EHRC suggestion on toilet facilities

Athrawes disabled or aaccessible toilets are always single occupancy with hand washing facilities contained within the lockable room. Other 'sexed' toilets usually comprise several cubicles with a communal public handwashing station. Totally different situation.

Sorry same point ViceVersa crossposted.

Yes, it's a completely different situation. Also, accessible toilets are usually (if not always) on the same level as the busy are of the venues - wheelchair users and people with mobility problems aren't expected to go upstairs or along dingy corridors to get to them, unlike to the Ladies in many places.

Nobody is saying that the toilets themselves are intrinsically different (the 'but you share the one(s) at home with opposite-sex members of your family' argument), but that the siting, the design and the general set-up of the facilities lend themselves far better to single-sex arrangements.

It quite normal when designing a build ing to provide “reasonable” provision for toilets, if there are only a few employees a mens fully enclosed cubicle with a washbasin and a disabled fully enclosed cubicle which also doubles as a ladies.
As long as a cubicle meets the specification for disabled use it can be the only toilet if there are very few users.

Yes David, that’s exactly what people have said already. But where existing buildings weren’t designed like that it can be costly and architecturally difficult to convert existing facilities to something acceptable to those who refuse to use the ones for their sex.

Of course it bursts their bubble to have to acknowledge that they aren’t really the sex they want to be, and if there is a ‘kinder’ solution, that would be preferable- but not if that solution is demonstrably unkind to the women who want single sex spaces (the ‘not bothered’ can no longer speak for us either).

David49

It quite normal when designing a build ing to provide “reasonable” provision for toilets, if there are only a few employees a mens fully enclosed cubicle with a washbasin and a disabled fully enclosed cubicle which also doubles as a ladies.
As long as a cubicle meets the specification for disabled use it can be the only toilet if there are very few users.

How absolutely telling that in your first example the men's toilet is still a single sex cubicle, it's the 'ladies' cubicle that can double as the mixed sex disabled toilet. Never the other away around, with the women's toilet being exclusive and the men's doing double duty as a mixed sex one.

That drives me mad, Rosie. Even more so in my last workplace when it also became the 'gender neutral' loo 😡

In that scenario, for instance, what's to stop a man from coming in, pushing you back into the cubicle and assaulting you?

Many years ago my aunt was stabbed by a man in the ladies toilets. I never use public toilets if I can help it.

Nanato3

*In that scenario, for instance, what's to stop a man from coming in, pushing you back into the cubicle and assaulting you?*

Many years ago my aunt was stabbed by a man in the ladies toilets. I never use public toilets if I can help it.

I don't think having a sign saying women only is really going to stop someone who prepared to assault you or stab you. In fact the best protection from being assaulted by a man is to have other men around as they will soon rush to protect you.

I don't think having a sign saying women only is really going to stop someone who prepared to assault you or stab you. In fact the best protection from being assaulted by a man is to have other men around as they will soon rush to protect you.
I wouldn’t hold my breath on that.
Just as likely to be a woman with a big handbag.
Besides which, men other than TW wouldn’t have been in the women’s toilets.

Mollygo I think Jackiest favours mixed toilets, not single sex ones.

I don't know why we bother with signs, laws or rules of any description because none of them will stop a determined transgressor 🙄

Sorry, I was thinking about Nanato3’s aunt getting stabbed.
I still wouldn’t bank on men rushing to help. Just as likely to be a woman with a hefty handbag.

Actually the presence of men has been shown to be more dangerous, so for example with regard to changing rooms, more incidents happen in mixed changing rooms than single sex facilities. So no more men don't make you safer.

The logic behind encouraging more men into women's spaces to protect the women and police the men who are also in women's spaces does seem a bit . . . patriarchal?

Doodledog

The logic behind encouraging more men into women's spaces to protect the women and police the men who are also in women's spaces does seem a bit . . . patriarchal?

Yes and once again we’re back to we don’t know which men are ill intentioned towards, whatever they look like !

Jackiest

Nanato3

In that scenario, for instance, what's to stop a man from coming in, pushing you back into the cubicle and assaulting you?

Many years ago my aunt was stabbed by a man in the ladies toilets. I never use public toilets if I can help it.

I don't think having a sign saying women only is really going to stop someone who prepared to assault you or stab you. In fact the best protection from being assaulted by a man is to have other men around as they will soon rush to protect you.

My uncle was waiting outside and didn't see a man enter the ladies toilets so he must have been already in there hiding in another cubicle. My aunt was stabbed in the head and she never got over it . This man had a knife in his hand , I can't see many people , men or women wanted to get involved.

I think all public toilets are a risk and I wouldn't like to use a unisex one .

I'm so sorry to read that, Nanato3.

A good friend of mine was attacked and sexually assaulted in the Ladies years ago when we were students. She had left the crowded bar to use the loo, which was through a door and along a corridor at the back, and a man followed her and attacked her.

Luckily, a member of staff saw him go after her and intervened, so the assault stopped short of rape or worse, but it was horrible. Had the barman been used to seeing males in women's spaces that intervention may very well not have happened, and I dread to think what the result might have been.

The only way to stop this sort of thing is to have a strict 'women only' policy in female spaces, and that has to include males who think they can be women. I realise that there will be entirely harmless transwomen who are upset by this; but I'm afraid their feelings have to come behind the risk to women in the spaces that were intended for them.

Facilities like that are never safe. I am truly sorry for those who have experienced such an awful thing for themselves or a loved one.

I’m sure we are all sorry for those who have experienced events like those mentioned by Nanato3 and Doodledog and those I know from my own experience.

It makes it clear that, as Doodledog says,
The only way to stop this sort of thing is to have a strict 'women only' policy in female spaces,

Unfortunately males who lie that they are women will still attempt to break the rule, ignoring the fact that doing so shows even more clearly that they are not to be trusted.

I think non gender specific, seperate cubicles with a wash hand basin are useful to MOST people, whoever they are - including those with disabilities. Maybe it should be a consdieration when building and improving commercial facilities including within health and education

I think it will be something that is considered in new buildings (or even become mandatory), but in existing ones, which will be a massive majority, it is far from being the universal solution that is so often suggested.

I acknowledge that doodledog, especially in older buildings

JaneJudge

I think non gender specific, seperate cubicles with a wash hand basin are useful to MOST people, whoever they are - including those with disabilities. Maybe it should be a consdieration when building and improving commercial facilities including within health and education

Certainly would be the ideal. Age, sex, disability status all catered for would open up many opportunities for people. Even something as simple as taking my late mother to dinner could be difficult without aids to use the bathroom.

I think we need to get away from toilets having a communal area with hand basins, toilets should be a complete unit with a toilet and sink behind each door. A lot of chain restaurants have this system now and tbh it is usually easier. I can never fathom why " ladies" seem to take so long and there is always a huge queue for the ladies.

I like Ladies rooms as they are. The rows of sinks and mirrors and sometimes chairs can be companionable. Not always of course but I'd be loth to lose these because a tiny minority of men want to pretend to be female.