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 not. But that isn't what is being discussed here.

It's exactly what's being discussed here!

And @coffeeandmycats this article by employment lawyers may be helpful too - it’s written from a retail perspective but it would apply to other service providers too.

How do you enforce your policy?
You are not required to have people at the entrance of your facilities to ‘police’ them but you will need signs which make it clear which facilities people should use. Signs and policies that promote ambiguity are likely to mean that you will not be able to show that you are meeting the gateway conditions for providing a lawful separate sex facility. Your staff should also reinforce your rules if customers ask them for advice and address any complaints you receive.

www.irwinmitchell.com/news-and-insights/expert-comment/post/102kb9l/do-retailers-have-to-provide-single-sex-toilets-and-changing-rooms-for-their-cust

I have said nothing that is not true. I was in Zara recently when a couple of tall young men, dressed in typical male style in jeans and t shirts, - but with the addition of wigs, came into the changing rooms, ostensibly to try on clothes, but really just to ogle the teenage girls.

They were thrown out by security.

There are voyeurism forums online with sections dedicated to sharing of changing room shots. Tips are shared about how best to take advantage of the relaxation in rules to get access to women’s shops, how to stick cameras disguised as pegs on the wall without being detected.

To be honest OP, you sound outraged for the sake of being outraged. I’m not sure what you actually want here. Firstly what is your actual concern here?

If you put codes on the public bathroom doors, you will know who is using the toilets at any given time to be alerted to someone untoward using them. So you won’t have to rely on other customers reporting other user to you like today. You can therefore control the traffic to the toilets.

Secondly if someone trans is using your toilet, is it realistically a big deal if others are not in the bathroom at the same time? Again, you are in possession of the key/code to unlock the bathroom so you could physically prevent anyone being made to feel uncomfortable by only letting one person in at a time if you think someone is transgender and an altercation may occur as a result.

Finally, in this situation you went into the toilet and confronted the person. They finished washing their hands and left that bathroom. In the future if you are worried about someone trans, you realistically do the same thing or go into the bathroom and make yourself busy in an attempt to discourage your “regular customers” from being made to feel uncomfortable.

Well we are right, because we have the law on our side and the people who advocate for penis people in women's toilets don't.

Why? Animals evolve. Why is that at all desperate? Or do you believe otherwise?

No. Most women don’t want to share spaces with men. Some women don’t mind.

People who can’t handle that label the former transphobes to discredit them. But men have spent the last 4000+ years trying to discredit women so that’s hardly any surprise.

Human beings reproduce by uniting sperm (small gamete) from a male, with an egg (large gamete) from a female. So I'm wondering what would be the function of a third (or fourth, fifth etc) sex and how it would be defined? There's no third sex in terms of external or internal organs, or gametes produced. So I guess the most there is likely to be, still undiscovered, is some kind of detectable difference in the brains of some people. Would that amount to a "sex", on its own, and if so, why? And in what kinds of situation would it matter?

We already know about DSDs, which are basically things that have gone a bit (or a lot) wrong with somebody's physical development towards one sex or the other, i.e. particular DSDs seem to be riffs on either male or female, not an independent third sex nor a functional hermaphroditic state. So DSDs make perfect sense in the context of a binary reproductive system - they are glitsches that happen in individual cases. But a third sex doesn't - it would be redundant.

(Most trans identifying people don't seem to have one of the physical DSDs, anyway, so those are not really relevant in that context.)

Isn’t the core point that they don’t believe that they are?

People keep saying this about workplace toilets but where I work (a school fwiw) we have unisex toilets for staff. I've never heard anyone have an issue with it. Also most coffee shops I've been in have unisex toilets. So how does that work?

Why?

They know full well that they were born with a penis and the registrar wrote "boy" on their birth certificate.

And they now know that that is what "sex" means in law. Not the sex they believe they identify as.

Ignorance of the law is no defence. Why should trans people be exempt from that principle?

Ah. So you are a true believer.

You believe that something in a man's mind can make him actually, meaningfully more like a woman than he is a man.

Which means you believe that the actual difference between men and woman is mental not physical. To you, all the shit that has happened and still happens to female people (the ones with female bodies) often by male people (the ones with male bodies) is nothing to do with a woman.

And you know what? You are actually right. Of course you are. By your definition of woman, all this is true.

But all you did was change what the word means. The shit that has happened and still happens to female people (the ones with female bodies) often by male people (the ones with male bodies) didn't go away. Trans women are still members of the group of people that have male bodies.

So, while I can entirely accept that this group of "womanny minded people of either sex who want to pee togther" exists, and accept that to be accepted as part of that group is important to trans woman for all the reasons you a gave, nevertheless it is incredibly unfair to women (in the other, sex based meaning) and frankly sexist in the extreme to take away all the supports put in place for female people (the ones with female bodies) because you want to give them over to the group of the wommany minded instead.

Because while it may provide dignity, health, safety, privacy and humanity for the wommany minded, it is at the same time forcing all the female people who do not identify as womanny minded, but simply as female people with female bodies, to be lumped in with people with whom they share neither sex nor gender. And that means taking away the dignity, health, safety, privacy and humanity of female people who do not want to be defined as people of womanny mind, nor share their suppoedly single-sex spaces and supports with people with whom they share neither sex nor gender.

Because regardless of how the wommany minded male may perceive himself, in the reality he must share with others he is no different to any other male person : male body, male eyes, male touch, male experiences, male expectations. So in priotising his view of himself and his priorities over those of the female people whose resources you are giving him, whether you intend to or not you are going down the age old path of making women's primary purpose that of service of a man, with their own needs being made second to that.

Now to be clear, I'm not saying this newly reconised group of "womanny minded people who want to pee togther" should not also have their own spaces and pprotecions - god no! All I am highlighting is how utterly unfair it is to achieve that by taking them away from the people they were created for while those people still need them too.

They know they are male or they wouldn’t be “trans”. They know they aren’t supposed to be using women’s spaces. They know many women object. Come on now.

I know, have given birth to two children 😁

Can’t possibly argue with your obvious knowledge though, so can only say “I don’t know”. I wouldn’t discount the possibility on that basis alone, though. Nature throws up anomalies every so often.

hi all - I didn't expect this post to blow up like it did. I spoke to my sister about this and we are unsure of how to proceed -

the following is an extract from citizens advice (which at the top of the page says it has been updated following the sc judgement)

If you're excluded from a single-sex service
A business might be able to exclude you from a single-sex service, even if you have a gender recognition certificate (GRC).
If a business needs to determine your registered sex at birth, the law is unclear how they should do this whilst protecting your rights, like your right to privacy. The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) are currently updating their guidance - we’ll update our advice when it’s published.
If a business asks about your sex, they should do this in a respectful and private way. They shouldn’t ask you to show them a GRC.
If a business excludes you, they have to show that having a single-sex service is justified under the law.
If the business makes you feel intimidated or humiliated, it might be harassment - this is a type of discrimination. Businesses are never allowed to harass you. Check what to do if you've been harassed by a business.
If you have a gender recognition certificate
If a business asks for evidence of your legal sex, you can use your birth certificate. You shouldn’t need to show your gender recognition certificate (GRC).
If they ask to see your GRC, this might be discrimination - they’re treating you differently from other people because you’re trans.
It’s illegal for businesses to tell other people you’re trans without your consent - they could get a fine of up to £5,000. You can find out more about your right to privacy as a trans person on the Galop website.

essentially it says the law is unclear how to challenge someone, however if we incorrectly challenge someone we can be fined. Surely this boils down to if a trans woman lies and says they are biologically female we have to accept it? even if we know they are lying

or am I misreading?

Evolution is very slow. I don't think we have enough millennia of human existence left to need to concern ourselves with the question of whether a third sex in mammals may one day evolve.

The question still remains ...

Why should one group of men be exempted from the rules that apply to all men?

On what grounds?

I honestly feel like the government itself needs to come out in layman's terms and say if x happens a business should do y. i.e. no complicated language, no conflicting information online from seemingly reputable sources.

surely myself my sister and the few staff we employ can't be expected to try and find out if someone is trans before passing them a toilet key

They have got themselves in a right bugger's muddle here.

First of all, the concept of legal sex is essentially no longer relevant to anything. But since trans people, with or without a gender recognition certificate, can falsify their birth certificates, it still isn't clear how a business owner can prove that someone is lying about their biological sex, even if anyone with eyes and a brain can see that they are lying.

Are you talking about men or trans women? You keep using these words interchangeably.

It doesn't matter whether they are trans. What matters is what sex they are. And in 99.99% of cases, you won't be in any doubt about that.

Your actual problem is how you enforce the law in the face of a big aggressive bloke insisting that he was born a woman.

We can't make societal rules and laws on the grounds of 'but I can't discount the possibility that this may come to pass at some unforeseen point in the far future'.

Surely you can see that?

That's because trans women are men.