Good Law Practice launch a EHCR/Supreme Court challenge over toilets

Erm @myrtlelion that links to this thread, no?

ETA I assume you meant this one?
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5489699-glp-v-ehrc-judgement-is-coming-tomorrow

New thread here:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5350068-good-law-practice-launch-a-ehcrsupreme-court-challenge-over-toilets?page=1

GLP LOST!!!!

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/high-court-rules-ehrc-guidance-lawful/

They didn't have standing.

But three other people did have standing and they lost too!

🎉🥂🎈🎊🎁🎀🎂🎆🎇

If anyone wants a sex-realism legal fix, I've posted Tribunal Tweets' reporting of Kevin Lister's appeal on this thread:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5080317-kevin-lister

A TWAW group having a cock and balls as the logo is bang on message though. Many TRAs would enjoy the thrill of hiding in plain sight.

They aren't. That's one of their problems.

I am not hugely knowledgeable I am afraid. I would be careful of fans, dryers, vent grills in the ceiling, under sinks, items above that look like ‘alarms’. You can pick up reflections of tiny cameras with your phone torch sometimes.

Here’s a recent article:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/27/secret-spy-cameras-voyeurism-uk

I am of the opinion that toilet cubicles should be as simple and plain as possible.

The Scottish Parliament case is unusual in that it was a man filming men. It’s men that set cameras up in unisex toilets or women's normally. I am presuming the cubicle was private so he could set it up easily.

@Keeptoiletssafe Just out of interest, (and only because you have done so much research in this area!), are there any easy signs to spot if someone has voyeuristically set up a camera in a public toilet? Are there obvious places to look for one, in order to stay safe when using public loos?

I wonder if it was a GC or an evil middle aged male TRA that was laughing though?

(One of?) their motto(s) seems to be "'Not pawns for your politics".

Surely that's like having a campaign group protesting "Trans Women are Women" and using a cock and balls as the logo! Literally the logo is what you say you are not.

Having googled it would appear that the designer of the logo was a trans activist who appears to be a female and vulnerable-looking she/they.

Someone being bereaved isn't my problem to deal with either.

The emotional labour of supporting bereaved people also gets dumped on women. We are allowed to say "no" to this.

If the Good Law Project are watching this thread, please can you note I want to keep everyone safe.

I am looking at what trans people are saying about toilets and organisations like Translucent and Stonewall too. If you look at Translucent (2025) and Stonewall (2018) in terms of their literature on toilets, the worst case scenario is a man flashed a transwoman in protest about using the ladies and a transwoman was pushed out of the ladies by two women when they refused to leave. These incidences can not have been nice and there are lots more incidences of people telling others they shouldn’t be in the toilets they are using.

But in absolute terms of being safe in a public toilet you can’t beat a toilet where the occupant isn’t in a completely private place. That has to be a single sex design. But door gaps have being reducing in single sex provision too. It is now 5mm in some school designs. Part of that is because the area in front of the toilets has to be single sex and in ‘inclusive’ toilets it is not. If it’s ambiguous, or mixed sex, the obvious thing is to make it all private, which coincidently seems to be your argument. ‘Gender neutral’ designs are always completely private.

If you want to make safer toilets for transgender people, you should argue for a U.K. toilet design first - make mixed sex toilets with door gaps. These are not allowed under building regs (Document T which uses bs6465 as a base) and 1974 and 1992 legislation, so you could use that 500k you’ve raised to help you sort new legislation out. I would bet no biological women would use them. I don’t think most biological men would be that happy either.

You will also have problem with voyeurism laws and Section 71 of the UK's Sexual Offences Act 2003. This section makes it a criminal offence to intentionally engage in sexual activity in a public lavatory. An activity is considered sexual if a reasonable person would consider it sexual, regardless of the person's purpose. Making toilets private has handily avoided too much use of Clause 71. Out of sight, and all that. But it also protects transgender people if they are worried about assault, sexual or otherwise. Most men aren’t bad. Most men will come to another man’s aid if they were being assaulted, or at least raise the alarm if they had an idea what was happening.

I believe transgender people are still safest in the toilet (with door gaps) for their biological sex. If they do not use the correct toilet for their biological sex, then legally all toilets should change to universal design. This disadvantages everyone and there will result in more deaths and assaults that could have been prevented. It will be the most vulnerable that suffer.

Newsflash: people rein in their bad behaviour at work to avoid being fired and some rein it in when interacting with HCPs because they know they'll get struck off the practice list if they don't.

The true measure of how someone behaves is how they treat someone who lacks any power over them.

That's an awful read. Smith was a monster, but so many are culpable. They could see it out of the window, FFS!

It’s not until you look at toilet safety that you realise how important it all is to get design right and how they can not be compared with home toilets. And also the importance of speaking out.
The Smith Street toilets story always gets to me as people knew it was going on, they must have done, the council building looked down on them.

www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/rochdale-child-abuse-scandal-report-14525144.amp

"People".

I'm going to guess these "people" all had a mysterious quality in common, a weird biological feature that TRAs claim is soooo complicaated that no one can ever really say for sure, yet somehow still manages to be massively overrepresented in the sexual aggregressor/transgressor population.

😡😡😡

Yes don’t worry @MyrtleLion I thought it was a typo. It’s one reason why accessible toilets are called accessible rather than disabled. People with invisible disabilities but ambulant are often better in single sex toilets too. It’s important all disabilities are looked at, of course. And disabled/accessible toilets are absolutely the ones we should be concerned about the most as they are often left in a shocking state and misused - even for storage.

I noticed another set of council loos has been closed up north for lewd behaviour. People coordinating travelling out of area to ‘use’ them was the last straw for the council. I am in a bad mood today. We are not going to have any council run public toilets left at this rate.

It was a typo 😞

That should have read I DON'T automatically think they are trans.

As these men so often do.

No. Because a mixed sex, private space big enough for more than one person (that can be opened from the outside easily) is not as safe. Why have we had so many rapes happening in disabled toilets and train carriages? Why are so many deaths in enclosed designs? Why did the extra new disabled toilets at the BBC, according to Rod Liddle, get used for sex (as part of a bigger story about Russell Brand who is being accused of sexual assault a woman in a toilet).

There need to be as few of these as possible. The mixed sex disabled design needs to be so closely monitored off a general circulation space where hopefully people noticed who is going in and how long they take in there and also to act if they thought something was a problem.

Retrofitting mixed sex, private designs in unsuitable places is a nightmare for safeguarding.

Yes to designs with door gaps to prevent misuse and for supervision. Which means single sex toilets - they’re the only design that has them. Ambulant toilets can go in the single sex provision too, which is what happens at the moment.

There is not a problem with men. Most men are good men. There’s a problem of being in a private space accessible to all men. Take a bit of privacy out with small door gaps which means in legislation and building regs everyone sticks to their own sex in toilets. It means boys are safer in the men’s. It means women and girls are safer. Vulnerable people are safer if anyone, regardless of gender, has a medical emergency.

For the people who want to have sex or do drugs in toilets, they have a choice of running the risk of being prosecuted or not misusing the toilet.

There’s never going to be a perfect solution but what we had was based on health, safety and welfare. Public toilets are even specifically mentioned in clause 71 of the Sexual Offences Act (2003) and implied in voyeurism laws.

If you look at the Government’s Provision of Public Toilets (2008) (it’s googlible) you can see these are what are being discussed. There is nothing about men using womens toilets or vice versa. There is lots about men’s behaviour in toilets and women’s needs. Vandalism, sex, drugs, queues, problems with disabled toilets and misuse, lack of safe facilities for women, are all in there.

What has changed since 2008 is the loss of council public toilets so people are using venue toilets which have used a variety of rise of designs (seemingly building control is not used), mobile phones and transactivism: the rise of the unregulated and ill defined gender-neutral or ‘inclusive’ toilet. Now we have the rise of cheap hidden cameras, the easiest places to hide them and one where you are not noticed setting them up and one where they can be hidden easily amongst mechanical ventilation etc.

Voyeurism with mobile phones is a boy/man problem. But the way to prevent that it not to reduce health and safety by making designs completely private.
Having sex in toilets is illegal but the way to not have to deal with it in pubs and clubs is not to enclose toilets, because you have to consider unconsensual sex as well. Similar reasons with drug taking and overdoses.

The ‘out of sight, out of mind’ approach is not safeguarding.

Because most of the toilet behaviour is so sexed, the best way to deal with it is to have single sex toilets as the primary provision with healthier and safer non-enclosed designs. This prevents misuse, is better hygienically and most importantly protects anyone who is in need of help as they will be seen quicker and heard if they are able to make a noise, as the designs for single sex toilets can then have gaps in the doors and partitions. The ability for women to say ‘No’ and know that the government is behind you and you are not going to be prosecuted for harassment (or lose your job), which has been implied by others, is the thing that needs to be sorted out.

If I see someone going to the accessible toilet and they're not in a wheelchair, I automatically think they must be trans. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

Really? If I saw a man in women’s clothes then yes but not otherwise (I wouldn’t assume a woman in man’s clothes was trans as so many women wear men’s clothes without that belief system). You would think this even though you list in your post reasons why people not in a wheelchair may need accessible toilets?

THIS is exactly what will happen. Not least because it seems there might only be 1 generation significantly affected.

So I’d suggest we build (new/additional) gender neutral facilities which meet the requirements of a wider group which will also have the benefit of avoiding any claims of “outing”. Eg ambulance disabled, family groups, baby change, those who don’t like cubicles etc etc

Protection from torture is the only unqualified human right.