The case for retaining single-sex mass toilets alongside any unisex provision **Title edited by MNHQ at the request of the OP**

[haXXor]

On the upskirting thread, I mentioned that I had googled for shoe cameras and found a vendor. The vendor's website was a real eyeopener. They are based in Shenzen in China, the electronics manufacturing capital of the world, so they have easy access to the manufacturing facilities needed to make microelectronic devices.

Amongst their range of products, I found two toilet brushes with hidden cameras in, from as little as US$212 (~£160 at time of writing). That's a pretty low barrier to acquisition. There are dozens of convincing shower gel and shampoo bottles to leave in gym or workplace showers or to film showering flatmates.

They also have a range of shoe cameras, including one that shows, in the illustrative image, a man looking a picture of a woman's knicker-clad vulva on a computer screen. Many of the item descriptions have "we are not responsible if this camera is used for illegal activities, this is a home security camera and should be treated as such, with responsibility" appended: these arseholes know exactly what the buyers of their wares are going to do with them, otherwise they wouldn't try to claim innocence with their pathetic figleaf disclaimer.

That the owners of this website will so brazenly monetise female objectification is proof that patriarchy and misogyny are real.

Anyway, on to why this makes me demand that single-sex mass toilets are retained alongside any unisex provision installed for non-binary and trans people.

On another thread, we discussed criminology and security theory models for keeping women safe and I outlined the Swiss Cheese model to explain why we need multiple layers of defence against predatory males attacking females. Filming a woman or girl in a place where they reasonably expected privacy is an attack on her privacy and dignity, and the Sexual Offences Act 2006 agrees with me here, voyeurism is a crime.

Assume that we have a male who has bought a toilet brush camera, or a door hook camera, or a cross-head screw camera, and wishes to place it into a toilet that women will use. He will put his camera into a suitable pocket or bag and go to his chosen women's loo.

• If the toilet is a mass toilet and designated women-only, a man walking in will attract attention and he may be challenged by passersby and stopped from entering. If he manages to get in unspotted, he may find women in the toilet, who will challenge him and call for management or the police. Even if the mass female-only toilet is unoccupied when he enters, he could be walked in on whilst setting his camera up and be stopped that way. That's two cheese layers, plus the deterrent effect of the fear of being caught in the act.
• If the toilet is a single occupant female toilet, he might get challenged on the way in or out, but once he is inside, he locks the door, and he has all the time he wants to set his camera up without anyone catching him in the act. That's one cheese layer.
• If the toilet is a single occupant unisex toilet, he walks right in unchallenged, he locks the door, and he has all the time he wants to set his camera up without anyone catching him in the act. That's zero cheese layers.

There ought to be, and isn't in many cases, another layer of cheese: cleaners spotting the toilet brush/hook/extra screw and investigating and reporting. This assumes that the same cleaners are cleaning the loos every day and learning what "right" looks like for that loo. With cleaners increasingly being temps, they might not have that consistent exposure, and they may not have a clear reporting line for that kind of anomaly. Plus, if they have no stability, they will have no sense of pride in their work and hence not care. I know that when I was a temp minwage cleaner, I didn't care. When I was a permanant and reasonably well-paid computer operator, I learned what "right" looked like in my machine room and flagged anomalies quickly.

Other than fighting for single-sex spaces as a right (not a service provider option) and for stability of employment for cleaners, what else can we do to prevent men from invading our privacy like this?

Absolutely Permissiontospeak

That website is horrifying! Bloody hell.

Yes. Provision of unisex spaces will be helpful for some people. I have no objection to that.

But I personally want to use facilities that are for women only. There is no power on Earth that will convince me that they are not the safest (if not entirely safe) option for women. As OP has very clearly shown.

This is why there can be no negotiation

Exactly. We need to break through the barrier of lazy status quo supporting thinking.

It's hard to do it - if you are blunt there is recoil or clamming up.

We have to be strong, bold and uncompromising in our demands, but with a delicate PR job on our hands, just to be fucking heard.

It never ceases to amaze me how many people argue that making it easy for predators to access their victims won't lead to more predators targeting the spaces in which it's been made easier for them. Not a whole lot of understanding of human nature going on there.

Even the maths of the situation highlights that, but sadly some don't have their calculators with them

Great points kettle & PTSS

This is why there can be no negotiation.

Negotiation is not possible with someone who won't compromise but is seeking to impose their demands on others - that's disorder, not normal. These are at best high conflict tactics, and at worse a trojan horse

But you know what. Women and girls in poorer countries with no access to single sex toilets are getting assaulted in them or are constantly hyper-vigilant. They are the living contemporary argument for sex segregated facilities. No calculator required.

We have too many loud-mouthed, pampered 1st world muppets who have no damned idea how good they have it.

These are at best high conflict tactics, and at worse a trojan horse

Absolutely.

Negotiation is not possible with someone who won't compromise but is seeking to impose their demands on others - that's disorder, not normal.

Exactly. And in the case of such people, offering what would be a sensible compromise to everyone else, is the worst thing you can possibly do. It's perceived as an invitation to violate boundaries further.

a sensible compromise to everyone else, is the worst thing you can possibly do. It's perceived as an invitation to violate boundaries further.

Exactly!

Don't capitulate women! Push back! Fight for your rights! ffs

Observe the fact that people like that aim even more pressure at supporters who just disagree on one or two small issues than at people who refuse to compromise at all, and learn.

*Generations fight to put in protections and laws to keep us safe, then the generations who are privileged enough to live with these protections take them for granted and deem them unnecessary.

How about we get rid of vaccinations - afterall, unless there's a cure for cancer - why worry about polio and smallpox?*

Of course there is a growing minority that isn't vaccinating their children - leading to measles outbreaks etc.

I think we forget very quickly if we have not been exposed personally to things.

In my less optimistic moments, I think that this whole incursion into women's protections will have to play out before as a society, we realise it isn't as simple as 'let's be kind'

Indeed - women who are wracked with guilt for even asserting boundaries, let alone defending them the majority are an absolute pushover.

Agree 100% this is a real example of a first world problem.

Also agree it is an invitation to further violate boundaries.

I also think the need for validation makes a more complex layer. A third space would not be good enough precisely because of the nature of the argument and dominant thinking within the trans culture/ideology.

The fact is using the women's spaces is part of the validation process. We know that the need for validation of their identity comes above all other safety and privacy concerns.
Therefore for them this part of the novelty of the female 'experience'.

Disabled people did not want provisions because they need 'validation'.

Sorry but I don't want spaces for women and girls to be used as part of the
game-playing process. This is not an 'experience' for us. This is our real life.

It trivialises female struggle. I'm lot saying that the safety argument for trans people is not valid, just that there's an extra layer there which I am also extremely uncomfortable with.

Apologies that was responding to kittens

The problem with the validation seeking behavior is that a. that's not what sex segregated spaces are for and b. the people attempting to use them as such absolutely will not ever acknowledge that.

I resent the government and/or organizations attempting to force me to provide randoms with validation when I'm just going about my business.

Wow.
OP posts well reasoned post that highlights clear problems with moving away from single sex facilities. Real dangers to women and girls caused by people exploiting self ID.
This is what we have always objected to on here.
Cue an influx of other posters, some with no other posting history, immediately swooping on the thread to say ‘oh it already happens anyway’, ‘actually it’s the staff doing it’, ‘I don’t mind being filmed with my pants down, it wouldn’t bother me’.
If anyone who’s an MP or in any other position of influence please take note over this. People are attempting to silence women’s legitimate concerns.
You need to step up on this.

Another point against mixed sex toilets imo is that some men like to take and use used sanitary products. This also feels like a violation of women's privacy.

Observe the fact that people like that aim even more pressure at supporters who just disagree on one or two small issues than at people who refuse to compromise at all, and learn.

Yes - give way and then you'll be pressured to give way by others- totalitarian thinking has to be challenged with a NO. And watch the escalation at the imposition of limits and a NO.

Many of these abusive men have real, projected, mother issues, I make up. They think by mantrumming they will get their way - and mantrumming is dangerous in an adult male body

Crikey, that is one horrifying website.

Single sex facilities need to be single SEX. We also need more unisex facilities for those that will benefit from them, but not at the expense of single sex spaces.

Clarifying, in law, the difference between sex and gender is crucial.

Agree, at basis it is 'if they have it I want it'.

Can we also nail the 'it's just a few extremists' while we are at it

The transactivist extremists who threatened to bomb a women's meeting still want in to women's spaces

The transactivist extremists who threaten to slice women open still want in to women's spaces

The transactivist extremists who wish rape and murder on women still want into women's spaces.

How many women are to be sacrificed as collateral damage to these extremists in order to placate this campaign?

It's so obvious that appropriation is going on

Observe the fact that people like that aim even more pressure at supporters who just disagree on one or two small issues than at people who refuse to compromise at all, and learn.

Yes. The only response with any chance of success is no pasaran.

Single sex spaces need to be protected, preserved and extended, not given away inch by inch. EqA needs to be amended to put the onus on men to behave better towards their GNC brethren, not to see what further accommodations women could make. Etc ad infinitum. No. Fucking. Pasaran.

It's perceived as an invitation to violate boundaries further.

Absolutely Lang - and they know it

Lang: your whole post is my position. Including No Pasaran.

NO PASARAN

In this case I would say the vulnerability is probably equal, since it is our dignity and privacy that is endangered rather than our bodies.