Mick Hartley

Meanwhile, in Southwark:

It was as Miranda Newsom entered the female changing room of her local council-run leisure centre in Southwark, south London, that she first noticed someone who was clearly a biological man washing his hands at the sink.

Newsom, a 60-year-old marketing executive, had been a member of the gym for over two years, using it four or five times a week to keep fit.

But this was not the first time she had noticed men using women’s facilities and had emailed the centre previously to complain, to no avail. However, on this occasion, she refused to remain silent.

“I saw him straight away – a man, around 5ft 10in tall, with long hair, wearing a halter top and loose-fitting trousers, standing at the basin washing his hands,” says Newsom, a married mother-of-two.

“I’d spotted him in the female changing room the previous week and had been too nervous to say anything. He’s the second man I’ve seen in the female facilities at this particular centre, but today, I was feeling braver.

“As I approached, I said calmly, ‘I’m sure you’re probably a perfectly decent person, but this is a female changing room, and males can’t be in here.’

“He turned on me immediately, saying, ‘I’m a woman on my birth certificate and passport!’. But he was unmistakably male.”

Before Newsom could respond, she says, “he started filming me and asking if other women in the changing room had a problem with him being there”.

She continues: “My heart was racing. One woman – possibly in her twenties – said she had no problem. There was another woman, standing in just a towel, who didn’t say anything.”

Ah, good old female solidarity.

It was, of course, Miranda Newsom who got banned. Her behaviour, in confronting a man in the women’s changing room, was “inappropraiate”, and – the horror – she’d misgendered him.

Newsom says the row in the changing room escalated when she was accused of threatening violence.

“Seconds after I’d started talking to him, suddenly, out of nowhere, he said, ‘I’m scared! You raised a fist at me! I’m calling the police, I’m getting the manager.’

“My hand was closed as I was holding my earbuds, but I was in no way ‘making a fist’ or threatening to punch him. I’m a 5ft 5in woman, and he was so much taller than me. It was a ridiculous thing to say.

“We both walked to reception, where he objected to my calling him a man and then called me a ‘cis woman’ [a woman who identifies as their biological sex]. I took exception to that as I’m simply a ‘woman’.

“He then called me a man, but this simply doesn’t bother me.”

Newsom admits that she “did become agitated at the time – particularly when this man started filming me. No doubt my cortisol was already spiking from seeing a grown adult man in the female changing room while at least one woman was standing there in just a towel”.

Within 15 minutes of the encounter, however, two police officers had arrived.

“They talked to him first while the female gym general manager came to speak with me, clearly startled. She said that the centre tries to be “inclusive and welcoming to all”.

“The next part of our conversation was jaw-dropping. She said that when it comes to trans people, they do a ‘visual assessment’ to make sure they look ‘enough’ like the sex they aspire to be.

“It is utterly ridiculous. I asked if a man with long hair and a pink top would be allowed in, but a man with short hair wearing a t-shirt and baggy track suit bottoms wouldn’t? How can that form a policy?”

Newsom was told by the police officers that there would be no action, but the council management said her case would be investigated further.

Last week, she was invited to a meeting with Southwark’s head of leisure. There, she was told that the centre is “reviewing its policies”, but for now, she was banned for a year for behaviour that was “not appropriate”.

If the useless Bridget Phillipson had published the single sex EHRC guidance, this could have been avoided. But she hasn’t, so here we are.

Last words to the redoubtable Newsom.

“Why should the safety, privacy and dignity of women and girls be put on hold because the council doesn’t want to upset these men?”