Not only that JK Rowling has also been making comments, supposedly on a platform of being a survivor in need of safe spaces, particularly those that are designed for differently gendered people to use.
This brings up the issue of public toilets, as people often wrongly assume that they are "safe" spaces for either "women" or "men" to use. Let me be very clear. They are not. The signs on the toilet doors do not work like the magic staircase in Hogwarts that stops boys from entering the girls dormitory. Men can enter women's' toilets, and women can go into the men's. It is not logical to assume that these spaces are safe, as they are self policing and in some ways designed better for the group of people who are depicted on the front of the door.
I live my life as a survivor. My brain is hardwired, the same as everyone elses to protect itself from threats. Those things that are deemed a threat are based on both knowledge and experience and a mix of the two. Sorry I am not scientific, this is just my basic knowledge. When my brain sees a male presenting person who it doesn't, it automatically categorizes them as a threat. I then have to bring my thinking brain into the equation to say, hey, hang on a minute, that's not fair! Of course there are times when it is fair enough, and those instincts are right and are listened too. Those times are almost exclusively when I find myself in a private space with a strange male on our own. This could be a lift, a toilet, at my house, or even if they happen to sit next to me on the bus.
This doesn't make me sexist, or transphobic. This just makes me a survivor who has had experiences that mean that my brain struggles to differentiate between a threat and not a threat, and it is on a higher and perhaps different state of alert to other people.
So, bringing this back to toilets and who is and isn't "allowed" in them. As I have said, its a smokescreen. It is not and never should be about who owns the right to use a toilet. It should be about making public toilets safer for all users, regardless of gender, sex, age, race, disability, sexual orientation and any other factors.
The biggest issue is in the design of a public space that is a quasi private space. People become confused about its status and function. If a public toilet is to be safe, then it needs to be redesigned completely. This is starting to happen in schools, where toilets are located along a corridor with individual cubicles. There are other options out there, both in use and in peoples minds. Now, ironically is the ideal time to re think these spaces. With the global pandemic requiring us to avoid enclosed public/private spaces with strangers, toilets are becoming much safer places to be, as the rules become one in and one out. Perhaps things might change now, so that it can be safer for everyone, and not just because of Covid-19.
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