To not feel happy with gender neutral toilets at work?

[BalletBunting]

My company has recently relabelled all toilets on my floor as 'gender neutral'. As well as being rather confused as to what the need is for them (there are no trans people at my work as far as I'm aware) I don't like them, and I would prefer to keep the ladies loo as is. The nearest women's toilets is 3 floors up now!

I don't really feel comfortable going to the loo knowing that there are men in there but I don't really know how to bring this up and with who. I work for a large media company, fairly young/progressive and I don't want to cause trouble for myself.

There was also absolutely no consultation regarding the change. If anyone has been in a similar situation and managed to come to a different solution? Or AIBU and should drop it?

How is needing to have a gossip or apply make up valid reasons?

Grey gosh, are you still at it, claiming to speak for all women? Does the fact that you’ve had to write ‘finally, some sense’ nearly 300 posts in not make you realise how very unpopular mixed sex toilets are? Or do you just not care?

I have a friend who’s company is moving into a new building in a very prestigious development. One of the first things they were told was ‘don’t worry, there are no mixed sex toilets because we know how much everyone hates them.’ A firm of architects having understood that a company of nearly 500 people don’t like these.

Now, why is it so hard for you to understand that? What words don’t make sense to you? There have been many reasons given, some more lighthearted than others but you clearly don’t understand any of them.

And what makes you think that you’re opinion is the only one that counts? You don’t mind mixed sex toilets - gpfine. Why do you think that’s reason enough to override other people - woman and men? For those who don’t mind mixed sex toilets not having them is no hardship. You eg that, don’t you?

I didn't make any assumption @GreytExpectations

YOU seem to be assuming that survivors of sexual violence will be happy to discuss their real reasons for preferring single-sex facilities.

I would refuse to use a mixed loo

Blimey, birdonawire you'd have a long walk to the nearest public one from my office, even if you were prepared to use the one by the station where the junkies jack up! There are no separate toilet facililities for women in the entire building.

If you applied for, were offered and accepted a job, and rocked up on the first day and found out that the lavatories were unisex, what on earth would you do?

YOU seem to be assuming that survivors of sexual violence will be happy to discuss their real reasons for preferring single-sex facilities.

Please do show me where ive said that? This is the internet and therefore i am basing my answers off what posters are saying as i dont know them in real life. Itd be ridiculous to assume everything said has double meanings.

@CassianAndor am i not allowed to have an opinion of it differs from the majority then? I never said i speak for all women, you said that. I actually wrote what i personally think. Its an internet forum, we are allowed to voice our own opinions

crazycrazylady

Genuinely appalled you dismiss someone having a miscarriage and being comforted by female colleagues as “powdering their noses”.

I had a colleague who was undergoing her 3rd round of IVF. She was at work when she started bleeding and realised it hadn’t worked. I heard the sobbing in the cub kicks, brought her out and sat with her sobbing.

This kind of thing may not happen all the time but please don’t be so bloody glib.

TBF there are some pretty disgusting women too but thankfully they're a minority.... & they're probably the ones who don't mind sharing with the equally loo-brush-adverse men.

I work in an office with reasonably grown up educated men. In a staff meeting the other day it was revealed the cleaners complained that men were peeing all over the floor and please could they stop.
Grown up men.
I feel your pain OP.

YOU seem to be assuming that survivors of sexual violence will be happy to discuss their real reasons for preferring single-sex facilities.

Please do show me where ive said that? This is the internet and therefore i am basing my answers off what posters are saying as i dont know them in real life. Itd be ridiculous to assume everything said has double meanings.

One in five women - 20% - have survived sexual violence.

If you're not considering them as a matter of course, you're a misogynist.

When you post mockingly about nose-powdering, you're a misogynist.

Some grim women even put penises in their mouth

Some grim men even force them to.

Do people on here also feel uncomfortable washing their hands at the kitchen sink near male colleagues?

Honest to god, I wish people would just try it. Yes, it feels weird at first because we all seem to have been taught that going to the loo is sordid and private and that none of us have bodily functions. But the more normal it becomes, the better, surely? Is it so abhorrent tonimagine asking for a tampon in front of a man? Do we really think they'll look differently at us for it?

I just cannot imagine getting upset about this. It's just going to the loo FFS.

@outofinspiration

Both sexes are giving up their space. Not just women. And once again, we aren’t taking about shepees lines up next to the urinals, we’re talking about having to wash your hands next to a man. You still have your own private cubicle.

Also, according to this article, the separation of bathrooms in the first place was a form of subjugation of women. Similar opinions have been put forward for why single sex train carriages etc are a bad idea.

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/11/gender-bathrooms-transgender-men-women-restrooms

Also try googling hidden camera toilet

What does that have to do with the thread and the subject?

Because women will need to be much more aware of what these cameras look like and where they're likely to be hidden.

If you're not considering them as a matter of course, you're a misogynist.

Once again, i am considering them and youd know that if you actually read my posts. I even said sexual assault risk is a valid reason and that i dont think the shared toilets are a good idea.

So no, i am not a misogynist for basing my responses on what posters have actually said on here.

YANBU. I don't like GN toilets because I should have the right not to be in an enclosed environment, potentially on my own, with a man I don't know. I've never been abused, am a feminist but think I should decide if I want to be alone in a room where a man can block the door. No one else gets to decide.

*What about survivors of rape and sexual assault?

Do they have to identify themselves to you on an individual by individual basis?

Will you be empathetic then?

Could you not leave them their anonymity and exercise some imagination?*

I’m happy to out myself as a rape victim. I suffered from PTSD for many years and yes, sometimes being on my own with men is hard for me. It’s something that happens fairly regularly in every day life- when I get a taxi, when I’m waiting for a bus, when I get in a lift, when I have a meeting with a male boss or uni tutor, when tradesmen come to my house, when I’m browsing in a quiet shop, when I’m walking home alone, etc. I don’t love it! But I’m not sure why toilets, where you wee in a private cubicle but wash your hands with men, are so much of a bigger deal than all those other situations. And I think my needs need to be balanced with those of trans people, who are also very often victims of sexual abuse and violence, and might find a gender neutral toilet less fraught.

Crazycrazylady

You think women asserting their rights to single sex facilities are delicate and need to powder their noses and have inevitable crying fits??

That’s some serious internalised misogyny you have going on. You really need to reassess what you think womens rights are and who they are for.

(Clue: Not just you)

Women have every right to single sex facilities. You don’t mind sharing with men that’s fine, you can go in the men’s, but don’t deny other women the right to use single sex facilities.

of trans people, who are also very often victims of sexual abuse and violence

I think trans people who may have suffered from violence and assault at the hands of men would be even less likely to want to share a toilet with men

Honest to god, I wish people would just try it. Yes, it feels weird at first because we all seem to have been taught that going to the loo is sordid and private and that none of us have bodily functions. But the more normal it becomes, the better, surely? Is it so abhorrent tonimagine asking for a tampon in front of a man? Do we really think they'll look differently at us for it?

Yeah women, stop being such prudes. Just try it, it might feel weird at first but once you relax into it, you'll like it.

Honestly, do you realise how you sound? Women not wanting to use to the toilet with blokes in the close vicinity is perfectly valid.

From the point of view on crime protection, you would want the maximum footfall possible in toilets. this very definitely means unisex toilets.
thinking a potentially rapist would stop just because there is a „ladies“ on the door is an illusion unfortunately

Women get enough nasty comments without men making remarks when having to wait for a woman finishing to use the toilet adding to them. Which would happen with gender neutral toilets, especially if it meant an end to urinals.

I would also hate this.

Which would happen with gender neutral toilets, especially if it meant an end to urinals

Good point. Presumably, gender neutral toilets wouldn't have the line of urinals. I can't imagine men being up for that tbh, imagine they might have to wait to use the toilet!

@riotlady, sorry for what you've been though but those examples you give are either all your choice (you could ask to meet a tutor in the library or canteen for example) or happen while others are around or in an open (or less enclosed space), e.g a shop, bus stop, etc.

A toilet is essentially a room which usually has only one way out. It is essential that a workspace provides a toilet but in only providing GN toilets, it's removing that choice for women (realise the OP's caseis slightly different as she could choose to walk 3 floors).