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?

*I assumed

Thank goodness I didn't have to share cubicle toilets with the office letch. I couldn't even share a lift with him without him running his finger down my back

(left there now)

Fight the good fight but for god's sake choose a more important battle. Wasting energy on the right to wash your hands without standing next to a man is distracting you from the real issues about inequality.

The thing is that fight was won long ago and it is a bit galling that there is a sudden presumption that it no longer matters.

How dare you decide which boundaries and rights are important to women and which are now considered disposable!

• There is a wheelchair user in my family too, the toilets are a nightmare, absolutely disgusting state most of the time!

Not only are they rarely fit for purpose but they are never cleaned properly, are always puddled and often taken up by perfectly able men doing long stinky shit things because they want more privacy than they get in the men's.*

As a wheelchair user, yes disabled toilets are generally disgusting (including hospital ones but that's another thread), I regularly see "non-disabled" (yes I recognise invisible disability having several myself) people - men and women - using them.

However disabled loos have a sturdy door and are self-contained units. GN toilets are not. Frankly myself being present in a loo with other men triggers a full-blown panic attack.

YANBU I wouldn’t like that either

The question nobody seems to be able to answer is this - if people’s (women’s) feelings about using mixed sex toilets are so unimportant and stupid and irrelevant, why are the feelings of those people (usually male) who say they’re uncomfortable with using the toilets for their biological sex so important?

Exactly why do the feelings of this small minority of male people matter so much that entire policies must be changed to accommodate them, but the feelings of the majority of women are simply something to be “got over”?

Why is one set of feelings valid (and stunning and brave) but the other set invalid (and bigoted and to be sneered at)?

Bit of a puzzle really. It’s almost as if we live in a society where the needs and demands of male people carry more weight than those of female people.

Why people would agitate for a removal of these layers is beyond me

nor me.

that some women want to turn womens toilets into mixed sex toilets does fascinate me though. can people who support this change explain who is benefiting here and why its good?

What kind of men do you all work with that stink and piss everywhere??? Never had an issue with a toilet for everyone and I think all toilets should be like this.

It’s almost as if we live in a society where the needs and demands of male people carry more weight than those of female people.

Indeed.

Sorry for the multiple posts, but a radar key is hardly an obstacle to disabled toilet access, you can buy them on Amazon ffs.

Sex-segregated toilets also protect women from sexual assault, and protect men from accusations. Obviously no sign is going to stop someone intent on causing such harm.

I'll shut up now.

“cupcake” 😂😂😂

Like I say, none so fast asleep as the “woke” 🤡🤡🤡

I don't think I'd like this at all. The seat would always be left up which means touching it.

I think all toilets should be like this.

fabulous- can you explore why?

For the pp poster who asked. ONS report on sexual offences in England and Wales 2017. 99 % of rape and sexual assault by penetration are committed by males . 78 % of violent crime also committed by men if that helps.
This is surely not a surprise to people.

SimplySteve it’s good to hear from men like you who care about women’s safety and dignity. Hope you’re spreading the word among other men, too - perhaps if enough men like you start making a noise about it, we women might get listened to a bit sooner...

Only 3% of women have been victims of sexual offences? Yeah right. Pull the other one.

We have these at work and I find them fine. We have about 8 8 cubicles for about 100-150 people and there is always one free

They have ceiling to floor walls and doors and have a basin and dryer in each cubicle as well as sanitary bins etc. I think they are much better and have never noticed that they smell at all. Unlike most men's toilets where there are urinals

I have no problem with it at all. I do not however like unisex toilets if we have to share basins or if they don't have proper walls

This never happens.

www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/local/fife/819644/mum-of-supermarket-toilet-sex-assault-victim-warns-freed-attacker-could-strike-again/

people really thought #metoo would get us somewhere!
nah, some women be like- yeah lets now scrap all single sex spaces - especially where women are vulnerable/undressed - and turn them mixed sex - that'll work better.

The university that I work at has built their new buildings with gender neutral toilets but they are all individual rooms with sinks and hand dryers etc.
Like a whole row of disabled toilets if that makes sense. They are completely separate.

YANBU. Toilets should be single sex spaces for numerous reasons.

Wasting energy on the right to wash your hands without standing next to a man is distracting you from the real issues about inequality

No, you are spectacularly missing the point here- WOMENS BOUNDARIES ARE BEING ERODED.

Bit by bit the fuckers are trying to push back and remove every single sex-based right which women have - go and have a look at the FWR board and see what’s happening- womens rights to their bodily autonomy, women’s rights to fair pay and treatment at work, womens rights to be safe in the workplace, safe in hospital, safe in public places, womens rights to say ‘no’ are being pushed and pushed back. And it all starts with things like gender neutral toilets. Boiling frog syndrome.

@Prawnofthepatriarchy blood on your hands??! How messy are you at changing a tampon if you end up with blood on your hands - and also, how deeply unsanitary for all the other WOMEN (not to mention men in a shared bathroom) if you've got blood on your hands, pulled up your pants, flushed the chain, opened the bathroom door, and finally made your way to the sink where YOU suddenly feel offended washing your blood caked hands in the presence of a man. Jesus 🙄

I think a lot of men do care actually. DH has to use two sets of mixed sex toilets at his work. In one he feels really uncomfortable if a woman is coming out when he is going in. On the other site he was visiting he walked towards one of the gender neutral toilets when one of the regular staff said that's the women's mate, the men use that one over there. The regular staff had sex segregated the gender neutral toilets as they felt so uncomfortable and informed visitors of their system

I was in a museum last week with gender neutral toilets and they stank (like the whiff you get coming from men’s toilets!)

I can’t say I’ve noticed that smell in women only toilets. Must be something in that then..

I know which I prefer