Join the mixed-sex loo resistance movement!

I had a conversation today with a friend whose colleague at work had their waters break during a meeting. The woman rushed to the loo quickly and discreetly as she could, followed by my friend.

Fortunately she was assisted by my friend and another female colleague and then bustled off to hospital.

This would have been a nightmare in a mixed sex toilet with men inadvertently wandering in. It would also have been a nightmare to try and help a distressed woman in this state, squeezed into a single enclosed cubicle off a corridor, as many gender neutral toilets are.

Single sex spaces with stalls and shared sinks are designed that way for safety and dignity. It enables privacy but enough access to help people who are in distress.

Except I wouldn't actually do this because I'm not a dick, and I think about the men in my life who would be rather embarrassed sharing a public toilet facility with a woman and also how the man at the next urinal might be a bit put off his flow by me using a she-wee next to him.

To be fair, us chaps of Man Friday did use the gents' loo on Fridays, and I did use a she-wee (with baby DS strapped to my chest in a sling). The only comments I got were confused then positive, alongside outrage at the proposal to amend the GRA.

Two points to add.

1 Urinary incontinence is another issue that many, many women have to deal with either on a daily basis or occasionally.

2 Urinary tract infections are much more common amongst women and girls and can kill. It is rare, but it happens, a colleague of mine died from sepsis brought on by a UTI. She was 53. She left an 18 year old daughter behind.

I was in a rock bar recently where the graffitti in the women's loos including warnings about male regulars and band members who were rapists and batterers. If men are allowed in, those warnings, issued by women who have learned the hard way what these men are like, will disappear and more women will be hurt.

Thanks Erish for citing the relevant law concerning workplace loos. Bookmark it on your phone.

I like it better like this because there are shorter wait times/queues - woman take bloody ages if you go to a woman's only toilet!

Dear lord. Of course, it's women's fault, that the provision is crap! So, I don't know, let's add some men in there as well!!!

There have been studies done to explain why this is. Guess what, it's that pesky female biology that TPAs like to pretend is so irrelevant. Women have to sit because we don't have dicks and we have to undress from the waist down. We have to close, lock, unlock, and open a door. And that's not considering periods, changing ripped tights, etc.

Men only need to unzip, point and shoot, quick shake and zip up again. Of course they will be faster than women. Only anti-woman activists would try to frame this biological difference as being women's fault.

Women need twice the number of cubicles as men need urinals to get the same throughput. Truly fair building regulations would require that we got twice the cubicles as the men get urinals.

Imagine being in charge of a school theatre trip. Macbeth, say. Or the panto, at Xmas. Or the Gruffalo (all these trips happened at my kids' school)

Has the risk attached to toileting just risen immensely?

I’m all in favour of brazening it out in the gender neutral urinals. And lobbing a few sanpro items in them might bring things to men’s attention, which let’s face it is the only way we’ll change things.

@TruthOnTrial Exactly. The small handful of times I've seen skidders in women's toilets I've always been quite surprised. My impression is that this is just the norm in men's toilets.

At my DP's work there was a man who used to take a shit in the middle of the toilet floor (in the communal sink area) every single day. I just physically can't imagine that happening in women's toilets of a workplace.

I'm behind the idea of filling moon cups with food colouring and brazenly washing them out in the sink in mixed-sex toilets

piss all over the floor and blood dribbling down the walls like a scene out of Carrie

Literally never, ever, ever seen that in female loos,never.

Have seen/smelt the dire state of mens loos, disgusting.

Girls do hold themselves all day at school, and this is causing harm to them physically and psychologically.

Is anyone seeing the toilet thread on AIBU?

I am wholeheartedly on the proposal of pouring blood in sinks in mixed loos and leaving it there (women and their vile practices!)

Some really good points on here made about the posters on the back of toilet doors as well. They're so important for our most vulnerable women but that's gone to fuck. If the TRA/MRAs get their own way, there will be literally no space in this whole country where women can be free from men. My heart breaks for those most vulnerable women where something as simple as a 'secret code' poster on the back of a toilet door could be life-saving

On the olden days if you were out and getting hassled by a creepy guy you could just skip into the ladies loos to escape their attentions. If they tried to follow you, you could scream blue murder.

Bye bye that then.

Brooklyn Brewery, if anyone would like to boycott their beer....

Oh no. Oh no no no.

And Peri menopause erratic and heavy as fuck uncontainable periods

You know those really brilliant posters on the back of ladies loos doors informing women about the Ask Angela campaign - ie going to the bar and asking for Angela if you feel threatened on a date, or just in general? That's that gone then.

Thanks Datsun

For those saying they don't see the problem, a miscarriage is also not a one off event, you can be bleeding for a while and all they time that is going on it's distressing going to the toilet.

After pregnancy some people have horrendous levels of bleeding during their period for months afterwards. I lost great clots of blood that soaked through everything I was wearing in a great gush the period on my first business trip after maternity leave so I had a major cleanup operation in a ladies toilet. Fortunately no male clients sharing it with me, very male environment so no one else in there, thank goodness. The predominantly single men I was dealing with would have had no idea what to do and me regaining my credibility as authority would have gone to fuck after they'd seen me in that state. Who among us hasn't had to stand semi naked by a hand dryer trying to dry an item of clothes they've just washed in the sink?

"Loos by their very nature are gender neutral, they're inanimate objects. But provision should remain single sex, not mixed sex, in line with the Equality Act 2010. No, gender identity is not a protected characteristic. Really, it isn't. Go and check. No, you can't just rewrite an Act of Parliament because you feel like it. No, it hasn't been changed. Otherwise it wouldn't be dated 2010, would it?"

I’m stealing these words.

Oh yes littlbrowndog I bet there are loads of stories about toddlers embarrassing their mothers in the loos on Mumsnet. At least in all-women toilets you'll get sympathy (as well as some amusement). Can you imagine how some men would react to "Why do you have all that hair down there, mummy?" or similar?

No way! Loos in the US are awful for a Brit at the best of times!

I was in New York last weekend. I went to one place where the formerly separate loos now both had gender neutral signs on the doors. One still had urinals in, plus cubicles, the other just cubicles.

They were those typical US toilets where there is a foot of space under the doors and partitions, gaps around the door and the top of the partition is about 5'6 high. Tall guys would easily look straight over.

Brooklyn Brewery, if anyone would like to boycott their beer....

I wrote this on the history of women’s public toilets and the attempts to force us back onto the urinary leash.

uncommongroundmedia.com/flushing-womens-toilets/

I meant that I wished people who say 'it's just a toilet' and 'you can pee next to me' would consider why we have these provisions in the first place.

You can't pee next to me if there's a remote possibility that you might be getting off on it.

We didn't initially get these provisions just so we'd have somewhere to empty our mooncups without the poor delicate masculine flowers coming over all faint. Although admittedly it is a bonus or would be if I could get the damned cup to work properly.

”I was talking about this and my sister said she recently bowled into a loo and found a man peeing at the urinal. She reckons he go the bigger shock - so I think men may start complaining?”

I suggested on the Old Vic Twitter thread that groups of women should go in to any “mixed sex with urinals” space as often as possible. Sorry if this means a few decent men will be made uncomfortable, but the whole point is that women are being made uncomfortable, but if we complain, we are less likely to be listened to.

We have mixed sex loos at my work now (since May). In some ways there’s more privacy as it’s all fully enclosed cubicles with sinks. I actually do rinse a mooncup there now and didn’t when it was the women’s but sinks not in cubicles. I don’t want female colleagues seeing me rinsing a mooncup either.

However they are much dirtier generally and I hate bumping into male colleagues in the little corridor they’re off. Feels really weird.

@Hullygully Well, yes, I quite agree. Bloody women, demanding to be allowed out of the house. We'll start asking for the vote next

If all women stayed indoors and looked pretty and did the ironing, none of this would be an issue. I blame the introduction of public toilets for women for the complete moral collapse of our society. The sooner they all get given back over to men the better.