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.

mycat - woman is not an identity, just as black is not an identity.

Being a woman is a biological fact.

Don't let the door hit you in the virtue-signalling arse on the way out sweetheart 👏

I asked if he would have sex with a TM, "if the TM looked like Buckangel - then possibly".

Even that doesn't prove much, many straight women say that they would (possibly) make an exception for, for example, Angelina Jolie.

mycat - woman is not an identity, just as black is not an identity.

which raises an interesting question that I've never seen properly answered - why is Caitlyn Jenner lauded and Rachel Dolezal (white woman who posed as black for years) lambasted?

Lol, yes we'll miss you trifleorbust. Off you pop dear.

Again - why can't folk actually answer the questions as to what makes someone female and where do you draw the line? They just seem to keep going on about loos, sometimes changing rooms.

Tell is how far you are willing to take this - this is what we need to know. Who far are you willing to accept that a man is a woman?

Is it so bloody hard to answer! I used to be totally pro trans - until I actually stopped started to honestly think about it - and thought about where I drew my line.

So far we are bigots, transphobics, homophobics, mad, law breakers and boring. Thats some achievment in one morning!

Or maybe we are women fighting for the right to be women in a world where men get to decide what we want/need/ feel comfortable with.

Yes run off trifle because your New Speak nonsense doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

Caitlyn Jenner received the Woman of the year award a few months after "she" was involved in a road accident that ended the life of a biological woman, that always twists my gut.

Rachel Dolezal, where is her Black Woman of the year award?

Izzy you forgot Hysterical, we're all hysterical too.

Why are men never called hysterical?

Rachel Dolezal, where is her Black Woman of the year award?

Where indeed? As I recall she even did activism for the rights of black people, whereas I never heard of Jenner doing anything at all for women.

So, really, where is that award?

Why are men never called hysterical?

Because it is a misogynist term based on the Greek word for uterus. Because if men are angry, it is righteous, if women are angry it is because their uteruses wandered up to their brains and are causing irrational emotions.

That's why transwomen are the better women, they are never hysterical.

Tbf, I thougt Jenner's award was for "Transwomen of the year" or such.

Indeed Vestal, the only thing Caitlyn has done for women is to run one over.

I suppose transmen can be called hysterical? But then, most of them get hysterectomies ... that's why they are more important than us lowly females, you know?

I can't see a problem with men using the women's loos or vice versa if they are all cubicles, not urinals etc. Twenty years ago I worked in an office in London where all the loos were unisex - in each toilet area there were 4 cubicles and 2 handbasins. The cubicles had partitions that stopped about 6 inches form the floor and didn't go all the way to the ceiling. I did feel a bit weird at first that my make colleague in the next cubicle could hear me changing my tampon, but it soon felt ok.

Showers are a different matter. I use the showers at my current office (where there are separate male and female toilets as well) and there are three showers and a communal changing area. So we all tend to come out of the showers wrapped in a towel and then try to dry/dress discreetly in the communal area. I hate doing this in front of my female colleagues, there is no way I would do it in front of a male colleague even is she was transitioning to female! And I would complain to HR .

That's why transwomen are the better women, they are never hysterical

Thats because their uterus never strangles their brain.

Tbf, I thougt Jenner's award was for "Transwomen of the year" or such.

No, it was indeed "woman of the year", and one widower gave back his deceased wife's trophy, because his wife had actually done something important, and he didn't want that cheapened by the association with Jenner.

Izzy and Lumpy I've made it all up too. It must be a fictional office!

I'm shocked at how this thread has turned out. All the shouting of transphobe and bigot and not a serious answer from any of those posters to any of the real questions.

Hey, every cloud has a silver lining and all that ... after years of complaining that "hysterical" shouldn't be used because it was deeply misogynistic both in history and intent, looks like we might finally be able to get PC types to stop using it... because it's transphobic!

It is ridiculous. None of it stands up to the slightest scrutiny then the right ons flounce with insults when questioned. Politely I might add unlike the responses.

Twenty years ago I worked in an office in London where all the loos were unisex - in each toilet area there were 4 cubicles and 2 handbasins. The cubicles had partitions that stopped about 6 inches form the floor and didn't go all the way to the ceiling.

If there was no issue with men using these 6 inches from the floor or ceiling to hold a camera through, and if men didn't use any opportunity they can get women alone to sexually assuault us, I would not have a problem with it either. So yeah, I can imagine that in a nice office, with nice men, you'd not feel too weird about it.
But this place had only unisex loos. That's a decision one can make. What I don't get is why one would gender segregate loos instead of sex segregating them, effectively creating unisex loos but with two different rooms.

There's a transwoman in my place of work. I have no problem with her using the ladies toilets. However she uses the disabled ones. I was very surprised to see her coming out of them once day as I just assumed she would use the ladies.

I really cannot see the issue

Sex and gender are two separate things.

I understand the progressive impulse to defend trans rights. It seems like the right thing to do: defending a minority in an uncomfortable limbo. But when you conflate gender non-conformity with biological sex, you end up abusing the rights of women.

I'm all for gender non-conformity. I object to women's spaces being occupied by men.

Oh, I am totally for gender non-conformity!

I recently found this quote:

"If you really want to play with gender, particularly if you’re male, then the best way to do that – the most radical, revolutionary, genuinely non-masculine conforming thing you can do – has nothing to do with your dress or your hair or your makeup or your choice of pronouns.

As a male person, the most gender non-conforming thing you can do is to stop making demands of women – of their time, of their resources, of their domestic, emotional and sexual labour. You can stop calling your mother cis scum, and start helping her with the domestic chores. You can stop asking what feminism can do for you, and start asking what you can do to make the world a little more amenable to women.”