"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 point is that if a university is banning women from challenging a man who they feel IS up to no good in the toilets, the woman will have no recourse to security.l

Then students can always vote with their feet and refuse to consider the university.

As these places rely on fees then if they alienate half the people who view them I wonder how long they will survive.

I only know it became a consideration when a friend of DDS went round this particular university and DD was telling this friend of her experience there.

DD said she wouldn't work there again . in her words it was gross and embarrassing for everyone concerned.

100% of rapes are committed by men.
If there are no men in the women’s toilets, I can guarantee I won’t be raped.
(Ok a woman may have been convicted as part of a joint endeavour type thing so make that 99.999%. And she’ll still have needed a man there to do it).

you are getting your information from people who are not well educated and who just have massive amounts of hatred towards the world.

Read what TRAs are saying on other platforms, and then tell me to whom this statement truly applies.

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

If they are using the female toilets because they don’t feel safe in the male toilets, rather than because of personal preference, surely this university has a safety problem. How is it women taking away the right of TIMs to feel safe? If they are being forced into the female toilet because of safety concerns, there’s surely another group who are taking away their right to safety?

And why is taking away women’s right to safety the answer to TIMs’ need for safety?

Oh for actual fuck's sake.

There is No Hate Here About Trans People. This is Not About Fear Of Trans People.

This is about Self ID, the policy of which is an open charter for sexual offenders to take advantage. The statistics are bloody obvious that this is an offender group ready, willing and very happy to take advantage and that it will be bloody stupid to legally open this door because of sentimental 'aw bless' attitudes towards people with gender dysphoria.

The situation in law right now allows people to use the facilities of their chosen gender and a process by which to gain legal recognition of that gender, and allows women and girls protection to challenge and request removal of someone making them uncomfortable or intimidated. This is a reasonable balance. There is also absolutely grounds to consider additional gender neutral floor to ceiling/locked toilets being standard provision to the current standard nlmale/female provision so that no one has to enter a shared toilet where they feel unsafe. But self ID as a legal policy is bloody stupid.

I'll say that again, clearly. Not About Trans People. About Self ID Being A Bloody Stupid Legal Policy.

In agreement with above: if this is about the right of people to use toilets where they 'feel safe', then the obvious question is why is it ok for women not to feel safe but crucial that trans people feel safe?

And if the issue is 'safety' then where are the signs in the men's toilets explaining that men may dress any way they choose, it's illegal to threaten, harass or intimidate, and to let them get on with their day? Address the problem of male violence where it is. Don't spread and enable it.

I remember once when I was a young teen, being perved on by an abuser who was offering me a large amount of cash to go with him, I ran into the ladies loos in Leicester Square.
Imagine if he could have followed me there...

This sign is disgusting, totally aimed at women and telling them to shut up. Some things don't change do they?

yes why is women 'feeling safe' less important than transpeople feeling safe?
Can anyone answer that?

@Truscum

I am so sorry people like you are getting caught up in the cross-fire on this one, but thank you.

I know the 'right' answer Dull : choose from any one of the ones below (because I do actually go read these points of view, I have genuinely tried to understand)

• being trans is expressed as an intensely distressing and vulnerable position with intense risk
• women have 'privilege' and so in social justice terms it's right that they absorb disadvantage to the advantage of transwomen - positive discrimination to alleviate this perceived extreme distress and risk
• women's fears are based on irrational bias and prejudice and need to be 'educated'

Unfortunately all of the above doesn't stand up to actual fact, and is heavily predicated on normal every day misogyny. In essence: women aren't really deserving of being listened to or taken seriously, their concerns aren't the primary ones, and violence against women - well it's life, innit? And talking about it too much is not nice for men, excludes men, and nice women know their place and put men first. As expressed by Magggie above.

I've posted about this before.

When I was pregnant and going for scans and appointments, I was asked, every single time, to go into the ladies toilet after my scan and give a urine sample.

And one day I worked out why. It was so I would be in a cubicle with a big poster, telling me that if I was in danger or in an abusive relationship, there was something in that room would allow me to quietly alert the staff, who would then help me.

What if that can't happen now because men can just go into the toilet? And what if some abusive arse demands to accompany his wife because other men are in there? Because they will.

And what about the man I was at college with, who deliberately used to stand in the narrow corridor the toilets were in, in order to force women to squeeze by him? He would always say he was waiting for someone, but he wasn't. He did it too often and to too many women. We knew what he was doing. What if, instead of having to stay in the corridors, he could follow us into the toilet as well? He was over six foot tall with a beard and considered himself one of those "nice guys" in the "friend zone" and he used to draw cartoon pictures of girls in the class, usually with our breasts made bigger than our heads were.

I am gonna put a sharpie in my bag for next time I am in a uni (I go to many unis in the line of my work) in case I see a sign like this.

Sadly I would probably just scrawl 'fuck off' across it..I would be so incensed with rage.

Any other ideas?

I think some posters are being disingenuous here. The objections are NOT about trans people using ladies loos. This has happened for years with no problem- most women are pretty accepting . The concern is that non trans men can use self id rules to their advantage for nefarious reasons.

that's right halulat, 'old' transwomen have been using the ladies' loos for years without the need to stick up posters getting at women, have they not?

Flowers has it all so spot on. I would draw an arrow to that bit and start asking awkward questions about how dangerous the gents was, and what was being done about the safety of men in these apparent hotbeds of violence.

It's the men's toilet, not the bloody thunderdome, I'm sure male students can keep their apparently rampant transphobia under control long enough to let other people pee

Our university union have a notice on the female toilet door advising that gender neutral toilets are upstairs. I was pleased to see this.

I think I'm going to buy a roll of blank stickers and a sharpie, and keep some in my bag at all times.

I would take down that poster and place it in the bin, where it belongs.

I have nothing against Trans people but telling women to “shut up”?! They can all fuck right off.

I would take down that poster and wipe my fat ass with it.

Graffiti it. My Scottish University had a long and proud tradition of graffiti in the library toilets, women would ask each other questions and get answers. What a piece of nonsense.

That is appalling. Who is printing this vile rubbish?

Dull

Male identified males and trans identified males are simply going to piss all over the toilet seats and masturbate, just like they do in the men's toilets.
A simple and efficient way to drive women out of public spaces just as was so efficiently done in the past and is currently being done in other countries.

After a lifetime of being told the list of things women have to do to keep themselves safe from rape and assault by men we are now being told what women have to do to keep men safe from men.