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.

[mycatwantstokillme1]

WInchesterWoman:

Do rape victims also need to get over it when their counsellor is a man? Of course they don't want a man, and they've been assured they're not a man, they're a woman, and they have there being talked to by an individual with a penis about their violation.

How do you know when I was a rape victim I didn't want a male counsellor? In the last 10 years I had both male and female therapists, both were excellent.

When I reported to the police the female OIC was biased against my ex and felt sorry for him. She told someone she thought he was a 'player, not a rapist' and told me when he wasn't being charged that all he wanted to know was if he could call me now because he just wanted to apologise.

Another female Officer was full of empathy. The nicest officer I ever spoke to was a 60+ white man.

Who are you to presume what a rape victim needs? Some will only want to speak to a woman, have a woman SOIT etc. I just wanted someone who was going get enough evidence to charge the bastard. That didn't happen for me and in my fight for justice I came up against a lot of women in authority who didn't want to know. So forgive me for not caring if a trans woman wants to use the cubicle next to me at work, I'm more interested in getting justice for women who don't have other women supporting them.

[Lorelei76]

Hey user goady fucker some of us women take pride in our strong shoulders

Re the hotel room thing, I think it's shocking that work places get away with asking anyone to share rooms but interestingly I have a gay friend who is the only person at his company who is never asked to share because they feel uncomfortable putting him with a man or a woman. Interesting especially in this context and as he often says, he'd take it as an insult if he wasn't so pleased to get his own room.

[MaudGonneMad]

Your posts are repellant user1471734618

[HermioneWeasley]

Welcome back mycat

Can I add another question to my list for you - if a woman who has been raped does want woman only space and counsellors (which is not uncommon) do you think they are bigots if they don't want TW in their space/ as their counsellors?

[QueenSpartacusOfTheAndals]

What sort of person, who when told they can't be a rape counsellor because the victims would feel uncomfortable, actually insists on pursuing it and taking legal action? They'd have to be pretty entitled and unempathetic.

[KateSMumsnet]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for all your reports - we've just removed a few posts that were deliberately inflammatory.

[mycatwantstokillme1]

Hermoine I haven't seen a list of your questions? TO answer this one, no I don't think they're bigots and I've not called anyone on here a bigot. I'm trying to say that if someone wants to identify as the opposite sex to the one they were born with, be that male or female what difference does it make what toilet they use which is the OP's question? I was just responding to WW assuming I didn't want a male counsellor when I needed one in that situation.

I can't see an issue with the toilets. We go in there to empty our bladder or our bowel, and Ican't imagine how hard it is coming out as trans, so I don't think when they use a toilet they're doing it to piss us off, male or female.

[HairyLittlePoet]

lineyreborn
jeremy Corbyn's answer on the question "can a penis be female" may be just a teeensy bit influenced by the fact that it was a MTT TRANSGENDER JUDGE who granted Jeremy the legal right to stand for Labour leadership in July this year.

Just sayin.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/20/jeremy-corbyn-wins-right-to-be-defendant-in-leadership-court-case

[HermioneWeasley]

queen a despicable narcissitic misogynist, that's who. Even the judge said that Nixon's motivation to "volunteer" was to validate Nixon's gender identity, not the help vulnerable women.

[HermioneWeasley]

No problem mycat - some questions based on your previous posts

if trans women are women:

1. how would you define "woman" (please no circular references such as "anyone who identifies as a woman"
   
2. what does the "trans" bit mean
   
3. are women Transwomen

[HermioneWeasley]

And mycat a gift for you, as a gesture of goodwill

[WinchesterWoman]

Mycat: If a rape victim wants a male counsellor, that can be requested. If a rape victim wants a female counsellor, that cannot be requested.

That's fair right? Oh - wait…

[IBelieveTheEarthIsFlat]

mycat
So what about MTT access to female changing rooms in schools, which is happening now in the US. Would you be happy with that?

[PinkyOfPie]

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.

Oh Trifle DFOD with your gaslighting misogyny. Do you realise your attitude of "wow what a drama queen go to the doctors cos you have a mental disorder" is what has kept women oppressed in many areas for centuries.

[Bambambini]

Lorelei76

Bam "they think and feel like women - therefore they already and always have been women"

What does this mean please?

Is that not the thinking behind trans thinking? That It's their inner self - biology is unimportant, they were born female?

[WinchesterWoman]

Bambini - the question is - what then does being a woman mean?

[MammyPlum]

This thread really does make me despair. That in this day & age, on a site set up for women to support each other, that women can be so judgemental of the feelings/experiences of each other. Never mind completely dismissive of well reasoned arguments.

I'm shocked that the mother of a young daughter would be unconcerned (other than 'the conversation') at her sharing a changing space with 3 biological males. How exactly would that conversation go? Telling her some women have penises? Denouncing biology & feeding sexist stereotypes as the truth? Then what for lesson 2? The earth was created in 7 days & there's no such thing as dinosaurs?

Then what about when said 5yo is a 15yo who hasn't been taught that undressing in an enclosed space with 3 biological males (hell she won't even know what they are) is a potentially dangerous situation?

Attacks on women increased by 10% in England & Wales last year. Male violence isn't going anywhere, it isn't improving. Not that we'll have the ability to measure or define that in the future if things keep going this way.

So we'll be forced to pretend the problem has gone away. But we'll know it hasn't. But we've lost our ability to name the problem, the language to define it, the tools to fight it, to keep our daughters safe.

It's not just a toilet, it's incredibly naive & shortsighted to suggest it is. These things don't happen in a vacuum, laws are being changed, policies put in place, this is the start of a long road that we're all going down.

Women's rights are needed. They are important & should be protected so that our daughters don't have to keep fighting this fight. It's not unreasonable, it's essential.

Good luck to the OP, I don't fancy your chances much but I would want my complaint to be noted.

[mycatwantstokillme1]

WW, you can request a female counsellor - who says you can't?

Hermoine, love the book, thank you! To answer your questions -

I can only imagine how it must feel to be trapped in the wrong body. Some people can afford to have full surgery, or are prepared to wait may years for treatment. Some don't, for whatever their reasons. But if they want to be recognised as either male or female without going through the surgery, for me that's fine. I know you didnt want me to us the whoever identifies as, but to me there's the biological differences of the penis and the vagina but to me it's what's in your head that's the most important. If you feel you've got one when you should have the other as you want to live as the opposite sex without having an op that's okay with me.

I know this might sound simplistic and idealistic but I really don't understand why there's this issue with the toilets. Someone else said I was putting men's feelings above women's, but it if were a woman who felt she had been born a man I'd be supportive of them using the men's and not the women's.

My son has aspergers and problems with his motor skills and as a single mum when he was younger and we were out he would come into the women's toilets with me. I'm talking up until about 7 or 8 and the looks other women gave us really pissed me off. I genuinely don't care who's queuing up in the public toilet next to me so long as they leave the seat free from wee.

[WinchesterWoman]

Mycat: That female counsellor may be a man (transwoman). If you complain you're transphobic apparently. Then what?

[IBelieveTheEarthIsFlat]

Mycat

Again, are you happy for you daughter be made to undress in from of MTT, and them undress in front of her in female locker rooms at school, as is being mandated now in the US

[mycatwantstokillme1]

Ibelieve:

I'm happy with communal changing areas everywhere, if people want mens and womens separatly that's fine. A trans person should also be able to have the choice which one they go in whether they've had surgery or not in my opinion. That includes in schools for me as well.

[HermioneWeasley]

Thanks for replying mycat. So "woman" is a feeling in someone's head? I have to disagree with that, and I think it's pretty misogynistic. Being a woman is a biological lived reality. Our biology (the fact we're smaller, weaker, bear children and bleed) is the very root of our oppression. If we say "woman" is a feeling, you deny all of that.

When you say "trapped in the wrong body" do you think there are female souls that get into male bodies? What is it that is "trapped"?

[VestalVirgin]

And isn't there a big fuss made periodically on MN re the appropriate age for a male child to no longer change with his mother in the female changing room but move to the men's? But we are expected to accept trans males of any age with dick because they demand it? Fucking horseshit

I have heard this same shit in a discussion about women's shelters. Boys over 15 or so aren't allowed to stay with their mothers (not sure what the cutoff age is), which unlike changing rooms rules, where they'd just have to send the boys to the men's room, really prevents women from fleeing abusive husbands if they have older sons.

Now, this is all nice and good and I think that traumatized women have a right to not have to share a house with adult males. BUT people who had no problem with the boys not being allowed to stay rule advocated for transwomen to be allowed to share a fucking ROOM with a woman.

I don't believe teenage boys are harmless, not at all. But I also get that their mothers don't want them to have to stay in a place for homeless men, or whatever. Whereas there is no fucking reason why an adult male, who could just go elsewhere, because he's a fucking adult, should be allowed to re-traumatize women who have been through domestic violence by the hands of males.

But of course, rape victims who don't want to share a room with someone with a penis are "transprobic" and should just "get over it."

I cannot eat as much as I want to vomit.

[HermioneWeasley]

mycat you can't see any problem with men having access to spaces where women are undressed?

You are perfectly happy to get naked in front of strange men?

[WinchesterWoman]

I cannot eat as much as I want to vomit.


Utterly disgusting but fucking pithy Vestal. I know exactly what you mean.