Transwoman using women's loos at work

[CharlieSierra]

I've posted a bit about this over the past few days on the MN response to Spartacus thread in site stuff, but someone suggested I start a new thread about it here.

Earlier this week I was surprised to encounter an apparently male person in the women's loos at work. I understand from a colleague that they have just started the transitioning process, and it appears from all the research I have done that there is no way to avoid them invading our space. It would be discriminatory to prevent them.
We also have showers, presumably the same applies. I plan to take it up with HR, since none of the women in the building were told this could happen, but I haven't managed to speak to anyone about it yet.
I feel angry, powerless, silenced. It's obvious using the next cubicle that they use the toilet as a man would. We will have to adapt our behaviour, hide any discomfort so as not to make them feel uncomfortable. There are unisex accessible loos on every floor, but no, they want to be in ours.

[QueenSpartacusOfTheAndals]

Bambambini do you mean this woman? Because I'm not sure it's the breakthrough it's being reported as...

[Bambambini]

Yip, I start when I walk into a public loo and a man is there (cleaner or worker etc). I'm not squeamish and have used unisex loos and showers but it does throw me. I had an unpleasant, intimidating experince with men in a unisex loo and showers but apparently I'm being unreasonable.

[PoisonWitch]

www.therebel.media/when_a_male_to_female_transsexual_sues_a_rape_crisis_centre_who_wins

There are plenty of other results if you Google.

[Trifleorbust]

No, OP, they will support her because you are being ridiculous. You are a grown woman. If you can't share space with a person you consider to be a man but the law considers to be a woman, see your GP for your anxiety, or go elsewhere to the toilet. HR will tell you to jog on and will probably reprimand you for your transphobia.

[Bambambini]

Queen -

but surely they will have to open the frontline infantry up to future women recruits? How could they refuse?

[QueenSpartacusOfTheAndals]

So we'd all be ok with walking into the women's toilets or change room and seeing these two women in there?

[MatildaOfTuscany]

What it comes down to is the claim that I should feel totally comfortable if any person who announces they are trans comes into a communal changing room with me even if that person has a beard and penis and their whole input so far into the transitioning process has been to say "I want you to start calling me Danielle", and that if I don't feel comfortable with it, I'm just a bigot. Sorry, not buying it. The emperor has no clothes. Women's sex-segregated spaces are there for a reason - for female safety (see the problems women have in India where due to a lack of safe accessible toilet facilities women can't work properly, can't go to school...) This is an attempt to throw women's rights away because men's rights are more important. It's a crock of shit.

[LumpySpacedPrincess]

If your daughter was washing her bloody trousers in a sink and someone trans came in I don't think they'd have a problem with it?

Gosh, I wasn't actually worried about if a transperson had a problem with my daughter using the sink, I was more concerned for my daughter's right to privacy

Not all trans women are rapists, but all trans women are male and all rapists are male, it's one of the reason that females have separate facilities.

[MatildaOfTuscany]

Cross post with Queen.

[Batteriesallgone]

I thought the whole point of woman's vs men's toilets was to separate the penises from the vaginas.

When did anything else come into it?

[PoisonWitch]

Trifle do you think the MTT in my link should have won and got the volunteer role? After all, they are a woman and anyone being uncomfortable (or downright terrified) being counselled by them would just be a bigot right?

[helenatroy]

It wouldn't bother me. If someone is transitioning to female well they are female as far as I'm concerned. I have more issues with sharing toilets with non flushers and general facility abusers.

[IzzyIsBusy]

Trifle

The OP is not scared of transpeople so she is not transphobic. She and many others just dont want penises/men in womens private spaces. It is quite simple.

The law is an arse and always has been.

[RamonaTheGreat]

This 'thin end of the wedge' argument is just a nonsense. It's like arguing that if euthanasia was legalised, we'd all be killing each other. Of course there needs to be women-only spaces but having a person who is transgendered in a toilet cubicle next to you on Monday does not mean your daughter will be forced to shower with three fully cocked males by Friday.

Also, no one has the right to decide or make judgements on someone's gender. It is not your job to say who is male or female and this thread is an excuse for bigotry and hysteria dressed up as fighting for female rights.

Clearly there are issues that need to be addressed to do with violence towards women, but the conceit that allowing trans people into a cubicled toilet space gives them carte blanche to assault women is absurd.

[VestalVirgin]

I thought the whole point of woman's vs men's toilets was to separate the penises from the vaginas.

You and me both, you and me both.

People have collectively become crazy to not realize how idiotic this is. They're reintroducing patriarchy through the back door. (Not that it really ever went away, but you know what I mean.)

This is pushing women out of the public space the same women in India are pushed out of the public space.

[PoisonWitch]

Schools are still allowed to hire PE teachers based on sex. Should Danielle Muscato be allowed to have a job where they are allowed to stay in the girls changing room while they are undressed? Remember Danielle still presents as fully masculine but insists she is female nonetheless.

Would you tell your daughter to stop being a bigot if she did not want to strip to bra and pants in front of what is, to all intents and purposes, a bloke?

[PovertyPain]

On the plus side, reading today's news - the infantry now has it's first woman fighting with the men on the frontline. As more women join, maybe this will help break down ideas and stereotypes and we will be taken more seriously. I wonder if she will pee with the men or be given her own loo.

You are joking, aren't you? Please tell me you're joking. Yes, in this equal society that expects women to welcome men, that say they are women, into female only spaces, we should be celebrating that a MAN that wants to be a women is fighting in the front line. Not a natural born woman, nope that was never permitted, but a trans woman. Yet again, we are supposed to be grateful.

[Bambambini]

I'd be curious as to how far people accept male bodied folk as women. Where would you draw the line? Loos - ok. What about changing rooms, showers, wards, dorms, single sex schools, DV refuges, prisons, sports, sexual and romantic partners etc

Where do you draw a line and how far to you accept a male as fully female. Is it just thinking or identifying as female that makes them a woman - or do you expect some kind of physical or medical transition?

[MatildaOfTuscany]

Okay, Ramona - my workplace has both sex segregated toilets (with cubicles, fine, personally I have no issue with this, and indeed, given that my male colleagues are perfectly civilized, actually, I personally* might have not problem with unisex toilets) and sex segregated communal showers and changing rooms.

Tell me what the magic guidelines HR have that mean a transwoman can access the female toilets, but not access the female changing rooms?


*But though I personally don't have an issue with this, I fully support the rights of other women who do have an issue with this.

[PoisonWitch]

Trifle - could you answer my question about the court case with the rape crisis centre please.

[VestalVirgin]

This 'thin end of the wedge' argument is just a nonsense. It's like arguing that if euthanasia was legalised, we'd all be killing each other. Of course there needs to be women-only spaces but having a person who is transgendered in a toilet cubicle next to you on Monday does not mean your daughter will be forced to shower with three fully cocked males by Friday.

Nonsense. Euthanasia (wasn't that term branded by the nazis for their killing of disabled people?) could be legalised for terminally ill people, who are clearly different from healthy people, and would be heavily regulated. It would be based on the belief that sometimes, death is preferable to life. But only sometimes.

Men in women's toilets is based on the assumption that men (you know, people with penises) can be women, and this WILL lead to them demanding to shower with women. It will lead to that because acceptance of the crazy assumption that underlies both things is demanded.

You say there need to be women-only spaces, but apparently you don't deem the women's toilets in a BUILDING THAT HAS FUCKING UNISEX TOILETS; TOO! one of them.

So on what basis should these women-only spaces be decided on? Right to privacy obviously is not important, as men have been known to film women in toilets with not-completely-closed cubicles. And OPs workplace has such cubicles.

[QueenSpartacusOfTheAndals]

no one has the right to decide or make judgements on someone's gender. It is not your job to say who is male or female

Yet Danielle Muscato and Alex Drummond who present as men have the right to claim womanhood and access to women's spaces?

[NiceCuppaTeaAndASitDown]

I would be interested to know where people objecting would draw the line the other way around.

If there was a woman transitioning in to a man, and you strongly support single gender spaces, how long would you want that person in your toilets, changing rooms etc, if you really believe they will always be a woman?