TRANSCRIPT (Unedited):
Whether a group of males is more at risk from other males or whether a group of males is less of a risk to females is irrelevant when it comes to single-sex safeguarding provisions for females. So let’s look at gay men or disabled men.
So gay men and disabled men are the most at risk for sex-based violence from other men. Gay men and disabled men Present the least amount of risk to women and girls. But regardless of these two things, gay men and disabled men still need to use male facilities. The fact of their vulnerability among other men should be addressed.
That should absolutely be addressed and men should work as a collective to make sure that those men remain safe. That they themselves control their impulses and do not perpetrate violence on these men. But the fact of their vulnerability level and the fact that they are less likely
to harm women does not mean they should be put into female spaces. And my point here is that females are not human shields for men who are at risk from other men. And our judgment about these men is not based on their group.
I’m not judging gay men as a group when I say they don’t belong in women’s spaces. I’m not judging disabled men as a group when I say they don’t belong in female spaces. I am simply holding a boundary around female spaces. Whatever group membership they are a part of, So,
when you are telling me that there is 1% of men who are more safe than other men, Or there is 1% of men who are more at risk to male-on-male violence than other men. That is irrelevant to me when I am holding a boundary for women and girls.
And the fact of the matter is that these men are the very men who are violating women and girls’ boundaries the most. And I am calling them out. Based on their behavior of violating that boundary, and when I name them as their group membership,
I’m simply observing that these are the men most likely to violate the privacy and the integrity of women and girls’ single sex safeguarding provisions, sports, prisons, domestic violence shelters, all of these things. By using their identity as a means to get in. But my work is about boundaries. Holding this boundary for women and girls.
And I see this boundary very clearly. And I see sex very clearly. You do not belong in based on the fact of your sex. Not based on the fact of your group membership. It is based on the fact of your sex. I place you with all of the other males who do not belong in.
So I hope this will help.
