Bristol Watershed toilets situation.

[TemporarilyCantDoMyself]

Could do with some help. I attend the Bristol Watershed frequently, it's my favourite place to see a film and has been for many years. Until a couple of years ago the toilets were single sex, then they converted the main toilet block into mixed cubicles, open to all. BUT there's a corridor behind the bar, little used, which also had toilets and they remained separate sexes. Or so I thought.

The other day I went and used the corridor toilet while I was there, but they've got new 'trans inclusive' signs up. I used it anyway and came home and wrote them an email, to which I've just had a reply.

I sent this; Dear Watershed, Since my last visit signs have gone up outside the toilets in the back corridor that say ‘trans inclusive’. So you no longer provide women only facilities. Can you tell me why? I am a frequent user of the Watershed and very unhappy about this. As far as I understand it, it’s also against the law. I intend to look into this further. Thank you so much, yours, TemporarilyCantDoMyself

Just received this reply; Dear TemporarilyCantDoMyself,

The toilets in the Café & Bar corridor that you are referring to have always been used by Trans+ people - this was even written in our code of conduct. And whilst I expect most Trans+ people are using the inclusive loos, there are some Trans + people who (like some cis people) prefer not to use gender neutral toilets.
The only change we have made is signage - the updated EHRC code suggests we need to formally recognise these toilets as mixed sex and tell people we have done so. This is not illegal, in fact without new signs the EHRC code could have left us vulnerable to legal action.
For the small minority who don't want to use these toilets, or our gender neutral toilets, we have designated two fully enclosed toilets as single sex toilets.
^You can see all the information regarding our current toilet provision here - https://www.watershed.co.uk/info/everything-you-need-know-about-toilets-at-watershed^

Best wishes
Clare Reddington
CEO, Watershed

I'm just so upset. I'm 71 and I've been a feminist since I was 15, and I'm so bloody tired and frankly want to ignore it all and just try and live my life. The one single sex women's toilet referred to in the reply, by the way, is past the entrance to the cinemas so in order to use it I either have to be seeing a film or to ask permission to use it without seeing a film.

Fuck me I just don't want to.
Also there's so much to unpack in that reply and I just feel daunted. Trans+ for one thing - are the LGBs all just + to the Trans now, is that what that is? (I'm bisexual by the way). And the use of cis of course. And the sneering reference to the small minority who don't want to use the toilets. Etc.

Help me write something coherent in reply that isn't just ARGH I'M NEVER COMING BACK TO THE WATERSHED NOW AND I HATE YOU which is very much what I'd LIKE to say.
So as not to dripfeed, I have a trans relative and a family rift so I do feel extra sensitive and upset on the subject.
Thanks.

Hello lovely women of the thread, OP here. Sorry I’ve been AWOL, thanks for maintaining the discussion. To be perfectly honest I’m feeling really deflated and not sure I’m able to keep banging on to the appalling Clare Reddington about this because I feel unless it’s ramped up in some way it’s just pissing in the wind and a waste of energy. Which is no reflection AT ALL on those of you who do have the energy to do this – honorary mention to KTS, I salute you. Thing is I’m 71 and I’ve been banging on all my life (there’s a picture of me on the cover of an edition of Spare Rib on a demo in the 1970s, and another one in that book that came out a couple of years ago ‘Difficult Women’, pic of me with others on a demo again in the 70s). 😂 I’m tired and I want to do other things. Also my family is going through stuff which takes energy. I do, though, no longer feel welcome at the Watershed. As long as there were the corridor toilets that were single sex I felt ok about going there, but now I’m really pissed off with them and do not fancy it at all, which is a real shame because I used to go a lot. Also my DH loves it there and if I stop going I’ll have to explain it to him, too, and while he’s lovely and supportive I’m not sure he really, really gets it and once again, I’m tired of banging on – even to him.

Anyway I’m not actually doing anything about this at the moment but I didn’t want you all to think I’d just disappeared. I’m still reading the thread and very much still around but just can’t find the oomph to write to CR again right now. Fifty years ago I’d have been organising an action group and occupying the men’s toilets with a group of women and making a right hoo-ha. No longer got it in me. Not at the moment anyway.

VERY grateful to you for your fantastic efforts on this. It’s been hugely cheering to me as I felt very alone with it . I am more than happy to join with any woman who want to take some peaceful direct action x

Does anyone know what is meant by "Trans + " ??

Hello @TemporarilyCantDoMyself

Thats sad for yourself and for Watershed not to have you there. It shows how ‘inclusive’ isn’t inclusive.

Re activism. I have often thought about pretending to collapse on an ‘inclusive’ ‘gender-neutral’ designed toilet cubicle floor and timing how long it takes for someone to realise something’s not right and then finding out what method they used to get me out, but that would be lying on a toilet floor for quite a while! Blergh. I would do anything for loos but I won’t do that.

When locks get stuck, it’s much easier to shout for help and get pulled over/ push yourself over the top of the partition than getting help from a man with a chainsaw. I’ve noted axes and chainsaws have been used to get in when a body has stopped the door opening in an enclosed toilet. Don’t fancy chancing the chainsaw/axe either.

I expect they are going to have to charm the council in arguing their toilets somehow transcend building regs, which of course are put in place for health and safety. Local councils have the authority to prosecute those who don’t conform to building regs.

What I would do, if I were looking at everyone needs as the council, is to look at it from a health and safety viewpoint and say how can we make these toilets as safe as possible. By doing that you will be inclusive to the most vulnerable. But my ‘inclusive’ means making toilets safe for truly the most vulnerable in a toilet. And that means single sex environments.

I've yet to see a definition, but Stonewall is using it a lot, almost to the exclusion of any other relevant acronym now. There has been a bit of discussion on FWR about it. It seems to be used as catch-all, for LGBT etc as well as allies and "hangers-on" (as I deem them, in my head).

I believe that Stonewall, in particular, are using this as a way of subtlety moving away from anything LGB, hoping to do so under the radar, while still ostensibly existing to represent their original, core members. However, Stonewall is nothing about gay people anymore (and certainly not if that term doesn't attach itself to anything "trans"), and hasn't been for quite some time. I expect that, fairly soon, after they've had their fill of the Draft Conversion Bill campaign, they will quietly drop any pretence of representing LGB.

I’d actually love to chat in confidence with the management that report to CR, I suspect the TRA behaviour from Watershed comes mainly from CR and it’s her way or the highway.

As someone said early on on this thread, she uses public money to further her own personal trans activism, and its women who pay the price.

I'm a man and dislike having to go into the mixed sex toilets by the stairs. Not sure when the corridor toilets became "Trans+" but I was in the men's today and they had a pot of period pads!

Oh that's ludicrous. I don't suppose you would be up for making a complaint email to La Reddington? Many and diverse voices might help cut through?
Although there's probably no cutting through with her so fully understand if you can't be arsed.

Thank you. I waver between wanting to forget about the whole thing and wanting to really kick up some kind of a stink about it.

Maybe if there really were a few of us prepared to make a concerted effort we could get some traction or at least some negative publicity for the Watershed locally?
I feel so ambivalent because I have loved the place so much over the years and seen many amazing films, been to events, had lovely meals there with friends and family. I'm gutted that this is making me feel so negative about the place that in many ways typifies Bristol's vibrancy and community.

I agree absolutely with everything you’ve said