Toilet progress Supreme Court

I start from the position that there is no real reason for transwomen not to use the men's toilet - there is no evidence of any danger to them, and 'feeling uncomfortable' doesn't seem to bother them as they are happy to make women, and disabled people, feel uncomfortable by having our designated spaces used by male/ non-disabled people.

The provision of 'fourth spaces' i.e. proper, building-regs-compliant unisex toilets, is expensive and disruptive to existing buildings, and new buildings are required to provide single-sex facilities. All this to placate a tiny percentage of the population - 0.5%? 0.2%? who do not need their own separate facilities, in the way that people with disabilities need adapted accessible facilities.

The ideas that we must provide so-called 'third spaces' [ignoring that disabled toilets are the existing, required third space] has gathered a momentum entirely out of proportion to the number of people claiming to 'need' them.
It is not unreasonable, or literal violence, to suggest to a biological male that there are two sex-segregated toilets, designated by biology, and please use the one that matches your biological sex.

Furthermore, many transpeople - an increasing number, I think - are now saying that of course they haven't changed their sex, they acknowledge that they retain their natal sex, they have just changed their gender presentation, and make their demands based on that.

A transperson who acknowledges that they have not changed biological sex, just their gender presentation, has no basis for asserting a 'right' to use the single-sex facilities designated for the opposite biological sex.

Basically, this trans obsession with using other people's toilets, or demanding their own special facilities, is unreasonable, expensive, disproportionate, disruptive, unjustifiable and tiresome.

Next time, I'll come off the fence and tell you what I really think😁

Those may be ambulant toilets which are a great idea. Slightly bigger, hand rails and a shelf.

So accessible toilet cubicles in normal single sex toilet blocks work? I’m sure that’s what they have in Ikea. One of the cubicles is significantly bigger with a different door mechanism. But it’s within the single sex toilets.

I would have thought that was a good solution, provided the doors are manageable. I wonder if it only works where there is a constant stream of people in and out to manage the doors.

That’s hilarious

Pleased to see this, but I also worry about disabled toilets being hijacked for this reason.

Having a disability does not entitle you to use the disabled toilet. Your disability needs to relate to having a physical condition that requires the space and facilities and immediate access that disabled toilets provide.

Lots of us have disabilities that do not require an accessible toilet.

Haha, bet they hated doing that.

Again, we have "may be difficult and upsetting for some of our colleagues" - they didn't give a fuck about making it "difficult and upsetting" for women these past years.

It appears Police Scotland may have complied with the Supreme Court ruling.

x.com/caluma_steele/status/1953742953727299848?s=46&t=AjtjSItRj-kgZwRzL-pdyQ

If children are going to the toilet with an adult, they are safer going into the less private toilet single sex toilet of their adult ‘carer’, than a private mixed sex toilet together or a private toilet on their own. That is why it is right that there is an exception for young children.

A parent will protect their child from seeing anything untoward.

An adult-child combination that is of opposite sexes should not have more privacy than an adult-child combination of the same sex.

It’s a start but they shouldn’t be encouraging all and sundry to use the Accessible loos.

I’d hope venues which are supposed to be family friendly would already have some mixed sex facilities for parents with opposite sex children, though maybe they’d explicitly be labelled as for families, so they wouldn’t be appropriate for single adults either.

We don't actually know what accessible provision they have, it's mentioned in plural, so unlikely to be just one.

Our local leisure centre has male and female, with 3 stalls each and four accessible toilets which double up as baby change or taking multiple children in. Many leisure centres have a lot of provision for buggies etc rather than just the minimum requirement.

My research shows it is women who are too afraid to use gender neutral toilets so they use the ladies. Men who want to use the ladies, want to use the ladies not gender-neutral. Robin Moira White calls the gender-neutral toilets ghettos, although also says they are useful for other people in the process of transitioning. From a Stonewall survey (published in 2018 and referred to in 67% of the responses for the ‘calls for evidence’ in the toilet consultation for Doc T), people are being harassed by being verbally abused and in one incidence, pushed out the toilets by 2 women. 48% were uncomfortable using toilets. The general population figure (in a different survey) is 80% feel uncomfortable. Opinions and surveys need to be qualified by facts.

There’s a consistency to my findings of private toilets that shows it’s where people (always involving a man) have sex, it’s less clean, and there’s a greater risk of catching something or coming to harm. The most obvious example of preventable harm is someone who has had a medical emergency and isn't found in time. These are individual tragedies that happen on a regular basis to too many families. I have found examples where this has happened to men, women and children in toilets. It can be cardiac arrests, strokes, drugs, head injuries, choking, suicide, self-harm gone wrong.

But the other major prevention is that people ‘prefer’ to do criminal things in private. It doesn’t seem to matter how public the space is before the private enclosed toilet room/cubicle as there’s no witnesses. CCTV doesn’t prevent as it’s retrospective and not inside the cubicle/room (though we are now getting close to that in some schools).

We don’t need to replace single sex toilets with mixed sex toilets. I don’t think there’s enough benefit to justify the cost.

If you tack a private mixed toilet on to increase provision, this is what will happen:
Some may function ok depending on supervision levels (someone being in place having awareness of who is going in and out in real time). This is the same as a unisex toilet at school reception. Others will be stuck in inappropriate places - such as the women’s changing rooms in the basement in the Sandie Peggie case. Women won’t like using them because of safety risks, dirt and smells. Men who want to use the ladies won’t use them because they’ll feel outed or othered. People who will use them include men for a ‘good sit down’ with their phone, two people having sex, and people doing drugs. Depending on where it is, you may have someone sleeping in there if the cubicle/room is big enough. It will be vandalised more frequently. Because of this, it will be shut down more regularly for maintenance. Public toilets sometimes only last a day before they have to be shut down. That’s why thousands have been shut down permanently around the country.

It will be interesting to hear the Good Law Projects arguments in November because I don’t know what position they can justify on health and safety grounds. As soon it’s ambiguous as to who is using toilets, the design goes completely private. Mixed sex designs are always private.

Whichever way they argue, they are arguing for less safe and less hygienic toilets. They haven’t thought it through and don’t have the research on real life consequences.

I keep hearing the term ‘luxury beliefs’ and I think this works with toilets too. When people making policy or designing public toilets think the most horrid thing about toilets is that they are not in a completely private cubicle/room, it becomes a problem.
When I speak to policy-makers some lament that there used to toilet attendants. We have to rely on strangers now for supervision.

Women should have twice as much provision as men. There should be blocks of toilets with a private single sex area (with sinks) and then individual toilet cubicles with gaps above and below the doors and partitions. This minimises queues. The block should preferably have natural light and roof lights/windows that open for natural ventilation. The sanitary bins should be placed within the cubicle then the toilet positioned. There should be an increase in ambulant toilets within single sex provision. These have handrails and shelves so useful for those who may otherwise have to use the accessible provision. The pinnacle would be an accessible toilet within the single sex block too. There should be a clear standard set of rules: no loitering, no phones out, and a note on voyeurism laws and the sexual offence act.
The accessible mixed sex toilet(s) should be as carefully monitored as is possible.

Toilet blocks should be as boring and functional as possible.

In nightclubs etc there could be an open plan area for preening with mirrors, chairs and a sink etc and Instagram friendly walls. Completely public and nothing hidden, open to all.

I am disabled and have no choice but to use the accessible toilet.
Now I am supposed to wait whilst some non disabled bloke is in there doing his make up??
Not really a victory.

This is great, and seems fair.
i agree it’s concerning that accessible toilets may be under more pressure, it feels like a good use of resources to prioritise building more of these.
I really feel that people with hidden disabilities, including mental health issues such as gender dysphoria, need these facilities.
it’s a tragedy that so much money was spent on stonewall brainwashing that could have been used in a different way.

If it really is too frightening (ha) for Trans identifying men to use the male loos, then a fourth space (ie not clogging up scare-enough accessible facilities) would be preferable to this.

But at least they’re not dragging their heels as hard as the NHS (still) is.

Well done Dudley and Alton Towers. Come on the rest of the country.

It's a good sign, I like that they said 'recent ruling', although recent clarification would have been better.

I'd tried to find a source for Merlin that wasn't just India but didn't have any luck - does anyone else have a link to share?

To be fair, so many organisations got drenched in Stonewall's interpretation of the law and everyone thought Stonewall - the much respected gay-rights campaigning group - must be correct. Of course, we know otherwise now but plenty of places genuinely thought they were doing the right thing. Good on Dudley for correcting themselves; so many others won't accept they were wrong or don't dare incite the ire of the TRA crowd.

The problem with accessible toilets is because they are mixed sex and private and bigger, more goes on in them that takes longer (sex and drug related). Even at the BBC, according to Rod Liddell in the Spectator.

This is particularly frustrating when it is the only toilet that is suitable for your toileting needs which may be urgent because of a medical condition.

edit to say: we need to leave accessible toilets for toileting and changing needs for those who need them - this may be ambulant people too with certain medical conditions.

The new accessible toilet dilemma is not great. Already people using disabled toilets are disadvantaged by all the problems that go with mixed sex designs.

Interestingly in the Stonewall survey that was quoted in 2/3 of all public responses for the toilet consultation several years ago, 51% said they were disabled. It didn’t breakdown this figure into which disabilities.

Not all disabled people are better in accessible toilets either. For example, people who have epilepsy, diabetes, pots, post-stroke frailty, heart conditions are best having a single sex toilet with door gaps so they can be seen asap if they need assistance. Collectively this group is in the millions of people. Ambulant single sex toilets are good for some in this group too as they provide hand rails and a shelf.

A pity they didn't get proper legal guidance before opening the women's changing rooms/toilets up to men. It was all there in the EA2010 - it just needed reading properly and in its entirety.

The failure to protect accessible toilets in the same way as the sign protects single-sex toilets is a big disappointment - otherwise this sign is great, and should be used everywhere.

Some mental illnesses can indeed be disabling; however, just having a disability does not automatically mean you should use the accessible toilet.

Many people with disabilities are perfectly capable of using the 'ordinary' toilet. For example, the fact that I am deaf does not mean I need an adapted accessible toilet, so I leave it free for those people with disabilities who don't have the luxury of choosing which toilet they feel more comfortable in - for some disabled people it's the accessible loo or no loo at all, it's not a choice.

At times my other disabilities limit my strength and mobility to the extent that I physically need an adapted accessible toilet to be safe, in which case I use the disabled toilet. But I only do so when I actually need to.

Disabled people know that we are not all one homogenous group who all need adaptations to make toilets accessible for us, and we know the importance of keeping accessible toilets free and available for disabled people who need the adaptations.

There is no way of policing women's toilets to 100% keep men out, it works on trust - 'the good men stay out so the bad men stand out' .
Similarly, the decision to use the accessible toilet is a matter of trust and personal judgment, but it is every bit as important to state on signage that the accessible toilets are intended for people with disabilities only, as it is to state that the women's toilets are for biological women only.

I'd consider extreme mental illness that causes someone to chemically or surgically change their body a disability.

Someone using the accessible facilities because they prefer not to use single sex spaces for their biological sex is probably going to be quicker in the toilet than someone with a limiting physical disability. The transwomen posting pics of themselves in the Ladies aren't going to be posing in the accessible toilets.

Hoping all other councils follow this example.

Merlin have worked out that their main target demographic is families, and how the adults in that demographic might feel.

Well done. I mean, about time and the only sensible decision in terms of their business, but still, well done.

It's a good start but I'm not particularly thrilled about the Accessible toilet being utilised by someone who "prefers" to use a gender neutral one. Accessible toilets are a legal requirement for those with actual disabilities not because they fancy not using/queueing for the fe/male toilets.