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.

They are catering for transmen using the loos for their biological sex. What is wrong with that?

@ERthree

It's because some transgender men have periods and they may use the men's toilets. So the sanitation is there for them.

The loos for their biological sex would be the ladies' toilets.

I think you must be confused. If "transmen" are to use the loos for their bio sex, they'll be in the ladies toilets.

Luckily men don’t care who uses their loos.

That's not true in all cases, and men are entitled to privacy and dignity as well. I'll agree there'such less risk that way round (close to zero risk) in comparison to gjr danger that men in woman's toilets pose.

I can assure that men do care. A decent man doesn’t want to be sharing a toilet with a teenage girl.

Yes sorry I am confused. But shouldn't transmen be allowed to use male toilets if they feel comfortable doing so? They aren’t going to scare the men.

Don’t men have a right to single sex spaces?

Good thing he doesn’t have to - that’s why there are cubicles. Decent men don’t care in the slightest as I’ve found when using the men’s loos at Twickenham.

So some rugby blokes don’t care. Good for them. Do they speak for all men? In all situations? Not the men I know.

You sound like the handmaidens happily giving away women’s spaces because they don’t care about sharing with men.

You don’t get to give away other people’s single sex spaces.

Because it's performative and a waste of their resources. The smallest percentage of trans men will have periods, who are already a small percent of the population, of whom an even smaller percentage will go to a NT property. So they are catering to one person a year, maybe, who may not even have periods. It's just bonkers thinking. Stay in your lane NT, and spend your limited budget on protecting our heritage and reducing entrance fees.

It’s possible that a the sight of a bearded transman could be more upsetting to women in the ladies than to the men in the gents.

I believe that the Supreme Court ruling said that if a woman has sufficiently masculinised her appearance then she could be lawfully excluded from a female space but that doesn’t give her the right to a male space because she isn’t male.

Someone might be able to confirm if that’s right.

Yes as long as there is some provision made, I.e. a unisex option.

Thanks. Do you know what would happen if there isn’t a unisex provision?

Of all things in the world to be upset about. This isn’t even on the list. And I’m petty as fuck

IANAL but presumably if you had male and female toilets only and no unisex, the only way you're not breaking the rules of the EA is to get them to use the womens. If you exclude them from both you're discriminating against them, if you direct them to the men's you're not providing men with a single sex spaces, although the odds of men taking you to court for that are obviously slim.

But the Supreme Court judgement says that if the National Trust are offering men’s toilets, they can’t have a policy of allowing women in (and vice versa).

It should be possible to report any woman in breach of that and the NT take appropriate action to stop her doing it again.

If the NT refuse to make changes required after the SC judgement they will be liable for a discrimination claim, should anyone choose to bring one. Should be easy money for anyone so inclined.

Exactly. A quick google showed a handy tampon dispenser (I think OP mentioned one) at £67.95. Add installation/admin costs (always expensive in such a large organisation) would make it up to at least £100.

They own approx 500 properties likely to have public toilets (because why would they decide it’s necessary for one location and not the others?) so that’s £50,000 not including the cost of the tampons themselves.

I am so glad I gave up my membership when they started messing about and making some toilets mixed sex. We didn’t visit many properties but I’d let the membership run more as a donation to the upkeep of important houses but not if they spend it on this nonsense.

The cafes I’ve seen are rubbish as well. They were lovely when I was younger.

The NT policy won’t be asymmetrical though. This means they definitely encourage men calling themselves women in the ladies.

The male members of my family do. My FiL now takes MiL with him as moral support when having to use the horrible mixed sex loos at a cafe near them.

NT should just make all the toilets gender neutral - that will really get the Telegraph readers frothing. Add a few rainbows and blood pressure will go through the roof

Proper unisex toilets are less safe and take up more space then conventional single sex and making normal single sex cubicles or urinals open to both sexes is unlawful so that’s an odd thing to advocate for.

They’re good for nosebleeds.