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Comment by n4r9 | Hacker News Reader

The evidence, e.g.

> Current policy debates regarding transgender people’s access to restrooms and other gendered facilities are predicated on narratives about protecting the safety and privacy of women’s spaces. These narratives lack evidence showing any negative impacts on safety and privacy in women’s restrooms or other facilities when transgender people can use restrooms according to their gender identity. However, transgender people consistently report having negative experiences in restrooms perpetrated by others, including denial of access, verbal harassment, and physical assault. Evidence suggests that transgender people are put at added risk if required by law to use restrooms in accordance with their sex assigned at birth.

https://williamsinstitute.law.ucla.edu/publications/safety-i...

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But that report misses the point that women's rights to single-sex spaces is about boundaries, consent and protection from male presence in intimate settings. By only surveying "transgender experiences" it's basically just ignoring women who object to this and implying that women's boundaries and consent don't matter.

Looking at crime statistics won't capture the discomfort and intimidation that many women will experience upon encountering intrusive males in female spaces, nor their withdrawal from public life as a consequence of this.

Also it focuses heavily on toilet facilities but this is just a part of the wider issue. Like for example there's a much worse problem in women's prisons where males are being transferred in based on self-declared gender identity, with sexual assaults, rapes and impregnation of female prisoners by these men occurring as a direct result of such policy.

> women's rights to single-sex spaces is about boundaries, consent and protection

I agree that these are important things, and there's a discussion to be had about it. There's an argument for some safe spaces such as women's refuges having some kind of biological criteria. But I think the Supreme Court ruling is too broadly sweeping and I have doubts that it's a net positive.

This is slightly derailing from topic though, which is about how transphobia has surged in recent years. I'm curious to know if you think it's reasonable to boycott Netflix because they have produced kids shows with transgender characters.

I see the Supreme Court ruling as striking just about the right balance in law. It affirms single-sex spaces as actually being single-sex, and confirms that both sex and "gender reassignment" are protected characteristics in the Equality Act. So sex-based rights are upheld and at the same time there are protections against discrimination for the trans-identified.

As an example of how this should work going forward: a male work colleague who decides to start calling himself a woman and putting "she/her" in his email signature and so on can't be discriminated against because of this, which is fair. But also his female colleagues can be assured he has no right to start barging in on the women's toilets or changing rooms, which is also fair.

Back on the topic of boycotting Netflix, I personally think it's an overreaction. The whole gender identity ideological system sits somewhere between ludicrous and sexist, depending on exactly which beliefs someone takes from it, but there's loads of other shows on Netflix that are also ludicrous and also sexist. I feel it's an opportunity for critique of these ideas, rather than a blanket boycott of the whole platform.

That said, I wouldn't want my child to start believing this nonsense when she gets older but it feels like a fad that's on its way out. I don't think it'll be a problem. I'm more concerned about all the other misogynistic messaging that shows no sign of disappearing any time soon.

> his female colleagues can be assured he has no right to start barging in on the women's toilets

What if they've fully committed to the process and undergone gender reassignment surgery, hormone therapy etc... Should that change anything in your view? At that point it's clearly more than just labelling themselves.

> I wouldn't want my child to start believing this nonsense when she gets older but it feels like a fad that's on its way out.

Transsexuality is a fad? Hasn't it existed in some form or another throughout all human culture and history?

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