to use the gents' toilets?

[Hadalifeonce]

On arriving at Gatwick after our holiday, I was desperate for the loo; the queue for the ladies was almost to the baggage reclaim belt, being of a 'certain age' I was busting.
I told DH of my problem, he said he would go into the gents to see if there was a free cubicle, he called me in, I dashed into the 1st cubicle (one of many free) had my wee and dashed out again. I was getting my cleansing gel out of my handbag when a man, who had obviously been in the toilets at the time, made a pointed comment about some women not being prepared to wait their turn and to feeling free to go into the gents.
I turned round and stated that as a middle aged woman with no pelvic floor, I couldn't wait. This seemed to take the wind from his sails.
But was I being unreasonable to use the gents?

For all of those saying it was wrong and men need their privacy please read up on self id.

I have and I am apposed to men being able to just go into the ladies, so obviously I am equally apposed to women using the mens.
You are obviously in favour of self ID and men being allowed in womens spaces or hyrpocytical and sexist.

You should have deepened your voice a little and said, "I'm pre-op mate" and walked of muttering "fucking bigot".

Is it really that big of a deal though, nobody was harmed. I wouldn't personally object to a man in the women's toilets if he was that desperate either.

OP, sorry I have so much to say about this.

I think it's important to note that you did this in a super polite way, have a legitimate medical need, and had your DH go in and check for you first!

Let's consider if the roles were reversed. So if there was no line for the ladies' but a ginormous queue for the gents', and a man had a prostate issue or something which meant he couldn't hold it. I think it would be alright if his wife went in to the ladies' loo, checked if there was space, and then the man used the facility. I think many women wouldn't mind so much in such a context (especially if it the medical need was clearly explained to them).

I think it is absolutely fine.

Equally if there was a massive queue for the men's and free cubicles in the women's (I've never encoutered it personally) I would consider it ok for men to use the women's.

I wouldn't mind a man using a cubicle in the ladies if there was a queue for the gents and none for the ladies. Why would he? I'd be bothered if he was pissing in the sink! There are often male cleaners in the loos in motorway services and ladies manage to wee in cubicles just fine!

I think a urinals / cubicles split makes far more sense than male / female anyway. Most mens cubicles are rarely used (according to my husband). There is always a queue for the ladies.

I think if we want to fight to keep “women’s spaces” for women then we can’t blur the lines by the deciding “but we can use men’s spaces when it suits” I think that then makes it harder to defend the need for women only spaces.

If a toilet is marked as unisex then people are making a choice to use a facility which is unisex. If it is single sex then it should be kept that way (barring very young children obviously which are pretty universally accepted in the toilet with their parent)

OP YANBU. What would worry me is the smell: It's bad enough just walking past the gents, it must be overpowering inside.

No upside I am definitely not pro self id, my post obviously didn't get this across! I was trying to point out that if self id goes through this is what will happen, from posters responses it appears they don't know this.

I'm well aware of self ID and dead against.

But it's not law yet and if we want men to give a shit and not throw using their toikets at us as to how it's going to make no difference as women already do this then we need to respect their spaces too.

I must admit that whilst I dont personally object to people of the opposite gender nipping into which ever loo is less crowded if they are bursting... that actually since ive been heavily pregnant and dont have a lot of time to get to a loo if I need to go.. I do actually just use the disabled cubicle (unless there are disabled people in sight)
I figure im only going to be a minute anyway so even if someone disabled does come along whilst im in there theyd only have a matter of seconds to wait.... and also in many shops I cannot even fit into the cubicles and shut the door because they open inwards and cant get past my belly!

If you need to go that badly you use the disabled loo or go to the front of the womens que.

YANBU It takes a certain sort of bravery to enter the (usually) stinking and disgusting areas that are mens toilets anyway so you must have been at the most extreme end of desperation to do so Hadalifeonce!

While I doubt anyone would have an issue with a heavily pregnant lady using disabled
Toilets please don’t assume you can tell if someone is disabled just by looking. The vast majority of the time my dad’s catheter is covered so you wouldn’t have any idea to look at him!

I think if we want to fight to keep “women’s spaces” for women then we can’t blur the lines by the deciding “but we can use men’s spaces when it suits” I think that then makes it harder to defend the need for women only spaces.

In principle, I agree. I am against self-ID, so I don't actually think it's always alright for women to use the men's. But I think we can show empathy for when people have legitimate needs to just use the nearest empty cubicle, especially if they're polite about it. And in practice the nearest empty cubicle is almost always going to be in the men's room.
I think expanding women's toilets is important, because the lines are always so much longer for women. If any posters have photos of the queues for the men's room being worse than for the women's, I would genuinely love to see them. Because I've honestly never encountered such a situation.

Not at all unreasonable. An alternative - which I have seen done - is to say to the ladies in the queue 'please can I go next - i really am ill with this'. Who is going to object? I have often jumped the queue when I have been with a toddler/under 5 who would find it hard to wait. No one minds. .

Those saying it's not fair to expect men to share - well there is a reason why women do not want to share with men, and that is to do with feeling safe. No man ever needs to feel unsafe if a woman uses the men's toilets. It's not a question of equality, but equity (being fair, meeting different needs).

think yabu, as if a man were to use the women's toilet it would have been an uproar.

I was just about to come on and say that if self-ID becomes law, that's exactly what could happen - but I see someone's beaten me to it

If you care about sex-segregated spaces, then look into it and object to self ID laws. I personally do not agree that "anyone who says they are a woman is a woman" and use women's spaces.

I think it's notworthy that the man in the OP obviously very much valued a single-sex space - but may well be totally unaware of the laws certain activists are trying to get through which will make these a thing of the past. Outside MN and Twitter, many people don't seem to be that aware.

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That strategy could work, but if there is a long queue, do you ask each woman individually if you can jump up? Because if you just ask the woman at the front, you may be ignoring someone else also feels quite desparate but has waited a while. And if you ask each person individually, this could take some time...

I would be fine with a man using women's loos in an emergency and vice versa. It's not the same issue as women's spaces being eroded

Would all of those saying 'just go to the front of the queue for the ladies' be happy if they were one of those in the queue and possibly also desperate like the OP?

Are you going to wait longer every time someone barges past saying she's busting? How is making other women wait even long a better solution than using toilets that are sat there unused because the airport designers failed to make suitable provision for half their passengers?

No man ever needs to feel unsafe if a woman uses the men's toilets.

No, but they may well feel it is a huge invasion of privacy given they may be using the urinals.

I think if we want to fight to keep “women’s spaces” for women then we can’t blur the lines by the deciding “but we can use men’s spaces when it suits” I think that then makes it harder to defend the need for women only spaces.

This. Absolutely this.

I suppose the answer to whether or not you were unreasonable depends on where you stand on the self-id debate. You identified at the time as someone who had a "right" to use the men's loos (in this case because you were "busting", weak pelvic floor etc) let's name your particular "gender" as dmanapgender (meaning desperate middle aged needs a piss gender) and on the basis that at the time you were identifying as dmanapgender you felt you had a "right" to use the men's loos and should be accommodated by the men. Whether this was reasonable or not really depends on whether you think a man deciding to use the women's loos (for whatever reason he has to do so including, but not limited to, the gender he at that moment decided to identify as) would be reasonable to do so.

Whether or not the man in the men's loos was reasonable or not in commenting depends on whether you think that people have a right to comment on people of a different sex entering into their spaces that have been segregated on the grounds of sex or if you think that such people are curtailing your rights by challenging you.

My opinion is that YWBU - loos that are segregated by sex should be used accordingly. I would not be happy to find a man in the ladies' so do not use the men's loos.

p.s. I am a woman who has grave concerns that the impact of proposed changes to the law relating to transgender rights will be to significantly erode women's rights. I object to being accused of transphobia for asking questions about the reforms and I do not agree that we need to subvert our language or understanding of biology in order to respect the rights of people who wish to decide on their gender-identity. I urge all women to visit the Fair Play for Women website to read about the issues and form their own views. I am grateful to MN for providing a platform where the issues can be discussed albeit in a heavily-moderataed manner (in contrast to most other social media platforms which have banned or silenced open debate).

I can't believe no progress has been made over the provision of toilets for the public. Architects! Planners! Listen up! Provide at least two or three times as many toilets for women than men!

It would be possible too to have "women only" "men only" and "mixed" -after all when you're in the cubicle you're private enough.

I am also a middle aged woman with no pelvic floor, I have had to appeal to women in the queue before to let me queue jump, and generally they are understanding.
When you've got no pelvic floor you can wee really fast and you're back out quickly.

dmanapgender

No man ever needs to feel unsafe if a woman uses the men's toilets.

Um, I know quite a few men who have been sexually absused by women and could feel unsafe with a woman using the mens toilets. My 8 year old ds who is just beginning to use the urinals instead of the cubicles would feel very uncomfortable if a woman came in, do his feelings not matter because hes a boy?

At a theme park I was surprised to see a man in the women's toilets. I thought he'd made a mistake but when he saw me he said "Excuse me but I couldn't take my little girl in the men's." And I understand that completely, I wouldn't fancy it either.