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.

But your reaction isn't universal. You must understand that.

For many women who have been raped the presence of men in female toilets would be extremely triggering. Can't you understand that?

Why would it be 'bigotry' to treat all men the same?

We exclude all men from women's single sex spaces. Why would we make an exemption for one particular group of men? On what grounds?

Agree, @MrsSkylerWhite. There’s not a day goes by without her attacking someone. It doesn’t matter who it is.

What did you do before the Supreme Court ruling?

No you are wrong.
Many trans women claim to be lesbians because they, as biological men, still date women.

Ever heard of phones?

I used to assume this, because it seems as though it should be obvious, doesn't it? But since then, I've become aware of a steady trickle of cases in the news where men who identify as women have turned out to be sex offenders, murderers etc.

Then statistics published about the prison population in the UK indicated that a higher percentage of the transwomen in prison were sex offenders compared with the percentage among male prisoners who didn't identify as women. (The percentage of sex offenders in the female prison population is much much lower than either.) In other words, being a trans woman seems to be no guarantee of being particularly like a woman in terms of lowered risk to others and may even raise the risk for certain kinds of behaviour.

The other thing that has made me uneasy is that some transwomen who have published books etc seem to have a very pornified idea of what a woman is. Basically somebody who is passive and exists to be f*cked. It's rather horrible. And the transactivists who pile on to women who speak up for women's right to single sex spaces seem absolutely obsessed with violent and sexualised imagery and insults.
I'm not saying all transwomen are like that, heaven forbid, but clearly some are. Just as (only) some men are like that, so it's better to be safe than sorry by having safe spaces for women only.

So biology says. And so the LAW says. You may want to erase the female sex class and our hard won female spaces, But 99% of females don't want to share an intimate safe single sex space with a male with penis and testicles.

Asking a male to use the male facility does not harm that male.

But asking females to have that male - a member of the predator class with male penis and testicles, and male height and male appearance that traumatises victims, harms those females. Many of us rape survivors.

Male - to - male is not a threat.

Male - to -female IS a threat. You are telling us to allow the fox to enter the hen house. That fox is a RAPE DANGER to hens, as the evidence of transwomen committing sexual offences 5 times greater than other males, proves. And it's not just the safety threat. It's that the hens are TRAUMATISED by the site of a fox there. A female only space where females flee to run from males chasing them. To miscarry. To cry, to seek help from other females. To change out in the open at the sinks. To rinse blood-stained underwear or milk/baby sicked on blouses and be in a partial state of undress.

These are SAFE SPACES away from the male sex class. Having that male in there endangers and traumatises the partially clothed females.

A male in a male facility does not cause that male any distress at all and even if it did, why are us females asked to be HUMAN SHIELDS for that male?

From a Psychiatrist:

"I had an early miscarriage in a public toilet years ago.

The pain was so bad I could barely stand and there was blood everywhere. Another woman helped me.

I can't imagine the added horror of experiencing this with strange men walking in and out.

Allowing men to use women's toilets is inhumane.

If this was being forced on women in Riyadh or Kabul everyone would be up in arms, (particularly the traitorous Democrats lining up to support this).

It's time to put an end to this.

It's barbaric, indefensible and wholly unnecessary."

From an article:

"There is a rather wonderful poem that I love by Kim Addonizio. It is called To the Woman Crying Uncontrollably in the Next Stall. It details bad sex, bad haircuts, bad bleeding and bad heartache. Its last line is a message from one woman to another in the next toilet cubicle: “Listen I love you joy is coming”.
I have been that woman crying in the toilets. I have been that woman listening to others crying, vomiting, pouring their hearts out, passing tampons and tissues under the door. I have seen girls patch each other up emotionally and physically, find out they are being cheated on by the same guy, wash the blood from their clothes, swap make-up, take drugs, plan to run away together.

It is not that women’s loos are some kind of utopia, but they are a female space where female bodies do female things. They have never felt entirely safe, especially public loos, but safeish, I would say.

The advent of the gender-neutral toilet has stopped all that. Many places now have a “gender neutral” loo or “men’s, women’s, plus gender-neutral” – which effectively means twice as many toilets for men as for women.

Theatres have excelled themselves in alienating women. At the Lyric, in London, for instance, women are invited to walk past a row of urinals to get to a cubicle. Who actually wants this? Do men want to pee in public? Do women want to see them doing so? And if somehow “trans rights” is your answer, then, again, we must ask why it is women who must always make way, have less provision than men, when women’s needs for clean and safe loos matter.

So I am relieved that the Government has said that new buildings – restaurants, schools, hospitals – must have separate male and female toilets and not these “universal” lavatories.

Thank God. Wanting to maintain women-only spaces has been a ridiculous ongoing fight over the past few years. The tide is turning. Our privacy, dignity and safety are not to be given away by men or anyone who cannot be bothered to think about why women might need those things.

Indeed, there is a fundamental refusal from those who believe that being female is just a feeling in a man’s head to accept that there is a difference between male and female bodies.

Menstruating women have different needs to men. This can be hugely difficult for teenage girls. My daughters always came home from school bursting because the school loos were horrible places at the best of times. It is ludicrous to me that we are made to feel like blushing naïfs for wanting privacy.

Menopausal women may find themselves flooding and need space to sort that out. Remember when Fleabag’s sister miscarried in the restaurant loo? Well, that happens. I am sorry if this is all too much information for you, but female experience is always somehow too much, too real, too damn inconvenient for those who think what matters is simply disembodied gender.

When I was put on a mixed-sex ward after nearly dying because of an ectopic pregnancy, I was throwing up constantly because of the morphine, had a catheter and was emotionally in a right old state. The men in the beds around me probably were in a bad way too, but I just didn’t want anyone seeing me like this. Do I really need to explain myself? Does any woman?

“Gender neutral” has meant, in reality, fewer facilities for women and more for men. But that’s part of the current stupidity that calls restricting women’s access to safe, private spaces progress. In reality, there is nothing neutral about shutting down women-only spaces."

Let males 'pee where they like'?

Why do you suppose we have male and female facilities? Have a think about it, @VioletsandDill .

I, a rape survivor, could have been in there and it would have traumatised me?

so just take her at her word and leave it.

Yeaaahhhh. Lets take all males at their word, right? Cause that has NEVAH gone wrong for women over the centuries, right? Right??? Allow a demonstrably male person to violate female only spaces, because he says we should 'take him at his word'. You have never heard of stranger danger, have you. You would have told children it is ok to go off with that strange man in the white van, because, hey, he says he's female. And has lollies. The male oppressor and predator sex never lies, do they? Do they?

Right?

What is the difference between a heterosexual man and a transwoman apart from one is wearing a dress?

Yet police have been called in parts of the UK, and it is actionable.

Really? You wouldn't frequent the place that respects the sex-based needs and hard fought for sex-based rights of the vulnerable, oppressed sex class, for safety, for privacy and for dignity? You wouldn't frequent a place that calls the police on a male being in the ladies? Have a think about that and what message you are sending to women, girls, rape survivors and Domestic Violence survivors who need our HARD WON rights and spaces away from the male sex. Would you also stop being friends with a school mum who told her children not to trust the word of stranger men?

@Tandora you claim sharing facilities with males with a trans identity doesn’t harm women. How do you know? And what benefit does sharing facilites with males give to women? You seem very invested in supporting males and insisting women budge up,and concede their spaces but you haven’t given a valid reason as to why we should? Why should we put the feelings and wants of these men above our own?

Then you should know that a male is a male is a male. And that males LIE to access women and girls. A male - a fully intact male with penis and testicles - in a dress is no less a threat (more, by actual government statistics) than a male in a suit and tie.

Why have you brainwashed yourself into believing what a fully intact male wears - and what he lies to you to convince you to believe - means he is more safer than the other?

A male with penis and testicles in a dress is no less a risk than a male with penis and testicles in a suit and tie. A male is a male IS A ....MALE.

It won't let me add the photo, but google Andrew Miller, also known as Amy George. He (in the UK) lured a girl into his car, he was dressed as a woman, the 11 year old girl was cold and wanted a lift home and took it because the girl thought he was a woman and would never have gone with a man. He raped and sexually assaulted this 11 year old girl repeatedly over several hours.
The judge sentenced him to 20 years, the headline of the article: "transgender butcher could not have kidnapped schoolgirl if he was not dressed as a woman, says judge"
and, "Andrew Miller jailed for 20 years for sexual assaults described as 'nauseating in depravity and criminal sexual deviancy'.

You are saying we should take this man at his word.

Have a good hard long look in the mirror and ask yourself what has led you to throw away even the most basic of SAFEGUARDING to automatically believe the word of any male.

Are you and others seriously telling us we can't tell a male from a female?

How did civilisation ever reproduce since the beginning of time then?

Have a word with yourself.

I see some misunderstanding around the law on discrimination based on perception. In order for a man who identifies as trans to be discriminated against by being perceived to be a woman he must suffer detriment. A man being told he cannot use the women’s toilets is not suffering a detriment so no discrimination has taken place. Though obviously if someone recognises he is a man then he is not perceived to be a woman so there is no discrimination in telling him he cannot use the woman’s toilets.

All those complaining that gender non-conforming individuals get challenged should have words with trans identified men who insist on using women’s toilets. It is not surprising that men who claim they are women and who insist on ignoring women’s boundaries have a sex offending rate many times that of other men.

Most of the cafes, I go in just have one loo that anyone uses, or are they meant to have two nowadays

You mean correct-sexing. That some people mis-sex themselves doesn't mean the oppressed sex class should be gaslit to deny our eyes and lived experience as the oppressed sex class, to cosplay in a male's fetish. We wouldn't do it with Rachel Dolezal when she is trying to self identify into an oppressed class - race. So why do we allow the predator and oppressor sex class to self identify into the oppressed and preyed sex class, while gasliting the prey and oppressed?

Why the hell should women be forced to go through all that cost when they have perfectly good toilets, simply because some males refuse to respect the boundaries of women? What is wrong with you that you think women should bear the literal cost? You're sending the wrong message. Society shouldn't reorganise themselves for these males.

Men who identify as trans DO pose a higher risk than other men - the statistics are quite clear. Men who insist on entering what were female only spaces are ignoring women’s boundaries and our safety, privacy and dignity to destroy those women only spaces. Why would such be considered lower risk when their actions already constitute harassment?

I hope OP followed the law and excluded men from the female toilets. The Supreme Court ruling didn’t change the law, it simply clarified what the law has always been.

If I were in there, I would have been upset and traumatised, as a rape survivor. Any male being there, even if they don't 'do' anything, violates, harms and traumatises females.

That is why we keep 'male' and 'female' separate in some cases.

Maybe because males piss all over the seats and floor, and women don't want that.

And fetishist transwomen (not saying all transwomen are fetishists just referring to those that are in this case) have upended sanitary bins. Some have admitted they take used tampons and pads from bins.

It's a form of double violation females don't want.

We have single sex spaces for a reason. Why can't males just respect this? And why can't handmaidens stop being on their hands and knees, in 2025 (not even the 1940s for goodness sake) for males?