Sex Equality and Equity Network - Gender crit network for civil servants.

So sorry to hear that, CandiceMarie. I'm not CS, but hopeful that the advent of SEEN will lead to an improvement. It can't come soon enough by the sound of things.

I'm with you, thinking about leaving CS as a result of that bloody Yammer thread, totally disheartening seeing colleagues saying your opinions are disgusting and should not be allowed, makes me worried someone will force the issue and I refuse to effing lie!

Thankfully no one in our team has raised it, yet, although I saw that someone, a G6 no less, apparently has discussed the creation of the network at the team meeting, and apparently 'they all agree' it's appalling it's been allowed to exist!

Why are you so determined to argue that women should be forced to endure unisex spaces rather than the single-sex spaces we’re entitled to by law? Do you hate women that much?

First time I've joined mumsnet just to comment on this thread. I joined the civil service a year ago in an ALB and the response to the SEEN network was so depressing, I said to my partner I can't work for them long term. Horrified by the anti-science comments that human sex is not binary from a scientific organisation. Also the blind adherence to GI reminds me of the Stasi. I have come from local government and although some are captured, my old organisation was very sensible putting health and safety and safeguarding at the forefront. However it was more than that, we respected a plurality of views, not this witch hunt of those not demonstrating blind adherence to GI.

I opened an email from someone this week, that not only had pronouns but the trans flag and 100% trans ally and something like transphobia is a choice but trans isn't. I can't believe such a political statement is allowed, we are supposed to be public servants. I am so disallutioned and miss my old job. However it is a relief to know that others feel the same.

Sorry for the rant 🙂.

aseries, I don’t think you can assume no assaults just because it’s CS property.

I know of at least one assault by a violent ex partner on CS property. He faked his way in somehow, past security.

I also know of a building where, during a refurbishment, they found a peephole from the male changing rooms into the female changing rooms. No one knew how long it had been there. These were rooms where women showered and fully changed after using the gym or cycling in to work. It’s not an assault or rape, but is is at very least an awful violation of privacy.

I was looking for a thread on the SEEN launch last week after reading pretty depressing comments on the Sli.do for an all staff call. Saw part of the Yammer threads. Not the latest though. Still too frightened to put my name to them. There must be a huge number that feel the same. I just haven't found them.

I've just been catching up on the second Yammer thread (having missed the first one) and bloody hell it makes for depressing reading from a so called scientific body. Glad to find some other like minded colleagues on this thread, it gives me faith that the silent majority are just keeping out of the pile on. Well done to the few people who have tried to argue back - sorry I wasn't brave enough.

Just a comment as I am a user of civil service toilets. I used to work at an office in S London with mixed loos. It followed all the rules, floor to ceiling doors and wash basins in cubicles.

They are NOT sound proof and it is somewhat embarrassing going about my business with a man next door and hearing what they are doing as well.

Both men and women expressed discomfort with these arrangements.

Incidentally my DD then a teen developed a UTI because she was so uncomfortable using unisex toilets at her new build school.

I am sorry but in my experience men leave loos in a mess. Piss on the floor and toilet seat, the bowl caked with poo and paper towels all over the floor.

Fast forward to my new office. Single sex toilets and 3 unisex stand alone toilets with full doors and wash basins.

This is so much more comfortable and pleasant for women and men.

BTW there was an incident in a toilet in a former office I worked in in central London where a woman gave a man a ‘BJ’ which was videod by the male and passed all round the office.

in both cases it seems to be to do with the fact you are in a shared space that makes people tidier, cleaner, more considerate and faster than when you are in your own room

Shared facilities are also quicker to clean and resupply and easier to use. If soap or towels run out in one dispenser you can use the next one along. And surely we've all passed toilet paper under the partition? The narrow cubicles aren't that easy to move around in, check clothes, see yourself in mirrors.

I used to work in an office with clever individual cubicles that opened off a narrow side corridor and the side corridor had a glass end-wall onto an atrium. After trying them a couple of times I used the proper ladies loos three floors down - the usual row of cubicles opposite a row of sinks and mirrors, off a side corridor with a door that didn't look straight into the toilets. More private, more dignified, easier.

I’m saying that changing the toilets from communal to self-contained cubicles in government departments won’t result in an increased risk of anyone getting raped.

The ladies' loos used to be a safer retreat from sexual harassment. Shared facilities with partition cubicles and open sinks behind a door for women only really are safer from workplace harrassment, rape during the office party, that kind of thing.

This is not an office situation but Helen Joyce describes a row of mixed-sex individual cubicles with floor to ceiling lockable doors in a nightclub that sounds positively dangerous. They're all off a narrow corridor so women have to run a gauntlet of cubicles used by pissed men. Quite apart from men who don't shut or lock the door, anyone can come out as you go past, anyone can leer at you or grab at you, anyone can block you, anyone can drag you in and shut you in.

And the trouble with this fight over trans women in women's toilets, and who can go in and who can't, is that the "easy" solution is to make everything indivdual and mixed sex - and more dangerous for women.

It’s opportunity with sexual assaults. If it’s a mixed sex area the opportunity increases for a woman and man to be alone in an enclosed space undetected.
There was a footballer that was caught out on cctv going into the ladies used in an assault trial. If it’s mixed sex toilets that ‘layer’ of protection has gone.

What if a man pushed you into a cubicle and locked the door?

There are so many different scenarios and situations but I cannot in any way see how making places where females use facilities accessible by men in any way safer? Every chip against sex segregation makes females less safe and less able to be in a situation where other females might assist them if trouble arises.

That is terrible, obviously. I am not saying that men who work for government organisations don’t rape people. I’m saying that changing the toilets from communal to self-contained cubicles in government departments won’t result in an increased risk of anyone getting raped.

I worked in a civil service organisation and a woman there was raped. They of course got rid of her and it took years to get them to admit that they prioritised the man's 'career' over hers. Now of course she is so broken she can't work and she had to take the organisation to court to get anything and she got what was basically less than 1.5 years wages as compensation.

You seem to think men don't rape people if they work for a government organisation. That's not how it works. People with penises if they are rapists can get any job they want, and if they do get caught they are protected by the institutions.

@PaleBlueMoonlight

As in, it was an interview with someone who had transitioned on the intranet in support of trans awareness week, so their opinion. For that reason, I would not want to share it externally. But all the same, I bet an interview with me giving GC views would not be allowed to be published!

Good post, ZandathePanda

My point:
Why can't men, whatever their gender identity, just not use women's communal toilets?
Why can't men, whatever their gender identity, just not use women's fitting rooms in shops?
Why can't men, whatever their gender identity, just not use women's changing rooms in gyms and swimming pools?
Why can't men, whatever their gender identity, just not use women's sports?
Why can't men, whatever their gender identity, just not use women's awards for women?
Why can't men, whatever their gender identity, just not use women's prisons?
Why can't men, whatever their gender identity, just not use women's... everything? They are men, they already have their own stuff and more.

So glad to see this push back.

Sincerely wishing all the best to SEEN, Sex Equality and Equity Network.

My epileptic Dd indeed is safer using the girls toilets than the disabled toilet and that’s what she used at school. She didn’t use the disabled toilet. Her friend in a wheelchair did use the disabled toilet as it was better for her with the space and ease straight out into a cooridor.

Some people have an aura beforehand and have the capacity to pull a cord. Some don’t and those suffering seizures who haven’t had them for a long time or the first time are more at risk.

There are around 600,000 people in the UK with epilepsy. For one third of them, their seizures are not controlled with current medication.

Many people with heart conditions have heart problems whilst straining as it puts extra pressure on the heart. Can’t remember the name for it but it’s why so many people are found dead in public toilets.

In my case, my friends and I rescued a girl from nightclub toilets when I was a student - possibly alcohol related? I don’t know. I do know she was alive when the ambulance took her away. But I don’t know if she would have been if she had been left behind a full length door all night as she had vomit all over her and was unconscious and would have been wedged against the door. We shimmed over the door to unlock it from the inside and get her out. I was alerted by her hand and foot poking out.

FFS! I had no idea it was that bad.

And yet drug use and assault allegations are hardly unknown in the parliamentary estate?

Where we’re talking about toilet facilities in civil service offices I would think the risk of assaults, drug use or rape would be vanishingly small.

On the risk to those suffering a seizure, does this mean we shouldn’t have any disabled toilets that are separate lockable rooms, as a person suffering a seizure might not be able to pull the emergency assistance alarm and no one would know they were in difficulty?

Here you go:
www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-36071502.amp

Yep shocks me too and I was a teacher. These are the ones that are reported.
The report was pre-covid and was a parliamentary one, reported by the BBC.
I will see if I can google it.

"At least one school child gets raped inside schools premises each day in Britain"

WTAF?? Where does this statistic come from?? Surely that can't be true.

All this too.

I can't envisage a design workaround that would bring me to the position of wanting to share a toilet with men that I don't know. I just want single sex toilets. This is the default requirement under the health and safety legislation: the option to provide 'universal' toilets of this type is only permitted where it is 'not practical' to provide separate facilities.

No completely disagree that it’s the best possible solution - it is dangerous for people who are ill and need assistance such as people having seizures. There are thousands of people that are of risk of having seizures in this country. If you feel ill in public, where do most people go? The toilet. I have rescued someone who was unconscious because I could see their hand poking out of the door gap. They had choked on vomit.

Assaults and drug use and other antisocial behaviours increase when the toilet doors don’t have gaps at the bottom. At least one school child gets raped inside schools premises each day in Britain - I think enclosed toilets with no door gap would be a greater risk.

I have had to do a quick sweep of toilet blocks when fire alarms are going off. If there’s a locked toilet, you can quickly check if anyone is in it if the door has a gap.