Mick Hartley

Victoria Smith at UnHerd on how the media is distorting EHRC ruling on women-only spaces:

If the “gender wars” of the past decade have taught us anything, it’s that framing matters. Take, for instance, the shocking headlines that have emerged in response to the EHRC’s latest recommendations on women-only spaces.

According to the Times and the Independent, trans women are to be “banned from single-sex spaces”. Except this isn’t true. As the Telegraph more accurately puts it, trans women — that is, biologically male people who claim to be women — are to be “banned from public female-only spaces”.

Such a ruling should not be controversial. As the barrister Naomi Cunningham points out, “single-sex spaces for women can’t have men in them, because if they do, they’re not single-sex”.

The difference in headlines is all-important. The first example suggests a singling out of trans women, targeting them for exclusion merely for being trans. The second simply states that female-only spaces are to be female-only in more than just name.

It's the way that "trans" has been presented as the new "gay" – a persecuted minority who form the latest in the progressive list of victims to be rescued from the prejudices of the past. Noting that we're talking here about men pretending to be women, and insisting on their right to access women-only spaces, somehow robs them of their magic.

At the heart of it all is the miscasting of members of a dominant group (males) as vulnerable victims of members of a subordinate group (females). In academic articles, Stonewall training sessions, books, and newspaper think pieces, something very justifiable and ordinary — women’s fear of male violence and right to privacy — has been recast as privileged, bigoted “cis” women’s paranoia about anyone who is different.

How deeply ingrained this narrative has become was seen recently in the Sandie Peggie employment tribunal. Dr Beth Upton, a male employee who failed to respect Peggie’s need for a female-only changing room, ought to have been seen as precisely the kind of man who creates the need for such spaces. Instead Upton’s colleagues and employer rushed to portray Peggie as the aggressor.

To many people, it is obvious how wrong this is. There is nothing different or boundary-shattering about the likes of Upton. Nonetheless, the past decade has seen a certain class of people embrace the idea that some male people are in fact vulnerable women. The law may have been clarified, but it will be a long time before such people stop insisting that the law is both confusing and a gross violation of human rights.