"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?

I'm not going to waste any more time looking at this post, but please please think, just for a second, about the hate you're spewing into the world, and the assumptions you're making about people who you've never even met.

2nd rule of misogyny: Women saying no to men is a violent hate crime.

I think that the question needs to be asked in some public way: if the men's toilets make TIM feel so unsafe, what is being done to combat the obvious issue they have with violent, transphobic men on campus.

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.

Exactly this.

Why has this even become such a big song and a dance lately? I have no problem with trans people in the slightest and if I saw someone "non female born" or whatever in the loos presenting as female I wouldn't bat an eyelid. But signs like this, and literature like those bloody swimming policies are basically saying if you want to switch gender willy-nilly go for it! And don't bother putting in effort. Just go with your feelz and we will protect you with rules.

Utter madness.

Wait, why is it the job of the reader (presumably a woman, they never put these kinds of signs up in men's toilets) to protect randoms she encounters when going for a pee?

Why has this even become such a big song and a dance lately?
The revision under consideration of the Gender Recognition Act to include Self ID.

There are aspects of this poster I dislike (I agree it isn't the peeing person's job to 'protect' that complete randomer) but the kind of people it will help most in our present culture are people like my gnc daughter who has been directly challenged a few times and stared at many times in the ladies loos. It makes her feel incredibly uncomfortable. People honestly hardly ever look past the clothes and hair.

I dunno why but from time to time I think of the womens toilets in certain places (not saying as do not want to out - so please do not say if you know) - that have information on the backs of the doors for trafficked women in every language.

How long will it be before those signs are challenged as offensive because they imply lack of support for the sex industry? The people who hate "TERFS" usually hate "SWERFS" too.

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.

This.

Or they could just put up a sign in the men’s saying do not harrase or beat up anyone no matter how they present. Oh no wait, men can’t be relied upon to behave so let’s move the problem over to the ladies. If they don’t do what we say there will be trouble.

People honestly hardly ever look past the clothes and hair.
I would imagine that the staring is because the women are trying to see past the clothes and hair.

I was in Glasgow School of Art students union with my young daughter recently and someone had taped to the toilet doors over the M/F signs: Toilets with urinals and toilets without urinals (sadly didn’t get a photo) - I think that was my peak trans moment. The signs have since gone.

Sarah, I'm sorry about your daughter. But she is perhaps being mistaken for a transidentified man? If we were all confident that ONLY women and girls would be in the ladies toilets, then we could all assume your daughter was a girl whatever her hair and clothes looked like.

I did a double take at a particularly masculine looking person in a suit in a ladies loo recently. The extra look established quickly that the person was indeed a she so I thought no more about it until now.
The instinctive extra look was to answer the question “am I in a toilet with a man” which flashed into my brain. I am guessing in the future this won’t even be worth thinking about as the answer is likely to be “yes”.

How about replacing the words them/they/their with women and women's ?

Then the sign would be entirely reasonable.

Fish Fingers - how do you tell which women are rapists and which aren't?

Women can't be rapists. You need a penis for that, and no matter how many people say otherwise, the ones with penises are men.

People assume my daughter has gone in the wrong toilet by mistake.

That is also what they tell her. And when she is with me, they assume I've brought my young teen son into the toilets with me and think it's wrong. In my area it just doesn't occur to most people that anyone would be trans or GNC. While I battle to keep her GNC instead of trans it really doesn't help.

This was posted on my Facebook page last week 😡. As a mum with 5 daughters things like this worry me.

The creators of the Poster have a Facebook page which is open to questions, anyone want to join me in trying to discuss this with them ?

www.facebook.com/ARU.TRANS.VISIBILITY/

someone had taped to the toilet doors over the M/F signs: Toilets with urinals and toilets without urinals

It is against workplace health and safety regulations to designate toilets with cubicals unisex. They must be self contained rooms with sink etc in order to be unisex.

If this happens in your workplace you can complain.

Public institutions such as universities also need to complete an impact assessment if they are planning changes like this and must consider the impact on all protected groups including women.

Name thanks for that info.

I really don’t think many people know this and we need to make everyone aware of the Law so they don’t blindly accept this rubbish!

Definitely Lizzie.

Here is the relevant bit of the regulations, see 2c.
www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/toilets.htm

Please, please challenge using this if it happens at your workplace. I have and it worked.

Unfortunately it only applies to workplaces and not public conveniences.

Thanks Name

So this is the relevant and important bit

separate rooms containing conveniences are provided for men and women except where and so far as each convenience is in a separate room the door of which is capable of being secured from inside.

So, if you are Self IDing as a woman, you shouldn’t by law be using women’s toliets as you are legally “a man”?

Sarah getting society over gender stereotypes would help hugely with relieving the pressure on young teenagers struggling with dysphoria and keeping it at gnc/ social transition as much as is possible is by far the most protective and safest thing to do.

What do you think would help your child and others in that position? What could be done? I have worked many times with children and young people with disabilities who move or physically present in unusual ways and deal with this, and sometimes teaching them a phrase or script to say when stared at or challenged has helped them feel more prepared and confident.

There need to be ways to help your daughter and transmen feel safe (and transwomen to feel safe in men's bathrooms) without a ridiculous piece of badly thought out legislation (with a heavy, hidden agenda not about trans people at all) that just lets any bloke with a sex offending history crack on with a whole new pool of victims and legally downgrades women to subhuman. We have to be capable of coming up with more nuanced, sophisticated answers to the challenges of people who suffer with gender dysphoria than this.

No, the regulations only go as far as to state that separate conveniences must be provided for men and women. They don’t cover who can use them.

There is no law that prevents men from using women’s toilets as far as I know.

The relevant case law that I know about:
www.lawcentres.org.uk/policy/news/news/kirklees-law-centre-wins-landmark-transgender-discrimination-case

This case concerned a post-op transsexual who had lived as a woman for 20 years or so, who won the case re using woman’s toilet.

This is the case law cited by the Scottish schools guidelines in order to argue that trans people should be allowed to use the toilets if their choice.

HOWEVER

There is another case, Croft v Royal Mail which found that a man who had not undergone surgical transition was no discriminated against by being asked to used the disabled facilities.
www.elliswhittam.com/transgender-toilet-facilities-regulations

not discriminated against. Sorry on phone.