Bridget Phillipson says men with GRCs should be in women's toilets

[InThePottingShed]

"So there we have it. Labour confirming a man with a GRC should use the women’s toilets. If elected they say they will make it even easier for men to get these ‘access all areas’ certificates. So much for their promise to protect single-sex spaces."
Fair Play For Women comment on Bridget Phillipson interview

Phillipson says men with a GRC should be in the women's toilets.

Safe Schools Alliance have commented on the Times Radio post:

"This is deeply disturbing from Phillipson of Labour.
The options here are that either she doesn’t understand the Equality Act (a Labour initiative) in which case she’s unfit to govern or she is correct that the Equality Act allows men into women’s single sex spaces (thus making them mixed sex & therefore not ‘safe’ for women & children) in which case it prevents effective #safeguarding & needs reviewing. Which is it? It is simply unacceptable for the shadow education secretary to have such an abysmal understanding of #safeguarding. We accept that there is widespread lack of understanding about what safeguarding actually is. Safeguarding is not about being kind, it is not about equality, it is not about inclusion, it is not about ensuring everyone is happy. It is about protecting the vulnerable & closing loopholes so that those who wish them harm do not have opportunities to so. Groups & individuals properly upholding safeguarding will never be popular - they will always be under attack by those that safeguards are aimed at thwarting & the many useful idiots believing their lies about why safeguarding should be abandoned. #RestoreSafeguarding "

I think I'd rather everyone just had to use the same toilets and changing rooms. See how people like that. I'd rather go in toilets where everyone was made to feel uncomfortable and not just women.

Yes I’ve looked at Wiki .. and I was so shocked to see this too ! That her mum worked for a women’s refuge !

Interesting that’s the premise for the new U.K. designs enclosing toilets, with doors and walls from floor to ceiling. It is hailed as ’truly inclusive’ as everyone is milling around the sinks and around the toilets, thereby mixing with each other and even hypothesising that it creates protection (last bit hasn’t been tested though). However the reality is that people don’t like it and people are worried about camera phones and making noises so designers end up enclosing the individual cubicle creating little private acoustically-insulated spaces, retrofitted into different types of public areas. They are a nightmare for safeguarding, safety and hygiene for everyone, but especially girls, women and the medically vulnerable. And this design element has been carried over even to single sex toilets. Coming to you from October….

No, I don't like it either. The whole situation is very depressing.

This makes things even more worrying
females or all ages at risk if they are pushed into toilet door closed and totally vulnerable .. 😖😖

worth this was meant for the post above the post I commented on

Yep it’s already happening more with these enclosed designs in schools. Schoolgirls in particular have been the unfortunate guinea pigs in this big experiment.

Also, the new toilet design doors are all able to be opened simply from the outside (as a consequence of being fully enclosed) so there’s not even the pretence of the cubicle being a private refuge.

That’s horrendous isn’t it ?
This is a scandal … if this goes forward with Labour .. if/when they get in.. surely this is going to gather pace and labour people will be really questioning the insanity?

I hope so. There was a lovely story about how Michael Mosley saw a woman collapse in the corridors of the BBC, did CPR and saved her life. She went on to have 2 children.

I didn’t have to do CPR. I was a student, clubbing, went to the loos and we saw the young girl’s hand through the floortodoor gap but after we had got over the door and got her out, cleared the vomit from her mouth, she started breathing thank goodness. The paramedics took her away but I think she will have lived. I don’t think she would have in these new designs.

The problem is most people, when they feel sick in a public place, go to the toilets. You have to be seen in order to be rescued. That includes assaults too - no gaps give the perpetrator no witnesses and the occupant no warning to see who’s waiting. The privacy is all on the attacker’s side.

Privacy shouldn’t overide safety.

Bless Michael Mosely 😢
That is a very sobering story and absolutely privacy and safety for biological born women should be paramount 👍 … and any door that is secured to ceiling and floor as you have just described a threat to our male family members also with the medical emergency factor

Started a thread about this late last night, so many duplicates. Its easy to arrange the index of threads to see which are the newer ones so this doesn't happen.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5105511-tw-with-penises-can-use-female-toilets-bridget-phillipson-labour-has-lost-womens-trust-wes-streeting and has link to really good article by Suzanne Moore.

Well, I've just condemned myself as can now see that this thread was started earlier.

Yes. Mixed sex spaces would be preferable to pretend single sex but actually 'female spaces plus males who want to access female spaces'.

Take your point, but mixed sex spaces can be pretty awful.

A restaurant near me used to have womens and mens loos. The women’s loo used to be perfectly fine. Now both are for anyone, they both smell of piss where men have dribbled onto the floor, and the loo seat is often left up.

That’s a trivial example, but if I was a female rape survivor, I wouldn’t be at all happy with a mixed sex space and would not access support of that nature.

I wouldn’t be happy with a single gender space either…

What do you say in response?

Yes, this is a really important observation. ⬆️

No mixed sex ever. Dangerous dirty smelly. And those ones with basins inside are dirty by design .. faecal spray from flushing loo contaminates basin then you have to touch door on way out and cannot wash hands. If you are new to this you may not realise that there are men with period fetishes that want to go down the sanitary bins and get hold of used women's period products for nefarious fetish purposes including masturbation in the cubical or others that have a fetish for hearing women and girls urinate.

i agree with the no door gap points. It is so common to experience a feeling of nausea or needing the loo before a cardiac arrest

No they shouldn't, Bridget.

A pub in London I’ve been going to for years recently had a refurb and the loos have give from being single sex on the ground floor (in sight of the bar) to being mixed sex tucked away upstairs where there’s no bar.
Theyre in the same space with just Womens one side and mens the other. First time I used them recently, I was washing my hands on the women’s side and despite there being only me and him in there , a man came and washed his hands in the sink next to me ( there were 6 unused on the mens side and 4 others on the women’s side so absolutely no need at all)

Its honestly made me not want to drink there anymore.

That was a creepy and intimidating thing for him to do - I don't blame you for not wanting to go back there.