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

I just realised that the TKDB logo is a chess pawn wearing a fool's cap. Whichever adult behind the scenes designed that was laughing his sides sore about hiding that message in plain sight.

I welcome the move to accessible toilets, noting the issues that enclosed cubicles bring. A lot of disability is invisible. I know a man who looks very dapper and is mostly able-bodied. He has an ostomy bag that needs emptying 6-8 times a day, so he uses the accessible toilet.

Others have IBS, or autism that means they need a self-enclosed cubicle.

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.

So Ophelia is right, at some point we have to address the real reason men who identify as women want to use the ladies. It's to titillate their sexual fetish. This is also not something that women who identify as men have. Once again we are succumbing to what men want.

The government might not be so ready to plead for such men, if they knew the real reason for them wanting to use women's facilities.

OpheliaWitchoftheWoods
There has to immediately be a cheap, accessible, practical alternative to sex based provision. This is most likely in the short term to be enclosed single use cubicles and most likely to be the commandeered disabled ones, with all the issues involved, or re labelling of a proportionate number of cubicle rooms as gender neutral.

Why? Why all that disruption and expense for such a tiny number of transpeople - about 250,000, according to the last census?

Women's toilets for biological females, men's toilets for biological males is the cheapest, most accessible, practical solution, as most older buildings will have that configuration already, and all new building will have to have separated single sex toilets to meet with building regs.

Keeptoiletssafe has written in detail about the dangers of enclosed cubicles, and I have written many, many times, about the complete unacceptability of commandeering accessible toilets that disabled people campaigned for for decades, and handing them over to able-bodied transpeople simply because they prefer them.
Disabled toilets are not a preference for disabled people, they are a necessity.

Just reading in SM about the govt back-tracking with their unhelpful butting in to the GLP court case. There's every reason to be suspicious of their good faith, isn't there?

https://sex-matters.org/posts/updates/the-government-is-trying-to-rewrite-for-women-scotland/?mc_cid=c4dcb4c7fa

I disagree that we need to change much. There should be risk assessments and Equality Impact Assessments to assess what will happen if we start telling venues, at their own cost, to alter their provision. From my research, it is not a neutral act - the disadvantages outway the advantages. This is why I think there are delays - it is too huge if you are going to cater to a small proportion of people’s preferences. You can’t square having more private, mixed sex provision with health and safety. Remember superloos? They didn’t work for the same reasons.

Document T analysed costs etc and decided that any new toilets going forward should be done under Doc T conditions. It didn’t say you need to alter provision now, because it would be too costly. I think it costs about £15k per commercial toilet room from one manufactures site.

Provision should mainly be single sex (with door gaps). That should be the default as it is now. Ambulant toilets too are single sex.
Document T is mostly ok - annoyingly it doesn’t specify exact doorgaps (long story which involves transactivism preference over medical conditions) and they need to tweak them into the universal designs for single sex use in areas that can be single sex. It’s only single sex toilets that can have door gaps. There’s a couple of other niggles too but it isn’t a big job and it has been costed out already. BUT anyone thinking of changing toilets, if they are doing them to comply with building regs, has to do them to the specifications of Document T (with the exception of schools and a few others). It’s not that simple. Read any books on toilets and you’ll read about all the things that happen in them apart from the obvious.

Some are this mess partly because people did what they wanted in the recent past and didn’t build facilities that comply with health and safety. Some are accidentally in this mess because the people they trusted to know the rules, didn’t. One quarter of schools have private mixed sex cubicles most then with communal shared sinks. The fallout cost is going to be huge for those.

Maybe in ten year's time there's be a lot less demand for these gender-neutral (or whatever term you want to use) facilities? It would sure be ironic if millions were spent on new toilet configurations all over the country, only to find that people were increasingly satisfied with the traditional Gents and Ladies.

thanks 🤩

Just in case:

https://archive.ph/KkXT0

https://archive.ph/koUqi

Still there:

https://x.com/jolyonmaugham/status/954005262632972290

https://x.com/JolyonMaugham/status/954049878140825601

Yes. I check the designs using different methods. It’s easier because people tend to take pictures of facilities and post them on websites. There’s even Facebook pages devoted to them which is a bit odd. But some have beautiful tiles etc. and people rate them. There’s one dedicated to Wetherspoons loos! There’s helpful sites that discuss disabled loos and what side the transfer is on. Also Google maps, trip advisor.

There’s also live sites which discuss toilets for ‘quick transactions’. It’s difficult because I don’t want to sound like a prude, but having a design which makes it easier to have sex (there’s a clause in the Sexual Offences Act which makes sex in a public toilet illegal) means it’s easier to have unconsensual sex too.

When I did work on schools I looked in local papers. You could actually trace the timeline from a celebration of ‘inclusivity’ for new general neutral toilets, to parents and children complaining, to a serious incident happening.

Sometimes you can tell the design because of the description. The worst cases are the ones involving children when it’s a private mixed sex toilet in a very public area, which I get myself into a different ‘zone’ to read. I know practically anyone would help if they knew so this is the frustration.

This is what annoys me when the EHRC mentioned a shopping centre and said the solution is to add a mixed sex enclosed toilet elsewhere. That is not a neutral act. You have got to look at the disadvantages as well as the advantages. What will happen in there? How will this private space be supervised? CCTV outside is retrospective. Blue lights inside to stop drug use don’t really work and ODing in toilets is a problem. Where’s the risk assessment? It took only a few hours for the newly reopened public toilets in Bath to be closed again because they were trashed. Vandalism is a real problem in all public toilets.

Robin Moira White said mixed sex toilets can be ghettos. I agree that some can. Where we differ is that if Robin doesn’t seem to realise that if Robin uses the women’s then the designs change to mixed sex designs for everyone. It’s not a race to the worst loos.

@Keeptoiletssafe I've seen press reports recently on two people who have died in toilets following healthcare emergencies. There were no details about the toilet design in the articles I read, but I do wonder - especially for one who wasn't found for a week.

I haven’t got a website. Agree about Professor Clara Greed. Her work is amazing, I have never heard her lecture. There’s a Rose George book that’s fascinating too. And the man (whose name escapes me and I am travelling so can’t check) who did a lot for disabled loos - his wife was instrumental in getting more women’s loos in places.

Is there a website, @Keeptoiletssafe ? I remember hearing Clara greed talk about loos, it is a big issue and under considered

Happy to offer up what I have but the GLP one is done is it not? The judge is now writing up the decision. Unfortunately the things that have happened to me aren’t documented anywhere. The evidence that I have can all be corroborated in newspaper reports, foi results etc. so it’s checkable. I don’t collate anything that’s not published officially. The difference is, I have found no one else has been collating it. There should be a central body, maybe within the BSR of the HSE. Toilets are so important to get right.

The last time I saw Gerry Adams I had to do a double take, for he had let his hair grow long and was wearing a turquoise shellsuit. I wondered if he was about to head off to the Himalayas on a vision quest.

I kind of assume Jolyon will go off on another amazing tangent, but I have no idea what it will be. I just have faith that it will be cringe.

Epic, thank you. What a very odd journey he's been on. I wonder where it is heading.

Have you got a submission for the case, @Keeptoiletssafe

If he’s on here, I have offered to give him the evidence about toilets. I have also tried to engage on other types of social media in the past. He hasn’t replied.

Ironically his sentence is right as technically the right ‘bathrooms’ are the men’s. I can’t find the evidence either because the negative effects come from them using the women’s.

As I keep saying, I want to keep everyone safe. The design for single sex toilets is most likely to do that. But as soon as there is any ambiguity, the designs become mixed sex, which makes it less safe for everybody.

Jolyon in 2018:

”But simple self ID does not, for me, draw the line in the right place”

I'm also a bit shocked by how they treated their 'intersex' claimant. As discussed upthread, FWS has not changed her legal position at all, and she has a good case against her employer. GLP should have advised her of that, not involved her in a court case which is irrelevant to her. Isn't this unethical?

I hope Swift J is going to pick up all these nuances.

“Where is the evidence that the inclusion of trans women in sports is unfair?” he asked flippantly.

“Where is the evidence that there is any negative affect at all from allowing trans women to use the right bathrooms?”

Either he is stupid or he is arguing in bad faith. Or both.

Both can be true.