Ladies bathrooms and trans acceptance

The whole toilets thing gets focussed on but really it's about way much more.

Prisons
Hospital wards
Shelters
Then stuff like
Women's awards & prizes
Women only jobs & positions
Which in turn leads to
Initiatives and efforts to increase female representation in all sorts of areas having stats that may not give the whole picture (e.g. that recent thing where someone at a ?meeting said if parliament was 50% female, with the female 50% all transwomen, would that be right? And the answer was yes that would be great!)
Then of course there is
Sport
And one that seems trivial but is very irritating is the transing of historical lesbians / gender non conforming women (sexist in the extreme and yet another round of erasure of women's contributions)
And all the ??? around children

The toilets thing comes up a lot and I think it's because it makes women who complain sound petty + it's easier to make the argument (male violence so why can't we come in with you and you're saying we're all perverts - is how it is framed). Making a good argument around prisons, hosps & sports is much harder.

It's not about toilets though. It's about an erosion of all the stuff women have fought to get in the first place, up to and including the very words that are used to describe us as a group. It's about our specific needs as a sex class being over-ridden and removed - and about our biology again being seen as unmentionable. Whole thing is misogynist as all fuck TBH.

I too would like to see stats on how many men who claim to be women actually experience violence in the men’s loo

Another person who would like to see those stats.

are there stats on attacks in loos based on straight/trans/gay?

I too would like to see stats on how many men who claim to be women actually experience violence in the men’s loo. Then how does those stats compare with other men who do not claim to be women. Of course being given funny looks by other men, or hearing derogatory comments is not the same as actually experiencing violence. Even if they did experience violence in the men’s loo significantly more than other men, it is not reasonable to expect women to welcome them into ours. They need to target men with their campaigns and make them more accepting of nonconforming males in their spaces, or campaign for a 3rd space for themselves. If the real reason they wanted into women’s spaces was fearing violence in the mens then they would do these things, the fact that don’t speak volumes.

There are also public toilets that lots of men aren't be keen on using -

Certainly cottaging is a "thing" and there are still some toilets in London that are quietly known for it.

Whichever way you cut it, this is a bloke thing. they are the ones causing issues here. Seeing bogs as suitable venues for sexual activity (remember that awful meme with a glam transwoman in the gents saying "do you really want me in with your boyfriend"!!!), being the group that the large minority of perves are from (wankers, flashers etc), being the group that the large minority of nasty men are from (the ones that enjoy making women feel frightened / intimidated / uncomfortable), being the group that had members who violently police masculine norms.

So really it's up to them to sort it out.

FWIW I also think that men will come in because they can. If they can use the ladies and it's nearer why wouldn't they? I once got off the tube when heavily pregnant at a station with toilets and joined the queue for the ladies with 2 other women. Waited for maybe 10 mins, one of the other womnen was pg as well, you know how desperate you get! Anyway we were all looking at each other like WTF are they doing in there. May have knocked? Anyway eventually tube driver swans out having obviously just been having a lengthy stinking crap. He couldn't be bothered to walk the 2 mins to the mens - or maybe the men's was a bit manky - anyway - he felt entitled to use the ladies, sit there for ages, pg women waiting etc. So, this sort of thing will increase. And what can you do? They give a smug look, we don't tend to challenge men around this stuff, esp not when pg.

Trousered I know -

The idea that equality legislation is all for the benefit of women who are protected and coddled and never for men is an MRA thing.

The law covers both sexes.

Men can and have used laws that were created with a view to correcting structural inequality / discriminaiton against women. Sometimes to disadvantage women over one of the few things where we were better off! (That motor insurance thing years ago).

They have also used it around women getting in cheap or free to clubs and things I think (which wasn't much of a boon for women, given that the reason it existed was to try and encourage women to come and thus act as a "lure" for men!).

Zutt

Oh I don't know - all those Cotton Trader shirts and the aggressive wearing of leather elbow patches on cardigans

There's public toilets and public toilets. It seems to me that people are using the fact that there may be violent men in certain public toilets at certain times as a reason why they should be in the women's loos in debenhams. When the men's in debenhams would be very safe for all male people, even children.

For example, it may be hard for a trans women without a GRC to bring an equal pay claim. Her employer discriminates against her as they perceive her to be legally female. However, she is legally male - so no discrimination etc.

This is laughably stupid.

"Fists in the men's bathroom " is something that my sons (17 and 12) have never witnessed. Is this because they don't go where drunk men are likely to be? Are they particularly lucky not to have seen this? They present as typical boys and have used the men's since 6/7 ish? I'm not doubting that fights happen but are there stats on attacks in loos based on straight/trans/gay?

Lol I think you know the answer to that

TW are like women but in all the ways that matter, better and more important. For some mysterious reason.

So there you have it, female issues are trivialised because someone else always has it worse off.

Is anyone dismissing trans issues as trivial? If everyone believes twaw, how come their issues aren't ignored in the same way women's are?

I’d be happy to share female spaces with males as soon as they all learn to show respect for females.

Exactly.

When two women a week aren't being murdered by the person who is, or once was, supposed to love them.

When you can open up the BBC News app and there isn't at least one new daily story involving male sexual or physical violence.

When women and children stop being sexually assaulted and abused by men on a quite frankly horrific scale.

When women's bodies are not seen by society as belonging to everyone but them.

When we don't have situations where the very person who has been women and the government that women are bigoted for being concerned about having male bodied people in their spaces, is then found to be engaging in the exact behaviour that women were voicing their concerns about.

Maybe when that day comes.... Maybe we can begin to discuss women and men sharing intimate spaces.

Until then. No. Just no.

NoSquirrels

Same here

Which is why it makes me laugh to be accused of being rabidly anything; let alone Right Wing

Thing is most men don't want to share with women either.

The cultural norms around things where you are undressing / in unusual situations like in bed in hospital / etc in the UK are that you do it with own sex (and many really don't even like that and would prefer to be alone).

That's one of the reasons that single sex wards in hosps are supposed to be the norm - because neither sex likes being mixed in with the other in that type of situation.

That's before you even get to risk which is pretty much one way (women are far more at risk from men than vice versa).

Example. I spent a couple of nights on a mixed ward at 18. It wasn't a high risk one so staff just popped by every couple hours. I was the onyl female on the ward. None of the men did anything but I felt pretty uncomfortable. Two did just sit there staring at me - it felt quite unnerving especially in a nightie in bed! But this is the sort of thing we find hard to articulate. It's not illegal, and men say "you're saying we can't even look at a woman now!" but to many women this type of thing feels at best uncomfotable and at worst intimidating / threatening.

I work in London. Now, they're not wearing make-up or any other signifiers but I've seen a lot of young men with 'man bun' hairstyles, wearing loose linen shirts and a sarong or similar, moving, unmolested round various stations and exiting, unbattered, from male washrooms/lavatories.

Is it:
i) it's That London;
ii) the flip-flops rather than high heels or stereotyped-feminine shoes;
iii) toxic masculinity is associated with washrooms at particular hours of day, specific venues etc.?

I know Alex Drummond feels we should be behind their bold experiment: This Trans Woman Kept Her Beard And Couldn't Be Happier

However, I wonder if Alex's energies and activities would be better spent if they were targeted at expanding the "bandwidth of how to be a woman" and eroding the masculine behaviours that mean that shared spaces with men are deemed unsafe for people like Alex.

I think you’re extremely typical of an awful lot of women - on MN and IRL - who start off very liberal and “who cares” but as soon as they have to consider the implications and consequences become much much less tolerant. But are internally conflicted about “being on the wrong side”. I’m just like you, for instance. I think I’m quite averagely typical.

I also think that when you say

Even liberal blokes close their ears to his issue

it is the opposite and ESPECIALLY liberal blokes close their minds to it. Not their problem, see. Women’s issue, innit? Trans hysteria, live and let live, blah blah.

But that’s their massive male privilege showing. They’ve never experienced half of the every day sexism and intimidation women and girls get.

And I’m averagely average about what I’ve experienced too. Nothing too bad, nothing to scar me or make me properly afraid. But enough to make me mad as hell and have some fucking empathy. Which ‘woke’ blokes seem to lack.

I think people should go to the toilet appropriate to their genitals. Toilets aren't about hair styles and breasts. If some people with penises find other people with penises intimidating and intolerant they should take the issue up with them and call them bigoted and intolerant not try and push in to our spaces.
The word bigot has been bandied around so much it's become meaningless anyway and now just means "someone with a different opinion to me".
You get those laughable Tshirts stating "I hate and won't tolerate a b c d e f g h and bigots" worn by people with no sense of irony

I got what you meant Rosetta.

I don't think we're anywhere near a point where all men respect women so that also seems the fairest way to go to me.

I'd still prefer single sexual spaces as well.

I felt the same and tried to figure out why I thought that way. It's because women are physically abused, body-shamed, period-shamed etc. If there were no threat of abuse (physical or emotional) I don't think I'd have a problem sharing with males.

Working towards respect for women is what would be progressive.