Transgender Toilets

[Clonakiltylil]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3609515/Transgender-woman-wins-landmark-discrimination-case-forcing-ferry-firm-remove-words-ladies-gents-toilets-told-use-disabled-loo.html

And so it begins: litigation regarding toilets.

Here's part of it:

A transgender woman has won a landmark discrimination case forcing a ferry company to remove the words 'ladies' and 'gentlemen' from its toilets.

Condor Ferries has become the first firm to change the gender specific signs on the doors after Erin Bisson proved she was 'humiliated' at being told to use the disabled toilets.

Ms Bisson, formerly known as Robert until she identified herself as a woman, complained to the Jersey Employment and Discrimination Tribunal that she had been discriminated against after the operator banned her from using the 'ladies'.

She argued the use of words rather than symbols on toilets amounted to indirect discrimination.

I did point that out on previous post

But they keeping very quiet only one trans activist I have seen that has spoken publicly against the activists that are ignoring women rights

Fear no doubt, like many women have of speaking out. A joint class action where names are kept confidential seems the answer here. Turn their game around on them and do the same instead of getting upset. I don't know anyone who would take on such a pro bono case. Women and women living with disabilities are protected characteristics too.

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/jess-phillips/online-abuse-women_b_10133700.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

At my uni, they have dealt with the trans loo issue, by installing gender-neutral (single-seater?) loos in the newer buildings (I don't know if they are also accessible/disabled, but in terms of symbols, it just has trousers and skirt, not wheelchair as well, so I presume not!).

In some older buildings, they have taken the old-fashioned wheelchair accessible loos and turned them into trousers or skirts loos, whilst installing newer, shinier wheelchair accessible loos.

Which isn't too bad a reaction, frankly, and avoids the 'all loos should be gender neutral, we should all go together when we go' loonies. (got all Tom Lehrer there for a moment!).

Also ignores the fact that in older STEM subjects buildings, there weren't even equal numbers of womens loos to begin with, and given that they never seem to convert a gents loo into anything else........

I have a lot of sympathy for sections of the trans community in this situation. I think trans people who genuinely have gender dysphoria have really difficult lives and are probably "othered" and made to feel inferior in many ways in their day to day lives. There's something that feels very cruel about making them use their own special toilets, making them not man, not woman, not anything. And when it comes to trans children with genuine dysphoria it feels unbelievably heartless to insist on it. Does anyone else feel differently about those who have actually had reassignment surgery or who have the medical condition?

Isn't it then about society accepting trans people and trans men/women accepting that is what they are as they can never become the other

Also ignores the fact that in older STEM subjects buildings, there weren't even equal numbers of womens loos to begin with, and given that they never seem to convert a gents loo into anything else........

Ahh yes, I remember actually going out of my way to use the loos in Physics or Electronics at Uni - it was like having your own personal loo.

Of course, in Electronics, there was the day when a male cyclist walked in undressing himself as I was washing my hands - he'd also noticed that they were barely used and started availing himself of the nice, clean facilities. He at least started checking before entering the room and disrobing from then on (and was most apologetic)

"There's something that feels very cruel about making them use their own special toilets, making them not man, not woman"

Then what to do with the growing number of "trans people" who identify themselves as exactly that, i.e. 'non-male/non-female???

There's something that feels very cruel about making them use their own special toilets, making them not man, not woman, not anything

But that's fine for those of us with disabilities

Well said Sashh.

EnthusiasmDisturbed

There are a few that I have seen, plus our Puddles (I wonder where they got to?). They get attacked viciously by their own 'community' which makes me wonder how many more there are that are scared to speak out.

Maria munir, the person who had the opportunity to speak to president Obama on television and decided to use it to tell the president they were 'non binary' believes that people who are neither men nor women have zero rights in the uk and need special accommodations for their non binary status.
So actually what we need it
Male toilets
Female toilets
'Women' toilets (to include TW and all the women who'd rather pee next to a TW than a bigot)
'Men' toilets for men and trans men (but only the ones who pass, non passing TM will probably use the women or female toilets)
Non binary toilets for people who consider themselves both or neither
And disabled toilets

In the US, the Government are trying to force schools to let everyone use the toilets & changing rooms of their choice and the backlash is starting.

www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/public-bathroom-regulations-could-create-a-title-ix-crisis

Sixpence, yes I do see people who actually have the surgery differently, but the problem is that nowadays, being trans often seems to have nothing to do with body dysphoria. The term's been diluted to meaninglessness, and when the media cover this they only speak to the pretty, passing transwomen - I bet the "won't pee next to a bigot" brigade would react very differently if faced with Danielle Muscato, for instance.

I agree Empress - I'm fully informed about the trans/rad fem debate and am mostly on the feminist side. I just remember watching a documentary about a little boy/girl (a boy but identified as a girl) who passed completely being only 5 or 6 I think. If I was his /her teacher I'd struggle to explain to her why she couldn't use the girls toilets. Especially when at that age little boys aren't a threat to little girls and children don't really care much about privacy. But then as you grow up, if you haven't made that separation it becomes difficult to suddenly justify saying "you are now 12 and are no longer permitted in these toilets" or some such. And if the child did have genuine dysphoria it might be genuinely harmful to tell her that she is the sex she is. I don't think they recommend you do that where there's that specific condition.

sashh - disabled people aren't not allowed to use non-disabled loos though. If you're female you are perfectly entitled to use the female loos and I imagine most disabled people do if the loos in question are actually usable depending on the person's specific disability. Society doesn't want to make disabled people feel different either but due to confines of space all loos can't usually be made big enough for a wheelchair and because there are relatively few that are big enough it makes sense to reserve them only for those who can't use other ones.

And I can also see the argument that an able bodied person doesn't want an aspect of their personality labelled a disability if it doesn't actually hinder them in any way. Someone saying as such isn't trying to claim that they're superior to a disabled person. If as a disabled person you feel differently though I'll take that on board obviously. I don't mean to cause offense.

One day I hope we will have single person toilets for all - walls of lockable doors behind which there is a toilet and a sink with a shared queue but with priority access for the disabled. People with penises may have to queue up for longer than they are presently used to but at least it would be fair for all.

Would there have to be a stinkin urinal in all of these lockable booths? Sanitary bins in all booths?

I can't see many establishments taking on a doubling of cleaning and sanitary bin costs, not to mention huge refurbishment, just a small minority can't agree which loos are for whom.

I really don't want to have to sit next to a fermenting urinal everytime I need to change a tampon. And men pee on the seat if there isn't a urinal there. Sod that.

Penis = male loo.
Labia = female loo.

singingsixpence
You really can't fathom telling a 5-6 year old boy that they use the male loos because they have male anatomy? I strongly believe allowing a 6 year old boy to believe in a delusion that they are a girl is akin to child abuse.

All children are genderless. They're children!
More adults are moving towards a gender fluid / genderless state too. But one thing will never change and that's sex based biological reality.

So what if he likes pink and fairy dolls. He is a boy who likes dresses. So what. He is absolutely not a girl though! This transkid "trend" is horrendous and damaging.

There would be no need for a urinal if there were toilets. Extra sanitary bins wouldn't cost much more. Some women make as much mess as men and the presence of a sink in the room with you brings lots of benefits too, especially if you want to use a mooncup.

I'd rather toilets be sex segregated and as they re now but if we are going to lose that then I'd rather have the single toilets than to have to share enclosed spaces with males.

I saw some unisex toilets in a small Norfolk market town. Behind each single lockable door was a cross between a urinal and regular toilet. It had a super-sized sloping bowl and the seat stays up as default. The seat has a handle on for women to pull it down and like an old fashioned theatre seat, your weight us the only thing that can keep the seat down.

They're rather daunting for children to use. I'm not sure if there were also separate cubicles for children, as you could lose a small child down the bowl if the ones I saw.

Men pee standing up. You can't trust them to aim properly, lift up the loo seat, put the loo seat back down, not pee on the seat whatever, hence urinals.

At home obviously my fella keeps the seat unsplashed, but I do not trust Mr public bloke to keep the loo seat sanitary.

An alternative is male option, female option or unisex option.

Really though, these debates fixating on toilets are often about what does the toilet represent.

What next? Physically male people with a female identity to then join a female swimming race? Physically male people with a female name to join a female only rowing club?

Really it's where do you draw the line.

What a twat, or maybe not
I don't want little girls to have to see a man with cock in hand because somebody objects to a bloody picture or term ladies and gents.
What are owners of buildings supposed to do start building separate bloody toilets now.
We all ready have men, women, and disabled.
We'll end up adding pre op, post op, childrens because we can't have them seeing men weeing. Maybe we should have grans, too.

Ophelia I am also pretty concerned about the "trans trend" and the way that children are being encouraged to even think about whether their personality "matches" their genitals and in most cases I would agree with you that telling a child that it is what it is not is morally dubious at the very least and potentially incredibly damaging.

However, I do think that some trans people do genuinely have gender dysphoria and find the sex characteristics of their own bodies deeply distressing through no fault of their own, it's just a psychiatric condition they're born with. Something that they can't necessarily get away from irrespective of however much counselling they have. I also believe that many of these people do manage to end this suffering by undergoing reassignment surgery and by presenting as the opposite sex and for that reason I think it's a good thing that such an option exists. No surgery should be performed on children unless a medical consensus deems it appropriate in extreme circumstances (repeated suicide attempts by a child due to extreme distress in their physical body and resistance of distress to all forms of treatment etc) but in such cases it might genuinely be damaging to the child to be repeatedly told by everyone that they are a boy when their brain is telling them all day every day that they are a girl. Do you believe the condition exists in some trans people?

The condition of gender dysphoria would exist less frequently if the rigid and artificial constraints of gender performance were to be challenged more frequently.

It's impossible to diagnose sex disphoria in pre pubescent children. For whatever reason they have absorbed the notion that only girls can do XYZ and only boys can do ABC which is bullshit.

Boys and girls need to be free of the dogmatic opression of gender roles (which the trans-lobby deeply uphold) then sex dysphoria can be treated in the best way, psychologically, without mutilating healthy bodies.

i don't see what the problem. If a trans women wants to use the ladies bathroom why shouldn't she. When in the history of ever has a trans women attacked another women in the toilets. Surely if someone was so inclined it wouldn't matter what sex or bathroom they identified very transphobic this thread

How come it's great that surgery is an option for people with gender dysphoria but people with body dysmorphia who get surgery are generally talked about in a "surgery isn't the answer, they are ill, they need counselling" etc?
Fucking no.