Which spaces do non-binary people use?

Unless of course you are saying that we should be protecting women from seeing the bodies of other women?

In my experience (woke university) female non-binary people, without exception, use the women's facilities.

Male non-binary people also seem to use the female facilities, citing fear of going into the men's.

The last event I was at before lockdown had unbelievable women's queues. A line of women of various shapes and sizes, interspersed with a significant number of blue/long haired males snaked around the foyer, while the men as usual went straight in and peed.

Mixed sex toilets and changing rooms, even if they're single occupancy, will end up with hidden spy cams in them. This has already been born out by many statistics and to think otherwise is dangerously naive. And you can bet that they won't be being put there by people desperate to perve over our "female minds" 🙄. We also need sanitary bins, which again trials of this model prove end up being swiftly vandalised by men or hunted through by fetishists. So no, mixed sex single occupancy isn't going to work for women. The only people who would say that this protects the privacy and dignity of "everyone" are those who are seeing the situation through the lens of their own deeply entrenched male privaledge, their own ignorance of what it really means to live in a sexist world as a woman, and their belief that males are the default human whose experience in the world can be seemlessly generalised onto females. Single sex isn't perfect but it's the best women have found to protect us from men. Males dictating to females which spaces and services specifically created to meet their best interests should be allowed to remain, and in what form, is male supremacy. Maybe try using your "female mind" to actually empathise with women. Maybe try using your privaledge to support our liberation rather than worsening our oppression by removing our safeguards for your own convenience.

Longines - but the needs you list - disabilities, are real, physical needs beyond the individual’s control.

I am prepared to believe that extreme gender dysphoria is outside of an individual's control and prevents some people from accessing single sex public toilets.

Once you start policing what is within an individual's control, you are going down the route of saying that women who have suffered trauma or have particular religious beliefs just have to 'get over it'.

I think the solution is legislation to protect single sex spaces and more unisex toilets. I don't think the cost is prohibitive, if access to toilets is prioritised.

(Unfortunately I suspect the reason they aren't is that so many men are happy to urinate without a toilet...)

It is not seeking to force anything, but rather normalise it. Like it used to be.

Absolutely Longines - trans organisation myumbrella have identified that the total list consists of 371 genders so they all need to be considered. I assume that is a central register somewhere where the genders are listed and updated as new ones come to light.
We must consider how each gender can be given equal treatment in the relevant situations.

Private spaces would be fine by me and I find the idea that we need to force girls to see a range of female bodies rather off . A naff solution to the problem of unrealistic media

The easiest and cheapest option is to make all male facilities unisex and keep female and disabled facilities for the people they were intended for. It would also potentially have the advantage of making men behave better towards people who don't conform to a traditional male stereotype - which at the end of the day is what trans people say is the problem of using male facilities.

Just to add, the worst thing people can do for trans inclusion is to shoe-horn it into the existing sex-segregated facilities, as that makes no sense and causes all sorts of unpalatable outcomes (as we know).

It's all very well saying no-one has the money to accommodate trans people and the thousands of different genders that people self-identify as, but if people believe that gender is a thing and want to accommodate everyone's self-identified gender, they need to put their money where their mouths are and accommodate all the genders people are identifying as, not just the ones coming from the people with the loudest voices and which conveniently happen to correspond with the existing sex-segregated structure that we have and seemingly require minimal effort to deal with (aside from that minor issue of biological women kicking up a fuss, of course).

Either gender identity is a thing, in which case, sex-segregated facilities are no longer fit for purpose and we should move to a more individualised model as Renata suggests, or gender identity is only a thing where it conveniently aligns with 'male' and 'female'. If the latter is true, then that begs the question: why are some trans people believed when they assert their gender identity and others aren't?

What I mean is that yes, have another unisex loo - but it doesn’t have to be designed specially for ‘non binary’ people.

Longines - but the needs you list - disabilities, are real, physical needs beyond the individual’s control. That’s why we have disabled loos. ‘Third space’ loos - great if there is space & money, but these are a luxury imo, catering to a tiny number of people who just don’t want to use the loo for their sex (even though they are entirely capable). If extra loos are to be built far more people would benefit from creating proper baby change/family loos and decent dedicated disabled loos. But of course most of those people would just be mothers and disabled people, so less important than a teeny number of people role playing as the other / no sex.

I agree longines

It seems obvious that some people find it difficult to make an obvious declaration of sex by choosing a toilet; and worry about being challenged because their appearance is gnc.

It doesn’t have to be logical.

For different reasons, both mixed sex and single sex provision can be prohibitive for some groups of people.

There is not the money, space or inclination to have 3rd spaces or convert everything to single enclosed cubicles

I don't buy this. It's the kind of argument that used to be made about the hassle of putting in wheelchair ramps and providing documents in Braille before equality legislation and social pressure toward inclusion made these steps necessary in most cases (i.e. those cases where this was really just an excuse rather than the actual truth).

The real reason third spaces aren't a popular solution is because the only people who are asking for them are female-bodied people (including many non-binary ones, IME), who typically don't have the loudest voices in matters such as these.

You can bet your life if the TRA lobby demanded third spaces, the issues of space and money would pale into insignificance because "it's just the right thing to do".

I think unisex facilities are useful for many people, including those who are caring for opposite sex children and people who aren’t bothered about using single sex facilities.

I have worked in many offices that are too small to have single sex loos and cleanliness was never a problem.

The problem is that rainbow stickers and new toilet door signs are cheaper than actual new properly designed unisex toilets.

What they shouldn't do is hijack the disabled toilets as there aren't enough of them and they are fir physical/neuro disabilities not for people who don't want to admit they have a sex.

This. And this is also what we are at risk of losing. A hierarchy has been formed, actual vulnerabilities are being ignored. Disabled toilets are also usually already sharing the baby changing facilities and is mixed sex so the 'Male scent' is already present.

I wish we could prioritise real, tangible disabilities above claims of feelings.

A poll from non-binary people would be useful to answer this question. I'd be interested to find out where the want to go, toilets according to their sex or according to how they feel and does it change?

I agree re individual privacy. I have no desire to see other people , men or women , naked. I hate communal changing rooms.

I agree.

Well they are either going to need a urinal or a sanitary bin so they will just have to use te one that serves their needs biologically.

What they shouldn't do is hijack the disabled toilets as there aren't enough of them and they are fir physical/neuro disabilities not for people who don't want to admit they have a sex.

female brain is a brain in a female

"Single sex spaces are there because female bodies are different from male bodies, not because female brains are different from male brains"

This every single time!

Single sex spaces aren't just physical spaces though are they? They're also a metaphor - for example a list of inspirational women just have women on it. If people who identify as non binary are on it they should be female. Non binary people are still either one sex or the other.

IMO ‘non-binary’ is just words, often it’s today’s goth and presumably they’ll grow out of it. Alternatively it’s just words that describe someone who isn’t into the current male or female stereotypes in the oversexualised world that teens have the misfortune to be growing up in (and I get why they want to avoid it) or who is escaping puberty / struggling with their sexuality. It can be someone who is too introspective or lonely finding an online community of friends. It can be someone who loves the attention and thinks it’s cool.
If it’s a grown up it’s words describing someone stuck in childhood or with some mental distress (possibly escaping a trauma) or a narcissist.
I have sympathy, but none of the above makes any difference to their sex so they should just use the correct facilities for their sex, like everyone else. Their issues don’t trump everyone else’s rights.

Where the full range of female bodies is an important experience for other females.

I think this is so overlooked and so important.

The female body is so sexualise in our culture and the "acceptable" body type is always tight, perky and young. It's important for women to see other women. I'm not talking about ogling strangers - but your friends, mothers, sisters. Especially younger women. My mother always had no shame of her body and we would always change in the communal area. It's important for a young girl to see that a woman's body is just a body. It comes in all shapes, it's nothing to be ashamed off.

We're also social animals. I don't like the idea of being locked away. Small cubiclas are also more dirty and more cramped and make life harder for mums with kids. The queues are also longer.

The thing I don't like is trans is such a small % of the population. In a town like mine you could end up changing everything to suit and tiny minority. Make life worse, more difficult and more uncomfortable for everyone else - and never get a trans person through the door.
And all this nonsense about "it others people" they are other. They need to accept that. Its is not the normal (as in part of the majority) to present as the oppersite sex to your biological one. Disabled people are othered every day - they don't complain, they accept they are other, even though they are a bigger majority than trans.

Last year I used some of these new loos in an art gallery which were for men and women. Oh the smell. Barely open a few months and cleaned regularly and they reaked of male pee. I suspect there are many women who don't want their space scent marked by the male.