Toilets again - desire for privacy is 'transphobic' apparently

It's obvious they need to be longer in a mixed sex environment because otherwise sex offenders will take advantage. The obvious mo is slipping a mobile phone under the door to take photographs. It's nothing to do with trans or non binary people and everything to do with years of being subject to sexual harassment / assaults etc hence why there are toilets segregated by sex in the first place.

I think you just shrugged and got on with it back then.

When I was about, waiting at the bus stop for the bus to my friends house (after school) 8 a creepy old bastard sidled up to us and kept asking me for a kiss.

I ignored him and he follow us onto the bus, sat right behind me and kept bugging me. When he lent over to grab my hair an old gent sitting next to him walloped him with his walking stick and stared him down until he sidled off the bus at the next stop.

I was so embarrassed I thought I was going to die of shame (god knows why) and when I told my friends mum she said ‘oh that’s a shame... do you eat fish? We are having mackerel for tea.’ Which was crap (as was feeding an 8 year old fucking mackerel).

And that was that. Noone said anything or did anything apart from the old man.

I think there was less of a sense of social protection back then too.

I don't quite know how to express this, but I feel like maybe the "if there's blame there's a claim" litigious culture has changed the experiences on offer, and also taught people that there's always a grown up in charge looking after you somewhere, even if you can't see them you assume that someone is keeping you safe or they'll get sued or fired.

I'm not quite saying it's "health and safety gone mad", more that I think you assume you're protected now, and when you're not it's a shocking oversight, rather than the bleak fact that we live in a shit world with many shit people.

Those of us who came of age in the 1990s or before had a lot more freedom and we were less supervised- we played out more, walked to school on our own or with our friends, took public transport on our own a lot more and went to town on our own. This freedom and lack of parental supervision meant we were more exposed to pervy men, which made us more aware of danger.

Fab point, totally nailed it. (As a boy who was exposed to a paedophile).

Brilliant.

@MenuPlant

How expensive is it?

It's not cheap. Although don't forget that this is right in central London (just to the south of Euston station so it's about a 20 minute walk to places like Oxford Circus).

It's £200pw for self catering or £280pw for catered (catered is breakfast and dinner during the week and three meals a day during the weekend).

There are also other Halls nearby that are still very reminiscent of the 1980s/90s and prices there are £130pw self catering and £220pw catered.

It will run its course - just buckle up and keep your head. These things always do but not before people are harmed. I smell lawsuits aplenty coming from experimenter on children and abused women who were thrown under the ‘inclusivity bus’ and put in harms way (mixed gender sex wards and prison wings).

"Trans is the new "cool" amongst young people and having a trans child is the new "cool" amongst parents, and attractive to homophobic parents who see it as a way to make their effeminate possibly gay son into a straight girl..."

Please do not assume this is true, especially in the UK. It might be for some but parents of trans children may also be very worried about their child for all kinds of reasons.

It may look like they are fully accepting and all that but behind the scenes many parents of trans identifying youth are concerned. You only need to read the boards here to see parents are not rushing headlong into celebrating trans children.

We've all seen a few videos on You Tube or Facebook but really it's not that simple at all.

Quick google of my old uni

'The buildings are subdivided into house units, each with 40-50 rooms, a common room, utility room and a flat for your Residential Life Advisor.

Bathroom facilities and small kitchens are shared.

Each house is mixed with men and women accommodated on separate floors.'

Wow nicky that sounds luxurious!

How expensive is it?

It’s probably because en suite accommodation commands a premium.

I was just discussing this with DH. We were at uni in the early 90s. I was in SC accommodation and the flats of 5 were split by sex, but you could have male and female flats off the same landing. DH was in a similar set up further out of town, but the immediately adjacent catered hall had single bedrooms with a wash basin and communal mixed sex showers and loos on each floor. It would have been a nightmare now, as the showers had brick built partitions to the floor but were open under the doors and at the top. It would have been very easy for people to perve with camera phones or small spy cams nowadays. One of my best friends roomed there and I used to crash on her floor after a night out, but I always waited to shower until I got back to my flat.

'My impression is a lot o them have separate enclosed shower spaces for individuals'

How can you possibly know this?

Lots of university accommodation is very old. What makes you imagine it has all been refitted? Including the loss of space that would entail? They aren't going to knock down eg walls in listed buildings to change it all around. I'm sure lots of uni accommodation is the same as when it was built including the newer stock from 80s 90s 00s etc.

I don't think statements like 'oh yes I imagine all showers in halls are mixed sex with fully enclosed stalls and the sinks are in the toilets (why? and who wants to brush their teeth in the bogs??) are based in anything solid.

Is the 3rd year female philosophy student Chelsea Dyapa (quoted as believing floor to ceiling doors are transphobic) actually the bloke with the beard in the maroon shirt?

As a student I would not have had too much concern over mixed facilities even without floor to ceiling doors. I actually worked in a school abroad with mixed sex loos and working urinals (which the men used in-front of female colleagues). I was rather taken aback at first, walked very fast to the cubicle if there was a bloke pissing and didn’t appreciate the stench. However I’m older, wiser, a parent to a female child and disabled.

Why the fuck are the views of woke people barely in adulthood being listened to?? They haven’t been around the block. They just don’t get it.... yet.

Something else about universities. I don't know how common it in in the UK, but here most university residences, including toilets, are co-ed. It's been the case for a while as well, it was beginning to be the norm when I graduated in '99. That may well influence the views of the students.

Back in the mid 1980s I was at university in London and lived in Hughes Parry Hall (part of the Garden Halls) in the 1st and 3rd years.

Back then boys and girls were on separate floors of the tower (there were twelve floors of rooms) with appropriate communal toilets and showers on each floor.

The adjoining Halls (Commonwealth and Canterbury) were both single sex Halls.

A few years ago they knocked down most of the Halls (but kept the tower) and rebuilt an all-new 21st century Hall which, quite coincidentally, my DD is now staying at now that she is also studying in London.

So, I've had a chance to nose around the accommodation to see what has changed over the 35 years since I was there.

Around 75% of the rooms are now totally ensuite with a toilet and shower in each room. This is all catered accommodation.

Around 25% of rooms are in the old Hughes Parry tower (the only bit they kept) and are now self-catered (they used to be catered in the old days) with a kitchen on each floor and the floors are no longer segregated by sex. Each room has its own toilet and basin but there aren't individual showers however, the showers are all in separate cubicles and there is around one shower for every two people.

So, it's interesting that the latest Hall of Residence built in London has totally avoided the whole issue of "gender neutral" toilets by giving every student their own toilet and, most of them, their own shower as well.

Still I'd be surprised at mixed sex shower blocks unless they are totally enclosed but even then, boys don't want girls wandering in and out when they're shaving and girls don't want boys there while they're wandering around in a towel, surely.

My impression is a lot o them have separate enclosed shower spaces for individuals, and often separate toilet/sink rooms for men and women. But I've also been told that for the most part toilets are used by everyone anyway.

BickerinBrattle

When you look through the lens of class politics, there is NO way on earth to call TW "oppressed" because there are no legal, political, or social structures existing to take anything from them. There is no possible way that they are The Most Oppressed Ever.

They may be discriminated against, and that shouldn't happen. It's hard to see how they're disadvantaged, precisely, because there is nothing they can't access that a male similarly positioned can't access and in fact quite a bit more that they're accessing now that a similarly positioned male cannot access.

Spot on! No shrugging off the male privilege. Add to that the instant demonisation of anyone questioning whether TWAW, and no one decent wants to be a bigot let alone a T* or as bad as a racist or a homophobe and there's nothing left to say.

It was incredibly common for girls like myself to cringe at what would now be called their privilege and defer to anyone who was deemed to be more oppressed even if it was to the girl's own detriment.

Yep.

The problem with id politics is that the word oppression has lost all meaning. Now it just means "people feel bad."

It used to mean, in political contexts, "exploitation": meaning there were specific legal, political, and social structures that existed that served to let one group of people take from another group of people their resources, labour, or fruits of their labour. That's why leftists focused on 1) class, 2) sex, and 3) race/ethnicity -- because those were the 3 big groupings of people subject to exploitation.

Other groupings of people might be subject to discrimination or disadvantage, but that's not the same thing. Which isn't to say that shouldn't be tackled.

But leftists priortized the class politics of exploitation as fundamental.

When you look through the lens of class politics, there is NO way on earth to call TW "oppressed" because there are no legal, political, or social structures existing to take anything from them. There is no possible way that they are The Most Oppressed Ever.

They may be discriminated against, and that shouldn't happen. It's hard to see how they're disadvantaged, precisely, because there is nothing they can't access that a male similarly positioned can't access and in fact quite a bit more that they're accessing now that a similarly positioned male cannot access.

This confusion around what constitutes "oppression" is a result of postmodernism's bastardising of political language and concepts that have been used on the left for nearly 200 years.

Goosefoot my halls put the sexes on different floors. The shower blocks and toilets on the floors were for that sex. Being students though, in the drunken evenings I don't think it was v heavily policed.

This was years ago though.

Still I'd be surprised at mixed sex shower blocks unless they are totally enclosed but even then, boys don't want girls wandering in and out when they're shaving and girls don't want boys there while they're wandering around in a towel, surely.

But I bet that they're not picturing AGP older men when they fight these battles

Absolutely.

I regarded myself as a feminist when I was younger but I seemed to have missed a bit wrt to being nice as part of female socialisation.

I've said it before but I only really started to unpick that since being on the FWR boards - it took me to late 40s/ early 50s to really see it.

Yeah I don't think it's just naive little girls who can't imagine creepy men. But I bet that they're not picturing AGP older men when they fight these battles.

When you're young, I think you're more likely to think of feminism as a dirty, uncool and unnecessary thing (or at least me and all my friends did). Because the world is better now! Everyone's equal! Except for transpeople - like your insanely fragile friend Rob who's questioning his gender identity, or your autistic friend Jen who says she's not a woman - and who would want to hurt them? What monster would do that?

Actually more likely is that the boys all id as trans, to get away from the privilege max straight white male thing, and the girls are then to look after them, same as time immemorial.

On the money!

Something else about universities. I don't know how common it in in the UK, but here most university residences, including toilets, are co-ed. It's been the case for a while as well, it was beginning to be the norm when I graduated in '99. That may well influence the views of the students.

Yes, the hierarchical politics of oppression is significant for young people I think. In general I think that approach has been absolutely toxic - it leads to this kind of bad policy from those that buy into it. And then those who can't buy into it are often radicalised in the other direction.

I think we have to be really careful ourselves about this kind of argument, maybe no one here is inclined to use it about trans issues, but people do use it with feminist and sometimes other issues. But being the oppressed class in some context doesn't usually tell us if a particular idea is right or not - it has very limited use with certain types of situations. If we use that kind of argument about our own preferred causes it makes it acceptable in other causes as well.

Hmm yes inverse snobbery was a thing when I was young

Also I suppose, many of these girls will ID as trans, so assuage middle class guilt by identifying into an id they see as oppressed.

Actually more likely is that the boys all id as trans, to get away from the privilege max straight white male thing, and the girls are then to look after them, same as time immemorial. Do their work for them, lobby for them, do the emotional heavy lifting. While the chaps can get on with whatever it is they are doing, maybe dying hair blue, or experimenting with eyeliner and mini skirts, or honing their anime avatar, wanking over extreme porn or coercing girls Inc lesbians into sex. So, same old same old really must with a bit of extra glitter.