To be furious about gender neutral bathrooms in work?

[Kez437]

At the start I'd like to make very clear that I am pro transgender and those who do not prescribe to a particular gender. However as context, we have 2 office sites, I am in site 2. Across the company and in particular on my site there are many more males than females (something the company is desperately trying to solve). There is not a great person to bathroom ratio but currently we have 2 females and 4 males so the men have double we have. As of yesterday, with no prior notice gender neutral signs have been put up on the doors of all the bathrooms. When this was queried with out office manager we were told that there were not enough bathrooms for the men and as there are more of them they are always having to wait. To my knowledge and I'm fairly certain we have no transgender of non-assingning people in our company or on this site and the reason given has nothing to do with this. As of today I have learnt that site 1, which is our head office does not have gender neutral bathrooms and that next week when a client visits us the gender neutral signs are being taken down! I am, quite frankly, furious. It seems to me that this is a poor effort of 'oh there are more of them, they need to use your bathroom but we can't just say that so we'll make them gender neutral'. Not a single woman on site has used the previous male bathrooms so effectively they have gotten their way. Gender neutral is being totally scapegoated and not used in its proper context. If they were so concerned about gender neutrality surely all the bathrooms, inlcuding those in the main office would be gender neutral and they wouldn't be taking the signs down for a client visiting? Or they could have male, female and gender neutral (personally I thing this is the best way forward which caters for all, those who assign to a gender and those who do not). I am properly fuming about this, am I being unreasonable?

If the men's toilets are also being made gender neutral, I would start really flamboyantly using them.

I would spray tonnes of perfume and hairspray, I would spend ages in the mirror fixing my make up. I would spend an unreasonable amount of time doing my hair in the middle of the room and leave hair everywhere. I would talk loudly, openly and in graphic detail about my horrendous periods. Basically, use the men's toilets as you would use women's but much more visibly. See how they like gender neutrality then.

I don't want to use gender neutral toilets.

I was overseas recently and was in a gender neutral toilet, although didn't see it at the time. When I left my cubicle there was a man standing directly outside my cubicle and a queue of other men. I was the only woman in there. For a moment, I felt panic as I thought it would have been really easy for him to just push me back into the cubicle. I didn't hang around to wash my hands or touch up my lippy like I usually would. I wanted out of there.

I am someone who can usually hold my own and has more front than Blackpool. If this made me feel intimidated, imagine what a more shy or younger girl would feel?

For me it's an absolute no and I won't use public gender neutral toilets.

lostwith I certainly accept the 100 years of social conditioning is an issue...but that same conditioning says that women don't work once married, let alone after having children.

We should be challenging this conditioning not perpetuating it.

I would never do a poo in a bathroom that had cubicles, only one that was fully enclosed like a disabled toilet. Never. But I wouldn't do it in an all-female bathroom either.

Seriously? You call the OP unreasonable for her discomfort, which many other posters share, and then it turns out you have a discomfort of your own which is far, far more neurotic.

I'm more concerned that women on here seem to think washing out their Mooncups at the communual sink is reasonable! I agree, I don't think that is OK.

I used to work in a Victorian building, I was the only woman who worked there permanently. The men's loo was outside across a yard. I was asked if I minded the men using the women's loo as they had done before I started working there. I didn't mind, a woman who occasionally was in the office for about half an hour went mad. She lost the battle as HR backed the majority decision.

If it's not ok to rinse out a mooncup in a communal basin does that mean it's OK or not if the basin is in the cubicle? Surely the hygiene implications would be the same?

I would rinse the molecule into the urinal, for hygiene purposes

Our work toilets are all accessable and available to both sexes. They are self contained though with washbasins and bins in the cubicles which makes a big difference re washing hands/mooncups etc.
Is this N America with all the talk of "bathrooms?"

YABU - Don't know what happens in your house, but we don't allocate the bathrooms male and female. Never understood why the separation exists outside the home.

At larger firms I've worked, as soon as moving to new buildings all toilets are simply toilets - anyone can use them.

Morphene
Do people really find it more embarrassing to change a tampon in a locked cubicle with a man next door than a woman?
But why???
You seem to have some sort of a blind spot re privacy, so allow me to offer some clarity.
I'm menopausal now (thankfully) but when I wasn't I didn't want random males knowing where I was at in my reproductive cycle. It really isn't any of their business.
That's all there is to it really.

They tried to introduce unisex toilets at my work but the women kicked up a fuss and it wasn't introduced. The biggest concerns were that toilets men use end up more smelly than female ones, toilets seats being left up and piss ending up on the toilet seat and floor. The concerns were around smell and hygiene rather than privacy.

BanyanTree

Seems you have some big trust issues with the general public. That's really your issue to address. Any reason a fellow woman could not have pushed you as well?

If we are going to get rid of stereotypes associated with the sexes, it's better not to keep on expressing them.

Blink66 the seperation exists outside the home because there's a difference between 'family members' and random unrelated people that just so happen to be employed by the same company.
Presumably.

noeffingidea

I also let people who come to our house and friends etc. also use our toilets in the house - so it can't be down to family members.

So given there is no problem of sharing toilets on principle with the other sex (at home), and there is no problem with sharing toilets with strangers of the same sex (out of the home) - I'm still unclear why we require separation by sex, given that both sexes use the facilities for the same purpose.

(Although I don't think it matters, even if you do then why with people we essentially do know at work.)

Morphene feel free to challenge it yourself but I certainly wouldn't want to be forced into the vanguard of women being out and proud about having a period and not caring who knew because of an arbitrary decision by an office manager. I want to keep it private or only share the experience with other women.

Blink66 is your toilet at home surrounded by a thin barrier with large gaps at the top and bottom? Do you get to choose who is welcome in your home? There is a big difference between an enclosed room in a private home and a cubicle in a unisex toilet that was originally designed for use by a single sex in which men you may or may not know or feel comfortable with are also present. A comparison between your home and a specifically designed self contained toilet with floor to ceiling walls and doors would be more relevant and most have agreed that they would find that arrangement acceptable.

blink you 'let' people who come to the house use your toilet.
So, presumably, you are in control over who is allowed to use it then. You're not obliged to allow just anyone to use it, and you're not obliged to attend to your own bodily functions whilst seperated by a partition with gaps at the top and bottom.
Access to the toilet in your own house - where you have control over who can use it - and access to to the toilet in public spaces, where you don't have control over who can use it, are 2 different things.
And that's not even considering the fact that most toilets in private houses do not consist of cubicles where different people use them simaltaneously. Toilets in private houses usually consist of self contained rooms.
So, in short, a private home toileting situation is not really comparable with toilets in work spaces, unless the toillet is completely self contained ie a seperate room.

There are strict laws regarding toilets and the different sexes that buildings and companies have to follow. You can't just stick up a sign and say it is gender neutral. Urinals have to be private and separate. There are other rules too.

lost it isn't so much that I would like to force people out as you say...just that I am uncomfortable with everyone saying 'oh yes you are totally justified to feel humiliated by the presence of a male in the next cubicle'....when I really wouldn't want anyone saying 'yes its fine to feel like women just don't belong in the work place'

I don't like the presumption that women are justified in feeling the way they do. I get that we have to act to protect people - because we can't just demand everyone be okay with it - we really can't (and hence summary relabelling of bathrooms isn't an appropriate solution).

But pretending its okay/normal to see men as a threat or to think we can't admit to periods in front of them doesn't sit right with me at all.

I don't mind the single stalls with full-length doors that open directly into a corridor, but I would refuse to use a unisex bathroom where I could be trapped in a room with a strange man who I was not allowed to challenge.

And the OP's post says that it's done because the women allegedly have too much space. If that is the case, it's the only building in history where the women have more provision for toilets than the men do.

(It's amazing how in every public venue, ever, women are left to queue for the ladies, while the men can nip in and out, but the men's aren't then made gender-neutral, are they?)

The fact they intend to remove the signs when there are clients on site shows they know that they are not doing the right thing.

I don't use a moon cup. But I don't see the difference between a woman washing out a moon cup in a basin, and myself washing my hands that have blood on them after inserting a tampon.

I think we need a hit squad of mooncup menstruating women who go along and use any gender neutral toilets that are just cubicles, and wash out their mooncups in the communal sinks.

Oh and usual lack of empathy from some, for any woman who is worried about her safety around men she does not know.

I hope the gender neutral fashion will disappear and we can all be back to normal. If we don't try and do something about it'll get worse. The plan is to make one infertile gender, a small world population and reproducing "perfect" humans in a lab.