Anyone else also tired of the protests trying to focus only on toilets?

[NextRinny]

Bring on the talks of sports, prisons, rape centres, refuges and hospital wards. With focus on those providing care as well as receiving it, I say.

You can't have one without all the others.

I had the very unusual experience of having someone change their position on this in response to something I posted - on TikTok, of all places.

She said that she didn't understand all the fuss over toilets; she was straight in and out and didn't care who else was in there. I responded with this: "I felt the same until my niece started refusing to use school toilets where boys could terrorise girls because of this madness. It's not just about us." Well bugger me she came back with a response saying "omg I hadn't even thought about schools, thanks for reminding me that all this has a different effect on kids".

So it is worth chipping away, there are plenty of people who just haven't spent the same amount of time considering this the way we have, but who are perfectly decent people, open to sensible point and persuasion

I also think toilets are important, in some respects the most important. PP have said it, but that they are possibly the only universally used, frequently used single sex spaces. They are therefore the only spaces that put the issue centre stage and make people think about. It is easier to sideline the issue when it is about prisons, hospital wards etc.

Toilets are also important in their own right. Rooms with cubicles are cheaper, safer and cleaner, than individual rooms. They provide women with a safe and private space in day-to-day life to deal with women's bodies and needs, both the intimate bit (actually using the loo, which is shielded with room dividers - unless of course the lock doesn't work, you are wedging the door open with a pram etc) and the parts around it (adjusting clothes, washing bloody hands, asking for loo roll to be passed under the divider, helping a drunken friend away from men etc).

I don't think the toilet issue is a trivial one. Single sex toilets need to be single sex for many good reasons. The numbers of women and girls affected by having men potentially in toilets and changing rooms is far greater than those who might be in prison or requiring a refuge.

I note the BBC report this morning, into yesterday's protest is still misrepresenting the ruling......it is still suggesting that single sex only applies in situations which are " proportionate to a legitmate aim". That's not the case it it.

Single 'sex' refers to biology, and even with a GRC a man may not enter in to a space which has been designated for women and girls.

I disagree. Toilets are at the forefront... because we all need to use them, and because women also use toilets for other reasons than to "go to the toilet".

We also need to be sure our daughters and grandaughter are able to enter into women's toilets on their own and know they will be safe from predatory males.

Toilets are the thin end of the wedge...and should not be trivialised.

If toilets are no big issue, then why do so many men want to use women's?

And which impacts all female people.

I agree, for me the importance of this ruling is about acknowledging reality and about using language in a reasonable way. No more "no debate", no more reality denying. Is this a single sex space or not, no more gaslighting.

When you have a period; when you are flooding during peri- menopause, when you become a little incontinent after menopause, if you have cystitis, if you have a weak bladder, if you've had recent surgery, if you have small children with you........

It is not " Weird" at all....toilets are required on a daily basis because of biological function or mallfunction.

Yes! Men need to go to the toilet more if they have an elarged prostate or have had their prostate removed due to cancer. They may have to wear incontinence pads. Women often have to wear pads too as bladder function can deteriorate with age.

Dementia, or any number of other conditions can can also cause incontinence.

I agree that the focus on toilets is strategic on the part of TRAs. When posters suggest that toilets are ignored, this doesn’t mean that they are agreeing to all loud being mixed sex, they are saying that they are not an effective focus for debate.

Sport is a better example of why single sex should mean single sex.

Intimate care or intimate searches is a better example of how dignity is impacted.

Reducing the arguments to loos to discuss substantive issues isn't helpful. Bizarrely, it is the most easily resolved as third spaces or self contained single units solve the problem. The examples above pose more difficult challenge for trans people.

Couldn’t agree more.

Most immediately and with the biggest impact for individuals, I agree with pps: my concerns are for women in situations they cannot control. Prisons, hospitals, detained by authorities for search, requiring facilities like rape counselling and refuges.

But on a societal level, the wholesale acceptance of what is logical crap and the willingness to demonise anyone who disagrees is the single most concerning aspect of all.

Human beings categorise and name things. It’s how we organise society, for good or ill. And there has to be some sort of coherence to what these things are for this to make sense. Yet we now have people claiming it is a matter of life or death to be considered a man or woman while making those categories utterly meaningless. It’s not that they have an alternate definition - there is simply none.

And swathes of our societies have not only accepted this, but vehemently engaged in moralising and castigation of those who have pushed back. It really is incredible.

I think they must, on some level, know it isn't about anything some may think is petty, but about power. That man's poster "I will make you listen", sums that up for me.

Naturally I know all this, I realise my comment was short sighted, my apologies for that, I think I’ve been so disgusted and traumatised by dirty unusable public loos over the years I avoid being in situations where I need to use them. London Bridge and pub or restaurant loos are the rare places I’ve used in the past few years, I’ve left reviews of trendy east london bars that have decided to unisex theirs & have piss everywhere, Somerset house where men openly chose the ladies over the men caught the sharp end of my tongue. I suppose I’m just so sick of the tra brigade obsession with it, why can’t they have a third bog. Again, sorry for my flippancy, im firmly on the same side as you,

Sorry that was meant to be in response to @Shortshriftandlethal

I do agree that the trans rights activists are focussing on toilets as they think they can spin women's needs as unimportant in that context. I just think that rather than trying to shift the focus elsewhere, we should be tackling them head on. It may be more difficult to engage people in the arguments that toilets should be single sex (largely because they are so mundane that the general public understandably don't really consider them much at all, let alone as an important women's issue), but if we can get the general public to recognise the importance of single sex toilets (as a proportionate means to achieve a legitimate aim), then we are ensuring recognition of women as a distinct sex, with distinct needs every day, and that it is proportionate to consider those needs in daily life, not just in niche circumstances.

I'm glad I asked now. I do agree that toilets are not a trivial subject. Maybe I didn't quite get how strategic they could be.

I do think the TRA are trying to portray women as only being interested in trivial issues. Think the usual "childcare vs defence budget" type talk. A very masculine way of dealing with issues specific to women.

Just an attempt to deflect attention away from why this is actually a crucial ruling.

I don't think toilets are trivial but I think the trans activists are using them to trivialise the debate.

On X there are loads of posts from tras mocking us, saying we want inspections at the door.

They have nothing similar to say re eg sport.

When I mention anything on X I tend to use the changing room example rather than toilets because they just go on and on about showing ID or how will we police it or why don't we have single stalls.

As it happens my daughter has epilepsy and special needs and toilets are a big issue for me but it is the hardest one to debate with tras.

Where else are you in often a public place with your pants around your ankles and a thin cubicle wall with a lock that can be forced quite easily (assuming it’s working already). Toilets make women a lot more vulnerable because they are already in a state of undress. There is a reason why unisex loos are supposed to be a single room with proper walls and a lockable door. It makes perfect sense to me to prioritise single sex toilets.

It is not resolved by individual private self contained cubicles. These are more dangerous for everyone - they are least dangerous for healthy men.

They also are more expensive, dirtier, less efficient (meaning more waiting for women) and make it more difficult for women to support one another. There is a place for single occupancy units, but it should not be the norm.

To be more specific. They also are where women and children are sexually assaulted and many people die. It’s the privacy that’s the problem.

Why do we have a gap under public toilet doors? For health and safety
Why do we get rid of the gap when toilets are mixed sex? For privacy
What are we getting rid of by doing that? Health and Safety

I think we have to be firm across all spaces.

If a man is a woman for the purpose of toilet provision then why is he not for sports?

It is not just about safety it is about dignity and holding the line.

It's a really good question to ask as many others will also be thinking the same thing. Debate draws upon real situations helps to highlight why it's not appropriate for men to be in women's spaces for privacy, safety and practical reasons.
Women are biologically different to men.

Something to lighten the mood anyway always makes me giggle when I think of it. About 15 years ago l arrived on duty and went to say hello to my male patients! We were always running out of mens pj’s but when I spotted a big burly chap squashed into a pink nightie, I went to the nurses station and said ‘who the hell put a nightie on that chap! Well that was my first brush with the trans issue. Thank goodness common sense prevailed and he was put in a male bay!

Absolutely. They have already tried to remove all meaning from words like ‘woman’ and ‘female’ but the sheer idiocy of arguing that some can be a woman for some purposes but not others, ie toilets vs sport and prisons is incoherent

But is that what the aim is? To break down society so much that anything goes and nothing works?