But that’s what we’re all saying. The single-sex spaces that now exist and are expected by social convention in this country (and supported by the vast majority of the public in polling) didn’t just appear one day by magic. Those spaces were fought for and with good reason. The urinary leash was real. Elizabeth Fry worked long and hard to prove the need for women’s prisons. Statistics still demonstrate that the vast majority of sexual and physical violence against women is by men. In order to facilitate privacy, dignity and safety and thus full and meaningful lives for women outside of their own homes these services are now provided on a single-sex basis. The exceptions have all been proven over the course of history.
I don’t know what happens in men’s toilets, besides “we just want to pee” and abusing transwomen who try to follow the law, but women have more and potentially messier bodily functions than men, and particularly in public we need a private space to deal with those with some level of dignity. Periods mean that we may emerge from even a closed cubicle with blood on our hands, or we may need to rinse stained clothing. I have previously had to use the loo with my baby’s pram half-in-half-out of the cubicle (I.e. with the door open) because there was no other way of doing so while keeping an eye on him. We’re not just hanging out in there giggling and sharing tampons, whatever the Reddit crowd thinks. And our regular poster KeepToiletsSafe can regale you with statistics of why individual self-contained toilets are less safe for everyone.
People who argue that there is no need for these spaces to any longer be single-sex remind me of anti-vaxxers, who have never lived in fear of their child dying from measles or diphtheria or being permanently damaged by polio. They don’t (or won’t) see that our current state of relative safety (still not nearly safe enough as regards women from men) is specifically because of the systems and provision that others fought for.