Why can't people respect the rules around toilets!?!?

[coffeeandmycats]

I’m really angry and just need to get this off my chest. Me and my sister run a small shop, just the two of us and a couple of customer toilets, one for biological women, one for men, signs on the door. Never had any trouble. Until today.
A regular female customer comes up looking pretty upset, says there’s a man in the women’s loo. I go in to check. At first it sort of looked okay, hair, maybe a trans woman? But then I heard a deep voice, saw stubble and a broad build, a wig that looked like a last-minute costume. It was clearly a bloke who didn’t pass. Not even close.
I said politely, this is the women’s loo, please leave. He stared at me and said flat out, “I was born female.” Not I identify as a woman, he literally claimed he was biologically female. I asked him to go and he refused.
So I rang 101, didn’t want drama and wasn’t sure what rights we had as shop owners. The police said we can’t challenge how someone describes themselves. If he says he was born female, that’s it. We’re not allowed to question it based on how he looks. And since no laws were broken, they won’t come unless he’s being abusive or refusing to follow reasonable requests after shouting multiple times.
They also confirmed that the new Supreme Court judgment about women-only spaces is civil law, not criminal. That means even though legally women are defined by birth, you still can’t challenge someone in the moment just because they say they’re female.
I looked into it after, and yep, the Supreme Court (in For Women Scotland v Scottish Ministers) ruled that “woman” in the Equality Act 2010 means biologically female. But that applies to protecting women-only spaces under civil law. It doesn’t let us stop someone on the spot from walking into the wrong loo. The police still can’t act if someone says they’re female, even if it’s clearly false.
This bloke walked into the women’s loo, lied about being born female, made women uncomfortable, and we’ve got no legal leg to stand on to stop him. Women customers left feeling unsafe.
So what exactly are we supposed to do? Sit back and let it happen because the law only kicks in later on? Are we just meant to trust someone who’s lying about their sex to decide what sexed spaces they can use?
It feels like women’s rights are just words, no power in real life. Anyone else run into this mess in their business? I'm nearly losing my mind over how absurd this is.

Of course it does. It harms women who don’t want to share with men.

Surely a genuinely born female, eslsing thybhave caused upset would apologise and leave? Surely a trans woman, seeing they are causing upset would apologise and leave rather than try and double down as their brave journey means they must stay in the female toilet no matter the upset they have caused.

They are less safe though if someone falls ill. So, it's not really the best solution at all.

Sounds a good idea - key.

Take the male and female signs off the door and replace with a toilet sign, add a lock so people have to ask for a key, they can then choose and you don't have to deal with any issues.

@Tandora because asking women to share facilities with trans women doesn’t harm women

Women say it does.

Right .
You said this already.
This demonstrates extreme ignorance as to what it is to be trans as well as attitudes informed by transphobia.

I second that. Codes that are changed regularly or open by a member of staff only.

No “women” don’t. Some women who are transphobic claim this. It doesn’t make it true.

You don’t appear to be able to articulate how a man becomes a woman either, and what that entails.

Which one of these is untrue.

I have first hand examples of these.

@coffeeandmycats
I assume so but (apparently) it's against the law for a business to use a persons physical image to determine if they are a woman or trans woman?

Read this article about applying the Supreme Court ruling
https://oldsquare.co.uk/ben-cooper-kc-analyses-the-implications-of-for-women-scotland/

This is from the perspective of a woman in a female only space. She only mentioned a man in a dress, why should she speculate about that man’s personal identity, which isn’t relevant to her in any way?

I honestly thought the discourse had moved on from this!

Did you deliberately misunderstand the point being made?

It doesn't make the slightest iota of difference whether you personally trust trans women and want to share single sex spaces with them or not.

The law has now been clarified. They should not be in women's single sex spaces.

The fact that you talk about sharing single sex spaces with trans women on an ongoing basis is simply proving my point. You do not expect them to obey the law.

But "believing you have been born in the wrong body", whether that is (as I believe) simply a projection of the trans person's own internalised sexism, or (as perhap you believe) some type of innate misfiring of a biological system, is still not the same as actually being the opposite sex.

We didn't create female-specific language to talk about the people who felt internally like "women" (whatever that means), we created it to talk about the people with female bodies when we needed to specific about them as distinct to the ones with male bodies.

And we didn't set up women-only protections and supports as some sort of exclusive club for people who feel internally like "women", we set them up as direct responses to the very specific risks and challenges faced by people with female bodies. We only called them "woman's" at all because that was the name for people with female bodies!

So, whether or not there is a "real" reason some people feel "trans", it is not a reason to treat them as if they actually are the opposite sex, no more than there is any reason for Japan to treat my anime obsessed friend's daughter who says she should have been born in Japan as if she really is Japanese.

It's only a phobia if it's an irrational fear. A man who enters an intimate space for women because he doesn't think they have a right to keep him out, and then tries to gaslight them that he's a woman, is definitely something to be scared of. Even if he himself means no physical harm, he's acting as cover for those who do. We should be very scared of these people, and you don't get to force it on us, with no options for women who can't tolerate him in there, because your religion says it's OK.

Most women, according to polls, are not comfortable sharing loos with men. It is not the equivalent of racism in any way. But of course you have to appropriate someone else’s oppression, as most people aren’t particularly convinced by this one.

This scenario is one of the examples given in the EHRC guidance consultation.

The most straightforward way of dealing with it is keeping the mens for biological males, the womens for biological females, and reclassify the disabled as disabled and unisex.

Which isn’t great for disabled people that had to spend decades campaigning to get their facilities in the first place.

I'm sorry your grandfather was a racist, that's appalling.
Of course your grandfather was wrong.

I think the relevance is totally out though.

The equivalent would be your grandfather didn't like white people claiming to be Black.

She’s deleted that bit now. Obviously thought better of it!

Trans women know they are male. Why can't they be trusted to use the correct toilets?

So, just to clarify, were Katie Dolatowski's victims being transphobic when they said they had been harmed as a result of being sexually assaulted by a trans identifying man in a women's toilet?

If you want to hear you are right and no opposing views then go right ahead