GRC and Toilets

[Hangingaroundtheportal]

Sorry, I'm pretty sure this has been done a million times and perhaps could have asked this on another thread but I just wanted to clarify something.

When I have been reading about this stuff about the City of London consulting on whether to allow transwomen into women's toilets, I have seen lots of 'transwomen are allowed in the ladies loos since 2010, it's covered in the equality act'.

I know that transwomen have been in the women's toilets for a long time as a courtesy, because women are quite nice like that, but how enshrined in law is it? I know that sex is a protected characteristic but also gender identity?

Does a transwoman actually need a GRC to use the women's toilet? (obviously in real life it wouldn't work to demand to see it)

I know with self id this is a bit moot anyway, but I just wanted to clarify the current law.

*All this guff about nothing has changed since 2010 is just that. Everything has changed in that 8 year period.

When the law was created it was for gender reassignment which at the time was understood as being for transsexual people who for the most part intended to transition fully and in relatively tiny numbers (around 5000 I believe).

Back in 2010 based on the number of people transitioning vs general population the chance of encountering someone who reads as the opposite sex in public facilities was very low.

Since Stonewall expanded their trans umbrella to encompass pretty much any man that has as much as looked at nail polish the lines are well and truly blurred. So it's useless looking at the current debate from a historical perspective.

The current thinking that is pervasive from all the orgs and many in government positions is basically you are what you say you are. This is why it's an issue*.

Thank you, Ova. As ever, someone has articulated my "but that doesn't feel right but I can't explain well enough" beautifully. Thank you.

Since Stonewall expanded their trans umbrella to encompass pretty much any man that has as much as looked at nail polish the lines are well and truly blurred. So it's useless looking at the current debate from a historical perspective.

This is where all the 'men with their dicks out in the women's can be challenged' etc stuff pisses me right off - the people on here claiming this must know perfectly well that self-id just opens up the women's spaces to any man who fancies going in there. The 'just challenge him' bit makes me honk with laughter - I'm frequently on my own in the gym changing room - that's a really easy thing to do if in future I encounter someone doing a JB in there, isn't it? Challenge him?

Dd is 16 and has just become a member of a local gym in order to get back into shape after GCSE's. She did a trial day at our local Leisure Centre but felt very uncomfortable there amongst all the males.

She has chosen a gym with a Ladies Only room and she loves it. She's been every day this week. She said to me yesterday that she feels like she isnt being watched/judged by men lifting heavy weights and she just feels safe.

clairetree1, if you feel able, I'd love to know which uni thinks it's ok to let men picket the sanpro bins and intimidate women.

If cubicles are enough to give privacy and dignity to women when transwomen are using the toilets, why aren't they enough to give privacy and dignity to transwomen using the mens?

I, too, cannot see any reason for gender segregation, but sex segregation is very clear.

Clairetree1 that's awful, would love to know which university that was and why they felt they couldn't do anything about it

SarahAr sounds like you're saying to women that it doesn't matter what we do or how afraid we are some people who were recorded as male at birth are going to use the ladies toilets thus demonstrating they are going to ignore female's boundaries. Or have I misread something?

"How for example is a Mum with a baby in a pram to safely and privately have a piss?"

Oh yes! Forgot about that. Many women with pushchairs wait for the end cubicle and go with the door open and the pushchair pulled in blocking the door - I know I did!

The things is that the people pushing for this have the needs that penis people have and still mostly penis people do not do most of the childcare. Also they could use the urinal with the pushchair next to them no probs. With a smaller baby that's no issue is it.

So there's a lack of awareness about
Period stuff
Baby stuff
Pregnancy stuff (URGENCY!)
Old woman stuff (again URGENCY!)

And then there is the smaller thing of how many women feel comfy doing the hair pat and makeup thing in front of men - especially men they work with? "Feminine beauty" as we on FWR all know is supposed to be something that is achieved seemingly effortlessly. Women tread a fine line between meeting the standards they feel they need to meet, and being derised for being "vain". Many men think that women try to "look nice" actively for the benefit of and and all men around them. The outrage at women putting makeup on on the train shows this up - it's supposed to be "private". I wouldn't feel comfy doing my mascara in the bog mirror and having dave from accounts wander in. + is dave from accounts whose just rocked in with the metro for his morning crap (on company time! I'm a winner!) going to feel comfy offloading his bowels while he knows I'm out there having at it with my lipstick.

Socially in the UK mixed bogs are just not what people want, men or women.

I have a question that I have no idea the answer to.

I think it's fairly well accepted that young men can get erections at unexpected and embarrassing moments - do any of them alleviate this in the gents? I mean it would be understandable but I have no idea whether it is fairly normal for young chaps to deal with the issue in a cubicle? Which I think is totally fair enough -you've got to do what you've got to do - but not in a mixed facility.

Sorry to @ you, @Clairetree1 - a couple of posters are interested to know which uni you had the horrible open day / GN toilets experience at. I am interested too.

Well googling brings up a LOT of porn!

And a survey carried out by a bathroom company in leeds which said that 1 in 7 men had wanked at work.

I come (ha!) to the conclusion that men's and women's facilities have need to serve very different groups due to biology (urinals / space for sanitary bins) and social / other stuff (women might need to leave the door open due to pushchairs, young men might "need" a bit of space to relieve an issue in the trouser department.

There is also the point that men take 50 million hours to shit and the queues are already long enough FGS.

Unisex facilities that are entirely enclosed (preferable accessible, room for pushchairs, baby changing, sanitary bin, sink etc) and open onto a communal area sound great but are expensive and not going to work in places where queues get long e.g. music / sports venues at intervals / the end, and in some places it's impossible for both reasons eg old theatres in London where the queues for the women already take the entire interval time while the men swan in and out and have time for a drink...

Sarah no-one is going to be looking for ID at the entrances to facilities. For people who make an effort to pass, quietly going about their business no doubt a blind eye will continue to be turned. In the toilets at least.

The problem we have is that we are losing the right to challenge people who seem like they should not be there but have not actually done anything illegal (yet).

The likes of Travis who doesn't even ID as a woman demanding access to top shop girls changing rooms - which unless they have changed a lot since I was a girl - have very flimsy curtains - and being told YES in you go!

I mean, no just piss off. To Travis and his mate who thinks "little girls" are "kinky". Just no, I want to keep the right to say, you seem like a bit of a weirdy perve, you shouldn't be in here with the girls, now fuck off.

(Which I migth say albeit more diplomatically now I'm in my 40s, but at 14 I wouldn't have said anything, and would have just felt uncomfortable but felt it would be "rude" to leave).

I mean, no just piss off. To Travis and his mate who thinks "little girls" are "kinky". Just no, I want to keep the right to say, you seem like a bit of a weirdy perve, you shouldn't be in here with the girls, now fuck off.

This. It's how a lot of people feel. The entire issue gets analysed to the point where it is frazzled and limp with exhaustion.

But it is basically about that. About women's right to draw a circle around themself and say you don't come any closer, mate.

That the person they are speaking to cannot counter that with anything.

It really shouldn't be up for debate.

Male people who insist on accessing spaces traditionally reserved for women are already red flagging.

The insistence, the coming up with reasons why, the stubborn refusal to acknowledge women's concerns, the ignorance of those concerns.

It's a huge, neon lit, bright red flare of alarm. And the fact they can't see it, only makes it worse.

No.

Clairetree1, I'm also interested in which university this was. My dd is applying this year. This place would be off her list. Perhaps we should start a thread on 'good' and 'bad' universities (re. upholding female students' rights).

I am a blind person, so will never see a penis in the womens’ toilets, in fact I will never even see a man. I might hear one, if he speaks, but the thought of walking into the toilets by myself, and knowing that there might be a man in there, and I wouldn’t even know he’s there, makes me feel incredibly uncomfortable, a bit scared in fact. At the moment, if I go into the toilets and can only hear one person in there, I’m pretty sure it’s another woman so it doesn’t bother me. If toilets were effectively unisex and I could only hear one other person in there as well as myself, I‘d definitely feel scared, in fact I think I‘d just walk straight back out again. I doubt very much if I’d hang around if they were empty either.
I could use the disabled toilet, if there is one, and if it’s unlocked, but I tend not to use them because I have no real need, and I might be preventing someone who has from using it. I don’t consider being driven out of the womens’ toilets a justifiable need, and if it was, a lot of other women will be using it too.

So what is the solution to this problem? I’m hardly going to suck it up and chance it after being raped and sexually assaulted in the past.
I would be interested to hear answers from people who support self ID.

Perhaps we should start a thread on 'good' and 'bad' universities (re. upholding female students' rights)

It will be a short list on the “good” side. Even the Oxbridge women’s colleges have capitulated to the TRAs. The list will need to grade universities at various degrees of “bad”.

That sounds really scary, HotRocker. It makes me angry that any of us are being put in this position, but especially you.

Women don't have boundaries, you heard it here first:

twitter.com/vmbellamy/status/1030127300061417473?s=20

Interesting -

The OP on that twitter thread seems to be met with hostility on both sides.

Omilord HotRocker I never considered the issue from a blind person's point of view.

I read on a gender critical website that complaining to the manager about a man using the toilets, post GRA could be classed as a hate crime. By main I mean make bodied transgender.

Is this true?

The OP on that twitter thread seems to be met with hostility on both sides.

Because they are retweeting the transsexual voices thread. There will be very few TRAs who support it, and gender critical feminists have been burnt before and are wary as mentioned in the thread about it.

I read on a gender critical website that complaining to the manager about a man using the toilets, post GRA could be classed as a hate crime. By main I mean make bodied transgender.

It's possible. It would have to be classed as illegal harassment to be a crime but it would constitute a "hate incident". There was a case where a man was taken to court and convicted for deliberate misgendering which was seen as harassment I think. Thankfully it was quashed on appeal.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4190064/Entrepreneur-hauled-court-hate-crimes.html