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.

I see my trans female friends as women

But other people will not. Because by any verifiable, factual scientific criteria - they are men.

If you see a trans woman as female and a woman peeing with the toilet door open because she has no choice as committing indecent exposure, you are quite simply living in topsy turvy land.

Trans identifying males might be less than 1% of the population, but since there is no meaningful way of distinguishing them from the other 49%+ of the male population to which they belong, for the purposes of law and policy we have to treat them as the male people they are. That would be true even if it were the case that they do not pose a threat to women, which is demonstrably not true (as anyone familiar with the prison statistics, or even anyone who has heard of Isla Bryson, will tell you).

How you treat them in your private life is neither here nor there.

Oh and by the way, male people (including the ones with transgender identities) commit more than 98% of all sex crimes, not 91%. That's why they're not allowed in women's changing rooms.

Oh no. Women who use the toilets as they have to are to be demonised. Their needs are to be diminished and they are to be excluded.

Those women need to stay the fuck at home.

The nice male people should be allowed to be validated and protected by women and girls.

HEY INCONVENIENT WOMEN AND CHILDREN, STAY AT HOME YOU PERVERTS EXPOSING YOURSELVES IN THE FEMALE TOILET.

Thank you for your respectful response. It is appreciated.

To whom it may concern (more specifically, women who think males in dresses feelz should be prioritised over the sex-based needs and rights of vulnerable women and girls);

Well exactly 🫠

On page 4 of the recent thread called "First trans comedian to win Edinburgh comedy award", there is a picture of a person occupying (in all senses) a women's toilet.
Does anyone genuinely think that person is only a poor vulnerable lady who "just wants to pee"?

'The assumption that all trans women are secretly predatory men is absurd.'

No, what is absurd is the assumption that trans identifying males can't use the male toilets. My friend does without issue.

Any man, however they identify, who uses the women's toilets is an absolute walking red flag. The assumption that those men are predatory is absolutely rational.

I think the absurd thing is assuming that a man who wears women's clothes is NOT a predatory male.

Well, agreed.

And if you add in the fact that they know they are male AND they are going into a space they are not allowed to be in what is the logical conclusion of their level of risk?

I was in a toilets last year when a trans person came in. He was about 60, wearing thigh high stiletto boots and a black mini skirt. I always thought I’d be vocal about this sort of thing, but I wasn’t. I might have showed my disgust, but I certainly wasn’t as brave as I hoped I’d be in the situation. I just felt really uncomfortable and like I needed to get out of there quick.

I'm sorry this happened to you.

How many more examples are needed just on this thread before women take this seriously?

We're not bigoted. Men just need to follow the law.

And yes, of course I prioritise my friends – I know them and trust them. They are not predatory men.

Thank you for this @ThatCalmCat, it gives me the green light to encourage my husband, son brother and FIL to use the women’s loos and the gym changing room alongside you.

I know and trust my husband, son, brother and FIL. They are not predatory men. 🙂

Ditto

But they won't.

Why? Because they give a shit about women.

So what does that tell you about the men who completely disregard this?

Meandering back in I'll add to my loo/facility checklist: "Are you a friend of @ThatCalmCat?"🤣

I do feel sad though reading those claiming along the lines of "oh my men/transwomen are 0 per cent risk to women".

Unfortunately that's what pretty much all women think. Often domestic violence starts in pregnancy, long into a relationship. They are charming, funny supportive guys until they aren't.

One reason for keeping toilets single sex is they are one, if not the only place, someone can escape their male abuser and get help. There's often posters up just for that.

It's not about being brave. Confronted with a male who is knowingly transgressing women's boundaries, your instinctive response was the safest one.

I'm sorry it happened, but please be at least a bit reassured that your instincts were working to protect you, not to do what you thought you 'ought' to do.

Women need to learn to trust their instincts, but most of all we need to stop layering shame and guilt onto our responses. About how we should be braver ,or stronger, or nicer, or kinder, or cleverer, or faster. We can't always second guess our responses. Fight, flight, freeze or fawn are all common responses to a threat.

Males, as a sex class, present a threat to women. They are bigger, stronger, more statistically likely to attack.

Wariness around males when we are in a confined space, or a vulnerable position, is unpleasant, but one could argue it's also rational. Any woman who has been on a street at night, or out on a remote hillside trail, and encountered a strange male knows exactly that instinctive response.

And yes, of course I prioritise my friends – I know them and trust them. They are not predatory men.

Other women don't know or trust them though, do they?

"They are kind, thoughtful people who deserve respect and the right to live their lives as they see fit. They aren’t hurting anyone."

Any male person over the age of about 8 years old that enters a space that female people of any age expect to be female people only is 'hurting' those female people.

You continued assertion that they are not causing any harm is meaningless because just being in a space that is meant for female people only is causing harm. Your dismissal of this does not make that harm disappear, it will still be there no matter how much you deny it.

The outcome of you demanding that others allow your male friends to enter female only spaces is that female people have had their right to live their lives removed. The very fact that you just tried to tell me that me using the toilet as a mother meant I was exposing myself is a tactic that I have seen before. From you perhaps? The interesting thing is that you actually believe that you are righteous in your attempt to shame women who reject your demand that we accept these male people into our female single sex spaces.

So, to repeat. The basic human rights that people in the UK can expect from public toilet providers is that they are sex segregated for safety and privacy and dignity away from people of the opposite sex. No male person should expect that they have any additional right to have a toilet provision that excludes other male people. And no female people should expect to have any additional right to have a toilet provisions that excludes other female people.

It is important to remember that male people who have pubertal male physical advantages have been proven to not lose those advantages after any stage of transition. The prison statistics show also that this group of male people do not have the same rate of committing sex and violent crime as the general female UK population.

If any male person rejects the use of the male single sex provisions that UK organisations provide, those male people need to find their own solutions. Since the EA2010, those male people have been excluded from female toilets. They have continued to illegimately use them, but they are in fact excluded.

The solution was never to allow male people to use female single sex spaces if they rejected using male single sex spaces. Women and girls did not consent to this. No other female person gets to remove the consent of those women and girls. To do so is an act of misogyny.

Indeed.

My male family members are all lovely and wonderful too. They are not predatory at all. I will bring them in with me too because apparently, that is all that is needed, a personal reference and all is good to go.

I'm struggling to get my head around all of this. Until recently, a transgender person was, to my understanding, someone who felt they were in the wrong body and so lived as the other gender, with or without transitioning. Some still looked very 'masculine' or 'feminine' for the gender they lived as. You never really heard much about it and I certainly don't remember ever hearing about any attacks by them on anyone. Actually, the idea of feeling so wrong in your own body that you'd go through all that was heart breaking and deserved some respect and compassion. Have there been many trans women who have attacked women in public toilets? Is this really an issue? Are there lots of men going out dressed as women so they can go into public toilets and assault them? I don't know much about it at all but I don't recall hearing that it's a risk?
I do think there should be more differentiation between someone who lives their life as the other gender, and someone who likes to experiment with clothes and make up. If someone lives as a woman, they'll go into the women's toilets and in my opinion, shouldn't be questioned at all. Someone who lives as a man, but likes lipstick and dresses, should use the mens. If I saw the former I wouldn't be concerned, if I saw the latter, I don't know what I'd do.

What does 'living as a woman' mean?

I would emulate a dear departed fellow gym member
who while naked after post tennis shower
spotted a bloke in the locker room
and towel whipped him across the backside
he left and never came back

the bar is high
I am up for it

"They are kind, thoughtful people who deserve respect and the right to live their lives as they see fit."

They deserve the right to break the law on single sex facilities? Because they aren't (as far as you know) physically attacking anyone?

What about my and all the other women's rights in here to have single sex facilities? What about those who only feel safe in single sex spaces? Who have been attacked by transwomen in them?

What about the women wanting same sex rape crisis facilities? The nurses who don't want to strip in from an obviously intact "transwomen"? The women who want to socialise with other women? The female prisoners who don't want to be locked up with a transwomen sex offender?

Why do transwomen's rights - to use a facility that corresponds to their gender identity - greater than those of biological women? Why aren't you on our side?