All gender toilets

Regardless of how they dress or 'identify', it is another exercise of male power. Women feeling uncomfortable or unsafe in public spaces? It's nothing new.

Agree Datun.

Ineedacupofteadesperately

Toilets are the public face of the debate. But what about locker rooms, saunas, schools, trips, scholarships, etc.

It all comes down to the definition of woman, and who is entitled to claim it.

Would any of this have happened, i.e. unisex toilets, if it hadn't been for the trans agenda. Would anyone listen to some spotty teenager claiming they had multiple gender identities?

I can't believe universities are doing this given the well publicised problems of sexual assault on university campuses - let's just create another space where predatory men can wait (without being questioned) for prey. And the trans population is what, at most 1%? So, the feelings of the 1% trumps the safety of 50%. Insanity. I get why disabled people would not want trans people in their hard won toilets, but given they are individual lockable rooms I can't help but feel this is a better solution than making women's toilets gender neutral. Or better yet, get rid of the urinals, put cubicles in that space and make the men's gender neutral. Or just replace communal toilets with individual ones. I've noticed a couple of restaurants have done this recently. It must be the way forward I think and then men will have to queue with the women - result!

I've just bought one. It's going to need some practise

Having only tried them at Glastonbury I would say that they are easy and convenient the first time you use them but have a strange tendency to become fiendishly difficult as the night progresses!

So - are shewees any good? Anyone used one?

It makes me laugh it really does. So there's this debate between TRAs and GCF's (Gender Critical Feminists) and more broadly women who don't neccessarily subscribe to this ideology about men in women's private spaces, including toilets. Women clearly point out that this is problematic. Yet, what happens? Trans / male privilege allows the opening up of women's private spaces to men, whereas man, who are not threatened or affected get their own spaces. Where does the privilege and power lie here?

I'm sad about RHUL! I went there & it's very proud of its feminist history. College colours are purple & green like the suffragettes. It wasn't until the 70s that it allowed men in and when I went there was only about 1/3 men.

It makes me feel a little better that the article linked above was fairly insightful from a man who clearly feels that this is not okay.

If we are thinking abut which Unis are doing this, for the record, my experience was in the union bar of the Imperial College buildings.

It is disgusting to hear that breastfeeding areas are being removed to make way for this lunacy.

A few years ago I was parked up at the village hall waiting to take ds in to be weighed at the baby clinic. I saw a fairly regular parade of men going into the attached public toilets. It slowly dawned on me that these were not all men being "taken short". Now, were these toilets gender neutral... bleeeuggh. I do not want to have to encounter that in the next cubicle, thank you very much

Was it a beat?

Dh doesn't understand why I get quite worked up about the gender neutral toilet issue. I just feel it's a (hopefully) safe space and if I'm going to the loo I don't want to be hovering nervously either from embarrassment or from fear.

Clearly in a workplace one can "get over it" and hopefully the other toilet users are reasonably civilised. In a public place... no.

A few years ago I was parked up at the village hall waiting to take ds in to be weighed at the baby clinic. I saw a fairly regular parade of men going into the attached public toilets. It slowly dawned on me that these were not all men being "taken short". Now, were these toilets gender neutral... bleeeuggh. I do not want to have to encounter that in the next cubicle, thank you very much.

A few years ago I watched one of those Channel 4 programs where they do a swap. In this case, it was around cosmetic surgery - and they had a bloke who'd been badly burned when a child, and wasn't a fan of the idea of cosmetic surgery, because he'd had so much necessary surgery and thought people would be better learning to live with themselves. He was paired with a younger woman who wanted a breast reduction. They both came across as lovely, grounded people, but he just didn't understand why she'd want to have surgery until she took him out and about. It didn't matter how she was dressed, the comments were continuous and rude.

When they came back in from what was a perfectly tame and normal night out, he understood why. He just couldn't believe how she'd been treated.

Men just don't get that we've been swimming against a tide all our lives, our experiences are different.

That's true Datun. Even with comments about how women take ages in the toilet at a venue, it suggests many men don't even register the queues, how long it takes to even get into them in theatres for example. My mum has also been on a number of courses and conferences in venues designed solely with men in mind, so now with there being a pretty much 50/50 split in her profession (dentistry) women have to queue for an age to use the few facilities they have whilst men stroll in and out of their plentiful ones. If those women's ones were converted to "gender neutral" as seems to be happening in so many places that'd cause even more inconvenience for women, but many men won't even have registered it.

The discomfort and sense of intimidation that women feel in the presence of men, particularly in private spaces, simply doesn't cross their minds. How many men are truly surprised when you tell them how it feels to walk through life as a woman?

Very much so. When I've told the ones who actually listen about this they are astounded. There have been some clips in America where women wore hidden cameras then showed the footage of all the street harassment they received to their fathers afterwards, who were horrified but completely shocked. There are so many things - small and larger scale - they are just completely oblivious to. So in this case as you say, the decisions are made through the lens of male privilege, couldn't possibly convert any men's spaces due to how men use urinals but the idea women would be at all uncomfortable having to share ours wouldn't even occur - then those of us who object are labelled bigoted for doing so.

"I was recently at Gatwick before 6am, and when I went to the toilets they were empty, quite distant from the main area, and a bit spooky."

I recently had the same thought. I used to work mainly evenings and nights, so I'd be free during the daytime when most people were at work. I really wouldn't have liked going into a deserted toilet and there just being another man in there with me.

I was recently at Gatwick before 6am, and when I went to the toilets they were empty, quite distant from the main area, and a bit spooky.

It made me wonder what I would have felt if they had been gender neutral. I think I would have freaked if a man had come in at the same time as me, let alone sat in the next cubicle. If a man had come in and the toilets were "Ladies" then I could have legitimately rushed out and reported him. As gender neutral toilets, I would have been behaving in a discriminatory way if I had looked askance at him and hurried off.

I think a lot of women will be using the disabled toilets if they are faced with gender neutral ones. I know this is wrong, but in the case of a lonely or quiet toilet block, I'm afraid I would put personal safety above the chance of a disabled person coming along.

And as for toilets in universities! What about in the evenings at drunken bar events? I'm going back 30 years but men in the ladies loos? That is not progress.

nolove

Whilst I agree with your post, I think the real reason is because men Just. Don't. Get. It.

They are not women and they do not use women's facilities. They remain entirely unaware that that their male privilege is informing their decisions.

The only logical reason why the men's is not converted instead is because men have to get their dicks out to have to urinate in a urinal. Women don't. So that's that.

The discomfort and sense of intimidation that women feel in the presence of men, particularly in private spaces, simply doesn't cross their minds. How many men are truly surprised when you tell them how it feels to walk through life as a woman?

MRAs who hate women, have an obvious agenda. It's deliberate.

This utter lack of consciousness over women's lives is far worse. It's mecurial, it slips through the fingers because they are seeing everything through a male filter that they don't know they have.

It's like talking to someone who has only a basic understanding of your language. You say potato, they hear tomato.

Another reason the women's are being converted is I think it'd be a travesty to suggest men should have to adapt, or take away male space (which all public space is seen as by default anyway I feel). Forcing women - who already have inadequate toilet provisions in many venues anyway - to give up their space and silence any objection with accusations of bigotry is completely acceptable of course.

Yes, thinking on it I don't think it has been replaced either. There are sofas outside but that is on a corridor.

I do get the feeling that over the last few years it has become increasingly socially acceptable to discriminate against women.

They removed the breastfeeding area? Wow. So it's more important to have a gender neutral facility than it is to provide a breastfeeding facility for women?

It's happened in some of the toilets at my university- I went looking for the ladies in one building and it had become gender neutral. Men and disabled toilets still there. In the main building, they have made the ladies smaller, removing the breastfeeding area, and added a separate gender neutral toilet.
It's not that all the ladies' toilets have gone, they have dotted gender neutral ones about the place. But there was only one ladies' with a nice sofa and breastfeeding area.

Do all men's toilets only have urinals? They must have cubicles too?

This has to be the reason why the women's are being converted and not the men's.

Men will be upset because they are actually in a state of undress. It's fucking ridiculous. Misses just about every point going and is sexist.

Or all start carrying she-wees.

and anyone at all can choose to use the urinals

This always bugs me, because even if previously-male toilets were also changed to gender-neutral, they still wouldn't be accessible to women, because - ta-daa! - biology. Unless we all invade and stand on the urinals to pee.