British Library - women's toilets

I just don't get it.

They have single sex loos for women.
They have single sex loos for men.
They have disabled loos.
And they have one (maybe more) loo which is a seperate cubicle and which is trans-friendly.

Lots of loos. Catering for all groups. Scattered liberally about the building. By all accounts, clean and well maintained.

There's places for those who want single sex. Plus a seperate cubicle for trans people, which isn't encroaching on the single sex provision.

Plus information on changing places provision.

This is toilet nirvana, in London.

Why are we criticising?

I emailed them a while ago and, having pointed out the disparity in numbers asked them 3 questions:

Why disabled people, those who need accessible provision (which by the way these weren't, just normal looswith one larger cubicle!) now have to share with anyone and everyone who chooses to enter?

Why they are providing mix sexed provision that does not meet the expected / Best Practice mixed sex layout?

Have they done any kind of risk assessment on their fully enclosed, mixed sex toilet areas?

I had a holding response and am still waiting.

Nope I’d still be wondering why the ladies is a ‘catch-all’ facility while the men’s remains exclusive.
The ladies' isn't a catch-all, although the disabled toilet seems to be.

The men's is one side, and the ladies' on the other. The disabled toilet is next to the gents' toilets (although there might also be another similar disabled toilet next to the ladies' toilets).

‘On the other side of the floor’. Nope I’d still be wondering why the ladies is a ‘catch-all’ facility while the men’s remains exclusive.

Other loos being a available is irrelevant. A man will rock up to these two doors and amble on without a second thought.

Women will rock up and pause, wonder if this as a ‘unisex’ loo, ask themselves why the mens loos appear to be for able bodied men only, then weigh up whether the can hold their pee until they find a ladies loo.

I’ve spent a lot of time at the BL there are loos everywhere , the lower floors probably have more, but overall I would have thought it’s about equal. Which floor were you on , if that’s the first then the women’s loos are on the other side with another accessible one . There are also loos in some of the reading rooms I think .

Before you get totally outraged, OP, why don’t you email their press office/ coins people and ASK what their provision is… I do think you’ve got this one wrong.
I remember getting outraged at a similar set up at BM ( I think) only to later discover I’d missed the 50 odd cubicles on another floor that were the main women’s loos…

Doesn’t the BL have absolutely enormous women’s toilets and cloakroom on one of the lower floors??
Are you sure you’ e got it right OP? Quite often the main men’s and main women’s toilets aren’t right beside each other but opposite or on a different floor to allow for the extra space given over to women’s cubicles in modern buildings.

But for the moment i will believe her and assume that the men have more cubicles/urinals.
I will wait for the evidence. I've been to the BL many times, and the toilet provision has been great. So much so that I've never thought to check the actual numbers. And I say that as someone who's complained in the past about many other (totally inadequate) places.

Ive not been to the library and hopefully the OP is completely wrong about the provision for women

But for the moment i will believe her and assume that the men have more cubicles/urinals. I don’t think the OP is referring to mixed sex toilets, with the exception of the rebranding of one of the disabled toilets to cover anyone who wants to go in there

If you have to wait for 10/15 minutes to go to the loo when preganant, feeling bad, period, miscarriage, IBS, weak blader, extreme peri menopause bleed, (or any of the many possibilities in this vein) it is real "rea;" world.
If you are 4 years old, 54 years old, 84 years old it is unacepatble that women have to wait in line while men do not.
It is unacceptable that they divide the space equally for men and women when our bodies function very differently.
It is totally fucking unaccpetable that my daughter worries that she might pee in her pants or that my aged mum worries about embarrassing herself because a dick head architect has a complete failure of imagination, and forgets that he (and it is usually a "He") needs to design for the entire population and not just his side of the population.
It is very real world indeed.

Toilet provision for women has been an issue for years.

Invariably we need more but we don't have that.

It's the norm for women and girls to queue for ages while men zip in and out.

The urinary leash is a thing.

The closure of so many public facilities in the last decade or so has impacted women more than men.

For women who are less continent (which is lots, sometimes temporarily, often not. Old age being a major one). It stops women from being able to have the freedom men enjoy.

We can't so easily pee up an empty side alley or behind a tree.

Esp not if v old or heavily Pg.

And don't forget we had to fight for provision in the first place.

www.museumoflondon.org.uk/discover/womens-right-work-toilet-bathroom-victorian-london-wwi-factory-protest

And of course inadequate faculties have a huge impact on many aspects of life for girls and women around the world, including safety.

These things are all part of the same thing. Our needs not being considered.

Iirc British library is a pretty modern building. I'm surprised that there's twice the provision for men on ground floor than women. That's arse about face.

One facet of the same thing. A general failure to properly consider women in design.

(I haven't been to BL so if turns out there are loads more on ground floor then yay! Point still stands in general).

Jesus Christ talk about "real world problems!" Smh

If it was a relabeling job of the women's a la Barbican,

Did you see where the original women's had been near that accessible one?

I must admit that whatever the situation I am very surprised that they have two blocks for men and one for women on that floor.

Should be the other way around if that's all they've got.

Really counter intuitive and strange..

So we have a bog issue of some sort here for sure!

Yes, indeed. Which is why the regulations in place at the time (BS 6465-1:1994) required very many more toilets per 100 women using the building than they did for men.

There are two possibilities. Either you are mistaken about the sex split of toilets in a large and complex building, spread over several stories. Or that the building was signed off in flagrant breach of building regs.

Which is more likely?

I've seen nothing to suggest that the BL has undertaken a whole-sale opening up of women's single sex toilets as mixed sex spaces.

As others have said, there are many many buildings in London (and elsewhere) where one can rightly be hugely critical of toilet provision for women.

There are also plenty of examples where women's toilet provision is significantly undermined by opening them up to transwomen so that there are no longer single sex spaces.

Both are wrong.

I've seen nothing at all in this discussion, or from my own experience in using the building, to suggest that the BL are guilty of either of those.

Instead the opposite. They're providing plenty of mens' toilets. And plenty of womens' toilets. And both single sex and unisex disabled facilities. With at least one of the latter doubling as a third space option for transpeople.

Isn't this what we've all been arguing for?

BL is an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sportt_.

Is also complain to your MP, as well as to the BL directly. This is a public building/public service. They are failing in their public sector equality duty to provide adequate facilities for both single sex spaces and disabled spaces (both are protected characteristics).

You could ask your MP to forward your email to DCMS.

This makes me think of the thread on Twitter recently where a non binary male complained about being told to join a line with other males (to be frisked by security guard). They wanted to be in the female line, despite the fact that would mean a woman having to pat down a male bodied person. And also highlighting the fact that women are expected to budge up and accommodate everyone, including males who just identify as not being fully male.

As far as I can tell, what they've done is take (one? all of?) the disabled toilets and stuck a bunch of stick figures on the door.

Those toilets were already unisex.

On the information given, this hasn't reduced the single sex provision for women by one single stall. If anything it's reduced the risk of a repeat of @tigerinyourtank's experience by giving a clear steer on where transwomen should pee.

The only group who are negatively impacted are people with disabilities. Which matters, of course, but is different from saying that there are no women only facilities. How much it matters depends on whether there are plenty of disabled loos to go around, and their website certainly implies that there are.

This is the third space solution in action.

Some useful info here - also it's a damn great book if you haven't already read it.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/1rcgjxPKJRGrZcTsX2hHwTj/it-really-is-a-mans-world-how-everyday-design-excludes-women