All gender toilets

That article was interesting, if a little twee. It's right though, why do men get two toilets, one of which is for their sole use, while women only get one which they have to share?

Mine is the other side of the country, so that means there is more than one and this might be a 'thing'. How depressing.

Apparently it's happening at Royal Holloway too. Women's toilets becoming gender neutral and the men's staying as the men's.

thetab.com/uk/rhul/2016/10/19/girls-toilets-gender-neutral-roho-now-10840

Miss Bax and Saskia, I suspect I am also at your uni, we had an email round last week about gender neutral toilets in the new building.

I have already kicked off about the ones in our building which are corridors with floor to ceiling doors. They are currently designated male and female by floor.
They piss me off because there is nowhere to put a sanitary machine, aparently this wasn't considered important enough to bother with. The only one in the whole building is in the disabled toilet on the ground floor which you wouldn't know unless you already knew it was there.
Head of Dept said she'd take it up with housekeeping but none have appeared so far.

FuckYeah

I've no idea what my (MTT) colleagues' view is on this..

Who cares!

MissBax I did consider it, but then I thought if I'm the only one I'll look like some lone meanie and probably won't be taken seriously.

Don't say which one, but is the University in the north of England?

Datun I absolutely agree noone should have to provide evidence of harm or distress about having to share toilets for the situation to be changed.

I would guess that in my workplace though, this would be what would be required in order to outweigh (..if it ever did outweigh..) my MTT colleagues' right to use the women's.

Clearly the women in my workplace are meant just not to react to whoever is using the women's. That expectation feels misogynistic. In this case these are fairly new colleagues in other departments, I know nothing about them, we don't work together. No idea re possible risk, misogynistic attitudes, sexual orientation or not.

The MTT colleague exiting the stall next to mine in the ladies was a lot older, taller and bigger than me (and I do now know she is in a more senior position to me in her dept).

And honestly it gave me a bit of a fright at the time. Now I feel fucked off at our shit managers that me and my colleague have been put in this position, to just work it out amongst ourselves. I've no idea what my (MTT) colleagues' view is on this..

I was somewhat flummoxed last week when in London. There was a male loo and I looked around for the ladies but it turned out there was one cubicle labelled disabled and gender neutral. As said above, maybe a urinal issue but surely this is a tad unfair and will lead to longer queues too. Hopefully as time passes all the loos will become cubicles and just open to everybody rather than women losing their facilities and men just carrying on as normal.

They may have asked for GN toilets and been turned down. Who knows. I feel I shouldn't have to make another colleague feel unwelcome or personally attacked, or to be made to feel uncomfortable myself.

There are two strands to all this FuckYeah. People are trying to accommodate transwomen who are harmless, usually attracted to men, and not predatory. Which has gone along way to informing legislation.

The flip of the coin is transwomen who remain attracted to women and are misogynistic and nasty.

It sounds like your experience is probably of the former. But the rules also allow in the latter.

I find the whole thing infuriating because we should not have to provide evidence of a predatory motivation in order to maintain our private spaces. We shouldn't have to keep on, showing ever more distressing and upsetting examples of the reason why we have sex segregation.

Thanks Datun.
I would happily campaign for an additional gender neutral toilet and shower at work, but it's the fact I have these two colleagues already using the women's toilets now.

I would not want them to feel I was campaigning against them personally, so I feel reluctant to raise it. And I can guess I would get some kind of HR warning about being potentially discriminatory.

I'm sure HR are happy with the status quo not to recommend to management that we spend extra money on additional new GN toilets because the senior team can feel really right on about their diversity stats which are appalling. Except they're not doing any accommodating in their own toilets.

I'm sure these two colleagues find things hard and I can imagine how uncomfortable using the men's toilets could be for them. They may have asked for GN toilets and been turned down. Who knows. I feel I shouldn't have to make another colleague feel unwelcome or personally attacked, or to be made to feel uncomfortable myself.

It's just the assumption that women's toilets are some kind of luxury or anachronism. Ours give no individual privacy. They rely on some kind of idea of privacy via understanding within a group.

Sorry for the PP in the university making GN toilets out of W. That's crap. I thought universities were meant to be progressive!

And yes, agree with women using loos to change in, feed a baby, change sanitary protection like mooncups, buy sanpro etc. My 12 year old dd has just started her periods. No way would she buy towels from a machine if she thought a man could see her. Would I want her changing in a loo a man could walk into NO I BLOODY WELL WOULD NOT. My Mum died recently, but she would have refused to use a dual sex loo, she was in her 80's, what would I have done with her then, let her wet herself? I am so angry reading this thread that I feel actually teary. This is not the world I want for my daughters, this world where male's feelings are more important than girls, women, and the elderly having safety, having dignity, having privacy.

People should use the loos for their sex. It isn't up to women to validate the "identities" of transwomen. They are male, they know they are male, and as such they should use the facilities for males. Very few transwomen actually pass as women anyway, so it is hardly going to be a shock for male co-workers if a transwoman uses the gents. This crushing of women's rights to single sex space is making me so angry. We need space for our own sex only, loos, refuges, prisons etc. I would not want to use a loo that had open cubicles and was dual sex. I'm a survivor of assault and it would scare and stress me to the point where I simply wouldn't use those loos at all.

FuckYeah

That sounds shit. They are breaking the law though if the transwomen don't have a gender reassignment certificate.

That is still a requirement.

Shower room probably sounded more private than it is. It's basically a cubby hole at one end of the women's toilets with a shower curtain that you can draw across for privacy.

I bumped into one of our two colleagues (both relatively new) who are MTT in the women's toilets at work. No gender neutral toilets just M, F and D. The women's are just flimsy stalls so you can hear everything and we also have a shower room with a little curtain as part of the deal. There's a bench along the side of the room near the sinks for putting your stuff on while you getting changed for your shower.

I didn't feel comfortable even just with her having heard me piss and us standing washing my hands and checking makeup in the mirror together after.

I now don't feel I can use the work shower in there any more which is stressing me out in the summer because I bike in to work.

And I know if I bring it up with HR they will give me a bollocking. It feels shit.

There are very few women in my workplace and the culture is very male dominated as it is. I have gone to cry in the women's toilets before when it's been particularly stressful to get away from it all. I feel guilty writing this. But it is how I feel.

Gender is a social construct. And there's no problem with female people who identify as trans, non-binary or dinosaur using the women's toilets

Where I work 'gender' has been officially defined in policy to designate "how you feel inside about whether you are male or female".

Sigh.

They have done the same thing at my university. (I suppose it might be the same one). A few other women have expressed unhappiness about it but no one else is willing to join me in asking why it was thought to be a good idea.

I would have suggested approaching the union women's officer 5 years ago but suspect that today it would be an exercise in extreme pointlessness.

It wasn't so many years ago that people were discussing the need for more public toilets for everyone, and increasing the ratio of provision of women and men 2:1 in favour of women. "Potty parity" in the states. In the UK, Dr Clara Greed has spoken much on this. Now that all seems to have been forgotten.

Forgot to say good luck MissBax!

I change in the female loos so could do without a man walking in thanks.

My teenage DD does this sometimes (e.g. going straight from school to an activity with no changing facilities). There's not usually room to change in the cubicle with all your stuff and cubicles that men use are often too gross to change in anyway.

Another activity that women sometimes do in female toilets is breastfeed. Whether they are shamed into doing so or just prefer to feed in private.

And kudos to you for tackling this.

Yes. Good luck MissBax!

MissBax

I hesitate to suggest you play the pregnancy card, but actually this is exactly what it is all about.

You should have the right to be able to struggle with your tights, jeans, or if you are wearing a supportive 'bump belt', etc. Without squeezing yourself into a cubicle to avoid the male gaze.

It's the whole point of sex segregation.

And kudos to you for tackling this.