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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

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Original poster

Museum of London - why female-only toilets were so important

92 replies

pearlkent · 08/08/2018 15:31

I was just looking up the history of female-only public/workplace toilets, so that I could quote it back to my supposedly-feminist (born in the 1960s, all went to university in the early 1980s) friends who just don't seem to be aware of the the impending erasure of women's rights, and I found this great link:

www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/womens-right-work-toilet-bathroom-victorian-london-wwi-factory-protest

The message really needs to get out to ALL women, especially in this 100th anniversary year ("Year of the Woman" - yeah right), that we are about to lose so much that previous generations fought for.

OP posts:

ToeToToe · 09/08/2018 19:47

Bibesia - A rapist who can make himself look convincingly like a woman is in the clear...

Glad to see you've acknowledged this possibility.

You've just described perfectly why certain women's services should be female only - and why we fight for it.

Bibesia · 09/08/2018 20:24

I quite agree that certain women's services should be female only, ToeToToe. What puzzles me is the notion that the criterion for allowing people born male to access women's toilets should be solely whether they look feminine or not.

ToeToToe · 09/08/2018 20:58

Well, yes - in this current climate we're basically being forced to draw a line somewhere.

Where that line is varies from person to person - but I think most of agree that the gender identity "feeling like a woman" while clearly looking very male is way beyond that line.

Ereshkigal · 09/08/2018 21:43

What puzzles me is the notion that the criterion for allowing people born male to access women's toilets should be solely whether they look feminine or not.

It's not whether they "look feminine". It's whether they literally pass as female and no one is any the wiser. How do you suggest we stop these people? That reality is not a reason to let all males in.

OlennasWimple · 09/08/2018 21:54

RaceCarDriver

I used to be able to go for ages between weeing - having children and getting older means I need to go more frequently

In addition, I still get caught out when my period appears early (hello pre-menopause) or when I'm taking a particular medicine (which can make urination more frequent, but also the need to urinate goes very quickly from "hmm, when I get the chance I need to pee" to "ah, need to go noooooow!")

My DC are older now, but it's not long since I was pretty much always accompanied in public by one or more small DC who tend to be not so great at letting you know in good time then holding it in. Take away female loos and you more or less take away loos for small children too

Bibesia · 10/08/2018 00:45

How do you suggest we stop these people? That reality is not a reason to let all males in.

I didn't suggest it was. I was responding to the specific point made that allowing trans women to use female toilets would render them unusable to members of specific religious groups; inquiring whether that means they are currently unusable for such people given that they are already used by trans women; and whether their religious beliefs should trump the rights of people such as Jan Morris.

It is however interesting that some people have chosen to answer a completely different, and fictional, point.

thebewilderness · 10/08/2018 00:54

If many women's religious beliefs forbid their use of mixed sex toilets and other women avoid mixed sex toilets out of fear it will dramatically constrain women participation in the public sphere. Just as lack of single sex toilet facilities did in the past.

Currently they are operating on the assumption that single sex toilets and changing rooms are indeed single sex. If they discover they are mixed sex by observing the presence of a male bodied person they will probably do what women have always done in the past. Leave and never go back.

thebewilderness · 10/08/2018 00:56

Really, you could think this through on your own, couldn't you? The information is available.

Ereshkigal · 10/08/2018 01:03

I don't believe people like Jan Morris have a "right" to use women's facilities. So I didn't engage with that. Religious women do.

R0wantrees · 10/08/2018 11:00

people such as Jan Morris

Who are "people such as Jan Morris" ?

Could you please clarify?

Jan Morris is 91 years old, an important & highly regarded author and journalist.

Jan Morris describes herself as transsexual, has been open about the surgery she had in Morocco in 1972 and this important aspect of her life, publishing 'Conundrum: a personal story of transsexualism' a couple of years later.

I don't believe Jan Morris has ever sought to deny the 35+ years of life lived as boy and then man called James Morris? It was a rather remarkarkable life after all, described in Morris' unique style in many articles and books.

Bibesia · 10/08/2018 11:04

I don't believe people like Jan Morris have a "right" to use women's facilities

So what is she to do if she needs the toilet when out and about? Cross her legs? How does her presence in women's facilities harm or endanger women?

R0wantrees, what point are you making? Where did I or anyone else suggest that Jan Morris was seeking to deny the life she had lived as a male?

Ereshkigal · 10/08/2018 11:10

Use the third space that we are asking for. This is not and never has been women's problem.

R0wantrees · 10/08/2018 11:18

Bibesia

As I said, I was asking if you might clarify what you meant by 'people like Jan Morris'.

Ereshkigal · 10/08/2018 11:21

I know you may think it's blasphemy but I don't consider anyone born male a woman (not counting intersex before anyone starts that bullshit)

Shock horror I don't believe Jan Morris is a woman. I don't believe you can "earn" womanhood. I don't believe you can change your sex. I don't believe gender (sex) dysphoria makes you a woman. It's my personal opinion, many other opinions are available.

This is not about Jan Morris. We can't make a law just for Jan Morris. Hard cases make bad law. What is the difference between Jane Fae and Jan Morris?

R0wantrees · 10/08/2018 11:44

Shock horror I don't believe Jan Morris is a woman.

Jan Morris' understanding of who they are and the nature of their personal experience have always been described with nuance as can be read in this contemporaneous writing by close friend and journalist David Holden:

archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/11/23/home/morris-interview.html?mcubz=1

Bibesia · 10/08/2018 14:05

Ereshkigal, given that third spaces don't exist in the vast majority of venues open to the public, what should she do in the meantime?

UpstartCrow · 10/08/2018 14:07

Bibesia
What do you suggest women do who aren't permitted to use the toilet if there's a biological man using them?

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