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.

Yes, I agree, that's absolutely a fair point. Interestingly, OP hasn't mentioned the legality of it in her posts.

They're for biological females who wish to use male facilities

So the man has a shopping list but grabs a handful of tampons from a Male toilet instead of the shop? Eww.

I think it is real - funnily enough my DH and I were in a well-known NT property in Sussex today. My DH used the gents and came out and told me about it - he actually assumed it was a mistake by a cleaner or something! We’d not heard anything about it before today.

I don’t think it’s harming anyone, but it seems to me very unlikely that it will help anyone, and that it’s potentially quite an inflammatory move. So I think that makes it a questionable use of charitable funds.

That's because there is fuck-all illegal about putting tampon dispensers in mens loos.

Actually the Supreme Court also allowed that trans men could be excluded from women's facilities "where reasonable objection is taken to their presence, for example because the gender reassignment process has given them a masculine appearance or attributes to which reasonable objection might be taken" in the context of a women-only service.

So yes, I'm not surprised transmen are frightened at the moment , considering that the Supreme Court has essentially told them they might not be welcome in either the womens or the mens toilets, and that this can be subjective, based upon perceptions of their appearance, and people can object to them using either.

The Supreme Court has clarified that sex means biological sex, and therefore if National Trust toilets are labelled male and female, or ladies and gents, then they should be single sex toilets and there should be no female people, regardless of how they identify, in the men’s toilets.

If a man/male is bleeding from his lower regions, then he should not be using a tampon from the National Trust toilets to stem the flow, he should be seeking urgent medical help.

If they’re free, why not.

But everything unlawful about a female person being in there.

Are you completely unaware of the law in this regard? Or just pretending to be?

What law is broken if tampons are made available in a toilet that is a designated single-sex male toilet?
You could, I suppose, make the argument that in providing tampons it was not really a single-sex toilet, but you would get laughed out of court.

@InsectsMatter

Transgender men can have periods, though, and many transgender men use the gentlemen's toilets.

That's why the tampons have been placed there, so that transmen can use them if they need them.

It means a trans man has access to them. It also means a man whose partner / sister / friend might need one has access to them. It’s a total non issue

There's nothing unlawful about a woman being in a single-sex male toilet. What is unlawful is not providing single-sex toilets. The Equality Act, and the SC ruling, does not apply to individuals.

It's not unlawful for a woman to be in the men's loos. You're misunderstanding the SC ruling. Another poster up thread has explained.

Parents will still be able to take opposite sex children into single sex loos, without breaking the law.

Cleaners will be able to clean loos regardless of sex, without breaking the law.

Opposite sex staff will be able to maintain and open / close loos each day, without breaking the law.

You don't need to request a specific sex of plumber if one breaks down (and if one set breaks then everyone will have to use the other).

You've missed the point. Of course, making tampons available in a single-sex male toilet isn't illegal, but trans men (biological women) entering that single-sex male toilet is illegal so what's the point in making them available in that space?

It's not illegal for a male to be in a female loo or vice versa. Think about it for a few seconds. If it was then millions of parents would be committing crimes every week.

As another poster has explained above, the SC ruling applies to organisations who are subject to the EA. It does not criminalise individuals.

If they’re free, why not.
And this sort of selfish freeloading is why more spaces can’t leave out sanitary products for women who genuinely need them 🙄

I do think the National Trust have made a number of odd decisions recently, but I suppose the cost of installing the tampon dispensers in the gents is fairly minimal and they presumably won't need to be refilled very often....?

This is not true. An organisation by law must provide gendered WCs. Their policy must by law be for separate spaces. There is no law that says any person can’t enter those spaces.

Women have used men’s toilets for a very long time, because the provision of toilets in the regulations says they must have equal space (except in very specific circumstances) and that puts women at a disadvantage because they take longer in the toilet solely due to logistics.

If anyone really cared about women and toilets, that is where their ire should be directed rather than at anything to do with trans issues.

Once again, the Equality Act has nothing to say about individuals’ behaviour. It is binding on organisations and service providers, not individuals.

Unimportant.

Maybe a man will pick them up for his partner/someone they know can’t afford them

This isn't about parents, cleaners, plumbers etc and never has been - it was about maintaining single-sex spaces and their use.
So, why were TRAs getting so vexed about the SC ruling if it didn't mean that trans women (bio' men) can't use single-sex female loos, and trans men (bio' women) can't use single-sex male loos? And why were gender-critical women celebrating the SC ruling if it didn't mean this?

They are captured

have a day off😆

I didn't say there was.

Because an awful lot of people don’t understand the law.