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.

From my point if view, it's body dismorphia, which is a mental illness (sorry if anyone doesn't agree with this) and therefore I don't see the benefit of making their lives any harder than necessary in genuine cases.

Is it only this particular mental illness men suffer from that you feel women should accommodate in their specific facilities, or there others too?

For example if a man with schizophrenia is paranoid about men''s spaces, should women also accommodate them?

But also I don't think its reasonable to expect a transwoman who is living as a woman in all possible ways to go in a mans toilet.

Men cannot "live as women". They can only live as men, because that is what they are.

I've hidden from men in the train and bus station toilets in London, especially at Kings Cross at night. They used to have posters for Women's Aid and Rape Crisis in there.

I've used them to clean up after unexpected periods and heavy flooding, and to wash off breast milk after I walked past a crying baby.
Baby changing.

A friend of mine had a miscarriage in the toilet.

I've seen people who have travel sickness using bus station toilets to vomit or clean up.

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

Excellent. Go to the men's with the transwoman then.

I don't want biological males in the toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards, and all the other female spaces women (and I mean women, you know xx women the sort that give birth, bleed, have been oppressed since men xy decided Eve was responsible for all the evil) have fought for over the last god knows how long.
It should be enough that women say "NO" but it never is.
After 40 years of marriage, sons, grandsons, many male friends I know most men are kind, caring and all round great. But much as I love them, and they love me, I don't want them around when I am sorting out a menopausal flood, when younger during a miscarriage or when even younger when I had my first period.
One of the major reasons women gained freedom in our society (and have yet to gain freedom in other societies) is the provision of safe spaces for bodily functions. If those safe spaces are denied, then basic freedom is denied. At its most basic, if there is nowhere safe to pee, then you have to stay at home.
Who does this benefit?
Why is women's rights to privacy, safety and choice now controversial?

Adjusting or changing clothes is a big one for me.

Oh, and don't midge gender me. I am a woman.
I need no "cis"

Honestly, I am now even tired of the term 'trans woman'. Can we just say 'man' please? Finding the entire movement so very chilling.

I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this yet but when my dd was really little I would take her to the loo With me and sometimes have to change her clothes when she had had an accident and also what about carers helping others to go to the Loo, not just parents of girls who want some privacy, shared experience and understanding.

I’m preferring to call them CIF’s if they insist on calling us cis

I don't actually use a mooncup. And, from what I gather, the design is clever enough that emptying and reinserting can all be done in a cubicle.

Is that right?

However, blood can often get on the hands/clothes during menstruation. So it's all going down the sink anyway. Whether it's visable or not.

The point is, menstruation be messy. It's one of a wealth of intimate experiences, unique to women, that require privacy.

And for the person who asked what we suggest transwomen do? It's really not women's job to sort out these difficulties that men have.

In terms of them saying how targeted TIMs are in the men's bathroom, do they seriously expect women to protect men from other men? In a solution that allows more men to target women!

If there was ever a solution to male violence, that seriously isn't it.

I don't think its reasonable to expect a transwoman who is living as a woman in all possible ways to go in a mans toilet.

Why not? "Living as a woman" means nothing. And, you know, there is no membership card, they can start "living as a woman" today and use women's loos right now. Just wake up one morning and do it.

What do you think they have to fear from being in the men's loos? Why aren't we putting that right instead of making women budge over for them?

If it is accepted that transwomen are at risk from men in the men's loos, how come it is NOT accepted that women are at risk from men who choose to self-ID coming into the women's loos?

It is bizarre to expect women to act as human shields for men who are afraid of men. I remember how angry the trans identified males were over the shelters during hurricane Katrina. They were adamant that women and children needed to act as human shields for them because they the transgender identified males were at the highest risk of violence. It was mind boggling.

This may or may not be relevant but the worst experience of my life was in a loo at work with a trans member of staff. Think small office female loo with communal area and two cubicles. The disabled toilet is next door and the gents is up one flight. I was in a rush and opened the main door to the ladies loo too quickly not realising anyone was behind it. I said "sorry - didn't realise that you were in here" meaning I didn't realise that there as anyone in the loo as I was just desperate to use the toilet.

This member of staff stood in front of me blocking access to the two cubicles and started demanding to know why shouldn't they be in there, it was their right etc etc. I was just standing there explaining that I was sorry I had crashed through the door but I needed urgent access to the cubicle. Long story short I couldn't push past them (bigger than me) and I had a major accident.

I do think a woman who was born a woman would not have done that to another woman.

'midge gender'. Is that when you call someone by the wrong gender in an irritating and itchy manner?

Also 'poo crumbs'.

Cracks me up every single time a Mumsnetter says it.

What makes me sad and angry - how have we got to this? How have we got to the stage that we have to fight for reasons that, as biological women, we need to come up with reasons for why we need separate sex toilets?

I can't see the same debate raging in mens' spaces right now?

And today I've read the Unicef news about the importance of single-sex spaces for women in other countries being so needed, to advance their place in society.

And yet here, we're having to use reasons, pleas, and end up railing on each other as to whether menstrual blood is acceptable or not to witness in a female space.

And then to have the argument of 'transwomen have always been in your spaces, you stupid women' pushed down my throat. Yes, because we've been accommodating when it wasn't so viciously, violently demanded by people who are increasingly presenting as 'not-female-but-deal-with-it-suck-my-female-dick-you fucking TERF'. That's where my accommodating female nature runs out.

That's where I am too Pombear. I used to be quite accepting of the very few transsexual men who had had surgery and who were quietly and discreetly getting on with their lives.

Now I'm at the point where I will not accept any male in female space anymore.

I was trying to escape the male gaze for Pete's sakes!!!!

This is so powerful and very important.

Men just don't understand how much women are sexually scrutinised; even if they are not the ones doing it, they don't challenge their peers and they don't call it out.

It's everywhere - in the street, in the workplace, when socialising... Everywhere we go, we are subject to the gaze of (some) men, who have been socialised to conduct themselves in a specific way, so think it's fine to critique our appearance, score us out of 10, or fantasise about what they'd like to do to us.

We know they are doing it even though they don't say it - and the demands of TRA's to invade the only spaces we have to avoid it only reinforce the fact that it happens.

I have breastfed in the toilets when in very busy places where there is nowhere else available to sit down or in places where there are a lot of men around where I felt self conscious of men looking at me when the baby needs encouragement to latch on, suddenly latches off for wind or after getting distracted, or does something uncomfortable to me that I have to latch her off then back on again.
All of which exposes my full nipple area and a lot of breast basically.
Its not great to be feeding a baby in a toilet and I worry about the hygiene but the alternative is sometimes there isn’t an alternative and babies can’t wait.

I don’t see the issue with a trans woman who has no penis being in a ladies toilet. I can see the issue when that trans woman still has a penis, however.

But I think there are bigger issues in all of this. Prisons, women’s shelters, swimming pools.

remember how angry the trans identified males were over the shelters during hurricane Katrina. They were adamant that women and children needed to act as human shields for them because they the transgender identified males were at the highest risk of violence. It was mind boggling.
Do you have any more info about this?

Recently I witnessed a young woman being massively helped by other women in the female-only safety of the ladies' loo in a club. She was on a date with a guy she wanted to get rid of, and was a bit scared as he was really pressuring her to let him come home with her, claiming he had nowhere to go etc. She was immediately surrounded by a chorus of "do you want us to tell him to fuck off, love? Where is he?Have you the money for a taxi? Do you need us to help you get a taxi home?". It was quite lovely to see. Because we got it, and we'd all been there. Female spaces are important.

I don’t see the issue with a trans woman who has no penis being in a ladies toilet.

How will you know?

Just reading averylongtimeago's post, and starting contemplating just how far this could go ( backwards ).

Discussion/posters about women's reproduction systems are being banned from women's marches. Hospitals are being cautioned on how to speak to patients (ex. chest feeding/pregnant person). Schools are being re-educated on addressing children (ex. they/them/zee) and biology (girls have penises/boys have vulvas).

If we continue down this path, what will happen in the long run for women needing to address their personal needs outside of the home? Will there no longer be sanitary dispensers/disposal units in the loos incase this is deemed not inclusive and may cause hurt feelings?

It sounds crazy and unlikely, but then I would have thought the marches/hospitals/schools approach 'could never happen' a few years ago too.

I strip off and try to get all the little hairs off my skin/out of my shirt when I get my short hair cut.