Pissed you can't piss in peace

But it means something different to sex

I've never come across tampons in any gents toilets I've been in, so perhaps that shows that most people don't see them as spaces for women, even those women who think they'd be happier as men.

I can only really speak for myself, so that's what I'm doing in this post.

When I was a young man, I would have been highly embarrassed at the presence of a woman in the gents, and utterly unable to cope with a woman in a men's changing room (but that didn't happen). These days, I'd cope with no more than a bit of discomfort at the situation. In the changing room situation, I would get out as quickly as possible, out of a concern about being accused of inappropriate behaviour myself. The same pretty much applies to how I'd feel in the presence of a "transwoman" in those locations, to be honest. But my feelings are only of unease and discomfort, and I would have very little reason to be afraid. As a young man, with far less experience of the weirder aspects of human behaviour, I was uneasy with many non-conforming expressions, in the same way that many people are weirded out by eyeball tattoos or forked tongues.

So I'd prefer trans identifying people to use universal toilets and individual changing rooms wherever possible. If those are not available, they can use the single sex facilities provided for us all, according to their sex and in line with the Equality Act 2010 and the Supreme Court's FWS judgment, and I will put up with my discomfort. I hope I would have seen this issue the same way when I was a young man.

So 'gender reveal parties' work on a DNA profile result? I did not know that.

Okay. The trouble is that people use it to mean different things. Because of the Gender Recognition Act and the Equality Act, we've had to get more specific.

Oh. No. Now I'm painting that picture in my head. It's not pretty. 😩

That is sex. Gender is a grammatical term, best not applied to any animal or plant. Very much best not applied to humans.

Many thanks for that response, and for the link to the obit - we should all be grateful to Selwyn Goldsmith. It's astonishing that it took an individual to tackle an issue which women had known about for years - in about 1990 I went with a friend to the ballet at the Royal Opera House. I cannot recall which ballet we watched, but I do remember spending the entire interval queueing up for a bloody pee.

I can understand the issues with old buildings (I live in one, it fails modern standards on multiple counts), but I remain bugged by places like modern pubs and cinemas, or present-day events (local agricultural show, I'm looking at you) where the women queue and the men never have to.

Edited to add, and hats off to Selwyn G for the dropped kerb.

Gender used to mean masculine or feminine.

It does not mean male or female as that refers to sex.

For example someone could be a 'masculine' woman or a 'feminine' man but those are just very outdated gender stereotypes now.

Gender is obsolete in that respect now unless you are very old fashioned but it still applies in language ie French nouns.

There is no such person as a cis woman. Women are not a subset of our own sex class. Trans-identified man are a subset of the male sex class. The overwhelming majority of sexual offences are committed by males, however they identify, which is why no men belong in female spaces.

You just described sex. Gender is no longer just a prudish synonym for sex.

No that's sex

gender is the stereotypes ascribed to ppl because of their sex eg all girls like pink

Gender: You are Either Female or Male according to your DNA profile.

What does it mean?

The problem is that - in recent times - the word 'gender' has become conflated with 'gender identity'.

Certainly, when I was younger, the word was used interchangeably with 'sex' in everyday speech.

The meaning of which is poorly defined and highly contested

Gender is a well known term.

Well it's no woman's job to maintain illusions for them. If they think they are 'performing woman' in all other situations, they are only fooling themselves.

I didnt explain my thoughts well. I think they have declared toilets safe spaces, where 'safe' in this context mean 'ablility to perform woman all day'. As soon as they enter the gents, the illusion is gone. They are men peeing, not women. Safety as in their mental health, maybe?

Given they often say that a sign on the door doesnt keep men out, also no 'cis' men would use women's spaces, im not sure they are consistent about toilets role in physical safety.

But the law must allow any man to follow the trans identifying man into the ladies.

Its also the idea that people need safe spaces and they can define 'safe'.

So trans identifying men need the safety of the ladies to be women which cannot be achieved in the gents.

This.

There is a requirement for an accessible space for everybody. Those who are believers in magic science and no two binary sexes can bore the ever loving fuck out of each other to their heart's content in the mixed sex space where they can be of whatever sex, or not, or be too complicated, without it being a problem to them or anyone else.

Just ffs leave other people in peace.

There’s so many reasons. But we are playing catch up with design. Toilets are squeezed in to old buildings that never had toilets in. Firstly it would have been mens toilets, then women’s then possibly a disabled, now called accessible.

A lot of it has had to be guidance and only works going forward with new builds and refurbishments. Much of this is not ‘law’. However, on the other hand if you do not comply with building regs that causes problems as any householder knows.

It’s the same with the electrics in my house. There are not up to current regs but it’s ok to have them. But if I was to install something new, the electrics would have to be up to current regs.

The thing that has changed is that designs went completely off-piste recently in the name of inclusivity. It was becoming a free for all and no one was regarding standards. Making a big deal about Approved Document T (2024) was an attempt to solve that by the government, but it was still for designs going forward because the government costed it out and thought it would be too unpopular for businesses and impossible for some (in historic buildings).

However, people can’t get away with ‘inclusive’ designs since FWS because there’s been so much talk on toilets.

For most the venues that have stuck with regulations, legislation and standards over the years, there should not be a problem.

The ones I feel sorry for are schools. Designers have gone fully off-piste with them for almost 2 decades and it really is at odds with single sex design in some schools.

This is the real type of designer partnership, a disabled man and his wife making a contribution to toilet history but it shows for how long women have been complaining about queues:

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2011/may/31/selwyn-goldsmith-obituary

Yes. They were written in the 1970s when women were barely tolerated in the workplace. (I did mention babies and children.)

So are we saying that the regs are rubbish as they're not based on reality (that is, all of the above plus it's more likely to be women dealing with children too)?