Article in today’s Guardian about toilets and trans users.

@Needmoresleep There was an incident in South Africa last week that just reinforces for me the need to ensure toilets are segregated - a man took a 6 year old out of the female toilets, took her into the mens toilets and raped her. I know, not all men are violent, blah blah blah, but the threat some men can pose to vulnerable people doesn't make me want to have anyone with a penis in the women's toilets. Look at the extent peadophiles and sex offenders go to convince children that they are children themselves when online - why would the possibility of being able to pretend they are a self identifying female so they have easy access to females / children in the ladies loos not be tempting to them?

They don't have gender neutral toilets in France. Some small restaurants will just have one toilet so obviously that's for everyone, but if only one person is in there and the rest are waiting outside there is no problem. When there is more than one toilet it is divided by sex.

Toilets are divided by sex not gender, the writer of this article seems very confused.

Your average man on the street will not like this either, imagine in busy places when there are queues coming out of the men's and the women's toilets. They'll have to provide sanitary bins in both sets of toilets as well. Will your average (non pervy man) feel comfortable with mothers sorting out their children (washing hands, getting changed etc) whilst trying to wee into a urinal. I don't think they will.

Also I really do not want willy owners weeing on the toilet seat or even leaving the seat up. That will peak trans pretty much the entire female population.

The thing about French loos is that if any innappropriate behaviour started the men in there would pile in and eject the perpetrator very smartly.
I don't find French mixed loos threatening either.

Why can't we have gender neutral loos? They do in France and it's fine.

They have squatting toilets in France as well. Plus a tradition of men pissing by the road side. (Though French friends confirmed that it is normal to honk your horn when you pass.) I think there is an element of Vive la Difference.

You think "Simona Castricum" could possibly have been born female?

I don't normally get involved in these threads, but ffs. One of the comments on the article is along the lines of 'we all have gender-neutral bathrooms in our homes!' I mean, I don't know about that person's home, but my loo in my house doesn't have a row of stalls with rickety partitions and half the doors without locks, and I don't let any random member of the public wander in to use them either. (Is this going to be the next Grand Designs trend, I wonder...?)

I have felt vulnerable in the women's loos at times though, travelling alone late at night and stopping at service stations, for example. I suddenly feel very aware of how empty these spaces are when you're ostensibly the only one in there, and how you can't be sure who might be lurking round the corner. I don't think I'm especially paranoid either. Do you think the 'gender-neutral bathroom in your house' sneery woke fucker has ever felt like that? I'm going to guess not.

So you are sitting in Pizza Express and your 8 year old daughter needs the loo. You are midway through your second glass of their (rather rough) house red. You decide she is old enough to go on her own.

Actually no you dont. Not any more. As you don't know whether any of the blokes sitting elsewhere identify as women and will choose to use the womens loo. And even less so if the loos might be gender neutral with a urinal near the wash basins.

I wonder whether the write is female. And if she has children. I thought it was normal in journalism to declare your interest, especially if you are telling other people what they should think. She seems to have no idea about the level to which women are conditioned to think about personal safety.

Why can't we have gender neutral loos? They do in France and it's fine. I did not feel threatened at all. I do not understand the resistance to this or the panic it seems to create.

The public restroom is not only a place to empty one’s bladder or bowel, change a tampon or clothes, wash hands or reapply lippy; it’s an arbiter of gender, with its mostly cisnormative inhabitants to police it.

Oh, do fuck off you self-obsessed, navel-gazing tosspot.

If people like you are going to colonise the ladies and do my fucking head in with your endless self-regarding onanism, I'm going to start using the gents. You can force your way in, dear, but you can't stop me leaving.

Although if it had been a trans person l think l would have been fine about it. Very odd behaviour from me and l am really puzzled by it tbh.

I was in Cardiff yesterday ( a man was in the ladies loo obviously waiting for a young child/disabled relative or whatever l don't know). I really didn't like it at all. I didn't realise how unsettling it would be . I always thought l would be cool about shared Loos but am amazed how l felt. I wonder if anyone has ever had this happen to them and how they felt. It was a huge toilet too , l went to the one the furthest away from the man. I am astonished at my reaction tbh.

I don't think the toilet/cubicle sign resolves anything. Except gives males a room segregated by sex... after all, the point of a cubicle is that you can't see what happens within. So you will have a male bathroom for peeing and then a room of cubicles for everything else...

Disregarding the utter bollocks contained within, the article is badly written. Like reading a GCSE English Language essay. I suppose the Guardian have to get their nonsense-pedlars from somewhere.

I'd actually be very happy for loo's to be called URINALS and TOILETS.

Those with a penis can use the urinals. Those without can use the toilets. ( Just the same as we've always done - but without labels!)

I actually think that taking away the M/F element and de-gendering would be a good thing, as it would take away the fetish element.

Most importantly, it protects the vulnerable and solves safeguarding issues.

It also has the huge bonus of helping the genuinely gender dysmorphic feel more comfortable about not having to use the "wrong" loo for their adopted gender.

If you have a penis, whether a male or a "female" one - you should be using the Urinals. Anyone who feels unsafe can use a unisex disabled loo.

I really like it. It would stop people with dicks being in people without dick's areas. Awesome. Much better idea than "identifying" which loo you want to use. I like it.

I think we should start a campaign - anyone with a penis is not allowed in the non-penis areas ( regardless of gender)

Oh wait.....

CAAKE so a man wrote that article? What the heck gives them the right to be telling women who they share toilets with?

The only explanation for someone having such views is that they have never been afraid of a man, and I’m pleased for them!
Unfortunately they are not the norm and until all men behave themselves, stop intimidating and sexually assaulting women, they can stay out of our toilets.

Ah, RMIT. A hotbed of wokeness to rival Goldsmiths.

Also, this is what "visibly trans feminine" looks like, in case you wondered.

I was allowed to comment. And I did:

'

'While this idea remains a challenge to people invested in maintaining traditional gender roles, the positive reinforcement of gender-neutral language and pronouns works with designs for lived experiences of gender that exist outside the male and female binary.'

Thing is, I am not invested in maintaining traditional gender roles. Males are. Males are dead set on maintaining high levels of violence, also called male pattern violence. And it is patently irrelevant how they identify in this regard. All of male humanity could identify as Agender Baby Jesus today, and male violence and male sexual violence will still be there.

Data show unisex changing rooms put women at risk of sexual assault, sex segregated ones are 10 times safer. These are the facts.

www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/sexual-assault-unisex-changing-rooms-sunday-times-women-risk-a8519086.html

But, hey, let's shit on facts and women, so we can't show some Jess Bradley the door when SHE feels, we 'fellow women' should admire her female penis.

Argh, I never used to be this sweary but I read this stuff and just think fuck the fuck off.

No, let's not think about 'function'. Let's think about women having the right to dignity, privacy and safety and this right not being up for reorganisation to the convenience of men who want to be in there with them.

Let's not gaslight about obvious, frequently evidenced facts about women and sexual assault, harassment and rape.

Let's not frame it as if the only people with needs, feelings and rights are trans people.

Let's not frame it as if absolutely sane, rational and obvious issues with this being raised by women are just silly fussing. Because then the women may not read this thinking No Fucking Way.

The Guardian don't support women and are lost in "Woke Bro" land. I have no confidence in them so will not bother opening the link.

Seeing as it’s October and I’m feeling spooky ooky...

“Listen to them. The children of the woke. Such sweet bollocks they speak.”

I think I will just have my cisnormative breakfast instead.

@Badstyley Or they’ll just take the san bins out, that’s what they normally do in that situation. I refer you to those portaloos you get at festivals and events. Most men aren’t interesting in sanitary bins, not needing them like. What they don’t want or need tends to be forgotten about pretty quickly.

Ugh. You really don't want to go there this early in the day. What some men like to do with sanitary bins (more specifically their contents) - and then post about it on the internet - will have you heaving your breakfast up.

Who goes in there for a rest? Do they think we have sofas and a coffee machine in there or something? I think some males think that womens’ toilets are some sort of social club or something, they just can’t stand the thought that they are being excluded. I’ve lost count of the times I’ve been asked by a man, ‘what do you ladies do in there?’ Erm... go to the toilet...