Trans people ‘excluded in heart of democracy’ after Holyrood toilet rule change

I’ve gone back to a very old user name for this.

I once attended an event at the Scottish Parliament, pre Covid when gender ideology was in ascendance and people could use the toilets they best identified with.

The event was to celebrate IWD and meant there were almost no men there that day.

I’m female. The queues to the loos were huge so I asked to use the men’s. I said “I identify as a man right now”

I wasn’t allowed to use the men’s even though there were no men around at that time (even the security staff were female!)

so when it suited them the Scottish Parliament was happy to ban people from only wanting to pee!

This was my experience. DS was a non footballer and sometimes had no other boys to play with at break time as they were all playing football.

Football took on the whole playground and the girls were pushed to the side.

Thankfully the school saw this and restricted football to two days a week.

Yep come across that. It’s a handy private place to take and distribute drugs.

Theres also a problem in schools with children having seizures and stopping breathing after vaping because the vapes are spiked. Uni of Bath did a study. Guess where children go to vape or if they feel ill? Luckily, as far as I know, teachers have only had to deal with children collapsing in corridors and playgrounds where cpr has been successful.

People are having medical emergencies and no one knows they have collapsed. The toilets have to have a safety mechanism to open the door outwards from the outside because of the known problem of a body falling against a door. I have articles of children and others who have died in this type of design and cpr has been unsuccessful when they are retrieved. What’s the point in having defibrillators if you don’t realise the person has collapsed?

I have accounts where people (mostly women and children) being led/followed in to them and assaulted. Or people can just let themselves in. If there’s no gap it’s a nice place to hide. I didn’t realise how much sex goes on in toilets (consensual and unconsensual) until I researched. It’s obvious if you think about it - a private, mixed sex space in public. There’s even a name for it on planes.

The picture above looks aesthetically pleasing, but it’s not safe for occupants, particularly when anyone is at their most vulnerable.

Toilets designed like this across Scotland, with the worst drug figures in Europe.

What could possibly go wrong?

A bit of a sideways step but the wonderful charity Make Space for Girls that has studied how playgrounds are entirely designed for and dominated by boys, and worked with planners to try and make more balanced, girl-friendly and accessible play spaces, has also mentioned discovering how many boys are excluded from boys' play spaces.

School staff and parents also often comment on this. There are a number of boys for example who will play football every breaktime dominating the space, and the boys can then end up socially split into the footballing ones and the not footballing ones whose different play needs aren't met, and who are socially lower status if not part of the football dominant gang. To the point that some schools have begun to ban football on the playground being an every breaktime thing.

There are certainly conversations to have about the behaviour of some men and boys in men and boys' spaces, and about making these spaces less grim for the others.

DS (aged 10) said he'd rather use the women's toilet because they dont have piss all over the seat last week as he complained about the state of the boys toilet at school.

He won't be. He hasn't since he was about 7. But even he knows that men and boys = piss covered toilet seats.

I was amused.

Now there's a surprise, pish-covered seats, pish on the floor in the mixed-sex loos. No, they are not "inclusive, non-gendered toilets," they are mixed-sex - let's be honest and call they what they are.

Are these them?

Worst drug death numbers in Europe, rapidly declining education system, lack of access to the Islands etc etc.

It just goes on and on...

Goodness, 'fully enclosed' toilet facilities don't meet everyone's needs safely, as @keeptoiletssafe has explained, at length, on various different threads.

And those who are unwilling to use those unsafe, pish covered facilities will just self exclude.

But you like their toilets. Cool. All sorted then!

I'm nowhere hear Edinburgh and will never be able to check this out for myself - but I'm puzzled: when they say the single sex toilets were 'removed' from Queen's Hall, do they mean the interiors of the men's and women's were physically stripped out, and the emptied space replaced with 'universal' unisex toilets?

I'm assuming that's the case, because you can't just stick a new unisex badge on existing single-sex toilets, 'universal' unisex toilets have to comply with different specifications under building regs.

That seems like an awful lot of trouble and expense for no net gain - OK so they've gained some unisex toilets, but they've lost the single-sex ones? Why bother going to all that expense to restrict existing choice?

If there's enough space for single-sex spaces - which there must have been as they were there originally - building regulations say they they should be provided.
Unisex toilets may be an additional-to, but not an instead-of, single sex toilets.

Have I got this right: the venue used to be building regs compliant with single sex toilets, but then for some reason they removed them, and replaced them with unisex toilets which are only building regs compliant if they follow certain specifications.. so is the venue still building regs compliant?

@MarieDeGournay Bearing in mind that transpeople are a tiny proportion of the population, and that there's no objective reason for them not to use the existing toilets designated for their sex, the disruption and cost of constructing gender neutral toilets is hard to justify.

Indeed. And how lucky for the Scottish government that they have no issues that need any funding to help them, no NHS, schools, prisons, libraries or people living in poverty that might benefit from a few quid. Just lots of spare money to piss away on surplus loos (pun not intended).

Goodness, what a difference two years makes… there was no confusion, certainly not around queuing because - shocker - there weren’t any queues as for once there were enough toilets.

Pishy seats I know is a concern, but let’s not pretend we’ve never walked into a women’s toilet and found it less than optimal in terms of cleanliness.

Am starting to sound like I work for the Queens Hall, I don’t. I just like their toilets and think they met everyone’s needs safely and at speed.

The Queen's Hall -

https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/edinburgh-venue-leaves-guests-confused-30319404

I’m perhaps not describing the set-up correctly @FlakyCriticbut the toilets at the Queen’s Hall all face out into an open area and don’t compromise safety in the way you describe. I must admit I didn’t notice if there was a floor gap, I always check ceiling gaps as I do see those as a risk. The loos there are designed to get the maximum numbers of patrons through in a short concert interval and do a great job.

Also, kindly, you cannot possibly know that all women want a space that is specifically communal, I don’t think they do necessarily. I think women want spaces that are private and safe. Communality is one way to achieve that, but not the only way. This is a safe set up that works in a high-volume space.

Agree. It's the third spaces argument too.

There are plenty of women willing and happy to validate men's identities with their body.

Theirs are not the bodies that are wanted.

It's also well known that many men intruding on or worse upon women find that her anger or fear or distress is a much desired part of the experience.

Though we know access to unconsenting women is the whole point.

As Dr Upton showed so clearly. There were women in the changing room with Dr Upton but he went after the woman/women who waited outside. The unconsenting and non believer woman/women are the prize there is no interest in the women who have rolled over.

This is something that seems to get glossed over in the call for third spaces [actually fourth spaces, the disabled toilet is the third space] as the obvious and immediate pandering solution to transwomen demanding to use the women's toilets: practicality and cost.

I hope the process of installing gender neutral toilets in Holyrood is monitored for cost in money, and cost in disruption.

Now take that cost, and that disruption, and think of the same process of installing building-regulation-compliant third/fourth spaces in older public buildings, many of them run by impoverished local authorities.

Where is the money to come from to build all these unisex toilets in existing building? Toilets which transwomen may refuse to use anyway because TWAW therefore they will insist on using the women's toilet? On a practical level, where is the physical space for a fourth toilet to be added in buildings which already have the three required spaces: women's, men's, and accessible/disabled toilets?

Bearing in mind that transpeople are a tiny proportion of the population, and that there's no objective reason for them not to use the existing toilets designated for their sex, the disruption and cost of constructing gender neutral toilets is hard to justify.

Absolutely.

It's scary.

@RedToothBrush I mean that the thing they are making a fuss over is a non-issue. Their protests deserve as much respect as a toddler having a tantrum because they aren't allowed a 2nd ice cream. The protests themselves do demonstrate how dangerous narcissistic rage can get.

It's not a 'non issue' if you have a coordinated and organised group trying to suggest this solution is unacceptable and using the opposite sex facilities to 'prove a point'. This is active harassment of women and potentially vouyerism.

That's the problem. I don't regard this as something we should ignore.

Won against the strongest and most serious attempt by men on women's rights in decades?

This movement has been malicious, deceitful and very, very determined in its assault. The price of freedom is eternal vigilance, and this particular political lobby has trained us to be very, very suspicious and constantly on alert. As are any women trapped in a relationship with abusive men.

This is such a non-issue. No one is excluded. There are plenty of gender neutral loos for anyone who doesn't want to use the single-sex loo for their own sex. All are welcome. Any serious person wanting to be there for any purpose other than their own sexual gratification wouldn't give a hoot about this, would use a gender neutral loo and get on with their day. There are loos available when the need arises and there are far more important things to worry about. Single sex loos are also provided because this is an established right for all workplaces and public buildings

I wish trans would give over and stop trying to over-rule the SC, march, have petitions, threaten with with rape and being punched etc.

That's not what women want though, @HelloMyNameIsElderSmurf we want the communal female space. Not unisex. Unisex are incredibly dangerous for women and see an increase in sexual assault. Also, walls up to ceilings are dangerous because you can collapse and no one can see. It's the one thing that is not recommended. Toilet doors must always have gaps under the door so we can see anyone on the floor.