I'm not a woman - which facilities should I use

As a biological woman you use the facilities you feel the safest in. The use of women's safe spaces are within your sex based rights, which remain unchanged no matter how you present or identify. No woman / female would expect you to use the gents just because you perhaps dress neutral and use they them pronouns.

If you using the women's loos is triggering for you, use the men's. You claim you are a male. Use that, then. If you don't want to, have a think about why that might be.

No one gives a shit about masculine presenting women in women's toilets. Or they didn't until LARPing men started invading women's spaces and making women nervous about who might be trying to sneak in.

Hear, hear.

Males are a threat to females, I think statistics show this. The majority of attacks are committed by males. A woman's toilet should be a safe space for women. Not for men.

Agree - women are not a protective shield for men.

Let men sort the problem of male violence against other men. Women have enough to cope with regarding male violence against women and children.

We can't tell which men are predators - they need to ALL stay out of women's spaces.

Rape & sexual assault is not an unreal threat.
Men who enter the ladies toilets are more likely to rape women in the ladies toilets than men who never enter them.
You can't be one of the men who sexually assaults a woman in the ladies toilets if you don't enter them.

A man who says he thinks he isn't a man is just as likely to be a rapist as any other male, because gender cultists commit crimes the way their birth sex do, not the way they say they identify.

No, I do not consent to validating some blokes desire to invade female spaces & I will never support a business who throw women under the bus like that.

You don't get to tell women that you think some made up ideology that says gender is valid means they have to share with men.

It doesn’t matter what you identify as you are a female. You cannot change sex and that is a scientific fact. Use the ladies.

@FemaleAndLearning - I’m baffled, I had a look at that website, and the whole point of the program is the following:

“This dedicated career development opportunity aims to address the lack of women in technical leadership positions across the sector..”

and yet it is open to ANYONE who identifies as female.

@ThrowingSomeCrumbs - presumably he wants to be seen as a man, and you say looks like a man, so will want to use the men’s loos? Obviously, would need to use a cubicle.

If the same trans-man came into the ladies loos saying that they had been harassed or made to feel awful by another man in the male loos, I would probably leave them to use our loos, and go and get security if wanted etc.

But you and I both know your “friend” is a red herring. And has nothing to do with women who are still women but consider themselves agendered, or non-binary.

Unless using women’s loos is somehow triggering, I don’t understand why females would want yet another kind of loo to use, if no one else can tell the difference.

This reminds me so much of the white academic who got into black spaces and even when finally called on it, insisted she was whoever she choose to be (“identified as”). That was clearly ridiculous, and insulting to WOC. Why do women have to accept everything that men want, without demure, because they have truly honestly realised they identify as women too…? because they are still being patriarchal.

When was the last time you heard of any man asking a woman what it felt like to be a woman in their quest for self-discovery? Never, that’s when. Absolutely no interest in the female perspective, only their own interpretation of being a woman. Which is the most reductive crap I’ve ever heard.

You can't "focus on predatory men" in public spaces, how does anyone know which are the predatory and which aren't? that's why in such situations we have safe guarding in place and same SEX spaces.

You won't find many gender ideologists on here.

I would say use a gender-neutral toilet where available (though I strongly feel these should be lockable individual toilet cubicles with basins etc inside) and ladies where not available.

I don't think most women consider whether the person using the toilet next to them is male or female unless they are evidently biologically male (which won't be the case here).

How can safety only ever be considered in terms of transwomen. So they are at risk from the men in the mens but women afraid of the same men being allowed into the women's are bigots?

So men are dangerous but only to transwomen?

Or being wary if males is unnecessary?

Which is it?

I'm not assuming a transwomen is a threat. I'm assuming all male born people are a threat. Being a transwomen doesn't change the fact that 98% of sexual assaults are committed by male bodied people.

A secondary school near us is putting in thirty individual cubicles - all fully enclosed, lockable, with sinks and sanitary disposal units inside - to be used by all students. This seems a sensible plan to me.

All toilets should be like this in my opinion, I hate the communal loos with inadequate cubicles. We should all be entitled to privacy.

It's men in our spaces we have an issue with. Because they are male. Not because they are / are not trans.

Exactly!

This.

Identify in any way you wish, but biologically you are female and should use the women's facilities.

You can copy with your body's femaleness enough to carry and give birth to two babies (the most female of all actions) - how is it hard to accept it enough to use a woman's loo? I honestly don't know how you find this a problem.

Surely it doesn't matter what you identify as in this situation. You're female. If, God forbid, something terrible happened to you the police would identify you as 'a female'. If you needed medical care such as gynaecology you'd be treated according to your female body and so on. Your sex is female. Use the female facility and stop using Stonewall definitions to identify you.

Given you are a woman and no threat to anyone use whichever ones you like.

It's men in our spaces we have an issue with. Because they are male. Not because they are / are not trans.

How do we tell the difference between a predatory man, a harmless man, a predatory trans woman, and a harmless trans woman?

The only thing we can actually see is that they are all male, and therefore statistically more likely to harm us than female people.

Males are a threat to females, I think statistics show this. The majority of attacks are committed by males. A woman's toilet should be a safe space for women. Not for men.

"A trans friend looks very much male. He still has a vagina (for many reasons) but I knew him as him, and had no idea he was trans for some time.

How would you feel if you saw him in a womens toilet? He looks, acts and speaks as a male. Without checking his sex organs, you would just see a man."

No one gives a shit about masculine presenting women in women's toilets. Or they didn't until LARPing men started invading women's spaces and making women nervous about who might be trying to sneak in.

There are no female boundaries that are respected now.

None. Zilch. Zero.

How far will this go and how many woman hurt in the process.

Collateral damage - acceptable as long as men get validation?

Well said.

I find the raving transpobia on this site so offensive (and I'm at least sympathetic to those with differing viewpoints to my own!).

OP nobody in the toilets really cares how you dress, or how you think or what you do or what name you call yourself or what pronouns. Honestly, nobody gives a ffff.

Read my previous post. I think you should probably use the female toilet unless you look scary to women. And you KNOW exactly what that means 😉

@Solonge Exactly! Focus on the real threat - predatory / abusive men. Don't divert to focussing on gender identity. Focus on predatory men full stop

The problem with this is that as soon as you allow some people to be exceptions to the rule, there is no longer a rule.

Is it really fair to allow trans people to decide, based on their own judgement, whether they "pass" enough to use toilets for the opposite sex without causing any distress to the people those spaces are actually for?

I don't see why the fact that some people have gone to extreme lengths to change their appearance should be the rest of society's problem.

"I genuinely now feel uncomfortable wherever I go."

I don't mean to sound flippant here but if you feel uncomfortable wherever you go, the only solution that I can see is to go wherever you feel less uncomfortable. Because the reality is you have to go somewhere! If you're somewhere where there's a 3rd option, then go there obviously but if not, pick the lesser of two evils so to speak.

But how would you KNOW? How do you know who you are sharing a toilet with?