Man using women's toilets

[Amonkeyisnotacitykid]

https://x.com/ChrisFalconer16/status/1918316039630405641

I will be asking Aberdeen City Council for their clarification on this.

@Helleofabore its relevant to the thread - because you chose to start picking apart my objection to people using personal safety risk as a justification for something where it isn’t applicable.

My personal safety in my own toilet at home is managed by whom I allow to cross the threshold of my own home.

I have a filtering system for dicks.

I don't worry about spy cameras in my own bog for this reason.

Why is this always ignored in this type of discussion?

Precisely.

You manage the personal safety risks. It demonstrates that it’s not the gender and toilet seat combo that creates or minimises personal safety.

Similarly, privacy is managed differently. Both at very valid concerns, but how theyre best protected is different in different circumstances. Confusing the two is unhelpful, particularly when in plenty of situations what’s good for one is detrimental to the other.

When women have no control over this, the best fit solution in public REMAINS excluding males.

No ifs or buts.

No 'women is a lived experience' nonsense (because its legally illiterate nonsense).

Men deciding which men can use the womens toilets? What could POSSIBLY go wrong with that in terms of safeguarding?!

Jesus wept, you are missing the point deliberately.

This ⬆️.
Please listen to this.

I have a filtering system for dicks

😂 Brilliant as always Red

Nope.

I can only assume you’re deliberately missing mine.

In many cases, yours is correct. But not universally. In some situations, it’s to permit shared use by all and thus avoid forcing the minority into isolated remote spaces.

I sincerely hope that until we reach the point of having a more balanced gender mix on construction sites my male colleagues will continue to allow me to share their toilet facilities and not force me into using the designated female one when it’s in the back of beyond.

To date, they and I have always respected that safety and the perception of safety trumped privacy and that could mitigate the privacy aspects sufficiently.

(Which wasn’t rocket science. Knock on the door ‘is it ok if I come through’. Wait for permission. Then repeat when ready to leave the toilet cubicle).

"permit shared use by all".
No, @ScaryM0nster . Women's toilets are for women. Women need private and secure spaces and this has been the social contract for many years. No man would want to go into a women's toilets for innocent reasons (bar exceptional circumstances).

I don't agree with you that personal safety risk is not a justification for excluding all male people from a toilet designated for female people to use.

You don't seem to be able to articulate clearly what you are trying to point out. I am still not quite sure what your point actually is.

Are some spaces needed by people better with higher traffic flow, even if that is mixed sex traffic? Maybe there is an argument for this, but no where will have the constant traffic needed at all times, so how then is this relevant for a discussion on single sex spaces?

Just because there is little traffic into the space, doesn't mean that the traffic into the space is not being monitored formally or informally.

Also, you then tried to reduce safety to male people leaving spikes on seats as if that is relevant. Male people do not have to be doing anything other than being in that space that they should not be in to be causing harm and making them unsafe.

Just them deliberately entering into a space that they know and fully understand is for female people only is them doing so knowing that their presence can cause distress. And doing so deliberately should be called what it is, an act of intimidation at the worst, or complete disrespect for female people at its 'least risk'.

A male person who is in there knowing they shouldn't be there is exhibiting 'risky' behaviour.

"not force me into using the designated female one when it’s in the back of beyond."

And that is an OH&S issue that needs to be addressed through better siting of a female space, surely? Not desegregating toilets. Or your work can have the segregated toilets for other female people who might want them, and have a unisex toilet that you personally choose to use instead.

@Helleofabore and @KarminaBurana i wish you a happy life.

I’m delighted for you you’ve never had to trade off personal safety and privacy. I wish it continues for you.

However, as a leaving thought - please do consider that you don’t encounter every situation in your lives that others do in theirs. That there are trade offs to be made between different issues and that sometimes requires compromise. That not everyone can articulate things in a way that gets their point across to you but that doesn’t mean it might not be valid.

And that crucially, legally protected single sex provision in and of itself isn’t a magical solution to all privacy and personal matters. Yes, it’s excellent in many situations but not in every single one. Sometimes, the needs are better met in different ways depending on the circumstances.

Plus the presence of urinals in the men's (usually in addition to the same number of cubicles as in the women's) means there is much, much more toilet provision for men.

Men only need a cubicle for one bodily function.

Women need one for three.

Female taxpayers pay for all public services.

If Aberdeen Council publicly gets away with flouting the Supreme Court judgment then all our other publicly funded services are going to do likewise.

Women will have rights but they won't be respected or upheld.

The early flouters need to be made an example of so that everyone else thinks better of it and respects the law.

It's a done deal. The difficulty has now been resolved -and organisations need to get on board.

Please don't make a judgement on me or my life. You do not know.

I was also wondering what else we might call it. The city council (versus the Shire council) perhaps?

Just out of interest, this person describes himself as a journalist but I can't see any evidence of his writing. Or at least not any writing that could be classed as journalism.

Anyone know which publications he writes for?

The "paper" part is a really good point. If the toilet paper in the women's toilets isn't restocked regularly then the chances of several cubicles being out of service at any given time are much higher than in the men's.

Maybe scary does

we shouldn’t judge

As the user of toilets on construction sites I’d say it’s quite a niche argument that you’re trying to construct.

In 30 years of using women’s loos on building sites (as a visiting consultant) I would say that there’s a very odd dynamic so I can understand why you’re doing what you’re doing. But it’s not a desirable solution long term or one that would work for all construction workers. If you were minded you could complain to the management about what they’ve offered creating a hostile work environment, but that would obviously sour your relationship/sink promotion prospects.

There are some site operatives who are very hostile to women being on site. The only way I know is because I’ve never used a site loo without discovering an unflushed “dirty protest” in the bowl. This is across years, across wide geographical areas and different companies so it’s not a coincidence. As the key to this loo is usual kept in the Site Agent’s desk drawer, theres only a limited number of people who can be responsible on each site. It’s quite paranoia-inducing to know that you’re possibly having to work closely with the perpetrator/someone who hates women enough to do this. I try not to think about it much for those reasons and most people are perfectly lovely.

A Construction Sit is also a work place which is governed by very different rules. And the issues about toilets at home or on trains/aircraft are different depending on the form and facilities provided. So your points don’t extrapolate to this “public” loo in Aberdeen or similar loos of its type. But it would be an interesting discussion on another thread.

Oh apologies, I see scary clarified

not sure why it was brought up in that case as its got fuckall to do with public loos 😳

Some men are just as confused as us women about toilets.
I was in a Suffolk town a few days back needed the toilets so went in as you do.
Came out and a man ask is this the mens or the women's.

I said its for both sigh on the door.
He said its bloody ridiculous I'll go stand in a bush instead before i get blamed then off he went.
To find a bush i presume.
My thoughts are its just a public toilet its not my personal one at home.
I cant control public spaces but i can in my own home.

I think you have tagged in a different poster to who you meant to tag in.

For my part, it is you who came onto to this thread to admonish others. I have asked you to explain your posts and then discussed where I didn’t agree with them. That is the very nature of a discussion board that you are participating on.

“I’m delighted for you you’ve never had to trade off personal safety and privacy. I wish it continues for you.”

“However, as a leaving thought - please do consider that you don’t encounter every situation in your lives that others do in theirs.”

Thank you. But you have no fucking idea who I am and what my experiences have been.

As I said in answer to the construction toilet scenario, there would be justification for a provision of some unisex toilets that could be in addition. There needs to be solutions found because, as you say, it is a known issue. And the industry is trying to recruit more young women so it will continue to be an issue.

What do women DO in the ladies that takes them SO LONG that the line backs up?

Change sanpro. Have miscarriages. Have bouts of IBS. Throw up from morning sickness.

Also, the two-or-three minutes per woman adds up when there aren't enough cubicles, and there are never enough cubicles because architects are morons.

My observation is that neither women nor men really like unisex cubicles, but will put up with them in places like small cafes where space is tight.

If we are using them to get round the problem of transmen and transwomen being barred from the ones appropriate to their birth sex, well, we know that for a certain number of transwomen, that isn't what they want - they want to barge into to the women's loos. Like the man above. 40 years ago he would have been accused of voyeurism or indecent behaviour, but the trans lobby has now led them to get a free pass with their "I'm a laydee" cry.

We women, and decent men have had enough. We shouldn't have needed FWS or Sandie Peggie or Maya Forstater and all the others who were discriminated against to have to go to law.