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?

Just popping in to give a real-life example of toilet confusion, as experienced today by me.

I'm in the UK.

Was on an open day visit to a uni.

Needed a wee.

Was directed to a toilet in a quiet block, no one around. Very clear instructions as to where the toilets were.

Found them.

Sign on the door, can't recall exactly what it said but to the words of 'accessible to all genders' toilet.

As I'm here on this board, I found this interesting. Sign on door was classic dual male/female sign, as in unisex toilets, etc.

Went through door.

Faced with two doors.

One, very clearly signed 'male' symbol. Small window, through which I could see multiple stalls (not sure about urinals, as I never investigated further due to my suspected social conditioning!)

To my right, door with 'disabled' symbol. Plus description of shower unit.

What do I do? Where do I go?

Do I go into disabled toilet, therefore crashing into someone else's fought-for spaces. For those people I know need toilets often quicker than me (despite my pre-menopausal bladder!).

Or do I go into male toilets, that are clearly signed 'not for me'.

Who's been erased here? Who's been made to 'budge up'. What other group has been made to share their spaces and places?

Answers on a postcard!

Reader - I used the disabled toilet.

That to me is the oddest part about how the laws are being applied.
Men keep their sex segregated space and women have none. They don't know that is a violation of the law if they got their info from the fraudulent lists of protected characteristics being provided to councils,, schools, and law enforcement.

@snappity I would open a discussion with you over this and ask you to engage with what I'm saying but I feel history is going to repeat itself. Daimbars walked away. Supermatchgame walked away. Wakame walked away. Unlike many here I am not yet angry or cynical. I also still have quite a smattering of female specialisation in me that makes me desparate to seek common ground and a shared understanding. To move our language closer to each other and find s third way. But every single time I'm left hanging.

Ype bewilderness that's the thing - where are female spaces?

Today was the first time that I physically experienced exactly that.

I had no direction to a female space, despite following the sign to 'accessible to all genders'.

The SEX (not gender) that was missing was female.

(For all uni people slapping themselves on their backs for providing such woke spaces, you have inspired me, yet again, to fight out in the real world, in so many ways, to claw back female rights and spaces....and just cos I needed a wee today!)

That biological elitism thing sounds like Darwinist 'survival of the fittest' - the hierarchy of dominant males over other males for breeding rights.

Its very beta-omega male to whinge about females being biologically elitist.

Newsflash - status battles between males is not women's issue.

Eventually it becomes obvious that it is an exercise in obedience training.

To which my response is - no, non, nein, nej, nyet. Happy to keep trying more languages until it sinks in.

No pasaran✊️

AAK how about とんでもない
(According to google)

Nb. Translation provided for those people in the specific group named by a portmanteau between transgender and anime

(i suspect the portmanteau itself would - despite not being on any sort of list anywhere - be decided to come under the mysterious new rules if I actually posted it)

That too! We can do this in every language in the world if needed.

(For a moment I thought you were trying to provide the frequently used, not very polite Japanese slang term for trans people. Whether or not that would be deleted likely depends on whether the mod looking at the report can be bothered to google.)

Also 係 , 没有, and 아니.

I suspect that if I were to try putting a dodgy word in another language, the sneaky reporters would definitely google it

KLAATU BARADA NIKTO

There are days, like today, where I think pissing behind a big ass tree in the woods is preferrable to going into women's bathrooms where men are given free reign.

To feel safer in the woods than in public spaces, now that's saying something.

It's all risk assessment for women. Our entire existence and lives depend on it.

One of the things that annoys me is when people allege that transwomen have been using the female toilets with other women and there have been no difficulties.

Not correct (and I know I've said this before). I recently went into a female toilet and noticed something different in my peripheral vision. Upon looking I noticed it was a transwoman (sorry, they did not 'pass'). I froze and the transwoman noticed me, turned from the mirror and started walking toward me, swearing. Feeling threatened, I ran and locked myself in a toilet.

I didn't report it. It scared me, though.

That, Agrona is the kind of scenario I fear: [acronyms] losing the plot because a woman happens to have the 'wrong' look one her face. And given how volatile and 'sensitive'-to-paranoid some of these larger, stronger, more aggressive and easily offended people are, I think we know what to expect when more and more of them start showing up in women's toilets and locker rooms.

That's very scary Agrona

Sorry, Agrona, there was meant to be a comma after your name in the first sentence ^.

Not to worry, AnotherQuoll. The lack of commas do not concern me as much as allegations of there being 'no difficulties'.

Thank you Pratchet. It was.

The only way we could have the 'right look' would be if we all kept a fixed welcoming smile in place all the time. Also, aside from the other problems this might cause, some people are triggered by smiles.

Is it possible to please everyone and not lose integrity?

No. Integrity is closely linked to the ability to enforce boundaries, and it's fairly clear that any attempt women make to do that is taken as an attack.

Sarah - most of us were willing to engage. We wanted debate. We want critical thinking. We wanted to be able to thrash things out. We wanted to find common ground.

Do not see why some of us have had enough? We tried. Each time we tried to engage we were gaslighted, insulted, attempted to be manipulated, our questions ignored, our language policed, a tantrum thrown if we said something they didn't like, statements thrown out there without a shred of evidence to support them. Then silence.

It's the same pattern over and over.

The wolf who dresses as Grandma has another agenda and it's not engaging, but devouring

I can see how that would make people angry and cynical Kettle yes. I haven't experienced all those things; just disengagement. I tend to receive the angriest responses from GC people who I mostly agree with! But debating styles vary and I know mine can be annoying.

Disengagement is part of the manipulation and gaslighting some of the time.

Many in the Trans camp think they have the superior moral high ground if they just patrol around throwing comments out there, but don't rise to the bait. It's classic abusive behaviour.

There has been the odd poster that has actually seen our perspective and I've been able to have a civil and adult discussion with, even if we don't agree, but most of the time the narcissists and manipulators wave their ed flags so early (and likely deliberately sometimes) that I'll call out their behaviour. I won't be giving them the platform they so desperately crave if they are going to be so vile. Yesterday's debacle reinforced that for me.