Around 2016, the conversation around transwomen in women's spaces really began to pick up. I was told by a colleague that it was ridiculous to think that a pervert/rapist would take this as an opportunity to go into women's toilets and harass women.

It wasn't long after this conversation when I was on a night out and went to the women's toilets to find a man in women's clothes. He was a feminine man who was perhaps pre-transition. He came across to me as a friendly gay man in women's clothes who was surrounded by his female friends, but it was strange.

However, in the same night, a man who was not even attempting to be a woman decided to enter the women's toilets. He stood there waiting in the queue as if he had a right to be there and the women looked around at each other silently saying with their eyes "there's a man in here and it's uncomfortable." The toilets were absolutely not unisex. Where do I go now if men are simply allowed to walk into women's toilets?

#unitedkingdom #england #toilets #bathrooms #safety #privacy