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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

To wonder why an MP is lying about womens bathrooms?

709 replies

TeaKlaxon · 28/03/2022 09:33

Lucy Allen has tweeted that the Barbican has mens bathrooms and gender neutral bathrooms, but no womens bathrooms.

Lots of twitter users told her that was wrong.

The Barbican itself told her it's wrong.

But the tweet remains. AIBU to think that if an MP gets something wrong, they should apologise and remove the lie? Or to think that this is deliberate misinformation to further the myth of women being 'erased'?

twitter.com/lucyallan/status/1507076111871713282?s=20&t=D_TGgQBlnKkKZ6NEIjnzsw

OP posts:
Thread gallery
9
DdraigGoch · 29/03/2022 18:16

@VestofAbsurdity

Why the hell has this thread been moved from AIBU?
It's quite common for OPs in AIBU to ask that their threads get hidden when they get their arses handed to them. I'm sure that's what happened. Probably. Possibly. Maybe.
PurgatoryOfPotholes · 29/03/2022 18:26

Don't forget queuing for the lifts. Due to the combination of mobility issues and being held up by a deliberately obstructive usher, you won't get to the lifts immediately.

I've followed Embarrassing's helpful link and found:

The four 15–17-person lifts (minimum 145cm wide x 148cm deep) have wide automatic doors (103cm), tactile buttons and voice announcements. All rise from level minus 1 to level 3 (stalls floor to gallery floor) and two also serve level minus 2 and level 4 (Pit floor and conference floor).
Unless otherwise stated, use these lifts to reach all areas of the Barbican. They open directly on to the foyers, except on the stalls floor (level minus 1), where the foyer is reached via sets of automatic doors separated by a ramped crossing.

Sounds good, but if you look at that in more detail, that means they have a bank of 4 lifts, 2 of which serve five floors (unless they number the ground floor as floor 1, in which case it will be four floors) and the other 2 of which serve seven floors (unless it's actually six).

At this point, anyone who has experienced being dependent on lifts in time-sensitive situations will be grimacing.

If you haven't been, what that means in practice is that at peak times, like the interval, it is just like peak hour traffic on the roads. If you get caught behind everyone because you didn't get out there when the lifts were all free for the first circuit you'll be waiting for one lift to drop off all its passengers and come back to your floor.

Then you have to queue in the toilets, which have reduced capacity now because there are fewer of them.

And when you've been to the toilet, you'll have to repeat it in reverse and recall the lift to the toilet floor, because of all the people who did get to the lobby first originally, who got to the toilets and finished before you, and took the lift back!

Mummyoflittledragon · 29/03/2022 18:35

I am a physically disabled woman. My disability is such that I qualify for a blue badge. Blue badges are not easy things to get hold of and I was required to undergo a detailed assessment with an occupational therapist. In 2020, there were 2.44 million blue badge holders. As a population, 6% of children, 16-18% of adults of working age and 45% of pensioners are classed as disabled under the EA2010.

I am not a wheelchair user and am very aware there are nowhere near enough accessible loos to accommodate the large percentage of people with disabilities. I therefore use the women’s loos in preference to the accessible ones whenever possible.

Personally I can’t just go up a half flight of stairs and am protected twice under the Equality Act 2010. Once for my sex, namely being a biological woman and a secondly for being disabled. Having a blue badge also means every step is a step and I’m limited to the number I can do so walking to the lift and along a bunch of corridors can prove impossible.

I don’t carry walking aids as they’re of no use. I don’t look disabled and as I’m middle aged, people treat me as though I am able-bodied. They expect me to get out of the way in certain situations and I physically can’t. I have been barged into before now simply for existing and the larger and stronger the physique a person is, the more damage they could inflict. For my own safety and dignity, I therefore need a single sex spaces including toilets.

Due to the high percentage of people being disabled, I will not be the only one forced into accessible loos to the detriment of wheelchair users. I do not see any benefit for the physically disabled of not segregating loos by sex, only disadvantages.

The ableist comments are very distressing.

Tiphaine · 29/03/2022 18:46

The MRA's gleeful reaction to the discrimination-caused exclusion from part of public life of a group of women they're prejudiced against is a grim spectacle.

Helleofabore · 29/03/2022 18:48

This OP has already told others that they don't care about causing offense to people. Because we are cosying up to the right wing parties and effectively reap what we sew. Maybe I read it incorrectly, but that is certainly the message that I took away from the post, and since it was aimed at me, I guess my interpretation is valid.

I hardly think they are going to turn around now and acknowledge that the very 'disabled' women that they were telling us off for ignoring before are actually on this thread telling them they are, in fact, full of shite in the way they have posted on this thread.

Moodycow78 · 29/03/2022 18:50

@ TeaKlaxon

Far too many women have been challenged using womens bathrooms because they don't look sufficiently like women as far as some users were concerned.

This rarely happens 😅😅😅

PurgatoryOfPotholes · 29/03/2022 18:56

@AlisonDonut

Why is it always a straw man when women point out the fucking obvious?
We must listen to lived experience, people like Tea cry.

Tea: strawman!

noraclavicle · 29/03/2022 19:12

Last time I was there a few weeks ago, women’s were closed and the men’s was ‘gender neutral’ on the 1st floor by the main auditorium. I asked in the ‘did you enjoy your visit?’ feedback form if this was a permanent thing. Reply came there none, so I haven’t returned.

noraclavicle · 29/03/2022 19:19

I’ll add that I saw women who clearly didn’t want to use the gender neutral loo using the disabled loo instead and also said in the feedback form that the Barbican was therefore reducing availability to those who need those facilities. They don’t give a shiny s**t

noraclavicle · 29/03/2022 19:32

Ummm - the Barbican has lifts.

No one is asking people with mobility issues to walk up several flights of stairs.

FFS - looks like there's no straw man you guys won't cling on to.

Try getting to the lift from the auditorium and then to accessible loos in a busy interval, or in the stampede at the end of a performance
Just admit it, you don’t give a shiny s**t about disabled people either, do you? They’re being terribly inconvenient, getting in the way of your monomania.

SunniDelite · 29/03/2022 19:44

I've always found the Barbican unfriendly in all sorts of ways. I feel sorry for female staff who work late and have to find their way to public transport in the dark when the audience have gone home. I haven't been there for years and will continue to avoid it if it has no female facilities. Lots of venues are much nicer.

DdraigGoch · 29/03/2022 20:14

@PurgatoryOfPotholes

Accessibility extends beyond saying, "we have a lift" or "we have a ramp".
Indeed, for a start you need to tell the customer which floor they should take the lift/stairs to, and where to go from there. In the absence of clear signage - obviously signs cannot be everywhere, but it is usual where the different sets of toilets aren't clustered together to have a sign outside one to tell you how to find the other - ushers exist to direct patrons to where they wish to go.

You keep railing against someone having to walk up or down half a flight of stairs to get to a womens bathroom.
How does someone know to walk up or down stairs if staff on more than one occasion have failed to give directions when asked?

Waitwhat23 · 29/03/2022 20:54

This is what is so grimly amusing about 'intersectional' feminism.

'You're not an actual feminist unless you include all females! Including males!'

'You're excluding religious women'

'Oh well, (cough) erm well, they shouldn't be religious!'

'You're excluding disabled women'

'Oooh, strawman, strawman! They can just get the lift, amirite!'

It's amazing how much all this inclusiveness excludes women.

Helleofabore · 29/03/2022 21:02

Waitwhat23

Hang on wait. We are not the feminists according to this OP.

Only the OP knows who should be included in feminism. Because it sure as fuck does not seem to be women centring females in the OP’s world. It seems anything but. It seems like they pay lip service to including all females, but when the questions are asked….. it is just more disparagement. (Yes , OP I know the meaning of this word too! It works along with derogation!)

So … OPs feminism doesn’t include all the groups of female humans. Just the chosen ones that seem to match their political agenda.

Same old, same old.

unwashedanddazed · 29/03/2022 21:10

Eloise Stonborough works for Stonewall and her linked-in states "LGBTQ+ rights advocate with specialist expertise in contemporary trans rights and the global anti-gender movement." She has a very clear agenda which is in conflict with women's rights.

As the OP feels all Tories lie, I feel similarly about Stonewall representatives. After all they were actively campaigning to remove all single-sex exemptions from the Equality Act and then lied about it. So why should any woman trust anything a Stonewall representative says? They're proven liars after all.

Sazzasez · 29/03/2022 21:46

My local Arts Centre has 3 loos on the ground floor: men, wheelchair access, (single cubicle) and “all genders”.

There’s also a men’s loo on the lower floor, which is the level at which you can exit the auditorium.

There IS a women’s loo. To get there you climb up 2 flights on a long steep narrow stair, enter a corridor which never seems to be lit except by a fire escape sign, and it’s there.

I used to use it but my knees are not really up to it now.

So last time I was there the “all genders” loo (2 cubicles) had piss on both seats & the floor, and the sanitary towel machine had been ransacked & soggy towels strewn about the place.

It’s disgusting & the provision is completely inadequate.

Mummyoflittledragon · 29/03/2022 22:23

Sazzasez
That’s grim. Have you complained?

KimikosNightmare · 29/03/2022 22:54

Why in the hell does she thinks that usher gives a crap why she won't use the gender neutral toilet

Oddly the last time I was at Union Chapel the usher I asked where the loos were said, without any prompting- "there's loos over there, but you won't want them, they're gender neutral. The ladies are there"

KimikosNightmare · 29/03/2022 23:00

@SunniDelite

I've always found the Barbican unfriendly in all sorts of ways. I feel sorry for female staff who work late and have to find their way to public transport in the dark when the audience have gone home. I haven't been there for years and will continue to avoid it if it has no female facilities. Lots of venues are much nicer.
I really don't like The Barbican. I'm someone who's generally quite happy walking on my own at night but I really hate the walk back to the Barbican underground station.
Annette32123 · 29/03/2022 23:01

@SalsaLove

Bathroom sounds nicer than toilet.
Woman sounds nicer than man but we can’t have men calling themselves women….

Oops.

BringBackCoffeeCreams · 29/03/2022 23:07

If you lot could only see how profoundly irrelevant you are to most people who do not spend their time obsessing about toilets, you might stop imagining that anyone will care about your little boycott.

Says the person who is so obsessed by toilets they started a thread about them and has spent 2 whole days arguing with all and sundry about them.

You need to get a hobby.

SamphiretheStickerist · 30/03/2022 07:15

I know which of us will have done more for women.

Come to work with me for a day.

Come see the carnage gender ideology has wreaked upon the funding for rape crisis centres.

Come see the number of funding streams we can no longer access because we do not include men in our women's centres.

Come see how much of our remaining funding we already share with centres that do cater for men - that still isn't enough because we don't allow men inside our specific centres.

Come see how many men it takes to cause the 40% drop in funding for a local crisis centre and refuge (hint: None. We haven't had a complaint, we send all men to relevant spces, we even give them a lift). We just can't tick the box on the funding applications that says we include men in our female refuge.

THEN talk to me about who is doing what for women.

Until then TRY LISTENING!

Helleofabore · 30/03/2022 08:11

If you lot could only see how profoundly irrelevant you are to most people who do not spend their time obsessing about toilets, you might stop imagining that anyone will care about your little boycott

The hilarious thing about this gem of a comment is that if ‘us lot’ were actually as ‘irrelevant’ as this poster likes to think, they’d be saying ‘go for it! Boycott to your hearts content.’

The thing is, these couple of sentences actually reflect the underlying issues well.

As pp have said, this poster has invested two days of hatred into this thread. And has used many manipulative tactics that simply show that if they actually thought deeply about it, they know what they are advocating for is simply not supported by the majority of the UK population.

Not out of hatred or phobia, simply because the majority of women, those with a female sexed body, have their own valid reasons for not wanting to use mixed sex toilets. They might use them because there are no options, but they prefer female single sex toilets. Men too seem to prefer their own single sex toilets.

The ‘profoundly irrelevant’ is all projection. The extreme activists realise that outside of their group, the wider population want to be kind where possible but don’t support these activists claims that gender is prioritised over sex where sex matters.

That must be hard to accept. That they as a group are the ones that are ‘profoundly irrelevant’ in many ways despite their lobby power that they gained when Stonewall got on board. Look at what has happened in a few short years really since Stonewall changed their focus. Organisations are dropping out. Because there has been a very real over reach and the public are not supportive of those over reaching claims.

If we were ‘profoundly irrelevant’ this OP would have simply laughed and produced evidence links to prove that they had all this public support behind them.

They haven’t, because they won’t find them. Over 80%, maybe even 90% of transitioned males retain their penises. And many still have full use of them. As evidenced by the porn sector that is growing, of some of these males masturbating in female toilets. (Want evidence, go and Google it yourself, the links we post get deleted… because activist posters don’t seem to want those known about maybe)

And as additional evidence their penises work , the rather large number of these transitioned males with pictures of their masturbatory efforts on twitter. (Be aware readers if you are on twitter, be very careful just which profiles you click on to see their profile and timeline. Even some of the political party affiliates!)

It is consistent. As soon as the respondents in public and properly randomized surveys are asked about allowing males into toilets and changing room with penises, the numbers are no longer supported. I believe that even OP has that boundary, although I might have misread that post.

Yet.

That poster is here deriding, dismissing, derogating women stating their boundaries. They have now stepped up to demonising and monstering.

Why? Who benefits from this?

It was long established on this thread that OP spun the twitter outraged interpretation on those tweets to their first posts. They were declaring misinformation was being spread, hypocritically while misrepresenting the tweet and thus spreading misinformation.

This tweet:

“I was at the Barbican yesterday where there were male toilets, disabled toilets, and gender neutral toilets. I asked where were the female toilets as I am not gender neutral I am a woman and they laughed in my face. Women are being erased.”

No. We are not ‘profoundly irrelevant’. We are but the tip of the iceberg of people who wish to retain female single sex spaces. The very depths of the iceberg is beginning to show now and extreme activists, like OP, are realising they have to use dishonest tactics to try to chip that iceberg down in size. Because they realise the general population have only ever been supportive on the surface but are now realising the implications of that support.

The conversion of toilets and changing rooms into mixed sex. And as several people have confirmed on this very thread the marginalisation in some facilities of female single sex provision if they are still even provided. Marginalised by being hard to find for some users, and maybe too hard to get to.

And yet, so much hate being delivered here on this thread for people who simply refuse to toe the line trying to be dictated by lobby groups and heavily invested self-identified media influencers.

Women saying no truly seems to infuriate some people, doesn’t it?

Artichokeleaves · 30/03/2022 08:43

If you lot could only see how profoundly irrelevant you are to most people

And if you actually believed that you wouldn't be investing so much time and energy here, would you?

noraclavicle · 30/03/2022 09:24

If you lot could only see how profoundly irrelevant you are to most people

And if you actually believed that you wouldn't be investing so much time and energy here, would you?

137 - 137! - posts from the OP would seem to indicate they’re investing a lot of time and energy into something apparently irrelevant, wouldn’t it?