No Female toilets!

Nothing for it but for women to speak up and complain to have this changed. There have to be EQUAL facilities for both sexes so you either have all gender neutral toilets or you have equal male and equal female with additional gender neutral. I can't believe how quickly this is changing in the UK! I live in one of the wokest places in the USA and I've only ever seen bathrooms here that are either all gender neutral or else the usual male / female options.

Thanks wacademia. I think there is such a gap between the way I framed/understood/did not understand experiences at the time and how I came to see things later, it is not easy to find the right words. It was only when volunteered for a charity that supported survivors of rape and abuse that I was able to get a sense of my own history.

I was sad to see a young female illustrator post something about 'being educated' and 'we all have to learn sometime' and the sort. What had she done in order to be 'educated'? She'd received messages because she had done an illustration of female anatomy - boobs, periods, womb ect, but this was excluding certain people and not all women have those things...apparently.

Second, the words you are looking for are rape and sexual assault.

Reading that back, it's not coming across the way I meant it to.

What I was trying to say is that what he's done is serious and should not be minimised, and that we have words to convey that seriousness and should use those words.

I was not trying to be sarcastic and I'm sorry for being careless with my choice of words in a way that may cause distress.

But in my first term there a male 'mature' undergraduate student forced himself on me sexually

First,

Second, the words you are looking for are rape and sexual assault. You don't benefit from minimising his criminal acts, but he and men like him do.

Third,

Think the high percentage of students who wear hijab is a large factor

They'll do it for religious reasons but not for a western female's personal reasons. How grossly unfair is that?

Part of this keeping the mens and turning the female spaces into unisex (so males possess everything, own both spaces, female people are allowed to share a bit of it if they're good and don't want to adhere to an inconvenient space or have a disability or want an experience free of humiliation and fear, stuff like that) is

a) it's the cheapest solution - no money spent, just change labels and the political lobby stops harassing you.

b) it acknowledges that to add a third space and keep a female only space would mean presenting a boundary and policing it against males insisting that they are female/expect to be recognised as female at all times in all spaces and fuck the impact on female people around them/see anyone mentioning female people or the needs of female people as an act of aggression. And standing up to the screaming rages that this would involve.

Increasingly, female people equally possessing and commandeering male spaces seems the only way to me to cause enough discomfort to the establishment to force a change.

l was in a toilet attached to a Library and supermarket they have male, female, Disability and a parents room l saw a man come out of the cubical in the female toilets told a male attendant cleaning in the entrance to all these rooms who just said SO,my partner has seen a male coming out of these female toilets and another acquaintance has been in these toilets when a male came out of a cubical and gave her a dirty look.
It seems men just use whatever toilet they want.

I was dreading going back to uni (a MN-horror inducing ex-polytechnic) for these kind of reasons but, while ours has gone down the "gender neutral" line somewhat - they've done so by continuing to provide single sex spaces for both males and females as well - thankfully! Think the high percentage of students who wear hijab is a large factor.

Fucking disgusting. This gender neutral stuff is eroding women's rights.

Thanks Zeugma. And it was a long time ago. I'd come from an abusive family background so had no idea how to look after myself. I suppose despite the fact we now are supposed to know about abuse and safeguarding and all sorts of rights which nobody thought about back in the wicked late 1970s, the general cluelessness and indifference remains...

And I'm very sad to hear what happened to you there, Harriet

King's was the first place I ever encountered 'gender-neutral' toilets, and that was several years ago now. I was visiting with DH, who studied there.

I found it an extremely unnerving sensation going into a loo that should have been for women, but wasn't any more. Now they're all over the place, depressingly so, but I haven't forgotten that initial shock. DH was astounded too.

I feel sad.

The college was one of the first to admit women.

When I was there the great majority of the teaching staff were male, so though the undergraduate intake was genuinely mixed sex, the place itself was obviously moulded by male tradition, and there was a real lack of female academic role model and older women to go to for support.
The choir continues to be all male to this day. The first and only female Provost departed after a very short time indeed.

I know that many young female university students in such place - and perhaps even some female academics? - find it important to believe that TWAW and that all gender critical feminists are motivated by ignorance/fear/hate/reluctance to sacrifice their 'cishet' privilege.

But in my first term there a male 'mature' undergraduate student forced himself on me sexually when I was very inexperienced and assumed that anyone who was clever enough to be there had the intelligence and good manners to take no for an answer..

Later on in my three years there, a postgraduate male student 'flipped' and hit me hard across the face - apparently some everyday remark of mine meant that I 'deserved' this.

Some male tutors - one with pastoral responsibility towards me, two who were academic supervisors - behaved towards me in ways which I can now see were unboundaried, unprofessional, inappropriate.

It was never a safe, genuinely inclusive space - but I had hoped that it was making moves in the right direction.

It’s sad though- woke should be a good thing. It should be genuinely inclusive, not discriminatory, not excluding.

Had to be bloody King's, didn't it? Woke before woke was a term.

Next time I'm up there, I'm checking out my own college. Much less woke back in my young day...

Why is always WOMEN who have to back up and make room?

I just can’t imagine what objective justification they can possibly think there is for such blatant discrimination. Both sexes and unisex - fine. Just unisex, not my preference but fine. Male and unisex but no female, WTAF?!

I think when the festivities have died down, I should draft a letter to Kings. (I studied there) I'll aim to find out who the best person is to direct it to - there maybe someone like a facilities/visitor services manager at the College, though I'd also want to cc it to the Provost and whoever's in charge of operations at the Chapel . I might also include a link to this thread. If people are interested in signing, do DM me and let me know if you're a regular visitor, former student, Chapel-goer/ person who goes to the College on business, parent of student whatever. Would also be interested to know any other relevant info people are happy to disclose. (eg health issues). My feeling is that would be in the interest of the college to try and resolve this matter - at the absolute minimum by making visitors aware of alternative male and female loos.The high profile nature of the place, means that if they have any sense, they should be aware that press coverage could have negative impact.

Can I check with those who have used the 'Cubicles' whether they are the loos that you'd reach by turning left after the porters lodge, so you have the facade/Kings Parade to your left, the Gibbs Building to the right and the chapel behind you? You'd then go in at the first door immediately ahead of you. There's a student bar to the right, but you go on a little further and both sets of toilets are to the left?

I suppose the loos which are student only can be 'woke' if that's what the students want. Even so, they should obviously be aware of the potential negative impacts in terms of the Equalities Act, have done a proper assessment - and if they had failed to do this, then the College itself should have required it to be done.

But it these are the toilets which are to be used by all visitors to the Chapel as well, the situation strikes me as even more serious....

Just need to ask..
We have yet another new coffee shop in my town,
They have two separate loos, (own doors, presume sink inside didnt go in) both marked. Unisex.
Is this allowed ? Why not have male and female.
Unisex to me means a loo that is just as filthy as a male only one

My post is a parody btw. I know it’s difficult to tell nowadays ...

Being menstruation-related, this is a female-only problem

Oh but don’t be so transphobic. It’s not just women who menstruate you know. You bigot.

/sarcasm font off.

But seriously, the attitude “You’re a bigot to talk about women’s biology” is becoming scarily accepted.

Illegal discrimination against women on the basis of sex is how they are "getting out in front of the laws".