Can we lay this to rest, once and for all?

[HelenaWaiting]

I'm disabled. I have MS and a congenital heart condition. I'm wheelchair dependent. Only if you are disabled or a carer do you understand how difficult it is to find a disabled toilet (there is always just one), how disappointing it is to find that toilet occupied, and how infuriating to discover that the occupant was some twat trying on a dress. So please, please stop saying "trans people can use disabled toilets". I've been fielding that particular curve ball for years but now we have Kemi Fucking Badenoch saying it. (No, she's not great. No she's not on our side. She's an entitled, vacuous, talent-free zone. She just happens to be a gender critical entitled, vacuous, talent-free zone). I can't wait for the loo as long as you can. I don't get as much warning as you. I can't hold onto it as efficiently as you. And I have no desire to piss myself in a shopping centre because some hulking great bloke in an ill-fitting dress is touching up his make-up. Disabled people campaigned for years for accessible toilets. There still aren't enough of them. Please don't hand them over to a group of people who have chosen to have a problem.

I don't think anyone's asking for it to be policed, or visibly judged, but that if you don't need the disabled loo because you're not disabled, don't use it. At least that was what I took from the OP and the thread - sorry if I've misunderstood.

This! Underneath all the whataboutery, it really is this simple.

No, they weren't. You claimed that my message was aimed at TIMs, which it clearly and explicitly wasn't. Are you aware of how often disabled people hear that there concerns aren't relevant, aimed at the wrong people, you can't talk about that here?

I asked that people stop suggesting disabled toilets as a third space for trans people. From that you have extrapolated that I want disabled trans people banned from disabled toilets and that I make assumptions about people with hidden disabilities. I won't ask what it is you think I want policing because you interpretation of my original post is utterly bizarre.

Who was your post aimed at?

If it is women, then you are aiming it at the wrong people. All GC feminist want is for people to use facilities based on their biological sex.

The general consensus on here is that TIM's should use the male toilet, not the disabled

It really isn’t rocket science.

Service providers need to ensure that no group with protected characteristics are at detriment. If they have based their capacity calculations on the assumption that only disabled people need alternative facilities to single sex facilities, post SC ruling, they probably need to rework their calculations. They need to ‘do the numbers’ relating to the number of disabled and trans users they expect to cater for and make sure that they are as able to be able to access provision when they need it as easily as those without that characteristic. This is no different to there needing to be more single stalls in a woman’s toilet block than a man’s block that has urinals.

I think Maya Forstater suggested it.

Will try to find link.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5332093-maya-forstater-at-the-stonewall-conference

Discussed here

OP, the vast majority of the posts have been 100% supportive of you. Nobody here said able-bodied trans people should use the disabled toilets.
A couple of people expressed slightly tangential points - e.g. that perhaps your words would have more impact elsewhere, as we agree with you already, and that some trans people have invisible disabilties.
That's two posters.
The rest of us have backed you completely.
Why are you focusing on the two who made slightly different points? What about all the supportive posts?

This weirdness was in The Guardian today

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/may/24/disabled-campaigners-trans-people-toilet-segregation

I think there should be more unisex fully enclosed toilets. This will help people who might need a carer but don't need a wheelchair accessible toilet, people who don't want to use the toilets for their sex and dads who want to take their daughters to the toilets but would rather not take them into the men's.

Yes agree OP - disabled toilets should not be used as a ‘scooping everyone else up’. There are so many challenges disabled people have to negotiate that make it harder to get out and to work. The sheer effort it takes to overcome obstacles can mean people stay at home.

There are millions of people with heart conditions, diabetes and epilepsy in this country. I rarely get push back about my campaign for safe toilets, but it has been suggested that mobile people with any long term health condition should use the disabled toilets which is ridiculous. They may very rarely have seizures or hypos but, like anyone having a medical emergency, need to be able to be seen and heard.

Ideally, there should be single sex toilets (with door gaps), ambulant single sex toilets (with doors gaps) and single sex disabled toilet (with door gaps). Disabled people are already at a disadvantage of having to have a private, mixed sex toilet.

In places where there is not enough room for all the above, then you have to start compromising with safety.

There’s a lovely little charity that help with accessible toilets and locations: www.euansguide.com/campaigns/safer-toilets/

You are right, OP, and I totally agree with you. It's true that, every now and then, someone on this board proposes to extend the use of disable toilets as unisex ones, but most of the timesthere are immediately posters suggesting that disabled toilets need to be available to disabled users.

I disagree. They are abused by men who take girls and boys into them. And push women into them too. Thats why assaults take place in disabled toilets in stations and schools.

The consultation says children aged 10 and below could go with a parent. I think a mix sex disabled toilet should not be enclosed. Why should a girl and man have more privacy than a girl and a woman?

I completely agree. It was incredibly annoying to see Maya Forstarter supporting this on Twitter a few years ago, and quite a lot of women agreeing with her. There was the usual “but surely it’s fine to use it if a disabled person isn’t using it”, and “I’ve hardly ever seen anyone use them” and they then ignored those of us explaining why this is an immensely stupid argument.

I think as other have suggested without intentionally saying TW should use toilets that are specifically for people with disabilities there are vague references to alternative facilities.

And if fact I think in the Interim Guidelines from the EHRC they should have made it clear whether in a workplace or a public building, that just turning the facilities for disabled people into a "gender neutral" one is not acceptable. https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/media-centre/interim-update-practical-implications-uk-supreme-court-judgment

I haven't started on completing the consultation currently open for comments, but was (and still am) intending to say they need to make that clear. https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/equality/equality-act-2010/codes-practice/code-practice-services-public-functions-and-associations

And even if some women have been not as conscious as they could have been, I do think that it is being weaponised in the public mainstream discussion by TRAs who are trying to claim the higher moral ground by saying that of course they would never make use of disabled toilets.

All of this is trying to imply there is an insurmountable problem created by horrible women, rather than putting the pressure on the providers of toilets to get on and make the adjustments to provide single sex facilities and gender neutral ones, in addition to disabled toilets.

Ablism is alive and well on mumsnet I see!

I have seen many suggestions that trans people use the accessible toilets, with no regard for wheelchair users and others that have no choice but to use them.

I agree with you op.
It's not up to disabled people to move over and make room for transpeople.

Just to clarify, I think there should be more unisex toilets in addition to existing single sex provision, not instead of.

It really is weird!
“I can only use the wheelchair accessible toilets now, but I’ve been challenged numerous times over the years in the women’s toilets, sometimes aggressively, because I’m non gender-conforming.”
What is the relevance of this? So women have aggressively challenged you in the past and they may aggressively challenge transwomen who, unlike you, have no right to be in the women's toilets anyway - so??

She worries that, with most businesses and services not having funds to build extra toilet provision, the result will be less provision. “If you can be sued because you’ve mistakenly let in a transgender man to the gents, or you’ve mistakenly challenged somebody, you can’t get insurance so you just won’t provide toilets. That will hit disabled people even harder”.

Transgender men are supposed to go to the 'gents', so ..?
And where does it say that you can be sued for mistakenly challenging someone?

Public buildings have to have toilets, and the ones that aren't the disabled toilets have to be sex-segregated, unisex ones may also be provided, but I don't believe it would be legal for businesses and services can just say 'a plague on both your cubicles' and just decide not to bother with any toilets at all, thereby
'hitting disabled people even harder'.

It seems to be an exercise in lots of scolding about so-called 'policing bathrooms' (sic, in the case case of Inclusion London) so they are only used by the people they are designated for.

But presumably all the people quoted would agree that only disabled people should use the toilets designated for disabled people, and that should be enforced by trust - trusting that men will not use the women's toilet, women will not use the men's toilet, and able-bodied people will not used the disabled toilet.
'Policing' should not be necessary.

GCornotGCthatisthequestion - have you actually read the posts on this thread? which are supportive of the OP? It doesn't look like it!

@MarieDeGournay it’s like a ‘new script’ is emerging (and of course the Guardian is happy to publicise it).

edited to add apostrophe

It's not ableist to cricise or disagree with someone with a disability.

It's not the women on FWR who need instructing on this issue and it's not up to us to come up with solutions for where trans people go to the toilet. We don't need lecturing on what we should or shouldn't be doing about it.

I've skim read the article, but one aspect that seemed prominent to me was that how everybody else behaved was the problem.

Never that those who identify as trans should just make the effort to comply.

Its always everybody else's fault.

Never their own for having insisted that their set of beliefs should be adopted or at least complied with by everybody else.

.
The head of the EHRC, Kishwer Falkner, said trans people should themselves campaign for “third spaces”.

Well that's not going to happen because partly if not mainly that would mean conceding that they cant and aren't accepted as the sex they identify as.

It is in the interests of their beliefs not to find a solution.

But to make society accept their belief system.

If there is a queue and a disabled person is not waiting to use it I always use the disabled loo and I will continue to do so. I never try on clothes in the loo or faff with my makeup,. Public loos are often gross and I am in and out in no time.

We must have an excess of disabled toilets in my neck of the woods because I have never seen one in use. I used to use them frequently when I was a young mum when my child needed a toilet quickly, or I needed a cubicle big enough to bring the pushchair in with me. They were always empty. If I was trans and knew my appearance would make women uncomfortable i would use the disabled toilets until another solution was found

If I was trans and knew my appearance would make women uncomfortable i would use the disabled toilets until another solution was found

A solution already exists that doesn't involve invading a facility that's not intended for you