or behaviour that makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe, this can be reported immediately through the Support and Report tool so that appropriate action will be taken.
In addition to gendered facilities, all gender toilets are available across campus. These can be located using the campus map, if you prefer to use them.
We believe that actions speak louder than words when it comes to pursuing equity for LGBTQ+ people within the University community. Discussions are currently underway with Campus Infrastructure, Campus Services, and the Health and Safety Team to establish a clear, long term University policy for toilet provision across campus."
Look at it this way. They are giving women a cast iron case for indirect discrimination claims, reporting to the HSE for breach of health & safety rules (a criminal offence) and possibly also a breach of the regulations in place since October 2024 to take steps to prevent sexual harassment of staff.
This will provide lots of work for all my lawyer friends specialising in this area of the law.
They are also facilitating criminal offences such as voyeurism and indecent exposure and in breach of their safeguarding obligations to students.
Telling a woman faced with a man staring at her while she is changing that she must not query his presence or challenge him is to undermine the steps she needs to take to keep herself safe. It is grotesque advice. Utterly grotesque. It tells women - put up with fear, risk or crime - and don't you dare do anything to protect yourself because the feelings of the man making you feel at risk are more important.
I'd like to ask men here with daughters? Is that what you tell them? Is that what your advice is? And if it isn't why is it ok for a place which has a duty of care to them to give such advice?
I'd go with Linehan's tweet, the one that got him into trouble with the police (and which the police have grudgingly admitted was a wrongful arrest)
"If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls."
Its a joke, but it portrays real situations.
Linehan is talking balls I'm afraid. A woman will challenge but will not be violent because she knows that in a physical confrontation with a man she will lose. So she will try to defuse or flee. That then is used by activists to say women don't object which is nonsense too.
Women rely on men behaving decently and no men, whether trans or not, should go into a women only space and universities and others need to have procedures which reinforce that decency and so not put the onus of challenge on women or actively tell them not to. What this university is doing is telling women to put up with indecent behaviour and, far from reinforcing equality, it is putting the demands of a subset of men above all other considerations, including the law.
He's joking, of course.
I agree with you, and strongly support Sex Matters, but I do think that the 'toilet thing' is focused on much too much.
Years ago women and men toilets were kind of loose terms I think. I mean, in pubs and clubs I saw women use the men's loo many times (no one cared). Sure men using women's loos was uncommon (and sometimes a genuine mistake) but they'd get a bollocking at the most I think.
I don't recall women's loos every being described as a 'safe space'. When did this change?
I think things were better when we were relaxed and cool about such things rather than being all legalistic and censorious.
There didn’t used to be a group of fetishistic men who would get off on being in the women’s room, making the women uncomfortable at best, and victims of indencency or sexual assault at worst.
I think this is exagerrated.
What do you mean by 'fetishistic'?
That there is a sexual motive to their actions.
Yes that's what I thought you meant. But is it true? I know there are exceptions but men who identify as women are not at all sexually motivated to use the women's facilities. They want to re-affirm their chosen identity, surely? They may be genuine/narcissistic/deluded but such people are not a threat to women are they.
There has been a lot of spin around this (when isn't there). Like the idea that thinking you have been born in the wrong body isn't a mental condition (activists got the UN to change definitions). No-one gets to choose their gender, you are born with it.
Around sexual motivation for cross dressing there has been a similar effort to decouple from sexual desire, to give it the very spin that you have used 'to affirm their gender identity'. Yet sexual offending among trans women is rife. And you can also look at the record of these men when placed into womens prisons to see their true selves come out.
What's your evidence that sexual offending among trans women is rife? (Not anecdote, please.)
The Daily Mail will look at stats that say 60% of trans women in prison are there for sexual offences.
There’s a lot going on behind the scenes there though, such as a small sample group, and the number of such offenders who never mentioned being transgender until after they found themselves in the justice system.
I would've thought the latter is an important point. If people are abusing the system by claiming to be transgender in order to get a 'better' prison environment, as is the concern, then the stats on prisoners claiming to be transgender may not tell us much about transgender people in the rest of society.
Comments
Yes, who is trans has changed a lot, which makes data from earlier studies possibly irrelevant (which is one of the issues in the Swedish paper mentioned). The claim that trans is a social media contagion, however, is very controversial, to put it politely. A key study there is also discussed in the podcast I linked to. Basically, there's little evidence for the idea of a social contagion. But trans being more accepted is, of course, going to see more people coming out as trans.
Autogynephilia is also, at best, very controversial. It's not an accepted diagnosis in the DSM, but it is a popular idea in gender critical circles. If autogynephilia is a thing, I don't know why you describe it as a recent phenomenon. Blanchard coined the term in the 1980s and, in his theory, it was a thing that had long existed, not a new phenomenon.
I'm no expert in any of this, but my understanding is that most of what you've written above is very questionable and not evidence based.
There are a small number of government regulations that mandate separate facilities for men and women that are outwith the Equalities Act.
(And, whilst some communications clearly ought to be recorded and, in extemis, published... Expecting every thought and every bit of chat between Muggins and Buggins to be available in that way is nuts, isn't it? It will be more romantic to go back to the good old ways of whispers in the gents or scribbled notes passed around in St James's Park, but is it really going to make government better?)
The Gender Crit crowd are having none of this, naturally, so those shops are going to find themselves the targets of action & I expect a push for gendered changing to made explicitly required in law. I expect the next Reform government to be particularly receptive to this lobbying.
I also have to point out that law is not what it says on the page but is what lawyers and judges say it is, and later case law may supersede this.
Neutral facilities must be single occupant use behind a lock. Including the sink.
Many places have that for eg disabled facilities, so they can be gender neutral and open to all. But if you have communal sinks, then it must be one sex or the other, not neutral.
NEW THREAD
I appreciate that even my standards this is a bit niche.
So you can setup your own instance, running on your own server. Complete with you own version of the app.
Several companies offer customised Signal as an ultra secure, private messaging system.
It would cost a tiny amount of money to create a fork
If Signal for UK government use. Complete with backups and archives.
..very easy to not fall for this if you understand that the source of style is not the fashion industry but culture...
There are explicit carve outs for age and disability (positive discrimination) plus other exemptions if they are a proportionate way to achieve a legitimate aim, or are a requirement of other legislation (employment, health and safety etc).
The recent High Court judgement I think was a very narrow clarification that the word "sex" when referring to the protected characteristic of sex, meant biological sex. That's all.
Gender is still a protected characteristic and cannot be discriminated against unless it is in a proportionate way to achieve a legitimate aim, or as a requirement of other legislation (employment, health and safety etc).
NB IANAL but the legislation and the court judgement is fairly simple English.
America's new spy chief:
✔️ Investigated for manufacturing fake mortgage fraud allegations
✔️Responsible for Trump's AI Jesus post
✔️ Treasury Secretary told him "I'm gonna punch you in your fucking face" and "I'm going to beat your fucking ass."
https://x.com/jonfavs/status/2061806302201008498
*Though he could probably ace a cognitive test.
Probably.
(I’d also schedule his device for hourly backups to a private cloud server).