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?

So if someone who was born a man wants to live as a woman, I have no issues.

What does that mean though? How does a woman live in a different way to a man?

Do you mean that you're happy for a man to dress in "women's" clothes? Wear make up? Heels? None of those things make someone a woman.

To a lot of trans people, living as the opposite sex means going in women's loos, changing rooms, taking part in their sports teams etc.

Maybe you're not really as "live and let live" as you thought. I think a lot of women like to think of themselves as very liberal, and think all those nasty terfs are evil old witches, until suddenly they're in a situation that makes them feel uncomfortable, in that visceral way you described.

Ah yes, this anecdote. https://x.com/PaulEmbery/status/1580120916323086337

Hilarious story Eddie, had us all rolling in the aisles, I mean , what isn’t funny about a middle aged man in bad makeup and tasteless womens clothing scaring teenage girls by shouting at them for rightly challenging you for being in a female only space.

Personally I think it’s a story well worth repeating, again, and again and again and again until people remember you aren’t a national treasure who ran marathons for charity, but a vile entitled mysogynist man.

Because there's something grotesquely weird about men in dresses wanting to wee in the same places as girls to make themselves feel like they are 'living the dream'.

It's just wrong wrong wrong

Do you feel better for making spurious claims about me?

What does this achieve? I'm not in charge of who goes in the toilet so badgering me about it, calling me misogynistic, a man, insulting my intelligence, calling me passive aggressive nicknames, insinuating that I hate all women, posting recipes, and all the other childish debate tactics et al solves nothing.

When someone dies and puts me in charge of toilets worldwide, I'll let you know.

No. The feeling of wanting to be seen as accepting is the irrational one. It is sensible to assess risk and a man entering women's single-sex spaces is automatically a problem. Her daughter is the priority, not a strange man. No woman should ever be shamed into thinking different.

It IS a visceral reaction to seeing an XY person in an XX space.
One can always tell.

All women should be wary of men they don’t know, especially when they are vulnerable eg on the loo or in any other spaces where men are not meant to be. I’m surprised this is news to you 🤨

OP, I think what you need to remind yourself is that a person born as a man who now identifies as a woman, is not automatically a predator. A real woman could be a predator. However butch and possibly confident, this person looked, they may have felt extremely uncomfortable and scared that they would be challenged using the ladies toilet. I believe trans women are highly unlikely to be predatory.

Trans men are not a threat to XY men
transmen are smaller and more lightly built frame wise to XY’s generally.

They may be AGP. They otherwise pose the same risk as all other men.

Why do we have single sex toilets in the first place?

If you accept transwomen in women's toilets you should accept all men in women's toilets. Allowing one group of male bodied people and not all the others is discrimination against all the other men. Pretty bigoted really.

Personally I think child safeguarding is more important than anyone's hurt feelings.

We should fear men we don't know. And, sadly, a fair proportion those we do.

I am so glad my son and his M to F trans friend have more logic than most older people.

they openly say that G (the friend) doesnt have the first idea what it is like to be female. And never will. Hormones/ breast pain during puberty/ periods for 40 years/ pregnancy/ birth/ breast feeding/ hormones again/ menopause/ hormones YET again... THIS is "living a female life"

Wearing females clothes, putting on make up, having their penis chopped off and surgery - is not and never will make someone female. G knows this, knows they will never feel the innate fear we do. Have the turmoil we do.

And also knows they shouldnt go into toilets for females. But until places come into the 21st Century and build unisex toilets, this will be an on-going problem for us.

Also stop calling them women they're not and never will be women even if you put the other word infront of it.
I'm all for live and let live and by all means live your life as you choose, but damn well stop trying to force others to take on your ideals to protect you from being offended im bloody well sick of it.
They should not be in women's spaces.
Having said that unfortunately there just isn't and never will be any controlling that so we have to be aware of it everywhere we go.

It’s the same feeling as walking home from the station in the dark and there is a man behind you. Logically you know you are safe as it is a random walk home, a random man and stats in your area are low. But I’m practice you are worried. You walk faster, you walk in the middle of the road. This is because we know that men, Statistically are not safe. We have grown up knowing this. Our parents taught us to not walk home in the dark. It’s your gut feeling.

It’s not spurious to suggest that someone who thinks women’s rights are tedious and should be confined to the naughty comer is a misogynist though is it?

if you think women are equal to men who claim to be women why don’t you want us to talk about it publicly?

Exactly this

This is for the posters who are puzzled about what some men mean when they say they want to live their lives as their “authentic selves” .

Here is an example of the genre.

You do know that the stats show that transwomen are more likely to be sex offenders than any other demographic, right? Obviously, not all TW are predatory, but it's not at all an unlikely scenario.

"And what do you think the people on this thread are going to do about it?"

We campaign about it. We get politicians to admit that they don't believe that any male person should be in the female single sex toilets and then we campaign to push back on organisations who don't provide single sex toilets and ensure they are single sex.

Do you understand that the majority of female people around the UK do not want to accept male people in female toilets? There are polls showing this.

It is not just a discussion happening on MN. It is out there in the public. Particularly with schools. There have been children protesting about the loss of single sex toilets, or did you miss those protests?

He was a man in a dress, don’t feel bad. He certainly didn’t feel bad about invading women’s private space. I would have reported him to theatre staff.

It doesn't make sense that you feel uncomfortable about a big bloke going into the women's toilets where your young daughter and her friend are? Are you for real? Why do you think we have sex segregated toilets in the first place?

Girls need to be taught to trust their instincts.

I'm pretty horrified at the thought that we are, as a society, teaching girls it's more important to 'be kind' to men than to consider their own feelings, desires and safety.

Or as one male person published on their social media, dilated on the floor of the disabled toilet for 20-30 minutes at an airport.

The social media post did not have the resulting sympathy that they expected.

There are a great deal of privileged toilet users it seems on this thread and others. It is almost like they have never used the toilet to do anything other than 'just having a pee'.

What do women do in toilets?

I spent many days, often 2-3 times a week, where I had a stroller or pram jammed in the door because I had no one but myself to do shopping. And I didn’t need the change table so didn’t use the accessible toilet if there was one. That included at period time with flooding periods and hormonal diarrhoea. Particulary after pregnancy. Often with a crying infant.

I have also had to take my wheelchair bound elderly mother to a normal cubicle when there was no accessible toilet available. Where I couldn’t leave her to sit without assistance to remove the wheelchair to lock the door .

I, too, have washed clothing out, and at times had to unbutton shirts to get them dry from baby vomit, or leaking breasts.

I have even had to do this at work when I was stuck in an event for hours and could not leave to express so ended up with significant leakage. More than once. Because breastfeeding women work too.

And got dressed in work toilets for various reasons.

And cried there and comforted others. And hid there from men who wouldn’t take no for an answer.

I know I am not the only one because several times this past year I have come across half stripped women in the toilets while out dealing with similar issues.

The solution is not demanding gender neutral toilets. It is not suggesting fully enclosed cubicles. A female taking up a cubicle to wash and dry clothes is putting an undue time demand on those waiting to use that cubicle.

So, who does 'fully enclosed cubicles' actually help? Only those male people who wish to use the female spaces ultimately. Because now the line up for the toilet is longer. And if those cubicles are 'unisex', the male people are now also lining up. What a great solution!

There are many reasons that women do not want males in the toilet.

I often think it must be nice to never have had to deal with just period flooding the number of times I have since being a teenager. What a wonderfully privileged position to have been in! Well done those who have had this privilege who lack the understanding of that privilege and are happy to dismiss other's needs to retain female spaces as single sex with no male people.

I realise that I have very heavy periods compared to some people, but it certainly made me very aware of the need for single sex spaces. In fact, now in peri, I am on a menstrual leash. I cannot leave the house some days due to the flooding incidents, which is fine as those days I can work from home.

However, the female toilets have never been used just to ‘pee’. I am always surprised when people either never realised this or never acknowledge it.