Trans have lost nothing but their domination

On Tuesday 13 May, the National published a comment piece by Dylan Hamilton whinging about the Scottish Parliament having provided suitable toilet facilities for her to use. We wrote to the editor, to correct the many pieces of misinformation her account contained. Our letter was published on 14 May, though well buried in the online version.

Sir

Your comment piece "I work at Holyrood - how toilets policy affects me" is full of misinformation. Dylan Hamilton claims that the Scottish Parliament is following "guidance they are not legally obligated to". This is simply wrong. The guidance, issued by the Equality and Human Rights Commission, is simply a restatement of the law, as clarified by the Supreme Court. The court did not use the law "to interpret whatever they wanted from it". Instead, it analysed the Equality Act virtually line by line to establish what the law actually says. 

Nor is it true to say that the mixed toilet facility is a "secret third thing" and that people who identify as trans will be outed by using it. This is not a "trans-only" toilet. but can be used by literally anybody. I dare say your correspondent's colleagues (amongst others) will be more than happy to use it as well. 

Such third spaces have existed for years in many buildings, in Edinburgh and elsewhere. They are a compassionate solution which allows everyone their rights and does not insist that anyone is forced to use a facility which does not align with the way they feel about themself.  

What this article - and much of the commentary in the media - demonstrates is that the trans-movement does not want a world in which everyone is provided for, but one in which their insistence that everyone play along with their claim that they are literally members of the opposite sex takes precedence. 

I can, to an extent, understand the howls of outrage - the lie that people can change sex has been widely adopted for many years, mostly at the expense of women and lesbians. As a result, trans-identifying men and women have become so used to imposing their preferences on the world that it will take a period of adjustment to find their rights do not trump everyone else's. 

Over the last ten years or so, women and lesbians have increasingly been denied the rights to our own spaces, free from males no matter how they identify. The judgment has confirmed that right always existed, even if it has been ignored. It also clearly reiterated the rights of people who identify as trans to be fully protected against discrimination. They have lost nothing, but their dominance.

Regards

Sally Wainwright

Lesbian Persistence.