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?

predicating their acceptance into single sex spaces based on visual assessments

Nobody is doing this, except you. Nobody else at all.

TiM’s non-acceptance into female facilities has nothing to do with their visual assessments and everything to do with their (male) sex.

Just like we all acknowledge that driving under the influence of alcohol is unacceptable. There are still people who drive while intoxicated; but they don’t get fêted as stunning and brave and held up as examples to us all.

Exactly this.

Nor do people jumping red lights or refusing to wear seatbelts in cars.

Yes, some people will always do these things but we don't celebrate the law breakers, remove the laws or say that some people have been forced to make adaptations just to "fit in" because these laws exist...

By virtue of being pro single sex spaces is an encouragement of medicalisation. That you fail to comprehend the basic logic of a legal requirement to 'fit in' encourages people to do so doesn't reflect well on your cognitive abilities.

"I had facial surgery and a boob job because I wanted to go in the women's toilets. I needed to do as much as I could to look like a woman. I had no other choice"

sounds just as daft as...

"I had to use a portable blue flashing light on my car roof, to make it look like I was in an unmarked police car, because I didn't want to stop at all the red lights. I had no other choice"

Or..

"The landlord knew I was driving so the only way I could keep drinking was to send other people up to the bar to buy my drinks. I had no other choice"

Or..

"I lost control when I had to take my hand off the wheel to change gear, because my other hand was holding down the seatbelt to make it look like I was wearing one. I had no other choice"

In none of these cases do we blame people who support the laws for the actions of those who break it, including when those actions involve deception. Everyone knows how much they've had to drink, if they've jumped a red light or if they've pretended to be wearing a seatbelt when driving past police.

Equally, everyone knows what sex they are.

Perhaps the daftest part of that whole idea, of needing to take steps to "fit in", is that it's a clear acceptance that transwomen look like males. Yes, they do. What's needed here to "fit in" is an inclusion campaign for males in dresses to be accepted in men's facilities without judgement if they feel unable to go in there. Or a campaign for more additional single room unisex facilities, accepting that these are never as safe as multi-cubicle single-sex facilities for medical emergencies and hidden cameras etc, but are an alternative choice for anyone who does feel safe using them.

We as a society have done transgender people no favour by years of ‘be kind’. I’ve a number of friends who have children in their twenties who have transitioned over the last ten years. It’s a big game of pretend.

All this discussion about women now being responsible for male people’s decisions and actions is misogynistic noise.

If a male person cannot self regulate to not use a provision that he, as a male person, was never meant to access, that is his responsibility and his alone.

It isn't relevant though is it?

The ones where 'nobody knows' and never has done are not the ones who have caused the issue, the law prevents the very obvious men barging into women's single sex spaces (taking selfies with swords and machetes, peeing or wanking with the door open) telling distressed and alarmed women that the law is on their side and the women can't stop them. The sexual assaults that have ended in convictions and names/faces in the press make it clear those men would absolutely not have 'passed' for a moment. Stopping those men goes a very long way to helping the issues that gender identity has heaped upon women.

And most importantly:

workplaces have to stop men employees using women's facilities and spaces
the police cannot let men strip search a woman based on their identity and wish for a validating 'experience' using her body
school toilets and changing rooms cannot be mixed sex past a certain age regardless of gender choices
same sex hcp has to mean same sex and not staff coercing a woman who for her own reasons doesn't want to play 'do I pass' with a man who wants to use her for his validation
lesbian and gay people can set up groups that are just for those of their own sex
women can have a rape crisis service or survivors group or women's health group without being brigaded and shut down by men insisting the law is on their side and those women have no right to talk about their distressing physical experience without those men being present to enjoy it

and so on. Things are one hell of a lot better than they were.

However if men and identity politics extremists are so determined to disrespect and harm women and gay people and their rights wherever they can find a loophole, then yes, the law probably will end up having to evolve further and get those loopholes closed.

Ps as a PP has already mentioned, I'd love to know why anyone thinks there is a "legal requirement to fit in".

The only legal requirement is to follow the law. Choice of clothing and surgery etc is not a legal requirement of any kind. Thinking it is doesn't reflect well on cognitive abilities.

It's never a good look when people determined to ignore the law say 'I'll do what I like and you can't stop me', often combined with 'it's your fault, you made me do it'.

Our visitor seems to think we think it's OK for men who pass to be in women's spaces. He is of course wrong. No men should be in women's spaces (unless they need to be for repair, maintenance etc - when women should then be warned).
Passing may allow a handful of men to sneak in unnoticed but that is on them not on women.

The men with access to the best, most expensive surgery there is don’t pass.

The poster boys who have been made into modern day castrati don’t pass. Your idea of a man fully passing as female to all people is a myth. Their male behaviour is often a big giveaway.

I note you have a very low opinion of these men’s ability to follow rules of society that say they can’t use women’s spaces.

If it needs to be made a criminal law, there will be a way to do it.

But how ridiculous that it needs to be done. And how fucked up does someone have to be to declare that because there is no criminal law preventing male access to some provisions that this means the access is not unlawful and that lawful action cannot be taken including by an organisation who has a policy that fully excludes male people above 8 years old in female single sex provisions.

It is a weak argument to try to focus on criminal laws rather than the wider application of law and how this is done. It is an artificial narrowing of scope tactic.

Blah blah blah

Which part of not our problem do you find hard to understand?

Which part of no amount of medicalising will change your sex do you struggle with?

Which part of any man who invaded a woman's space for whatever reason, is a selfish creep is difficult to grasp?

The sheer lack of respect for women is staggering. We are supposed to bend over backwards being nice whilst being walked all over and our rights removed.

The answer is no.

This isn't for us to fix. This is for transpeople to work out alternative solutions and to understand the world does not revolve around their stomping of feet and wailing.

There is no other medical condition that requires everyone else to enable and to fuss over and to harm ourselves to accommodate. And we should not have to.

Transpeople need to grow the fuck up and stop it. Women are not service humans to be used as props for the issues of others. We have our own needs which should be recognised.

The answer is no.

The use medicalisation to try and cheat their way in

which is illegal

which doesn’t say much for their moral values or respect of others

they may feel forced , I rather feel it emphasises the socialised differences between male and female

and medicalisation of young women which is likely to shorten their lives and sterilise them - does the fact they are usually autistic and lesbian not ring alarm bells ? Medicalisation should be a last resort and sign of failure. Failure partly of us as a society to reject the gender norms that make it harder for some to live their lives freely

ETA - meant to quote the person you were replying to!

@Tottenhamhotflushes

Odd then that living where I do, I see - and immediately identify - dozens of trans identifying individuals every single day, then isn’t it? I don’t have a superpower. It’s absolutely obvious and not a single one passes. There has been ONE person in my many years that got a second glance to check and yes, and tbh I think I needed that second look because they were a small Asian person (Thai or Pilipino) and their features were thus more delicate. But I knew.

I am so sorry - and I genuinely am - but none of you pass. There has been thread after thread explaining the science, citing the research, about the neurological and cognitive processes that are utilised when humans identify other humans and women are innately ‘better’ at it. Because we have to be. We’ve evolved knowing that we are prey, the weakest in the tribe,
and society has formed around that knowledge from neanderthal man through to the present human iteration, cross time, continents and cultures.

You can try to delude yourself as much as you like, but that is all it is. A delusion.

So please, just stay out of our spaces and use the gender neutral facilities.

“Forcibly degendering binary trans people”

Some of it takes some working out.

I think this word salad means that you are being identified as your original sex when you have decided you are trans.

eg TIM being challenged in women only spaces.

What can crudely be called not passing. Which as most women know, happens more than TIM care to admit.

Just to make it clear this is a quote from the Reddit post linked in the OP.

@viques that particular quote seems to relate to services such as cafes offering single one-stall toilets - ie gender and sex neutral. Which is a ludicrous objection.

To be completely fair I’ve been on plenty of MN threads where the vibe gets whipped up into people making crazy statements- seems to be an internet hazard.

This.

Not to mention "If women say no to something men want to do to them, it's entirely understandable those men will take it by deception instead. If women are deceived it's their own fault for making it necessary for men to do that"

And

"If a woman's boundaries are crossed by deception, as long as she doesn't realise it happened that makes it ok".

Agree. It’s a social contract and these men have broken it. Most people would rather it was still in place and want it restored.

“The first non binary barrister” 🤣 Ambassador you’re spoiling us

He said he suffered serious abuse. Being sexually abused is an ambition, an achievement, and it is the basic wank fantasy.

For some yes. That doesn't mean it doesn't happen and I don't think we should just dismiss it. A lot of men are nasty cunts and quite a few will use sexual assault to punish men as well as women.

Male privilege becomes so clear when women say "No" to men.

I don't believe that any men have been raped or beaten up in a men's toilet simply for wearing a frock. Why? Because where are they? If there were any the TRAs would never stop going on about them. They'd be ensconced on the sofas of breakfast tv with their bruises and sutures and crutches, wouldn't they? Their sadfaces would be held aloft on placards on their demonstrations. They would be sanctified and their names emblazoned on plaques and t shirts. Don't make me laugh.

“If you have a single-sex space, my interpretation is that a trans person can still go into that single-sex space, but if someone complains, they can bring out a sex discrimination claim or the organisation can exclude that person, but that doesn’t happen automatically, right?”

'If you have a law, my interpretation is you can still break that law, but if someone is aware of you breaking the law, they may sue you or take steps to uphold the law, but that doesn't happen automatically, right?'

That's unfair.

Most rapes/assaults go unrecorded, unreported, and unremarked.

Men attack other men all the time. This will include sexual assault.

Where I disagree is that because some men attack some other men, said men should be given dispensation to use women's facilities.