Gender-neutral toilets stink in more ways than one

Can I ask those of you with specific (bad) experiences of the lack of safety, privacy & dignity (men barging in, not locking cubicles) of unisex toilets, or those of you with professional experience of cleaning unisex loos, or managing them, please please please respond to the Government consultation on new regulations for toilet provision in public spaces.

I mentioned seats left up, urine & faeces left unflushed, or on the floor ... these are all pretty common experiences of unisex facilities, that are different from using female single sex facilities - in my experience.

Otherwise, we're going to get TRA-influenced legislation.

Sex Matters has a handy guide to the consultation, with links to the consultation, and the Sex Matters suggested responses. The survey asks for specific experiences - lots of posters on this thread could just cut & paste what they've written here.

It's really important that WOMEN respond as apparently the Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) was done in consultation with TRA organisations and no consultation with relevant women’s groups.

You can see that from the detail of the the consultation document: they publish their EIA and the section on the “gender reassignment” protected characteristic is far more detailed & specific than the one generalised & basically dismissive of women's concerns.

It closes on 8th October so we have a week.

Links:

https://sex-matters.org/take-action/respond-to-the-toilets-consultation/?mc_cid=fe7b296b16&mc_eid=311b3b5ba7

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4907121-sex-matters-urging-responses-to-proposed-new-toilet-regulations?reply=129577541

@Startingagainandagain @Chipperfish @YouJustDoYou

In one place I worked we had a toilet that had a sink in the middle and a mens cubicle one side and womens on the other. No one really took any notice (both were loos with a sanpro bin next to the sink).

One day a (male) colleague came bowling through the door of the ladies loo (I’d not secured the lock properly) just as I was getting up off the loo. He looked like he was going to die from embarrassment. I wasn’t overly happy myself.

In my last job my office was across the corridor from the men’s toilet, which was used almost exclusively by the consultant physicians. THEY NEVER WASHED THEIR HANDS AFTER PEEING. NEVER! CONSULTANT PHYSICIANS!!

So at a team meeting I mentioned it. They always washed their hands (when I was in my office) after that, but sweet zombie Jesus, I should NOT have had to tell them.

I am by no means in favour. But.....son had to actually queue the other day because gender neutral. Maybe men will realise the issue with lack of female toilets when they have to queue.

Guess who got lambasted in the Dalston club (LGB.....) ?

Yup. Little OJ. Those in the line stood up to him but he pushed in anyway.

We’ve had shared toilets at work for at least a decade. They’re always fine 🤷🏼‍♀️

The ones with the running water and bird cheeping sounds piped in?

Its either unhygenic or you spend your time cleaning someone elses mess up before you can use the facilities. More likely for women to do this since removing more clothes, assuming sitting position (even if you hover) is inherently more likely to put you closer/in contact with the equipment. So its yet more time spent in the toilet for women, who already take longer and they are in the designated support human role, cleaning up after the men. Great thing to teach women and girls at home, in public, in the workplace - the message is basically know your place, you cant expect equity of facilites clear for your use, no matter your age or role you will spend time cleaning up other peoples piss.

We had this at work (NHS) briefly, where 2 individual toilets opening on a corridor were designated gender neutral use (had been male and female before) by 'the powers that be' and signage was changed.
Within the space of a morning the gender neutral signs had been covered by laminated male/female signs again with a very sharp note about cleaning up and being considerate to colleagues on the male toilet door. Decision made by head of department in the interests of workplace relations, enforced by the site manager, and supported by all except possibly the culprit. Unless it was a deliberate dirty protest.

Has anyone had the misfortune to use the BA Lounge at Heathrow? They have got rid of men’s and women’s toilets and instead there is a bank of around 10 unisex individual cubicles. Foul smelling and disgusting and not nearly enough cubicles for the hundreds of people in the lounge.

I ended up walking out and using the women’s public toilets in the main airport which were sparkling clean and didn’t stink (ie hadn’t been used by men)

I used to to clean toilets in a school - in order of cleanest to least clean it was women, girls, boys, men. Even teenage boys were better than the men's.

I used to clean toilets. The female facilities were in general perfectly fine, just always needed a tidy up and wipe down, the male facilities were utterly disgusting. Piss EVERYWHERE - the floor, the seat, the wall. Pubes. For some reason, there would sometimes be shit wiped across a wall or two. It was vile.

Our local Costa eventually with all the woke shit changed the female toilets to shared - went from being as nice as a public toilet can be (you know, generally cleanish etc) to the toilet seats being left up with piss stains on them, piss on the floor, they STANK of urine...it was disgusting.

Some female toilets stink too ... depends how clean they are kept

I don't think posting a link from the Torygraph behind a paywall is a great idea

Exactly.

The headline says gender neutral - which used to refer to single-user unisex.

But when you read the article she’s actually describing a workplace with multi-user mixed-sex toilets.

I’m in central London. Plenty of 5* hotels and fancy stores to use if absolutely necessary.

This is one of the main reasons I hate our office space.

We have one floor in a crumbling community centre in London as a work space.

There is only one loo on that floor and no other facilities in that building are unsafe to use (as the centre supports men with serious problems with drugs and alcohol and clients use the other facility)

It makes me feel vulnerable every time I go into that toilet.

Not very clean either.

There should be a legal requirement for office spaces to have at least two spaces, one for men and one for women.

One (of many) things I hate about mixed sex loos is that men usually don’t put the seat back down after they’ve had a wee. I don’t want to have to touch the loo seat in a public toilet. So so gross 😷

In truth - they are just men’s loos that women have to use. Let one man in and they become men’s loos.

Yes, I also used to clean offices and schools. No matter how grim the female toilets were (occasionally bad in some schools), the male toilets were always measurably worse. It was actually quantifiable - for same size facilities it would take twice as long to get the male toilets back to a decent state.

It's not just the cubicles, it's the hand washing area that I hate sharing with men. I don't want male colleagues around while I'm checking my appearance and putting on my lippy. I don't want them in the cubicle next door when I'm ripping open a new sanitary pad. It's a total invasion of privacy.

My DH went to the Grand National this year and commented on how disgusting the men’s loos were - swimming in urine. I do wonder if some men prefer unisex as women end up having to make some attempt to clean them before they are usable! Plane and train loos - yuk and the thought of walking into a block of loos and being the only woman in a room full of men (which could be the case) is awful.

I used to clean office blocks, the male toilets were usually a lot more disgusting than the female ones.

I went to an event at a university last week, the toilets were categorised as 'urinals' and 'stalls', basically the men had the whole of the 'urinals' one to themselves, and went to do their shits in the only one females had access to - long smelly shits while watching porn on their phones probably 🙄

🤣🤣

The lack of sanitary bins in a public toilet is illegal. You should challenge the school over this.

It seems a frequent male thing. There's mixed sex facilities I have to use regularly, all fully separate enclosed rooms with basins/hand drying etc so fine - except that many men leave the door wide when peeing.

I'm sure it's a lovely cock mate, but I'm not scoring it out of ten, and I'm not going to clap for you. Close the bloody door and show some consideration.

We've got unisex toilets at work. New building, completely enclosed toilets. They are fine but crucially we have cleaners who clean them 2 or 3 times a day (haven't worked out the exact schedule) so they are always spotless.

If you like this article and agree with it, please complete the public consultation in new regulations for toilet provision in public spaces. On my phone so can’t link, but I started a thread in here with the Sex Matters advice. I’ll bump that.