Can we lay this to rest, once and for all?

That census figure has been debunked, it’s much lower than that. Yes, trans people should use the toilet appropriate to their sex, as your sex can’t be changed, no matter what you do to yourself or tell yourself. Their discomfort doesn’t come above everybody else’s.

For Document T, when the government asked a private company to look at designs for people with long term health conditions and disabilities, you would have thought the company would have looked at the most common ones like the millions of people who have conditions where they are mobile but may collapse: heart conditions, epilepsy, asthma, diabetes. But none of these conditions were mentioned so designs that benefitted them could not be analysed. Non binary crotch heights were mentioned. And the ‘evidence’ for an enclosed toilet design (which is dangerous) was chosen because of an opinion piece stating that’s what transactivists preferred in New York nightclubs. The only mention of periods in the reference list was about transmen.

That’s outrageous, @KeepToiletsSafe. The company ignored what they had been asked to do, and the civil servants reading the report didn’t bother to check or demand more relevant research. No wonder the result is such a mess.

There’s an important difference between being unhappy about your sex and having a disability.

Disabled people may be dissatisfied with all kinds of things too. I don’t doubt that many would have preferred to be born in a body that functioned better. But the disabled facilities are in place to meet the specific needs caused by their physical disability. Not just to make them feel happier.

No one has a right to use their a disabled toilet just because it’s convenient. The woman who barged @IWantToRetire’s mother out of the way should be ashamed.

For Document T, when the government asked a private company to look at designs for people with long term health conditions and disabilities, you would have thought the company would have looked at the most common ones like the millions of people who have conditions where they are mobile but may collapse: heart conditions, epilepsy, asthma, diabetes. But none of these conditions were mentioned so designs that benefitted them could not be analysed. Non binary crotch heights were mentioned. And the ‘evidence’ for an enclosed toilet design (which is dangerous) was chosen because of an opinion piece stating that’s what transactivists preferred in New York nightclubs. The only mention of periods in the reference list was about transmen.

How is that right?

The company did get an award from Stonewall though so must have ticked a lot of their boxes.

Ironically, anyone can have the health conditions, named above, that the company missed. The best, safest toilets are single sex toilets with door gaps. Unfortunately, unless people are assured the toilets will be single sex, then even the single sex designs are enclosed. In that sense, if people aren’t using the correct toilet for their sex, they let everyone down.

I think it’s right for a trans person to use the facilities of their sex (or birth sex as you call it) because it’s safer for them and everyone else. The safer designs follow.

Leave the bigger disabled toilets for those who they are designed for.

I think there are 2 separate if related issues.

One of which is that in response to the Supreme Court ruling and the Interim Guidelines, various articles have implied that disabled toilets could be co-opted to be the "gender neutral" option for trans people who cant use the toilets of their "identity" and wont use the toilets of their sex.

Clearly they shouldn't and providers need to ensure there are single sex toilets, disabled toilets, and gender neutral toilets.

I dont the think problem of men trying on dresses is the cause of the other problem which is all too often for any number of reasons, disabled toilets become the default "solution" with what is the lack of sufficient women's toilets, and as well as the number of toilets that are out of order.

An out patient department I go to fairly regularly (where you are lucky to be seen within 2 more likely 3 hours of your booked time) has only 3 seperate single toilets. Male, female and disabled. More often than not the only working toilet is the disabled one.

Equally, when there are queues for the "ladies" at events etc., many women become desparate and use the disabled toilet, rather than for instance going into the "gents".

Or as happened to my mother, then in a wheel chair, who was literally pushed out of the way by a women with 2 children saying they should take priority and she barged into the disabled toilet with the 2 children for what seems hours. As it happened, but it could very well not have happened, my mother managed the long wait without accident. And I am afraid to say that when the women did eventually emerge with her 2 children she made not attempt to apologise or even acknowledge my mother at all.

Maybe I should start an AIBU thread and see it any mumsnetters admit to something this.

I dont have a problem with what might seem the fact that disable toilets are "under used" any more than I have a problem with seeing unused disabled parking spaces at supermarkets etc..

These are provided because whenever it might be someone will need it. And other people who dont need specialised provision shouldn't then think they aren't really necessary.

By and large, the lack of appropriate toilets facilities, is a huge problem.

There was a thread some time ago on FWR about how many women, for various reasons, are effectively as much on the loo leash as Victorian women.

“I am not demonising trans people”

“some hulking great bloke in an ill-fitting dress is touching up his make-up”

yep, checks out

Why can't men buy dresses and take them home to try on - are they finding dressing as a women in a disabled loo a turn on?
Or the control of taking spaces for disabled people excites them?
I don't care what men want to wear but it seems like they want women's spaces and now people with disabilities spaces.

So how often are disabled people left waiting to use a public toilet because someone is using it to try on a dress?

Slow news day so let's make up a non-existent issue so we can keep talking about and demonising trans people?

I think baby changing facilities in disabled toilets is probably a bigger issue. I think the toilets need to be reserved for those with a disability who need them.

There are such a small number of trans people so it surely won’t be a normal occurrence. The census estimates there are approx 300k trans people in the uk which is less than 4000 per county. Is it really that bad for them to use disabled toilets when a neutral space isn’t available? Either thought no one changes sex, do you think it’s right for a trans person to use the facilities of their birth sex when they’ve transitioned due to severe discomfort with their sex?

I don’t think you can, not unless someone has toileting problems post surgery which mean they need the extra space or need a toilet really quickly (or if they happen to have some other disability anyway).

Not all medical conditions require a disabled or accessible loo do they?

How often is acceptable in your view?

OP has a point. Disabled loos are for disabled people, not men with colourful hobbies.

You're right, OP. Men need to use the men's loos, whatever they happen to be wearing.

I think this rather depends on whether we think trandgenderism is a medical problem.

I suspect Kemi Badenoch, insofar as she thinks it's a legitimate thing, sees it as a treatment for serious dysphoria.

In which case you could argue the disabled loos were appropriate.

I agree.. I didn't use that phrasing by accident....

corlan · Today 15:36

There's an article in The Guardian trying to make out there's an alliance between disabled people and men who want to use women's toilets. I gave up reading it because it was the usual dishonest bollocks.

I read that yesterday and was angered by the utterly specious nonsense it consisted of. I gave up and went back to it later and was astounded.

It's not as if there aren't numerous unisex toilets around, is it?

How often does this happen?

How often are disabled people having to wait on a public toilet specifically because it's in use for trying on a dress purposes??

MerseysippiQueen
Is there any reason why there can't be an accessible toilet in the ladies and one in the gents? Still sex segregated but there would be two when before there was only one.

That wouldn't work if the disabled person had a carer of the opposite sex and required their help, eg husband and wife, mother and adult son.

And it’s not up to women to do it either.

‘Are you aware of how often disabled people hear that there concerns aren't relevant, aimed at the wrong people,’

It’s the same for women so yes, we’re very used to it. Many of us on here have disabled children, me included, and I have posted many, many times about how often disabled people get overlooked and treated appallingly. I also want to keep ALL men out of women’s single sex spaces, these two things are not mutually exclusive.

I have to be honest with you, I don’t really understand why you have posted specifically here? Who are you aiming your post at?

Umm…I thought accessible toilets were just another name for disabled toilets?

I don’t think they’re free for anyone to use?
Confused now.

I’ve never encountered a ‘GC person’ that does. Men should use the men’s toilets no matter how they identify and women use the women’s toilets.

That's an unusual version of the history of disabled toilets - what about the disabled campaigner and architect Selwyn Goldsmith, who designed the first accessible toilets in the UK because he believed that it was the structures and facilities that were holding disabled people back from wider participation in society

I never heard the 'avoiding offending able-bodied people' narrative, what is the source? Did that happen somewhere other than the UK?

Is there any reason why there can't be an accessible toilet in the ladies and one in the gents? Still sex segregated but there would be two when before there was only one.