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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Best solution for bathrooms

102 replies

feministmom4ever · 06/05/2025 22:49

I recently posted on a Reddit thread to ask transgender people if they felt that third spaces/unisex toilets for transgender/non-binary/gender fluid were a good solution to the bathroom problem. The answer from most was “no”. Mainly the response was TWAW, and since they seem to truly believe that I didn’t bother to argue. They did make one point which I felt held some validity, which was that biological women with a masculine appearance would be harassed. I know this is rare, but there are instances of it happening. Any suggestions for how to address this?

OP posts:
HRTQueen · 07/05/2025 00:08

a third space would take away the issue of women and girls not being safe and trans women feeling safer and trans men can make a choice

but trans women wanted to feel validated and for us all to pretend that sex doesn’t matter (not heard trans mens opinion no surprise it seems to get drowned out)

so will just have to stick to single sex toilets

VanishingVision · 07/05/2025 00:52

Seethlaw · 07/05/2025 00:05

" I like to think that the majority of people can be reasoned with."

Thing is, you won't find those reasonable people when discussing with TRAs, because reasonable voices are pushed out of the trans community. There's a very hard orthodox line to toe to be accepted, and any deviation from "TWAW and belong in women's spaces" is not tolerated.

Moreover, even if you did find more reasonable people and managed to convince them, it wouldn't change anything to the official TRA line, which is dictated by the loudest and most demanding voices, not the reasonable ones.

This.

I've mentioned to other trans people in the past that I think 3rd spaces would be a good thing, not just for us but for alot of people with different needs. But they just talk about 'othering' 'TWAW, TMAM' and I got called a 'pick me'.

Most of the loudest voices demand the outside validation from using those spaces, so they'll always try to keep people like us quiet. Actually I was asked to leave a local LGBT bar for talking about such things 🤷‍♀️

WandaSiri · 07/05/2025 02:09

Is there really a problem with women being harassed by other women in public toilets? I think we'd have heard about it.

The best solution is the one we currently have - people use the facilities appropriate for their sex. You don't have to take it upon yourself to convince men that that's a good idea, because it's the law.

Sex-segregated toilets are by far the most popular solution with the general public, too.

Helleofabore · 07/05/2025 02:26

Any suggestions for how to address this?

This issue has been brought up by male people who use it as leverage for years. There are politicians who join in to use this scenario as well.

It relies on the fact that it has happened and it will continue to happen. It is one of the ways that female people have tried to secure their spaces for as long as we have had them. I was asked if I was a girl until I was in my late teens and grew my hair.

There is nothing you can say to counter it OP. It is a no win argument as most of us have found out. You can’t say it never happens, because it does. It is rare, but so are the 6ft heavily muscled bearded female people who so many people suddenly knew who would be forced into the female toilets.

feministmom4ever · 07/05/2025 03:42

I’ve got a lot of good feedback, which I appreciate. I know the extremists are a lost cause, I’m not going to waste my time on them. I have a lot of friends and family who support trans people, but I really think they’re just going along with it because they supported gay rights and they are on the political left. I’m not sure they really understand the implications of what trans activists are demanding. I’ve been quiet on this issue for a long time because I didn’t want to risk damaging the relationships, but recent events have brought me hope that public opinion is starting to turn. I think they might be willing to listen with an open mind if frame my arguments well. My purpose for posting on here is to make sure I don’t have any weak points in my arguments.

OP posts:
Seethlaw · 07/05/2025 05:41

feministmom4ever · 07/05/2025 03:42

I’ve got a lot of good feedback, which I appreciate. I know the extremists are a lost cause, I’m not going to waste my time on them. I have a lot of friends and family who support trans people, but I really think they’re just going along with it because they supported gay rights and they are on the political left. I’m not sure they really understand the implications of what trans activists are demanding. I’ve been quiet on this issue for a long time because I didn’t want to risk damaging the relationships, but recent events have brought me hope that public opinion is starting to turn. I think they might be willing to listen with an open mind if frame my arguments well. My purpose for posting on here is to make sure I don’t have any weak points in my arguments.

Do you feel up for a bit of Socratic method?

Then you could start by asking them what is a woman according to them. See if they can get to a definition without mentioning biological sex. You could prod them a little by mentioning that all societies since the dawn of times have been able to determine who were the women amonst them, when it came to discriminating against them.

Then you could ask them if they think women and girls should have places where men can't go: toilets, refuges, rape centers, hospital wards, prisons...

If they agree that such single-sex places are necessary, then you could point out that by law, any space where a single male is accepted automatically becomes a mixed space, and it then becomes an unlawful discrimination to refuse entrance to other men.

And then you could point out that a whole lot of trans women are still fully male, both legally (they haven't asked for a GRC) and physically (they aren't taking cross-sex hormones nor have had any reassignment surgeries). Thus the presence of a single one of them in a women's single sex space automatically renders the space mixed space, and any other man can ask to come in as well.

PriOn1 · 07/05/2025 06:40

feministmom4ever · 06/05/2025 23:58

I’m sorry to have given the impression that I’m not sincere. I truly do want to protect single sex spaces for biological women. I want to learn how to argue my points to those opposed in a way that will be convincing. I like to think that the majority of people can be reasoned with.

You can research those articles, as I did. You’ll likely discover, as I did, that they are written by lesbians with an agenda.

At least one such article is written by someone who works at Stonewall. Her picture shows a woman you could never mistake for a man and her description of being challenged more often than not is obvious nonsense.

This is a non-issue, made up by transactivists. You can’t logically talk them out of it as they invented it along with the supposed problem with FtM transitioners having to use women’s toilets.

These arguments usually only come up when we’re getting successful in our arguments that men should be banned from women’s toilets because they forget all about female people until they think there’s a real chance of male exclusion.

That’s why these arguments are resurfacing now, following the SC judgment. You can ignore them. No woman is getting harassed.

Coatsoff42 · 07/05/2025 07:37

Keeptoiletssafe · 06/05/2025 23:28

If that sounds far fetched in really isn’t. There’s a heart attack and also a stroke every 5 mins in the uk on average. Toilet cubicles even have to have a mechanism to open up from the outside because inward facing doors get jammed shut by a body.

Also, people passed out drunk, surely if you are out and about and have drunk too much, which happens, and you pass out, fall asleep, vomit etc, you would be safer in a single sex cubicle with gap so your friends can find you and not some random man.

Coatsoff42 · 07/05/2025 07:44

Also, it’s a law, like breaking and entering. Just because people ignore the law and say it’s hard to enforce doesn’t mean it’s ok to ignore it.
You don’t have someone outside the toilets checking, just like you don’t have a policeman outside your house 24/7. It’s wrong and it’s illegal even if it’s hard to enforce.

People often break into houses and burgle them, it’s hard to enforce, it doesn’t mean don’t bother to try.

It’s not an entirely good parallel, but that’s my answer to the enforcement argument.

DeanElderberry · 07/05/2025 07:57

All-access loos with urinals and 'transgender welcome' signage, alongside women only loos.

BlokalShopForBlokalPeople · 07/05/2025 08:10

The reddit gotcha makes no sense.

If under a sex based system masculine women will get "harassed" - ( or politely asked if they're in the right toilet"), then this would equally happen under their preferred identity based system that sought to exclude men who aren't trans.

The only situation where this wouldn't happen is if every toilet was open to all sexes, which is generally not what what TRAs want anyway.

minnienono · 07/05/2025 08:28

The “answer” will vary according to settings. For many smaller places the simple answer is high quality individual mixed sex cubicles including basin inside the cubicles. For places with a larger number of toilets then having a women’s, men’s then a minimum of 2 mixed sex facilities which can be used by families, those needing additional space (at least one must be properly wheelchair accessible but others just need space and the basin in the toilet) and trans individuals who do not identify with their birth sex can use these too. Larger places still can have dedicated mixed sex blocks as well as single sex - our local shopping centre does and it works well, families eg mum shopping with 9 year old son much prefer the new arrangements but there’s sufficient single sex too, I’ve never queued for the ladies as most seem to choose the mixed sex block

TheOtherRaven · 07/05/2025 08:37

Seethlaw · 06/05/2025 23:58

I did.

I got links to some reddit posts. One of them, for example, asked butch lesbians which toilet they use. They almost all said the women's, yet very few mentioned having any problems there, and if they did, their voice cleared any suspicion.

The rest of the links are to private sites, or Pink News, and so on. Nothing reported in actual newspapers.

Also to note is that many of the incidents described take place in the US, not the UK.

So no, there's absolutely not a UK epidemic of butch women being harrassed by other women in the women's toilets.

But as it's a tactically (supposedly) helpful myth, it's bandied about a lot.

It's based on the misogyny and spite of 'if your access/comfort/safety is destroyed by men who identify as women and you won't let them in, you'll have to have women who look like men! and then you'll be sorry! Ha!'

To which the answer is fine. Absolutely fine. Personally I will gladly share showers, changing rooms, hospital wards, prison cells with any woman regardless of her choice of physical appearance, that's no problem at all. I welcome womanhood in all its diversity as a sex class. I'd be very sympathetic to a woman who had difficulties with someone appearing male and her needs for an accessible space, and women with trans identities generally seem to be sensitive to this too, and this is where third spaces come in.

Third spaces will solve access issues for many groups, not just TQ+. And there's no excuse for invading women's spaces on principle when there's a perfectly accessible option available, which helps to make clear the real issues involved.

CassOle · 07/05/2025 08:55

I honestly think 'pull the other one' when the butch lesbian trope is pulled out. When I think about the gender non conforming fashions and people that were around when I grew up and was a yonger adult (and this was in dark regressive times(!) apparently) it is clearly nonsense.

If Glam Rockers, New Romantics, Emos and effeminate young men dressed as the Murderdolls, and DM wearing, short haired, butch presenting women have used the correct loos for their sex for years, why is this suddenly a big issue now?

magnacarterr · 07/05/2025 08:59

I think the obvious choice is to make men's toilets neutral in that anyone can use them including transwomen and transmen if they wish. Female toilets should remain for actual biological females only.

WandaSiri · 07/05/2025 09:08

I don't think we can say, oh just make men's toilets unisex, without consulting men.

If space allows, unisex toilets as a separate block, or accessible, extra large, baby change equipped toilet cubicles just outside the entrance to a sex-segregated block or between the two blocks works well.

magnacarterr · 07/05/2025 09:20

@WandaSiri I suppose in practice I was thinking that trans identified women would use the women's toilets and that trans identified men would have to use the male toilets which shouldn't be an issue with men because obviously trans women are men. I see your point about though if there are some men who object to trans identified women in those spaces. I am just keen to avoid this falling back on women to "be kind" and just accept men in our spaces.

I also think that especially for trans identified men, they feel very strongly that they want to access women's spaces as validation an assurance from society that they are seen as women. Even if third spaces were provided to remove any safety fears blocking access to women only facilities means they know they are not seen as women by anyone other than themselves, and are faced with this reality every time they have to go out. So I expect a lot of push back from these males on this matter.

LonginesPrime · 07/05/2025 09:24

feministmom4ever · 06/05/2025 23:01

I agree that people who are biological males should not go into women’s spaces, and I’d like to convince more people. There have been instances where biological women (think butch lesbians) have been harassed by bystanders, men and women, for using a women’s toilet. This is a rare problem, but I’d like to be able to make a good argument as to why we should still protect women only spaces.

It’s incredibly generous that transwomen have suddenly shifted their focus to the GNC butch lesbians they used to view as transmen in denial, but I think the answer to this usually needs to be “thanks for your concern but what goes on in women’s toilets isn’t transwomen’s job to solve - we’ll work it out, thanks”.

Where there are unisex toilets as a third space, these butch lesbians who are apparently begging for mixed sex spaces could use those, and since women’s toilets should be single-sex going forward, the instances of butch lesbians being asked to leave should abate, as the presumption will be that they are female, because we know that men who identify as women aren’t allowed in anymore.

If trans people really want to help butch lesbians, they should (1) stop using them as pawns in arguments and (2) stop pushing the notion that TWAW and TMAM - it’s the fact these people believe that appearance changes their underlying sex that has caused all the consternation with toilets in the first place. Women wouldn’t be feeling the need to defend their single-sex spaces from people who look male in the loos if it weren’t the case that thousands of people seem to believe that you can dress like a butch lesbian and literally become a biological man. Once the law is enforced and it becomes culturally established that biological sex is distinct from gender identity, it will be more likely that we are encountering a GNC female than a man trying his luck anyway.

Furthermore, since the majority of women’s spaces have been (wrongly) operating of the basis of self-ID for the past decade, if transwomen are saying that there is already plenty of evidence that GNC women are getting harassed, then it’s obvious that allowing transwomen in too won’t solve the problem, as it hasn’t solved it in the past ten years and clearly doesn’t work as a strategy.

Also, letting whoever says they’re a woman into a women’s space, puts all women at higher risk, including GNC women. It merely removes women’s right to speak up and eject a man who might be a genuine risk to them in that space. This argument is essentially that women should be groomed to accept a higher risk by ignoring people who might be potentially dangerous to them. Any transwomen who thinks this is a desirable outcome clearly does not think like a woman, and clearly has zero understanding of how women experience the world.

Sometimes in society, one’s appearance or behaviour can confuse others. Women who don’t conform might have to explain themselves more often than those who do, just as anyone who looks different for any reason might encounter questions as people try to understand how to categorise that person. As a society, we have to balance everyone’s rights and needs as best we can. And given the choice between a few women shouting at them or being assaulted by a male in a women-only space, in the majority of cases, I think the former would probably be preferable to most GNC women.

Helleofabore · 07/05/2025 09:31

Women only become useful as wedge cases to convince other women to stop rejecting those special male people who demand access to male spaces.

I would suggest OP that if you find yourself being presented the ‘Whatabout the masculine looking women’, I would be asking ‘Does it benefit those women having male people access single sex spaces or does those male people’s presence make it worse?’

It really comes down to ‘why is this point relevant to the discussion?’

Keeptoiletssafe · 07/05/2025 09:37

That’s the situation we came across in the ladies at a nightclub years ago. As soon as we went into the ladies I saw her blue hand on the cubicle floor. We got her breathing again. She left with the paramedics - none of her friends knew.

That, and the time years later when I could have helped someone who was only a few feet away, but I didn’t know because a door between us, is why I go on (and on) about toilet design being so important.

It was when I researched why designs often did not include gaps anymore and that no safety or risk assessments were being done that I started to compile articles, documents and data and email government.

Rubidium · 07/05/2025 09:37

Well this woman has the solution, we can all use the mens!
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/05/i-have-used-mens-toilets-safely-for-years-and-i-bet-other-women-have-too

So that’s that problem solved. From The Grauniad of course.

NotMyRealAccount · 07/05/2025 09:39

feministmom4ever · 06/05/2025 22:49

I recently posted on a Reddit thread to ask transgender people if they felt that third spaces/unisex toilets for transgender/non-binary/gender fluid were a good solution to the bathroom problem. The answer from most was “no”. Mainly the response was TWAW, and since they seem to truly believe that I didn’t bother to argue. They did make one point which I felt held some validity, which was that biological women with a masculine appearance would be harassed. I know this is rare, but there are instances of it happening. Any suggestions for how to address this?

As a non-feminine-presenting woman with very short hair who does sometimes get a second glance in women's public toilets (I don't consider this harassment, though I accept that some women have experienced genuine harassment, and I wouldn't be offended if someone felt the need to ask me whether or not I was a woman), it boils my postmenopausal piss when TRAs try to use me and women like me as justification for allowing males, or a special self-styled subset of unbelievably entitled males, to continue to use women's spaces. Of all the demographics in our society, the one with which I have least in common is men performing femininity, and bundling me in with them is downright insolent.

Out of interest, I asked my husband what would happen if a man wearing a frock and a faceful of make-up went into the men's toilet. His response was, "In most places we'd just go on peeing. He might get a few stares if he hitched up his skirt and peed in a urinal, but the only places that might be unsafe for him are the sort of places I wouldn't feel safe in myself."

WandaSiri · 07/05/2025 09:43

magnacarterr · 07/05/2025 09:20

@WandaSiri I suppose in practice I was thinking that trans identified women would use the women's toilets and that trans identified men would have to use the male toilets which shouldn't be an issue with men because obviously trans women are men. I see your point about though if there are some men who object to trans identified women in those spaces. I am just keen to avoid this falling back on women to "be kind" and just accept men in our spaces.

I also think that especially for trans identified men, they feel very strongly that they want to access women's spaces as validation an assurance from society that they are seen as women. Even if third spaces were provided to remove any safety fears blocking access to women only facilities means they know they are not seen as women by anyone other than themselves, and are faced with this reality every time they have to go out. So I expect a lot of push back from these males on this matter.

Yes, I see what you mean, I was just wary about giving away "other people's stuff", if you like! Even though in practice I suspect most men would be a lot less bothered.

BarbieBrightSide · 07/05/2025 10:25

Rubidium · 07/05/2025 09:37

Well this woman has the solution, we can all use the mens!
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/05/i-have-used-mens-toilets-safely-for-years-and-i-bet-other-women-have-too

So that’s that problem solved. From The Grauniad of course.

And if women can safely use the mens, why can't the men who think they pass as women use the correct toilet for their sex?

We know the answer, of course - it's not the space, it's the women in it that they want to use.

And they probably know full well that they (certainly the vast majority, anyway) don't pass at all, which is why they trot out the 'I can't use the mens looking like this' line

Keeptoiletssafe · 07/05/2025 10:36

Rubidium · 07/05/2025 09:37

Well this woman has the solution, we can all use the mens!
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/05/i-have-used-mens-toilets-safely-for-years-and-i-bet-other-women-have-too

So that’s that problem solved. From The Grauniad of course.

I bet I could change Lizzie's mind very quickly with a few statistics.