Man in women's loos - did o overreact?

[MakeTeaNotWar]

Went to a live music venue last night. In a very woke seaside town on the south coast for context. At the end of the night, I popped to the loo before leaving for home. As so often happens, the queue for ladies was lengthy, no real queue for the gents.

I joined the queue and noticed the person in front of me wasn't a man just keeping his partner company while she waited as I first thought, but a man waiting to use the toilet. He was not a trans woman, he was a man and a drunk one at that.

I told him he was in the wrong queue and pointed to the gents. He said he wanted to use these toilets. I asked why, he said they are gender neutral so he can. (I don't know if they are - they probably are as they had a multitude of arrows on the door.)

I said I am a woman needing to use the woman's facilities and I would do so, ahead of him.

The queue of women turned on me and said I couldn't block him, repeating these are gender neutral toilets. I said I cannot use a urinal and indeed went in front of him to use the loo first. When I had finished, I called the woman behind him to come forward and use the loo, which she did.

The other women very cross with me for blocking him and asserted he was perfectly entitled to use these toilets.

Did I do the wrong thing? I've thought about contacting the venue to understand what their loo provision is and asking was it right to have a man in the ladies (or are they gender neutral? Can anyone use the "gents")?

Thanks for reading long post

I think the whole thing hinges on whether the toilets were in fact gender neutral or not! Loads of places have them now. I’m not sure what you mean by not being able to tell because they had loads of arrows on them though. I would have asked at the venue there and then if I’d been you, tbh, so you know for next time.

Thanks yes - I will contact the venue. As far as I could tell there was a ladies and a gents. But the ladies were also gender neutral. But not self contained rooms, the usual set up of multiple stalls in a room with hand washing basins outside.

Tbh I think it was a drunk bloke being an arse and upsetting women. But the women supported him

I think you were brilliant, OP. Exactly why did he “want to use these toilets?” Ugh. I despair of the women who told you off.

@MakeTeaNotWar

Thanks yes - I will contact the venue. As far as I could tell there was a ladies and a gents. But the ladies were also gender neutral. But not self contained rooms, the usual set up of multiple stalls in a room with hand washing basins outside.

Tbh I think it was a drunk bloke being an arse and upsetting women. But the women supported him

Hmm - if they weren’t self-contained rooms that doesn’t sound right as gender-neutral then. Definitely worth challenging.

You and the rest of the women missed a trick there. If they're GN toilets, you should have just gone into the gents with no queue.

@Kendodd I did think about that but I believe there are urinals and a couple of cubicles, I didn't want to walk past men pissing in urinals

I would personally have:

• used the gents (I do that whenever the queue for the ladies is absurdly long. My need not to piss myself in public trumps the unease any male may feel at seeing me there, I'm afraid)
• asked staff to clarify their policy (gender neutral or not?) and pushed further based on their answers (either the bloke was in the wrong queue, or the venue is failing at Equality)

But that's just me, and my big pet peeve re: toilet equality (or lack thereof).
If men can use either facilities, but women can only use one, that's fundamentally unfair in term of opportunity to empty your bladder in a timely fashion.
For some reason I feel even more strongly about this, than about the potentially unsafe aspect of shared facilities (which is still a perfectly valid concern, mind you! That bloke sounded dodgy as hell)

If they were gender neutral then you had no right whatsoever to ban someone from them.

If men can use either facilities, but women can only use one, that's fundamentally unfair in term of opportunity to empty your bladder in a timely fashion.

And sex discrimination.

And as far as I recall gender neutral provision has to meet certain conditions. Like floor to ceiling doors and a basin inside.

Note: if the gents were also "offically" gender neutrals, I think I'd have recruited a few like-minded ladies to join me in taking over the gents (consequently reducing the ladies queue... and perhaps raising a few eyebrows, which can be seen as bonus point? Getting people to question how comfortable they really feel about sharing space, and whether the facilities provided are equal or not, etc...)

I think it might be ike Brexit where the SM followers assumed every wanted to stay in the EU.
Those in wokeyworld think everyone believes everyone thinks we can move genders whereas the majority not in the wokiest towns feel they have lost their marbles

Good for you. By your description the toilets don't meet the requirements for being gender neutral and the fact the men had their own toilets is sex discrimination.

This needs to stop.

Interesting that they seemed gender neutral loos, at lest in practice, but the mens were sex-based. Says if all really about women towns on the South Coast.

I love what you did though by going in front and then calling the woman behind him - she obviously felt the same.

I'd contact the venue to ask what the policy is. Either they need at least 50% more "gender neutral" loos if men are now using them, plus they need to radically alter the setup of they're going to be legal. Or they need to get men out of the women's loos.

Sounds like a weird set up. Why are men so deserving of segregated loos but women just have to use the gender neutral ones. Shouldn't they all be gender neutral? Is this a common set up? (Don't go out much).

I believe there’s a legal requirement to provide single sex or toilets or proper gender neutral ones with floor to ceiling individual cubicles. Putting a gender neutral sticker on the women’s does not absolve the company of these legal requirements.

Venue not complying with building regs.
They are not providing gender neutral toilets , no matter what sign says, so well done that woman.
Nothing wrong with mixed sex facilities if they are properly built. This is a venue wanting to be woke on the cheap.

If they were gender neutral then you had no right whatsoever to ban someone from them.

She can't "ban" anyone. But women can certainly refuse to let men in while they are in there. (I really hope for your sake you're not doing to disagree with that).

This bloke made a problem for himself by trying to get into a toilet women were trying to use at the same time.

These sorts of scenarios are going to be awkward for everyone due to people self-excluding, or being forced to ask others to wait. This is why we came up with the astounding invention of separate toilets so women didn't have to stand outside to guard them. It's much more efficient for everyone!

If the venue has a licence there will be requirements to provide loos, and the standard is separate female and male. (Unless self contained). Search the “town name, licence, lavatory” and see if you can find the local requirement.

Gender neutral surely means anyone of the female sex no matter thier gender ( so inclusive of none binary snd transmen ) ?

I’m pretty sure I know where you were 😆

I wonder why a man would choose to queue for the women's toilets when there are perfectly adequate and free men's toilets available? I certainly wouldn't assume good intentions tbh so well done for standing your ground.

By the sounds of the set up, it seems these toilets did not meet the requirements to be mixed sex either.

Oh and sorry but the man’s a bloody weirdo. Clearly.

If they were gender neutral then you had no right whatsoever to ban someone from them.
She was making a stand. That's what people are sometimes forced into doing in order to make change. Don't you know any history or indeed current affairs whatsoever? Apologies if you were raised in an underground bunker.

Regardless of all the usual arguments about mixed-sex toilets, in this specific case, the bloke is being a dick regardless.

If there's a space he could use but all the women couldn't, then obviously he should be polite and use it to reduce the women's queue. (Similarly he should be using the urinal in the men's if he can, if there's any sort of queue there...)

Even if someone thinks he's "entitled" to be in that queue, they should still be acknowledging that he's rude (at the very least) to do so.

That other women would ignore this basic fact is an example of something here having broken their brains.

Partly neoliberalism, I guess. "I can do whatever I want, screw everyone else, and you can't stop me". But then with this extra rainbow topping of "yay! smash the binary!"