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Original poster

The removal of ladies toilets

107 replies

Sparks654 · 20/09/2025 23:14

I like many women, have been really dismayed at the removal of separate sex public toilets - and also the lack of discussion and women's voices being raised and heard on this topic. I live in Somerset, and where I live the town hall, and all public toilets are mixed sex. Private businesses also seem to be either refurbishing their facilities to remove ladies and gents toilets, or new businesses directly are making all toilets mixed sex.

This is actually silently excluding women from public spaces, although I know anecdotally of men who've told me they feel uncomfortable with the mixed sex bathroom arrangement and that they are intruding on women's space. In fact recently I was visiting an art gallery and had no option but to use the facilities - which I discovered are now unisex. A man entered and saw a row of women and asked - "this is unisex isn't it?" He hovered awkwardly at the door.

I wonder if other regions are noticing the same thing? Polls seems to suggest that over 70 percent of the population want single sex toilets and yet with public money they are being removed? I feel this is actually silently excluding women and girls from public spaces we might have been able to access. Now I feel obliged to check in advance where I am going to know if there are ladies toilets available, and I am finding something that used to be a given, and a women's health service, is disappearing. Wonder what is happening elsewhere and if there is a free discussion taking place, or - if in my experience - a dose of cancel culture is stopping the question of women's rights being raised?

OP posts:
Kuretake · 21/09/2025 01:12

At my work we have mixed sex loos and the rationale is that it allows us to have fewer overall. The set up is a door off the main office space into a little corridor with 12 individual rooms.

I'm a little undecided on them - in some ways it's more privacy overall as each little cubicle has it's own sink and dryer. It'such easier to sort a mooncup for example. I do hate how you can bump into a bloke in the little narrow corridor. My ideal would be the individual rooms with sinks but a set of each for men and women.

justfortoday112 · 21/09/2025 01:02

Both men and women mostly want single sex toilets, not just women. The push for them just seems so misguided but so many are afraid to say anything.
We had unisex in my last school and the boys didn’t want to use them either.

DiscoNights · 21/09/2025 00:15

This bothers me strongly. I really want single sex toilets but they all seem to be becoming mixed sex toilets now. It makes me feel extremely uncomfortable and vulnerable.

MarieDeGournay · 21/09/2025 00:12

It not only feels instinctively wrong, Sparks654 - I'm not an expert by any means, but I have Document T on speed dialSmileand I think removing existing separate provision and replaced it with gender neutral/unisex toilets is wrong Toilet accommodation: Approved Document T

Since the SC ruling, there has been a lot of focus on the Equality Act, but there are a number of other laws and regulations that determine what toilet provision is required - workplace regs, health and safety, building regs etc.

As far as I can see, they all agree that in the first place, the requirement is for separate sex-segregated toilets. Unisex toilets may be provided as an optional extra.
Where there is insufficient space for separate toilets, unisex provision is acceptable.

Older buildings will have separate facilities already; building regs require new buildings to have separate facilities unless there's limited space.
There's really no justification for not having sex-segregated facilities in new buildings, or keeping the existing ones in old buildings.

RareGoalsVerge has pointed out that a gender neutral/unisex toilet is something specific, not just a standard toilet with a different badge stuck on the door.

So unless there isn't enough space for separate toilets - which is obviously not the case in buildings where they already exist - there should be separate men's and women's toilets.

And 'gender neutral' 'unisex' toilets are supposed to comply with detailed specifications, they can't be existing toilets re-badged.

moto748e · 20/09/2025 23:49

It's dismal. Nobody wants this (well, hardly anyone, say no more, etc etc), and yet councils and other public bodies continue to defy not just what the public want, but what they are entitled to in law.

Original poster
Sparks654 · 20/09/2025 23:32

Some and some. Some you go into a room and then there are the cubicles, and the ones in the park are directly opening onto the park, so not enclosed. Either way the park ones are only used by men and I've seen women taking their daughters to pee behind trees behind the block to avoid using them. We all know that park toilets aren't nice anyway, and sometimes actually pretty seedy -- I actually have on a few occasions happened to be walking past when they are being cleaned and have heard the cleaning ladies sharing some unpleasant observations, shall we say.

For me it's not only about the privacy and safety, it's also about women's toilet needs and those differing. Park toilets as an example aren't cleaned every hour - they are cleaned daily, so there is a long while that women might have to use them in a bad state.

I haven't really got the energy or capacity for taking legal advice, or really battling further with the local authorities, but I did want to hear from others, as sometimes if feels like women aren't being heard.

OP posts:
RareGoalsVerge · 20/09/2025 23:24

Are the unisex toilets entirely self-contained rooms with floor-to-ceiling walls and doors including individual handwash facilities, that open out into a general corridor? If so, that wouldn't bother me so long as they are clean. If they have put a unisex label on the door of a room containing cubicles with gaps around the dividers and doors with shared handwashing facilities, that's not acceptable and does not meet existing obligations under the law to provide single sex facilities. Mixed sex facilities are supposed to only be single-user-fully-self-contained. Only buildings where the available space is too small to provide 2 separate cubicle-rooms are supposed to have only mixed sex single-user-fully-self-contained facilities, though any building can have these in addition to single sex facilities.

If the only facilities available are mixed-sex non-self-contained cubicle rooms you may well have a case for sexist discrimination because that's a situation that disadvantages women. Take legal advice.