How to do Toilets?

Yesterday I took myself off to Wales for a trip to the Hay Festival. While I was there I had need to do what our TERFy* pals describe as an act of rape — I used the ladies’ toilets. They were, of course, single stall with a full-height lockable door. But they came in little portacabins with two or three stalls and a washroom area each. One of the ones I found also had this:

Ladies600

I know what you are thinking here. Clearly someone knew I was coming. Except that if you have been paying attention over the past 10 years or so you will know that my trying to use one of these those things would be pure comedy gold. My friend Kate Adair was also at the festival. She’s a talented video maker and has a job operating one of the festival cameras. With regard to the “what’s in your pants?” question, she recently explained all most eloquently, for the BBC, no less.

So no, I don’t think those urinals for for trans women. What appears to have happened is that Hay had rather more boy loos than it thought it needed, and not enough girl loos, so it re-purposed a cabin that had both stalls and urinals to be cabins only. Those urinals were cordoned off, and the sign was presumably to deter any gentlemen who might ignore that cordon.

It makes for a great photo, though.

* Trans Exclusionary Radical Feminists, for anyone still wondering.