"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?

The men “taking advantage” will probably not be transwomen but common or garden men.

No, the men “taking advantage” will probably be AGP men.

Where on earth does it say that if anyone acts inappropriately at any time of any gender, that you should put up with it??

It says that if you see a bloke walk into the ladies’, he is doing so because he is “using the facilities he feels safe in”. And if you challenge his ‘right’ to be there, you are taking his rights to pee safety away from him.

I’m sure you can see the potential for abuse by inappropriate men there. Come on.

Meanwhile, if you, a woman, don’t feel safe in a mixed-sex toilet? Well, shut up and get over yourself and don’t dare say so out loud.

It blows my mind that at the same time as Brock Turner, Harvey Weinstein, Ian Huntley saying he's a woman, Liam Madigan, the me too movement and parliament finally waking up to sexual harassment that people are still questioning if men would pretend to be women to access safe places.

OF COURSE THEY WOULD! There's a massive problem with men abusing women and the scale of it is becoming better understood all the time.
At this point in time why would we even take the risk of making women even more vulnerable?

Have they not been reading the news for the past year?! Why is this so hard for people to understand.
And breathe.

This is such bollocks. Men in frocks have been using women's facilities forever and as long as they are behaving themselves women have been tolerating this.
That sign makes it seem as though women are perpetually attacking/ staring at gender confused people in women's toilets! When has this ever happened?
I would like to know if there is the same sign on the men's. It would kind of make sense if it was directed at men regarding trans identifying females:
"Men, if you see a girl in here who is pretending she's a boy, leave her be."
Because it's not women who need to be told how to make other people feel safe!
Fucking cheek.

They are using the facilities they feel safe in

So, if any woman feels unsafe in her own women's facilities because someone clearly male uses it, well bugger it. Because women don't matter, obviously.

I would rip it down and every time it is replaced I would rip it down again.....and again.....

How hypocritical is that!

(To op - not rft sorry!)

I'm tempted to make some pleasantly-worded, passive aggressive posters to stick up on lampposts in towns and cities -

"Can you see a woman walking on her own?

Please don't

• stare at her
• challenge her
• insult her
• purposefully make her feel fucking terrified uncomfortable by shouting something about her breasts/general fuckability

• respect her privacy
• respect her right to actually be out in public
• carry on with your day

protect her from harm (no, that's pushing it too far)

That'll work, won't it?

windchimesabotage, i think you are purposeful missing the point.

If it were easy just to stop men acting inappropriately, we wouldn't have sex segregated loos in the first place.

Fucking hell. Yes HomeTerf. The safety of women and girls is just not a priority, is it?
I was ranting to dp about this whole thing, and he said quite angrily " but transwomen get beaten up all the time, surely it's better that they can use the toilets they feel safe in"?
I said " girls get harrassed, followed, threatened and intimidated all the time. Where's the outrage about that? Or is that just par for the course for us?"
We have to just accept we are not safe, but it's our responsibility to ensure the safety of men? Why?!

It took a few decades, but universities are, once again, being claimed by men, for all men and their fetishes.

Can you check the male toilets to see if the same sign is up there? If not, then challenge it.
Challenge it anyway, on the basis of women's safety.

The whole minding their own business is incredibly naive.

I don't object to genuine transgender people using whatever loo they want when they need to pee. This isn't about them.

This is about the kind of perv whom we've almost all encountered- the flasher outside the school, the wanker on the tube, the drunk asshole who follows you home - now realising they'll be able to hang around in women's toilets.

They might not do anything either. They'll be just waiting by the sinks listening to women pee and getting off on the fact that they know their presence is making women and girls nervous.

There might be nothing obvious to challenge other than some leering which they'll deny and pretend they're the injured party.

This gives a green light to every single creep who gets a rush out of making women uncomfortable.

It also doesnt make much difference to those trans people who have been quietly using the loos for years anyway.

No man or transwoman has ever abused their access to spaces where women and girls are vulnerable. You’re all just hysterical prudes and bigots.

Pub toilets also have notices about what to do if you are being harassed - what to say to the people at the bar, how to ask them to order a taxi, how to indicate you are in trouble.

Toilets in many places are a place of refuge for women. The one place you can go to get away from men if you are frightened.

@HermioneWeasley

No man or transwoman has ever abused their access to spaces where women and girls are vulnerable.

What is the source for this sweeping generalisation?

bizzle i was being sarcastic. The photos I uploaded require eye bleach.

Ah, sense of humour and reading skills fail!

I guess it was that I have got used to seeing such daft statements meant seriously

Hermione indeed, that pic is fake news.

Fake fake fake

Mmmm hmmmm.

Women should never be told that they should ignore their discomfort with male bodied individuals no matter how much of the TRA ideology you've swallowed. For a university to endorse the idea that women and girls should ignore their instincts out of politeness, especially in situations where they might be particularly vulnerable, is so fucking irresponsible it's unreal.

They are using the facilities they feel safe in

Then I shall be using the facilities that I feel safe in.

These will be the men's on the basis that the men in the men's toilets will definitely not be intending to cause any harm to women.

I have no way of being sure about the men using the ladies.

There is a line where men can be creepy / weird / unsettling / upsetting without actually doing anything illegal.

It's not illegal to talk to someone, to smile at them, to stand near them, to stare at them etc etc etc

There is a range of behaviours that men can indulge in that do impact on women's sense of comfort, safety and security but that if you told anyone it's difficult to quantify and definitely not illegal. "He was just being creepy" >> are you sure you weren't imagining it? he wasn't doing any harm etc etc etc...

TheGoldenBough this is true and it's why if this is the road we MUST go down that I'd just like to go mixed full stop, as creepy men don't tend to operate when there are other men around

(Hence men being unaware of the frequency and nature of harassment that women get - they literally don't see it - and then many find it unbelievable because they haven't seen it

I am six foot two, and was born female (and still identify as female). I don't think I've ever felt worried that a petite lady using the same toilet as me may be frightened by me. But thanks for suggesting that may be an issue. Please stop posting these vile threads.

Who has suggested that women may be frightened by other women? This is about men using the women's toilets.