Oh boy!
Mr. AE tells me this would be my Mastermind subject as I don't shut up about it.
I don't give a crap what anyone wants to wear/call themselves. I volunteered for years with our LHB AIDS helpline, primarily helping gay men. Have been the friend that others have come out to first over the years because I've been willing to talk about anything remotely taboo (including homosexuality) as I've never understood why things like that are/were taboo. I now bang the drum for menopause which is apparently another taboo.
Hmmm... is this why people cringe when I start talking?
However. I draw the line at men identifying as women using women's toilets and changing rooms simply because I've first (and second) hand experience with a man in the Ladies flashing. Younger women use the loos as a bit of a sanctuary at times (does anyone else remember putting their arm around a friend with a broken heart who wouldn't want the world to know she's upset?), are frequently ashamed of their periods (I never understood this but from what I read boys and young men are actually shaming girls for having a period now - they should be so lucky they never encountered me as a teen!) and want privacy, especially if they've had a leak. Muslim women need to wash before prayers and adjust their hijab. They don't particularly want to share sreas they consider a private place with any men no matter what they wear and neither do I. Too much risk and opportunity for even just the odd bloke hiding cameras etc. Not to mention the really odd ones that actually post on chat rooms that they've been in the Ladies and urinated on the seats and toilet rolls.
There are so many reasons a man should not be using women's spaces and the fact that they 'feel' like a woman is not an excuse to let them.
S tone wall (I have to type spaces as they search for postings like mine then 'doxx' people) is causing massive disruption over this. Jobs are being lost and women speakers told they've been struck off list for speaking openly of keeping women's spaces for women. They're not the only charity doing this but they're the most well-known. They've gone into organisations and government departments and demanded change for the teeny percentage of men wanting to us all to change for them. However, the EHRC is the latest organisation to wake up and smell the BS and have left them.
Earlier this year Lord Hunt made a great speech in The Lords standing up for women. The Maternity Bill is also saving the NHS a great deal of money by saying that the word 'mother' is lawfull and should remain. No ****, Sherlock! Though several Trusts are insisting on going ahead and changing the language (again at huge cost to the NHS) around not only maternity services but all services where women are concerned.
It all starts small with the S 'charity' insisting that the word 'gender' by used rather than 'sex' which starts a confusion. The hooha around the Census this year had the forms rushed through on the hush then changed (at taxpayer's cost) after complaints. Anyone can use any gender they like but we are all one of just two sexes.
This is a problem as men saying they're women when arrested for flashing etc., are recorded as a female having committed the crime which skews figures. The same figures are used by statisticians who provide figures for medical-related sectors that use them for drugs and medical services that affect us all.
Men can also ask to be housed in women's prisons even if their crime is rape. Refuges can't turn away men saying they're women despite the women already there have been traumatised by their experiences and are trying to escape from men.
It's a huge fight that's happening very much in the background so the more people actually get to know what's really happening is important (or should be at least to women). Long story short, though, women are STILL protected by law and the Equalities Act 2010. Despite S insisting otherwise we can still request our own spaces and services.
However, if you do, be careful as a lady called M arion M i ll ar (again spaced to avoid searches) in Scotland has recently been arrested for Tweeting a photo of a suffragette ribbon tied to a fence. It looked like a noose and offended apparently. It looked like a. Her Twitter account has been removed but Twitter accounts showing collections of guns, baseball bats wrapped with barbed wire and machetes threatening violence to her (the same people who made the same threats to JK Rowling) and her followers are still up. If you want more info the wonderful (and funny) Father Ted writer, G Line han (spaced) has loads of interesting info on his site if you Google him.
What with all this and the incel, Mens Rights Activist and how to pull (then rape) sites out there, it's a thoroughly unpleasant world young women are heading for. Luckily, there are still men like Mr. AE (and other husbands on here) and most of the men we all know (even those that have always quietly dressed as women) are not like this and would never dream of treating women like the odd few (but increasing) number of men out there these days.
Sorry for the long, boring rant but I hope it answered a few questions. Even though it's late, I'm not feeling great and should have gone to bed ages ago so I could have made more sense and less of a hash than I have in the morning!
