Non-binary student left 'hurt' after disabled toilet row at Digbeth bar

[SerendipityJane]

www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/non-binary-student-left-hurt-25914614

My friend's teenage daughter has severe cerebral palsy, so she needs those facilities to ensure P is taken care of. To have some self important able bodied twat mince into a disabled facility in front of them.....I couldn't promise she wouldn't grab the back of their neck and spin them into next week. Use the bogs designated for your bloody sex and stfu.

#BeKind

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I, for one, am shocked - shocked, I tell you - at the speciesism on this thread. Cats have identities, too, you know. Vipers!

Toilets just need to be rebranded - instead of male & female they just need to be for the relevant genitalia : penis or vagina - choose the one which is most appropriate.

Or, people could just accept that they know which sex they are, and stop fucking about.

And if I wanted to be particularly pedantic, I could witter on about English not being the first language, learning difficulties, illiteracy, children asking what's a vagina/penis mummy, and teens sniggering. Or we could just go with the standard pictures everyone knows the meaning of, and - stop fucking about.

Charlie is clearly female, and actually feels just like the rest of us, that we have no gender ID. To throw a tantrum like this is just self-centred.

Charlie is clearly female, and actually feels just like the rest of us, that we have no gender ID. To throw a tantrum like this is just self-centred.

Just because we use the standard male and female symbols for toilet doors that everybody across the world understands relate respectively to those with bodies of those sexes, it doesn't mean that an actual woman isn't allowed to use the women's ones if she happens to be wearing trousers.

Totally agree. A lot of us wear trousers and have short hair, which has nothing to do with our sex (or imagined gender ID) at all. Tantrum over nothing more than 'I'm special so I need special treatment/privileges'.

Looking at it here a bit differently I do have some sympathy, having gone through something similar with my DD.

My DD identified as male for a while in her early teens and the whole issue around public toilets was really difficult for her and was a nightmare when we went out.

She felt that she "ought" to use male toilets, but not surprisingly didn't feel right and safe in them. However, she was painfully self-conscious and scared going into female toilet facilities in case she got challenged. In fact she DID get challenged a couple of times, which for someone young and autistic caused her a great deal of anxiety.

I had to make sure she had a list of gender neutral toilets around our city.

There's a lot on here about people being male-bodied and using female toilets - but not much thought goes to young gender non conforming women and girls (who go on to identify as non-binary or f to m trans) and their safety, comfort and dignity.

Aware I'm using language and terms that will offend everyone on every side - but the issue is real for young autistic people "AFAB".

By the way - the issue continued for DD after she stopped identifying as male but still had short hair and preferred wearing hoodies and tracksuits - still had to cope with being challenged using women's toilets

I find this alarming that young (most?) people are now so entrenched in sex based stereotypes that someone female in a hoodie and tracksuit trousers with short hair is considered to be likely male to the point of challenging them in the toilets. There's nothing definitively masculine about wearing a hoodie and tracksuit trousers and having short hair.

I totally agree with you - but it happened. And before it happened she was already scared that she would be challenged as people generally assumed she was male before having a closer look...

It was adults that challenged her too - not young people

I see lots of arguments on here against gender neutral spaces - but I do think there is need for them, alongside single sex spaces

I don't mind mixed sex provisions along side the existing provision for single sex facilities. But what actually seems to happen is that the women's facilities get relabelled as "gender neutral" leaving women with no dedicated facilities and men with a choice of all of the available options. Or worse, the accessible toilets are co-opted as the designated "gender neutral" facilities.

I agree that there should be safe provisions for everyone - including safe gender neutral spaces.

I suppose I’m challenging the narrative that ‘Charlie’ in the article was being all ‘precious’ and ‘special’ - the article describes them having similar issues to my DD - challenged within female spaces for being GNC - possibly unsafe in male spaces.

Lots of young, vulnerable neurodiverse females questioning their gender/assuming trans identities - when everyone on these boards are talking about female safety, do these female sexed young people not count?

(Not directing that question at you btw @RoseslnTheHospital - it’s a general question to folks on this thread)

Thank you for sharing. This information is very eye opening!

Gordon Selfridge was one of the first retail entrepreneurs to instal women's toilets in his shop, knowing that not only would it attract female shoppers but they's stay longer.

medium.com/culturistique/how-harry-selfridge-reformed-the-window-shopping-af982a32ebab

And there was huge opposition to public toilets for women when they were first introduced.

Charlie describes a fear of being challenged in both facilities. So, if there is a significant percentage of people that have the same anxiety, then yes campaign for additional mixed sex facilities. But given the difficulties that there have been getting accessible toilets and especially the specific "changing places" toilets with hoists, I can see it taking a long time.

There also needs to be another strand to dealing with this, which is to push back as hard as possible against this mad stratification that seems to have happened in the 21st century. Where young women and men are expected to conform to these very narrow standards of socially acceptable presentation or otherwise declare themselves non-binary. There was so much more variety in how young people presented prior to the last decade or so.