Single sex spaces

I have a bit of a problem with an argument that women have some kind of innate right to single sex spaces. I absolutely get single sex spaces to ensure safety or to enable women to be heard, given the way they are often drowned out i our society. But just a plain right to single sex spaces without a reason that is about enabling equality doesn't sit well with me. Men have used single sex spaces to block women out for a long time, breaking down their "right" to do that has been a huge part of feminism's work over time.

One thing that gets missed about single sex toilets is that it is frequently a place for women to get away from the male gaze.

Whether that's hitching your skirt up and checking the ladder in your tights at work, chatting with your mates about who you fancy at a night club while you reapply your lippy or just not feeling concerned about how you look and whether you're smiling enough when you're out and about. It's not an obvious thing. But many women relax when they enter a female only space, and this is part of why. Transwomen may or may not apply the male gaze to women, but if those transwomen don't "pass", women are still going to feel the pressure of it.

Look at the state of men's toilets, they are much more of a mess that female ones. And smelly. That's one (just 1 or many) of the reasons I do not want mixed facilities.

Many, many women won't be ok with this, Skittless You'd think that people who wish to identify as women would care about women's issues, feelings and perspectives on this, particularly since they talk so much about inclusion and intersectionality.

Outside toilets at in tu shopping centre overheard a young man saying he could say he's non binary and use the women's toilets. Not slightest indication he is anything other than young male. Why bother with sex specific toilets at all?

Smirking bloke waiting and listening for you to pee.

Blokes stalking the sanitary bins to take whatever you just put in there, and the wetter and still warm the better, putting them on and walking around in them for the thrill. Show your lovely, sensitive, empathic person some of the stuff from the forum about putting your used tampon up his bum.

Show them the one about the self identified teenager in Scotland who recently shoved a teenaged girl into the cubicle and tried to make her take her trousers off to assault her.

Talk about women with trauma histories, the 1 in 4 women who were sexually assaulted by a male before the age of 20, women with disabilities not able to prioritise other people's realities or not see what's in front of them without becoming panicked and distressed, older women, women with cultures and faiths that say they cannot toilet or undress in the presence of a male. And the many, many women who will not feel comfortable to pull their pants down or get in a shower with someone they perceive as male on the other side of a flimsy door. Usually because of their life experience of males and their pattern recognition skills, not because of random prudery, so it's extremely rude/insensitive/oblivious/thick of this person to just dismiss all women not happy about this as being silly.

There's no way to be all woke about this bullshit without basically saying, all men's right to use whatever facility makes them happy is more important than the safety, privacy, dignity and access (never mind happiness) of all women. And it's fine to exclude women from all facilities so that males can have more options.

If you believe that, you believe that people with penises are more important than people with ovaries. And there's a word for that.

If it doesn't matter who is in the next cubicle, why are male transpeople so determined to be in female spaces?

You could point out the risk of crimes like using phones to record under/over doors increases in mixed sex facilities. Similarly the risk of hidden cameras.