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

'I personally don't "feel" like a woman'

What would 'feeling like a woman' mean anyway? I'm a woman, I work in a team of 15 people, most of us are female. We are all different people - different interests, different strengths, different shortcomings, different communication styles, different ways of presenting ourselves. The only thing we all have in common is our sex and our job title

I agree. It’s batshit.

You’re female. You use female toilets. It’s not that hard.

Toilets are not gendered but sex based. Your sex is female, regardless of what your gender is.

But if it would make you feel more comfortable you could start a campaign for a third option, neutral toilets.

Ignore the 'Stonewall definition.' They are a biased, untrustworthy organisation who care nothing for women's rights and safety. Use the women's facilities, because you are female.

Agree. They made the trans umbrella so wide that they accidentally sheltered all us unladylike terves under it!

They are clueless.

I mean, I sort of agree and sort of disagree.

I don't think disabled people who actually need accessible toilets should have to share with people who believe that they can't use the toilets for their own sex because of their "gender identity". And I don't think women should have to share toilets with any male people, however they believe they identify.

But trans people aren't going anywhere.

We can tell them that no one actually has an identity which matches their genitalia, that that isn't something which actually exists, until we are blue in the face. They won't listen.

So I think new facilities should offer male, female, unisex and accessible spaces as part of the design. And in the meantime, perhaps men's spaces should all be made unisex.

You say you don't feel comfortable with either choice and you seem to place too much emphasis on gender regarding your personality. I think counselling would be the best course.

I personally don't "feel" like a woman, I am just me. I use the women's toilets because that is my sex and regardless of how I look I have just as much right to be there as anyone else.

This may have been answered upthread, but I'm working today and don't have time to RTFT.

What do you mean by 'officially trans' OP? Do you have a GRC? If not, who's stamped your trans ID papers?

Use the ladies. They'll be too busy peeing to notice your 'gender'
No one cares 🤷‍♀️

Personally? As womens toilets are cubicles…plus I’ve lived in France where there is a far less uptight attitude…for instance if the ladies loo closed then the women walk into the mens…past the pissoirs where the men are standing weeing and just go in the cubicles….because that’s what adults do….we don’t stand around pointing saying…’oooh…Willy’. So for me…use where you are happiest.

It makes me so angry that people are advocating for ‘third space’ toilets or spending any money at all pandering to this crap when there are so few accessible toilets for people with disabilities who don’t have the luxury of pondering whether they feel comfortable in a certain toilet or not because there isn’t even one they can use.

Your thread title is incorrect. You ARE a woman. You may not feel like one. You may believe yourself not to be one. But biologically you are a woman. Your sex is female. Therefore, you should use the women's facilities.

Just go into a cubicle, lock the door and do what you need to do.

No-one else needs to know what gender you identify with, are medically described as or what you feel like on that day.

Unexpected reaction to my post - thank you

Ignore the 'Stonewall definition.' They are a biased, untrustworthy organisation who care nothing for women's rights and safety. Use the women's facilities, because you are female.

I do not ever want people to feel justified in assuming that I align myself with sexist stereotypes just because of the facilities I use.

Who is going to do that? People go in these facilities to use the loo, not to 'feel justified in assuming' that some random person 'aligns themselves with sexist stereotypes.'

To me it feels like a refusal to let my sexed body define me.

Ironically, you are doing exactly that by deciding your body isn't what you wanted because you believe it doesn't connect with how you want to dress, behave or think/feel in what you believe to be 'female ways.

There are of course many women who say, 'yes I'm a woman, an adult human female, and I will wear and do whatever I like with no reference to stereotypes.' This is women claiming freedoms for themselves, rather than thinking they can't do it if they're female. Feminism isn't about rejecting being female, it's the opposite.

@GrannyAchingsShepherdsHut Great post 👏

Can't put it better than this really.

Exactly this. I am a woman because my sex is female. I’m not a woman because I have womanly thoughts, react in womanly ways, feel like an earth goddess, revel in feminine pursuits. My body is the one I’ve got. My mind is me (and the product of all the social contagion, culture, upbringing, influence of friends and colleagues, and my own personal sprinkles). I would say that ANYTHING I do, or that any other woman does, is a “woman thing” because women can do it.

Women are people who do whatever they happen to want to do, and happen to be female. I wholeheartedly reject any assumptions that I like particular things, hold particular opinions, am good or bad at certain things just because I’m female. Still happy to use the womens loos because - despite gender ideology trying to make male/female all about the feeling inside your head - I maintain that it’s about what sex you are. It’s literally the ONLY thing we have in common. Speak out against assumptions based “gender” - loads of us are doing that, acting it, etc, and have been for decades / centuries. You’re not alone. Many, many women are with you. Calling ourselves women doesn’t mean we agree with gendered assumptions.

I genuinely believe that the majority of people don't have a gender identity - they just know what sex they are.

This.

I'm convinced that the only people who genuinely believe they have a gender identity are people who identify as trans or non binary or whatever.

Try asking someone who identifies as "cis" how they know they are a man or a woman.

"I just know. I have always known I am a boy/man. I don't feel like I have an identity which contradicts my sex. That means I am a cis man."

No it doesn't.

The absence of dysphoria is not an identity.

You know you are a man because you have a penis.

Sorry to burst your bubble but you are a woman.

My view is that everyone has an unchanging biological sex and that they should used the sex-based services of that sex. There is literally nothing to negotiate!

One caveat

I do not think that it is right for a woman to impose herself in a men's space, but a trans man who does a fairly good job of passing might be doing more harm in the right space than they do in the wrong space, so trans men are the one example where using the opposite sex spaces might be acceptable. To be clear - I am talking about toilets - healthcare needs to be female based. Gay saunas - unless you really hate men and enjoy rejection stay out of those.

I would simultaneously fight for the right of all transmen to use women's spaces, and the right of women to keep out trans men who are perceived to be male, even if only by a small percentage of women. This is the one tricky thing.

If trans people were to make a case for why they should have third spaces then I might advocate for those, but to be honest I can't imagine the trans community being able to convince me of that. They seem to be interested mainly in forcing others to validate them, so I don;t believe the trans community wants them. They'd be expensive. They're a no go.

Maybe the answer is to do nothing and wait for the trend to pass (if the paedophile scandals don;t get it first).

refusal to let my sexed body define me

It doesn't define you. It just defines what sex you are. That's all.

If you have blue eyes, it doesn't define who you are. It defines what colour of eyes you have. Nothing else.

I do not consider myself 'trans' (I am aware that stonewall definition probably would, but I also think they wouldn't want me even if I came with a free gold clock...)

😃

Welcome to FWR @GrannyAchingsShepherdsHut !

This makes a lot of sense. Thank you for posting.

Exactly.

"refusing to let your sexed body define you" is such a stupid statement (sorry to be blunt) I don't let my being a woman define me either, it's just what I am. Women make up 50% of the population give or take, acting like that one thing ( our sexed bodies) "define us" is ridiculous, there's much more to everyone than that one thing we share with billions of other people. What part of being a woman do you think you're rejecting by trying to identify out of the sex class? You've used that biology in the most female way possible by having children, what makes you not a woman now? Asking people not to refer to you as "her"? Not wearing make up? Cutting your hair? I'm really curious, none of these things make someone a woman