Public toilets and changing rooms should be redesigned to keep everyone safe

[Quinoawoman]

I propose that by changing the design of public toilets and changing rooms, we can keep everyone safe.
Pic 1 - how most public toilets are now. Small, dark doorway into dark space that can't be seen from the outside. I've often worried that there could be someone hiding in there waiting to do me harm. Would not let my daughter in there alone. Would not let my son go in the gents alone.
Pic 2 - unisex cubicles (floor to ceiling) all with an individual door onto the street. Pull open the door and see the whole space - limited room for someone to hide. Door obviously lockable from inside. No more worrying about where to send your child whose sex is different from yours.

Changing rooms could be similar - individual cubicles straight off the shop floor. No more David Lloyd-style open changing spaces where you fear dropping your towel and flashing everyone.

YABU - changing rooms and toilets are fine as they are
YANBU - changing the design would be better for everyone.

We’ve heard reports of women being locked into a room like this and beaten badly by a man - that’s much easier in a solidly built larger room than a small cubicle within a room where someone could hear what was going on and get help.

There was a recent attempted rape in a similar space as well.

I know and work with a lovely transwoman who I would trust with my life. I know and work with a number of lovely men who I trust also. I still wouldn't want to share facilities where I'm vulnerable with any of them as they are all biological males and therefore bigger and stronger than me so a risk if my trust was misplaced. Basic safety.
I would welcome toilet attendants, cctv in communal areas and a mix of single and mixed sex facilities.
As long as everyone can access single sex provision I support mixed sex for those who don't mind ..... but single SEX must be provided as standard first. Women's right to choose privacy, dignity and safety must be upheld.

The latter. The question in the initial post should make it clear

Gotcha...and no, it didn't make it clear not to me at least

I agree 😁

I agree with this....why didn't it load 😫

I don't think all existing toilets should be changed but I do think guidelines should be updated along the lines of ... small places eg coffee shops, workplaces with under 20 employees etc unisex toilets at least one accessible (to basic disabled standards) medium places - a choice of a few straight onto the corridor toilets or single sex plus at least one disabled and one unisex. Large places, blocks of both male and female toilets, several unisex toilets, at least two basic disabled facilities, a parent and child room and a changing places toilet if in a public place. This should be automatically put in for new builds and major renovations.

Also where a gym, pool etc chooses to have open changing, they should be obliged to provide several unisex spaces both for those who have changed gender and parents with opposite sex children

What would you tell a transwoman child of yours to do then @PoIIyPandemonium ?

I think these discussions are all well and good throwing abstract arguments back and forth, but if you know someone who is a transwoman and not a sexual threat to anyone and just wants to urinate while in a public place, what do you recommend?

Years ago I rushed into a public toilet & bumped into a drunken bloke on his way out. Although he may have been so drunk that he wasn’t aware that it was the ladies. I’ve been wary ever since, plus I’ve watched too many horror films where they pull into the gas station to use the toilet … I always expect to find a body in a disability toilet too.

What about a door where you go in one side & come out the other. So unless the other person’s out, you can’t get in. No idea how it would work.

Some of the toilets in Nepal have a lock on the outside door 🤔 Now that would’ve been scary if the driver hadn’t have been the one to lock me in, & wait for me outside. It was a hole in the ground & pitch black once the door was shut.

Now as for changing rooms I’ve walked in on many a man, not realizing it was a man changer.

That he’s not more important than girls and he doesn’t get to piss all over their rights.

👍

You have created your own circular argument.

I was replying to YOU asking how I would account for the experiences of some female-presenting trans people not being assaultef in male bathrooms.

So which is it? You tell me? My point was that just because some people have jot experienced it, it doesn't mean it doesn't happen.

Do try to keep up.

Still waiting for the UK stats on men being attacked in men’s bathrooms. Surely that’s the starting point, showing that a problem even exists?

"There should be not just one accessible toilet but many, still dedicated to single sex use."

Accessible toilets can't be single sex because of people having other sex carers.

Genuine question - how do you feel about when men go in to gents toilets and find lots of women in there

Happens at large gigs all the time. Queue for the ladies is long so they’re using the men’s cubicals and even lines of them squatting over urinal troughs

Women are not risk to men

I’m not sure you understand the meaning if circular argument. You made both statements which contradict each other.

Your argument has failed anyway.

Let’s just keep things nice and simple. Male toilets, female toilets (all based on biological sex) and some unisex and accessible (disabled only). Everyone’s needs met. Job done. I’m not sure why you are proposing to change all toilet facilities in the whole country anyway - you are trying to fix a problem that doesn’t exist.

I don't think they even realise they are doing it. It's like the need to put men over women is big and fundamental to their worldview that they don't even consciously notice it, they just automatically adjust everything around it.

I think the thinking goes...

1. Women have stuff
2. Trans women want the stuff women have
3. It's not fair for women to have it without sharing
4. Hey, here is a "middle ground" that either involves women giving things their stuff up to benefit trans women, or involves no one having the stuff at all so trans women don’t feel excluded by not having it
5. These women are awful! Surely it's always fair to share? Why can't they see how nasty they are being?

OP is currently on "Why should women get to have pleasant, pee-splat free floors* and loo seats just because it's not women who pee on the seats and floors. That's not fair on men!"

The idea of stopping at 2 and thinking "hang on, why do trans women want the stuff? Why do women have it in the first place? Is it reasonable for them to expect to have it? Why isn't there another solution that gives trans women the safety or comfort they feel they miss without making women feel less safe or less comfortable?" just isn't on their radar. It's only ever "how can we persuade women they should really say yes to something they do not want to say yes to but men/male people want them to do?"

(* I don’t pee on the floor as a matter of course but sometimes I do drip pee or blood accidentally. If so I always wipe it up out of consideration for the next woman. I don’t mind wiping the floor because generally it was clean, or at least not pee-splatted, before I made the mess. The thought of wiping the floor in the unisex toilets I have used is a very different proposition. Men may "just want to pee" in the loo but women have more to faff about with, clothes than need to be pulled further down and can easy drop on the floor, and so on.)

The whole issue about men in women's toilets comes from transsexuals wanting gender recognition certificates and the doctors, without asking us, told them if they 'lived as a woman' aka accessed our spaces and nobody complained it was deemed as them passing.

Nobody asked us why we didn't complain. And it was mainly due to keeping our heads down and not wanting to be attacked by an angry man.

It has got NOTHING to do with safety. But everything to do with subterfuge.

@Squamata that's a silly question. Obvs, any child of mine will be aware of why women need single sex spaces, but even so. Just because YOU know your child isn't a threat, how does any other woman? Why is their fear irrelevant?

It has got NOTHING to do with safety. But everything to do with subterfuge.

And validation. Anything labelled as Women's, for any reason, no matter how irrelevant the actual purpose of the service is to male people, is unavoidably a red rag to a bull by (some) trans women and TRAs. They cannot let it stand because to let it stand is to allow a gap between female people and trans women. Because their core belief is that trans women are just another type of woman womanning around, trans women must be accepted without question in every single situation female people are accepted or it's a total rejection of the trans woman's identity. There can be no middle ground.

"Women are not the risk to men that men are to women."

That's true but men are entitled to privacy and dignity as well. For adults single sex spaces means single sex.

When my dd was younger I had to use a toilet that opened out directly onto the cafe seating area. Toddlers can unlock doors faster than my pelvic floor can stop mid wee. I had an absolutely excruciating 30 seconds where the man sat directly opposite the toilet door was aghast at me whilst I wanted to disappear. It was like a car crash- neither of us could look away. At least if there had been a corridor separating the two I wouldn't have been so utterly exposed. 😬🤦🏼‍♀️I saw a similar incident with a woman being exposed mid-wee in one of those public toilets that have electronic locks- she had a busy city centre junction audience.