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.

The policy, at least within ScotGov, is that these are not only for people in immediate need, and if folk need them they should take them. They even have an app where you can find your nearest place to get them. You don’t have to be short of money either. In theory, every woman in Scotland could have free sanitary products if they want them.

It’s irrelevant if they are happy using the men’s. It’s disrespectful to men who have a legal right to a single sex space
If they use the men’s single sex space the space becomes mixed sex and provision for both sexes is not equal.

If The NT allowed that they would be in contravention of the Eqaulities Act

Have you heard of prostate cancer 🤦🏼‍♀️ it’s not just trans men who need sanitary products but biological men with incontinence issues.

Also gay men use them.

stop making things an issue when there isn’t one.

Period poverty is a real problem for many women these days, but the NT think the best way to solve this is to put tampon dispensers in public toilets mainly used by elderly men, who worry because they think they have gone into the wrong loos.

If you can't see what is wrong with that, you are part of the problem.

Men don’t use tampons

The whole tone of the post is angry.

This isn't about parents, cleaners, plumbers etc

It's about anyone who might have cause to be in an opposite sex loo.

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?

Well yes I would agree with you there. I found the celebration / despair completely premature on all sides. We haven't even had formal final guidance on how the ruling will be applied in law yet.

And yet many people - like those on this thread - are confidently holding forth falsehoods like "it's illegal for a man / woman to be in a women's / men's loo". Prematurely and completely without basis.

I suggest you look up the ‘activities’ (crimes) of Katie Dolotowski. His victims were children.

I wasn’t referring to Scotland. National Trust Scotland may well subscribe to that scheme, I don’t know. It’s a worthwhile scheme and it would be great to see it rolled out in other parts of the UK, but as it stands in England, I consider it freeloading and cheekyfuckery to take a bagful of sanitary ware from a limited supply provided by a business, organisation or charity. Especially if a hypothetical man has a hypothetical shopping list as a pp said. Milk, eggs, ludicrously overpriced cheese from Sizergh Farm Shop…..oh, hang on, no need to go to Lidl on the way home, I’ll steal all the tampons from Sizergh Castle toilets. . He could go the whole hog and stuff his backpack with toilet roll too. Every little helps.

How did you come to that conclusion? Men don’t use tampons. Trans men do.

But sexist
and the NT cannot allow it or they are breaking the Equalities Act

So what? Does having a free tampon in every bathroom affect you ? If it helps one person then great

Well when both sides of the debate (TRAs and gender-critics) interpreted the SC ruling this way and responded in the media as such, you can hardly be surprised that this interpretation has been adopted by the general public.

By offering a female-specific product in the gents, NT have made the toilet mixed sex. That is unlawful, is it not?

And when male cleaners are in female toilets there is signage up to indicate that.

If a consequence of recent guidance is that women feel able to challenge anyone in womens toilets who look as though they could be male, I totally understand why trans men might choose to use the mens toilets rather than handle looks / questions every time they use the womens toilets despite possibly having beards etc, so having tampons in there makes sense.

We haven’t had the guidance but we have had the Equalities Act and Building regs definition of sex defined in law as biological

As such all parties must abide by this when setting out their guidance

The guidance cannot be in contravention on the Supreme Court ruling. They have confirmed that

Can we stop using isolated incidents as if they are the norm? Do you spent your weekends shouting at hotels too?

If the NT has clearly marked single-sex toilets (or mixed toilets accessible by only a single person at a time) it is complying with the law. Nothing has changed other than the Sc clarifying that sex means sex at birth. No organisation is going to be expected to rigorously police who goes into the loos. Of course if a patron complains that someone is in the wrong loo the service providers can lawfully ask them to leave, and should do so. But that’s pretty much it.

Well, 70% of Mumsnetters, though I think it’s much higher on here than it is in real life. I’ve never heard anyone IRL talk about these issues the way that they do on Mumsnet.

No, you don't understand. A single tampon in a single man's toilet means the end of civilisation as we know it.

Oh give over, I bet you can't tell the difference and someone presenting as a man walking into the ladies would face a whole barrage of abuse. Trans people need to use toilets. If The trans man on big brother walked into the ladies eyebrows would certainly be raised. I had no idea he wasn't a biological man

That isn’t an accurate reflection of the Supreme Court ruling.

It's not surprising, but it's not correct either.

It’s quite simple.

People that have periods are female. Female people belong in the F e m a l e spaces.

My DH does not want to bump into some young girl in his toilets who thinks short hair and swagger makes her the same as him.

And if the NT have marked the loos as single sex then they're operating within the current guidance.

The SC ruling as it pertains to the EA has no impact on the legality of individuals using toilets.