Non-binary colleague using disabled toilet

My question throughout this has always been, why does the sign need changing? The person may identify as NB but they are biologically male or female. If the presence of a sign on the door has such a profound affect on them then they need to seek therapy.

Except it's being proven that "the healthcare they need" neither makes them happy or healthy.

Either your concern is for the kids to be happy and healthy - in which case you'll read the evidence and Cass with an open mind and consider changing your views - or your concern is really for the idea of "gender affirming care" and it doesn't matter the mounting evidence of how poor the outcomes are.

You’ve got to question the motives of people who think surgery for children and prescribing them medication that can have irreversible detrimental consequences on their fertility and mental health to name a couple. The opposite of happy and healthy. Like affirming an anorexic as fat.

Thankfully sanity has prevailed with the ban. In a way I’m glad you post Tandora, out in plain sight for all to see.

It is astonishing how a belief in gender seems to also include no empathy or understanding for anyone else

Of course I know that. Facilities for disabled people are very poor overall and should be improved in consultation with disabled people, who are the only people who should be making pronouncements about what is or isn't an issue for them. I'm not disabled, so it would be an overstep on my part to say whether people who are prefer single sex facilities or not. If people wish to campaign for single sex accessible facilities I would support that it I could be of help.

Yeah, this was me. Haven't left the house since November 12th because of fecal incontinence and before that, May. Only to go to hospital appointments. Haven't been in a shop or out for food, or just anywhere nice since 2019. But yeah, that poster can carry on and put their little snarky exclamation mark about my comment. I still can't believe this ableism is allowed on here.

We can all clearly see the derogatory speech from the gender critical brigade here too and it's not pleasant.

There is certainly no moral high ground to be claimed.

Huh? Disabled toilets are all single user. Thats single sex by default. Just like my toilet at home.

Please post the derogatory speech? How do you define the ‘gender critical brigade’? Are you for puberty blockers and body modifications, especially in children, for those with gender dysphoria?

I’m not, I think it’s barbaric, so I will be taking the moral high ground on that one thank you very much.

you do realise that you just said ‘I do have empathy… but haha NOT FOR YOU!! That’s IF you’re even real. My mum was real but YOU MUST BE LYING.’
i mean, how else can you imagine people read your post?

if you take the quote marks out, your first line or two is spot on. Dangerous, and ill informed. The data says suppressing puberty is dangerous, and harms, and there’s no evidence it helps to offset that harm. So supporting it is dangerous and ill informed.

The data says suppressing puberty is dangerous, and harms, and there’s no evidence it helps to offset that harm

No it doesn't.
The Cass review concludes the latter part - the Cass review is contested. The former is complete rubbish.

motives of people who think surgery for children

Another example of the manipulation and scaremongering.

There is and never has been any question of providing surgeries to trans children in the UK

(although they are provided to children with variations in sex development - but you aren't wound up about that right? Curious).

No, they are typically unisex. So people use them knowing they are also used by members of the opposite sex. Some people don't like using facilities that are also used by the opposite sex, as per my previous comments. I'm not going to presume to speak on behalf of disabled people to say whether or not this is an issue. All I'm saying is that some women prefer to use toilets that are not also used by men.

Also people need to stop comparing being trans to anorexia. Anorexia is a debilitating mental illness, because people need to eat food in order to live. If people don't eat they die.

There is nothing wrong with being trans. There really isn't. Whatever the majority of non-trans people on mumsnet think. Being trans is real, valid and just a-ok. Trans people can live happy, healthy and fulfilling lives, if they are only afforded dignity, respect and healthcare.

The debate is between people who think disabled loos should be for the disabled and those who think gender identity qualifies in breaking those norms. Plenty of moral high ground...

If it's so ok, then why is cutting off healthy body parts and sterilisation via hormones necessary? And why are kids being pushed to do this before they even know who they are? If gender identity is innate, then why is all this medical intervention necessary? Why are the stories of transition regret ridiculed and suppresses.

And why does a trans person need to use a toilet adapted for disability if it's not an illness?

You've been told a million times Tandora, the problem isn't trans people, as in adults.

It's men - however they identify - in women's spaces and sports and transing confused, usually autistic children by affirming fleeting feelings on gender non-conformity with irreversible medication. There's enough detransitioners to show how horrific it is to go down this path with children and teenagers.

Why would it be an overstep to say that if many non disabled people would prefer single sex facilities so would disabled people? We aren't a separate species.

If being trans means damaging your body with medically unnecessary interventions and causing a headache for society because you won't use single sex spaces in accordance with your actual sex then it can be a problem.

But the don’t. Many people make an active choice to use it

“its closer”
”it’s cleaner”
”I have too many shopping bags”
”I don’t know which toilet to use”

etc etc. They have become the easy “access for all” option with no regards for the needs of those who can’t use any other toilet

What are your professional qualifications, Tandora? Professor Hilary Cass was very well qualified to carry out that review and had a team of professional researchers working with her. I'd take a lot of convincing that they got their conclusions wrong, especially as those loudly shouting that they did are from disinterested.

For me it is as fundamental as believing in gravity to acknowledge that humans, just like all the other mammals, are either male or female. That's how we have evolved to be. Female bodies work differently in some respects and have different organs and hormones from male bodies. This applies whether we reproduce or not.

Moving on from that, every human being has to go through puberty. This is a normal and essential stage of development as we move from childhood to adulthood and sexual maturity. Girls go through female puberty, boys go through male puberty. During this period huge changes happen in the body, including the brain. Blocking puberty with drugs and not allowing the normal puberty for that child's sex to proceed is surely obviously a very risky thing to do, given that we don't fully understand everything that's happening.

Puberty blockers have been used for a long time to delay puberty in cases where a child was entering puberty at far below the normal age, which is medically risky for a number of reasons. In those cases the drugs are stopped at the earliest age doctors feel it's medically advisable to let puberty get going again, because they recognise that the body's normal functioning should be disrupted as little as possible. Even in those cases in adult life some patients say they have had longlasting problems as a direct result of taking the blockers.

What's been happening in the last couple of decades with gender-questioning children is that they've been put on blockers at an early stage of puberty and later they've been prescribed other drugs which suppress their natural hormones and introduce artificially high levels of hormones typically found in the opposite sex. So a girl doesn't get normal levels of oestrogen and progesterone, she gets a very high dose of testosterone. A boy has his testosterone production suppressed and he gets oestrogen. We know from polycystic ovarian syndrome that it causes very unpleasant and distressing medical problems for a woman to have higher than average testosterone levels and yet here we are giving a teenage girl in normal health an even higher T level than she would have with PCOS. We're playing with fire here.

I cannot for the life of me see how anybody can defend this untried medical experiment on children who have not been able to give informed consent to what's being done to them. It's a huge medical scandal and the chickens are starting to come home to roost.

If it's so ok, then why is cutting off healthy body parts and sterilisation via hormones necessary?

If you took the trouble to inform yourself by listening to trans people's experiences you would gain some insight into why many trans people may need hormonal therapies and surgical interventions. I understand that it's difficult for someone who isn't trans to understand; but it is possible if you try to open your mind a little.

And why are kids being pushed to do this before they even know who they are?
They aren't.

If gender identity is innate, then why is all this medical intervention necessary?
Again as above. For many trans people living with a gender that does not align with their physical body is an extremely distressing, debilitating, disorienting experience. Medical intervention helps to relieve that incongruence and suffering.

Why are the stories of transition regret ridiculed and suppresses.
They aren't. They should be listened to and taken seriously. But in their proper context. Like stories of abortion regret, they matter, but they are also not the majority and they do not negate other stories, where trans people's lives have been made overwhelmingly better through access to medical interventions. Detransition stories are a significant minority; they are being manipulated and amplified by those who want to cut off access to life saving healthcare for all trans children and that's not a tiny bit ok, anymore than it would be ok to ban abortion because some women/girls regret it.

And why does a trans person need to use a toilet adapted for disability if it's not an illness?

Trans people need a comfortable and safe place to use the loo like anyone else. If you are non-binary, this may be a gender neutral toilet. If the only gender neutral toilet is the accessible use, this will be why they need to use it.

'Non binary' is not a protected characteristic; 'disabled' is. The facilities exist for a reason, not for validation.
Healthy, able bodied people using the disabled facilities for validation put disabled people at a disadvantage.

Wrong. Girls under 18 have been referred for double mastectomies in Scotland, haven't they? The twee term for this used by transactivists is 'top surgery', but that's what it actually is.