Women’s Rights Network Greater Manchester reject unisex spaces and gender self-identifying
- Women’s Rights Network Greater Manchester are protesting gender self-identifying and advocating for sex-based rights
- They have come under fire for controversial opinions and labelled TERFs on social media.
- Mermaids says there is “no evidence” that gender self-identifying benefits predators.
Featured image: Women’s Rights Network Greater Manchester, Twitter @WRNmanchester
Women’s Right Network Greater Manchester are calling for a rethink on sex-based rights in Manchester- rejecting gender self-identifying.
They are campaigning against gender self-identifying in prisons and changing rooms and for amendments to the Equality Act 2010 “to make clear characteristic sex is biological sex” in an attempt to preserve the “dignity, respect and privacy” of biological women.
WRNGM has been in operation for 12 months, with membership said to be doubling over the past few months.
‘Men have no place in women’s changing rooms. To state this is neither hateful nor transphobic, it is simply the truth’
WRNGM
WRNGM have been the subject of controversy due to their rejection of gender self-identifying- receiving countless TERF (trans-exclusionary radical feminist) accusations on social media.
In response to the accusations Julie, of WRNGM, said: “We understand the need to protect marginalised groups. We don’t agree with protecting one marginalised group in the favour of another”.
Primark protests
As part of the campaign, members of the Women’s Rights Network Manchester recently protested against unisex changing rooms outside Primark in Market Street.
In December, WRNM members questioned shoppers entering Primark on whether they were aware of Primark’s changing room situation.
Julie stated that of the shoppers questioned, 95% were not aware Primark only has “unisex” facilities and allows gender-self identifying in their women-only facilities.
She added that GMRWN hopes Primark will “have the courtesy to tell customers” or “reconsider” their changing room policy for the “dignity, respect and privacy” of women.
Primark’s changing room policy
Primark abandoned its unisex-only changing room model in late 2022 after a TikTok emerged from user Charlotte Kirby describing the distress she experienced when two men walked in on her in a unisex changing room.
Primark in Market Street offers both a unisex changing room and a women-only changing room. However, in the women-only area Primark has said that “customers are not required to provide identification” of gender.
Primark has been contacted for a comment.
Response from trans-rights activists
‘How and at what point do we decide who is and isn’t a woman’
Mermaids UK
Mermaids UK is one of the UK’s leading LBTQ+ charities, offering support to gender-diverse young people and seeking to inform the public about gender identity.
On gender self-identifying in single-sex spaces, they say: “If we legislate to police gender in toilets, then how and at what point do we decide who is and isn’t a woman?
“Will all facilities require a gender checking attendant? Do tall, broad or deeper-voiced women face being challenged for ID to prove their gender? Will women with short hair who dress in traditionally-male clothing be asked to prove their sex? Will a woman be forced to show a stranger their body to pass a gender test?
“None of this sounds remotely progressive and none of it sounds like the empowerment of women. As we say in our open letter to the author J.K.Rowling, trans people have been using toilets, trying on clothes in changing rooms, accessing domestic violence facilities, and generally getting on with their lives for as long as single-sex spaces have existed and there is absolutely no evidence we’re aware of, from the police, local authorities, shops, refuges or anywhere else besides, that predators have used the provisions of the Equality Act 2010 to gain access to women’s spaces. None.
“If even a scrap of such evidence existed, you can be certain the anti-transgender lobby would be promoting it.”