Being totally honest here... I do understand people's issue with this but then I also think there's an element of hysteria surrounding it. Like yes, in theory, allowing transexuals access to female only spaces IS open to abuse and does make it POSSIBLE for devious individuals to gain access to commit a crime. However, the idea that suddenly there are going to be countless men swaggering into female toilets swinging their dicks and shouting "I'm a woman too!" is ... well ... just a tad over the top. Realistically, it's not going to happen very often. Also realistically, if a predator is determined enough to attack a woman that he would pose as a transgendered individual to get into a women's bathroom and attack someone... then I don't think NOT allowing trans people in women's bathrooms is exactly going to stop that individual? I mean... the bathrooms don't have invisible penis detecting forcefields around them... and an attack either way could only occur in a relatively quiet / isolated place. Where a man could just walk in anyway? They're not going to head towards a women's bathroom, see the sign that says "ladies" and say "Well darn, I'm not a lady so I can't go in! No sexual assault for me today I guess".
In short... I suppose... a predator looking to attack someone is probably going to attack someone. I really, genuinely, don't think many will be putting on dresses to descend on public toilets en masse.
Likewise the women's refuge thing, I feel like in that situation it shouldn't be particularly difficult to weed out the genuine victims from the potential predators. A common sense approach SHOULD be totally fine - "passing" females should be accepted. The idea that a sexual predator is going to have hormone therapy, dress and live their life as a woman, then pose as a domestic abuse victim... all for the chance to access and try to attack someone in a monitored / populated / staffed refuge... well yeah. Again it's possible, but the likelihood of it is so low that any genuine fear of it happening can only be grossly exaggerated.
But basically my thoughts are that people these days are getting so caught up in legislation that no one knows how to use common sense any more
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