Do you avoid the bathroom if there is a transwoman?

[PeachyDaisy]

I’m going to an industry event next week and I know there will be a transwoman attending. Should I use the disabled bathroom to avoid an awkward encounter or just continue to use the women’s and hope not to run into them?

External reality is not a belief; it is a physical fact.

If reality were just a subjective feeling, the International Olympic Committee wouldn't need to mandate genetic SRY-gene testing to protect the female sports category. If reality were just a belief, Faye wouldn’t have just won her monumental tribunal victory against NHS England for exposing the failure of mixed-sex workplace facilities. And the UK Supreme Court wouldn't have unanimously ruled that 'sex' under the Equality Act means strictly biological sex at birth.

The highest authorities in the land have firmly drawn the line because they recognise that public safety cannot be governed by someone's internal fantasy. You can play word games about what 'realist' means all you want, but you cannot legislate a male body into a female sanctuary.

they have been posted on most relevant threads and ignored by that poster.

When people think of vulnerable trans identifying men, I bet they are thinking of young gay men.

We can imagine how they feel unsafe in male toilets - they can be the victims of violent homophobia and unwanted attention from older men.

When men say that they have been using womens spaces for longer than we have been alive, and will carry on regardless of what we say. The spell has been broken, its clear that they arent vulnerable obviously gay young men, but middle aged blokes.

I know I know! It's just so frustrating how much utter nonsense is spouted at vast length, none of which makes any logical sense. I sort of just hope that lurkers may see the question being asked and never answered, and just think 'yeah, that is a bit weird'!

Ah well, page 40. The whine-a-thon is nearly at an end.

To be fair, I think when most people are thinking of 'trans identifying men,' they're picturing a large hairy bloke in fishnets and a tutu in front of a computer screen.

It is really remarkable how female people who have taken testosterone and have transgender identities will go out of their way to find an alternative solution for the decision they made to undergo extreme body modification, so much so that they have told us they have collectively have worked out a planning tool. They are not excluded by most policies or by legislation.

Yet.

Male people who are legitimately excluded from female single sex provisions under policies and legislation have admitted that they will simply ignore those policies and Parliamentary Acts and will ignore using any alternative mixed sex provision.

It is really stark when you see the entitlement.

Can't imagine why that would be🙄

When men say that they have been using womens spaces for longer than we have been alive, and will carry on regardless of what we say.

The claim to have been using women's spaces for decades is baffling, from this and other posters. As if it gives some semblance of credibility?
No, all it means is they've been ignoring women's wants and needs and the law for a very long time.
I'd actually have more sympathy for a confused teenager who's been duped by Reddit. But a middle-aged male? No. You know you're in the wrong place, and you just Do. Not .Care.

I’ve been reflecting on the structural contradictions being argued here, and I want to put two direct, respectful questions to those who believe biological sex boundaries should be bypassed:
First, given that the threat of male-pattern violence in men's facilities is frequently acknowledged, what specific qualities do you believe exist within female single-sex spaces that warrant entering them? If it is the safety, privacy, and low-threat environment that women have built, why is it fair to ask biological females to absorb the social and physical risk of a male body to provide that refuge for you?
Second, if the legal boundary of biological sex is successfully dismantled—which would legally force venues to replace ladies' rooms with mandatory, gender-neutral unisex spaces—what is the long-term plan then?
Once the female sanctuary is completely gone and you are forced right back into shared public facilities with the exact group of typical, unmodified biological men you are running away from, how will you navigate that reality?
These are not ideological queries; they are the material, structural consequences of erasing female consent and single-sex boundaries.

It doesn't matter what comes to mind when people see the term 'trans identitifying man / male', it doesn't matter at all what any male person looks like, they are all excluded from the age of about 8 years old.

Because they are male people.

So when women are asked anonymously and in private what they really think about including transwomen in every single sex situation, the majority have objections, as shown in the YouGov polls.

But when out and about they don’t complain and often go along with the situations they find themselves in. They don’t object in person to males in their spaces but keep their heads down. Most women will recognise exactly why that is.

Which is more likely to represent women’s actual feelings on the matter?

Oh they do care. In that it's 'euphoric' for them. Crossing boundaries is the joy. I don't believe it's about safety at all.

To be fair, this is what many women's experience of trans identifying men is day to day. Several local neighbours for example. And there is no way to differentiate practically in terms of access based on appearance or degree of transition, or a way to accommodate different types of men in women's spaces when some women simply cannot use a mixed sex space. Or indeed to work with an individual man's self perception; many men would insist they belong to the second group and not the first, without the women they wish to be in the space with agreeing with them. There are some very attractive well known men with trans identities, India Willoughby and Alex Drummond among them, but they are still attractive men.

True. I should've said: "you care only about yourself".

To have Taztoy say what she said upthread and basically still be ignored. Many others on this board have similar experiences. Honestly, it's jaw-dropping.

So if a speed limit is changed from 50mph to 30mph I can still drive at 50mph because I was doing it before the law was changed, and tough titty for anyone who disagrees or gets in my way?

Tbf, back in the day it was mainly HSTS men in their twinsets. The in-your-face fetishists were not Out. Now there are a whole range of presentations visible, but we still just see...men.

I have some sympathy that activists and men with very poor behaviour have pushed things to the point of breaking them entirely. There was a time in which a few quiet men made women uncomfortable and some had to self exclude to give way to them, but there were few enough and the behaviour controlled enough that it wasn't great (and women were never consulted, merely used), but staggered on. That ship has sadly and permanently sailed. Those men obviously are sad at the loss of this: it didn't work well for women but it worked for those men.

But women didn't fight this through the courts for the fun of it. This has never worked for women. Men saying 'I'm going to come in anyway' are adding a subtext of 'because I want what I want, and you can't stop me, and I don't care what happens to you or your access'. This obviously isn't acceptable.

So yes, as per yesterday's court case, it's reached a point of a judge pointing out that obviously the next step is disciplinary process and enforced respecting of women's rights, equality of need and equality of access to those men unwilling to respect it voluntarily. And the answer will be third spaces, not men in the women's facilities. Women need single sex provisions. Men are going to have to live with that. They can have things of their own, but they can no longer take from women, and expect that to be ok. And not reflect on what this says about them as people, and their own personal issues regarding women.

You're forming a scenario by implementing a boundary that did not exist when such spaces were created. 'sex-based' is a sex realist definition ignoring gender influence. (Spaces were okay for 99+% with gender/sex alignment and navigated to the best of their ability by the remaining <1%) well before trans people were a glint in the sex-realist eye.

I use women's spaces because I am a woman. If those spaces were to disappear, I would use whatever space replaced them. I would hope they are safe and clean.

There's an idea that 'genuine' TW were accepted into women toilets years ago, and its the new loud minority who've caused trouble with their disrespectful attitudes.

But the '30 years living as women' men who post on here show no signs of being any different to the younger men?

There's been loads of them, too. Unless its the same bloke with countless usernames.

You are not a woman. And for single sex spaces, the law agrees with me.

there are other laws and requirements of insurance in force.

Of course not, don’t be silly.

I’m not transphobic and

Mate, the law does not agree with you.

I get you're not happy about this, but women need single sex spaces. End of. And the law requires you to respect this. You're proving exactly why that law is needed: it's not like you're ever going to care about or want to make sure women are ok too. You can't see a thing beyond what you want and your anger with women who won't enable.