Readers' Letter: Single sex policy for toilets isn't a simple thing

Certain women’s groups believe all biological males are potential predators and as such cannot be allowed into spaces designed for women. They demand guidance be issued accordingly.

However, I’m not surprised there’s a delay because this could have significant ramifications for employers. For instance, new toilet facilities for trans people may not be possible if drainage isn’t readily available. What then?

Moreover, if all men are to be legally banned from a female designated space, will you now be required to employ female cleaners, electricians and plumbers to maintain it? You may think I’m being facetious but that’s where you could end up if an employee insists on the law being applied without exception.

In past times the cleaning and maintenance of hospitals and schools was done at night when there were no staff or public present. But we now have schools opening outwith normal hours for community use. And larger hospitals with a greater throughput of patients means closing toilets for replenishment during the day is also the norm. This creates health and safety issues.

It is precisely for that reason that architects increasingly use unisex toilets scattered around the building rather than cubicle clusters. A level of provision during cleaning is always available. And trans users can be treated equally.

But where does all this end? Will it become illegal for a man to enter other female-only spaces such as a female ward or even a birthing room? Are we now seriously saying that a lesbian will be able to watch her partner give birth while a biological male doing the same would be breaking the law?

Robert Menzies, Falkirk

Spongers’ society

As “Rachel the Riever” prepares for her next raid in the true Labour tradition of levelling down, we can be assured it will not fall on those with the broadest shoulders. They are the people with mobility and the crafty accountants to ensure that they pay very little.

It is those who have worked all their lives, conscientiously filled in tax forms and paid up religiously who will be the target. Many have lived modest lives, saved and, in the absence of a company pension, put some by in a private pension to help in old age so they are not a burden, many never actually reaching the “average” wage. Now as homeowners with the mortgage paid off, a bit saved and a reasonable lifestyle they can expect to be hit. If not while they are alive, certainly when they die, and if inheritance tax is increased the very people whom the government say need a leg up will be denied an inheritance.

In the meantime the “won’t work, won’t want” brigade appear to be able to get whatever they want, whenever they want it without lifting a finger or contributing to the country, and so the welfare bill soars with little apparent real will on the part of the government to seriously reduce it.

I can only hope that I live long enough to see a government with the sense to appreciate the contributors, not the spongers.

John Marsh, Firthmuir of Boysack, Angus

Basket case UK

I am sure most readers will be able to see beyond the customary anti-SNP/Scottish Government sentiments expressed in Jill Stephenson's latest Scotsman offering (Letters, 23 August) and discern that the real reason she believes devolution has “failed” is because it keeps producing SNP administrations! Facts, as we know, are chiels that winna ding and if Ms Stephenson and other proponents of the union are being honest with themselves they will face the facts and acknowledge that what most certainly is not working for Scotland is Westminster rule.

The UK is, after all, an economic basket-case with the fiscal incompetence displayed by a succession of administrations leaving us with a national debt of around £2.71 trillion. There has been massive slaughter in Gaza, alleged genocide and ethnic cleansing, and now famine has been declared, which the UN asserts “is starvation by design”. Incredibly, our Labour government is still supplying the state responsible for this catastrophic situation with armaments!

This same government was elected on a promise of change but has delivered hardly any. Instead Waspi women have been betrayed, the Tories’ two-child benefit cap has been retained and the growth Rachel Reeves promised has not materialised. Sir Keir Starmer is spending billions extra on defence at the same time as our NHS and other social services are struggling desperately to cope due to years of gross underfunding.

Scotland can do so much better and it is time we took full control of our own affairs and elected a government which focused on our priorities rather than those of London and the south-east of England!

Alan Woodcock, Dundee

Faith in facts

Steuart Campbell (Letters, 23 August) claims to rely on evidence to support his beliefs. He states unequivocally that “religious belief is merely a superstition”. He justifies this statement by implying there is no evidence to support religious belief. Yet many others have explored and considered evidence and reached the opposite conclusion. For example, Francis Collins, the scientist who led the Human Genome Project which successfully mapped human DNA, said: “I came to the conclusion that faith in God is a rational choice, a decision based on the evidence. And the evidence of God’s existence, provided by the beauty of creation and the moral law within us, is compelling.”

Ultimately Mr Campbell’s faith appears to be in the reliability of his own judgment, including judging which “evidence” is admissible.

George Rennie, Inverness

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