Which women-only spaces do you use, and how would their removal affect you?

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I am new to this. I’m struggling to think of any, personally.

At the swimming pool, I use communal showers with my costume on, then change in a cubicle. At the gym, I tend to just walk home in my sweaty clothes rather than use the communal shower/changing area - I’d love for cubicles to be put in and change in the toilets if I have to. I used to change in changing rooms at an old gym but felt uncomfortable.

I don’t use the women-only slot at the doctors or the pool (though would if the timing suited me better). I have private healthcare so had a private room last time I had an operation; prior to that I’ve had an uneventful stay in a mixed ward (with the exception of a children’s ward with a violent eight year old boy). I’ve never been in prison. Some of my gym classes tend to be women only, but men can, and sometimes do join. I’ve been in a book club with mostly women and one man. My doctors are male, including a gynaecologist. Didn’t go to boarding school; did stay in an allocated all-girls room on school trips, but an allocated mixed room on uni trips.

I do use women’s toilets but have no issue with using gender neutral ones and prefer cubicles with their own mirror and sink. At hostels I’ve always paid for private rooms because I wouldn’t want to share with men or women (and if it came to it, would choose whichever was quietest/emptiest).

Am I missing anywhere?

@Hairy

A few years ago I saw a discussion about just that in relation to public bathhouses in Japan (note, a culture more tolerant of same sex nudity and even mixed sex nudity at many hot springs, so the usual omg prudish never nude Brits why can't we all be like the Swedes argument doesn't apply) and the general consensus was that the absolute maximum age at which it was OK for a boy to be in the women's baths with his mum was 8, and that in many cases even that was too old. How in the hell do you justify taking 12 year olds in with you?

She had one son who clearly had SN (and I had no issue with him being there at all) but in some weird mixed up thought process seemed to have decided that justified bringing the other two into the changing room too.

I had an abortion at age 17, and after leaving the clinic, I ended up in a public toilet with copious bleeding. I did my best to clean myself up, weeping the entire time. At the sinks, wet with tears, I had to scrub blood of my hands, while weeping, and from my face where I’d inadvertently smeared blood. Women there helped me. I can’t imagine going through that experience with males walking in and out, even if the cubicles were locked and built floor-to-ceiling. A friend of mine miscarried in the toilet at work. You can imagine her state of mind and body. Now imagine if a few of her male coworkers were present, simply because they identified as women that day? (Yes, some TIMs switch back and forth.)

My friends and I found a girl bleeding badly on the floor in the womens toilet. She had had an abortion. We had to physically keep out male rubberneckers who wanted to come in and have a gawp. We could do that back then, because womens toilets were for people with womens biology!!

I highly value privacy regardless of the sex of others present so I wouldn’t use a communal changing room or hostel dorm for example regardless of it being male/female/unisex.

Statistically I know that men are more likely to commit violent crimes so I know I’m at much higher risk of being assaulted when I’m alone with a male. For this reason I don’t let male workers eg tradespeople into my home without having someone else present.

I hear you on the tradespeople. Sometimes there isn't much option (for example if you have a landlord and that's who they've sent), but I'm not happy about it.

One of them announced what he wanted in his tea once, without my having offered to make him any. Not a cafe, mate.

Once you take public toilets away, the rest doesn't really matter, does it, because you can't go out unless you know you will be somewhere which has a single cubicle? Or you resign yourself to spending a fortune on awful coffee and using a starbucks single unit, every time.

Unisex loos either have you trapped in an enclosed space with men way before you can reach the cubicle, or even if they are open corridors, perverts men leave the bloody cubicle doors open. Nope either to assault or being flashed at, thanks.

Single sex changing area at pool (much more comfortable when you're trying to change yourself and a toddler and the towel slips)

Toilets

Ward in hospital - would hate if there were mixed wards when recovering from surgery etc.

Mixed wards are an assault on basic human dignity, imo.

I am really uncomfortable with mixed sex public toilets because I am scared of being filmed. I know this happens, more than you might think. I have been to a few places recently that had unisex toilets. They were cubicles with a shared sink area. I did use them but didn't like it. And everyone, male and female, looked very awkward at the sink area.
My male dp won't use the toilets at work when the female cleaner is in there. He doesn't feel comfortable with that. And before I became a sahm I didn't use the toilets at work when the male cleaner was in there. Even though I knew him and got on well with him, I had no fear of him, I just didn't want to go to the toilet while he was there. In the same way my dp is not afraid of the woman cleaner. He just doesn't want to use the toilet while she's there. And I think that's fair enough.

As for hostels, there is no way I would stay overnight in a mixed sex room sharing with strangers. I have done this once but the room was fully taken up by the group of friends I was travelling with. I certainly wouldn't do it alone. I don't think I'd be able to sleep. And I'm not scared of men. I have been raped and assaulted but I am not scared to be in the company of men in most situations.

Hospitals is a big one. I never understood the need for single sex wards before...I couldn't see it. Two things changed my mind.

1. A very close family member, who was sexually abused in childhood, and as an adult, had told me before she would not stay in a mixed sex ward. I thought, it's just a hospital, full of sick people. What's the big deal? (I was a lot younger then). She is in no way a feminist and I doubt she knows much about the current trans debate. After she unsuccessfully attempted suicide I went with her to hospital. The only bed available was on a mixed sex ward. When she realised there were men there, she went out of her mind. Screaming, crying, begging to go home. They discharged her early in the end. After seeing that I understood a lot more why it was so important.

1. Giving birth. When I had my baby I was kept in overnight. All the husbands and partner's stayed too, including my own. We just did it because everyone else was. I felt bad he had no bed so gave him mine for a bit when I was in no real state to do so. That was one negative...my choice to do that and that's just personal but had he not been there I wouldn't have felt obliged. Far worse was the very noisy man behind the curtain next to me. He spent the whole 24 hours talking at the top of his lungs it seemed like. It was awful.

All my smears so far have been carried out by women. I wouldn't object to a man doing it but I do prefer that I have always had women. My stitches were sewn up by a man after I gave birth. I didn't mind that.

But it isn't about me really. It's about all women and girls. And would I be happy following creepy Joe into a mixed sex toilet in a quiet area? No I wouldn't. Would I want my dd using one alone? No. I don't do sports, but the idea that a male bodied person can compete against women makes me feel outraged.

Fuck, I’d forgotten about youth hostels.

Doesn’t bare thinking about.

This has got me thinking. I grew up in Sweden, which is less sex-segregated than the UK, so I find myself not being overly concerned by having a male gynaecologist, for example. I feel quite safe in the assumption that they can be professional, but would obviously react vigorously if any creepiness occurred.

Mixed changing rooms? Er, no thanks. You need to do stuff there that requires an all-female environment. My periods were always heavy, for example. On-the-fly hand-washing may need to happen, and toilet cubicles don't always have sinks. Very awkward.

I am also very aware of how common a fetish for dressing in women's clothing is for straight British men (much more so than in Sweden - no idea why). I have found it quite amusing at times, but in the context of self-ID, it stops being funny very quickly. The whole 'turned on by doing girly things' thing does not belong in women's changing rooms. Noooope.

Obviously any front-line services where sex-based trauma and/or violence is prevalent need to have women-only spaces. This should be obvious at the most superficial inspection, whether one has experienced them or not.

Hospitals. Same as fitting/changing rooms. Not mixed, please.

Fully dressed dormitory-style mixed situations on trains, boats etc. are at best weird, never relaxing.

Don't know what my finished thinking is here, but it's got something to do with safeguards and spaces where one needs to - and should be able to - let the guard down.

Because of course there is a guard.