To ask why women would be uncomfortable with unisex bathrooms

[Chumssss]

Discussion with my DH tonight about this. Am I right in thinking that unisex bathrooms are not great?

For all the reasons listed in the many posts about hygiene, safety, vulnerability and dignity of women who have a right to feel safe I agree. I would also say I don’t know any men that are particularly comfortable using the same toilet space as women because they know they could be making them uncomfortable and those men deserve their own dignity, comfort and space too.

I don't have a problem IF each stall is fully enclosed.
I will say, having worked in all male or nearly all male environments my whole career, the vast majority of mens toilets are absolutely disgusting. I was lucky to have my own loo at one job which was immaculate and I'd often have men nipping in for a "nice" piss or shit which really annoyed me. I can imagine shared loos being piss sprayed and shit stained unfortunately, from long lived experience.

When I was a teenager me and a friend went out for lunch she popped to the loo and was gone ages. When she came back she was in tears. A man had been watching her on the loo over the top of the cubicle. She was terrified about coming out in case he was still there. I am always on hyper alert when using loos because of her experience. I wouldn’t feel safe sharing with men.

I honestly don't know why you have to ask?

Haven't read all the responses, but OP and others need to understand that an apparently increasing number of men have a sexual fetish around being in women's single-sex spaces and some have a peculiar fetish for hearing women urinating and for used sanitary towels and tampons, which they collect. Some men have an obsession around menstruation and pretending they menstruate.

Women, on the whole, don't seem to have these sexual fetishes.

It's men, too, who have used the wonders of modern technology to film women in toilets and changing rooms. I've yet to read of women hiding spy cameras in order to capture images of men naked or peeing. Obviously with unisex loos a man can hide a camera in a cubicle quite easily.

Above all, I don't want to have to clean the seat before I use the loo and I don't want to have to deal with the smell of male urine that results from the spray caused by pee hitting the pan and spreading around a metre. It's very difficult to lean properly and that's why male toilets stink.

We have mixed bathrooms at work- they are disgusting. I'm not saying women don't crap at work, but the seat up, pee everywhere, shit explosions- can say they come from the men. And I don't like knowing there is a male in the same toilets. It makes me uncomfortable

@FoxtonFoxton please can you read my post at 23.33 and ask if it changes your mind? Can you see the problems?

That's great, I'm so happy for you.

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The best solution I've ever seen was at my university, which had a handful of individual toilet rooms, each with a toilet, sink and hand dryer. All in a row, off a corridor, so not isolated in any way. Completely safe and very private. I always used those even if I was in another building - it was worth the detour!

Obviously with unisex loos a man can hide a camera in a cubicle quite easily.

This, among many many other issues.

Last time I looked at the stats there were 14,000 men in prison for sex crimes in England and Wales. But only 120 in womens prisons.

That's the scale in difference in risk between men and women.

Males are vastly more likely than females to perpetuate sexual assault. They also have greater physical strength allowing them to physically subdue us. “Single sex” public lavatories give them the access and privacy to do so.

If a man had told him something, would he have needed verification or would he have taken that man’s word?

A man (or anyone really) who wants to assault could do it equally well in a place with a ‘women’ sign on the door… it’s not as if they have a particularly high regard for rules in any case. And before anyone says ‘but you can tell by looking’, there have been several horrific reports of short haired/butch-presenting women being berated in loos for exactly this reason, and that’s not ok either.

I’ve worked in a place with neutral loos and there was never an issue.

My favourite bar in town only had space to put in two small (individual) loos so they decided to make them both neutral - it’s a female-run venue and no one has ever complained.

The BA lounge loos in Heathrow T5 have all been made neutral this year, it has helped no end with queues - previously either the men’s or women’s usually had mega queues (but no rhyme or reason for which it was at any moment), but now supply much more closely matches demand.

So no, I don’t have a problem with it, and in many cases it’s actually better. Many public toilets could do with far more regular cleaning, but this isn’t really a gender thing.

Men also hide cameras in male toilets BTW. There's a whole gay porn sub genre.

Consensual toilet hookups are also still a thing. Even today when gay relationships are not an issue and gay men have plenty of options for casual hookups, some men still enjoy the seediness and anonymity of toilet sex.

Agree that many men seem to have a toilet fetish in a way that very few women do. I did some very perfunctory searches to inform this post and they are quite open about it.

Here are some reasons (I'm the writer who had a late miscarriage in the ladies'):
https://fairplayforwomen.com/miscarriages-pub-toilet-gender-neutral/

Here's a summary of the arguments
https://fairplayforwomen.com/toilet-provision-in-the-uk/

Unisex changing rooms put women in danger:
https://fairplayforwomen.com/unisex-changing-rooms-put-women-in-danger/

And one very simple question: If 51% of the population want to undress without the opposite sex being present, why shouldn't they?

It boils down to telling women and girls they must accept penises in places where they take their knickers down. What does that make you sound like??

Question 2: Why do human rights organisations press for single-sex toilet provision in developing countries?

At the same time, they argue that 'first world' women should cheerfully welcome penis-owners into intimate spaces. They're either shockingly racist (only African & Asian men sexually assault women at the toilet, really??) or indulging in doublethink because they're scared of gender activists. I wonder which it is.

They are not completely safe. Statistically if you collapsed in one of these private cubicles you have much less chance of surviving than in the traditional row of cubicles with gaps top and bottom of the doors. No one would know until it’s too late.
They are also a problem if someone enters the cubicle with you because that’s more likely to happen as they’ll be no witnesses. There’s nowadays usually a mechanism to open the door from the outside.

Sigh. This nonsense again.

No, a sign doesn't stop men with bad intent coming in.

It does, however, stop decent men coming in - they see the sign and respect it.

Therefore, with signs, any men with ill intent will be obvious by their presence.

And, if you can easily identify those who likely have ill intent then you have a much better chance of removing yourself from the situation before something bad happens - or telling security that there is a man in the ladies and getting them removed.

Also, they have to have serious ill intent to ignore the sign. Signs put off the opportunists too.

If all men are invited in, then the creeps, pervs, hidden camera wankers and rapists are given cover.

It's a no brainer. If you care in the slightest about the wellbeing of women and girls, keep single sex facilities.

They’re just gross. Always smelly and dirty.

Spain

I'm happy to use unisex toilets, and in a choice between women's and unisex I'd simply choose whichever was more convenient. However, I don't think they should replace single-sex facilities. I think that new buildings should be designed with women's toilets, men's toilets, unisex toilets and disabled toilets. In older buildings, I don't mind if one of the pre-existing facilities is converted, as long as men's, women's and disabled facilities are all still separately available.

Oh that old chestnut - "if someone wants to assault you they will, so why bother making it harder for them?". The answer being of course that a man going somewhere he is not meant to be like the ladies toilets is more likely to be challanged than a man going somewhere he is supposed to be, like a unisex toilet.

And if the poor short haired women suffer the "horrific" expereince of being briefly asked if they are in the right toilet, well surely that must have been happening for as long as we have had single sex toilets anyway? And yet we don't seem to have been hearing about these "horrific" experiences until it suddenly became convenient for the people who suddenly want, for reasons they don't seem to be able to fully explain but nevertheless feel very strongly about, to replace single sex toilets with unisex ones. I wonder why that is?

(FWIW I was a short haired woman/girl who was mistaken for a boy from time to time. It was not a horrific expereince and certainly not a justifictaion to do away with single sex provisions altogether on the offchance of it happening to someone else.)

Although I'm surprised you thought the T5 BA lounge toilets would be a good example - they are noticably grimmer since going unisex.

I use unisex toilets all the time when out walking and have never encountered that. I don't live in the UK and toilets are generally regularly cleaned here.

Yes we need our own bathrooms. I don’t even like the single enclosed stall unisex bathrooms because they’re always filthy.

Safety from attacks.

When men aren’t allowed in women’s bathrooms it makes it obvious that any male who enters is a predator. “Good men stay out so bad men stand out”.

Safety from hidden cameras.

Improved hygiene- despite anecdotes men’s public toilets are proven to be dirtier. They cover everything with piss and don’t wash their hand after bowel movements.

Privacy and dignity.

Safety, dignity, privacy, modesty. Most men will cause no problems but shared space where women are vulnerable invites in the perverts. There will be a subgroup of men getting off on used tampons, listening to women pee, or enjoying their discomfort.

A man (or anyone really) who wants to assault could do it equally well

Ah, this old chestnut.

Why are some people so dismissive about minimising risk and making predatory behaviors/men more obvious in public spaces? (We know why).

There are two types of unisex bathrooms; the self-contained units (including toilet and sink) and then the shared space (individual cubicles) but shared space for sinks etc.

Not keen on self-contained (but understandable in facilities with limited space etc), hate shared space toilets (and haven't met any woman OR man that likes them).