Barbican London

[Singlesexstuff]

The Barbican are again trying to introduce ‘gender neutral’ loos by taking over the women’s loos on the third floor by sellotaping a ‘this toilet is gender neutral’ A4 sheet on the door. Men are in there urinating without locking cubicle doors. Gross. Anyone else had this happen recently. When reported I was told by a male employee ‘I am in favour of gender neutral toilets’. Plus ‘the barbican is not responsible for male behaviour when they are in (this) (gender neutral) toilet. The man in the women’s loo defended himself by shouting out ‘the lock doesn’t work’. Shame on you then for firstly using the women’s loos and for not changing to a lockable cubicle and also for not reporting the broken lock. Presumably. And the person who sellotaped the notice to the door couldn’t be bothered checking looks and could not be bothered sticking another note on the door to say don’t use as the lock doesn’t work. Shame on you Barbican. Where do I take my young granddaughters? Where does my friend deal with her ostomy. Are all the male toilets suddenly out of use? Why was it me had to go down 4 floors to evidently the only women’s toilet available Saturday. Come on folks help me here.

I really dislike unisex loos.

It's everywhere and it's rank.
Always the women's toilet being taken over.
Sheer mysoginy in action.

Surely the sensible thing would be to make men's bathrooms the gender neutral space. Then the minority who want to risk them, can. And it doesn't make them unsafe for the men. But of course that's not what's happening because men are never asked to make space for us.

That's disgusting.

the rest of the toilets are not gender neutral, so i would use those.

Thats awful

I saw a great meme recently. It boiled down to:

If women don't need single sex spaces to be safe from men, why do transwomen require access to women's single sex safe spaces to be safe from men?

But that is not the point.

Oops that was in response to someone telling me to use the other toilets…..as I said that’s not the point, obviously. There so much wrong, plus back in 2017 Mumsnet went bananas evidently about the very same issue at the Barbican

Now this post I absolutely LOVE

I’m pretty sure I went into the disabled toilet last time I was in there. Not ideal I know but I didn’t want to share with men.

Erm it has to be the ladies that are used because of the urinals not mysoginy practical.

IMHO no gender neutral toilets should ever be provided, men had weed in spaces for them and women in space for them since the start of time no need to change this.

But men's toilets have cubicals don't they, so no reason they can't be gender neutral?

I am actually becoming less GC over time but I really really hate seeing and hearing men in womens' toilets.

You can complain here:- https://www.barbican.org.uk/your-visit/general-info/contact-us
Ironically on that link they say 'it is vital that everybody visiting or working at the Barbican feels welcome, safe and respected.' Everybody except women by the looks of it.

Disabled toilets are gender neutral? I don't understand what the difference?

I think you (and your granddaughters) are probably less likely to be assaulted in mixed gender public loos in the Barbican than walking around on London streets. In any case, if the net effect is that there are more toilets that women may use, I’m very much in favour. It’s such a daft thing to make an issue of.

I fucking hate the Barbican, why are there no women's loos? I was last there to see Julian Cope about five years ago, couldn't find the toilets. DH had gone to the gents and didn't see any women's loos either, we asked around and found out there were none on that floor. I was absolutely bursting when I found a disabled loo in a side corridor. The floor was awash with piss and soggy loo roll but needs must.
While I was in there, a bunch of blokes piled into the corridor and tried persistently to open the door. The flimsy lock came away every time someone moved the door so I ended up clutching the door and shouting while weeing and trying to keep my trousers off the stinking floor. I'm not a delicate flower but I found it unsettling and emailed them to complain.
All the shitty gigs I've been to in my life, I'm sure I've had to hold my trousers off a number of pissy loo floors but never in a lonely corridor while fending off pissed blokes. Why are there whole floors without women's toilets?

If no one was around, I seriously would have taken that sign down and stuck it on the gents.

I was there in September and the third floor (i think it was - i got a bit confused as it was my first time there) had women's loos as I used them. But the first floor (?) were unisex, which surprised me when I walked in. I was trying to sort my hair/outfit for an event - I was really hot and looked awful after arriving. I was in a terrible mood and didn't appreciate being seen by blokes. Bad enough with the women who kept staring at me.

The net effect is that there are fewer toilets for women to use because penis-havers of all gender identities use more of the cubicles in the former women’s toilets instead of using urinals in the men’s.

And people in wheelchairs once they get to the front of the "wont be a minute" able bodied queue to use it, are supposed to wheel through the contents of the floor awash with piss and soggy loo roll getting it all over their hands wrists and cuffs from their guide wheels, then try and get the often feces smeared and often damaged transfer bar the piss heads have been playing with, down, and slide their parts across the piss covered seat, because everyone else has abused the thing that might have made it possible for us to go out, and no one cares.
Try and spend any time trying to clean it so you can use it and the able bodied will be yanking the door on you. Welcome to the world of disabled facilities..

People dependent on crutches and sticks don't do well either.

Locks are always broken generally because able bodied people don't understand that disabled folk may have to take longer and force them so they can get in quicker. Forcing the door open when a disabled person isn't able to do things as quickly as the able bodied person who wants to use the facility, is common. Disabled women getting harassed in disabled loos is common, especially when the loo is isolated, so able bodied women using disabled toilets shouldn't expect to be treated any differently.

I'm really not in favour of gender neutral toilets, but if they are going to insist on having them why can't they take over the current "male" toilets. Why does it always have to be the female toilets that become gender neutral, and men get to keep their own loos???

I don’t understand why they do this at all. I went to a really cute arty cinema in the sticks the other week and when we all piled out at the end we found three individual loos that were all unisex. Even though individual and lockable, etc, every single person (male and female) grumbled about it, and by the time I got to one it was absolutely besplattered with pee from blokes with poor aim. I hate them, almost everybody bloody hates them, it’s ridiculous.

Exactly

You’re wrong about this on every aspect.

Done.