Unisex toilets in new office - dread going into work

OP the toilets are not in your rented space? So your rented space has to include toilets then and have a provision that they are responsible for. I would be asking the senior person to contact the health and safety executive and ACAS immediately to get a definitive decision on the law. I would also put in a complaint of sexual harassment in the mixed toilets.

It's not important to me that there are shared facilities but I can see that it can be a perfectly reasonable provision. I think the problem for OP is the inappropriate behaviour of some men and the fact that her employers seem unwilling to tackle it.

Carparks and corridors can be fitted with CCTV to reduce the risk. Women also mitigate their risk by avoiding these places or not going alone. Are Women supposed to avoid going to the toilet or go with a friend just so men can be allowed to use the same facilities? Why is it so important to you that men and women use shared bathrooms, that you are putting forward these arguments?

that would make the company have obtaindd inadequate facilities. It’s still completely totally on them to rectify.

So you'd never see these people around the office? How do you know they're not making these comments at their desks?

'The company isn’t huge, HR matters are dealt with by one or two people. So it’s possible they are wrong.'

They are, yes.

Please stop 'putting it to them' and raise a grievance under the written policies of your employer.

It's not pointless because irrespective of whether they work for a different company YOUR company has a duty to protect YOU from sexual harassment.

Workplace toilets are either single use (a self contained cubicle) or single sex.
Regulations 20 and 21 cover toilets and washing facilities;

(2) Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (1), washing facilities shall not be suitable unless –

(a) they are provided in the immediate vicinity of every sanitary convenience, whether or not provided elsewhere as well;

(h) separate rooms containing conveniences are provided for men and women except where and so far as each convenience is in a separate room the door of which is capable of being secured from inside.

www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/priced/l24.pdf

The issue is the people, not the toilets? If you had a shared kitchen then presumably these men would still be foul. It obviously wants resolving but isn't a toilets issue per se. How can there be this many gross people in one company? I would expect my company to be approaching theirs with evidence.

Sad to hear that unisex toilets don't have to include the sink in the cubicle as I love them at work for that reason. They work so much better for mooncups.

So now it a 1+n countdown on location.

Exactly this. Stationery cupboards, underground car parks, empty corridors... There are plenty of deserted places around offices that seem far more dangerous to me than a probably frequently visited works toilet.

Most serious sexual assaults are in a private space because the perpetrator doesn’t want witnesses or to be stopped. That private space can be as big as a house or small as a toilet cubicle or room. It’s the privacy.

I have many examples of women and children being raped in completely private toilets within very public places.

It’s similar to a medical emergency - you need to be seen to be safe. It’s the same risk on a hillside with no one for miles or a completely private toilet in a busy area.

You’re being sexually harassed in the toilets. Your company is obliged to act and allowing you to work from home is the absolute least they can do while they sort it out.

Forcing them to do this however is another matter as you’d have to take them to court. But you could work from home on the grounds of sexual harassment and see what they do. Risky but they couldn’t possibly fire you for it, you’d be able to make a massive claim.

If the cubicles are separate and lockable from the inside, then unisex toilets are legal.

My offices provide separate, lockable cubicles with a small handbasin and solid floor to ceiling doors on each cubicle. There are also shared basins. I have never had any problematic comments from male users. Everyone treats it as a normal part of the daily routine.

Rapists and assaulters exist in every environemnt. I would find the underused starways more risky.

You need to complian to HR. That kind of behaviour is harrassment.

You quote tweeted me in that post, that’s why I responded. I’m not sure if you mean the OP who commented about stranger rapes?

I responded with the stat for stranger rapes from the Rape Crisis page because I was shocked it was 1 in 2, clicked through and saw 6 in 7 are known, meaning 1 in 7 are not. I think every rape is horrendous, whether you know the person or not, but the idea 50% we’re strangers genuinely scared me and I wouldn’t want others to feel the same based on an incorrect stat.

In the 1970s there would have been no men in the ladies. Which shows just how much we have regressed that the 70s were better!

It is a risk. You think rapes don't happen in workplaces? And anyway, the facilities are illegal.

So what?

I don't want to share toilets with males: either those that I know or those that I don't.

Can't cope with? Like not getting raped/sexually assaulted/harassed in the workplace when using the toilet facilities. We have laws to deal with this. The toilets in question are illegal in the UK and no woman has to put up with harassment because you think it is ok. It's not okay and it is illegal.

Actually it might. Unisex toilets are the place where a majority of sexual assaults take place according to gov figures.
Anyway, women have a right to dignity and privacy when using a toilet facility and the OP hates this system. You do not have the right to tell her to put up with it - she has the right to say she will not, and get it fixed.

I think those toilets might be illegal - it is certainly worth checking. If unisex toilets are used in a workplace I am pretty sure each toilet had to be integral with a sink and dryer - not that this makes them safer, of course - if a door opens inward in such a space I always slam it hard right back!
I'd WFH till this was fixed. Quote SC judgement which referred to the regulations of 1995 about work place provision.

The person who I quote tweeted, for a start. And several other posters on this thread have implied that it is pointless to try to reduce stranger rapes in toilets because most rapes are by someone known to the woman.