Lesbian Flower 🌺

Using the bathroom in general is a human right and should be enshrined as such and I'm not joking. Too many groups of people are denied bathroom breaks or the use of bathrooms entirely--disabled people, blue-collar workers, children, homeless people, prisoners, students, the elderly. I'm surely missing other groups. Not using the bathroom when needed can cause serious, long-term damage, not to mention death. Free, clean, accessible bathrooms should be available everywhere. It's fucking cruel to deny someone the use of the bathroom, regardless of the reasoning. I'd rather every student in the world goof off and every homeless person make a mess and every worker "steal company time" than let one person suffer because they're denied the right to fucking pee in peace.

Since the TERFS have found this post, I want to be explicitly clear:

THIS POST INCLUDES TRANS PEOPLE.

In fact, it was an egregious mistake of mine to not explicitly include trans people in my original post. Trans people are whatever gender that they say and they especially deserve access to clean, safe bathrooms. TERFS are exactly some of the fuckwads that I'm against in this post: you shitty bastards will harass people in bathrooms and pass laws denying trans people their basic rights to use the bathroom in peace and then whine that people rightfully see you as cruel.

TERFS fuck off.

vent post. There are two stories i was told in my teenage years that even before i had a real concept of trans issues made me uninterested in discussing the supposed sacredness and safety of separated sex-based spaces.

First, when i was like 13 or 14 my PE teacher told us about a time she went to a women's public restroom, some guy was hanging out outside the bathrooms, she didn't think anything of it, went to the bathroom, and he walked in after her and like, creeped on her over the top of the stall. She was ok, she wasn't telling us this to scare us, just telling us what to do in situations like that (and iirc she was telling the whole co-ed class this, not just girls, bc it's useful for everyone), but this taught me immediately and forever that there's nothing actually keeping these spaces separate really, that anyone can be a creep in any space, and that establishing a space like that as for women only isn't actually particularly useful for safety.

Second, when i was 16 i was at an anime convention, a friendly acquaintance of mine and i ended up in conversation outside, and he showed me his bare wrist and told me he'd been kicked out. A female friend of his had stepped in dog poop outside, and between that and the stress of the convention she'd had a bit of an emotional breakdown, so being her friend, he started comforting her and ushered her into the women's restroom so they could wash the poop off her shoe together. And because he was a man who went into the women's bathroom, he got kicked out, no matter that he was doing something that was actually beneficial to a woman. Punishing a woman's friend for supporting her was supposed to... protect her somehow? This made it clear to me that a no-exceptions rule separating the sexes like that wasn't actually inherently good for everyone.

And this isn't even getting into me as a child needing to accompany my younger sister to the restroom when we were out with just my dad because she had certain support needs past the age he felt comfortable bringing her into the men's room with him. And what if I'd been born a boy, or she'd been the first born? Who's helping her then?

And of course even putting all this aside, we should always prioritize compassion and support anyway. But i never even needed to meet a trans person to know that "keeping men out of women's bathrooms" is silly nonsense. But trans people also need to pee anyway and as humans they have that right, so leave them the fuck alone. your precious women's restroom is just a fucking room with a door, holy shit give it a fucking rest, if someone is attacking you in the bathroom that's bad and if someone is in there to pee that's good and it doesn't fucking matter what their junk is or was when they were born.

a woman could have done the exact same thing to my PE teacher and it would have also been bad no matter how "supposed" to be in the restroom she was, and no one should ever be punished for helping a crying friend wash their shoe.

Anyway i know I'm speaking to like-minded folks here, i just think about those two stories literally every time bathroom gender shit comes up and it pisses me off.

when I was in college at the (huge) University of Minnesota, I had a friend with various ailments including narcolepsy. it was pretty severe - we became friends when she sat next to me in a big auditorium class and asked if I would help prevent her from falling onto the floor when she inevitably fell asleep in class (which I had to do, multiple times)

she also asked me to wait outside the women's bathroom after the three-hour class when she needed to pee, just in case she feel asleep in there. one day that happened

being a guy, I wasn't allowed in that room. so despite my friend not emerging for at first 10 minutes, then 20, I couldn't check on her (and calling through the outer door wouldn't help, as it was a double door entry)

finally after about half an hour - when I was about to just barge in there, risking getting expelled or worse - another woman approached, and I asked her to check on my friend. whom she found passed out on the floor of a stall with a banged head

what if she'd been more seriously injured? what if that random woman hadn't happened by needing to pee?

bathroom laws are conservative culture war BS

can we all stop pretending the reason t/e/r/f/s dont want trans women in womens restrooms is because their little peanut brains are scared of us, or because they dont want our identities validated by the sign on the wall? they want trans women in the men's room because they want us to get raped. the men in power who want to pass bathroom bills and the men who support those politicians? they want an easy demographic of women to rape. its not even that being in a bathroom with them puts us at risk in and of itself. it's that when i, a person who is in every appearance obviously a woman goes into a mens room it tells them i am trans. it tells them i am one of the women they already dont see as a person. an object to be acted upon by power. it tells them that i am one of the people who have been abandoned by the government and by other women at large, and that there will be no consequence. t/e/r/f/s are not acting in misguided self defense. they just want us to all get raped.

A trans person was assaulted for trying to comply to transphobic demands on going to the "correct" bathroom. And the response from transphobes was merely that she deserved it. That it's "boys just fighting". That this is so that women are kept safe.

I know this site is full of TERFs. And so, I want to focus the attention towards you. Your belief system is just very disjointed. Women should have their own spaces and defeat the patriarchy. Yet somehow men are inherently powerful and violent. We should dismantle the patriarchal system. Yet "boys fighting" is acceptable, even as one person is a trans femme that was attacked. No matter how patient and compassionate people can be towards you, you vilify us and support men that do this to us. You are not fighting for women's rights. Likely your movement will hinge back to racism if we ever get wiped out as you seek us to be. Your ideas won't protect lesbians. They won't protect black women. They won't even protect you.

We can't use a public restroom. We can't use locker rooms. Are we going to be a threat to you just for existing publicly at some point? As cis men and women murder us and rape us?

And I want to know, where does that help you? If we get killed off are you going to be safer from cis men? Is this fun to you? Trying to ruin our lives? To tell us how we're supposed to feel and identity? Do you know why we start having violent responses to our abusers? Do you not realize you are behaving like the said men you despise?

Your movement is rotten. It's protecting men. And it's endangering us. All I can say is go fuck yourselves for all of this.

i don't know how to tell you this, but the reason they want trans women to use mens spaces and be forced to be subject to this kind of violence is because they want that violence to happen to us. they are not actually worried about whether or not cis women and girls are or are not safe. the point is to force us to be exposed to harm

you simply will not get anywhere with them by arguing that the consequences of their actions are the things they want to happen.

they want us to be assaulted and hurt and killed.

telling them that they are causing us to be assaulted and hurt and killed will not get them to change.

Was at a restaurant recently where they'd converted both their bathrooms to gender neutral (nice) and as i was washing my hands a guy came out a stall and saw me & said, "Oh!!! my god!! Is this the ladies'?? 😨😨😨😨 I'm so sorry!!!!!!" and I was like "No, it's fine, it's gender neutral" and he goes ".......Oh. uh. Ok." And then walks straight out. without washing his hands.

Sir. You need to be less embarrassed about hypothetically crossing some arbitrary gender barrier and more embarrassed about getting your Peepee DooDoo Shit Hands all over this fucking RESTAURANT

"Separate bathrooms are unnecessary" false. Actually we need every building to have TWO gender neutral restrooms, one for People Who Wash Their Fucking Hands and the other for people who don't, which is actually just a door leading to a 10ft pit with scorpions at the bottom. And also a mandatory power point presentation on disease vectors

the idea that restrooms, locker rooms, etc need to be single-sex spaces in order for women to be safe is patriarchy's way of signalling to men & boys that society doesn't expect them to behave themselves around women. it is directly antifeminist. it would be antifeminist even if trans people did not exist. a feminist society would demand that women should be safe in all spaces even when there are men there.

btw this is maybe the single most key distinguishing feature of the terfy strains of radical feminism, the seed all the rest of it springs out of: they have absolutely no faith in the ability of feminism to actually destroy patriarchy. they do not think feminism can truly build a better world. they cannot really even imagine that possibility. they think patriarchy is an inevitable natural consequence of unchangeable biological facts, and therefore the goal of feminism can only be to mitigate the worst effects of patriarchy, not to get rid of it.

they can imagine a society where women get some designated safe spaces without men around. they cannot imagine a society where the presence of men is not inherently a danger to women.

the idea of public restrooms as "women's spaces" continues to confound me. you know who I hope is in a public bathroom when I go in?? no one. I would prefer no one else be in the bathroom. and if someone else is in the bathroom I am going to ignore them as much as possible. I did not go into the bathroom to connect with other women. I went into the bathroom to piss and/or shit. it's a toilet's space, not a women's space. shut the fuck up and let trans people piss and shit in peace. let's all continue to avoid eye contact with each other and any and all interaction in the toilet's space.

if anyone comments the bit from this bill abt trans women being allowed in bathrooms if they have changed their legal gender and got bottom surgery i'm just gonna point out that cafab women are not expected to shell out thousands of dollars to sterilize themselves and legally petition the state for recognition as a woman (both of which are being made steadily more difficult and/or impossible by the state) in order to avoid being charged as a sexual predator for going in a woman's public restroom. the stakes continue to be different

the funniest thing to me rn is seeing transphobic women going into bathrooms in transphobic states and then being shocked that trans men are in there and actually (gasp) look like men?!?! (shocking i know /s)

like you guys forced people to go to the bathrooms of their “biological sex” but now when they do it’s disconcerting that men look like men. (yes even if that man has a vagina.)

Transphobes are shocked to realize trans men aren’t all “uwu soft boiz” and HRT does what it’s supposed to. It’s so mind boggling to them that trans people don’t look like their bigoted characatures.

Anyways here are some men that will be forced to use the women’s restroom in states like florida, texas, kansas, etc.

#listen to me#go read about the bathroom problem#jack habsterdam wrote a chapter about it in their book female masculinity#basically#trans women aren’t allowdd in female bathrooms because of their proximity to maleness#trans men aren’t allowdd in female bathrooms also because of their proximity to mleness#butches and dykes are often pushd out of bathrooms because of their proximity to maleness(liking women and being masculine)#bathrooms aren’t “safe spaces for women”#they’re spaces for policing gender and holding women to a ‘safe’ high standard of femininity where women will attack anyone who doesn’t fit#that high standard

thank you pointing this out + bringing up that trans men are not safe in women's bathrooms, either. a lot of times when people make the point that transphobic bathroom laws will force trans men in women's bathrooms, they act like all trans men will just be 100% unaffected by this and their presence will only make transphobes ashamed instead of. I don't know. A cis woman calling a bunch of cis men to beat the shit out of a Latino trans man (where the police reports then call him the aggressor). Transphobia makes public bathrooms unsafe for all kinds of trans people, especially if they aren't white.

I'll be honest, I didn't really grasp the bathroom issue properly until transitioning. Because the narrative made it sound like it was primarily a matter of trans people wanting to use the bathroom that aligned with their gender--which I thought we should get to do if we wanted to! But I also didn't really care about the sign on the door of the bathroom I went into, or the demographic therein, and I wasn't sure why it was a big deal for so many trans people. I just figured it was one of those elements of dysphoria I didn't have to suffer, and didn't think about it past that.

Now, I realize... it really is about feeling safe. Mid-transition, I have to assess myself, assess the people around me, and determine where I think they think I should be, today. And be chill. These days, I'm a bit tense whichever bathroom I use, not because of dysphoria, but because no matter where I go I'm afraid someone will think I don't belong there. Where I live, the likelihood of social consequence is pretty low, and legal consequence is none, and it's still stressful. I can't imagine how the people in these situations feel.

IMO what we need for real privacy and safety is more all-gender bathrooms (with proper stalls).

Cannot believe I am seeing people getting their tits bent out of joint about a man taking his daughter into a women's room. That shit was like, completely normal when I was a kid. We really have taken a flying leap backwards as a society into the Cootie Zone

"Men don't belong in the women's room" is in fact a subordinate social imperative to "children should be kept an eye on so they don't get hurt" and especially when you're talking about a toddler, most men's rooms don't have changing stations or suchlike. Morons

It should really not go without comment that afaik this is a black man taking care of his daughter, racism is a factor in people making a big stink about this and I'm not really gonna let the ~daughters of the witches you couldn't burn~ forget that their actual grandmothers probably got pissy about integrated washrooms

combat transphobia + express solidarity! available to buy here 

[ID: three images of stickers on bathroom doors saying “a trans person used this bathroom and no one was harmed.” there is a blue sticker, a pink sticker, and a white sticker.]

I’ve gone to the women’s restroom a lot in my life, and not once have I ever seen genitalia besides my own while there. No penis, no vulva, nothing.

I’ve literally seen a bathroom full of baby lizards, one time a whole fucking fish on the floor, and someone come out of the stall with a plate, knife, and fork like they just ate a meal before I’ve seen genitals. Why would I ever be worried about seeing some woman with her cock out

I've used the men's restroom a lot in my life without stalls and not seen genitalia. Even when lined up at the urinals with no barriers between them.

It's almost as if most people don't want to share what they're packing with the rest of the room.

And most people don't want to look.

Really the only time you're going to see something is if you're trying to see it. And that says more about you than the people whose privacy you're invading.

You can't go peeking at other people's genitals and then get mad at them if you see something you don't want to see

Sharing space is nothing new. Sharing bathrooms is nothing new. The reactionary outrage is so manufactured.

The parking lot? As in the gender neutral parking lot? As in a place where you have no privacy?

These are the bathrooms at the airport in question:

As you can see, complete privacy for all waste-expulsion activities. You only encounter other people around the sink.

This just proves a point that I’ve repeatedly noticed and it’s that every time a bathroom goes gender neutral it gets about a hundred percent safer.

I distinctly remember coming back from college to find that they’d converted the two of the bathrooms into all-gender restrooms. Among the changes were doors that went all the way up and down, a locking mechanism within the door, and actual door handles. Even the single-occupancy bathroom got a wall for extra privacy.

In contrast, I remember the women’s bathrooms in my old school. They were broken as shit. Some doors needed to be held by a friend, some doors you held with your foot from inside. The wheelchair-accessible bathroom straight up did not have a door at all. And yet we all pretended this was okay because hey, the womanly honor code. You think that shit would have flown if there were two gender-neutral restrooms?

All I’m saying is that if I were fleeing a predator or wanted to be absolutely sure I was private, which one would be the better option? The one that assumes that a “no penises allowed” sign will be enough? Or the one that actually, physically protects me?

Sharing space is nothing new. Sharing bathrooms is nothing new. The reactionary outrage is so manufactured.

The parking lot? As in the gender neutral parking lot? As in a place where you have no privacy?

These are the bathrooms at the airport in question:

As you can see, complete privacy for all waste-expulsion activities. You only encounter other people around the sink.

This just proves a point that I’ve repeatedly noticed and it’s that every time a bathroom goes gender neutral it gets about a hundred percent safer.

I distinctly remember coming back from college to find that they’d converted the two of the bathrooms into all-gender restrooms. Among the changes were doors that went all the way up and down, a locking mechanism within the door, and actual door handles. Even the single-occupancy bathroom got a wall for extra privacy.

In contrast, I remember the women’s bathrooms in my old school. They were broken as shit. Some doors needed to be held by a friend, some doors you held with your foot from inside. The wheelchair-accessible bathroom straight up did not have a door at all. And yet we all pretended this was okay because hey, the womanly honor code. You think that shit would have flown if there were two gender-neutral restrooms?

All I’m saying is that if I were fleeing a predator or wanted to be absolutely sure I was private, which one would be the better option? The one that assumes that a “no penises allowed” sign will be enough? Or the one that actually, physically protects me?

She’s allowed to publically urinate to avoid us trannies but I think we all know what she’d say abt public urination outside this context. Rules for thee but not for me.

The most frustrating part of being trans is that you can't win.

My uni has quite a few all-gender washrooms. (Specifically all-gender, cis people are absolutely encouraged to use them). And despite the fact that there are womens washrooms everywhere on campus as well, I've had cis women treat me with borderline disgust when I use the all-gender bathroom. I've had people tell me that "sure, its all genders, but when a cis man uses it its just weird".

And like. Thats the point! Even IF a cishet man using a washroom he is specifically allowed in was weird. Even then. You have to understand that no trans or nonbinary person can safely use an all-genders washroom if using it means they are either trans or female.

Like to be very clear- I am a cis-passing trans man. There are so many reasons I feel more comfortable in a non-gendered washroom. Even if I was cis I woild likely want to, because I am gnc and don't always feel safe in purely male spaces. And even if I was the cissest, hetesst, most gender conforming man on the planet, I might still want to use it because its closer to my classes.

And really, this all comes back to this deeply transmisoginistic idea that Men Are A Threat to Women in Womens Washrooms,, which. If I have to explain to you why this is purely a propagandistic falsehood I really think you need to do a gender 101 course.

Gender neutral washrooms cannot be "women Lite washrooms". In order to protect trans people, at all stages of coming out and transition and of all presentations, for the love of god stop dictating who can use all-gender washrooms.

Is anyone else ever a little baffled by the cis women who consider women’s restrooms and locker rooms these safe havens from abuse and sexual harassment?

Like I feel like there are two options here:

1. They did not have mean girls in their school

2. They were the mean girls in their school and didn’t realize all the shit they were doing to the other girls in the locker room was absolutely sexual harassment and sometimes assault

I would only nuance this with two other possibilities that work in tandem with these:

3. They’re probably skinny and able-bodied with no significant scarring on their bodies 

4. They didn’t grow boobs as a preteen