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.

@2rebecca I sort of feel the same way but there's no way of telling who has had genital surgery and who has not. If you tightened up the process so that only post op could get GRC then that would help I guess but still no one is checking GRC at the Bathroom door.

I do not use a mooncup but would happily pretend or bleed off my fingers to get rid of males.

‘Ugh, I don’t want to see that’. Um, two choices, flower...

My diabetic friend always went to the loo to shoot up too.
I just remembered that I spent one semester sitting in the girls during study hall reading a book when I was 13 because the boy behind me would not stop touching me and saying cruel things.

I’ve done that as well TinLizzy. Also when female friends have been really pissed i have gone in there to chat with them because it’s better for all of us to be in the ladies than outside for the same reasons as you said. And actually come to think of it I have also struck up those chats with pissed girls I have found in bad states in the ladies asking if they are OK and then finding that their friends have fucked off somewhere else.
In between holding their hair while they puke, cleaning them up etc, other women have done same for me.
Would be positively dangerous for men to be able to be in there with women in that very vulnerable situation in an enclosed, fully lockable space. Shudder to think.

I was well beyond telephone using state! Not my proudest moments, but still, any port in a storm I guess.

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

How dare we menstruate hey? And god forbid deal with it in a toilet?

I only wee in public loos and change sanitary protection in the private cubicle. I’ve used loos at work for morning sickness but my works loos are mixed sex anyway, it’s never been an issue. I’d feel bad for any unlucky person that were to come in at that point though. And please for the love of god no one should be breastfeeding in a loo in 2018 ffs!

To be fair I have wondered about the hygiene aspects of mooncups before. It somehow doesn’t seem right to wash blood down a sink that people might be cleaning their teeth at and hand washing?

How dare we menstruate hey?

Mmmm in a world where we are trying to brake the taboo, shaming a woman for menstruating anywhere is beyond the pale. But on a feminist forum it is utterly disgraceful.

Apart from wee and poo, I use the loos to cry, and to breastfeed. I'm a pretty brazen breastfeeder but there have been occasions (a funeral where I was wearing a dress, for example) when I've needed privacy from men. And now dc is a toddler, I don't feel comfortable getting my boob out to feed this big walking talking child.

I like having a bit of female space and detest the unisex toilets (all cubicles onto sinks) and unisex changing (with no cubicles) at my local high school/community campus. It's very uncomfortable.

Eh? Teeth brushing germs, period blood and poo crumbs all go down the same sink?

Or do you wash your face or brush your teeth in a public toilet by filling the sink full of water with a plug in. In which case you have way more to worry about than the odd moon cup in view..

@SexMatters
I was being sarcastic!

I was agreeing with you

I was objecting to another posters comment that they'd rather share a toilet with a respectful transwoman than a woman rinsing her mooncup. I thought it was a very woman shaming comment.

People shaming about blood on moon cups in a 'yuk' way... apols

Sorry I should have quoted it differently

The ones who have had genital surgery tend to look more like women in my experience and with some of them I probably couldn't tell. If someone looks more like a woman than a man then it doesn't bother me.
The danger with putting huge lists of possible but unlikely toilet uses down is we look like we're exaggerating and play in to the "transphobic nutters" cliche,
I've never seen anyone lying on the floor of a toilet (except babies on changing mats) but then I've also never seen anyone rinsing a mooncap, maybe that's more common down south. I did try one but didn't get on with it but was perimenopausal at the time. It wouldn't bother me seeing someone rinse one.

SexMatters

Cross post and crossed wires there!

Fancy ribbon it’s just the thought of blood splashing onto the Tap or around the sink and it ending up on someone else’s hands, I’d feel a bit gross about any blood around a sink, not just because it’s menstrual. Just as I’d feel gross if someone was sick in the sink I was hand washing in, Maybe I’m just squeamish.

You would tip the blood down the loo then wash the mooncup in the sink.

People get baby poo on their hands, menstrual blood when they change tampons.
Although the contamination is miniscule - probably not a great idea to wash your face/brush you teeth in public sinks that aren't regularly cleaned.

Another thing though - remember that men masturbate in public loos and there'll be semen to deal with in mixed provision sinks too ... just sayin

Blood you can see if its not cleaned up/washed away properly. Not so for small amounts of semen.

But rumpled that is happening anyway off my hands, my pants I’ve leaked on and that I’m having to rinse and dry at the hand drier etc etc. The mooncup being washed out isn’t making any difference. Everything just gets sluiced away down the sink in a public toilet.

And if you ask a male if they masturbate at work, most will do it between one and several times a day.

I admit I am a bit of a germophobe and have been known to use tissues to open and close the doors of loos