To ask why women would be uncomfortable with unisex bathrooms

I like the ones at my work at a university and are used by staff, students and public. They are completely enclosed like accessible toilets and contain toilet, sink, sanitary bin and hand dryer so very private. They are directly off the ground floor lobby area and separated by a glass door so can be seen from outside so feel very safe. They are cleaned regularly throughout the day so are rarely dirty.

I hear this regularly. There’s a reason they’re referred to as a rapists dream.

Bleugh, I hate the unisex loos in French resorts! They have got slightly better but I still end up pulling my neck warmer over my nose half the time!

It's quite traditional for French loos to be unisex, but then again it's also quite traditional for the French to treat women as, if not second class citizens, then certainly second thought citizens.

The handful of men's toilets I have been in have been absolutely foul. The only places I go to regularly that have unisex toilets are chain coffee shops and their toilets also tend to be gross. The toilets on trains are completely unusable. Etc.

I'm not particularly worried about being assaulted but I'm also not comfortable using the toilet potentially less than a meter away from some random man. Obviously "not all men are like that" but enough of them definitely are.

Ugh there was a unisex bathroom in France when we were skiing. Usually I'd have been quite happy sending DD on her own but this one was really intimidating.

There were loads of guys peeing with the door open, even one with his arse on show.

The toilets were absolutely covered in piss, I had to clean it up before helping DD onto the stupidly high toilet.

No. It didn't work for us. At all.

And before anyone says ‘but you can tell by looking’, there have been several horrific reports of short haired/butch-presenting women being berated in loos for exactly this reason, and that’s not ok either.

Short-haired, butch lesbian speaking: please don't give us this old crap again. I have occasionally heard of a woman (usually a lesbian because some of us really don't fit traditional female stereotypes) being accosted by other women for being in the wrong loos because of hair or clothing. My lesbian friend Alex, 6'1" tall and with short hair and Levi 501s, has had it happen a couple of times. And she turns round to whoever is accusing her of being a man and smiles and in her woman's voice she says 'It's an easy mistake to make' and everyone laughs, because as soon as they engage with her it's quite clear she's a woman. It's fine by Alex. She'd rather women accosted men in loos and told them to go elsewhere than that they put up with men with fetishes in the Ladies. Stop using lesbians as an excuse to let men into women's single-sex facilities.

If I go into a small unisex toilet in a small restaurant and it’s a mess with piss on seat, I complain, and get a member of staff to clean it. There and then. Same on aeroplanes- I ask stewards to clean it before I use it if I walk in on piss - which is sadly for the stewards often the case. And I used to fly very often. I will not clean a toilet after someone else in those circumstances. Those businesses have chosen singlesexed approach to make room for profit seats, then they can do the cleaning

if I were to find piss on my own bathroom floor or the loo at home, or skid marks I would drag the offending male by his ear into the bathroom and tell him to clean up his own mess with various expletives . Or if it’s not a loved one loose my own shit with him.

In a large public toilet there aren’t people who manage the loos available to complain to immediately and I’m therefore the one who has to clean up some random man’s piss or shit before I can use the toilet. I also have to put up with the stench of random man’s hormone laden piss.

urinals were invented over 150 years ago, to meet men’s needs of quicker piss, and better aiming. Standard Toilets were always a crap idea ( pun intended) for men to stand and piss into. I spent years training my own boys, but my eldest is now 6 foot 6 inches, just how the hell is he supposed to accurately aim into something around 3.5 foot down ( sti mate as I haven’t measured 😳🤣) even when he knows he has a mum that’ll go ballistic if he doesn’t clean up after himself . Whoever now thinks men in 21st century can do a better job at aiming than in 1866 needs their heads examining.

frankly I’d put single sexed d urinals in my own home given a chance ! I’ve done enough bloody cleaning up after boys and men in my life..and with intersatial cystitis my bladder often struggles to hang on long enough to clean up after some random blokes piss .

and that’s leaving aside the whole safety , menstrual and miscarriage milarky

Having just come back from a french skiing holiday where the majority of loos were unisex (I imagine because space and water is at a premium on the mountain!), it wouldn't bother me in principle. However the french loos are much more open plan in general so it would be harder to assault someone.

Women leave public toilets in disgusting states too. They piss all over the seats and leave shit splattered up the pan. I wouldn't mind as long as they were fully enclosed cubicles. I can see why some women wouldn't be comfortable with it though.

Anyone who has to ask this question has a very rosey view on the world in terms of how many men are sex offenders and how many men don't pee on the loo seat...I'm jealous I wish I still thought like that!

Unfortunately you are right and they are.

I feel uncomfortable and anxious in them. They feel like a quiet corner where a sexual assault could easily happen.

The BA loos in the LHR Lounges are probably quieter because many women are using the ones outside the lounge in the main departures area! They are usually manky and that's despite having an attendant regularly clean them. If I have plenty of time I'll head to the B Gates lounge which is much quieter and cleaner.

By comparison the Edinburgh and Glasgow lounge female loos are immaculate and smell heavenly. (Still segregated)

There are two types of unisex bathrooms; the self-contained units (including toilet and sink) and then the shared space (individual cubicles) but shared space for sinks etc.

Not keen on self-contained (but understandable in facilities with limited space etc), hate shared space toilets (and haven't met any woman OR man that likes them).

A man (or anyone really) who wants to assault could do it equally well

Ah, this old chestnut.

Why are some people so dismissive about minimising risk and making predatory behaviors/men more obvious in public spaces? (We know why).

Safety, dignity, privacy, modesty. Most men will cause no problems but shared space where women are vulnerable invites in the perverts. There will be a subgroup of men getting off on used tampons, listening to women pee, or enjoying their discomfort.

Yes we need our own bathrooms. I don’t even like the single enclosed stall unisex bathrooms because they’re always filthy.

Safety from attacks.

When men aren’t allowed in women’s bathrooms it makes it obvious that any male who enters is a predator. “Good men stay out so bad men stand out”.

Safety from hidden cameras.

Improved hygiene- despite anecdotes men’s public toilets are proven to be dirtier. They cover everything with piss and don’t wash their hand after bowel movements.

Privacy and dignity.

I use unisex toilets all the time when out walking and have never encountered that. I don't live in the UK and toilets are generally regularly cleaned here.

Oh that old chestnut - "if someone wants to assault you they will, so why bother making it harder for them?". The answer being of course that a man going somewhere he is not meant to be like the ladies toilets is more likely to be challanged than a man going somewhere he is supposed to be, like a unisex toilet.

And if the poor short haired women suffer the "horrific" expereince of being briefly asked if they are in the right toilet, well surely that must have been happening for as long as we have had single sex toilets anyway? And yet we don't seem to have been hearing about these "horrific" experiences until it suddenly became convenient for the people who suddenly want, for reasons they don't seem to be able to fully explain but nevertheless feel very strongly about, to replace single sex toilets with unisex ones. I wonder why that is?

(FWIW I was a short haired woman/girl who was mistaken for a boy from time to time. It was not a horrific expereince and certainly not a justifictaion to do away with single sex provisions altogether on the offchance of it happening to someone else.)

Although I'm surprised you thought the T5 BA lounge toilets would be a good example - they are noticably grimmer since going unisex.

I'm happy to use unisex toilets, and in a choice between women's and unisex I'd simply choose whichever was more convenient. However, I don't think they should replace single-sex facilities. I think that new buildings should be designed with women's toilets, men's toilets, unisex toilets and disabled toilets. In older buildings, I don't mind if one of the pre-existing facilities is converted, as long as men's, women's and disabled facilities are all still separately available.

Spain

They’re just gross. Always smelly and dirty.

Sigh. This nonsense again.

No, a sign doesn't stop men with bad intent coming in.

It does, however, stop decent men coming in - they see the sign and respect it.

Therefore, with signs, any men with ill intent will be obvious by their presence.

And, if you can easily identify those who likely have ill intent then you have a much better chance of removing yourself from the situation before something bad happens - or telling security that there is a man in the ladies and getting them removed.

Also, they have to have serious ill intent to ignore the sign. Signs put off the opportunists too.

If all men are invited in, then the creeps, pervs, hidden camera wankers and rapists are given cover.

It's a no brainer. If you care in the slightest about the wellbeing of women and girls, keep single sex facilities.

They are not completely safe. Statistically if you collapsed in one of these private cubicles you have much less chance of surviving than in the traditional row of cubicles with gaps top and bottom of the doors. No one would know until it’s too late.
They are also a problem if someone enters the cubicle with you because that’s more likely to happen as they’ll be no witnesses. There’s nowadays usually a mechanism to open the door from the outside.

Here are some reasons (I'm the writer who had a late miscarriage in the ladies'):
https://fairplayforwomen.com/miscarriages-pub-toilet-gender-neutral/

Here's a summary of the arguments
https://fairplayforwomen.com/toilet-provision-in-the-uk/

Unisex changing rooms put women in danger:
https://fairplayforwomen.com/unisex-changing-rooms-put-women-in-danger/

And one very simple question: If 51% of the population want to undress without the opposite sex being present, why shouldn't they?

It boils down to telling women and girls they must accept penises in places where they take their knickers down. What does that make you sound like??

Question 2: Why do human rights organisations press for single-sex toilet provision in developing countries?

At the same time, they argue that 'first world' women should cheerfully welcome penis-owners into intimate spaces. They're either shockingly racist (only African & Asian men sexually assault women at the toilet, really??) or indulging in doublethink because they're scared of gender activists. I wonder which it is.