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Gateshead woman with alopecia accused of being male while using female toilet at Tesco (www.chroniclelive.co.uk)

submitted 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) by Quokka@quokk.au to c/unitedkingdom@feddit.uk

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The 37-year-old, who has had the hair loss condition since she was a child, said she was left shocked when a cleaner at the Trinity Square shop asked her "Are you aware you're in the female toilet?" She said she became distressed and burst into tears.

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[-] Sharkticon@lemmy.zip 18 points 3 days ago

This is what always happens with terfs. They hate women. Nobody hates women more than terfs. Women who are different than them in any way. Women who don't fit their extremely narrow definition of what a woman should be. What a woman should look like. What a woman should think.

Terfs hate women.

[-] als@lemmy.blahaj.zone 155 points 4 days ago

Transphobia harms everyone, not just trans people. It's sad that this argument needs to be used, but I've heard some cis people find it convincing.

[-] Eq0@literature.cafe 29 points 4 days ago

Two cynical takes on “transphobia harms everyone”:

I only care if it affects me
trans are only a small percentage of the population, who cares, but if it harms everyone then it makes sense to care

(Not apologizing for transphobia, just deconstructing the thought)

[-] Necronomicommunist@lemmy.world 28 points 4 days ago

Sure, ideally the way it impacts trans people should be enough. But anything that affects more people negatively is a worse thing.

If I wanted to influence car safety policy, and I can pick from two examples to make my case:

a car accident kills the person driving it
a car accident kills everyone inside it and some bystanders

I'd be a fool not to use 2 as an example.

[-] scratchee@feddit.uk 21 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

I often think about this. I don’t think it’s wrong to provide selfish reasons to do the right thing.

In the end, the world is full of people with different priorities and ways of thinking, if you restrict yourself to only the “pure” morality arguments it’s not like you can use the purity of your argument to correct the brains of all the people who are not swayed. But if you provide a variety of arguments you’ll convince lots more people.

And in reality most people are not pure selfish or pure selfless. Spoonful of sugar (selfish benefit) helps the medicine (selfless morals) go down.

Not trying to entirely quench your cynicism, just lightly cool it.

[-] shalafi@lemmy.world 3 points 3 days ago

I need to copy this down. What a mature and well-reasoned response to much of what is fucked up in the world and how to answer it.

[-] yermaw@sh.itjust.works 5 points 4 days ago

i only care if it affects me

Thats pretty much my stance, but you must always be thinking "if it can happen to them it can happen to me"

[-] paks@feddit.uk 17 points 4 days ago

Sadly even this doesn't help with some people.

I once had a conversation with a particularly tall cis woman who'd briefly been the target of transphobic abuse in a womens' toilet. She somehow managed to blame this on the existence of trans people 🤷

[-] starelfsc2@sh.itjust.works 75 points 4 days ago

harass 99% of cis women to "protect" them from 1% of trans women, it's genius

[-] abbiistabbii@piefed.blahaj.zone 25 points 3 days ago

This is what transphobes want, gender policing not just against trans women, but any woman who doesn't match up.

[-] Drusas@fedia.io 18 points 3 days ago

She doesn't even look male.

[-] Quokka@quokk.au 13 points 3 days ago

They can always tell.

[-] fyzzlefry@retrolemmy.com 1 points 2 days ago

They can always guess

[-] RedSnt@feddit.dk 59 points 4 days ago

When we were paying for parking he chased after us and gave me a bunch of flowers.

That Tesco manager chasing after Helen and her husband with flowers was a class act though.

Helen said she feels the incident in Tesco may have stemmed from the debate in recent years over transgender rights. She said: "I suspect it's stemming from this which is a shame but I think potentially why people are being more cautious.

"I can understand the cautiousness from a business point of view but they've also got to be aware of diversity and people being different. They should not make assumptions on visible differences.

"I just think that we need to raise awareness of the condition and that people do look different. If you're concerned about something ask privately or sensitively."

What is this "cautiosness" she's talking about? There has literally never been a case of a transgender person doing anything inappropriate in a public toilet..

[-] BuyEU@lemmy.ml 31 points 4 days ago

"I can understand the cautiousness from a business point of view but they’ve also got to be aware of diversity and people being different. They should not make assumptions on visible differences.

Isn't that exactly what the law forces though? To somehow decide based on looks alone who should be in which toilet?

[-] SpaghettiMaster@feddit.uk 14 points 4 days ago

Couldn't they also just not do that? Surely the law doesn't require them to hire someone to police the toilets.

Gender neutral toilets could also get around it surely. Worked in multiple places with them and no one has ever cared.

[-] Tweak@feddit.uk 3 points 3 days ago

Surely the law doesn’t require them to hire someone to police the toilets.

It pretty much does. Not specifically to have someone dedicated to check everyone, but they have to take reasonable measures and a member of staff speaking up would fall under that.

[-] SpaghettiMaster@feddit.uk 4 points 3 days ago

Why though? Its a toilet. Couldn't they just say the sign is only suggested genders. Women can clean men's toilets still.

[-] Kangae_Hishiryo@scribe.disroot.org 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

Point is, there are malicious people, both men and women. I think there have to be security measures in order for it to be impossible (or at least, highly difficult) to do things as spying or putting hidden cameras. But of course, that shouldn't be done based only in the looks, but mostly in the behaviour. Anyone with a suspicious behaviour should be policed, but that's like something that should be taken for granted in the first place.

Women can clean men's toilets still.

About this, I ask rhetorically: would you also say that "men can clean women's toilets still"? I personally doubt it given a lot of previous experiences on this topic, and I believe that in such a case one must be consistent: either both or neither.

[-] SpaghettiMaster@feddit.uk 2 points 3 days ago

would you also say that “men can clean women’s toilets still”?

Yes. I don't even see why we need to have gendered toilets in the first place. No one has one at home. Seen a fair few places with a single toilet that is obviously not gendered. Never seen a gendered disabled toilet either.

[-] Kangae_Hishiryo@scribe.disroot.org 2 points 3 days ago

Well, that's fair.

In a gender-neutral bath we can have the double of good people to stop any bad person that wants to abuse others while they're vulnerable, so, yeah, I don't know either why there is a separation. If anything, there could be gendered baths only for people that feel really uncomfortable in gender-neutral ones, but that's only to have more options (which is always good).

[-] im_fine_sandy@nord.pub 2 points 4 days ago

Exactly what the law enforces will differ by jurisdiction

[-] Tweak@feddit.uk 4 points 3 days ago

This is in England.

[-] theo@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

This is not devolved and I believe the law being refered to is the one that has been clarified in the recent guidance after a supreme court decision.

Health is normally devolved, but this is counted as "human rights".

[-] im_fine_sandy@nord.pub 2 points 4 days ago

Sire but most of "the world" OS not in the US

[-] theo@lemmy.world 1 points 3 days ago

Sorry I think we are misunderstanding each other. I was talking about the UK as this is a UK specific story and community. I assumed that you were talking about the constituent countries in the UK that have different laws in your previous comment.

May I ask how it is you got here? - I am curious seeing as you're on a PieFed instance.

[-] im_fine_sandy@nord.pub 1 points 3 days ago

My bad. I only ever really browse the top / unfiltered feed, never by community. Fediverse is small enough that there's only a few active communities and the content is fairly homogenous.

I'm from Australia and am used to explaining to Americans in the fediverse that other jurisdictions exist I guess.

Not sure what you mean about piefed? quokk.au is the dweeb fork of piefed I think?

[-] im_fine_sandy@nord.pub 17 points 4 days ago

I think she was just trying to be diplomatic.

[-] resipsaloquitur@lemmy.cafe 10 points 4 days ago

Even if there were, that person is responsible for their actions, not an entire category of people.

[-] Kangae_Hishiryo@scribe.disroot.org 1 points 3 days ago

Yeah. And I don't doubt there are, but they're just a minority inside a minority.

[-] mjr@infosec.pub 11 points 4 days ago

If the business were to be cautious, they'd fix their damned toilets to not be gendered, divisive and exclusionary.

[-] Tweak@feddit.uk 3 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

What is this “cautiosness” she’s talking about?

The law requires businesses to police toilets somewhat.

[-] RedSnt@feddit.dk 1 points 3 days ago

That's nuts.

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[-] Lucidlethargy@sh.itjust.works 23 points 3 days ago

As long as I live, I'll never understand why some people are so determined to be cruel to others based solely on their own preconceived notions of how the world around them should be. These people are the most entitled and awful creatures on this planet.

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[-] kablez@lemmy.world 44 points 4 days ago

Just get rid of gendered toilets already. If you can't play nicely with it, you shouldn't have it.

[-] ZapBeebz_@lemmy.world 14 points 4 days ago

The SEATAC airport has a few non-gendered restrooms and they're pretty nice. There's a big shared area with sinks, a wall of "stalls" (really fully enclosed toilet rooms, no panel gaps and floor to ceiling doors), and a separate room off in the back with urinals (and an automatic sliding door). Kinda seems like a pretty good solution all around.

[-] Tweak@feddit.uk 1 points 3 days ago

It's close, but sometimes women really do need the whole room as private gendered space, eg to wash blood off clothing.

The best solution is that each stall has its own sink, but that isn't usually practicable as it takes up more space and reduces the total number of stalls. Five Guys manage it, though.

[-] Paddzr@lemmy.world 10 points 3 days ago

I'm sorry. Care to explain? Wash blood off clothes? I can't imagine women standing ass naked in a bathroow washing up her panties and trousers because she got period blood on them? In that case, they can use the disabled room.

In all my years, i have never heard of this and i lived with a very oversharing mother (midwife and sex ed teacher) and with my wife being very open about these things. (Because it's normal body routines, nothing to be embarrassed about in a relationship)

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[-] Obviouslywrong@lemmy.world 2 points 4 days ago

You need urinals in some fashion, a row of standing urinals can be pretty private if you just have a tall divider, but their throughput is so much higher it would be terrible if you lost them in high traffic areas.

[-] stoly@lemmy.world 10 points 4 days ago

lol you assume that the doors have to be open. you can have floor to ceiling doors like places with gender neutral bathrooms do

[-] NorthEdm@lemmy.ca 6 points 3 days ago

You need urinals in some fashion

I don't think you understand what the word "need" means

[-] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 32 points 4 days ago

TERF Island having a normal one, I see

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[-] Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de 20 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

Helen, who appeared as an actress in zombie movie 28 years later, said she decided she did not want to hide her hair loss by wearing wigs.

I just saw that film and didn't remember which role she had, so I checked IMDB, and it just says "infected women".

Turns out they gave her really shitty patchy strands of hair as part of that role: https://www.facebook.com/groups/379052361293089/posts/725981959933459/ That was accidentally kind of funny and unexpected.

[-] mjr@infosec.pub 12 points 4 days ago

Once idiots feel empowered to become the Pants-contents Police, this is where it leads.

Why has a company as rich as Tesco still got mostly gendered toilets anyway?

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this post was submitted on 09 Nov 2026

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