What is a “good experience” in a women’s toilet?

[MyAmpleSheep]

From Reddit.

List your good experiences of using single sex spaces of your gender?

Cheer up everyone’s day by listing your good experiences of using single sex spaces.
Helping fix a woman bra, giving a woman a pad, receiving compliments from women…

Can GI supporting people see why examples of a “good experience” for a trans-identifying man in a women’s toilet being - (first) to play with a woman’s underwear and (second) get involved in her menstruation - is profoundly unhelpful?

Wouldn’t a “good experience” simply be to use the facilities and leave?

How does this “cheer up everyone’s day״?

I have wondered whether some of the tropes of femininity ('what are little girls made of sugar and spice and all things nice') evolved to hide the fact that so much of being female is about blood and bodily fluids.

@Helleofabore

I asked you if you were the poster, did that not jog something in your mind that you had made an error? Asking you to clarify is not me making an accusation, it is me trying to sort out the confusion.
The first time was plenty. There was absolutely no need to do it twice.

Yet you continued to claim that I was replying to you.

Do you understand how confusing that was? Then you started accusing me of aggression when I was merely trying to find out if you were the other poster or not and was pointing out that you were mistaken.

I thought about this a while back while working out the right response should a TRAs claim we are misogynist for treating women like they have a disability, and concluded that in the specific context of woman-only spaces, protections and opportunities, it's ok to use provisions for the disabled as an analogy because within a culture shaped for men, being female is a disability.

Not because that is inherent to being female but because it is inherent within our culture.

If women had equal safety (physical, sexual, reproductive, social and financial) to men, if we had equal physical capabilities and were treated with equal respect and credibility, most of the woman-only provisions we have today would not be needed.

IMO it's not only ok to speak about the challenges and disadvantages of being female is this context, it is essential, because otherwise we take the very reasons that single sex provisions are fair, justified and essential off the table when it comes to defending them.

What everyone else has said about cleanliness, hooks for bags, plus TP that can be pulled out of the container without being either great clumps of shredded TP or stuck in the container. Just decent TP would be great.

But most important of all I want the security of knowing that there are unlikely to be any men in there and if there are I can rely on security to evict them. I used to be able to take this for granted.

If I had already replied to you that I was not the poster, you didn’t need to ask again. Did you think I might change my mind? Was it your thought that I might see your post and think, “Actually, now Hellofabore has asked me twice, I might be that poster after all!”

No. I think much of the confusion stemmed from the word ‘sacred’. I wasn’t always certain if remarks were aimed at me (due to my own thoughts on ‘sacred’) or the other poster.

I hear you.

I guess on the other side of the coin, it is bonkers to claim that female people have the exact same needs as male people, like we are sometimes seeing said in sports that to describe the physical limitations of the female body is somehow saying female bodies are ‘inferior’. We have even seen some academics who have gone on record to say that with correct training female people will be beating male athletes.

So you made incorrect assumptions and started making unfounded accusations toward me? That is on you, I’m afraid.

The social model of disability is helpful (the environment is what makes biology disabling - single sex toilets, changing rooms and appropriate healthcare provision including single sex wards etc. are analogous to wheelchair ramps, brail, plain English etc.) - how inherently abelist of the TRA to stigmatise disability.

“IMO it's not only ok to speak about the challenges and disadvantages of being female is this context, it is essential, because otherwise we take the very reasons that single sex provisions are fair, justified and essential off the table when it comes to defending them.”

This is it.

For so long now, with medical research etc, female people were treated as if they were the same as male people or smaller male people. It has taken a long time to over come the damage this has done and how we ended up in the era of so much information at our fingertips, yet with some huge gaps in knowledge.

Who the fuck thought we would have to be trying to prove that women needed their own sports categories because of our bodies? And that we needed single sex provisions elsewhere for unique needs that only female people have.

Nothing unfounded here 🙂 And donʼt forget your incorrect assumption.

But I’ll leave it there. There’s nothing more to be gained from this.

To repeat.

I didn’t make a wrong assumption! I sought clarification about why you were accusing me of things that I didn’t say.

Please stop twisting my posts and claiming to be a victim here.

The Alnwick loos (Alnwick gardens?) with the fancy glass panel sink were the ones I thought of as being fairly standout in terms of loo design.

https://x.com/jk_rowling/status/2074403534427078905?s=46

Heads up.

Jo Rowling has decided to run with that Reddit thread too. The replies should be worth a read.

The wall of the ladies toilets in Aldridge, West Midlands was all stained glass in blue and yellow. The whole room was tiled white so the play of light was beautiful 😍

That was nice

JKR reads my thread. Well I.

Oh. Her screenshot is an hour earlier than mine. I guess she didn't read my thread. Sad.

I expect she used a Time Turner, @MyAmpleSheep.

@MyAmpleSheep thank you. Due to your post, I posted with my campaign picture that hopefully got a few more people thinking about the health and safety advantages of certain single sex designs, and the consequences of what we lose in design when the environment becomes mixed sex. I already have people thanking me, in the past this has particularly been from those with loved ones who are vulnerable due to medical conditions. And also thanks for raising awareness from people whose lives were saved because someone rescued them due to seeing them on their cubicle floor, because of the floor-door gap. So, if people are thinking about refurbishing loos and this nudges them to choose healthier and safer single sex designs, your nudge for me to post was very worthwhile. You may have even indirectly saved a life in the future. Happy times.

We could do with a few.

Why doesn't some enterprising chap set up his own business offering the full 'lady experience' in the loos for transwomen. They can all fix each other's make up, have a pillow fight, giggle about bra straps, and leave us alone to get on with our lives.

Because that would not give them the erotic thrill of invading our spaces, knowing how uncomfortable it makes us, @WrongKindOfFeminist.

Life would be so much better if trans women accepted third spaces, but they want everything of ours, they don’t want to fight for their own provision.

Nice soap and handcream.

This is interesting

https://x.com/forwomenscot/status/2074435246141874297?s=46

“During the GRR late night sittings, a woman emerged very distressed from the female toilets after several trans-id men entered. One - who has a reasonably high profile - cornered her at the sink & attempted to engage her in conversation about adjusting his bra strap.”

Then this was in reply to JKR’s post suggesting she knew who it was.

https://x.com/adeleahf/status/2074598812090335297?s=46

“I am the woman and the man is Sue Pascoe. I panicked. I later reported to Police Scotland and complained to the Scottish Parliament. You need only use a tiny fraction of your imagination to guess the outcome.”

Pascoe!

(Adele, I am so sorry you experienced this!)

Is adjusting bra straps in female single sex provisions a well shared fantasy for some male people? Seems to be weird. I don’t think I have ever adjusted a bra strap in the toilets but maybe it is common….

Do not Pascoe, do not collect £200.