Talking to non GC people

You are quite right 5128gap.

In the past, I have had some ‘wavering middle-ground public opinion’ posters tell me I have fetishised toilets, I am 'skeevy', I am icky and that other women most certainly don't want me using the toilet in this way either. Also that I must hang out in public toilets a LOT to even have to do these things. And on and on and on. From posters who had previously posted how supportive they are of women and what great feminists they were.

And when pressed, they admit that they drive many places and don't have to walk or take public transport meaning that a lot of those issues disappear. Or they have lots of support at home and don't have to take their children or their disabled mother out with them. Or they never go anywhere that they don't have access to family toilets or reliable accessible toilets (in that the accessible toilets are never out of order).

I looked at a thread from 2018 last week and there were lots of woman posting about having to deal with the issues that I have mentioned. Since then though, it seems like there is this magic era where women don't have to deal with it.... It is a strange inconsistency that I noted.

I can evidence why we should have single sex toilets with door gaps for all of those exceptions even National Security!

It's almost like it has nothing whatsoever to do with toilets, and is 100% about men being important, women not so much.

You can't. Because unfortunately those needs make those with internalised misogyny turn away like its a bad smell.
Your list includes the unglamorous, basic, 'icky' aspects of being a woman, that many, especially those who are invested in fragrant femininity prefer to ignore, or imagine happen only to women who aren't them.
Leaky breasts, periods and disability are just not very 'nice', are they? So really you should be doing everyone a favour and not bringing them into a public toilet where nice women and male women are brushing their hair.

I agree 100% with your second and third points. It's clear who the men are.

Not the first, unfortunately. I only wish it were "ok fine, they can have it". But we are still battling for it, demonstrating over and over again we need it. With FWS for example, and all the court cases, and BP's delays. And still we don't have it.

@financialcareerstuff I'm going to be absolutely honest here, and you can make of it what you will.

When I read your post what I heard was a transactivist saying 'okay, okay you can keep the sports and rape crisis centres but please, please, pleeeease give us the toilets'.

Maybe my question should be:

With those needs above, how do I articulate those needs so that those female people who dismiss them as unimportant actually consider them as important enough to accept for keeping single sex toilets exclusively for female people?

Just a reminder of how female toilet spaces are used and why single mixed sex cubicles should not be accepted as the only toilets available in areas outside of very small businesses.

Toilets are not just used behind a closed cubicle door. There are quite a few aspects of female toilet usage that happen in the public space, or even now still occur with a toilet door jammed open.

Don’t forget there is the safety aspect where people may rely on the gaps under doors and walls for their safety. We already had someone mention helping a woman who was on the floor that they could see because of the gap. We have had others on other threads point out that they feel safer with gaps after being attacked in mixed sex toilets that are fully enclosed and no one could see them.

From my personal experience here is a list.

I have had to use the toilet while having a pram / pushchair jammed into the door with groceries.

I have had to have my mum use the public toilet because the disable toilet was not available and had her wheelchair jammed in the door because I couldn't leave her sit to move it and shut the door.

I have had breastmilk leaks / children's vomit / food spilled on my clothes and needed to have an unbuttoned top to dry the top under the hand drier.

I have come across other women quite regularly washing out their tops or their skirts etc and drying them enough to put back on .

I have friends who have miscarried in toilets and needed assistance and for that to be female people to make it more comfortable.

Even with mixed sex cubicles with basins, they don’t usually have the space needed for prams. And if a woman is trying to dry themselves using a drier in the cubicle, it restricts traffic flow and causes the line to grow. Even if it is just internal pressure that she feels, there will be pressure on her to leave the cubicle quickly. In an open space she will less inclined to feel that pressure.

If you as a female person have not experienced these issues, that doesn't mean it is not happening. I am glad that you have never needed to do this things, it is uncomfortable and can be quite humiliating. But at least, in a female only toilet, it is a little better.

I think when people think of toilet usage, maybe they have never had to use the toilets in any other way other than behind a closed door. That is a privilege in that respect.

But the needs are still there and they are real for many female people to be able to engage in public life.

To allow any male person toileting spaces (over the age of about 8 years old) removes some of the usability of this space for female people.

Demanding that all toilets are changed into single cubicles doesn’t mean that the issues where women and girls need the extra space and privacy for everyday occurrences go away. That style of toilet means female people will just self exclude because of a loss of provision.

And maybe @financialcareerstuff might consider when I am next out and about and have a need such as on my list, and suggest which toilet should I use so that my needs are met?

Thing is, I'm pretty sure there is an underlying explanation! I'm thinking either neurological anomaly or unconscious trauma response, but it could be something else still. Problem is: nobody is trained to figure it out. There's - literally - nobody I can turn to to investigate those avenues. So I just went with what's offered, even if it's only treating the symptoms and not the cause.

💐💪

The fuckers that led this whole sorry mess have a lot to answer for. Looking at you, WPATH/Endocrine Society... and everyone within and outside these organisations who jumped on board nefariously.

I'm glad you've found a way to navigate through it that is working for you but angry at how utterly fucked up this situation is.

I'm also very aware that it's largely due to the information I've learned on this board, from all sorts of different viewpoints, that is what's helping me to hopefully stay ahead of the risk that it brings to my autistic daughter. Thank you for being a part of that xx

I actually completely agree with all of that, including the 25 year minimum. I have no doubt that there would be very few of us remaining if this happened. And hopefully, there would be no young detransitioners anymore. The very fact that they exist breaks my heart; they should have been protected!

❤️ I wish Helen Joyce could read what you said here. She took a lot of stick for saying pretty much the same. It's bloody obvious (to anyone who chooses to listen properly to her intent) that it came from a very similar place of caring about those who have been harmed.

I get that, but why are they listening to men whining about being excluded from women’s toilets and taking it seriously? Why are men’s claimed needs more important? (Rhetorical obvs)

I think they don't see the double standard because they, personally, don't have a need for privacy and safety in toilets. It really is one of those privileged positions that is rarely pointed out.

They think that just because they think they know what all other female people need toilets for, that they personally can dismiss any other female person's needs as irrelevant, bigoted or whatever.

It's interesting, because the thinking is clearly 'if women can demonstrate that they need it badly enough, then ok fine, they can have it'

But why is the onus on women to defend and argue these needs (again)? Why are male demands taken so seriously?

Why can't we start from the position that women's historical rights to single sex spaces should always be upheld?

YY, I don’t understand why people don’t see the double standard.

Anyone posting about 'Human Rights', probably means Article 8. However, when discussing human rights, it should be made clear that there are restrictions to that right as well.

It is very often ignored.

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/human-rights/human-rights-act/article-8-respect-your-private-and-family-life

Article 8 protects your right to respect for your private and family life.

The EHRC link covers what this means. Including these restrictions:

Restrictions to the right to respect for your private and family life
There are situations when public authorities can interfere with your right to respect for private and family life, home and correspondence. This is only allowed where the authority can show that its action is lawful, necessary and proportionate in order to:
protect national security
protect public safety
protect the economy
protect health or morals
prevent disorder or crime, or
protect the rights and freedoms of other people.
Action is ‘proportionate’ when it is appropriate and no more than necessary to address the problem concerned.

These restrictions keep getting missed out.

And in the ECHR documentation

https://www.echr.coe.int/documents/d/echr/conventionENG_

page 11

Article 8 – Right to respect for private and family life

1. Everyone has the right to respect for his private and family life, his home and his correspondence.
2. There shall be no interference by a public authority with the exercise of this right except such as is in accordance with the law and is necessary in a democratic society in the interests of national security, public safety or the economic well-being of the country, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, or for the protection of the rights and freedoms of others.

The concept of privacy is also often posited as a blunt human right where others are said to have no right to know the sex of someone. Whereas, there is a proviso to that where it is possible that this right will be dependent on issues relating to safety of others.

The human rights argument also doesn’t work because in the provision of public spaces by organisations, for instance such as changing rooms, as there is no human right that states that someone has the right to privacy from a person of the same sex under those conditions.

Meaning in the provision of publicly accessible single sex spaces, perople can be excluded based on sex category from that the space if they are not the sex category the space is designated as being accessible for. If a male person rejects the male single sex space provided by an organisation, they can ask for an alternative. The organisation doesn’t have to provide that alternative space though. That could be considered an unreasonable request.

A male person rejecting a provided single sex provision does not get to access the opposite sex single sex space just because that person has a belief that they are not a male person when they materially are.

When the term human rights is introduced, it is all too often misused. It is used falsely as an appeal to authority.

Fully agree.

Ultimately @financialcareerstuff I just don't understand why anyone is arguing that men should have access to things that belong to women. Can you expand upon your thoughts on this?

I also disagree with framing this as a human rights issue. There is the right to not be discriminated against, of course, which we would all support. But why would there be a human right to treated as if you're the opposite sex?

Which comes back to the point about vetting reasonable versus unreasonable demands. It seems to me that Transwomen have made unreasonable demands on women and yet not many seem prepared to call them out on that. On the toilets issue for example, have you thought about how reasonable it is to ask women to give up what's theirs, for men?

Yeah the other side can't cite examples of women wanking in mens toilets.

Being able to use women's toilets unchallenged is seen as a key milestone in transition as its taken to be indicator of their ability to pass. This means access is very important, even to those with no nefarious purpose.

"For example, painting Black men as a danger to white women, due to racist views of Black men….thus justifying segregation…. And the citing of individual examples of violence as somehow ‘proving’ the threat is real is another thing that generally hasn’t helped convince me- ‘you see this awful thing happened’ or ‘look at this revolting individual…this is the face of the movement’ This feels like scaremongering, and thinking that individuals represent entire groups…. Feels stigmatising, and intellectually dishonest (because the other ‘side’ can equally cite awful things, etc to try to demonstrate their point so it basically gets us nowhere)."

I don't find your example with black men as being coherent @financialcareerstuff .

It would only be coherent if you said that based on any danger from black men meant segregating all black people out of female single sex toilets. And this is not the basis women are arguing at all.

And then you see evidence being provided that a group of male people who still commit sex and violent crime at a rate that is greater than the rate that the general female UK population commit those crimes as stigmatising scaremongering. You then state that doing so is people thinking that individuals represent entire groups.

Your representation of what women have been forced to do is actually what intellectually dishonest. I also see it as emotionally manipulative to say that it is. I see it as an attempt to shame women who have been forced into a situation where they have little power except to argue for safeguarding to be strengthened.

And that requires risk assessment.

The entire point is that they still commit violent crime and sex offences at a rate higher than female people and therefore should still be treated like ALL MALE people.

The muddled thinking, to use your term, is thinking that any male who says they are not a male person should be allowed to use female single sex spaces. That they are in anyway different from any other male person for the purpose of safeguarding.

If you believe that there is a physical strength difference so those same male people should be excluded from female sports. If you believe that female people deserve privacy in all these other situations from those same male people. It simply isn't logical to state that safeguarding should be lowered for toilets unless you honestly cannot see that some female people have needs that you don't seem to be able to accept and therefore dismiss.

Why is "obviously women have a right to single sex sports and rape crisis centres, but budge up for the men when it comes to toilets and Hampstead ponds" any less ridiculous?

It's not.

You can make an argument that the toilets an Hampstead Ponds should be mixed sex, but to argue that that they should be single sex, but not really, makes no sense at all.

I think your post is interesting, thoughtful and honest.

I approach things from a different angle and this is why:

I have been a passionate defender of the ‘outlier’ or ‘disadvantaged’ group who experience discrimination. Women, first of all.

The logical conclusion here is that women and other groups can cease to be disadvantaged, and at that point they no longer need rights. However, I don't think women need rights because they are 'disadvantaged'. I think they need rights because they are different to men, and it will always be easier for men to live in a world that prioritises their own needs. This is also how equality law is supposed to understands rights - it's a question of of balance, not bestowing charity on the disadvantaged.

Also, as they basically ‘don’t fit with the mould’ on a lot of the male/female:gender stereotypes I have battled against in life, they felt like natural champions of the same thing.

I think the exact opposite - that the concept of 'trans' introduces the idea that one should conform. It's probably my biggest objection to the idea of gender identity.

The communal changing room issue yes I see , because people are stripping down naked in front of each other, but toilets, where you always have individual locked cubicles for women, and sink areas or many toilets are communal/non sex specific anyway….it doesn’t feel like a defined right to have a female only space, but rather a right to have a lockable, private cubicle.

I don't instinctively feel I need to be in a single sex space to get changed, but I follow the logic of arguments made by Keeptoiletssafe that there is a conflict between privacy and safety. I am also aware that crimes like voyeurism and indecent exposure are location specific and that sexual assaults are more likely to occur in mixed sex facilities. But all of that is an argument about whether a space should be single sex or mixed sex. I can't understand the argument that a space should be single sex but include adults of the opposite sex.

For example, painting Black men as a danger to white women, due to racist views of Black men

You are losing me a bit here - do you genuinely think that differences in race are comparable to differences in sex?

The argument that being trans is an illness also unfortunately mirrors very closely the arguments of the past of being gay as being an illness that you could be reeducated out of…

Many people who have been referred for 'gender reassignment' are same sex attracted. Body dysmorphia is a mental health problem, but if people are being referred for treatment for something else, what is it? Susie Green's story of her son's transition strongly implies a background of homophobia.

Rape centers far more persuasive than toilets.

We know. It's not GC women who keep talking about toilets.

the ideology that gender matters over sex, feels like it sticks ME in a box I don’t want.

Could not agree more.

And that extremists are actually damaging normal trans’ people’s cause..
GC feminists have been trying to be reasonable and see both sides for over a decade. They have lost their jobs. I still believe in being reasonable, but I don't think a lack of reasonableness is the problem.

Fundamentally, if it's considered toxic to name the problem - that people can't change sex and that a man is a man and always will be - how do you express yourself without causing offence?

Because most of them will never need (thankfully) rape support or prison. But toilets and changing rooms are an everyday validation they can all enjoy.

@financialcareerstuff

For me, taking a similar journey, it eventualy boiled down to "Do I think the thing that makes men and women different, the reason we reconise some people as men and some as women, is because we have fundmentally different minds? So different, in fact, that the mind difference is more significant than the physical differences of sex? Do I believe that the history of what happened to and was said about the female body has no significance to women's place in society but this difference of mind does?"

At the end of the day, you either believe something in a man's mind makes him legitimately closer to a woman than a man or you don't. And if you don't believe it, then all the "reasonable" middle grounds are not reasonable at all, because they are just points between not being sexist at all and being totally sexist. And "being a bit sexist instead of totally sexist" isn't where I as a Feminist want to be.

Toilets do seem to be especially important to trans identifying men. Toilets and genitals. Goodness knows why.

No @Shedmistress, don't be pointing that out because...

'And the citing of individual examples of violence as somehow ‘proving’ the threat is real is another thing that generally hasn’t helped convince me- ‘you see this awful thing happened’ or ‘look at this revolting individual…this is the face of the movement’ This feels like scaremongering, and thinking that individuals represent entire groups…. Feels stigmatising, and intellectually dishonest (because the other ‘side’ can equally cite awful things, etc to try to demonstrate their point so it basically gets us nowhere).'

It's unconvincing because GC women do equally awful things. Apparently.