Help me make sense of how I feel? Transgender person in the loo.

[ScottishLottie]

I think of myself as very liberal - very 'live and let live', love is love and people should be absolutely free to be whomever they want to be.

Went into our local city on Fri last week and noticed a higher amount of transgender folk (specifically man to woman), socialising in the area. "Good on them!" I thought. Love living and working in a society where they're able to do this. I was actually interested and looked up why there might have been so many more trans people around and apparently there's some sort of 'First Friday' trans event whereby trans people congregate in trans-friendly bars and restaurants in the area on the first Friday of the month.

Fast forward to the next night and I was in the city again, having taken by 15 yr old DD and her friend to the theatre.

On coming out of the theatre, she needed the loo before we left, so her and the friend went in and I waited outside. As I was waiting, a transgender woman (quite a big, strong, butch-looking person underneath the dress and the makeup) entered the female bathroom and I had a completely visceral reaction. I was horrified that DD and friend were in a space where they might be a bit more vulnerable and they should be absolutely safe in a female-only environment.

Nothing happened of course, but I was surprised and ashamed that I felt the way I did.

What is the reason behind this? Why do I have opinions and feelings that I wasn't aware of? I feel awful but want to understand why I felt this way?

I strongly recommend that people don't engage with other people who are using the loo in peace. In particular, I recommend they don't hassle women they think are transgender who are literally doing nothing wrong.

Explain to me how it's helpful to attack other women for questioning parts of your argument, to the point that most of MN doesn't want to even try to deal with you anymore.

I strongly recommend that all males stay out of female spaces if they don't want to hear that women know what sex they are.

I didn't attack you. 🙄

I just said that things are changing, and you seem to be very obsessed with women being rude to men, while refusing to address the issue of men in women's safe spaces.

I strongly recommend women learn the definition of autogynophile then they will realise that the "harmless trip to the loo" is most likely undertaken by a man getting off on the experience ("gender euphoria") and that you are an unwitting participant in his little "moment"

There's no way I'd engage with someone who has the physicality of a male. That's to do with female safety.

They shouldn't assume women or girls are ok with the situation due to silence.

We are aware of the differences in strength and sex class behaviour.

We don't need your recommendation but I also assume you are male? And have not been in this situation

I am intelligent enough to know when some questions are best ignored. You don't actually want to know the answer in any case. You want to tell me how you have the right of it again. You want me to agree with everything you've said in toto, regardless of having my own mind on this matter. You want to have a go at me for daring to question you or having my own opinion.

Come on. It's obvious.

I've been attacked on this thread. I've been accused of so many things now, I've lost count. And mine is a typical experience of someone engaging with you.

It's why other women give up and leave you to it.

That's not useful to you.

It's simply not possible that you never need to examine your own behaviour. When it becomes endlessly fruitless and repetitive, for example.

@EasternStandard I commend you for not harrassing other women based on your judgment of what their genitals look like based on their outward appearance.

I can assure, as someone who has many GNC and trans friends, they are all pretty scared of gender critical people (please don't conflate women in general with gender critical people in particular) and they use the loo for the same purpose as everyone else.

Men who want to assault women really don't concern themselves with signs on loo doors.

She's not talking about harassing other women. Males who use women's spaces are completely obvious.

The gaslighting here is unbelievably strong. You have called women 'bullies' for calling out a male in a place for vulnerable women and girls! You've attacked us. The gaslighting techniques of the MRAs are a cliche at this point.

I will ask politely ask any male in a female toilet to leave. If they don't I will stand outside the door and loudly alert all women who are about to enter.

This is because I consider what happened to Katie Dolatowski's child victim a thousand times worse than a man's feelings being hurt, or someone on the internet not liking my tone in a debate.

Again I don't need or want your approval, or recommendations.

But I am correct in thinking you are male and have no understanding of women as a sex class, do not use facilities in the way women and girls do. So we really don't need your advice tbh

As for what I want and do, I prefer political change.

I always wonder why @DadJoke is so invested in men entering women's spaces 🤔

She's not calling them out because like most women, she's afraid to provoke potentially angry males violating her boundaries. Any man who can't see the misogyny in that state of affairs is a lost cause.

This is because I consider what happened to Katie Dolatowski's child victim a thousand times worse than a man's feelings being hurt, or someone on the internet not liking my tone in a debate.

Yes. And I'd like to take the opportunity to commend you for this wholly feminist stance.

Men who want to assault women really don't concern themselves with signs on loo doors.

When women and girls had the right to call out males in our spaces, they didn't dare enter. That's changed now. But thanks for your typical attitude that signs on doors don't help. I guess you believe we shouldn't bother to lock our doors at night because "that won't really stop someone from breaking and entering if they are determined to." Right? RIGHT?

Btw. It's not just about safety from males. It's about our right to privacy and dignity away from the male gaze.

Exactly. Which is why I don't really need a male letting us know on mn what to do.

I am invested in my trans and GNC friends continuing to use the loos to which they are legally entitled without being harassed by gender critical people.

And we are invested in our own and other womens pricacy, dignity comfort and rights not being steamrollered by men like you!

I hardly think I give the impression of someone who regularly suffers from cowardice.

If that's what you want to think, that's your own business. But no, cowardice or ignorance is not the reason people don't engage with you. It's because of unpleasant and unnecessary debate tactics, like the ones you just demonstrated in this post.

I can repeat that until I'm blue in the face, but if you don't want to listen I can't help you. But when my point is that you don't want to listen, I can't help but marvel at the irony of claiming you do.

No, you are invested in males transgressing the boundaries of women and girls because you're a Male Supremacist with no respect for the RIGHTS and NEEDS of the women and girls whose space it originally belonged to. Because you clearly don't see women and girls as human.

But don't give a shit about women who might be reasonable in challenging a male acting inappropriately who now won't because they live in fear of being accused of transphobia and having their lives wrecked for it.

Yep we know.

I don't take advice from men on women's rights issues. Not men who claim to support women in this, or any other men. I'm simply not interested in men's views on women's lives.