woke.

[Keith Houchen]

38 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

The other, grimmer, side of the equation is that I have several female friends who have been assaulted in women's toilets. In none of those instances did the perpetrator feel the need to dress up as a woman (or, even more absurdly, live their entire public life as a trans woman) in order to gain access to that space - they were opportunistic sex offenders who just walked right in through the door, because there wasn't anyone around to stop them, and the sign on the door didn't put them off. Because if someone is prepared to commit a transgression as egregious as sexual assault, they're not going to think twice about the lesser transgression of entering a toilet with "women" written on the door

One thing I see from women regarding this, is that having gender neutral communal areas that were previously same sex, is that it normalises men in traditionally women’s spaces. And as a result, the opportunities for harassment and assault are increased. Women use toilets as a bolt hole to escape men who won’t leave them alone in bars, this provision being removed scares them. Usually when a man follows a woman into female toilets, they could be reported to staff and ejected from the premises. As is always the case, men are the problem, not trans women.
 

And of course, there are some women who will use that to carry on their hate campaign against people who pose no harm to them. Apologies to Chest, but they remind me of those football fans who hate a rival club more than they love their own club. That’s what I think is the distinction between being pro women’s rights and being transphobic. 
 

Anectode time!!  My partner considered herself GC as she thought that was the term for women who thought sex trumps gender. A few months later she realised that GC covers things like the evangelical Christian right who have no interest in forwarding a feminist agenda and quickly disavowed their bile. She thinks she would fall under the RadFem banner but I digress. 
 

She joined a local GC women’s group and saw how they were anti trans and not pro women. When the last Tory leadership campaign was underway, they were supporting Braverman and Badenoch because “They called a woman a woman”. My partner was pointing out their voting records and views on women’s issues, such as bodily autonomy, and was met with either crickets or dismissive attitudes. I mean, I get how usually there is one issue that sways who you’d vote for, but when that issue is what someone calls a woman and not how they treat a woman, I’d say you have a very comfortable life. The ableism from GCs is alarming too, using autism as an insult is one of their favourite things to do. Utter ghouls. 
 

EDIT. She just told me they used to support Penny Mordaunt but changed when they heard she has a trans sibling. Fucking hell. 

Edited October 25, 2022 by Keith Houchen

[mim731]

49 minutes ago, BomberPat said:

On the toilet issue - aside from the fact that many countries, and many establishments in this country, have had gender-neutral toilets for years without incident, or my belief that all public toilets should just be individual lockable self-contained cubicles containing toilet, sink

I don't profess to be an expert on this subject at all, but this is something I believe would certainly remove one large bottle neck within the clashes over self ID etc. If you make it so everyone makes use of the facilities in a private, secure environment it removes a major issue that people seem to clash over and makes it so everyone can make use of a safe space regardless of their identity. I've seen this increasingly in London and Brighton and it seems to be the way forward in terms of both removing that particular prong of the GC argument, but also making everyone feel safer which in the end should surely be the goal. 

Obviously I do also appreciate that this would likely be a costly endeavour, maybe even prohibitively so for some premises to make such a conversion if they have existing facilities set up differently.

In a different world, with a different government there could be grants etc or schemes to help businesses try and accommodate everyone in the safest, most inclusive way possible within public spaces, but that's not the world we live in sadly. 

[Nick James]

Even just reading the last few back and forth posts I feel I have learned more than I knew yesterday, which is a good thing. I think the distinction Keith pointed out between Anti-Trans and Pro-Women is a key factor in a lot of these debates and can easily be misconstrued one way or the other. Yesterday at the start of it all, the comments I was getting were, as I mentioned, around 95% white men with GB flags in their title screaming about protecting women while insulting Eddie in the same breath. The Laurence Fox types of you will.

Later in the day the comments were more veried from very Anti-Trans, women explaining their reasoning for not being on board and other women defending Eddie, which when reading back, is why I deleted the tweet. 

I don't often go to bars, pubs or the like and at my office, there are three sets of toilets (men's, women's and gender neutral) so full transparency, non of that arguement even came into the forefront of my thoughts when making the tweet. 

Most of the terms that have been used in this thread, in fairness, I have never even heard before yesterday, such as GC, RadFem and even TERF, I only had a brief understanding of. I can see where someone like me making comment on a situation that is quite clear now, I know fuck all about, could cause quite the stir.

Edited October 25, 2022 by Nick James

[David]

1 hour ago, BomberPat said:

On the toilet issue - aside from the fact that many countries, and many establishments in this country, have had gender-neutral toilets for years without incident, or my belief that all public toilets should just be individual lockable self-contained cubicles containing toilet, sink, etc.

Seriously? Have you seen the absolute state that mens toilets get into? Can you imagine being a woman who has to walk into a toilet like the one you're describing after a guy has pissed all over the seat or left skidmarks all down the fucking pan?

There may be certain establishments you can get away with that kind of set-up in, but far many that you won't. Taking away the female-only option in the traditional sense wouldn't be a good move, for many reasons. Adding other options? Batter in. 

[neil]

6 minutes ago, Nick James said:

Even just reading the last few back and forth posts I feel I have learned more than I knew yesterday

Not to say that in this case here, but this is the kind of thing that is so sadly lost for the most part these days, especially online. Posting a thought, perhaps misinformed or lacking deeper reasoning on the matter, is now met with vitriol from the get go rather than "Well actually here's the thing..." and someone actually learning from it.

[Keith Houchen]

7 minutes ago, Nick James said:

Even just reading the last few back and forth posts I feel I have learned more than I knew yesterday

Mate, I think this exemplifies that you went in with the best intentions and still have the best intentions. You’ve learned, you’ve listened, you’ve acknowledged, you’ve adapted and I think this is a measure of the person you are. 

[Arch Stanton]

I still believe you said absolutely nothing wrong @Nick James. You said a nice thing about somebody, you didn't tell anybody else how they should think or feel about an issue. 

[SuperBacon]

I always find it funny (well, not funny) that the "trans debate" almost always surrounds trans womens issues and very rarely trans mens issues.

 

[Tommy!]

2 hours ago, BomberPat said:

all public toilets should just be individual lockable self-contained cubicles containing toilet, sink, etc.

It's not as blue sky as my "everyone sit in the open and shit in a trough" idea, but it's not a bad one.

Were keeping a room just full of those old style urinals which are just a tiled gutter in the floor though, yeah?

[FLips]

2 hours ago, David said:

Seriously? Have you seen the absolute state that mens toilets get into? Can you imagine being a woman who has to walk into a toilet like the one you're describing after a guy has pissed all over the seat or left skidmarks all down the fucking pan?

There may be certain establishments you can get away with that kind of set-up in, but far many that you won't. Taking away the female-only option in the traditional sense wouldn't be a good move, for many reasons. Adding other options? Batter in. 

I worked in an office for a bank for four years and in that four years the women’s toilet had someone shit on the floor twice. 

[Keith Houchen]

8 minutes ago, FelatioLips said:

I worked in an office for a bank for four years and in that four years the women’s toilet had someone shit on the floor twice. 

Sorry about that /Devon.
Although funnily enough, I too worked in a bank for years and someone kept ruining the female bogs by deliberately blocking them and then shitting on the blockage. The obvious solution is to ban women from public life. 

[King Coconut]

When I worked for Microsoft the ladies' walls would regularly get smeared in shat.

[Keith Houchen]

6 minutes ago, King Coconut said:

When I worked for Microsoft the ladies' walls would regularly get smeared in shat.

But isn’t that considered every day decor in Germany?

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, King Coconut said:

When I worked for Microsoft the ladies' walls would regularly get smeared in shat.

STILL NOT AS SHITTY AS THEIR WINDOWS!!

[King Mal the Glorious]

The thing I've always heard regarding the cleanliness of men's/women's toilets is that men's toilets tend to be a mess out of laziness/not caring, whereas women's are "maliciously" dirty (see above comments about wiping shit on the walls etc).