I would like your opinion on something...

[UnicornsRuleAll]

I am a trans-women, I was born with the male physical body, but always identified as female, did everything commonly associated with "Female" Anyway, I have been told that I should not be allowed to use the female bathroom.

I was just wondering if you agree with this? My gender on my passport is female, I'm attracted to men, I look nothing like a man, yet people are trying to force me into their bathroom regardless, what is your position on the issue?

Public toilets. Funny things. Let's face it, nobody likes them, and none of us really want to publically wee or poo or fart loudly or change tampons, empty our mooncups and replace as hygienically as is womanly possible in a BHS loo. Or wad up toilet paper and place it in our knickers as an emergency pant liner for that period that caught us by surprise. Or, since we're being honest, and are amongst friends, to damage control for the knicker-wetting-sneezed-too-hard-incontinence left as a delightful memento of childbirth. Nor does anyone especially enjoy having to hoversquat 2 inches over a festering toilet seat or do the drippy shake shake when there's no toilet paper.
Good times.
But, if I have to do all of the above in extremely close proximity to complete strangers, the one fact that provides a small modicum of comfort, allows me not to shrivel up at the pure gore of my bodily functions, is the fact that my neighbours are also like me and whilst our religions, politics and philosophical opinions may be diametrically opposed...at least we all have a female body and in that we have something of a common understanding. I couldn't give a shiny shit for how the woman in the next cubicle identifies. But when I hear that familiar rustling of a Sanpro wrapper and a few whispered curses I feel an empathetic ping of solidarity and recognition. We're all women together. So I don't mind sharing that frankly unpleasant toilet experience quite so much.
So for me, I'm afraid, it is all about being comfortable in the presence of people with bodies like mine and experiences like mine.
And nothing about the gender identity in their heads.

I'm interested OP in what led you to believe you are female
I grew up playing with plastic soldiers and climbing trees
I wore what I liked and was not 'girly'
I knew I was female though. I had a female body which developed into a woman's body
As young teens I spent hours discussing menstruation with other girls
Products to use, clothes to wear don't wear white, could anyone tell. I would not have shared that with a biological male
Then growing up trying not to get pregnant
Then trying and failing to get pregnant
Then being pregnant. I loved being pregnant and I loved breastfeeding
I have friends who are women who decided not to have children but still shared female experiences
It is so much more than dresses and nail varnish.
What are your experiences that make you 'female'

OP, who told you that you " should not be allowed to use the female bathroom"?

Who is trying to "force" you "into their bathroom regardless"?

Carrot, you are hilarious!

OP, for someone with zero fucks to give, you sure seem to give a lot of fucks.

Evening all,

We've had a few reports about this thread tonight. We're not sure it's turned out quite the way the OP intended it to, as it seems they may have come here looking for a fight. Didn't get one, though. Hurrah!

We're more than happy for the discussion to continue.

Many thanks.

Is every toilet you use manned by a gender checking security guard? If yes where on earth do you live?

Hmm, an Unsuccessful Goady Fucker then

they are the best kind

OP, you mention your discomfort at having to share men's toilets with men.

So if you were using the women's toilets, and a group of the men who make you uncomfortable all realised that actually they were women, declared themselves to be women, and en masse used the women's toilets that you were using, would you instantly feel reassured and relieved of your discomfort?

HairyLittleCarrot That's perfect! That's it exactly!

IF, and it's a huge if, the Op is what they say they are, they are the world's least informed transsexual ever.

People who suffer from dysphoria and dysmorphia know EVERYTHING in minute detail about every single aspect of their treatment, testosterone levels, operative choices etc etc.

So, I call GF.

However, it did raise one interesting point.. there is a lot of discussion about "passing privilege" and about how much more life sucks for transsexuals who don't "pass" for whatever reason. And about THAT being the main reason for the high numbers of post-op transsexuals committing suicide, that they expected the whole world to suddenly turn around and gaze in adoring wonder at the butterfly metamorphosis, when, in actual fact, not a huge amount changes for them.

Women are trained from birth to be wary of men. We know what markers to look for to be able to discern whether a human is male or female.

OP I think you will find very different opinions depending on the degeneration women are from.

I have zero problem with you using the women's loos. While gender is a complex thing, no doubt. I totally respect your right to define yourself however feels right to you. I find some of the previous posts, frankly quite transphobic.

Whoops Freudian slip, meant generation not degeneration!

I was reading the opening post tbh if the OP 'looks nothing like a man' then when they went into the women's toilets who was telling them to leave and why!? Not very well thought out....

I find some of the previous posts, frankly quite transphobic. That's so vague.

I really think we have to separate phobia and hatred from debate and disagreement. Transwomen are allowed to say that they feel unsafe, threatened and uncomfortable in a loo with men. Women are not any more. Because of our cis privilege. Utter bullshit.

Primaryteach if the 87 in your username refers to your year of birth, then we are the same generation.

One of the things we see over and over in society and culture is the ingrained mistrust of the older women. Our society worships youth even more in women than men, think of how older women are often portrayed. They are seen as more out of touch than older men, more jealous and bitter than older men, and on and on.

So of course our generation has been taught to look on the work of previous generations of women and think, "huh, we're not like them". We are taught to disregard and denigrate their words and their work.

Even better if our rebellion against them is in some way advantageous to men/the patriarchy. Say, for example, ignoring the work of previous generations in trying to dispel the myth of a "lady brain" and innate gender differences. Or that dressing in a feminine/sexy manner is empowering.

So yes, it may be a generational thing, but don't assume ours is the generation that knows better. I get the distinct impression our generation is being played, and played worryingly well.

I find some of the previous posts, frankly quite transphobic.

Yup, because women's safety is totes transphobic.

I don't know if the OP is genuine or not. Someone was pressing for her age- I noted she said she can't run more than 20ft. How old do you have to be to think naturally in Imperial Measure? I do , and I'm mid-50s.

A trans woman using the ladies' loo would bother me.

So far as shared female experiences, I can't honestly say I recognise being trained from birth to be wary of men as being a life experience.

I haven't read the whole thread, I did however notice the MN message.
I've never gone into a bathroom that didn't have fully closed in stalls so what or who is in a closed stall might surprise me (if I knew or wanted to know....).
I try to be alert when I go in a bathroom as it is a closed in space with only one way out. my only issue with the concept of combined penises and urethra's peeing together is that the men's bathroom always smells of pee and you see dribble everywhere...women's bathrooms tend to be much cleaner (on the surface anyway). now if a trans person sits and is respectful to the environment fine but the guy thing of leaving the stall door open and peeing all over the place drip drip drip the last few drops on the floor etc is a problem i'd rather not encounter often.

Just going to throw this in to the mix.

I'm a supply teacher, one college I worked at had umpteen different loos - male female and accessible - some with showers and hoists, some with just wide access, some with - can't remember.

Anyway one of the accessible toilets was also designated for trans students/staff.

At another college I mentioned this (I was teaching equality and diversity) and the students were horrified.

I just wonder how the OP and others feel about a separate 'trans' toilet?

It's not actually about the loos is it? They are just a metaphor for women only spaces generally.

Older feminists like me know how hard won and fragile the advances we've made are. We actually remember when the idea of women's refuges was either outrageous "How dare a woman accuse her husband of "battering" her, and unilaterally leave the family home!" or hilarious. And that is in my lifetime. The gains have been inch by inch. And now it feels as if, at a stroke, they are being taken away. When MRA do the "but what about abused men?" line we can say "Yes, go ahead and set up the systems to protect them. We'll show you how- but our spaces are for women" And now, suddenly our hands are tied. Attacked from within like the Trojans and the horse. Of course everybody needs to feel safe and comfortable. But that includes women. In the space of a couple of years, even our right to call ourselves "women" has been challenged. And the whole edifice seems on the brink of collapse. I don't know what the answer is. But I sure as hell don't think it should be just up to women to find it. We shouldn't be talking amongst ourselves about how we do the accommodating. It should be a dialogue. And it doesn't feel like one.

Absolutely, Bertie.

Hemlock - that's a fantastic post. And it's not just your generation, I think it happens in every generation. I first read the Handmaid's Tale probably at about the age you are now, maybe a bit older (I just checked - it was published in 1985). On first reading, I approached it as creepy dystopian sci fi. On re-reading it a few years back (I'm now 50) the thing that hit me square in the face which I had totally missed as a twenty-something (not saying you would have missed it - I'm a scientist by training, and probably miss a lot of nuances in novels) is that the narrator is an unreliable narrator, and when she's talking about her mildly irritating, shrieky, hairy, second-wave feminist mother turning out to have been right all along, in fact once I as reader realised that I could detach myself from the narrator's perspective, the mother came across as the switched on, sane, politically savvy one who saw how things were going, and the daughter as the naive idiot who suddenly woke up one morning to find her bank account frozen.

I guess what I'm trying to say, clumsily, is that many of us go through a phase of naivety. I was a grad student at the height of Germaine Greer's controversial fight against a transwoman receiving a fellowship in a STEM subject at Newnham. I knew how small the percentage of women doing my subject was. The same was true across the board - physics, maths, engineering,... And it wasn't just that fewer women applied - you could point to particular admissions tutors at particular universities and say "they don't take women" or (one male friend reported the tutor at his educational establishment had actually admitted to a group of male students over a few beers) "they take a woman every 3 years to keep the equal ops people quiet". And yet, so knee-jerk was my committment to being "fair" I thought at the time Greer was wrong. Even though I knew there were barriers, from cultural through to outright prejudice, against women doing what I wanted to do, and women's colleges offered one of the few safe places which took those barriers down. And Greer's point, that here was a transwoman, who'd not had to fight tooth and nail through the school system and university entry system against this prejudice, because up until very recently she hadn't transitioned, because up until recently she'd had male privilege, taking up one of those precious places for women. I guess this thread is my chance to apologise to Germaine Greer (not that I actually aired my opposition publicly - I wasn't into student politics): I was wrong and you were right, Germaine.

Brilliant post Hemslock i was born in 89 and I would describe myself as a radical feminist. I admire the work of Arundhati Roy, Spivak, Crenshaw and the combahee river collective.

Excellent post lurcio