How to approach the 'TW in a work loo' issue

Pakistani feminist Bina Shah makes this point in her excellent recent blog challenging Judith Butler:

But if a trans woman with a penis is in the same space, then the Muslim woman will be in a terrible conflict about her actions in leaving her home. Suddenly, she is not able to remove her hijab or undress because she cannot do those things in front of a person with a male body who is not a family member. This not a hypothetical, there are Muslim, Sikh, and Hindu women who are now excluded from single sex-only spacess^ because the definition of woman has changed to include women with penises. To call that Muslim woman a TERF because she expresses discomfort is yet another abuse for her.

https://thefeministani.wordpress.com/2021/09/09/judith-butler-and-afghan-women/

I have a question- if there are any observant muslim staff- or any other religion that has rules/guidance about interactions between men and women, how does this work?

I don’t know enough about islam to know if a man and woman are allowed to use the same toilet facilities, but surely it makes simple acts like using the mirror to rearrange a hijab more difficult?

Who counts as a man or woman in employment law is governed by the Equality Act. The definition of a woman is a "female of any age".

The Equality Act does not state that MTF trans people have the automatic right to access female single sex spaces, contrary to the claims of many TRAs and trans lobby organisations. There are exemptions provided for the provision of fully single sex toilets at the service provider's discretion, the test being that it is a "proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim". Women's privacy and dignity is (arguably) a legitimate aim, and providing a third space for trans people in addition to the single sex toilets for both sexes not accessible by the opposite sex is IMO proportionate.

However in the workplace there is the extra specification that where toilets are mixed sex they must be self contained, in a separate room.

Allowing males to access female cubicle toilets or providing a block of mixed sex ones where they are not in a separate room doesn't meet that.

I'm disappointed that @flibberyjibbery8 and @Quaggars weren't in the threads defending Alana McLoughlin's right to beat the shit out of a woman or on the Wii Spa threads defending the rights of a convicted sex offender to expose himself.

They're all the same thing. Either men can become women or they can't.

The "transwomen are at risk in the male toilets" trope pisses me off no end. There is no evidence of it ever happening. If there has been any man on TW attacks please link to it because I have not found one single incident.

OP doesn't have a disability.

OP wishes to use a single sex facility, as is her right according to the legislation posted upthread.

Nobody's motivations really matter, here, bit pointless speculating.

Doesn't matter if her colleague has good or bad intentions.

Doesn't matter what OP's reasons are.

Legally OP is entitled to single sex space. That's it.

That's it.

What part of that do you have difficulty with?

What part of 'the OP shouldn't have to share toilets with a man' are you struggling with?

Walk into bathroom.
Enter toilet cubicle and use toilet.
Leave toilet cubicle and wash hands.
Leave bathroom.

What part of that do you have difficulty with?

If you have a disability, use the disabled toilet. That's who they're for, people with disabilities.

I'd like to know the answer, too.

@aBirdToldMeAboutIt that’s a total misrepresentation of the law. Have you done so deliberately or is it a genuine error?

OP you just need to make a very clear request to your employer “please identify the single sex toilet for women in [wherever you work]”

If you ask them to “clarify” they’ll do the TWAW. by asking them to identify what they are legally required to provide it’ll leave less wriggle room.

I doubt this person would change up their entire life to use a female toilet, so I think I'd ask yourself what is making you wary and why.

What's making her wary? She didn't say she was wary (loaded language intended to dismiss and deride.) She simply wants, like women have always wanted and had, by and large in first world countries, the dignity and privacy of knowing a place where you remove clothing and perform intimate functions is single SEX.

Everyone knows really that we separate the sexes for toilet, undressing, and sleeping purposes, but along come disingenuous posters to scoff and insinuate that unreasonable OP is 'wary' of kind old Peter/Sandra who 'just wants to pee'.

to @LockdownLisa.
Put up a fight now, before this use gets established, I'd say. Great posting upthread from @CharlieParley with the relevant law.
But it's easy for me to say that, I didn't stand up, I left.

I've worked in the Civil Service, and the reality of having to get changed in front of a known male is like another attack. It's truly disturbing.

This person is actually making a mockery of the whole thing, to constantly switch between male and female would suggest there is a set of criteria to assess yourself against. I have never seen these gender definitions?

Toilets, changing rooms etc are single-sex spaces. The word gender is not relevant.

If you're feeling uncomfortable sharing the toilets with another woman, whether trans or not

She's not uncomfortable sharing the toilets with any women.

Our rights do not stand or fall with a male person's motivation, they exist in their own right. Believe it or not, but we are fully realised human beings and thus have rights of our own. Hard won rights that enable us to participate in public life and that exist even without the approval of male colleagues or misinformed HR departments.

This.

Maybe a preachy sign for the male loos? "Some males wear dresses. Get over it". (Yuck, but I gather that sort of thing is de rigeur now, and it would be nice to have it directed at men for a change).

I agree. It would be better directed at men, to make all males feel comfortable in the appropriate space.

When I was struggling with peri menopausal flooding, I ended up standing in my underwear, scrubbing my stained trousers in the sink. I received nothing but sympathy and empathy from my female colleagues whilst I tried to compose myself. I absolutely would not like to encounter a male bodied person whilst I was upset, vulnerable and half dressed, in the communal part of a female-only space. If this makes me transphobic, so be it.

Op as a woman you just need to be kind and allow your boundaries to be trampled. There are lots of people telling you to do it on this thread.
#bekind and #shutup

What's the reason for not continuing to use the male toilets? Is there some suggestion that male staff would cause issues?

Is there some rather regressive thinking about stereotypes going on here? Do they think "female toilet" means "dress-wearing people's toilet"?

Maybe a preachy sign for the male loos? "Some males wear dresses. Get over it". (Yuck, but I gather that sort of thing is de rigeur now, and it would be nice to have it directed at men for a change).

Still, I guess some trans people are always going to struggle with being comfortable with their sex, or being "gender-non conforming", and are going to be resistant to overcoming that, so a third space to accommodate them is appropriate.

I doubt this person would change up their entire life to use a female toilet, so I think I'd ask yourself what is making you wary and why.

That male person's motivation has no bearing on the rights of female staff to female-only toilets. It doesn't matter if it's a well-meaning person or someone doing it for nefarious or mischievous reasons - they are male and would deny the female staff members their rights to dignity, privacy and safety by using the female-only toilets.

Our rights do not stand or fall with a male person's motivation, they exist in their own right. Believe it or not, but we are fully realised human beings and thus have rights of our own. Hard won rights that enable us to participate in public life and that exist even without the approval of male colleagues or misinformed HR departments.

Moreover, the loss of single-sex provisions hits various marginalised groups of women harder than others, such as disabled women, women from culturally conservative backgrounds, women from faith groups and traumatised female survivors of male violence who cannot use mixed-sex facilities at all. Many of them also fall under other protected characteristics in addition to sex, such as race or ethnicity, religion or belief and disability and the OP's employer has a duty to these groups as well.

As for your question, no male person in this situation can now be unaware of the large numbers of women who do not consent to sharing facilities with males where they are vulnerable and in a state of undress. If such a male person chooses to use female-only spaces, it is therefore a conscious violation of women's boundaries in my view and we are right to be wary of any male person who chooses to violate the boundaries of female people. My own experience with male violence tells me that.

Additionally there's one high profile trans person who switches names gender pronouns etc during the week.

Use the ladies sometimes and the gents the other.

With this sort of thing really it needs to be all unisex surely and with provision to provide privacy comfort for all surely?

And as a more general point. I thought the argument for transwomen using the men's was safety?

I mean in most office situations that's surely not a concern? I've never ever heard of a man attacking a colleague in the gents. I mean sure probably happened some time but must be vanishingly rare.

If the workplace is like that then what protections are there for eg out gay men?

Turned around i KNOW that... All? The men I've worked with would not be comfy with this being announced and then BOOM I'm walking into the bog while they're at the urinal.

I mean obviously, surely?