I have emailed them in response to this in their latest newsletter. Here is my email and the articles they linked to. I welcome anyone else writing to them. The email address is [removed by MNHQ at OPs request]
Dear Open House
After many years of supporting you, including attending Open House events since 2008 along with my children, I would like to unsubscribe from your newsletter and register how appalled I am by your attempt to destroy the provision of single-sex facilities for women and girls. Marianna Janowicz's appalling article, that you linked to supportively in your latest email newsletter, states that:
"Every household in the country has a gender neutral toilet in their own home for use by family members and guests without any segregation, so the idea that gender neutral loos are unusual is farcical."
This is itself utterly farcical. Janowicz appears to have missed the painfully obvious point that we don't let any and all random strangers in off the street to use the toilets in our homes. The dishonesty and ridiculousness of this non-argument is absolutely insulting.
I suppose Janowicz also thinks it is 'farcical' to have locks on our front doors - after all, we all have doors that don't lock inside our homes, don't we? And it's 'farcical' to have security on the doors of schools, synagogues, mosques, hospitals, bars - after all, none of us have security guards outside our bedrooms or kitchens, do we?
What a pathetic and stupid argument.
Women and girls (as well as men and boys) are entitled to single-sex provision under the Equality Act. By attempting to remove this provision, you are not only promoting breaking the law, but you are promoting discrimination against disabled people, and women and girls from minority ethnic or religious groups, many of whom are unable to use facilities shared with the opposite sex. You are also promoting the endangerment of all women's and girls' safety, privacy and dignity.
You state in your support for this awful proposal:
"We believe that London’s spectacular variety of music, food, culture, architecture and civic life is enriched by the diverse nationalities, languages, sexualities, faiths, and ethnicities of the people who call our capital home. "
And yet you are blatantly ignoring the rights and opportunities, dignity and safety, of women of diverse faiths and ethnicities who will simply not be able to use these facilities at all if single-sex facilities are removed.
You should be ashamed of promoting this. It could not be further from the genuine promotion of an 'open city'. You are making the city less equitable, less accessible, and less welcoming.
I could have simply unsubscribed from your newsletter and stopped supporting your events, but I wanted you and your partners to be aware of the consequences of your reckless lack of care for women and girls, and for your promotion of the frankly insulting, dangerous and stupid argument in Janowicz's awful piece.
Yours faithfully
Links are:
open-city.org.uk/blog/learning-from-londons-lack-of-lockdown-loos
open-city.org.uk/blog/public-toilets-statement
Apparently the consultation ends on Friday. I'm not sure where the details of the consultation are though.