family restaurant bathrooms

My recent experience: a restroom with two stalls (one for women, the other for men) and one shared sink. I approached the sink to wash my hands prior to my meal, and a man followed a few seconds later.

As I washed my hands, he wanted to come inside the room, leaving me a very tight space to exit, which would have inevitably provoked the physical contact of my breast or rear rubbing against him, depending on my choice. I stood there looking at him. He played the stupid "what do we do now? " game, not moving one inch; to which I exclaimed with a firm and loud enough voice "Can you move back?! I have no intention to rub myself against you!".

Shocked, he took a few steps back and I walked out with my dignity in place. I later received a wink from the waitress who realized what had occurred, as well as the other clients.

Needless to say, I felt like a hunted prey in plain day view. Thanks to my feisty demeanor and years of exposure, I had the courage to face this and other methods of patriarchal harassment and oppression. Sadly, I recall not always having those tools - specially as a child, and falling victim to these predators and the ramifications and years of therapy they incurred.

Now, we are also obligated to submit to the fetishistic inclinations of men who say "they self-identify as women with female penises", as a strategy to oppress, cross boundaries and better access their victims, as it occurred at Wi Spa and other spas.

These are tough times for women. We are being gradually further oppressed and losing the ground we'd already accomplished. They censor our stance, concerns and fears when we try to fight back. This is such a tragedy! Who is standing by us? How do we proceed from here?

#spain #restaurant #familyrestaurant #bathrooms #sexualharassment #sayingno

athletics club in france includes males in women's category

I was part of my local athletics club for many many years, did multiple competitions and won a few medals which I am very proud of. My most prized medal is the one from winning a 70km (43 miles-ish) cross-country skiing race in 2014, when i was only 18 years old. My second most prized trophy is for breaking my high school record in the sprinting category (only to be broken 2 years later by someone else, but I still get to keep the trophy anyway :D ).

I have been doing this kind of sport since the age of 13, training with an ex-national champion. Having this kind of person by my side to train me gave me even more motivation to keep going and train every day.

When I say I love this kind of sport, I mean it.

But today, all of this is over, and I probably wont pick it back again until something is done about it.

Last week, as my big surprise, we received an email that a new amendment was being voted in my country and our club will now follow those new measures. The fear I always had since USA voted in trans(women's) inclusivity in women's sport. It's the same as in the USA: now transwomen should be treated as women, and they are allowed to train and compete in the women's category, against us, biological females.

I am devastated by this news, I am devastated that my club decided to comply with this insanity and force us to accept it under the threat of disqualification.

I refuse to accept it, and this is why today, I have given my resignation letter and decided to quit the club for good and probably will never join another club and never do another competition.

I feel like a part of me was taken away, ripped away from me. Just for the sake of not hurting the feelings of one person in our club, all of us have to suffer. What about our feelings? Don't they care about those?

This feels like, you know, when you are back in school, one person does something and the whole class gets punished for it. It feels exactly like that, that we are all being punished for someone else's bullshit. I want to destroy my whole home gym in a rage.

#france #sport #skiing #sprinting #athletics #womenssport #gym #transwomen #inclusion #exclusion

"gendered violence" now includes women complaining about men in their bathrooms

My Victorian government workplace has updated its list of examples of gendered violence. I see now in that list of examples one describing a transgender male overhearing colleagues complaining about his presence in the women’s workplace toilets. So now, despite the loss of privacy, safety and dignity for the women who have to share toilets with males, those males are the ones who get to complain should a woman not want to compromise her single-sex spaces and share it with males. Women cannot complain about the loss of these spaces. Males can, however, complain about women’s very reasonable objections. Misogyny writ large - you just could not make this stuff up. I cannot wait to see the end of this insanity.

#australia #victoria #publicservice #government #workplace #toilets #genderedviolence #conceptcreep