@SamphiretheTervosaurReturneth
Accosting a child as described is, obviously, poorly done and the man needed to be spoken to. A man, you notice, not a GC woman, a feminist, yet here you are, admonishing a forum of women for that man's actions. How many other forums, ones filled with men, have you chosen to similarly admonish?
I welcome all comments from those who have actually read the article, which you quite clearly have not bothered to do. The very first paragraph in the article states:
“Our 12-year-old daughter would like to pee without being harassed. Lately, she can’t seem to escape it. Recently, after a long, fun-packed day at a local amusement park, Jenny used the bathroom on the way to the exit. (Jenny is a lovely name, but it’s not our daughter’s real one.) Jenny was met with an adult’s gasp on her way out of the stall and asked why she was in the women’s bathroom. Jenny responded that she is a girl.”
This was a woman, because it’s a fact that it is certain transphobic women (some of whom are within the GC movement) who are policing Women’s toilets. So yes I am alerting the men and women on Mumsnet, as this is a mixed sex parenting site, not a single sex womens forum. This is an issue that should concern all parents as it effects the safety of their children using public toilets.
I am quite happy to see most posters stating that only “idiots” and “religious nutters” would confront a child in the womens toilets. I think I can therefore depend on everyone here, to challenge any adult woman confronting a masculine appearing child using the womens toilets to defend that child from such harassment.
The issue here is that TRAs have worked so very effectively to make gender stereotypes the norm again. Not the case per academic research on the subject:
“Gender-critical’ feminists (e.g. Jeffreys, 2014b) often argue that ‘trans activists’ reinforce stereotypical gender roles – for example, promoting that a woman must look and act in a particularly feminine way. In our data, however, hetero- and cisnormative systems and structures (protected by ‘gender-critical’ feminists and others), pressured trans people to act and present according to specific, normative gender expectations in order to keep themselves safe (see also Bender-Baird, 2016). Of course, cisgender women, too, have to meet these standards; gender non-conforming and butch cisgender women are also subject to misgendering and violence in women’s toilets (Cavanagh, 2010; Munt, 1998). Surveillance in women-only toilets therefore reinforces the rules that gender-critical feminists claim they want to abolish. Making trans lives impossible is prioritised over and above creating spaces inclusive of all women.”
Jones, Charlotte and Jen Slater. The toilet debate: Stalling trans possibilities and defending ‘women’s protected spaces’ The Sociological Review, Vol 68 Issue 4.
doi.org/10.1177/0038026120934697