"Wrong bathroom" sign in university toilet

[PinkChestnut]

I peak transed a while ago, but then have leveled out recently and taken the live and let live approach in my thinking.

However this sign in a Scottish university bathroom, designed by transpeople, bothers me.

"they are using the facilities they feel safe in - please do not take that right away from them"

So if there's a petite young woman in the toilets beside a 6'3 muscular male appearanced person and she feels uncomfortable, where does she go to feel safe? The disabled toilet?

Also "don't challenge them" sounds wrong to me. Like they're untouchable. What if they're acting inappropriate?

Of course garden. I don't agree with you, therefore I must be male. I thought FWR had grown out of throwing up male/MRA/hand maiden labels at posters who don't agree with them?

What law says men can't go into women's toilets Garden?

Kneedeep - yy, your post sets out really clearly why shrugging and saying "well, the police can get involved in any criminal activity" is so far short of sufficient it would be risible if it weren't actually happening

What law says men can't go into women's toilets Garden?

As mentioned previously, see Croft v Royal Mail.

t.co/Mkqf0AMXn9

What law says men can't go into women's toilets Garden?

Plus of course, if on private property (eg. a shopping centre) the shopping centre is within its rights to enforce the restriction - ie. security can chuck them out.

Croft v Royal mail was an employment dispute.

The respondent told C that if she insisted on using the female toilets she would be suspended for insubordination

No threats of the police being called, no threat of civil action, no mention of it being against any law. Simply, C would be suspended for insubordination.

If anyone can provide any law/act/statute which shows it's illegal (Not against a company policy etc) for a male to use a female toilet, I'll admit I'm wrong and will offer a grovelling apology to Garden.

Or better still, since Garden made the claim, she'll easily be able to back it up.

It's not illegal for a man to go into the Ladies, I'm sure.

I've seen men in there - when they've asked and women have said OK - to change babies when there's not a changing thing in the gents, of course boys including sometimes older boys are in there with their mums, and of course in the past old style TIMs who were a. trying to pass very hard and b. very few and far between.

It's illegal for them to go in there and then do something illegal obv.

The difficulty is twofold:

Previously, we could turn a blind eye but if someone was iffy, then you could challenge them, ask them to leave, go and get security if in a shopping centre etc. This "iffyness" could be on the right side of the law - hanging around, staring, approaching women and girls, talking to them, standing too close, all of the sort of stuff that creepy men do that is not illegal. Before, the fact it was a man meant that we had some power to get him to leave because by very well embedded social convention he was not supposed to be here. Now that is removed, and we can only act when they do something illegal, and there is a lot of stuff they can do before they break the law.

On Harvey Weinstein, I don't understand why it would be illegal for a man to ask a woman watch him shower, but not a woman. Where are you getting this stuff? Generally I don't think it's illegal for a person to ask you something, even if it is a creepy something. For an employer to do this to a subordinate might be (should be) an issue for the company to deal with if raised, but I don't think there's any difference on sex configuration, man/man, man/woman, woman/man, woman/woman, it's always creepy to ask someone (espeically somene much younger and better looking over whom you have power) to ask them to watch you shower.

Maybe women should start pissing on the floor outside the loos in full view of everyone with a sign saying 'Please do not challenge me or insult me, I am using the only space left I feel safe in.'

This

"Toilets with urinals and toilets without urinals"

The Brabican changed their signs to "toilets with urinals" and "toilets with cubicals" with the result that the women all used the second lot and the men used both, resulting in even bigger queues in the ladies.

They changed them back.

The issue I saw with this is that many men only use a cubicle if they want a shit, and anecdotally (and the anecdata is a massive!) many men take a long time to take a crap. Like, a really long time. Our queues are big enough already without sending all the shitting men to us. And what about teh environment? It could get quite, erm, close, if we've got everyone who needs a crap in our loos, and we can't get a quick in and out due to queues, tampons etc. It's just a bit, eurgh.

Plus there are the gleeful shitters. How many men have you come across who enjoy a gleeful shit on comapny time to stick it to "the man"? Men are funny about crapping (generalisation), some can't go when not at home, most seem to take fucking ages, some seem to see crapping in certain places as an "up yours" to someone else. Some fetishise it on weird porn (women crapping). For women it seems much more, nip in nip out job done no fuss.

I anticipate some men gleefully crapping in the women's, taking enjoyment out of taking up space for ages, stinking the place out. I can well easily imagine that.

barbican

The same pool the school take vulnerable pupils with additional needs for their lessons. And we have had issues with men timing their showers with pupils' and spending a bit too much time hanging around.

I grew up (ages 6-11ish) near a big water park with a waterslides. You were supposed to wait a couple of seconds before taking your turn because otherwise you'd end up right up against the bottom of the person in front of you all the way down.
I hated it when someone didn't wait and I got a stranger jammed up behind me on the slide.
It was always men who didn't and I remember being particularly annoyed because I thought they should be old enough to be polite and know the rules.

It was only a couple of years ago that I remembered that and adult-me had bleurgh moment.

These kinds of guys are always around and purposely 'innocently' showering at the same time or 'getting the timing wrong' at water parks. They'll also be the ones 'accidentally' pushing open toilet doors because 'they thought it was empty' etc etc etc.
There is a reason single-sex toilet and change provisions are in place for girls and women.

I was there recently and there was a gents and a ladies.

The queues were as usual ie none for the gents and out the door, up the stairs and across the landing for the women.

The Barbican was built relatively recently, you'd think they'd have got the bogs a bit better proportioned to serve their female audiences. Just shows I suppose how our needs are not a priority - we are supposed to accept it, be polite, queue nicely. We are always expected to accept things and be nice. It's tiresome. Older women and pregnant women are two groups who often can't wait very well, and this can restrict what they do. If they want to be inclusive how about starting with reducing the queues for the ladies and making it more inclusive for the large number of women with urgency / mild incontinence issues?

It's not a law, it's a long standing social convention that women's toilets are for women and men's toilets are for men. Hence the signs up warning users that there is an attendant of the other sex in the toilets, for example.

Maybe there should be a law? Maybe we need to lobby for sex segregated spaces to be protected by law, given that the current patch work of work (and school) regulations plus social conventions aren't sufficient any more.

Maybe what this trans thing is highlighting, and the reason women seem "hung up" on the toilets thing, is that our facilities are often already not adequate, and we have a lot of unresolved annoyance about that, and the idea of letting even more people in has pushed us over the edge

not really snibble, it's more about women's toilets and changing rooms being 'safe spaces' (eg penis free zones) for women.

Has anyone else noticed that as the demand for 'safe spaces' in universities rises, where people can go and not hear anything they don't agree with (eg that people with penises are men), women's real safe spaces are being eroded.

Wtf is that about?

I'm amazed that seemingly intelligent posters, I say intelligent as they can operate a pc, tablet, phone whatever, can't see that one of the problems is, currently we can challenge a man in the ladies, either forcefully, or in the usual female ingrained apologetic way of "sorry, pal, youve mis-read the sign the gents is that way", or even shout if we feel threatened. Self id and the screeching TRA narrative f "you're LITERALLY violating me by calling me a man" will take that away as it could be classed as harassment. So some women will just out up.

I say some women, I on the other hand will ensure 100% that a man in the ladies feels as welcome as a fart in a lift. I've had enough.

Well, as I've said before, I'll be using the men's facilities because the men who are choosing to avoid the women's will definitely be the ones who don't wish me harm.

I won't be able to be sure about the men in the 'Ladies'.

I'll just have to hope that the men using the women's are the same ones who piss all over the floor and don't wash their hands too.

Except a male entering a women's toilet is an offence grin

No it's not.

Rather than just guessing, why don't you use Google. There's a world of information at your finger tips. It might be prudent to double check before coming across as a bit of a tit on the internet

Watching people thoroughly enjoy what they fondly imagine is a gotcha moment at women's expense, is just more of the same boundary violations that misogynists love dreaming up.

It makes for rather unpleasant reading.

And, ironically just ends up proving women's point, over and over.

To be quite frank I dont care whether what I say is based on 'truth' or not. Its how I feel on the matter based on my lived experience

The irony metre is about to explode....

You've probably more in common with trans females than anyone else on this thread.

I am enjoying my Sunday and certainly wont be justifying my opinions with 'facts and evidence' to anyone

Yeah fuck it. Claim stuff is illegal despite these laws not existing any where but in your head. Who needs facts or evidence when it's about the "feelz." Now where have I heard that before?

Garden you're guessing and making things up.

It is not illegal (in the UK) for one adult to say to another adult, do you want to watch me shower.

If there is an employment relationship, then many companies would take a dim view I'm sure, that is different to it being "against the law" though.

Do you really think it's illegal for one adult to ask another adult if they want to watch them shower?

There are laws around harassment, fearing for life, threats etc which could I suppose be pressed into use but that would need a bit more than "do you want to watch me shower".

How have you got through life thinking there are laws against people talking to each other which is what it boils down to?

It's not helpful to post things that are untrue on threads like this - that it's illegal to go into a wrong sex toilet, that it's illegal to ask someone if they want to watch you shower.

Also note that Weinstein has been accused of rape by multiple women and AFAIK has not been arrested.

If there's a criminal offence (exposure/voyeurism etc) then the police can deal with it regardless of it being committed by a woman/man/trans individual. If someone was filming over or under a cubicle door then that person could be arrested regardless of how they identify

So no attempt at prevention then? You don't care if women and girls are flashed at or assaulted or anything else, because the police can deal with it afterwards?

But Garden is talking rubbish.

Are we supposed to support those on "our" side even if they are talking rubbish and dismiss those we imagine are not on "our" side even if the evidence for them being not on "our" side is a bit sparse?

"I am enjoying my Sunday and certainly wont be justifying my opinions with 'facts and evidence' to anyone.

To be quite frank I dont care whether what I say is based on 'truth' or not. Its how I feel on the matter based on my lived experience. "

??? I mean come on.