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.

Was meant to quote in reply to this.

It’s also about privacy and dignity. All women have the right to say no to men in their women only spaces.

So are you.

I don't think that one's capable of actually reading other people's opinions or experiences that don't align so don't worry or be upset too much.

It’s this simple. “Trans women” are male. Female only spaces are for women and girls. Women and girls sometimes require the absence of men for privacy and dignity. Hope this helps.

No one assumes men are "all the same".

However, enough men are dangerous or disruptive enough to women that society decided the frustration/offense the majority of nice men may feel at being told to leave women alone sometimes is not as significant a problem to men as a whole as the danger and disadvantages the worst of men create for women, and therefor the benefit to women of women-only spaces was great enough to justify the small downside to men of being excluded.

If you believe differently then please go ahead and campaign to get rid of all single sex exemptions so that men who would never hurt women are not made sad by being excluded sometimes in order to protect women from the men who would.

(said from experience)

No, no, no. How bloody dare you?

I was an abused child. I was abused by heterosexual men. Not by trans women.

Did your father f””k you when you were an infant? No? I fervently hope not.

Mine did.

So there are 2 totally separate toilets with washbasins? That lock presumably?

What?

Im telling you that I was abused as a young g child by an heterosexual male, who happened to be my father, but you find my stance on trans women so offensive that you decide to insult me anyway?

Jesus. Take a good, hard look at yourself.

I’m out.

I'd rather have a trans woman I don't even notice in a cubicle than an arsehole questioning whether I'm sufficiently feminine or not to be allowed in.

Thank you.

That's horrendous, I'm so sorry 💔

I’m sorry you were abused as a child. The fact that you were abused by “heterosexual men” isn’t the issue here. I’ve also been abused by “heterosexual men”. Men in women only spaces is the issue here. Many women with equal experiences to you want men to stay the fuck out. For privacy, dignity and safety. You have no right to consent for them. Most “trans women” are “heterosexual men”.

@MrsSkylerWhite You keep drawing a distinction between heterosexual men and trans women. But many trans women are heterosexual men. Many have fathered children. And sadly, some, just like some heterosexual men, have committed sexual abuse and rape.

Trans women do not necessarily pose a higher risk than the people you consider heterosexual men, but they do not pose a lower one either. Regardless of how they may see themselves, statistically they really are far more like bog standard men than they are women, and that is why they don't belong in places that are reserved for women.

I returned your own insulting comment to me back to you, that’s all.

You keep drawing a distinction between heterosexual men and trans women. But many trans women are heterosexual men. Many have fathered children

People can realise they're trans or gay later in life though. Just never felt able to come out before now.

I see there was no answer to this. Obviously. That comment was awful. No one thinks child abuse isn’t fucking important here. But no one woman gets to welcome a load of men into women’s spaces because she personally feels they aren’t a threat.

There are no central statistics on how many people are raped or assaulted in toilets or who die in toilets. Particularly which designs of toilets which is what I have been researching for the last few years. I have built up a database through various organisations, foi requests, newspapers etc.

However, the Building Regulations indicate how widespread a problem medical emergencies are because toilet doors should have a mechanism for opening the door outwards from the outside (even if it opens inwards). Even when it’s ‘locked’ from inside. This means public toilets are never secure. The reason for this is so many people collapse and otherwise you can’t reach the body.

The things that contribute to a higher rate of deaths in toilets are: it’s where people go when they are feeling physically or mentally ill which may lead to a medical emergency. It’s where people go to take drugs which may lead to a medical emergency. Also the act of elimination puts extra strain on a body physiologically. For example 11% of cardiac arrests happen on the loo. To put this into perspective there are millions of people with underlying heart conditions - a person has a heart attack every five minutes in this country. Same with strokes. If someone collapses in a toilet cubicle, there chance of timely rescue is better in a single sex loo because of the design.

The problem with a toilet design with no door gaps, means it is a place someone could be attacked or collapse and no one would know. Men have let themselves into cubicles, or pushed unsuspecting women/boys/girls back into cubicles when they are exiting.

This is exacerbated when the design is unisex (called the universal design) because men and women are expected to be in the area around the toilet door. Universal designs should have the sink in there (and are often bigger, so can fit more people in) and are supposed to be ‘resistant to sound’. Also under building regulations it has to have the safety mechanism on the door.

The only design that can have door gaps under building regulations are single sex designs. No mixed sex design has door gaps. If there’s any ambiguity, the single sex designs become private.

Therefore is the safest design for anyone to use is the one for their sex that has door gaps. I believe it prevents assaults too - particularly with children.

In terms of laws - it is illegal to have sex in a public toilet cubicle (sex happens a lot and even consensual sex is illegal). There are also voyeurism laws which were tightened in 2019. Toilets are expected to be places of privacy (even with door gaps) so if there is any concern that someone is getting gratification from looking at people (not just recording etc) then that could be an offence.

OP leave the toilets as they are for the moment. Any new toilets complying with buildings regulations should be using Document T (2024). But I expect toilets are rightly going to be looked at in the next few months.

I would, from a safety point of view, try and avoid unisex toilet design. It is also less hygienic as ventilation is poorer in enclosed designs unless you have good mechanical ventilation. They also contain more microbes on surfaces. This has been scientifically proven.

Apologies it’s really late so I will leave it there. Hope this isn’t too garbled!

You'd rather no-one questioned someone capable of impregnating by rape terrifying a girl by their presence in a vulnerable space, than be apologised to for mistaken identity?

That's backwards imo.

Can I ask why my own history of abuse by men isn’t relevant? Only that of people who favour “trans rights”? Just want this point clarified, thanks. Women who don’t need female only spaces don’t lose out from having female only spaces, do they?

Sure, but plenty of trans women continue to have/want sexual relationships with female people after transitioning. Whatever the participants may feel themslves to be mentally, in practical sexual terms these are no different to heterosexual relationships

(I'm assuming you already know that "transitioning" does not require any surgical change. While estimates vary, even the highest estimate of how many transwomen have bottom surgery is less than 20%.)

So not only do the sexual feelings of many trans women remain orientated to female bodies, their sexual function and response also remains male.

Which means that from the perspective of women (or indeed of anyone outside the trans woman's own head), most trans women are no different physically or sexually to bog standard heterosexual men.

People this convo has de railed heavily this was meant to be a thread about using the bathroom.

I'm sorry for people who had unpleasant upbringings and I'd never wish harm on anyone.

I feel that the law is clear that people should use their biological bathroom but not how it's enforced in practise.
Goodnight all

Excellent points. The issue here is that many women and girls need women only spaces when they are vulnerable. All victims of abuse are entitled to feel they do or don’t need that, but they don’t have the right to decide for other women and girls that they don’t need it.