Single sex loos to be mandatory- at last!

'’My job is increasingly spent legislating for common sense and stopping those intent on causing harm,” she (Ms Badenoch) says.

Here, here...common sense is a limited commodity today!

It does seem ridiculous that we need a ‘lavatories tsar’ at all, but if that’s what it takes to ensure that women can have safe spaces, then so be it.

Single sex spaces have been mandatory for a long time,this is the tories pretending they are making changes where none were needed!If you'll look back at the threads about trans issues you can clearly see that single sex spaces were always safe

The interpretation of organisations of the equality act was not correct this helps them to get provision right. Am happy to list the women who have been impacted by spaces which were supposed to be single sex and werent.

I have never been in a public building where toilets that included more than one cubicle were not single sex.

Doctor's, hospital, dentist, Costa etc all have facilities labelled for use by either sex and by any (dis)ability but they are single cubicles off a public space.

Are there really public facilities in this country where men and women enter the same, multi-cubicled area?
If so, I'm gob-smacked. If no, I don't get the point of the announcement.

Are there really public facilities in this country where men and women enter the same, multi-cubicled area?
Yes. In universities, theatres, galleries, council offices and many places that fell under the Stonewall spell.

Yes all the toilets at a pub I visited a couple of weeks ago were mixed sex, all toilets in my husbands workplace are mixed sex, etc etc.

I think there is an enormous difference between the loos found in restaurants that sometimes suffer from limited space and are therefore unisex, like the ones we visited a couple of days ago, floor to ceiling enclosure, not a problem, the only purpose of such a place is a quick visit for a necessary call of nature and out again. Unlike say, an area where there are a number of loos which will be used by many women, and as my husband often tells me when we both have an occasion to use the loo together, he goes to the corresponding male toilets, he will often tell me what a disgusting state they are in, and given the fact that in the workplace some women are having to use a unisex facility, that seems to be a general consensus amongst the women who are now asked to share with men. That is of course quite aside from any dignity or potential danger point of view. Having used changing, shower rooms for years now, that are a feature of health clubs, gyms etc. and something that never occurred to me until of late, given the circumstances of being in a state of undress it does focus the mind as to the vulnerability of women and girls if a male bodied person were to share such a space as has happened in Canada and North America, particularly at off peak times when it's pretty quiet and you can find yourself there very occasionally quite alone.

Just opened a brand-new suite of toilets near our market, very smart and unisex…

Thank you. Then I stand gob-smacked.

I've never seen why single room loos in the workplace, each containing exactly the same pedestal, needed to be labeled male or female, no different to one's loo at home.

My naïve wee mind never thought that males and females would be asked to enter the same room full of cubicles.

But that’s what many women have been complaining about for years😀. Did you think we were all losing the plot?

Definitely a move in the right direction, we certainly need a lot more common sense being used rather than the misguided bowing down to the unreasonable, overloud, demands of a minority.

Did you never watch Ally McBeal? (OK , I know that's American, but its the same sort of thing.)

Shinamae

Just opened a brand-new suite of toilets near our market, very smart and unisex…

Same here Shinamae, they’re awful.

So the government announced they will adhere to the equality act which has been in place for years as if they only just heard of it

Unisex, single use toilets which many of the sensible middle ground would like for their own privacy and peace are still allowed

Disabled toilets and changing spaces will still be allowed to be unisex

Trans people who pass as their internal gender will carry on using any toilet they feel appropriate as they have always done and no one will know

Masculine appearing women and butch lesbians will carry on getting bullied in toilets

Schools and universities who are trying to support and show acceptance to all their pupils will likely not be given any funding to create a means for some of their pupils to use the toilet

Absolutely nothing changed and no problems resolved is somehow a reason for celebration

Absolutely nothing has changed

Following my experience of being followed into a women’s toilet by a man who then masturbated in another cubicle I’m hopeful now that when it is reported the response won’t be “She often does it but she identifies as a woman so we can’t do anything about it.”

We used a new state of the art leisure centre once only because of its unisex changing rooms. Neither my husband or I felt happy showering and changing amongst lots of people of both sexes. When I go to yoga classes women occasionally need to go to the loo quickly in their bare feet. The toilets were turned to unisex and soon the floor and toilet seat were soaking with urine. We used to chat a few minutes in the ladies but that was impossible. My lovely local swimming pool needs refurbishment but I prefer the large ladies changing room with cubicles but where most of us change by the benches and chat in various stages of undress. We are mostly pensioners and all shapes and sizes but it's nice to be relaxed about our bodies, which you can't in a mixed changing room

I was in New York recently most restaurant Loo's are unisex.
The Loo's within the Hospital Dept I work in have been unisex since we opened the New Build in 2008.

On the other side, I was at Hampton Court Flower show few weeks ago.. Long ques for the ladies, no ques for the Gents this would have been perfect for unisex Loo's.. I don't mind to be honest as long as they are clean.

What about schools, does anyone know what toilets there are especially in mixed secondary schools? The idea of boys being in the same space as young girls on their periods is horrendous.

Your post is as contradictory as ever, VS. How can you say that absolutely nothing has changed and also that universities will now have to respect women by allowing them their own sex-based facilities? That will come as a big relief (no pun intended) to me, as what was the Ladies where I work (which of course already included a disabled space) is currently ’gender-neutral’, so is used by everyone. I’m rarely there at night these days, but knowing that men can legitimately be in there I would be very reluctant to use them when the place is quiet.

Put simply, when I use a public toilet, I want to use a female one only. I would not feel comfortable in a gender neutral space.

Blossoming

Shinamae

Just opened a brand-new suite of toilets near our market, very smart and unisex…

Same here Shinamae, they’re awful.

I am going to scrutinise it more when I go in again to see what exactly is on the doors, but from what I can remamber it’s an outline of a man and an outline of a woman on each door..

If they are separate and don’t open onto a shared space that sounds fine - it is when men can ‘legitimately’ be in closed women’s spaces away from other people that the problem arises- so a shared sink area or a corridor leading back to the public area - that sort of thing.

Mixed sex cubicles with full height door and partitions plus a washbasin are fine and being fitted commonly. In schools a separate communal male and female toilets are more practical,
Badenochs proposals don’t address the wants of males identifying as female.