To hate mixed sex toilets?

I like having a fully enclosed toilet at work. I'd like it a lot more if I didn't have to share it with the men though. I rarely use the normal cubicle toilets because not enclosed and men might walk in at any moment as the washing machine is in the women's toilets (though happens less often now the sinks aren't used for washing up since we got a sink added to the break area)

Hospitals, filthy toilets. Mixed bays, another layer of hell for women. The snoring and farting at night. Arrived in the early hours, asked the male nurse how many women in my bay, all men.

@3Mz73 how do you know it was men who splattered the seats in the designated female toilets? much more likely to be hovering women…..

If you want to complain, make it about the issues rather than the designation of the toilets. By all means raise the matter that the toilets are often not clean, and ask whether they can be cleaned more frequently. If locks are broken/nearly broken, raise that, and if locks are breaking because people are rattling the door, ask whether it is possible to replace with ones that indicate whether or not the cubicle is occupied.

I would imagine that most men leave the place as they found it; perhaps you should feel sorry for them, as they've presumably always had to put up with their colleagues who don't.

I am not sure how to respond to that. I want safer and cleaner toilets for everyone. That means door gaps. That means single sex toilets because that’s the only design regulated to have door gaps.

The universal toilet design is resistant to sound, fully enclosed and, rightly, has a mechanism to override the lock from the outside (to retrieve a person because so many people collapse in toilets). The designs have been called ‘rape cubicles’ as they favour the perpetrator not the occupant.

I saved a young woman’s life because she was in single sex toilet. I could see she had collapsed because of the door gap.

Years later, and I don’t mention this much because it is difficult, I did not rescue a child in time. I was a few feet away from them but there was a door between us so I didn’t know.

Now, as a ex-teacher I can look back and see the problems the new designs were causing.

This is about health and safety. What is ‘insane’ is people are prepared to ignore health and safety to such an extent that we had children in schools that may have been able to be saved or assaults prevented.

One of these special group of men had spattered the whole of the toilet seat at Gloucester Services last weekend, where there are dedicated loos for males and females. If they’re going to use those for females, they could at least lift the seat. Grim.

YANBU! They are horrible, I hate them. So do all the men at work, though, to be fair. They want their own loos, too!

Interesting you have isolated parks that have toilets. Most of them are closed due to sex, drugs and other antisocial behaviour. I very much doubt women would choose to go to isolated park toilets.

There’s very much a lack of public toilets in the UK.

@Keeptoiletssafe

The women's toilets at my local Sainsbury's are horrible. Always. Ditto the public toilets at the local park.

Yes - men are more likely to splash pee on the seat, because they pee standing up, but then lots of women hover over the seat when they're peeing in a public toilet, which explains why you see so much pee on the seats in women's toilets, and also sometimes on the floor.

"It is much easier and safer to clean cubicles if they have door gaps at the bottom"

SAFER? Good grief, are you serious? 😂 Transphobia is making people insane.

Had them for years where I work. They are nice and private, have their own sink and dryer. They can smell but that's a drain issue. To be fair, we don't have many male staff, but I've never noticed any mess that seemed particularly male related. Sometimes people don't flush but I can't say they are the male users necessarily. I have no issue whatsoever with mixed sex toilets generally. If men want to lurk in women's toilets in public (non trans men or otherwise), there are many isolated park etc toilets where it couid happen. Not that I've ever come across that.

I am presuming the first paragraph is sarcastic.

I would say from your description, that is a toilet that should have been cleaned a lot sooner than when it got to that state. If the sanitary bin was overflowing that was probably several weeks worth on an average cleaning schedule.

It is much easier and safer to clean cubicles if they have door gaps at the bottom as you can swill water and bleach round and shove a mop under the door before entering. Many mixed sex toilet doors are designed to rest in the closed position so a cleaner has to go into a cubicle to clean and then close the door behind them to get at the detritus being pushed up against the doors and partitions.

Cleaning toilets is not a sought after job. Making the cleaners job easier and safer is a way to keep them clean.

Went into a McDonalds today in central London at 9am… 3 cubicles, all mixed.
Cubicle 1 - sheepish bloke came out. didn’t wash his hands and pulled open the main door 🤢… toilet was full of recent bubbly piss. Floor awash and all over the seat.
Cubicle 2 - seat up, piss all over the rim and floor
Cubicle 3 - engaged so I waited. And waited. Bloke came out. Toilet and floor were clean but it stank of the bloke’s recent production and there was no loo roll. Not sure how he managed?!?

Whilst I don’t have an issue with gender neutral toilets in theory, in practice it is just gross.

We have both at work and I genuinely don’t have a problem with either, will just go to whichever is closest. I’ve not find either to be cleaner / dirtier, but the cleaners are v good.

@FancyLimePoet

I bet he didn't wash his hands either, bleurgh!

It's also just occurred to me, that in a single-sex, multi-occupancy set up, it's rare to hear a woman exit a cubicle and leave without washing her hands, so I wonder if there is an element of "social compliance", for want of a better term. I have no idea if the same applies in the men's.

Are people in general less likely to bother with hygiene if they're not observed/heard? I don't know.

Mixed sex toilets always stink for lack of windows or extractor fan air flow. They can’t get ever be cleaned often enough to make them usable. People don’t use them respectfully because of this. Men don’t lift the seat. Men leave the doors unlocked and open and then women get to walk in on them unknowingly. Theres a much greater opportunity for assault in these cubicles. They're awful and stressful to use.

Went to a spa hotel, while the changing rooms were single sex in the changing area, the ones in the spa were mixed. Bare feet while men p*ss around the toilet on the floor 🤮

It's a well known fact that you never see shit smears, toilet paper on the floor, a bog overflowing with toilet paper, sanitary towels spilling out of a full sanitary bin or stuffed down the toilet, in women's toilets.

It's only nasty, dirty men who leave the toilet in a crappy state.

Women - we're all spotless.

Apparently.

I hate them too.
I know some businesses have no option due to space but I followed a bloke in last week and he had left it in a right state. I knew when I had to wait ten minutes that it would likely be a bloke sat having a massive 💩 but the least he could’ve done is clear up after himself - he just went and queued for his coffee without a care in the world 🙄

No they leave their drops on the seat which is worse

Apologies if this is a bit of a detour from office toilets but I thought I should answer this. Here are some statistic about school toilets.

In 2015/2016 the BBC did an investigation into rapes and sexual assaults happening in schools. It’s important to note the location inside the building wasn’t reported in each case. There was a storage cupboard mentioned and I know of a disabled toilet mixed sex, private). There were over 600 rapes in a 3 year period. With a 190 day school year, that’s averaging 1 per school day. It was noted, and this is confirmed by a review in 2021 by Ofsted, that actual figures of sexual assaults are likely to be much higher - they don’t get reported.

Since then, toilet provision has changed a lot. It appears to be following all different designs from the girls and boys toilets we were used to having and that I taught in. The Department of Education holds no risk assessments nor Equality Impact Assessments on the design changes.

Again, it is difficult to get statistics centrally as no one collates numbers as far as I know (Ofsted also had this problem), so to get more recent numbers you have to do individual Freedom of Information requests with police forces. These are the numbers from recent FOIs.

The exact location of each assault is not noted but it is reasonable to assume most serious assaults will be in a private, unsupervised space, open to mixed sex:
Essex Police
West Mercia Police
Metropolitan Police
Warwickshire Police
West Yorkshire Police

Many of these figures will be even lower as they cover the time schools weren’t open over Covid.

Schools do not need more of these private, mixed sex toilets.

Neither do workplaces or venues.
It affects all of us at our most vulnerable - where a person is having a medical emergency or being assaulted.

What statistics are you talking about ? 🤷‍♀️ it was a graphic in the post of 11.08.

and I prefer clear language.I assume when you say transgender girls you mean male sexed children?

This thread is not about trans identifying boys but is about mixed sex toilets.

Why shouldn’t female children have single sex toilets in school? We know that the law says that they should have. We also know that where girls are forced to share with boys there are higher incidence of sexual assault and higher incidence of school avoidance during periods .

what I wonder is why female children matter so little to you!

@Keeptoiletssafe gender specific. no idea about people’s sex, we don’t do genetic testing before employing people.
Cultures are predominately european, Americas, about 50% british (for women, i would think predominantly british).
I’m quite happy with the situation- if you insist on gender specific facilities, deal with the state of them.
For the rest of us, there are lovely clean loos.

Do you mean sex specific?

edited to say: that is important as you said it is multicultural. Some cultures won’t use unisex toilets.

@Keeptoiletssafe big multinational, R&D facility, southeast of the UK. about 1000 people on site, very multicultural.
Headquarters in London has only gender specific facilities, and the “ladies” are disgusting within an hour of being cleaned.

Absolutely nailed it.