The myth of 'bathroom bans' harming 'cis' women

[ItsCoolForCats]

What can we do to put this nonsense to bed?

Marie Goldman, the Lib Dem MP, has written to Bridget Phillipson about the leaked EHRC code of practice, and has posted this on her Facebook page:

"Imagine being turned away from a bathroom, a hospital, or even a cinema just for “not looking female enough”.

That’s exactly what the leaked EHRC guidance on single-sex services could lead to. Along with over 40 Lib Dem colleagues, I’ve written to the Minister for Women & Equalities to raise serious concerns.

The draft could have staff questioning anyone’s sex based on appearance and refusing access if there’s any doubt. That risks putting trans and non-binary people – and all women and girls – in unsafe, humiliating situations.

It’s confusing, unworkable for businesses, and a backward step for equality. We urgently need new, inclusive, practical guidance that protects everyone’s rights, safety, and dignity".

The comments under her post are pretty wild (with a smattering of common sense). And when you click on the profile pictures of some of the 'women' claiming this will harm 'cis' women and is unenforceable, it is apparent within half a second of looking at their profile pictures that they are male. And of course there are the usual compliant women saying it's "cis het" men that are the issue.

Why can't people see this for what is? Emotional manipulation and blackmail designed to allow men to keep accessing women's single sex spaces. I find it astonishing that intelligent people fall for this.

Quite. I'm sure it's very unpleasant to be challenged.

But I'm afraid we women have to ride that out.

I agree that we just need to ride this out until sanity is restored. But that is going to be made more difficult by useful idiots like Marie Goldman putting forward ridiculous TRA arguments.

It is probably going to take service providers getting sued for this to stop. And once it starts costing them money, they will be a lot less tentative about possibly offending someone. I mean the private sector, of course, because the public sector will keep dragging their feet for as long as they can get away with.

Who are these gender non conforming females who, despite choosing not to adopt feminine coded forms of expression, experience harm from people not reading them as female.

Perhaps there should be a scheme for them, like TfL has for pregnant women (which came about from people not giving them the reserved seats because they didn’t believe they were pregnant.

There are lots of ways we could solve this issue if it were a genuine problem.

Toilets have always had problems. Much of the time provision has been self policed though attendants used to be much more common.

Public toilets have been shut in huge numbers because councils can’t afford them. The maintenance costs are huge and they become unpleasant quickly. There is lots of vandalism, people use them for organised sex, to use/deal drugs, even a place to sleep. Much out-of-home provision has now been replaced by private venues.

The reasons we had door gaps was to reduce this misuse, make sure people were ok in the cubicle and for hygiene reasons - being able to swill the floor with bleachy water. Ventilation was a huge problem too and gaps ensured people weren’t breathing in pathogens and the air was more pleasant.

Single sex designs can have door gaps for health and safety. Mixed sex toilets do not have door gaps because of privacy otherwise there’s always voyeurism problems.

You can’t have a men and women using most of the provision we have in this country together. The designs have to change.

In legislation and regulations, for a mixed sex toilet, each toilet has to be in its own separate room with a sink and drying facilities. It should be enclosed and resistant to sound.

If you offer a ‘case-by-case’ basis you literally have to change every toilet to be mixed sex design as that is the provision you offer.

If you want healthier, safer designs and ones that are more likely not to be misused, and more provision in total, and cheaper to run, less queues at busy times, then single sex provision should be maintained.

ps the case-by-case basis to let some men in to women’s loos was what someone from the government was suggesting (not to do with the thread title).

I can see both sides because women are harassed for not appearing to be female. (For example female athletes... there has been incidences of people declaring they "must be trans" but are just very athletic looking women!)

However I wouldn't put it past some TRAs to deliberately target women just to fabricate evidence of it happening.

This is it.
I recall they tried "women take their toddler sons into changing rooms so hulking great middle aged men in dresses must by definition be allowed in" - and were laughed at.

This is the one they've been able to make stick as they appropriate women and girls to do it. Only useful idiots think that because wome women might be misgendered men have the right to watch women & girls undressing / on the toilet.

People need to wise up.

In a toilet context the main reason that people think that there could be men in the women’s toilets is that men are quite unashamed of boasting about using women’s toilets.

Boasting about it and taking photos of themselves in there to post on social media. They don't realise what a massive own goal that is.

Being sceptical, I also think that there is deliberate targetting so that they can present evidence.

As has been said before, the fact that when the vast, vast majority of women won’t challenge someone who is obviously and objectively a man, they suddenly now have the courage to challenge and verbally attack any woman that looks a bit butch is too much of a coincidence.

My question is, why is this suddenly an issue now? Butch women have even experiencing this for basically their whole lives, and most have a base understanding that if you don't look like everyone else then you might be questioned, and accept that.

Thing is none of these TRAs ever cared about this until now, when they see it as something they can use to push for what they want. They don't actually care about this or they would have cared for the last thirty years - but just like intersex people or women without uteruses, they literally only pretend to care so they have another club to beat everyone over the head with.

There's no actual respect for the groups they're using.

They can also change their sex marker on their birth certificates/driving licenses/medical records/passports etc.
They have more rights than anyone else.

I wouldn't be at all surprised.

But the answer to frightened, suspicious women, isn't to make them more frightened and more suspicious. You don't manage the effects of frightened women trying to avoid being forced into being used by men by just forcing them to be used more.

Unless of course you're a misogynist with some very significant and worrying issues with self awareness, social awareness and empathy.

It will stop because the cost implications of making every toilet mixed sex is too great.

Morally, it should stop because single sex designs with door gaps are safer for anyone who is medically vulnerable, and for women and children who are more at risk of assaults.

No risk assessment nor equality impact assessment has ever been done on using single sex designs for both sexes. If it has, I have never seen one. All mixed sex toilet designs are completely private.

They don’t care, they get a thrill out of the boundary violation and exhibitionism.

I get it all the time too, even the bloke who was collecting for the RLBI said thank you sir, when I put money in his pot, until I gave one of my special looks and then walked away so he could recover from his embarrassment with dignity.
I don't take offence, I certainly don't kick of with 'Madam, it's madam, I'm a WOMEN' like certain men do. 😂

This is another example of women being impacted from men’s behaviour.

Before the TRAs decided to see just how far they could push it women would glance at other people in the loos/changing rooms. If you were unsure if they were female you would then risk assess the potential outcome before deciding whether to quietly speed your exit, delay if women/girls more vulnerable than you were present, or occasionally ask. I suspect that asking was generally aimed at people you were pretty sure were women.

Now we have women, angry from their rights being dismissed, aware that the odds of the person not being female are higher than before, challenging people in loos/changing rooms.

No one should be confronting strangers in a way which makes them afraid but that’s about the manner and language used not the question.

oh dear Lord, I’ve just described the Bananarama defence.

I can see that there are or may be obfuscated categories here. I don't want to call women/girls who say they've been incorrectly identified as men/boys liars, because of course it CAN and sometimes does happen, even if that means that the scenario is also used to legitimise false claims. Regusgirl said: We are hardwired to identify whether a person is male or female. I agree, WE are - but due to evolutionary differences and divergent priorities in terms of personal survival, ordinary men may not be quite as primed as ordinary women to detect sex as an evolutionary survival instinct - and that's without even considering how many women - estimates say 40% - suffer from rape crisis syndrome.

BUT: UK law says that provisions must be made for single-sex toileting for both women and men if desired. If some transwomen (biologically men) do not feel safe using the lavatories designated for men, can we not do a government investigation on how widespread this feeling is, and how much basis it has in reality, who is doing the threatening that makes some transwomen or nonbinary male people feel unsafe in the men's facilities? Because the right thing to do here is to make toilets (and prisons, and hospital wards, and school and recreational changing rooms) safe for everybody. Why are we (the UK government, political representatives from all parties, the media, and the public) not making THAT the main goal?

Yep. It's also really weird that it(*) only ever seems to happen to the friends of women who hold neo-sexist/Genderist ideas like TWAW.

(*) by "it" I mean aggressive challenging and refusal to believe an error was made, as opposed to the far more common "hey this is the ladies!" "I am a lady" "oh - oops, yes I see you are, my apologies" that all of us who are not hyper-feminine have experienced over the years.

In short: because the goal is to enable this particular group of men to use women.

The bullshit is the flailing around trying on different problems that the pre determined, desired solution can be the answer to.

This is in short: 'how the fuck do we get those women to shut up and get their pants off/tits out and stop being difficult?'

'Well they say they care about women or something, weird I know, but those are the noises they make, if they don't care about the poor men then try saying some women might be upset and see if that makes them get in line'.

#fail.

When the 'myth' is reality:

www.snopes.com/news/2023/07/27/katie-ledecky-trans-rumors/

I can’t see how the vast majority of people would be impacted beyond brief inconvenience if challenged about their presence in a single sex space.

Only those who are going through the world continually thinking about how other people perceive their gender identity would be impacted differently.

There is a lot of anecdotal recounting of
“gender euphoria” when perceived as the opposite sex. I’m confused about why transwomen, described as passing so well they would be at increased risk in male loos, would avoid the possibility of gender euphoria from being challenged for being in the correct single sex space.

Can't sleep?

Nope Howie.
No men perving on women and girls undressing.

No matter what argument's dredged up.

I think they are also trying to exaggerate the amount of stress and offence women experience by having a brief exchange to establish their sex, to the same level that misgendering is apparently literal violence to a trans person.

I’ve been misgendered a few times and have felt zero stress or offence, which does seem to match the experiences of other women.

That’s a good point.