to start a thread about trans panic because there have only been seventy six already

[GustyParson]

Trans people want to steal your rights! And stroke your cat. They want to colonise your child's reading books, infiltrate your favourite prisons, appropriate the gold medals you would otherwise win for your peerless skills on the pummel horse, take the best seats on the Tube, demand that midwives talk exclusively about pregnant fathers, haunt your preferred changing rooms, run rampant through the Brownie Guides, go unchallenged in every echelon of the WI, burn all your favourite pronouns in an industrial furnace, benefit from all your oppression, demand your pet dog be addressed as Mx, frolic carelessly across the flower bed you've only just planted for God's sake, insist that there are more than two genders, require to be recognised as the gender 'combine harvester' one day and the gender 'quail' the next, piss on the toilet you wanted to reserve for your friends, and call you Cis which is like totally cruel because it sounds like sissy.

Alternatively, trans people are people, they are not trying to hurt you, most of you have never met one, none of you need to feel threatened by them, and there really isn't a need to start fifteen threads a week fretting that they're going to steal your last Bourbon Cream, appropriate or destroy feminism, or change your baby's name from Thomas to Pixie. Seriously, calm down.

Moussemoose so basically you are saying we cannot report a man in the toilet until he does something suspicious.

Before a male does something suspicious we just need to accept his present in the loo?

Looking dodgy or suspicious might be - hanging around, eyeing up people as they go in, not leaving having used facilities.

Not suspicious might be male with small female child/male in female loos when male loos out of action etc.

In those circumstances I can choose to report, here is a man in the loo, but if all men who think they are women, are to be treated as women, then I can't report because what can I say? Do you see?

"An individual cubicle will still offer privacy and limited protection." until what, you leave it and find yourself in an open space concealed from public view. What if it is late, what if you and the male are the only ones in there?

If I can report a male doing something in a female loo can a trans woman not report a male doing something in a male loo?

boopsy what would you call the cotton ceiling?

Single sex spaces are very important. I am very concerned about seeing men in loos, changing rooms etc. I would be prepared to complain. Of course it matters. In India there's a campaign for women's loos to provide some protection for the many thousands of women and girls raped because there are no sex segregated facilities. They're trying to get what we have had for many decades. We'd be insane to deprive ourselves. Women have every right to fight for our threatened rights.

As Toastie said:
"10. The idea that men "need" to become transwomen in order to access female spaces is naive. Men don't need to do a damn thing to access female spaces. For the most part they just barge right in. Why would a man put himself in an extremely vulnerable position, give up all his male privilege and male power, put himself at constant high risk of attack and discrimination, and face the complete rejection of his gender and patriarchal society, just to do something he can already do just fine from his existing position of power and privilege? I understand the argument that permitting transwomen blurs the idea of women being allowed to control our own spaces, but I don't agree this is the case. Transwomen might not be accepted as women but they are certainly not accepted as men by patriarchal society."

Women feel safe at the moment but I don't think they are. A man who wants to abuse - just does it because they feel entitled. I don't think they need an excuse.

I think women should be campaigning for individual cubicles, including hand washing, for women's safety.

""I think women should be campaigning for individual cubicles, including hand washing, for women's safety.""

No women shouldn't. Trans women should be. Women have their own toilets. Why does it always fall on women to campaign or compromise?

That's a separate issue.

If communal toilets was just being discussed as some kind of random thing that people thought hey they do it on the continent why shouldn't we have it here? That would be one thing. Most people would probably come down on the side of the current sex segregation, because there is no reason to change. And men's loos tend to be a bit more smelly.

So why suddenly are some women deciding we need to change? Or deciding there is no reason not to change?

If the reason to change is to be inclusive, do you seriously think, any of you, that a man campaigning vehemently to access women's toilets is the sort of man you want in there?

This is a coherent, concerted militant effort to change the current status quo.

Just ask yourself why? What is the necessity here?

If the reason to change is to be inclusive, do you seriously think, any of you, that a man campaigning vehemently to access women's toilets is the sort of man you want in there?

This. The ignoring of women's boundaries by males of any persuasion is a red flag for me.

Couldn't agree with you more OP!

The idea that women's toilets, as they are now, are safe is wrong. There are loads of attacks in toilets regardless of gender. All schools know toilets are the place 'that shit happens'. Private places are dangerous places. For men and women.

Women should want safe places for women - however you choose to define 'woman'. Women should try to make private spaces for women safe. The, frankly naive, belief that the present situation is safe is endangering women when we could use this opportunity to have toilet equality.

We all queue together, we all have privacy, we are all safer.

Women should want safe places for women - however you choose to define 'woman'.

Yes. Different ones for males who identify as women.

It's not so much about safety for me. It's just feeling more at ease and comfortable around other women in loos and changing rooms. I said earlier that i feel strange or uncomfortable going into a loo and a male cleaner is there or a male plumber etc. That some msles are insisting on access no matter what women think or feel about it makes me question their motivation.

YANBU.

I haven't read the thread, because I've read a million similar ones, but I wonder how many of the anti trans women in the 'ladies' arguments include complaints about male cleaners in the 'ladies'? Or would be happy for big muscly trans men to be in the women's toilets?

Male cleaners put a sign up when they access the ladies. Or they knock and shout that they are coming. Because they know women don't want male people in the ladies.

Oh dear. I know it looks a bit lonely and lost but we really shouldn't feed the troll. It would be kinder to leave it to fend for itself. Off you go now little troll, back to your bridge. You're distracting the grown ups.

Of course, the pro-trans side says, you can just report it if anyone's being dodgy in the women's room -- man, woman, or other!

Yes, but that argument falls right apart when you apply it to the reason 'transwomen' want to access female areas now doesn't it. As they are scared of males. Surely...they could also report if anything makes them uncomfortable in the mens room? If its a good enough argument for the womens room then why not...

^Poppyred* so anyone who disagrees with you is a troll?!

I must say, you have a masters in patronizing!

"but I wonder how many of the anti trans women in the 'ladies' arguments include complaints about male cleaners in the 'ladies'? Or would be happy for big muscly trans men to be in the women's toilets?"

I am not delighted to see male cleaners in toilets but they put up a sign and if I felt worried I would wait until they had gone.

musley trans men, maybe I would feel uncomfortable if I thought they were male, if I worked out they were female I would probably feel quite comfortable. But I am only one person. Not sure what others think.

Surely...they could also report if anything makes them uncomfortable in the mens room? If its a good enough argument for the womens room then why not...

YY. But we all know it's not about that, I think. Even the people disingenuously using safety as a pro trans argument.

Bambambini

My argument is that toilets are unsafe now as entitled men don't need permission to just come in and abuse women. Women think they are safe but they are not, so this sense of safety puts them in more danger.

"It's not so much about safety for me. It's just feeling more at ease and comfortable" and other posters argue women just don't want it!

Wanking
"when you apply it to the reason 'transwomen' want to access female areas"

Implying that a whole group of people have nefarious reasons for wanting something and wish to act in a potentially criminal way is offensive. You could argue that some transwomen would act like this, but you imply all trans women have the same agenda.

venusinscorpio

"Even the people disingenuously using safety as a pro trans argument"

I am pro safety not pro trans. Safety for everyone.
I support vulnerable people, some trans women are, some are not.

I am puzzled as to why you would imply I am supporting the aggressive trans activists. I am not.

Moussemoose "so this sense of safety puts them in more danger."

I do not feel safe in public toilets. But I feel safer knowing males are not meant to be in there.

My head hurts

Nope, standard troll definition. Someone who posts a generally patronising, sarcastic or inflammatory post and then doesn't bother to come back to discuss things. And yes it was patronising; trolls generally display all the sophistication in discussion as small children do so I find it tends to suit them.

Italiangreyhound
"But I feel safer knowing males are not meant to be in there"
And I can entirely understand that. Too many women feel unsafe in public spaces, and that lack of physical safety is used to repress women, as we both know well.
We are in a situation where the issues surrounding the safety of public 'private' spaces is being discussed. Discussed because men have put it on the agenda! Could women use this discussion not to maintain the status quo but to improve the situation for women. Equal access to safer, private cubicles.