"Wrong bathroom" sign in university toilet

This is from more than three years ago, same thing

www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/student-life/11238813/University-trans-awareness-poster-prompts-huge-response.html

I have to queue at the only single sex loo at my work, it's in private companies too.

That was interesting - thanks, Yspadadden.

I'm hoping this helps to explain the problem, for people who prefer examples to being bombarded with facts and figures... kaygreen.blog/2018/03/06/a-message-to-male-feminists/

Upskirting, flashing, "peeping", stuff to do with hair, school uniforms, shoes, feet, the list goes on and on.

There was an article in the Guardian about upskirting yesterday. It was quite astonishing the number of commenters who saw no problem with it, or thought that actresses were inviting it by wearing dresses.

I think we need to stop saying NAMALT. More than enough are. #MMALT (many men are like that). Let's just fucking admit it.

Yes to this as well.

Once we learn to recognize the dozens of public displays of male dominance that we are subjected to on a daily basis the men's enthusiasm for self ID as transgender and genderfluid makes perfect sense.

Yes to this. Once you see it, you can't stop seeing it.

TerranceandPhilip

What's so difficult about this? Do you value women feeling safe more than a few men "feeling safe" (in reality it's feeling validated) or not?

Maybe we all need to buy shewees and start pissing on teh streets

Once we learn to recognize the dozens of public displays of male dominance that we are subjected to on a daily basis the men's enthusiasm for self ID as transgender and genderfluid makes perfect sense.

"They are using the facilities they feel safe in".

Mmmhmmm what about those they are now making feel unsafe?

And

B) it validates them as Real Women.

But it's mainly becaise they know we don't really want them.thee and it's forcing us to join in their game with them.

Jax in the evwnt that your question isn't rhetorical...

It's important for TIMs to be able to use the women's toilets because

A) they know women don't want them there

Why is it ok for the many women to use converted to unisex men's loos with urinals, but not ok for the few transwomen to use those men's loos now? Are transwomen more vulnerable than women? If it's safe for women to use former gents loos, then surely it's safe for transwomen to use the gents now?

I doubt most men would bat an eyelid at a person in a dress using a cubicle in the gents. Most women I know have had to do this on that desperate situation when the queue for the ladies is too long! But I wouldn't want to do this as a regular thing.

Feel free to browse the internet sites for men who are into voyerism in public toilets & changing rooms if you want

They are not a small community and give each other tips on which ones are easy to access, where to hide cameras, they share stories and footage etc.

The bottom line is that a large minority of men have really fucked up turn-ons and act on them, in a way that most women find hard to imagine. And I don't give a fuck about "kink shaming" they deserve it. Upskirting, flashing, "peeping", stuff to do with hair, school uniforms, shoes, feet, the list goes on and on.

They can also go in and go in a cubicle and wait until they can hear only one person in there.

if it's one lockable door then they can go in and wait til the cows come home but they'll be by themselves

Most men aren't sexual predators and sexual predators do not tend to operate when there are men around.

This is why most women have had encounters with multiple creepy men but men who are not predatory find this hard to believe as they have never seen it.

Anywhere girls / women are likely to be without men, creepy men will operate.

In a mixed environment a normal man might walk in at any moment- it is less safe for them. And of course normal men are bigger and stronger and more violent than girls and women, on the whole, and might well react badly to the situation.

Also mised sex tend to be open- to the street / shopping centre / shop floor / whatever. If someone wants to follow you in they have to force their way in after you before you lock the door, in a more public place. In a more traditional layout they can follow you in through the first door and after that anything they do is closed off from the public + they have another set of lockable doors to get you into. So, they can wait until no-one is looking to nip in (door not lockable) and then they have the person in "private" with further ability to get them into a cubicle and silence them if they hear someone come in.

Most men probably feel safer in with a bunch of women they don't know than a bunch of men they don't know, probably?

Somewhere like a motorway service station or shopping centre I think everyone would be safer and more comfortable if all facilities were unisex with floor-to-ceiling doors and no open urinals, and enough larger cubicles a with mirror and sink of their own that anyone who needed to get changed or wash out a moon cup could do so.

The explanation of why this would be safer than the current arrangement seems to be missing, and isn't in the latter part of the same paragraph either. Even given proper doors that you can't see around etc, why are unisex spaces inherently safer? Because of traffic? In a service station during quiet hours traffic is still going to be low.

YimminiYoudar, why would a male appearing person be subject to transphobic abuse in a male loo? Wouldn't they just be a man using the man's toilet?

Reminds me of the 'mixed gender' loo I used last year. I came out of the cubical to the sight of a man using the urinal.

""they are using the facilities they feel safe in -" The message is obvious, isn't it? They feel safe here. If you no longer feel safe, well hard cheese. You're only a woman so your feelings don't matter.

I think people making these decisions need to realise that there is a community of people being looked after that are scared of men due to their care in the past. I understand trans rights but what about everyone else.

Sorry to crash your thread, I am crashing a few, but I have been away, then snowed in, and have a lot of catching up to do. Would it be possible for some of you to give this thread a visit?www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3185398-Biological-SEX-MATTERS-How-many-mumsnetters-say-aye-to-this-campaign

in advance

@YimminiYoudar I don't see how your unisex toilets idea would keep everyone safe? You mention lots of traffic in the toilets but at 4am this wouldn't be the case.

I agree that it is impossible to change sex and that gender is a social construct. However I would not challenge a male-appearing person in a female toilet as it would be entirely possible for that person to be a biologically female person who is choosing to present themselves according to masculine styles but who has every right to use the female facilities and may well be vulnerable to attack/verbal abuse/corrective rape by transphobic men if they use the male facilities and are detected as being biologically female.

I also think it's a bit silly for small places like cafés that only have space for 2 cubicles to label one with a female sign and one with a male sign.

The problem is that we are trying to formulate one set of rules which covers a vast number of different sizes and types of facilities.

Somewhere like a motorway service station or shopping centre I think everyone would be safer and more comfortable if all facilities were unisex with floor-to-ceiling doors and no open urinals, and enough larger cubicles a with mirror and sink of their own that anyone who needed to get changed or wash out a moon cup could do so. And enough staff on duty that if a person who pees standing up wees on a seat then it is cleaned immediately. And ideally several alarm-points so that if anyone was behaving in a creepy or inappropriate way they would be removed - but there would generally be no problems as traffic would be high and generally creepy pervs don't be creepy when there are lots of people about. There would be ways to keep these unisex facilities safe for everyone, like the unisex changing facilities at many swimming pools.

However those same principles can't be transferred to a pub where the available space is two small rooms with a pair of cubicles in the ladies' and 2 urinals and a cubicle in the mens'.

Perhaps the solution is that all businesses and services to be given notice that by X date in the future (2 or 3 years to allow for budgeting) they must

(1) convert all loos and changing facilities to being unisex with individual private lockable cubicles (ban communal changing areas and places with just a curtain)

(2) have in place a proper policy and action plan in which staff are fully trained and regularly drilled for ensuring that anyone of any gender presentation behaving in a pervy, inappropriate or antisocial manner is removed, and anyone being followed/controlled against their will has an easy-to-access escape method clearly publicised so that the previous method of escaping via the ladies' isn't missed.

The consequences would probably be that a vast number of small businesses would stop offering toilet facilities at all because it would be unviable for them to properly manage a small unisex facility.

It's not the people who #justwanttopee who are the issue. It is that there are way greater numbers of predatory men who will abuse any opportunity they have to dominate women than there are trans people who #justwanttopee. There is a willfull blindness, probably from naivety and inexperience, that setting up rules that make everything lovely for the harmless non-predator who #justwantstopee is also making things far too easy for predators and those who get sexual pleasure from public lavatory situations.