I'm currently having a bit of a row with the management of a theatre I attend regularly. I have stopped going into the women's toilets there since I realised that men in dresses were striding in as if they owned the place. I wasn't confident that management would back me up if I complained, so I just self-excluded. Which involves going six hours in the evening without "paying a call".
Here's the response.
All I asked was for an assurance that, if they received a complaint that a man was using the women's facilities, their staff would support the woman who complained, and not the man who had chosen to go where he shouldn't be. They can't even manage that. They already have the facilities in place - a new foyer area including bars and toilet facilities was added to the old Victorian theatre only ten years ago - but they can't give an assurance they will comply with the law.
What was singularly lacking in that letter was any acknowledgement that I, whom I would suppose would count as one of their "valued customers" was feeling neither safe nor respected. No apology that I was having to go for six hours without using the toilet. Certainly no assurance that I would be offered my choice of a female-only space where males were not permitted. Just wittering nonsense about waiting for an updated code of practice and seeking further advice from government before complying with the law as it has now been confirmed to have been for the past 15 years. I mean, further advice? A seven-year-old could understand it.
There's not much ambiguity, is there?
I am getting a subtext that women who want a single-sex facility don't count as "everyone" in the context of feeling safe and respected. That while the "diversity" contingent's special feelz are really, really important and serious and must be indulged, women's feelings can be safely discounted. And to add insult to injury, the missive was signed "Jen". Which I presume is short for "Jennifer the captured handmaiden".