Toilets again - desire for privacy is 'transphobic' apparently

I think what's going on here is cool girl syndrome. And cognitive dissonance. And yes a lack of awareness or thought about how their ideas impact eg women in prison or in secure mental health units.

I think this goes a long way to explaining it but there is possibly also an element of middle class guilt for some.

I was brought up by "working class parents made good" in a middle class area and was a student in the late 80s . 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.

This was well before identity politics/ opression olympics had really kicked in so feck knows what it must be like now.

If these young women are anything like us they will be spending a fair amount of time apologising for their own existence.

But but but

Study after study shows that lots of girls get sexually assaulted / sexually bullied at school.

In general, while wealth etc can protect from the worst of the shit, it can't protect from all of it. These girls will have been going out by themselves by 18. Waking to school etc.

I don't think that the idea that women girls can avoid poor behaviour from men, and in such numbers, is correct.

I think what's going on here is cool girl syndrome. And cognitive dissonance. And yes a lack of awareness or thought about how their ideas impact eg women in prison or in secure mental health units. But, the idea they have somehow never experienced any iffy behaviour from men or boys is v unlikely given what we know of the uk, and prime harassment age being 13ish onwards.

^agender lol
Agenda obvs

Goosefoot
Yes I agree there is an element of political tribalism at play, but here in the UK even right wing conservatives are uttering TWAW it was Teresa May herself that promised to pass Self-ID.
The Church of England are taking Mermaids word for fact and a vicar recently left his job because of that.

The problem is there are so many different factors at play here, one it's being forced through top-down by MRAs who we know are in no short supply in politics/powerful tech companies etc, because really the TRA end goal and the MRA end goal are one and the same.
Secondly, we have regulatory capture taking place.
Also, 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 as we see in other cultures already such as Iran, Thailand, India (where effeminate gay boys are considered a "third sex").

There's a mass hysteria going on in in the Anglosphere surrounding sex/gender/pronouns etc which is cross-party, it doesn't help that all dissenting voices are shut down, removed from platforms, removed from employment, threatened, assaulted, etc because ultimately the TRA agender is a misogynists wet dream.

I've been thinking about his a bit. I don't think that this kind of stuff from students is all about them wanting to control or put down women.

It is from some of them. And the rest go along with it for the reasons mentioned, due to the propaganda that trans people are the most oppressed sector of society and nothing can possibly be allowed to upset them.

I agree that the complicity of young, female students might have something to do with a lack of awareness of the dangers involved. 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.

Kids are more sheltered and protected by their parents these days and might be less likely to run into these guys at a young age, so when they go to university they may not fully understand how dangerous men can be.

Interesting thought goosefoot - had never seen it this way. And italiangreyhound - yes! It would be perfectly easy to do this. Also to say no organisation could make loos and changing rooms gender neutral until they were properly private and enclosed. That would not stop certain people but it would at least make it much harder for them.

I've been thinking about his a bit. I don't think that this kind of stuff from students is all about them wanting to control or put down women.

I think like some have mentioned there is an element of not having a set of experiences that gives a lot of context. And that might not include only things like assault but also the desire for privacy.

But I have been thinking that it reminds me of certain other reactions to political issues on the mainstream progressive left. One that strikes me is immigration. In defending immigration, there is a real tendency among that group to not want to talk about and of the issues or possibilities brought up by conservatives. Problems that could occur, or what would be reasonable limits, things that in many ways are natural questions around policy, and which it would be possible to discuss without undermining their position.
It's as if there is an ideological directive which says that it is wrong to ask any questions about the topic or think immigration policy could ever, possibly, be used improperly or anything like that. As if even consider that such things might happen at times means the conservative view has won.
I wonder if something similar is at work here.

You really couldn't make this shit up.

“Oh we didn’t realize that floor to ceiling partitions might be seen as transphobic, thank goodness we have these woke students to set us right.”

NO. Just fucking NO. You were right the first time, take the fucking blinders off and be the fucking grown ups you were hired to be. They don’t give a crap about the cost, they don’t give a shit about transphobia - it’s about control. It’s about they’ll never be satisfied until there are no cubicles at all never mind completely enclosed ones. Bloody hell, why do the the so-called college authorities cave into this so easily? It’s like all their brains have been switched off.

There’s a comment on there that says people will just avoid the all-gender bathrooms and use the single-sex ones. Well, no sweetie, no they won’t, see, because there won’t be any single sex ones because gender feelz trump sex realz.

GCacademic, a good point. DD seemed out of kilter with her peers when she went to university away from her central London home. A lot might be down to a more innate sense of risk. London kids use public transport from an early age (she took the bus to her primary with her older brother from about eight) and are inevitably aware of dodgy blokes and mugging. This translated into a more cautious approach (you really dont want to get on a London night bus alone and paralytic) and hence a reluctance to fling herself headlong into the first year freshers week/clubbing/drinking etc. She is not the only Londoner to have struggled with what could be seen as naivity. Second year is much easier as they have all grown up.

Well even my cats like privacy when having a shit.

I was about to make the same observation.

Cats’ll give you a proper old-fashioned look if they catch you staring.

Well we know tha5 some men like taking video and pics of women and girls peeing. For some weird fetish
Another weird male fetish is stealing used tampons and pads out of sanitary bins in loos; naturally, these perverts love unisex toilets!

Everything that sets us apart from the other animals is a social construct

Well even my cats like privacy when having a shit.

They deliberately misunderstand, don't they?

Exactly. “We demand the right to see your bits!” And “We demand the right to beat you at sport!”

I really think women should do up a mock politician campaign on this.

Women having rights is transphobic, we knew that. Now women having needs and feelings is transphobic.

Male supremacism.

Correct. We've seen it from Izzard and I've seen it cropping up on Twitter recently: "Why don't we just have mixed bathrooms and locker rooms, anyway? Why are people (women) so hung up?"

NB I used the 'bathrooms and locker rooms' because it's been mostly American men saying this - so far.

And just in case anyone still has any lingering doubt:

There's no room for compromise

There's no room for anyone else's needs

There's no room for consideration or empathy or actually caring about women

Women having rights is transphobic, we knew that. Now women having needs and feelings is transphobic.

Male supremacism.

LOL

It gets more honest as each layer comes off, doesn't it? Let's cut to the chase here. Women wanting privacy:

• reduces validation points
• removes the thrill

But yes. I'm all for the general public seeing first hand the seeing women as subhuman, the narcissism, the total rejection of anyone else's needs feelings or interests and perceiving all other people as living merely to meet their needs. Let's put it right out there, let's have it right in plain sight. Let's talk about that, and about socially acceptable behaviour and boundaries and why women are saying back the fuck off. And playing spot the pathology.

Yes, see how the rhetoric is changing. It is not enough for them to force their way into women's spaces. Because it's about power and removing rights from women.

It reminds me of an interview I read with a US army colonel or something, in which he said women wouldn't be allowed to shower in a towel if they were uncomfortable about having to shower with MTF people, as it was "othering".

Women and girls really need to start saying No to this shit. We have a right to sex segregated spaces-give an inch & we'll lose everything.

GCAAcademic

That's an interesting point, you might be right. I do think that lack of different negative or difficult experiences at younger ages does impact young adults, its like they have to work through the same things later in life, but they often seem less capable of doing it or they find it more stressful.

I'd hate to say that maybe the experience of getting flashed by someone, or similar experiences, is a positive thing for personal growth. But there is something to be said for experience.

This is heart breaking. Why not three spaces- females, males, anyone on flier to ceiling cubicals?

The push for mixed sex toilets that has come out of this whole thing suggests to me that this issue has absolutely fuck all to do with poor vulnerable transwomen being worried about being beaten up in the loo and everything to do with encroaching on women's space and privacy.

This. Erosion, bit by bit until we have no privacy or safety until we are obliged to take massive risks - or are driven out. And all because MRAs are gaslighting women to agree with them and their various nasty agendas.

I wonder if the generational difference and naivety has something to do with the fact that DCs are now chauffeured around everywhere by parents, whereas by the age of 18 many of us had already experienced a significant amount of harassment, gropings, flashings, etc from using public transport or having to walk places? I was already very wary of men by the time I went to university.

It is also my observation that a worryingly large number of women here have been flashed, perved on or assaulted as children in public facilities. It is very common when I speak to friends also.

My first experience of inappropriate sexual behaviour was when a man flashed his semi at me in the pool changing rooms. I was 6.

Women’s desire to have privacy isn’t convenient for men like this. We spoil their fun and that’s mean.