National Trust & tampons

[oncemoreuntothebeachdearfriends]

NT have made free tampons available in the gents' toilets in a castle in the Lake District. Not unisex toilets, but actual gents.

Not just any tampons, but vegan tampons (WTF are they?).
And they're also available in the ladies.

YABU They are demonstrating what a kind, caring organisation they are, & covering their arses.

YANBU They are bonkers, tossers... add your own words.

I am surprised that any person has an issue with someone pointing out that there have been attacks on females in women’s toilets.

Do not try to equate my views on this with the views and behaviour of people intimidating asylum seekers.

I am one of many women who are broadly left wing but object very strongly to male persons using women’s toilets. Some male persons pose a serious threat to women and girls. None should be using toilets or changing rooms, or be placed in female wards or prison wings.

Why are you calling women 'females'? That's an absolute misogyny dog whistle, I only ever see incels and their ilk doing that usually.

Female is an adjective and can apply to dogs, monkeys, cats, bats and alligators. The word you're looking for when discussing humans is 'women'.

I’ll explain what the issue is, for the hard of thinking.

The Supreme Court made it clear that single sex toilets were for use only by people of that biological sex. A toilet allocated by the National Trust to men should not be used by women who claim to be men. Doing so breaks the law.

As no man menstruates, nobody in a male toilet has any need for a tampon. So, by deliberately putting tampons in there, the National Trust is making a statement that 1) they expect women to use it, despite it being unlawful; 2) that they actively and knowingly encourage this; and most importantly 3) that if women can do this in the venue then men can feel equally entitled to pop into the ladies.

Now, nobody can make anybody else care about these things. But once you’ve been flashed at in a female toilet by a man pretending to be a woman, as I have, or seen graffiti which says ‘a trans women spunked here’, as I have, you may engage your brains and hopefully consider that we’ve kept men and women separate in open plan public toilets for decades for a reason. I’ll provide that reason in a moment.

Your home toilet does not count. You know the people using it. The plane toilet does not count. It’s a lockable self-contained space where nobody can flash you and run off, unless they open an emergency exit. Your unisex work toilet does not count if all of the toilets are single unisex cubicles which are enclosed top and bottom, usually designed with doors opening into a long corridor where anyone can see who comes and goes. Creepy men can’t hang around there. They can only wait for a person to exit, then enter.

The toilets that count are ones where you turn into an architecturally-designed blind privacy corner, designed to shield people from the eyes of anyone hanging around the entrance, because that’s where finding a man in a dress can be a shock to a lone woman. It’s the ones in rooms where each stall has open tops and bottoms, where man can look under and over, and masturbate to the sound of you urinating. If you don’t think this happens, you need to get online and start reading. You’re in for a treat. It’s the ones where men can stand leaning against the wall, watching women apply makeup, even if it’s clear that their staring is uncomfortable - that’s part of the fun for these creeps. Again, if you don’t think this happens, you’ve been protected. How great for you, but you don’t get to give consent for everyone else.

...They allow men to grab a pad or tampon for their partner / sister / daughter if she can't access the loos or they've run out in the women's...
Rubbish. No woman ever asks a man to provide sanitary products!

If you allow men who identity as women, passing or not, into womens spaces, you allow all men in.
Unlike sex, your inner identity cannot be proved or disproved.

Unfortunately enclosed unisex cubicles are less safe for everyone for a number of reasons. Partly because of the risk of a medical episode. Apparently 11% of heart attacks take place on the toilet. If someone is in a closed cubicle they may not be found until it is too late (this has happened). Single sex cubicles with gaps are these safest.

Letting men into spaces where women are undressed or vulnerable is the least safe as we have seen with leisure centre changing villages. These generate a disproportionate number of voyeuristic and sexual assaults.

Btw ‘transwomen’ are men and just as likely (if not more so by the stats) to be voyeurs or sex offenders.

We used to know all this…

I have seen this attitude on mumsnet, where women and men both act like men will dissolve on contact with a tampon wrapper. I have a nice, normal husband however, and despite him having passed me sanitary products on more than one occasion he remains stubbornly undissolved, and his penis hasn't fallen off or anything.

This is about transmen accessing men’s toilets, not transwomen accessing women’s toilets. The two are not remotely comparable. Men pose a clear risk to women, and not the other way round. I don’t give a shit about men’s ‘dignity’ as so many on this thread appear to.

A bearded, ‘roided-up transman has no place in the ladies.

It's not essentially harming anyone as some transmen will adequately "pass" and feel comfortable using the men's toilets. Obviously we know that biologically they're female bodied and may menstruate. So I guess it may be helpful for them.

However, the chance of a trans man (tiny minority) using the mens toilets in the national trust and suddenly coming on their period unexpectedly is very very low. Is it worth the cost of these supplies? I'm guessing most trans men are on testosterone which will cease menstruation anyway.

I think some fetishist's masquerading as trans women may see this as a way of fulfilling an erotic fetish. But there again most of them are using women's toilets!

I'm a bit biased to be honest. I haven't got any problem with transmen but am suspicious of trans women and their motives.

@CrispsPlease I’ve no problem with transmen either, but unlike transwomen a lot of them do pass, especially the ones who go full-in on testosterone. The full beard, roided physique and facial tattoos look is going to give you a bit of a fright coming out of a cubicle. Hence why I think they belong in the gents (and the Supreme Court agrees).

Fucking weird! Also - how on Earth are they vegan?!

I think the best thing for an extremely convincing woman who has surgeried and medicated herself into looking like a man, is to take some personal responsibility for ALWAYS having tampons on her - ALWAYS - so she can use the men’s like a man and get out her own tampons for her own use, and stop men having totally irrelevant gynaecological products put in theirs to their bafflement. This 1) stops the NT knowingly encouraging law breaking, 2) stops men thinking they can use any toilet they fancy too, 3) is really not very hard. And I say that as someone who has had three red degenerations of fibroids which caused a daily ‘period’ for months and months and months and months. I managed to always have something on me.

Enough of this pandering bullshit. If you have female anatomy and try to look like a man, you cannot possibly expect this to be without a single inconvenience.

Transmen on high testosterone loads to pass as men, will not be having periods.

Anybody paying the exorbitant entry fees or annual pass for NT, will not be in period poverty, and not need free tampons.

Neither men nor women or trans anybody in any toilet at NT properties needs free period products.

Save the money and reduce your entry fees. You never know, NT, that might just make you more accessible to more people, of all genders.

Oh my god, who cares?! We have worse things to be worrying about! Just let people go about their business.

Also, FYI, tampons sold in the UK are not tested on animals, so they could use any old tampons, and not waste extra money on funky vegan branded jobs.

@BundleBoogie

Regardless of what people personally think on the transgender subject, the fact is that transgender men do use the men's toilets Since transgender men can and do get period, the tampons have been placed there so that transmen can use them if need be.

I think you're right. I actually work closely with a transman, I really like him actually and I do view him as a man and it's not a mental gymnastic exercise to use he/him pronouns, because he looks and acts like a nice 'bloke'. I would expect him to use the men's loos (and assume he does ).

But I realise I'm a big hypocrite as I struggle with trans women. I've never once met one that "passes". I feel distrustful and suspicious and can't help thinking a large proportion are fetishist's. There's only one transwoman I took seriously as a 'woman' and that was Nadia from the old big brother way back in the early 2000s. She was lovely and was an old school transsexual. I believed she believed she was born in the wrong body (I know it's not a recognised scientific thing). But she's the only one.

A third space is the sensible way, but people who are trans are not happy if not identified and treated as their chosen gender and insist on using whatever space they identify to. Understandable but so is single spaces for sex for those who just don't want to share, through fear (not always unfounded) or ignorance or just plain it's what always had and most comfy with.

It's an argument that is never ever going to be settled, there is no appeasing one stance without annoying the other and to be honest, both 'sides' have valid points and neither sides should be forced into doing something they are not comfortable with.

I know it sounds crude, but the truth is I think we feel comfortable based on whether they "pass". A fair proportion of trans men "pass". 99% of trans women (unless South Asian and very petite with naturally more feminine features) dont pass. And no women wants to see a 6ft hulk with a deep voice and broad shoulders walking into the public loos at the same time as their 11yr old daughter. It's the trans women that are always going to pose the problem, we just can't say it upfront as legally it's discrimination.

I sometimes get runny eyes from peeling onions. Any chance of NT stocking up on eye googles for me just in case ?

Also most transmen, if not all, are on testosterone. So no periods.

This. Apologies if it's been stated previously. It is to combat 'period poverty' where no women/girl should have to go without a sanitary product. Meaning, a man is also able to obtain such product, FREELY to provide to whomever may be needing it. It's common place in some parts of Scotland, I suspect it's filtering down.

Well, if they 'pass' then how would you be aware that they are transwomen anyway?

Vegan tampons? Caring about animals and transmen? Absolute monsters, the worst of the worst. Boycot National Trust.

@CalmShaker

Probably not, but that's less likely to happen to you if you're in a National Trust toilet. I can't imagine you'd be chopping onions there.

There is the potential for some transmen to need a tampon in the men's toilets; so they are providing some so that their needs can be catered for.