Simon Rimmer's inadequate facilities

[boccajunior]

Lulabelle went to TV chef Simon Rimmer's new restaurant and was not happy with the unisex toilets

twitter.com/Lulabel06994981/status/1548085200407576582?t=MhkXwg2YEqjmfQiebhyTfQ&s=19

Just been to @simonrim's lovely new restaurant where I was disappointed to discover gender neutral toilets. Men and women awkwardly shuffling round each other wondering if they were in the wrong place. Yeuch.

Rimmer's been trying to defend them all afternoon but it's not been going well due to the fabulous, intelligent women making him look daft.

The lovely Maya Forstater has given up her afternoon to look into the building regulations and codes and it appears that she's unearthed some problems.

(warning long thread from Maya)

twitter.com/MForstater/status/1548348265791307781?t=zOcwHQP704sbKaRhGJE5Lw&s=19

Hopefully now he'll be forced to create single-sex spaces.

And of course we have the Jessica’s and Jeffries if the world packing tampons in the ladies loos in the hope of finding a woman caught out.

And? So you've never seen it, then it never happens?
It matters not wether you have seen such things happen, you can take other womens word that it happens to them.
Still doesn't mean we cannot have our own spaces. Not as if we are asking for the moon here, although currently we might as well.

Totally agree. We shouldn't need to give any reasons.

paranoia is an interesting word and this has fuck all to do with transphobia it's women trying to explain why we need and expect single sex toilets. A mixed sex toilet will have men in the washing area that's not paranoia that's just the way they're designed.

If women's feelings and comfort mean fuck all to you that's because you're sexist.

No. You are most definitely not the only one. Did it for about 12-18 months myself, through flooding periods too. And also had to jam a wheelschair in the door with my mother when no accessible toilet found. (Yes, believe it or not, that does happen too!)

Yes. Eye opening that some people have ‘never seen it’. I have seen it often enough in work and shopping situations to know it does happen.

I have rinsed my skirt while on and used the hand dryer.

Remarkable.

Some rather spectacular gaslighting and dismissing of women's experiences going on in this thread.

I find it odd how mtf transitioners can't possibly use the men's toilets because they're soooo dangerous, but unisex is absolutely fine?

And mtf transitioners are taken seriously and their concerns validated when it comes to sharing toilets with men but women are told to get over themselves and to stop being so silly.

Perhaps someone who is in favour of unisex loos could explain the cognitive dissonance. Because atm the concerns of people who have penises seem to take priority over people who have vaginas, and there used to be a word for that...

I never understood that either. Maybe the TW are hoping to use women as human shields in unisex toilets? By making women use unisex toilets they’re getting the validation they crave (it was never about safety) whilst decimating women’s spaces.
I always ask people in favour of letting TW into female spaces why they are in favour of making spaces mixed sex. The answer is usually ‘we’re not though’. Some people just don’t think of TW as male. This is where be kind got us.

*Icimoi
In 50 years of using women's toilets I have never, ever seen women washing blood off their hands and clothing or taking off clothes to wash off menstrual blood. If I needed to do anything like that myself I wipe my hands within the cubicle and change my clothes there.*

As a woman going through the peri menopause, this does occasionally happen to me. It happened last summer in a restaurant with unisex toilets. It wasn't possible for me to clean all the blood off my hands in the cubicle, instead I had to wash my hands between 2 males. It was an incredibly uncomfortable experience. I emailed said restaurant but got no response, so now my family and I no longer go there.

The goal seems to be to destroy anything and everything which connects the word woman with biological functions and women’s bodies. That includes toilets and changing rooms as much as breastfeeding groups and maternity.

The goal is to insist that womanhood is an intangible feeling and/or a costume not simply the unavoidable, inescapable, observable and unchangable fact of being an adult human being of the female sex.

I used to do the same.

I've just remembered that I had a very early/ chemical miscarriage which was extremely heavy.

That started in a pub garden. Lots of friends and kids. Long summer afternoon.

I had to go to the loo about 5 times over the course of the meal we had. I ran out of towels and had to resort to loo paper wads. That was messy and emotional. Had to put on my fake smile; the loo gave me respite. There's no way I could have done that around strange men.

Womens loo was really quiet thankfully. And for women.

I never count the v early / chemical miscarriages so had forgotten that one. That one wasn't just a heavy period though.

My 9 week miscarriage went on for a couple of days and started while I was at a cpd course miles away from home. I had to use the loo before I drove back.

Women tend to normalise a lot of stuff as well as cope, and also are taught not to talk about it or make a fuss.

Might be time to start talking more.

I remember a horrific thread on mn a few years ago where a poor woman had both awful periods as well as awful ibs at the same time and was trying to work out how she could get her employer (a store like John Lewis - it wasn't John Lewis) to be more flexible with loo breaks as well as asking for help with the actual issue.

It was literally disabling and she was taking some days off which was also becoming an issue.

There are also some men who get a kick out of hearing a woman use the facilities. Especially an attractive one.

Weird but true, I've been privvy to overhearing over the years not one but two male friends talk along those lines and have never forgotten. Ew, men are disgusting I thought back then shrugged it off, not my problem. Oh look it is.

I've just seen a tweet from a person saying we're all crazy for thinking there are men who masturbate in toilets or find women peeing erotic, and we don't want to be used that way.

This person (reads as female) is literally doing a porn face in her public avatar - that awful tongue out submissive hentai thing. While denying that porn influences public behaviour and tells us something about what men find erotic. Incredible.

I wonder if that's because men wanking in toilets and listening to women urinate is so incredibly seedy. Poking your tongue out and trying to look sexually alluring is one thing. Realising that your audience is the grubbiest end of the dirty mac brigade and that's who you're doing it for, might be quite another.

Yy Datun.

Another one - reads as male, responding to a woman saying she doesn't want to shit next to a man. Telling her 'some guys are into that' LIKE IT'S A JOKEY POSITIVE. Yes love, we know they are. We'd rather not be unwillingly used for their fantasies. Incredible.

Agreed. I'm a man and I wouldn't use them except in extremis. Obviously if any man , woman or - especially - child is 'caught short ' people would be reasonable. But generally we want our single sex provision the same as women.

I was waiting for someone outside a mens loo in a store that allows men to use ladies changing rooms (it’s all about how you feel apparently - you being the other person and not the ladies in the changing room). A man walks in with a little girl (she looked about 8 or 9) - there was quite an exodus!

Similar happened (same store) in their ‘changing room’ in the men dept when a woman frogmarched her (husband) with a suit over her arm (I guess he was resisting buying one). The men that were coming out and turning around to check the signage (then clocking there was no sex indicator). The man in the door was shrugging, so I assume he was being told ‘there’s a woman in there!

no - men don’t want it wither. But some people positively do want it - which is precisely why we should never have it.

I was in London recently and went to the loo of a pub during lunch. When I walked in I came face to face with a woman who had not shut her cubicle door and so I was a bit startled!
But then I realised that she had a small child with her and the cubicles were too small to fit the child in there with her. (They were the type where you end up half sitting on the sanitary bin cause they’re so small!)
So what would she have done if those toilets were now ‘gender neutral’? Women need privacy from men for many reasons, not just menstruation.

Yes I've done this too with a double buggy as well as single. Leave the door of the cubicle open and drag the pushchair in as close as I could. I still felt uncomfortable doing it but I knew it was a female only space so I was safe and other women would respect my privacy. I do not want mixed sex toilets. I do not consent.

I remember being out on the town in Newcastle dressed to the nines with my husband. I had endometriosis - I looked down in horror as my painful heavy period seeped through to the front of my dress. I dodged into a ladies loo from the street in a pub which was full of young women who all flocked round me with huge sisterly concern. Cleaned me up helped me dry my dress in front of the hand drier and generally clucked around me with empathy and concern. I’ll never forget it.

Seriously we don’t want men however they identify in our spaces. I grieve at this situation in which women and girls find themselves.

That sounds horrific. I had a blissful barely there period till I turned 38. But I can't imagine what Endometriosis is like.

And also, aw that's the toon for you!