Re the letter from Dr Matti Wenham (Glaring flaws in the idea of excluding trans people from single-sex spaces, 11 April), this issue can be reframed as “allowing single-sex spaces as set out in the Equality Act”, rather than “excluding trans people from single-sex spaces”. Under its terms, single-sex spaces are lawful if it can be shown that this is “a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim”. As there are many more women in the population than trans women, and therefore many more women than trans women who need to use public toilets, this is certainly proportionate.
The term biological sex does not require quote marks as used by Dr Wenham; it’s a simple and scientifically accepted term.
Dr Wenham’s assertion that trans men in women’s spaces “will mean that a greater number of more masculine people will be present in women’s spaces” conflates sex and gender, which are different things. A trans man who, for example, wears a man’s suit may well present as more masculine under the “rules” by which we gender clothes, but is biologically a woman. It is also quite an assumption that the presence in women’s spaces of “a greater number of more masculine people” who are biological women might be of more concern than an open door to biologically male people, who as a class are stronger and bigger than women and therefore potentially present more danger.
Dr Wenham asserts that there is “no evidence of an increase in risk to the public … when trans people are legally allowed to access the … facilities appropriate to their preferred gender”. I wonder if Dr Wenham knows whether evidence is being collected, and what evidence exists that there isn’t an increase in risk? Absence of evidence, after all, is not evidence of absence.
In short, if women’s spaces are open to trans women on any basis, women lose the right to say no to any man.
Jacqui Lewis
London
