Transmen

Having "women's toilets" and "mixed toilets" opens up another can of worms I think. Some women would naturally enter a room with a sign that says "mixed toilets," but I imagine women wouldn't be happy about entering this room and seeing men using urinals. Or would the hypothetical "mixed toilets" not have urinals at all? Too many questions and I'm not going to try to answer them.

The biggest issue is that everyone (especially the media) is so obsessed with MTF transgender people, that they have quite literally forgotten that FTM transgender people... you know... exist.

To illustrate this, watch 2:30 - 2:40 of the following video (I apologise that there is commentary on the video that many people won't agree with, but I can't find a video without commentary).

When the subject of transgender men is raised at 2:30 - 2:40, the Tory politician literally freezes in position and stops talking. He was so obsessed with transgender women, and was thinking about transgender women constantly, that he never stopped to consider what the legal implications of the supreme court ruling would be for transgender men.

I found this thread while trying to find answers, I don't know if anything has been said here already that would answer this. My DS is FTM, from what I've seen of the SC judgement it sounds like they're saying that people need to use the spaces of their assigned sex but everyone has discussed this in terms of MTF. I can't figure out if he would be supposed to be using women's facilities, which would look odd as he's not been mistaken for female for years. He generally uses the accessible toilets or goes to places like Costa where there are individual unisex cubicles, so it's probably not going to impact him personally too much, but there doesn't seem to be things said about transmen so much? If he has to use a larger toilet he goes to the mens without issue - years ago he went to the womens when he was still in the early days of transitioning, and he was shouted at by a woman asking why he was there, so using the womens facilities sounds like a bad idea

Not all males in a toilet are adults, and we are not just talking about toilets are we, we are talking about for example changing rooms.

On this thread we are talking about toilets.

I think it is perfectly reasonable for men to ffel uncomfortable undressing in front of biological women.

I agree.

As for safety, there are many many cases of teenage boys being groomed and sexually abused by female teachers.

Through women using the boys' toilets?

Those that really want to be considered a member of the opposite sex go to great lengths to pass and will continue to use the toilets of their chosen sex with no issue as they have done quietly for many years before this “self ID boom”.

My DH is a FTM trans person and will continue to use the men’s toilets as he has done for years. He considers himself to be a man, he has no desire at all to be in women’s spaces and would hate to draw attention himself in anyway. He just goes into a cubicle, does his business and leaves. No need for a fuss.

Not all males in a toilet are adults, and we are not just talking about toilets are we, we are talking about for example changing rooms. I think it is perfectly reasonable for men to ffel uncomfortable undressing in front of biological women. As for safety, there are many many cases of teenage boys being groomed and sexually abused by female teachers.

There used to be frequent arguments on here about helping opposite sex children to get changed for swimming. I really didn’t like sending my son to get changed alone when he was eight. I think there will always be conflicting needs and it’s important to understand different views (e.g many people haven’t thought about the toilet door safety problem) but solutions based in fantasy e.g. TWAW will always be bad.

I think there are drawbacks with most or all solutions. I would not have wanted to take my daughter into the Gents, given the row of urinals with men peeing, and to be honest the occasional man of dubious morals/habits. I was fortunate in not needing to do so. I would not have felt I could take her into the Ladies. As soon as she was old enough, I would have expected her to use the Ladies without help from me. Single fathers with young or disabled (depends on disability, of course) daughters have no good solution available.

I take your point on wheelchair accessible toilet cubicles within single sex facilities. Space would be a problem in some buildings.

• Disabled toilet room with well designed aids, alarm cord, washing facilities and plenty of space (with full height door).
• "Third space" gender neutral toilet room with washing facilities (with full height door). This might be a suitable space for baby changing and for mother and son or father and daughter.

These need to be very, very carefully controlled. Private, mixed sex places in public areas should be minimised as much as possible.

I have read examples of the father/ daughter scenario mistaken in the worst way. Should a man with a girl have more privacy in a toilet room than a woman with a girl?

Personally I would love there to be more wheelchair accessible toilets in the ladies, with door gaps in them for safety if someone collapses, and to prevent assaults.

I agree with this.

I would be happy for "third spaces" (single rooms) for several reasons, including:

• they would take away the bad excuse that transwomen are unsafe in men's toilets
• they would increase WC provision for men (most Gents have mostly urinals, which is great until the cubicle or couple of cubicles are occupied and a man is desperate, which happens embarrassingly often for some of us)
• they would save people like me from having sometimes to use disabled access facilities
• they would make it easier to keep communal single sex toilets (with gaps under doors, which have safety advantages in some circumstances)

That last point is perhaps the most important one. I want to keep urinals in the Gents, particularly in pubs and nightclubs, because they are very efficient and save a lot of space for that reason. "Third space" gender neutral toilets in most settings would mean just one additional gender neutral room, which might be smaller than a disabled toilet room. So for clarity in most large buildings, on each floor, I would like there to be:

• Single sex Ladies with an adequate number of cubicles (with gaps under doors), and washing facilities.
• Single sex Gents with urinals and at least one cubicle (with gaps under doors), and washing facilities.
• Disabled toilet room with well designed aids, alarm cord, washing facilities and plenty of space (with full height door).
• "Third space" gender neutral toilet room with washing facilities (with full height door). This might be a suitable space for baby changing and for mother and son or father and daughter.

Smaller buildings, such as cafés or hairdressers, could have either a Ladies and a Gents, or a gender neutral room. Pubs should definitely include a Gents with urinals!

People should all be expected to use either the toilets provided for their sex class, or gender neutral rooms.

So, essentially, you'd like more toilets in general.

I have always assumed that single sex spaces can be communal with cubicles, and that third spaces would be single rooms like disabled toilets, though they wouldn't need to be so big. So anyone who was happy to do so could use the third spaces. As someone with intermittent bowel problems, I would welcome this option in addition to the gents that I would normally use, and the ladies that I would never use.

I'm glad I wasn't in those Men's toilets you used, when I was in my teens. I would have been so horribly embarrassed. If this was in a nightclub, probably not much of a problem, but men, and particularly teens and young men, can be very sensitive indeed about being seen undressed or partially dressed. As most men are heterosexual, the presence of women is particularly likely to be confusing.

I think we have to realize though that it is not neutral to require third spaces. It's placing a burden on businesses. And I'm not convinced there is enough justification to place that burden on businesses for what are essentially cosmetic alterations entered into voluntarily.

I agree, third spaces are not neutral. People talk about them as though they will solve the problem. They won't. They will just be another mixed sex space for female users to be at risk in. Trans-IDing men won't want to use them because what they want is access to women's spaces.

Can you imagine providing third spaces for other people who have modified their bodies in such a way that it makes others stare at them or makes other service users uncomfortable? How about these people? Some of them believe that they are tigers, or dragons, in just the same way that trans-IDing people believe that they are the opposite sex. Should they have third spaces, or do they accept that they have made these choices and have to live with the societal consequences?

I think the big difference is that "transmen" who want to live in the male world very quickly learn that they have to keep a seriously low profile or else it simply won't work.

Men simply will not accept the stuff that women have had to deal with with the whole "transwoman" situation. What's more, as many have said, men are much more prone to violence, and that could very, very easily be directed towards "transmen" who tried to push a "transmen are men" agenda.

Not an ideal situation ... but I honestly think that's the difference.

Not RTWT so sorry if someone else said this. Not an original thought by any means....

Not necessarily

It’s not about equal treatment. Women’s rights to single-sex spaces is not about treating everyone the same but rather about recognising that we have particular needs related to our biological sex

I think we have to realize though that it is not neutral to require third spaces. It's placing a burden on businesses. And I'm not convinced there is enough justification to place that burden on businesses for what are essentially cosmetic alterations entered into voluntarily.

I'm not sure that there is a real problem here. In its submission, the EHRC claimed that declaring that sex means biological sex would make para 28 redundant and therefore sex can't mean biological sex. The SC showed how para 28 could still be operable if sex means biological sex. The SC didn't say that para 28 must be applied, only that it could be applied. I can't imagine that many SSS providers would consider applying the para 28 exception to exclude "passing" transmen.

Isn't that the whole point of equality legislation though?

But the the reasons for legal sex discrimination aren't always symmetrical e.g. with sport.

Men are not vulnerable to women in the same way that women are vulnerable to men.

They do have the the same right to privacy and dignity, but I don't think it's always correct to treat men's needs as equivalent.

I don't think you can lawfully have a situation where women's privacy and dignity is protected from transwomen, but men are not afforded the same protection from transmen.
I don't agree that transmen look more convincing than transwoman. But even if that were the case, then it makes the situation worse not better in that men could be more easily tricked into a false sense of security

Imo it all comes down to whether an individual passes or not. But passes according to whom?

According to whoever interacts with them in the single-sex space (employees of the service and other service users) at the time.

If a woman sees a transman in the female toilet and thinks they’re a man, they will probably look a bit harder to see whether they think they might be a trans-identitying biological female before making a judgment as to whether to challenge them or inform staff. So it will all depend on what that woman at the time thinks.

I would imagine most transmen will be left alone to use the female loo as women are typically pretty good at judging someone’s biological sex. And for the bigger ones who do look like men, they will likely use the men’s with no bother and no-one will be any the wiser.

Individual transmen will come to know which category they fit into pretty quickly from their interactions with others now that single-sex spaces are allowed again, so I should imagine that any confusion will be short-lived.

I think it's a really difficult question. Imo it all comes down to whether an individual passes or not. But passes according to whom? I think it's quite normal in law to consider what an average, reasonable person would do/think and take it from there so I guess that's the starting point.

TM tend to look quite ambiguous imo although a picture online is so different from how someone appears in person and I do think unless they're unusually large or have a thick beard then size and mannerisms would give most away.

I looked up the prison stats and there appears to be 1 transman in the male prison...the other 48 are sensibly housed in the female estate. It appears the reverse is the same with 2 transwomen potentially in the female estate and the remaining 225 in the male estate.

www.gov.uk/government/statistics/hmpps-offender-equalities-annual-report-2023-to-2024/hmpps-offender-equalities-report-202324#transgender-prisoners

TRAs are absolutely now attempting to use transmen as a gotcha. They don’t give a shit about them usually and the media have been disgraceful in their failure to highlight that the FWS case covered sex based protections for transmen in respect to maternity, abortions etc that the Scottish Government were gappy for them to lose

a lot of people with a trans identity gave thankfully not started on a medical pathway. The females will be able to use female facilties. Those that have gone a medical pathway might face difficulties. The fact though that the judgement confirms that they could legally be excluded doesn’t mean they will be but they may have to put up with being challenged