What do you use the womens’ toilets for?

[FancyRibbon]

Inspired by recent posts on the Radio 4 thread.
I realised that the whole ‘Why do you even care who is pissing in the cubicle next to you?’ argument against single sex toilets underestimates how I think many women actually do use/need the ladies’.

It’s not just about the cubicle being private to you as an individual woman (though this is really important), it’s also about knowing there is a door behind which there is a women-only space that can be really important. Some of that is specifically about it NOT being a male space.

So eg what I use the women’s toilets for is:

• pissing, crapping, dealing with periods, POAS
• a place to cry especially at work when you don’t want anyone else to see
• a place to go and just sit and feel exhausted because your baby is not sleeping and you’re back at work

-as above washing and drying breastmilk leaks on clothes which involving standing about with some stuff off

• a place to sort out falling down tights and gappy shirts, -against adjusting/taking off clothes possibly while checking in a mirror
• somewhere to talk to other women privately knowing men won’t be around
• in bars and clubs, a place to get away from male hassle

I just don’t want to share women’s toilets with men. Self ID will be making that not my choice any more. I feel that I won’t be able to just avoid gender neutral toilets and look for a women’s any more, because women’s toilets won’t exist and campaigning for them will be hate speech.

Pressed post too soon.. the men at work who use the disabled loo for really bad shits then leave the door open

I have pumped breast milk in the toilets.

Also, sometimes sought support / chatted / sought refuge with other women, especially when I was younger.

Often locks are broken and I have to do that pee and lean thing. Would hate a man to push on the door. Sometimes use a shopping bag to prop it closed.

Also, often no loo paper so get others to pass some.

The majority of people who transition, both male and female claim they need to be able to use whichever restroom or changing room they choose.
Not surprisingly most females who identify as transgender want to continues to use the women's spaces and so do the men.
Basically transgender people seem to want to use women as a human shield to protect them against males.
I suggest they campaign for a unique space of their own just as we did for disabled accommodation.

I think there’s a subtle difference between disabled and accessible toilets. Accessible tend to have the baby change in them too.

I’m disabled, I don’t see the issue with a parent using it as a way to make things more accessible for them and their family.

I had a miscarriage in a public loo, which was a horrible experience to start with. It would have added to my distress to be that vulnerable, distraught and covered in blood next to strange men.

Many a time I have escaped from predatory men/unwanted male attention in pubs and nightclubs by retreating to the Ladies. It's not just an escape route though - you can safely and discreetly let your friend/another woman know that there is a problem, and get help.

I have got changed out of my uniform in the Ladies for a night out straight after work. Likewise, a colleague who often cycled in would change into her work clothes and freshen up in there.

On many occasions when my children were little and in the cubicle with me, they have opened the door whilst I was still on the loo. Not to mention all the times when I couldn't close the door in the first place, because I'd wheeled the pram in as far as it would go, so only had the amount of privacy that the pram hood could supply.

When the cubicle door won't lock properly, it's awkward enough when another woman opens the door (or you open their door) - I certainly wouldn't want a man opening the door (deliberately or accidentally). Even in unisex, fully enclosed cubicles, if the lock won't work properly you could be accidentally exposed to the entire cafe, or wherever.

It is beyond me why people come on to these threads to say that they personally don't care who is in the cubicle next to them, so it's not important. Are they genuinely oblivious to the many reasons why other women might strongly oppose having men in the Ladies (the whole room, not just in the cubicle)? Or is it that they are so selfish that they don't care about removing other women's expectation of privacy?

flowersonthepiano same here.

To deal with period shits!

Tbf, the first time a TW went into a women's toilet where someone was dealing with a period shit would be the last time they risked it.

There ain't no glitter in those...

I have got changed out of my uniform in the Ladies for a night out straight after work.

Blimey, you've just reminded me of the time I changed from conference attire into cocktail dress attire for a black tie dinner in the ladies toilets at a railway station. No chance of doing that in the cubicle!

Just curious, for those who don't want post-op trans to use the women's toilets, where do you want them to go?

Personally I think they should use the disabled/accessible toilet as it’s generally neither male nor female, and that’s what transwomen are.

I can’t help but feel that transwomen must be getting some sort of sexual thrill from pretending to be a woman, and making everyone else go along with their delusion.

I certainly wouldn't want a man opening the door (deliberately or accidentally).

My DH did this in a unisex facility recently when visiting a clients office - the lock was stiff, the woman in the cubicle didn't want to get stuck so left it unlocked - using the "keep it closed with her foot" technique.

He was mortified!

Would 100% rather share a public toilet with a respectful trans woman than Datun rinsing her mooncup. Yuk.

SomeRandomBird, why would you have a problem with a woman dealing with menstruation, using the sanitary product of her choice, in a women's toilet?

The toilets thing doesn't bother me as much as changing rooms, women's aid refuges, women's only shortlists (as transwomen aren't women and because many of them decry female biology their concerns and aims will be different to those of women) and sport.

Just curious, for those who don't want post-op trans to use the women's toilets, where do you want them to go?

They can go to the men's, as they are still male, or they can advocate for their own space, just as women have had to do. No need to take over women's space.

Would 100% rather share a public toilet with a respectful trans woman than Datun rinsing her mooncup. Yuk.

WTAF? What a disgusting thing to say.

The men were right 150 years ago when they burned down the first women's public toilet in London. They were afraid that women would demand to be treated like people with a right to dignity and privacy in all aspects of daily life, and so our grandmothers and mothers did and so should we.

I usually just go to the toilet and wash my hands in them. Sometimes clean my teeth, fill water bottles and get changed in them but it's not usually getting my knickers off changing unless I'm in a cubicle and as I'm often getting changed in car parks at sporting events getting down to my underwear in a mixed sex environment doesn't bother me. If there was a male looking person there I'd probably wait until they left before changing though.

shooting up......

I would not think twice to see anyone dealing with period blood in the womens toilets, cubicles, sinks, whether it’s moo cups or using the overpriced vending machines for tampax. That’s what women’s toilets are there for...

I'm happy with post (genital) op m to f transexuals in women's toilets and changing rooms.

Moo cups

In the past, they have been where I have chosen to spend the times of total inebriation, in safety. Would I really, honestly have been safe if men would have been able to enter and find a supine female body at their disposal?? Really??

#peaktransed a male in ten seconds last week by asking him whether he’d ever gone to the loo to get away from a bloke pinching his arse.

Safety, lying on a lavatory floor?? Not keen to put my bag on it, call a taxi and go home.