Don't know how to feel about this one...

[EmmaGrundyForPM]

I hope this link works.
Cambridge city council have changed their policy on the public toilets in the city centre. Trans people are unhappy.
www.cambridge-news.co.uk/news/cambridge-news/cambridge-transgender-lion-yard-toilet-15219396
Although I am of the view that people with penises aren't women, I also don't have a strong view that public toilets should be single sex - unlike changing rooms where women might be partially clothed. But the protest makes me feel.uneasy and I'm not comfortable with the arguments put forward by the likes of Sarah Brown but can't put my finger on why. Can anyone explain?

I've no idea if it's inline with your feeling of uneasiness but there's some discussion of this in Anne Sinnot's thread:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/womens_rights/3376567-anne-sinnott-vindicated-she-was-right?pg=1

Maybe it's because you don't like them being used primarily as identity validation cubicles?

Can you imagine a scenario where a 10 year old girl is alone in a mixed sex toilet and a man or men enter?

Does that make you feel more uncomfortable?
It does me.

Or a scenario where women start to avoid public toilets completely and every facility, everywhere, becomes the domain only of male people, and the females who don't feel vulnerable, ever?

That makes me pretty uncomfortable.

Not all toilet scenarios are busy public facilities at midday.

Sometimes being trapped in a room with a man at night, or when other people aren't around for support, can be a very frightening thing.

I'm glad you don't feel vulnerable, but many of us do, because we actually are. And I suspect you too will feel this way a some point. Perhaps not.

But think of other women, and think of girls, and ask yourself if they should empathise with you, or you with them?

I think you're uncomfortable because the entire article is gaslighty bollocks

The protestors claim to be protesting on behalf of short-haired women and ugly women rather than transwomen, and suggest that changing 'gender' back to 'sex' in the legislation suddenly means we will need to employ loo police. This is disingenuous nonsense.

Thank you everyone, I couldn't quite work out why I felt so uncomfortable when the idea of unisex toilets doesn't bother me. But this really does bother me.

It's the language used by Sarah Brown in particular.

Maybe it's because you don't like them being used primarily as identity validation cubicles?

Makes me think of this. No reason.

Emma, when you start to think about it, females sometimes have messy episodes - like menstruation or miscarriage. Having to deal with such embarrassing moments in front of SelfID-all-comers, is actually a violation of our right to privacy and dignity. There have been a few threads on FWR about that. Toilets have been, until recently, segregated on the grounds of biological sex. Primarily for female protection (risk reduction).

Where I used to live, the council kept installing single cubicle unisex public toilets. Within a matter of weeks, they stunk, and I would not go there again - I used the nearby pub, with single sex facilities.

Imagine going to use a public convenience in the depths of winter. Nobody else around, it's dark. Youre in your cubicle, maybe mid tampon change. A male person comes in (you can hear they're standing up to pee, heavy footsteps, maybe a male cough) Would you feel safe?

This is the most likely logical outcome; that women will stop using public toilets and facilities. Particularly vulnerable groups of women will stop using the resources a lot of local authority groups have spent years investing in helping them utilise.

Bear in mind too that women who are assaulted and raped and are the rare ones whose cases make it to court, have their actions dissected to search for their responsibility for the assault - what they wore, the time of day and whether they chose to put themselves in a place where they could reasonably expect a risk of assault. Entering a mixed sex toilet alone is a place where women can reasonably expect risk. They will be expected to assume that responsibility along with all the other disproportionate and one way responsibilities that come with self ID and the bad luck of being born in our society with a vagina.