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.

Chapeau!

There are no biological or neurological markers that are indicators in common with all people with transgender identities. Or even some people with transgender identities.

This means that the only thing that they have in common is that they have a philosophical belief about their identity that is not something that reflects material reality. It is all based on their own belief.

What other group in the UK gets to have the additional privileges of not only accessing the single sex provisions for their own sex, but get to access the single sex provisions of the opposite sex as well?

And remember the very act of a male person entering a female single sex provision, regardless of his philosophical belief about himself, makes that female single sex provision mixed sex.

Good analogy 👍

look at my posts. They are worse for everyone.

I have looked into this. It’s a difficult one to assess as men who want to be women have a preference for women’s toilets and use them so there’s little data. Women who want to be men don’t tend to want to use the men’s toilets or the women’s toilets. They want gender neutral first but then will use the women’s rather than go to the men’s. Obviously this is a ‘average’ depends on location. It’s also why the Good Law Project will be having a headache at the moment - as different groups want different things as differentiated by sex!

Just as women have often paired up to go to the loo (and I would recommend this in pubs and clubs if they are enclosed loos) then I think the way men would feel more safe would be to take another man with them. However, I have no reports of this being a problem so I hope this is a bit of reassurance. I also think having a toilet cubicle with door gaps above and below would allow them to assess the situation around them when inside, just as it does for women. It would also be a deterrent for a man pushing them into a cubicle because other men coming into the toilets could see/hear what’s going on and I think other men are very likely to be less afraid of helping. Most men are good men. The views on this thread (thank you for starting it OP) are very like all the views I have come across before.

The heterosexual men, who are happy being men, I have spoken to about toilets say there’s very little interaction between men, they space themselves out evenly at the urinals. However, they say the men’s stink and there are some toilets that are so revolting they would avoid them. There our some women’s toilets like that too of course but they don’t tend to stink as much (different urine composition in the sexes). Ventilation needs improving more in men’s toilets and unisex toilets.

I want toilets to be safe for everyone. To be honest I think the actual risk of a man coming to harm in a toilet is much more likely to be from heart problems, drug overdoses or mental health issues. As such any man is safer in a single sex toilet cubicle with door gaps.

I think there is scope to have an open plan ‘preening’ area open to all in nightclubs with mirrors, sofas, instagram walls etc outside the toilets.

The toilets should be as boring, easy clean and functional as possible. Certainly not an instagrammable destination!

@hellofabore I can't give a satisfactory answer and in trying to explain myself I'm just making it worse. I think someone who's taken hormones may look and carry themselves differently to someone who hasn't, although I accept you can't really tell. I had sympathy for what I've always believed to be someone who's grown up feeling so awful within themselves that they've gone through a lot of pain and upheaval to change. I felt that it was unfair that their lives can't then be reasonably straightforward, but now I realise that there's a lot more to it and I shouldn't have posted as I don't know anything about it.

Ok. Let's consider the needs of a woman who is trying to clean and dry her top after spilling coffee, food, having a child vomit on them, having a breast leakage.

How tolerant do you think a line up of people are going to be waiting for her to finish drying her top enough to leave the cubicle?

If someone has a medical emergency and falls in that cubicle, how would any person know that the person has fallen and needs urgent assistance? The person could have died in the time it takes for someone to realise that they need help. There is far greater change to help or get help quickly with a traditional toilet with gaps underneath. The gap is there for a reason. It was always understood that it was needed for those situations.

Feminists have been saying for decades that we need third options - but to maintain the traditional single sex spaces because they work for the usage patterns of sex they are created for.

You should feel free to post what ever you like!

But I will say again, men who identify as women don't need to go in women's toilets. At all. Ever.

Those who do are not good people.

I think you should have a listen to psychiatrist Dr Az Hakeem (who was a UK NHS specialist in psychiatry for adults with gender distress) about the clear distinctions between transsexuals (very rare, commonly autistic) fetishistic transvestites (much more common, aroused by wearing women’s clothes) and auto-gynephiles (aroused by the erotic fantasy of having female body parts).

Then have a think why the magic “trans” umbrella encompasses all these psychiatric presentations without distinction. Have a good read of the Reddit trans pages where all the fetishism and wanking is on full display.

Then ask yourself why women (who have looked deeper into this topic beyond the superficial “born in the wrong body” cliche) do not want these men in our female only spaces.

Roll my eyes and carry on. They tend to clog up the sink putting make up on as they are living out their fantasy of what they think women get up to in there. If it was a woke bloke who just thinks everything should be open to everyone, id ask him to leave. If it was the swimming pool I'd ask them why they didn't use the unisex area because they would obviously be a perv if not doing that, like the men who insist on using the ladies ponds.

I'm in Germany, so a different legal situation due to the new self id law. For the toilet situation, regulations for separate toilets were created before self id, based on the assumption of woman = biological woman, as it was in law until November 2024. The technical prescription for public toilets was actually rewritten in 2023 and the single sex status reiterated. There is a dissonance between the assumption in law until 2024 and the fixed definition "woman = anyone who self id's as one", that happened in 2024, though a second or third level law. I would hopefully be woman enough to inform the person, that he is in the wrong toilet, and tell him he's been misinformed about his "rights". This is something to be settled by the Constitutional Court in the hopefully near future, not by biological men just walking into women's toilets and services on the say so of a bad law (not my evaluation).

You can see I have played it through in my head. Whether I will be able to go through with it is another question.

Please feel free to keep posting! Most of us here started out in a similar place to where I think you are.

Rasell, the point is, are you gaining greater understanding with the explanations on this thread and the links that are being provided.

I understand having sympathy for someone who is feeling distress. And due to so much media and a huge campaign effort from trans supportive groups, there is a huge amount of misinformation that has been published. And published by trusted sources.

However, when you start to unpick it all and question what it all means and how it has happened, you begin to understand that female people are still being demonised (look at this thread for instance!) for stating clearly what they need and why they need it. All the sake of this special group of male people.

And it is just the male people that we are discussing. Because female people are welcome in the female single sex spaces. Feminists still campaign for the needs of all female people, even those who reject being female.

So, it is just the male people that we discuss as being the ones who are demanding that they get these special privileges, yet, there is no evidence to support them getting these privileges, and there is plenty of evidence to support them being fully excluded from the provisions they demand to access. And it is only for their philosophical belief about themselves (and one that doesn't reflect material reality). Again, no other group in the UK gets this special treatment.

And we know that there are male people with transgender identities that continue to use the male single sex spaces without any issue at all.

So, why can some male people with transgender identities (transwomen I think you call them) use male single sex spaces and others reject them? Why should those who reject them get special provisions when no other group of male people who are incredibly vulnerable to attack or abuse gets those special privileges?

It all starts to crumble when you start to unpick the emotionally manipulative messaging that has been used to support these special provisions.

If you cannot answer the questions, and it seems that you are prepared to think it through, then you need to really unpick why you believed what you did and what evidence did you see that convinced you.

And Rasell, asking questions and discussing the issue is exactly why you should be posting.

My suggestion is that if you do want to understand more, read, read, read. Ask questions, and then read some more. Read anything you get your hands on and keep asking yourself, is this provable, is there any evidence or logic to support this. Read widely and openly.

@Rasell, everyone is entitled to have their say, whatever their opinion, and whether they have a thorough grasp of the issues or not. I admire you for being honest about how well you understand the discussion (or not). If you are interested in learning more, MN (and especially the FWR board) is a great place to do that as there are many very clever and articulate women here. Women who understand science and statistics and philosophy- and of course feminism.

I honestly don’t know if I would even be a feminist at all if it weren’t for MN. I have learnt so much here and will be eternally grateful. I don’t know the usernames of all the women who have educated me here over the years; but I am thankful for them.

Absolutely agree with PP’s recommendation to check out the work of Dr Az Hakeem if you want to get a better understanding of what it really means to be ‘trans’.

For anyone who is interested to understand that male people who go through any part of male puberty have male physical advantages that are not removed with any treatment of transition. In fact, there is ample evidence out there now that shows that even years and years of treatment will not remove the male pubertal advantage. I mean, how can it when you cannot shrink a skeleton and you cannot change your hip placement or your q angles.

You also do not change your bone density to that of a female person, a male skull will always be stronger than a female skull unless there is a specific bone density issue that is not related to treatment for gender dysphoria.

Anyway, here is a place to start:

From Dr Hilton and T Lundberg. This contains great information and quantifies some of the differences. You will find this study is very well referenced by many who use the findings to explain male pubertal advantage.

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s40279-020-01389-3

Transgender Women in the Female Category of Sport: Perspectives on Testosterone Suppression and Performance Advantage

Abstract: Males enjoy physical performance advantages over females within competitive sport. The sex-based segregation into male and female sporting categories does not account for transgender persons who experience incongruence between their biological sex and their experienced gender identity. Accordingly, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) determined criteria by which a transgender woman may be eligible to compete in the female category, requiring total serum testosterone levels to be suppressed below 10 nmol/L for at least 12 months prior to and during competition. Whether this regulation removes the male performance advantage has not been scrutinized. Here, we review how differences in biological characteristics between biological males and females affect sporting performance and assess whether evidence exists to support the assumption that testosterone suppression in transgender women removes the male performance advantage and thus delivers fair and safe competition. We report that the performance gap between males and females becomes significant at puberty and often amounts to 10–50% depending on sport.

The performance gap is more pronounced in sporting activities relying on muscle mass and explosive strength, particularly in the upper body. Longitudinal studies examining the effects of testosterone suppression on muscle mass and strength in transgender women consistently show very modest changes, where the loss of lean body mass, muscle area and strength typically amounts to approximately 5% after 12 months of treatment. Thus, the muscular advantage enjoyed by transgender women is only minimally reduced when testosterone is suppressed. Sports organizations should consider this evidence when reassessing current policies regarding participation of transgender women in the female category of sport.

This second study is from Harper et al.

bjsm.bmj.com/content/early/2021/02/28/bjsports-2020-103106

Conclusions are in line with Hilton & Lundberg.

For information (considering many people will seek to discredit based on alleged bias) Harper is the transwoman who has released some sports studies in the past that had some methodology issues.

There is plenty of other evidence, just ask.

This man has just won a comedy award and is sat in the women's toilet putting the middle finger up to women who dare say no to him.

I continue to say no.

A man may be happy, sad, wear a dress, take hormones, wear lipstick or none of these things.
Men must welcome all men into male spaces as males have rights to use male facilities.
That is inclusion for males, not using women's facilities.
If other men are causing issues for some males, that needs to be highlighted and dealt with.

Even worse, this man's comedy act included disparaging and demonising women who want female single sex spaces to be only for female people.

This photo is all about power.

Does this pic suggest to you

a)'i love respect and understand women's perspectives or

b) 'fuck you women. I'll do whatever I goddamn want. Shut the fuck up.'

Because to me, it says b.

It is. I hope previous posters see it and see what is hiding in plain sight.

Can we also acknowledge that a large % of the time now, when there are gender neutral options available, this sub-group of male people demand to use the female single sex spaces.

Why? Because this is a show of power.

The question I keep asking is what type of male person demands to use female single sex spaces knowing that doing so could (and is likely to) cause the female people using that space distress?

Why don't those male people respect the needs of female people?

And for any person who is centring these male people's needs, why are you doing this to the detriment of female people? Or is it that you refuse to listen to the female people who are trying to voice their needs? If you won't listen, why not?

There are a lot of ‘masculine’ women - everyone saying they would confront - how are you so sure the person is biologically male?

Can I suggest you read the thread? Particularly the past 10 -15 pages. This question has been answered many times now.

And please stop weaponising 'masculine' women in this way.

I agree @Helleofabore, I suspect your question is somewhat rhetorical.

I just wanted to add I use gender neutral/one cubicle toilets when on my period (menstrual cup/reach of sink) and rarely have any issues finding one.

I also haven't been "outed" as trans, as far as I'm aware. People have various reasons for using them and no one's paying that much attention.