Owen Jones on Facebook

the last time I used one was at a hospital but my local cafe has a unisex toilet and baby change so I use that one if I’m in there.
My local Thai restaurant also has a unisex toilet but I’ve not been for a while because the new owners are portion stingy. I’m not paying £14 for 2 pork ribs.

https://x.com/akuareindorf/status/2059034063537832135

Akua Reindorf issuing Owen Jones a thorough take down. Very satisfying.

Yes, it tends to be arty institutions in the main.

Rarely thankfully. There’s one in a bar we used to frequent near my work. Full of confused embarrassed men and women. The others I’ve seen have been at museums and art galleries.

How often do you personally come across mixed sex facilities ( aside from single occupancy rooms)?. It can't be that often. I can't say I come across them much at all...ususually only in newly built art centres - such as the Aviva studios in Manchester. And. of course, using a facility with our friends is not the same as being in a facility with strangers.

It would be interesting to know how many such obviously masculine presenting women are in the prison system. And if testosterone continues to be prescribed...certainly given the propensity for increased aggression it stimulates.

I personally use the toilets for everyone most of the time. I’m happy to share the space with trans women. I have 3 good trans friends, 1 TM 2 TW. Been their friends forever. Doesn’t affect me one wee bit. But there are women who don’t want to share their space with TW. And that’s fine. They should be given the option to keep their space woman only.
When my last baby was born I was in hospital for a while with her due to some issues and the hospital is for women and children only. So on the ward the bathroom it was patient only. About 3ft away from the ward was visitor toilet. Anyway a husband of another patient kept using the toilet and pissing on the seat. I’d just had a section, was emotional as shite because my baby wasn’t doing great (she was fine after a week thankfully) but the last thing I needed after a horrid operation was to be cleaning some random man’s pee. I also struggled to use the bathroom with him knocking to come in when I was trying to shower with my dressings on etc. I asked the midwife to ask him to use the other toilets. He ignored them. Now my baby was early and my DP was at home with our other kids because we have zero family help and baby arrived to early to get anyone in. So when my kiddos at home were in bed my lovely neighbour babysat so dp could come to the hospital and spend a few hours with us. He watched this dad go in the bathroom for patients and my dp is a big old tattooed man who looks like a bouncer and hells angel had a baby. He’s actually a big teddy bear but he said to this other dad that if he used that toilet again he’d remove him from the ward himself and to go clean up the seat, that the women on the ward weren’t his mum. The dad was embarrassed and apologised (to my dp, not me) never did it again.
Women even when we’re ok with sharing spaces on the whole, have vulnerable times we just don’t want blokes near us. Women who’ve been raped, abused, fear men or quite simply want to keep their space should be afforded that. We need more spaces. If trans folks don’t like the additional 3rd space then it’s a massive shame for them but compromise is usually someone getting something they don’t 100% like and sadly it’s life, it’s tough.
I have seen a rise in men, biologically Barry let’s call them, with full beards, intact, not even cross dressing identifying as women. This is sadly where being kind is getting us. Straight up men thinking that their free will to choose a gender is allowing them into our spaces.
25 years ago when my friend transitioned and I used to work in mental health services where I supported a transwoman who at the time was known as a cross dresser lots of women didn’t mind sharing the toilets with TW. Because they went in, used the toilet and left with no drama. Now we’ve men entitled enough to wave their dongs around a changing room for women and then cry bigots when asked to not expose themselves. We need a 3rd space.

Thank you!

!!

Marie, you may or may not be surprised that I've seen 'mná' and 'fir' on loo doors in 'Irish' bars in England more than once, always seemed unnecessary.

Important piece of info for you if you ever visit Ireland: the Irish Gaelic for 'women' is 'mná', and some visitors have wrongly guessed that 'mná' must mean 'men'...
..which is 'fir', in case you're wondering..

Of course you're more likely to see the universal symbols than written words these days, but just in case....

😂😂

In well over 40 years of using the men’s loos I can honestly say I’ve never felt threatened or unsafe and nor would I do more than raise an eyebrow if a trans identifying man was in there.

I think it’s an utter fantasy (and I mean that in both senses) that TiMs would be raped, sexually assaulted or beaten up in 99% of public male loos. If they really went looking for trouble in some rough-arse pub somewhere, then maybe they’d get a kicking.

But in most bogs, you don’t look / talk / care. You’re in and out, generally trying not to step in the more dubious puddles and hoping (in my case anyway, unfortunately not for all men) that they’ve actually still got soap in the dispensers.

I didn't suggest most men, just many.

Perfect description.

The desperate sneers of a man who is losing all of any grip he may have once had.

Also, many men are deeply uncomfortable around trans women. They don't want to accommodate them in the gents - they want them in the ladies as a way of keeping the gents for men they approve of.

I hesitate to speak for 'all men' (especially on MN!), but I really don't think that is true. I don't think most men think transwomen should use the Ladies. Alongside their wives, daughters, etc. I agree that it is not women's issue to solve.

@DeposedPresident you've gone and triggered a very old memory! My grandad, on holiday with us in Austria c. 1970: "Never mind the Herren, where's the Hisn?" 😅

Well said. Also, many men are deeply uncomfortable around trans women. They don't want to accommodate them in the gents - they want them in the ladies as a way of keeping the gents for men they approve of. Owen Jones is perpetuating this attitude by refusing to encourage men to be more welcoming, despite huge numbers of replies to his post urging him to do so.

For a lot of men, trans women are a concept - a theoretical, vulnerable "doll" whose needs must be satisfied, and the easiest way to do this is for women to do all the work. They are often less comfortable with the reality of an actual trans woman, and definitely unhappy when they are the ones asked to do anything about it.

When it's said that trans people are being gaslighted by their own supporters, Owen Jones is example #1. The vast majority of transwomen used male toilets without incident up until the point that they 'came out', usually well into adulthood. The large major of those continued to use the men's for some time even after coming out, again without incident, i.e. were transwomen using the men's toilet! It was entirely up to the individual when they stopped using the men's toilets and started using the women's. In what world is that reasonable? In a world where women have no rights. That demonstrates the intellectual dishonesty of the argument and the intoxication Jones has with his own self righteousness.

For Jones' argument to have any merit whatsoever it must be heavily qualified that we are considering trans individuals only who are making considerable effort to 'pass' - that these efforts: body modifiable, hormones, wearing women's closes and wearing a full face of makeup will provoke men to behave violently or will make them unacceptably uncomfortable and that women will not be made equivalently uncomfortable my having actual biological men in their company. But in fact many are not making that effort and there's no mechanism to enforce that effort, i.e. Jones' argument is invalid on its face.

The rest of the arguments on this thread are important, because they address the the heavily qualified version - considering those trans individuals who make considerable effort to 'pass' - they still shouldn't be allowed to use women's facilities they're still men. But it's utterly ridiculous that a journalist for a major newspapers is allowed to make such irresponsible and false arguments time and again, radically distorting what the issues at stake are.

No, but female prisoners may not want a male presenting bearded bio woman there. It really could be triggering for some women. Let’s appreciate that most likely if you’re a woman who’s been to prison you’ve not had the easiest life.

Well, obviously men should be in the male estate and women in the female estate. I don't think a woman who identifies as a man is going to be excessively vulnerable in a female prison.

Same.

I am about to make an entirely pointless anecdote.

I'm a woman of the old-fashioned kind.

Last year I spent 7 days in Vienna, and spent 4 of those days going into the mens toilets because I thought 'Herren' meant 'For Her'. At no point did any man threaten me, or indeed even indicate I should not be there. I DID vaguely wonder why Viennese women's toilets had urinals in them and why they were populated by so many men. Until the penny dropped. (I am quite intelligent, promise).

I just do not believe that the vast majority of men want to do much more than piss and get out. I really do not believe that TW are at such great threat in such great numbers that they have to impose themselves - and their fetishes- into women's spaces. I really REALLy believe that if that is such an issue then the campaigning for accommodations should be directed at men. Not us, who throughout time and space have been forced to accommodate the sheer utter predatory bullshit perpetrated by men over and over again.

TheywontletmehavethenameIwant
Why is it only the Ladies that becomes a Gender Neutral Toilet, why is it never the Men's.

Because the men's boggers have piss on the seats and all over the floor, so nobody really wants them.

Look Owen, it is entirely possible for men NOT to treat other men badly.

It just means men 'being kind' for a change.

I know it's possible. I know many men that would be very happy to ignore what other men are wearing in the loos (and generally prefer no eye contact)

How's about you campaign for that. I'll join you.