Would you go into a mens toilet for the Gender Critical cause?

[Isheabastard]

I am Gender critical.

I have a lot of sympathy for people with true gender dysphoria. Any one who has had bottom surgery (penis removal) would be welcome in my private spaces. However I admit it’s not always easy to separate who’s who.

I also believe that most people underestimate the lengths predators will go to to have access to women and children.

It has occurred to me that if ‘men’ are able to go into womens loos, then women should be able to go into mens loos. Especially when the womens loos have become ‘mixed’, but the mens has been left untouched.

I know most women would say “Yuck that’s just not something we want to do”, but hear me out. I am an older overweight grey haired woman. If I put on a mannish jacket and tie, popped on a man’s hat and a ludicrous fake beard or moustache, went into the mens loos, went past the men at the urinals and into a cubicle, do you think the men would feel the same discomfiture as women feel when the opposite happens?

I think as long as the woman was way past being attractive she would probably be safe enough, especially if safeguards were used. Suggestions gratefully received.

A bit of me wants to do this to ‘take one for the team’, but honestly I’m too much of a coward.

Is there anyone out there who thinks like me, and even more important anyone out there that thinks they could actually do this?

Or am I being a mad as a box of frogs, post menopausal crazy cat lady?

If you are arguing for single sex

And that is being removed

And the people who tend to have more power don't see this, or think that it's just I kindness , things won't change

If men realised that the removal of single sex will affect them it's more likely to be blocked

Think of it this way. I don't approve of any kind of physical violence. If someone tried to pinch my child I would still thump them to get my child back. It's not abandoning the principle , it's being pragmatic. It's putting things in a priority order

If I can't have single sex then there is no difference going to the mens or the ladies for me , both are unisex anyway

, but there will be a difference for the men ( who it seems are less good at sexing humans than women )

What if a man used the women's toilets, probably not for queue reasons, but maybe because he thought them cleaner? "I'm just having a piss and the women's are in a better state"

i tend to like rock music and go to so many gigs where the queue for the men's is way longer. and had a good chortle at the weekend about the queue for the (just outside the stadium) men's toilets compared to the women's at footy.

Went to a stadium gig a few years ago and no joke it was about 10% women. With the result that the queue for the men's toilets (in those trailer things) was huge, but there wasn't for the women's, in fact there were loads of free cubicles. We were calling over to the men to use the women's - but they were all "oh no, that's not right".

But at an Ed Sheeran gig (football stadium) the proportion was opposite, and the women just queued at all the loos, and the men joined the queues for the ones with the urinals (labelled Men's) and there were exactly zero problems.

But i agree with others. If we want to preserve women's toilets for women, using the men's just lets everyone know you're ok with mixed.

I've said this all along. If predators can exploit their way into accessing women's spaces, and non-predatory men would not and do not, then it stands to reason that the safest space for a woman to be, is now the men's toilets. As any dangerous predators will be in the women's.

The one hole in this thinking I can think of is that critics would use this as 'proof' that we/women-as-a-collective are not fearful of men.

Using the ladies lets everyone know you're ok with mixed sex

Because they are

Men on the whole are not aware
They need to feel uncomfortable

i think it's a difficult balancing act between making men aware (making them uncomfortable) vs allowing people to think that by women using the men's they are ok with unisex/gender free

So maybe the Man Friday thing is the way to go - with carefully coordinated actions where, as with the Houses of Parliament, a lot of people just do it with some SM info being released shortly before or after?

Honestly, any man that goes into a single sex spaces is at best - especially now that many women's voices are being heard about their need for single sex spaces - ignoring a clear 'no' and desire for boundaries. This is a red flag. So if there was a man in the women's, I'd use the mens. The census data analysis and prisons stats show that transwomen are 5x more likely than men to be convicted of sex crimes

Very good point. I would be reluctant to use the men’s, both for my own sake and because they’re entitled to privacy too. But statistically I would be more at risk from the male person in the women’s. Whether that’s a TW or just a man who wants to piss on women’s rights.

The one hole in this thinking I can think of is that critics would use this as 'proof' that we/women-as-a-collective are not fearful of men.

Yes. But you might feel safer in a crowd of ordinary men than with one who has made a point of breaking women’s boundaries. There may be misogynists and sex offenders in that crowd, but the presence of other men might keep them under control.

Obviously depends where you are. In the UK, I have never been physically threatened or attacked by a group of men, only by individuals. In places where hostility to women is more open and accepted, you would not be protected by the crowd.

We have that issue at work.
They prefer to dirty up our toilet because it's a cleaner place for the leisurely mid morning shitathon.

To the posters that asked why me being old, grey and overweight was relevant.

I suppose I was thinking that some men thinking catcalling in the street, chatting up women in the gym etc is ok, just don’t get the fact that many women don’t like that attention.

So if young attractive women did it back to men, it would probably be an own goal, the men would think it’s great.

But if those same men were approached by another man who was gay when they were straight I think they would feel uncomfortable, if not threatened.

As I’m not a gay man, I wondered if being more of a gran figure would substitute.

I remember the Harry Enfield sketch where old ladies letched and said “Young Man!”, and the men all wanted to run a mile.

So that led me to thinking that going into a man’s toilet and possibly seeing their penises whilst they are at the urinals would make them feel uncomfortable and wonder why on earth a woman would want to use the gents when there’s a perfectly good ladies (if it’s not mixed sex by now) next door. They might even wonder if I’m some kind of pervert (I’m not).

And there’s us wondering the same, why do some ‘men’ want to use the ladies, when there’s a gents next door with lots of lovely urinals for them to use.

im guessing the men using the gents are the ones who are our husbands, sons, brothers. They generally wouldn’t be a danger to women, but the just don’t get why we women are so bothered about another sex in our spaces.

I believe there’s a lot of people out there who don’t have opinions about something unless they personally have experienced it. I just wondered if women like me going into their spaces would change their minds.

Theres been a lot of interesting replies, thank you all.

PS. I’ve also in the past used the mens loo at a nightclub, but that was for a specific reason. Eg the ladies loos had blocked, the queue were too long and I was busting. I don’t think that’s the same.

It is pretty much the same. You can't say "single sex spaces are important for privacy and safety - except when it's inconvenient to me". Not without sounding like a massive hypocrite.

@Isheabastard
im guessing the men using the gents are the ones who are our husbands, sons, brothers. They generally wouldn’t be a danger to women, but the just don’t get why we women are so bothered about another sex in our spaces.
I believe there’s a lot of people out there who don’t have opinions about something unless they personally have experienced it. I just wondered if women like me going into their spaces would change their minds.

To be honest, the best thing you can do to convince men on this topic is to convince your men on it. I've been on a mission for the past year and a half to talk to other men about this whenever I can, ever since I started seeing posts from this board in Active.

From what I've found, most men don't believe the bollocks that you can change sex. The whole topic doesn't affect us in the same way it does women, so most men don't have much of an opinion on it either way. And what's more, men aren't taught throughout childhood to make space and to be kind, we're not coming to the argument from a default position of not wanting to hurt anyone's feelings. That makes us easier to convince.

I can pretty much guarantee that most men don't believe TWAW, even the ones that say they do. Politicians like Keir Starmer are only going along with it because they think it's a vote winner, they don't really believe it. They believe they're likely to get more votes from captured women than Gender Critical women. Most men just shrug and put their pronouns in their email to avoid an argument because "What difference does it make to me?"

The trick to convincing them is to show them the difference it makes to them. And that difference is you.

4 men in women's prisons in Scotland putting hundred of female prisoners at risk doesn't sink in, because they don't know any women in prison. Instead explain that you don't feel safe trying on clothes in Primark any more.

The pressure that the Welsh Government are putting on the WRU to let transwomen play with women is just a story in the paper to them, but point out that if that domino falls, maybe the next one to go down is your sport / activity.

The phrase "Happy wife, happy life" is misogynistic as fuck, but as with most things, there's a core of truth there. People don't care about the abstract, but most of us case about the people we love. So when talking to men, make it about you. Their wife, their daughter, their mother, their girlfriend.

That's the technique I've found has the most effect. Glazed eyes until I say something like "Doesn't your niece play rugby?" And once they get it, they can start helping to build your army.

my teen daughter ... has honed the skill of not drinking and not going to the toilet all day as a survival strategy in school

This gives me the rage. Girls and women should be able to pee safely when we need to. Instead, many of us are having to risk urinary infections and kidney disease (from holding urine in), plus the numerous harmful effects of dehydration. International charities campaign for safe single-sex toilets in developing countries, but not over here!

Not really. As an example, there may well be two mens cubicles and two urinals and only two cubicles for women, despite women taking longer and needing to go more often. So it's not hypocritical to use the other facilities as the facilities offered should be better for women.

Anyway hypocrisy doesn't come into it if the alternative is having an accident or leaking everywhere.

The issue of male bodied people using female loos is very different.

You bet and I’ll leave bloody sanctuary products by the sink.

Pigs blood obvs. Not mine. Although I’ll need to source clots just to make it realistic so the bros understand what a period entails.

Men's toilets are already bad enough without you making the cleaners job worse.

That's incorrect, because women are more at risk from a man in the women's toilets than from men in the men's toilets.

A man entering a women's single-sex space has shown he does not respect women's rights or long-standing social conventions that allow privacy to women and girls. Why has he put himself in a place where women are vulnerable? We don't know, so it is reasonable for any woman to expect that he may intend some further offence.

Transwomen are statistically more likely than other males to commit sex offences, so a woman is being sensible, not transphobic, if she keeps away from them in confined spaces.

Like lots of other posters, I've used the men's loos on occasion when there was a queue at the women's, and I have also thought this might be a good strategy.
The target I have in mind is a venue that has gone gender neutral simply by changing the signs on the door (is it the Old Vic that has gender neutral with and without urinals?)... I would love to go into one of these with my shewee and use the urinal, but unless I was with others I don't think I'm quite brazen enough. However I would happily go into a cubicle in any loo that claimed to be gender neutral and then make a huge fuss to management about the lack of tampax vending machines and disposal bins.

We can't exactly argue for the maintenance of our dignity, in the form of single sex spaces, when we don't extend the same courtesy to men. It would negate our overall aims.

Also, saying that you would be content to share female spaces with a trans woman who has had bottom surgery makes no sense. You wouldn't be able to know by looking at them so how would you tell, exactly?

No, it just shows we're good at risk assessment. The risk is higher with those male bodied people in the 'ladies' than the male bodied people in the mens. If men / handmaid's can't see this acquaint them with Dolatowski.

Our choice now is high risk or slightly lower but still high risk. Just because both current choices are shit doesn't mean we won't take the lower risk option but it also doesn't mean we don't want a better choice (3 spaces, one being single sex)

Calling someone a handmaiden just because they don't agree with your analysis is the new "no debate".

OK, but can you ignore men's right to single sex spaces because trans women are ignoring women's right to single sex spaces?

The majority of men aren't responsible for the actions of the trans women. From polling they are more protective of single sex spaces than women are.

I would also mention that if a woman uses the men's toilets because they are truly desperate that's one thing. If it's done for convenience however, (don't have to wait), then how can that be anything other than a failure to respect single sex spaces?

I strongly disagree with using men's facilities. Most men I know would never dream of using women's loos or changing rooms. My teen son would be mortified if a woman walked in on him at the urinal. We would have no right to expect men to respect our spaces if we don't respect theirs.

I have used mens toilets on many occasions, when the ladies line was too long and the men's was nonexistent, not as a statement. I've never had a bad reaction. I was not in drag.

I would feel one hundred percent safer as a woman in the mens loos than with a man in the ladies loos.

do you think the men would feel the same discomfiture as women feel when the opposite happens?

No, and this is the point. It's not the same, you can't just flip it over and it is the opposite, it's more nuanced than a fake beard or how attractive you are.