Bristol Watershed toilets situation.

In relation to the rise of the hidden camera. There is a safeguarding principle of prevention, making the environment the least likely to case harm that is possible within reason. By allowing men to have access to women's and children's spaces the cinema is making it much easier for voyeuristic men to set up spying devices. Have the cinema taken any advice about what they are possibly facilitating by unnecessarily making every toilet unisex?

Also, are the fully enclosed toilets accessible toilets and does that limit disabled access?

They are at least demonstrating that the only possible options are mixed sex, single sex or single occupancy uni-sex.

For the small minority who don't want to use these toilets, or our gender neutral toilets, we have designated two fully enclosed toilets as single sex toilets.

The question is whether this is really a small minority, and whether by failing to make adequate single sex provision they are discriminating against women. But unfortunately I think there will need to be some court cases to decide that.

Realised I mistyped: Letter of complaint 'to Lewisham Council' not 'for Lewisham Council'.
I think there is a massive need for letter writing generally. It makes a difference when there are lots and lots of letters/ emails.
Good on you for writing to the cinema.

I've written an email for Lewisham Council ( London Green Council) about safeguarding for children because parents/carers should be able to send children (both boys and girls under 8) to the women's toilets for safety. They should be able to use these toilets without men being around, even if it is men waiting outside a single cubicle. Also, we should be able to send children to the toilets to a degree unsupervised as independence is a really important thing for a child. Mum or Dad is buying popcorn and the kids go to the toilet. Jonathan Haidt says that the great mental health decline in young people is partly due to lack of confidence and freedom due to being over-coddled by parents. Women's Spaces are children's spaces. You can't just say 'Trans Women are Women' to a child because you are lying to a child because it is a man. Lying to children like this makes them less safe. You are diminishing the Safeguarding of children. Have the cinema considered whether by making things more inclusive for one vulnerable group they have not made another vulnerable group (children) less safe?

Glad to find this thread. I visited the Watershed about 2 weeks ago and was disgusted to see that the remaining single sex toilets had been converted to gender neutral/mixed sex/trans+inclusive - whatever.

The signage very much suggested that the women's toilets were for women plus TW (and the men's for men plus TM). It is completely unclear who they are expecting to use them, - it is disingenuous of Reddington to pretend they are mixed sex, when the doors had the universal signage for women & men on each. The suggestion is they are expecting each to continue to be used as single sex provision but with the inclusion of the opposite sex who ID as trans. I'm pretty sure that this is in breach of the law, but can't get my thoughts straight on it.

The history of toilet provision at the Watershed is a total disgrace. They had perfectly good single sex toilets in the main foyer, plus a gender neutral toilet at the end of the screen corridor. This was clearly marked with the trans logo. It was an act of sheer spite to change the main cinema toilets to mixed sex, and I have always opted to use the bar toilets instead. Now that option has been removed.

I can't see it improving until Reddington goes - but no idea how to bring that about! I certainly won't be going back to the Watershed until they sort it out.

Its more hidden cameras nowadays bit like (allegedly) the bloke in the Scottish Parliament. More footage, less risk. Doctors and teachers (all male) are particularly afflicted.

It’s always difficult when talking about safety on social media to discuss why things should/shouldn’t be done in design, but making the cubicle as plain and boring as possible has advantages. It you see a suspicious ceiling camera, a vent with a light in it, a strange hook with a lens, a strange air freshener, a pen on the floor just be aware.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/may/27/secret-spy-cameras-voyeurism-uk

Perhaps we have to wait for the inevitable hidden cameras/ phone under partition voyeurism cases to make the Watershed rethink. 😕😕

What's the Colston Hall Bristol Beacon like these days?

I don't know the answer but I'm v annoyed to hear this, I hate it when they change the womens toilets to let men in, they've done it in the Bristol Old Vic too, whenever I go in after a man they've invariably left the seat up and I have to touch the germy seat to flick it down. I used to avoid the gender neutral toilets at Watershed as a man accidentally opened the door on me in there once as the lock was loose or something. In a women's toilet block that would have been mildly irritating but when a man did it I got a visceral shock. So I'm fed up to hear the ones behind the bar have been changed.

I was thinking more of Xena, armed with a sword, crossbow, copy of Doc T and a clipboard😁
but yes, Pete could do a good job.
Different outfit though please, Pete😬

This seems to have been forgotten/swept under the carpet:
1. The government published a technical call for evidence on toilet provision for men and women in October 2020. This followed concerns that increasing numbers of publicly accessible toilets were being converted into ‘gender neutral’ facilities with shared waiting and hand-washing facilities, causing safety and privacy concerns especially for women. Women need safe spaces given their biological, health and sanitary needs (for example, women who are menstruating, pregnant or at menopause, may need to use the toilet more often). Women are also likely to feel less comfortable using mixed sex facilities.
Toilet provision in buildings other than dwellings - GOV.UK

I think it can be pretty safely said that many of the alterations that have been made to change single-sex loos to mixed sex are not legal, and will contravene various regs. But they've all just gone ahead and done it anyway, like the Watershed.

I keep meaning to check out Home, the Manchester version of the Watershed, which is even more right-on. I used to go quite a bit, but haven't been lately.

What we need is our own crack team of Building Regs inspectors to check all these alterations to buildings, many of which are motivated by sheer spite in my opinion😠

Perhaps Pete the Plumber could re-train?

As ever, thank you to KTS for your detailed and reliable information - it would be so easy to just have a generalised, furious, frustrated, justifiable but easily-dismissed 'go' at venues like the Watershed.

Advice from KTS and other well-informed posters mean that OP can challenge the venue with facts and figures on her side.

There's a vague idea in my head when I hear about venues [not this one, but lots of others] removing the single-sex toilet blocks - or at least the women's - and replacing them completely with mixed sex toilets.

Some vague ideas about the compliance - IANABRCI - I am not a building regs compliance inspector
There is a minimum number of toilets required in public buildings, I found this, it's a commercial website but they give the regs in full:
How Many Toilets Do You Need?
Interestingly, it looks like the BS Regs still refer to separate provision for men and women - which makes sense give that men's and women's toilets have different rates of throughput because men and women are <look away now TRAs😧> physically different. So:

When venues remove all single sex toilets and replace them with 'gender neutral'/'unisex' mixed sex ones, are they still complying with British Standard 6465-1:2006+A1:2009 – Sanitary Installations.
[which to the best of my knowledge apply to all of the UK, not just England as is the case with Building Regs Doc T]

Building Regs Doc T came into effect in 2024, so any newbuild in England must have separate men's and women's toilets, as long as there is space for them, and mixed sex toilets are an optional extra.

But I think Building Regs also apply to significant changes/refurb of existing buildings, so:
Is removing a block of toilets and replacing it with a number of building-regs compliant 'universal' toilets significant enough as 'building work' to come under the requirements of Doc T?
In which case it would mean deliberately changing an existing compliant single-sex configuration, to one which does not comply with building regs.

I think 'like for like' changes to toilets don't need planning permission etc., but I'm also vaguely aware that significant changes to the location of water supplies/hot water/waste do require permission, so
Since every 'universal' toilet cubicle has to have its own individual water/hot water/waste plumbing, does this require advance permission/checks for health and safety compliance of replacing existing toilets with new mixed sex ones?

What we need is our own crack team of Building Regs inspectors to check all these alterations to buildings, many of which are motivated by sheer spite in my opinion😠

I am aware. I have been looking at the viewpoints and facts for all groups over the last few years. The safety of transwomen in particular has dominated toilet discussions to the detriment of everyone in terms of design and provision.

An example was the consultation for England’s Document T, where Stonewall UK’s LGBT in Britain – Trans Report (2018), was cited in 11,866 responses (67% of all responses).

Stonewall and other allied organisations got together and coordinated a strong response from their supporters - which is obviously fine but distorts the consultation results so much that the results are misrepresentative of the uk population as a whole.

In Stonewall’s UK LGBT in Britain – Trans Report (2018) it states that almost half (48 per cent) of 733 trans people sampled don’t feel comfortable using public toilets through fear of discrimination or harassment. I presume, but it is unclear, that this means going into the toilets of the wrong sex. To put this in context, not liking public toilets is common. 80% of the 2,000 people polled in a Bloo-commissioned survey in 2024, who say they are uncomfortable and would only use a public toilet if it was completely unavoidable, but mostly due to hygiene concerns: pungent smells 60%, unflushed toilets 71% – and blockages 59%). This compares with 56% of the population who restrict their fluid intake before going out so they can avoid using a public toilet (RSPH, 2018). In this latter survey conducted by Populus, 20% of the 2,089 UK adults aged 18 or over, did not go out as often as they would like.

On reading of this Stonewall report
it shows the worst toilet account detailed was where a visit to the toilet became physical with people pushing another out of the washroom. Using biological sex for clarity, a man was pushed out of the ladies by two women when he refused to leave the women’s toilet, after it appears lots of shouting. The weight given to this one account of a man going in to the wrong sex toilet, needs to be contextualised with the verified incidents where safety has been compromised in non domestic toilets, within the whole population. My research is verified by such sources as reports from courts, police and coroners.

79% of responses for the Document T consultation mentioned safety concerns for trans/non-binary people and 75% mentioned safety concerns for women.
This meant that fewer than 5% of all responses mentioned safety concerns for one of the following groups: girls, children, men, disabled people, and boys. From my research children (boys and girls) and disabled people are vulnerable groups. Of course women are vulnerable too.

By the way, the analysis above has been published by the government, I didn’t work out these numbers, I investigated why what happens in real life did not bear any relation to the analysis of the consultation results.

So if you are still reading, the above affects the priorities the consultees give to toilet design. I won’t make this post any longer by discussing this in detail other than ‘gender-neutral’ (ie. open to both sexes) private design dominated too and it appeared only 12% wanted single sex toilets. Such a low figure has never been replicated anywhere else.

I really can’t stress how much I have looked into everyone’s safety and health in toilets over several years. Though I focus on the UK, I actually do have a report of an incident from several years ago in another country of a transwoman who was allegedly sexually assaulted in a toilet (do not have any details if it made court) but ironically it was in a private design, open to both sexes - the very design used more in this venue. I want everyone to be safe but provision needs to be based on facts and evidence, not those that shout loudest - for a worse design for health and safety for everybody.

In summary:
Why do we have a gap under public toilet doors? For health and safety
Why do we get rid of the gap when toilets are mixed sex? For privacy
What are we getting rid of by doing that? Health and Safety

There was a little supermarket next door, I used to park my bike there.

It is! Perhaps tarted up a bit, but handy for the Westbury Tavern and Waitrose, very cheap and you can take in a mug of tea!

Is the Orpheus still going? I remember it well, gloriously old-fashioned!

When they wanted public opinion on trans inclusion a few years ago I submitted a statement saying that it was indirect discrimination against many ethnic minority women in the city who would be excluded from spaces if males were allowed to use them, and that such woman were a far larger cohort than men in frocks. Of course, it made no difference as it was a foregone conclusion.
Yes, i filled out the consultation document and the (labour run) council responded to the fact that most people wanted to make sure that women had a right to single sex spaces by saying that they chose to ignore the results of the consultation.
We are run by f***ts.
I don't use the Watershed because it's full of Middle Class smuggerati. I use the Orpheus instead. No nonsense about loo allocation there. Ditto the newly built IMAX.

@Keeptoiletssafe I think the argument is that trans women are vulnerable & unlikely to harass another woman. That could be true but some women, and especially those fleeing war or domestic violence should not be expected to share facilities with anyone they don’t feel comfortable with.

I don’t know that asylum communities are especially sympathetic to the trans cause. So they don’t sit side by side naturally.

As well as the letter to the CEO, cc to the board of trustees reminding them of their responsibilities.

Exactly. It’s all about the surface gloss of shiny performative ‘kindness’ and ignoring, or in the case of gender politics being actively hostile towards, the negative unintended consequences.

To add to my post that ‘However, designers of ‘gender-neutral’ toilets all want private f-to-c cubicles or rooms’ it appears that this venue have gone further and to make everything mixed sex have misappropriated single sex design that weren’t designed to be mixed sex.

So from what I have gathered (I think this is the case?), there’s multiple problems here. There’s no such regulated design as ‘gender-neutral’, the term is universal.

From what I think the designs are, the best way to solve this is to change the pictogram back on the single sex designs. Cheap and easy. Then carve the gender neutral cubicle designs up into safer designs - changing the doors and partitons - and designating more for women and single sex designs for those with disabilities (ambulant and even non ambulant where possible).

Accessible toilets that are unisex should be in as heavily monitored places as possible. This is probably in place already. Newly created universal toilet rooms should be the same.

If the venue had stuck to building regs this would not be a problem they now should fix for the safety of everybody.

They could create some fantastic toilet provision that is truly and properly inclusive for everyone.

As other posters mention asylum seekers, can I just add a few statements from Amnesty here about toilets:
‘Women also reported having to use the same bathroom and shower facilities as men. One woman told Amnesty International that in a reception centre in Germany some refugee men would watch women as they went to the bathroom. Some women took extreme measures such as not eating or drinking to avoid having to go to the toilet where they felt unsafe.
“If this humanitarian crisis was unfolding anywhere else in the world we would expect immediate practical steps to be taken to protect groups most at risk of abuse, such as women travelling alone and female-headed families. At a minimum, this would include setting up single sex, well-lit toilet facilities and separate safe sleeping areas. These women and their children have fled some of the world’s most dangerous areas and it is shameful that they are still at risk on European soil.”’
“We have learned from so many mistakes in the past that women are at a greater risk for sexual assault and violence if they don’t have separate bathrooms,” says Amnesty International’s deputy director for Europe and Central Asia.