How trans people feel about correct-sex toilets, in their own words

[MyAmpleSheep]

This is an interesting Reddit thread where members of the trans community write about how they feel about not using wrong-sex bathrooms toilets facilities. (The original question doesn’t say toilets, but that’s how most responders have interpreted it, I think).

https://tinyurl.com/musmm897

There’s a mix of responses, some activist, some self-pitying, some stories that are sad. Genuinely useful and thought-provoking to read what people say.

I can’t very much influence how people should post here, but it would be very easy to only to highlight or mock the more unreasonable responses in that thread. Perhaps I’m allowed to ask Mumsnet posters to be thoughtful, though?

No, she's Ukranian.

Again?

Sorry love, but since the Supreme Court Ruling confirming the law, there is no ‘subjectivity’ about it - biological men should not be in female single sex spaces, and where those women may be vulnerable, sex abuse survivors, Jewish/Muslim/any faith requiring that their privacy from the male sex be respected, there is now more than a reasonable expectation that those women would be distressed and alarmed. There was even a court ruling recently confirming this involving a Muslim woman,

…so off you pop with your emboldened lettering and google level understanding of the law.

Well she definitely doesn't understand the laws in the UK.

This kind of matters and is relevant to the UK.

Amnesty best have a word with all the MPs who have failed to change the law to allow men to perv and to restrict free speech.

And to allow men into single sex spaces which women are allowed on biological ground for a legitimate purpose.

I guess given the majority of public support is for the above, and that's the mainstream view. Which is shared by the rest of the world too even where laws are fucked and pro-men, that the entire world isn't mainstream but is far right.

Even mother nature has a political opinion and is far right. Shocking isn't it?

Oh dear, you really are making a tit of yourself here.

Please do explain what pseudo science you are talking about.

In UK law, for the purposes of the equality act (by which means single sex provisions are allowed in the provision of services, and compulsory at work and in schools) “woman” and “man” refer to biologically female and male people respectively. This is what the Supreme Court judgement confirmed.

Everything else is just post-modern clap trap. No one can change sex. Presenting as female does not give you the right to go into spaces reserved for females.

Single sex spaces were set up primarily
for women’s safety. Women campaigned for them so they could engage in life outside the home.

It isn’t complicated.

At the rate of knots indeed.

One wonders exactly why someone who claims to support trans people should be so keen to derail, delete or run out a thread highlight how trans people in their own words feel about being expected to use the facilities of their sex rather than of their mind.

Surely they would want this thread of all threads to hang around and be readable and commentable for a long time.

Tis a mystery to me.

Just because a man feels subjectively 'distressed' by being required to respect women's rights and their protections in law does not magically entitle him to be there. He will exist just fine in the gender neutral space, he can exist in there to his heart's content.

Other people have rights too. And yes, if men are absolutely determined to be arses about this, it will have to end with it becoming prosecutable, won't it?

But I would say - if a man is asked to leave and won't, if he kicks off in a women's space, he is likely to be banned from that space, and if necessary the police will be called and will have a word. And if he wants to push his behaviour to disturbing the peace or threatening and abusive behaviour, he will be arrested. Won't he?

I think I’d take with a big pinch of salt anything claimed on a Reddit thread about Mumsnet.

And how will that go do you think?

Will the police defend the right of a man to use a female designated space?

Given that his presence will likely be causing some distress and alarm to some of the women there for whom the space was set up?

Trans women should have campaigned for third spaces if they don’t feel safe in the men’s.

You do not seem to understand that there is no way to differentiate between any of your “lovely trans friends” and any man who adopts a trans identity for any reason including mental illness or sexual fetish. There is no way I law to distinguish because they are all male and will all claim to be “women”.

"Your honour, I was in that space, where I knew I shouldn't have been, intentionally, and by doing so harassing every woman there with my presence (as established in the Peggie judgment by a judge who didn't like women's rights but still had to admit to them) - and she said something to me I didn't like when I wouldn't leave!"

Yeah, I'll lay in the popcorn for that court case.

Feminism is about campaigning for the rights, protection and equality of female people.

The clue is in the word feminism.

How old are you? You don’t seem very aware of the roots of feminism or its history.

Many women on this board have been feminists for decades.

Feminism doesn’t mean “be kind to everyone especially male people who think they are female”. It means working for the right of female people in a world largely run for men’s benefit. Feminism is for female people of all ages, classes, nationalities and races.

Mmm, you might believe it’s a “universally recognised definition” but “universal” doesn’t just mean something you and your friends agree on. You seem quite sheltered and narrow in your understanding.

Some people think "Feminism" follows the word "woman" whoever it happens to be pointing to at the time. They care about the word more than the people.

And some people think the "Feminism" applies to the female half of humanity regardless of the names people use or do not use for them. They care about the people more than the word.

We call the second group "Feminists".

We call the first group "Misogynists".

Some people think "man" and "woman", "boy" and "girl" are personality labels and get terribly terrible upset if they have the wrong label applied (while being 100% happy to arbitrarily assume everyone else falls quite neatly into the labels just as they themselves happen to see them). They care that everyone is properly assigned to the right gender box.

Some people think "man" and "woman", "boy" and "girl" are the names for the male and female halves of humanity, and they should not be taken as connoting anyting about an individual's personality or capabilities beyond those determined by their physical sex. They think the whole idea of gender boxes is a pointless diversion and a limitation of human potential.

We call the second group "Feminists".

We call the first group "Sexist".

HTH.

I think Masha has run out of steam after engaging with us dangerous bigots of Mumsnet. She earned her badge for Reddit, and we probably won't hear from her again.

oops, now you've said it!

On the contrary, I assume Masha's nipped back to the embrace of Reddit to regroup and flick through the newest edition of 'Let's show those bitches on Mumsnet what for!' and will be back, bolstered with headpats for getting in nazi, pseudo science and bigot all in one thread derailing go.

Sky news has said that from 5th August the new rules regarding single-sex toilets, changing rooms, hospital wards and refuges must be based on a person’s birth sex.

Has it been announced officially?

It was the rhetorical equivalent of running under the lawn sprinkler. A quick fly past with lots of screeching.

I had in mind a dash into the creepy graveyard to touch the mausoleum gate then dash out again quickly without looking left or right; but I like yours too.

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womensrights/5554647-ehrc-code-on-single-sex-spaces-comes-into-force-on-5th-august-2026

Thread here. I actually haven't checked the EHRC website! But I assume it's true.

ps. sorry, to add, it would be on the Government's website, not EHRC, of course

Yes the commencement date has been set as 5 August, when the 2011 statutory code is superseded by this one.

I haven’t checked the EHRC. I’ve checked the government website though so can assure you it’s true.

EXCELLENT NEWS

It's bizarre to just insist on being in spaces you shouldn't. Where you could cause alarm.

If transwomen don't want to use the mens then they should hold it in or use a standalone unisex facility.

I personally have no issues with trans men using the gents if they wish. The ones I know could only use the cubicle anyway as they can't use the urinal on a sanitary or dignified way. And I don't think men seem to care.

But women very much do care. With good reason.

Possible he or she has been shown the door.