Toilets - what do we want?

[Mxyzptlk]

We don't want men in women's toilets, okay.
Do we want single sex toilets as they've been until now? Can those be maintained against the trans onslaught?
What about the trans rights we say we care about? How can they be upheld without affecting women's right to safe toilets?

What do you think would be the ideal situation, fair to everyone?

Ugly prejudice from people I would normally expect to be kind and tolerant. 😢

Can you explain why it's only women - the ones most in danger from men - who are expected to be kind and tolerant and inclusive? Why not pressure men to be kind and tolerant and accepting?

This whole debate always reminds me of the way the debate about homosexuality went when section 28 was repealed.

Really? I don't think gender ideology has anything to with homosexuality.

Prejudice: preconceived opinion that is not based on reason or actual experience.

Women's actual experience is that a subset of men are unsafe, in particular those who violate women's boundaries. Experience shows that men are using 'gender' to violate women's boundaries. Experience, objectively demonstrable in statistics, show that 'unisex' facilities are less safe than single sex.

People who are willing to renounce women's rights to single sex facilities are ignoring reason and actual experience of others. They are acting on their preconceived opinions.

I don't think gender ideology has anything to with homosexuality

In fact, it denies it exists. Which is the actual homophobia here.

I wish we could have some new tropes to argue against. Section 28 has been done to death. Is there not a Central Genderist Authority that could do some updating?

"no-one can tell what sex people are without looking in their pants".

Bloody hell, it's a mystery I tell you, how the human race didn't go extinct once we started wearing clothes.

I personally don't care either Regina but lots of women tell me they do, and I'm prepared to listen to them (especially since many of them back their opinion up with reasons

This has always been my stance, for various reasons

But A) my daughter is not me and would be more likely to have issues

B) I support women

C) i dont see the problem with single sex toilets for women and gender (sex) neutral for anyone who wants them...I’m sure both barbara and i would be happy to use them

D) this whole ‘change womens loos into gender (sex) neutral ones’ is pissing me right off

And i really dont care if someone thinks im prejudiced for wanting both single sex AND mixed sex loos

Sounds like im inviting barbara into the bogs there

I'd prefer to be wined and dined Rufus

Don’t we all barbara don’t we all

Get a room!

IM TRYING LANG!!

I think i may have lost my game..

How you doin’ 😏

Plus youre just upset cos you can’t do a tardis

Dont take it out on me and barbara

The first thing I want, in the toilet arena, is public acknowledgement of this principle:

The things inside a person's head are never an acceptable justification for violating another person's human rights.

I don't care what those things are. They cannot and must not be used as an excuse to minimise the violation of human rights.

After that... So long as I've got female-only facilities available - and by female I mean born with a body indicating XX chromosomes and socialised accordingly - then I couldn't give a flying fuck how men sort out the problems that arise from their insistence that men must behave in a certain way in order to be accepted as men.

Would also like to keep (and improve) disabled facilities, and get some provision in for mixed-sex families. Because I'm really not happy that DD's father has to violate human rights in order to take her to the loo when they're out and about.

Anyway unless you are checking what people have in their pants you will probably not know what gender they are.

Gender is a load of nonsense about regressive sex-role sterotypes, which the world would be better off without.

It's normally pretty clear what sex people are and that's what matters when it comes to women-only spaces.

I can do a TARDIS now. I still can't do a blank post.

Would also like to keep (and improve) disabled facilities, and get some provision in for mixed-sex families.

Agreed - these two factors affect loads of people. DH would use the disabled loo with DD as the least worst option when they were out together, obviously only when there was no one else needing them. He wouldn't have dreamed of going into the women's loos with her.

Ugly prejudice from people I would normally expect to be kind and tolerant.

Let's just pick this apart, shall we?

"Ugly prejudice" - I see only women who know that some men are a real threat to us, based on our real experiences, saying that allowing males into women's toilets (and let's not forget those other places - gym changing rooms, hostels, prisons, rape crisis centres...) puts us at risk. That's not "prejudice" -a nd it's certainly not "ugly" - it's us expressing our fears. Based on reality.

"people I would normally expect to be kind and tolerant." - why? Because we're women? And why should we be "tolerant" to the threat of assault and loss of privacy?

"kind and tolerant" - of the threat of loss of privacy and assault? Spend five minutes on Twitter and see the 'kindness and tolerance' from the TRAs who will not allow Vancouver Rape Crisis Centre to focus only on women.

Trohmaniac

“As a bloke, I'm not keen on the gents becoming unisex tbh. I don't want women potentially walking in whilst I'm at the urinal with my bits out.”

Unisex I’ve used don’t have urinals, they’re all cubicle.

Cmon vicki. Be kind. It’s your job as a woman.

DH would use the disabled loo with DD as the least worst option when they were out together

Ex did the same, but it's far from an ideal solution. And it reinforces women's position as default primary carer by making it difficult for men to take on an equal share of this aspect of parenting.

I wouldn't be particularly happy if the answer to that was unisex facilities though. Because that means we're putting small children in the same facilities as adult males, some of whom have fetishes and most of whom are incapable of respecting their environment or others' rights. Protected family facilities would be my preference.

I'm also not terribly keen on multiple single-use fully-enclosed unisex cubicles as an alternative to the current single-sex female facilities. By all means provide them alongside current provision - but the current provision has the benefit of herd protection. We can collectively police the space. In unisex facilities we cannot.

Unisex I’ve used don’t have urinals, they’re all cubicle.

The Barbican had a misguided and much-mocked cheap 'solution' to their perceived need for inclusivity (I do hope they've rethought) - which was to label the loos as 'unisex - with urinals' and 'unisex - without urinals'. However, the mockery induced by that may have spawned the spate of subsequent relabelling only of the women's loos as 'unisex'.
Fan-bloody-tastic.

Ex did the same, but it's far from an ideal solution. And it reinforces women's position as default primary carer by making it difficult for men to take on an equal share of this aspect of parenting.

Yes, exactly. The solution which is found in some places is a large parent&child cubicle.

The solution which is found in some places is a large parent&child cubicle.

An eminently sensible idea.

It also does away with the need for mothers to take their small sons into single-sex facilities, and the need for periodic threads about the age at which this becomes acceptable. In an ideal world it would never be acceptable, and by allowing it to be so as the current least-worst option for mothers and small sons, we are accepting in principle that our single-sex space is not inherently inviolable. We are indicating that we accept the temporary conversion of these spaces into unisex spaces on a case-by-case basis. After that it's merely a question of dickering over the parameters by which our right to single-sex space may be overruled by others' needs.

This whole debate always reminds me of the way the debate about homosexuality went when section 28 was repealed. Ugly prejudice from people I would normally expect to be kind and tolerant. 😢

Funny, I remember India Willoughby being shocked that MN wasn't full of lovely mummies chatting about prams & lipstick. Or something.

Talk to Stonewall about ugly prejudice. They loathe the idea of homosexuality so much nowadays that when we protest about defending our right to be exclusively same-sex attracted, they call the police on us. And even in the days of Section 28 nobody was suggesting that gender nonconforming kids should be drugged to stop their puberty and make them infertile, raised as the other sex and eventually have surgery on their genitals.

Why aren't you demanding that men should be kind and tolerant and wear "You Can Pee With Me" badges to reassure transwomen that they'll be safe in male toilets?

WHAT DO WE WANT

single sex toilets!

WHEN DO WE WANT IT

Whenever men say that its ok!