What would you actually do if you saw a transperson in the wrong toilet/changing room for their sex?

[FattyMcFattyArse]

I've been pondering this ever since the FWS decision and since I saw an obviously male transperson using the ladies at a service station. I initially froze and wanted to say something, but all my Britishness and female social conditioning made me just mutter under my breath and walk away in disgust.

What would you do?

What have you done?

What is the right thing to do?

They don't belong there, according to the law.

Nope....

Lovely.
But what about the women and girls who DO feel harmed and afraid?
Can you give some thought to that please...

Toilets are not just used behind a closed cubicle door. There are quite a few aspects of female toilet usage that happen in the public space, or even now still occur with a toilet door jammed open.

From my personal experience here is a list.

I have had to use the toilet while having a pram / pushchair jammed into the door with groceries.

So… yes… doors DO get jammed open. Gosh. Imagine that!

I have had to have my mum use the public toilet because the disable toilet was not available and had her wheelchair jammed in the door because I couldn't leave her sit to move it and shut the door.

I have had breastmilk leaks / children's vomit / food spilled on my clothes and needed to have an unbuttoned top to dry the top under the hand drier.

I have come across other women quite regularly washing out their tops or their skirts etc and drying them enough to put back on .

I have friends who have miscarried in toilets and needed assistance and for that to be female people to make it more comfortable.

If you as a female person have not experienced these issues, that doesn't mean it is not happening. I am glad that you have never needed to do this things, it is uncomfortable and can be quite humiliating. But at least, in a female only toilet, it is a little better.

I think when people think of toilet usage, maybe they have never had to use the toilets in any other way other than behind a closed door. But the needs are still there and they are real for many female people to be able to engage in public life.

Nice though, that you prioritise your mates over the needs of female people who need the public space in those female toilets.

Realistically, unless someone leaves the cubicle door wide open, what do people think is going to happen in a bathroom?

Exactly @ThatCalmCat what exactly do your male trans friends think will happen to them in the male spaces? If it’s no big deal then they’ll be perfectly fine to use the gents won’t they? I mean as long as they shut the cubicle door, it’ll be fine. So there’s no excuse for a male to use female facilities.

I'd inform a member of staff that their was a man in the women only toilet or changing room. If I was with my daughter I'd perhaps say something directly as well.

@ThatCalmCat none of my friends and relatives who have transitioned pose any risk in a toilet either. Tbh because of my social circle, my transitioning friends are mostly senior professionals and Oxbridge graduates/children of Oxbridge graduates, who in general include a low proportion of convicted criminals. However, there are men and women in the world who do pose a risk to other people. Transitioning doesn’t make them safer as individuals. It’s not really relevant, in fact. Opening women’s spaces to all male comers includes men in that group, including those who are not in a fine art course.

As for the risk in toilets and changing rooms to people who have transitioned, if they are young women, they would definitely be safer in the women’s toilet. If they are men at risk of homophobic or transphobic violence, then I agree that is a major problem, but I still don’t think that removing the social contract on use of women’s spaces is the way to fix that.

And don't forget I received a laughing emoji because of my concern about men possibly waiting at the sink for women.

@ThatCalmCat you've said we need to focus on violence against women and girls and preventing thst. Can you give one example of how letting males into female single sex spaces will reduce VAWG? Can you name one benefit to women and girls of allowing males into female spaces? You’ve said why it’s good for the males, but nothing about how it will benefit women and girls.

Yes: “we only want to pee” shows that transwomen have no idea that women’s toilets/changing rooms are about far more than that, and that the presence of a male bodied person in such circumstances can be deeply distressing.

Could you just not be arsed to read the thread?

Why can't they leave us alone and stay completely out of the ladies?

"people like you"??

Another man........

I agree. Toilets are the least important but since they are ubiquitous and affect us all then perhaps it is where we start.

According to government and police data, hate crimes against trans people in England and Wales increased by 56% between 2020 and 2022. By contrast, there is no evidence of trans people posing a systemic danger to others.

Neither the ONS crime data, nor the police survey, includes 'gender identity'. So, no, there is no evidence, because nobody is gathering it. Unless you were referring to some other source?

‘Toilets are the lowest priority’

Q) Where do you think the locations of unwitnessed rapes are in hospitals and schools?
A) Private cubicles and rooms is the answer.

Store cupboards and toilets in schools from my research and there’s over 1 rape per school day. Toilets feature heavily as the location in hospitals too. However it is really difficult to assess as the police and other authorities don’t specify actual locations.

Two out of three assaults that did specify a hospital location in this report showed it was a toilet.

https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/thousands-rapes-sexual-assaults-reported-35057589#google_vignette

CPS data shows that around 91% of those convicted of sexual offences in England and Wales are male.

Which year are you taking this from, please? The figure is usually closer to 99%.

However, unfortunately data has been corrupted by recent data gathering practises. If a police force records the perp by self declared 'gender identity' rather than sex, then some crimes committed by 'females' have actually been committed by 'transwomen' - i.e. men. This means that all of this data is now meaningless in terms of sex, because some police don't differentiate 'cis' from 'trans'. They just record 'male' or 'female' - and some forces are or were recording men as 'female' if the man said they were female.

“And if the argument is really about “men being predatory”, then why are there no rules or laws preventing young boys from sharing toilets with adult men? Clearly, that would be recognised as homophobic. So why is it somehow considered acceptable to push transphobic restrictions under the same logic?”

Human rights that define the use of public toilets do not segregate by age or by sexual orientation or by any other protected characteristic. Because they deem that the basic safety is covered by segregating by sex. And that children will be accompanied by a parent for protection. Note that in schools and in clubs there are policies for those organisations that will cover age and specify whether an adult can access a toilet when children are using them.

For public use, no sub-group of male people should expect to have privacy and safety from other male people and no female people should expect to have privacy and safety from other female people.

If you want, I am very happy to post all the studies that show that male people who have gone through any amount of male puberty retain that physical advantage during any ‘transition’. Would you like to see those studies?

Because the grip strength and the punch power of male people with male pubertal advantages remain a major risk factor. Please tell us exactly what is the process that this group of male people you are advocating for have gone through that removes their safeguarding risk when compared to female people? Why should one group of male people be exempt from safeguarding policy that excludes ALL male people from female single sex spaces?

And finally, what other group of vulnerable male people (and there are many) get the special privilege of being able to use not only the male single sex spaces set up for them, as per human rights requirements, PLUS access to female single sex spaces? Why don’t all vulnerable male people get the same access to female single sex spaces as they also are just as prone to hate, abuse and violence?

Seems remarkably discriminatory when you start to look further into it beyond the emotionally manipulative, my nice male friends need to be in the female single sex spaces because they told me so, and here are some stats that actually don’t support male people using female single sex spaces except because someone else said so.

You are forgetting that men can be vulnerable and abusive at the same time. And its not just their likelihood of being sexual abusers, its the threat they pose to women and girls dignity.

The percentage of men identifying as trans being small is not a solid argument to include them in womens spaces. Safeguarding doesnt work that way.

We could argue that men born in Melton Mowbray are only a small percentage of the population, therefore we are unlikely to be attacked by anyone from there. But that doesnt mean individual men from Melton Mowbray are less likely to be sexual abusers. No-one would think to allow men to self identify as being from Melton Mowbray and be allowed in womens spaces.

Its exactly the same for trans identifying men, just because they are a small group, doesnt mean that safeguarding doesn't apply to them.

I think because @Dominoeffecter is a man.
A youngish man with no children.
An I right Domino?

Oh and I thought you meant you were going out this afternoon, Domino. It's cooler at night so you might want to put a cardi on top of that dress.
That's what we women do....

HTH

“Weaponising feminism to justify hostility towards trans people is not only misguided – it also distracts from real issues of violence against women. If people are truly concerned about attacks in toilets, where is the evidence that incidents involving trans people are on the rise? There isn’t any.”

Please produce the evidence of male people with transgender identities being attacked in male single sex toilets in the UK?

If you read the thread there are female people being harmed in the female single sex provisions by male inclusion. For female people, the harm is not just direct violence and sex attacks, it is a loss of privacy and dignity of having to use the space that should be female only with male people. Many female people, of all ages, need to feel safe without any male people over the age of about 8 yrs old being present at all.

Feminism is about centring female people’s needs, not sacrificing those needs to centre any sub group of male people.

And, again, attempting to shame women discussing their needs by telling them to focus on your own personal political aims, or “real issues of violence against women” rather than allowing them to have their own agency to choose which political aims they feel important is rather unfeminist. I mean, who thinks they should be able to tell feminists to focus where they believe they should.

When I read that, all I see is “look over here, there is a squirrel! Look here, not over there! Nothing to see here!!”

@ThatCalmCat RTFT

This.

I would say in a very friendly voice" you are obviously lost, the gents are that way"

Thanks. Quoting bit below:

Third witness statement from a GP, who again requested anonymity, described how in July 2019 she saw someone in tight-fitting bikini bottoms which made their male genitalia evident being helped by a group of women bathers to fit a bikini top.

She claimed the swimmer then entered the women’s changing room and stood staring at a group of naked teenage girls. “I asked politely for him to please leave, since this was a women’s changing room,” the GP recalled. “His response was ‘I am a woman’ as he flicked his bikini top down.”

I'm tempted to post the article on Reddit but I don't think I'm quite brave enough.

🤣🤣🤣 Stop accusing people of being men, I’m definitely a woman, not young either with 3 DC.