FAQ

Was that today? I missed it.

What was the survey?

The young woman who posted about asking for help with her masters survey asked questions and replied in a polite and friendly, patient way. People took offence at her language, which she politely apologised for and asked for clarification of, and she was attacked and bombarded with the same questions for her to answer over and over.

She was mocked with “eye rolling” comments, had her grammar ripped apart for really minor mistakes (especially for someone with dyslexia) and people despaired that she didn’t know the answers to the questions she asked, without actually helping her out. She was told to do her research, but was doxxed because she went to Reddit with her questions.

The women who were using her full name in responses were clearly only doing so to be sinister and threatening; there is no other reason to full name someone in a post other than to hint that there is a risk. Which then materialised when an email address to an ethics committee was provided for people to report her to. There was zero concern for safeguarding a young woman at all, and it was deeply disturbing.

So yeah, I wonder why more people don’t come asking questions?

Quite, why bother with erudition, by which I mean acquiring some, when you can just threaten to rape women with a rolling pin.

It's funny that you bring up debate club....

When suitable chastisement with a kitchen implement makes one’s point so much more effectively.

Oh you win @Pingponghavoc 🏅

Yes Marie. Totally in agreement.
Partly why I posted " same old 💩different day" on one of those threads

The arguments are either faux naiveté or just a wind-up
And I try not to bite but bloody hell there's some crap spouted at times.
Calling people transphobes all the timeis such a cop-out

(wish I'd seen Corgi's post though)

Well, if you haven't contacted her directly, then she's found out some other way all about your work.

You're the only person talking about this!

It's getting out there 👏

Brilliant! She speaks so clearly and has obviously done her homework.

Ugh.

They should really, and I'm serious about this, let feminists rubber stamp all these designs. Because sure as shit (as it were) they will know exactly how men would exploit them.

Here is the link to Helen talking about the disadvantages of fully enclosed toilets.

It's about 42 minutes in. The entire podcast is very interesting, but that's the bit about toilets.

ROFL

This has made my day! Thank you for telling me. I have a lot of data now and look at it objectively.

I listen to loads of views and look at a lot of designs. Robin Moira White has been informative. Robin used to work on the railways. The men used to check the toilets to see if there were any men in them before letting the women use them, in the days before the railway workers had female toilets. Robin calls ‘gender neutral’ toilets ghettos and wants to use the women’s toilets. Robin has the awareness to realise women don’t want to hear and see men in the same area so has a solution of making the cubicle itself private within a mixed sex space. This is the worst health and safety option.

The UK got it mostly right in 1992.

I also look at designs around the world. Japan have some amazing designs. There’s a public toilet that has clear glass walls so you can see everything inside it before you enter. When you pull the handle from inside the glass goes opaque. It was designed by a man and won awards. Now the stories from women: a lone woman was walking by and a man triggered the glass to go clear and he was looking at her, masturbating. Another woman was being driven by a taxi driver. The driver pulled right up to use this toilet then he stared at her, the whole time he sat on the toilet and went for a poo - he didn’t use the handle to trigger the opaqueness.

Can I please ask a favour.

While I understand that having an archive thread is very useful to refer to as needed, can people please make sure that the archive threads stay clear of discussion so that the are easy to read and people don't have to scroll through discussion.

I always thought having individual discussion threads about one aspect or FAQ would be a good idea, then link them to the Break it down thread. It may or may not work though at the moment because I wonder how much will be taken up with deliberate derailing.

@Keeptoiletssafe

As an aside, I was listening to Helen Joyce yesterday from a podcast a couple of days ago.

She was discussing with two other women about toilets in general, and gender neutral in particular.

The other two women were talking about gender neutral toilets as a possible option, and she immediately said how the floor to ceiling doors presented a problem.

She talked about hygiene and safety. She also talked about opening doors into a toilet at an angle where you can't see the cubicles, etc.

I don't know if you've been in touch with her, but she's totally on it.

And she's a brilliant speaker. So bloody well done if you've got her on board. She's absolutely everywhere at the moment. The word is out.

edited to add: the other thing she said is the reason why women's toilets are often beyond the men's, is that men therefore have no excuse to loiter outside them.

which makes sense. But then has the added disadvantage of often being out of the way.

Honestly from the bloody lengths we have to go to to ensure women's safety is ridiculous.

😆

if one knows a Trans person then one should feel a particular way

I know (and am related to) a few trans people and they are about as lovely as the anorexics I know.

But our local cross-dressing man, who I've know for decades, isn't particularly lovely. afaik he isn't trans - he's never changed his name. I think from his conversation and habits (dressing up for pride week) that he's gay. But he's also an alcoholic and substance abuser who has been in repeated legal trouble for being very abusive and borderline violent to young female shop assistants who wouldn't/couldn't give him alcohol when he had no money to pay for it. He's also very very smelly, with skunk forming a strong element of it. His next door neighbour told me he abused his own elderly mother and elderly neighbours when he wanted money or booze.

atm he is away for drying out. I hope it works, but will not be heartbroken if he stays away.

He leaves me unconvinced by the sweet and gentle gay man cliché. Gay people are as various as the rest of humanity.

I find it interesting how similar the posts from Trans supporters are.

Being relatively new to this area I expected a standard of understanding of the wider implications such as health.

It feels as if the supporters say the same things but it's usually at what feels like a beginners level.

In particular there is often a theme that if one knows a Trans person then one should feel a particular way.

Obviously this is ridiculous as concern for family members or friends is making more and more people question Trans propaganda from some areas.

It's just odd on how similar they are. This is where a FAQ would be useful as these posters are not covering new ground and it seems as if they start a thread and then disappear.

(Just as an aside and obvious a different thing - one of the health groups I belong to (outside MN) gets waves of new posters claiming 'miracle cures' and they do all sound the same but can reoccur for years with the poster disappearing each time).

Tea/keyboard.

😄

Don't feed the dolls.

So it has! I think someone must have decided it broke the Mumsnet rule prohibiting troll-hunting, even though I didn't accuse anyone by name of being a troll.

I'll have a go at rephrasing it: Don't engage with people who are being deliberately provocative, as it only encourages them. Perhaps that will do.

The one thing I do notice is rather a selective view of transpeople. If you are non passing (which unfortunately requires either good genes or a lot money especially if you are male) or removal of your genitals (how did we get to a place where removal of body parts seems to be a ‘normal’ requirement for anything) seems to be the thing. Then again ‘protect the dolls’ seems quite popular so should I be surprised?

I used to be on the GCdebatesQT on reddit before TRA put a stop to it.

There were good discussion on there, on occasion. Lots of trans identifying men didn't want to be alone in vulnerable situations with just anyone who identified as trans. They know the community is a mess.

So strident and unladylike,

Why can't you all just be nice?

I'm going to make some scones, but won't discuss them further on this thread. Try the pub in a couple of hours.

I think people use public toilets as the easy compromise where women are protected by stall walls and lots of other users. I think they are imagining a busy stately home or a motorway services at 2pm.

I agree, a FAQ is a good idea but I don't think it will deter those who want to lecture us from a fixed position or disingenuously ask questions with the intention of wasting a great deal of our time because they have no better way of occupying themselves.

And also, if just one person stumbles on to just one of those threads and has their eyes opened, that's a good outcome.