To think mixed sex toilet provision has proven to be a flop?

[BlooDeBloop]

Now been a few years since mixed sex toilets have been widely available in all kinds of public spaces from schools to offices to theatres. The water has been tested. AIBU to think the results have been dismal?

I'm prompted to post this as my Y7 boy holds on all day at school as the toilets are filthy. His friend has seen a girl sitting on a toilet. My younger daughter won't use the toilets in a burger chain because adult men have used it or may come in behind her. I had the same experience in a pizza chain restaurant (one neutral, one disabled, one male I kid you not). Art centre I use had one mixed sex toilet that is filthy and everyone uses the public toilets outside on the street that are separate sex still.

I'm told mixed sex toilets are now widespread in secondary schools. How is that being received? Haven't some schools reverted?

Seems to me a major issue is human biology. Men find urinals easier than toilets. Women need sit down facilities and sinks to wash in private.

I was out with some of DH's work friends and they started talking about the mixed toilets that have been introduced on one floor of their building. Apparently everyone avoided using them for the first couple of months. Then the men in the building noticed they were always empty. They've turned into the toilets the men of the building use when they want to go for a shit. It's like an unspoken rule now. The two HR women who were there rolled their eyes and told them all they had worked out that's what was happening ages ago. They had to introduce them as part of their diversity drive but said they wouldn't be used. The managers still think it was a great success.

I have just been googling and apparently pretty common on Scandinavia but could not find any information on whether the people like them or not.

I had another thought. I think mixed sex can be less efficient as the one I am familiar with has the wash basin in the cubicle so the toilet must be occupied for longer than in traditional toilets. So not seeing any practical advantages. The communal changing room I use in the swimming pool is huge so can't see any saving in practical sense.

Am wondering what the philosophy is behind it. Is it to try and break down barriers between the sexes? Dunno.

Dd's high school opened up a mixed sex toilets or Gender neutral as they called it. Then they closed the girls toilets (not the boys) to get them to use it.
I complained and told them why I was requesting they open up single sex toilets for both boys and girls and what do you know, they next day they re opened the girls loo.
Mixed sex toilets are still there and unused Toilets in school are scary enough for students and a little yr 7 girls sharing with big yr 13's boys is awful
Safe schools Alliance

www.tes.com/magazine/archive/mixed-gender-toilets-have-negative-impact-girls

Here they give inclusion as the reason for mixed sex provision.

I use to work as a cleaner, not my experience. Men’s toilets were always far more disgusting and absolutely stunk.

Did they ever tell you why they decided just to close the girls? It’s fucking enraging that girls safety and privacy is disregarded so easily, when arguably they need it more than boys in the first place,

Your version of attending a football match is so far removed from any I have attended (a lot) that for me it makes me not believe the rest of your "experiences".

So girls toilets are being closed. Women have to queue with men and share small toilet spaces with tanked up men at sports games. Women have to make the choice to tiptoe over male urine or hold on till they get home.

It's like women are no longer welcome in public spaces any longer.

It feels like we've taken ten steps back.

And why? Inclusion? Regulating behaviour of males? Safety? Budget? I don't know. Nothing rings true other than because some people in charge decide it's 'good for us' in some vague way. Curiouser and curiouser.

BlooDeBloop I agree. It is very curious.

As someone with limited experience of football stadiums I'm very pleased to hear that our local one is not by any means typical. I can't find a map of the stadium online but who knows there may have been a single sex women's somewhere on the premises. However, the easily accessible and most prominent one was mixed sex.

Fortunately there are single sex toilets at my daughter’s secondary. Even so, she holds on til she’s home.

I clean some toilets and the men’s are always awful. Last week I was wondering why on earth there was a urinal in there as they’d obviously just all weed on the floor.

Now I can see the open plan aspect is great for the reasons you give. I'm less keen on CCTV in school. Are mixed sex toilets for behaviour reasons or space or something else? There is nothing stopping single sex from being open plan if that's what is deemed desirable.

Our school claimed that the open plan mixed sex with cctv (!) was to combat bullying (although they also keep claiming that the students behave beautifully in school and there are no behaviour issues) . There is still bullying and intimidation, but it is boys intimidating and harassing girls who now can’t get away from them.

If they want a single sex toilet they have to go to a different building in the school and hope that it is unlocked at breaktime.

So in the interests of ‘inclusion’, they have made the school day significantly harder and more miserable for the girls. Great.

It's very odd. Our local preschool has received clear legal instruction that they cannot use CCTV on the outside of the school to stop local teens breaking in and vandalising the equipment. So for some schools it's ok to have CCTV in the toilets, at others it's illegal outside the building. More curious happenings.

It's very odd. Our local preschool has received clear legal instruction that they cannot use CCTV on the outside of the school to stop local teens breaking in and vandalising the equipment. So for some schools it's ok to have CCTV in the toilets, at others it's illegal outside the building. More curious happenings.

That’s very interesting- the kids have said they feel very uncomfortable with the cctv there from a privacy point of view. They have to come out of the cubicles to wash their hands in the mixed sex communal area.

Tbh though the school doesn’t seem to give a fig for the law or what is right for students and have repeatedly lied to me about the whole thing. There doesn’t seem to be anything parents can do about it as no one seems to have any authority or inclination to tell them to sort it. It is so depressing.

I've worked in a building with unisex toilets for 16 years. Each is self-contained, with a full-height door, mirror, basin and sanpro bin, plus a basket full of tampons and towels for anyone who needs them. They open directly onto a corridor. My male colleagues must be very well housetrained, as they're always clean and I've never found piss on the seat or floor.

The only drawback to them is that 4 out of the 6 on each floor have no external wall, so are ventilated by an extractor fan that is woeful. If anyone has a smelly shit in one of those, the smell spreads all the way through the open-plan half of the building.

There should be a rule that the windowless bogs are for pees only.

They should be banned outright in public spaces, workplaces, schools and the like. The only time a woman should have to use a toilet that a man has used should be in a private home.

I worry about my teenage dds going in a mixed one but not a female one

Because there's more attacks on girls by men than by women

So in the interests of ‘inclusion’, they have made the school day significantly harder and more miserable for the girls. Great

I would love to see the impact assessments. Its certainly not compatible with the protected categories of

religion- some are unable to share with males.

Sex- mixed sex provision is more dangerous for girls.

Disability- many who would be able to use regular facilities as they don't need the space for a wheelchair/mobility aid will not be able to use them as they may perhaps need the comfort/knowledge that they will be seen if they collapse/pass out under the gaps in the doors. All these students who can longer use these facilities as if they have an asthma attack or need their epi pen or fall sick or have an epileptic fit will now have to tie up the accessible toilet as theres an alarm which means it will be harder for the disabled students who have no choice but to need the accessible.

Id even go as far to say it much surely clash with pregnancy/maternity too. Because any school girl who falls pregnant and has issues or has a.miscarriage or preterm labour which has the potential to be very serious if they haemorrhage badly will also no longer be seen under the gaps.

It excludes far more people than it includes for sure.

No they never said a word. I have a feeling I wasn't the first or the only parent who was complaining. I'm not friends with any other parents at the school so no one ever told me what happened

Schools have done it cut costs so that the heads can earn their ridiculous salaries. The same as the pitiful school dinners that kids get now (and their parents pay exorbitant costs for).

It's a non issue. Perhaps there's a common denominator in why both of your children are so opposed to it....?

I don't recognise half of the stories on here. I'm out and about around the country a lot and in my experience single sex toilets are still there in the vast majority of cases, unless the venue is small like a little café in which case there's usually one or two catch-all gender neutral, accessible loos with a baby change.

It's rare for me to come across a big venue with mass gender neutral loos. I have seen them, but they're certainly not the norm.

Its not a non issue, for all the reasons stated previously. By and large, women and girls would prefer single sex toilets. I'm generally wary of men I don't know anyway, no way I want to share public toilets with them.

You aren't sharing toilets with them. You still have a private toilet cubicle.

It'd be more accurate to say you're sharing a sink, how scary!

What next? Single sex car parks, buses, train station waiting rooms?