Thread 2: Why can't people respect the rules around toilets!?!?

[Underbudget]

Darn it the thread filled and I wanted to ask @tandora a question. Is this within site rules to start another to do this as I don't seem to be able to tag her? Feel free to report/delete if it is.

Previous thread here: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5372111-why-cant-people-respect-the-rules-around-toilets?page=1

'Tandora · Today 07:51

Eh? Mental health is everyone’s concern that’s why we have a health system.

No one’s rights come “first”- we need to find solutions that respect everyone’s rights.

There is no “female suffering” involved in respecting and including trans people. It will have virtually no impact on your life whatsoever.'

I wondered @Tandora if you'd read my post earlier on that thread, where in my head, children's rights come first? As the basic premise of child protection?

My post (in response to a different poster) if you missed it, was this:

Underbudget · Today 00:51

Slow to reply and expect thread has moved on, but surely you can empathise with a girl victim of csa feeling terrifed at finding themselves alone with a very male bodied person in a public loo between them and the door? Why does that child's feelings mean less than the adult males?
And what if that particular male bodied person WAS a rapist? That people saw entering from the outside but didn't want to "offend" by challenging them. And a child was born from a child as a result?
Doesn't a child's right to safety and protection come before ANY adult's feelings? Especially when a child can be born from rape as a result? As could ONLY happen to a female?
Fellow survivor of CSA here so I can understand you may have issues in thinking around this. I have spent years in therapy due to being overtrusting because my boundaries were fucked.'

I genuinely want to be in a place where all rights are respected, but I can't personally process this risk in any way that makes sense to me. I simply cannot agree with or process that allowing a male bodied person, unsupervised access to a child victim of CSA in a vulnerable space, whether a real or a perceived risk, does not harm that child. As a male, they are not being discriminated against on the basis of their sex, as ALL males are excluded from that situation, rightfully so. No right minded person believes all males are rapists, just as and no right minded person believes all transwomen are. But some of both ARE and that's a fact. I accept that a trans person may feel excluded from having their social transition recognised by not being allowed in the single sex spaces of the gender of their choosing, but equally, a girl in that situation also feels distressed. Why does that adults discomfort trump the discomfort felt by the child? A trans person deserves somewhere safe to go to the loo, but that's not in the women's loos. If that protects just one single child from reliving horrific trauma or worse, then that's what has to happen.

I would truly like to understand your view, ideally in a way that acknowledges the trauma of a child in this situation.

I think the Supreme Court judgment was impeccable from a legal perspective (to be expected from some of the greatest minds in our country) but I have puzzled over the suggestion that trans men can be excluded from women’s spaces. It seems to cut across much of the rest of the reasoning based on biology rather than appearance.

I think that the SC must have had in mind quite extreme situations where that exclusion could be both justified and capable of implementation. I can see, for example, that there might be an argument that it is justifiable to exclude somebody who has had surgery to look like a man from domestic violence shelters on the basis that it might be particularly triggering and harmful to other women. But I still struggle to see even in that case how a policy could exclude trans men when there is no objective definition of trans men. Excluding on the basis of GRCs wouldn’t work because - as the SC carefully pointed out - GRCs have nothing to do with physical appearance.

I would be interested in others’ take on this. Are there examples where this rule could properly and effectively be implemented? Or is it a part of the reasoning that is likely just to be irrelevant in practice?

There is a big difference. Trans identified males are over represented in the prison population for sex and violent crimes.

It doesn’t “mandate” it, it allows it. In exactly the same way that it allows the exclusion of trans men whose appearance “isn’t sufficiently womanly” from woman’s spaces. Why are you trying to suggest this is ok for trans men but not for trans women?

The Equality Act allows transmen to be excluded from female single sex spaces but they also remain excluded from male single sex spaces.

If transwomen were excluded from male single sex spaces in the same way they are still excluded from female single sex spaces.

I'm not trying to suggest anything about TM. If you look at my comments, I haven't mentioned TM at all. It's you that is using the situation of TM to try and argue what some (but not all) TW can access women's spaces.
I suppose I'm curious as to your thinking really. As I'm surprised you think its OK to interpret the law in a way that will throw the majority of TW under the bus to enable a few to benefit, based on their appearance. It seems a transphobic interpretation that I would have expected you to be strongly opposed to.
However, as it happens I do think its different to make TM an exception. Because it can be argued that the discrimination of not allowing them access to women's spaces based on appearing male may be proportionate to protect the women in the space from distress.
There is no comparable suggestion that excluding TW from men's facilities would be necessary to avoid distress to men in the spaces. Perhaps if there were, the discrimination might be proportionate there too. However, even if this was the case, this would merely exclude passing TW from men's spaces, not give them access to women's spaces, which is an important distinction I think.

You’ve lost the thread of the discussion- we’re not discussing the exclusion of TW from men’s spaces.

We’re talking about the fact that the SC judgement does not directly imply a mandate ban of TW from all women’s spaces.
it is perfectly possible to have a space for TW and women excluding men using exactly the logic that the SC applied in its judgement.

The EHRC is overreach and not law.

Why do you think they are excluded from male single sex places?

I do not get the 'they will be raped in the men's toilet'. I don't believe it.

Men can use the men's toilet, trans men (biological women) can use the men's toilet, children can use the men's I don't think there is a woman alive who hasn't used the men's when the queue is out of the door of the ladies, but if a TIM goes in to the men's anyone already in there suddenly turns in to a rapist.

I generally have quite a low view of men but I think this is ridiculous.

Male single sex spaces are for males that excludes Transmen who are female.

Sorry, realised you may be asking why transwomen are excluded from male toilets. They're not.
My point was that if they could be excluded in the same way that transmen can be excluded from female spaces that still wouldn't allow them to use female spaces.

Lolllll.

Men can use the men's toilet, trans men (biological women) can use the men's toilet, children can use the men's I don't think there is a woman alive who hasn't used the men's when the queue is out of the door of the ladies

But if a TW enters a female toilet all the women in there are suddenly unsafe and at risk of rape.

You are right it is patently ridiculous.

"But if a TW enters a female toilet all the women in there are suddenly unsafe and at risk of rape."

"But if a man enters a female toilet all the women in there are suddenly unsafe and at risk of rape."

Can you explain the difference between these two sentences that makes the first laughable but the second entirely reasonable?

You mean that the logic used to allow for the exclusion of TM from women's spaces, that their appearance may cause distress if they are percieved to be men, to you, means that it's the perception of maleness that is the exclusionary factor? So a TW not pervieved as male would not meet the bar for exclusion? If that is what you mean, then I disagree, as the law makes it clear that the default exclusionary factor is the person's biological sex. TM are made an exception and may be subject to further exclusion (from women's spaces) in very specific circumstances. For what it's worth, I do think the latter is problematic for TM.

Except the facts and figures prove that TIMs do pose a threat. A serious one.

I don’t find either particularly reasonable tbh. Men don’t need to enter a toilet to rape women and if they wanted to do so they could anyway totally regardless of anything to do with equalities law.

The reality is that men don’t use the women’s toilets as they prefer to use the men’s to pee. When trans women uses the women’s toilet it’s because they want to pee.

The end.

So what for you is the reason we have separate men's and women's toilets in the first place?

Or would you argue that we shouldn't?

The reason we separate out men and women's toilets is largely for the purposes of social convention and 'dignity' (based on social/ cultural concepts). There is also evidence where mixed sex facilities (by which I do not mean the occasional TW in women's loos, but the provision of facilities for everyone) are provided, sexual harassment increases etc., this makes perfect sense in a context where social norms/ conventions around privacy / dignity have normalised separate facilities for men and women.

What I do not believe is that these facilities are separated because 'birth males' are biological programmed by their chromosomes to rape 'birth females' and the best way to prevent this in society is through sex segregation.

The EA 2010 provides an exemption to enable discrimination based on the protected characteristic of sex to enable "separate services for men and women where providing a combined service would not be as effective".

A service provider designates a service for women and trans women.

A discrimination claim is brought by a man (why would this happen in the real world - it wouldn't) to say that he had been subjected to unlawful descrimination because he was excluded from the service because of his sex.

The provider responds -
nope I'm using the single sex exemption - you are excluded because in this context we are providing separate services for men and women because in this instance a combined service would not be as effective.

The complainant says but you are not providing separate services, because 'sex' means 'biological sex' and woman means 'biological women' and there are trans women in your service.

The provider responds, yes but those trans women appear to be biological women so in this case their presence would not be detrimental to the operation of the service as intended as single sex provision whereas your presence would. Therefore our exclusion of you specifically is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim, and is exempt from any claim of sex based discrimination.

This defence is entirely compatible with the SC judgement.

Meant to tag 5128gap

Did I say "programmed from birth"? No.

I actually agree that the social norms/ conventions around privacy / dignity both protect women from male gaze and assault and maintain the fetishisation of female privacy that makes them necessary in the first place.

What is not clear to me is why you think TW are exempt from the fetishisation of women's privacy - not suggesting rape here but simply the excitement of the forbidden - that is utterly endemic in the rest of the male population.

If we keep ALL men out of women's toilets for safeguarding purposes @Tandora what would be the justification for exempting one group of men from that? What are the grounds?

And the claimant responds "Please explain to me in what way the male people you are including 'appear to be women' in a way that I don't? Is it their clothes? Make up? Surgeries?" Respondent "Well, yes I suppose so as these are the things that make them look like women you see" Non passing TW who would also like to access the service "So what about us then? You're discriminating against us because we don't choose to express our womanhood with make up and dresses and didn't want to undergo risky and painful medical interventions to be accepted as women?" Respondent "Well, put like that, I suppose we are. OK, women and non passing TW all welcome!" Origional claimant "So tell me again, on what basis are you including these males and excluding me?"

Nope - the discrimination against non-passing trans women (in relation to both passing TW and biological women) would be proportionate and legitimate on exactly the very same logics.

Non-passing trans women your presence in the service would be detrimental to the operation of the service as intended as single sex provision, so it is proportionate and legitimate and exempt from unlawful discrimination provisions on the basis of both sex and gender reassignment .

Men and boys use a concealed, yet accessible space to rape. They don’t want a witness as that could lead to consequences. So, wheres that going to be? On a train carriage, in a train station, supermarket, nightclub, pub or in a school the most obvious place it will be is the toilet.

As an ex-teacher, I was shocked that a BBC investigation found there was at least one rape in a British school each day. Where could that be? They gave an example of a storeroom. There are examples in the toilet.

Multiple schools have had problems with pupils having sex in toilet cubicles/rooms. This has been discussed in newspapers.

Lots of public toilets have closed down due to lewd behaviour.

When it was discussed about making sex in public toilets illegal, which it became in 2004, one MP even argued that it was discriminatory against men.

The Government report (2008) about the provision of public toilets, which had experts from around the country, have academics saying people were still having sex in toilets. In places like the BBC, it’s been alleged more recently that, in the BBC building, these are the unisex private disabled toilets in the same article that was discussing the trial of a celebrity sexually abusing women in a toilet.

Unfortunately, there are so many examples. There was a whole organised crime going on in some Rochdale public toilets with school boys.

The reality is you don’t know what you are talking about. You have to stick to the facts, however upsetting or awkward, to inform policy and laws, especially when it involves health and safety.

What's the legal definition of a 'passing trans woman'?

The reality is that men don’t use the women’s toilets as they prefer to use the men’s to pee. When trans women uses the women’s toilet it’s because they want to pee.

There is no evidence proves that no non trans identifying man is going to enter the woman's toilets and/or all a 'transwomen' will ever do in the women's toilets is pee.

Why would women just take your word for this?

Violence against women and girls occurs most frequently within domestic settings and is usually perpetrated by someone close to the victim.

Yes rape and sexual assault can sometimes, more rarely, happen opportunistically, in public, in an enclosed toilet cubicle or room.
If men and boys chose this as their setting they are able to do so regardless of what equalities law says about where trans people should be facilitated to pee. The latter quite simply has no logical/ rational connection to the former.