To hate mixed sex toilets?

[Futurehappiness]

We have them at work. They are the only kind....no female toilets option.

Single fully enclosed cubicles in a row. They are claustrophobic & can be very smelly. I actually don't feel they are all that safe; what if somebody was taken ill & fainted in one? Nobody would know.....at least in ladies toilets there is a gap at the top/bottom and people coming and going, that just feels a lot safer to me.

I don't know why I mind when I am going to the loo and see a man coming in/out of a cubicle but I do. The toilets do get dirty & smelly because many people don't clean up after themselves properly, I am sure they are worse than ladies' ones.

I don't know why it is a thing for so many people to try to force/rattle the door when not sure whether a cubicle is occupied, risking breaking the (flimsy, often broken) locks - I am sure it is worse too than in ladies' toilets. What is wrong with knocking, or gently trying the door? Why would people not be specially conscious of not invading others' privacy in mixed loos? And of course in a mixed toilet there is a risk here of a bloke bursting in when you are on the toilet.

I am realising that I am actually trying to avoid needing to go to the loo at work. By not drinking too much water (even in this hot weather) or holding on until I get home. This is all new to me to feel this way, but I would feel awkward to complain, wouldn't know how to present the complaint, and don't know if I would be taken seriously or labelled as a troublemaker.

No they leave their drops on the seat which is worse

I hate them too.
I know some businesses have no option due to space but I followed a bloke in last week and he had left it in a right state. I knew when I had to wait ten minutes that it would likely be a bloke sat having a massive 💩 but the least he could’ve done is clear up after himself - he just went and queued for his coffee without a care in the world 🙄

It's a well known fact that you never see shit smears, toilet paper on the floor, a bog overflowing with toilet paper, sanitary towels spilling out of a full sanitary bin or stuffed down the toilet, in women's toilets.

It's only nasty, dirty men who leave the toilet in a crappy state.

Women - we're all spotless.

Apparently.

Went to a spa hotel, while the changing rooms were single sex in the changing area, the ones in the spa were mixed. Bare feet while men p*ss around the toilet on the floor 🤮

Mixed sex toilets always stink for lack of windows or extractor fan air flow. They can’t get ever be cleaned often enough to make them usable. People don’t use them respectfully because of this. Men don’t lift the seat. Men leave the doors unlocked and open and then women get to walk in on them unknowingly. Theres a much greater opportunity for assault in these cubicles. They're awful and stressful to use.

@FancyLimePoet

I bet he didn't wash his hands either, bleurgh!

It's also just occurred to me, that in a single-sex, multi-occupancy set up, it's rare to hear a woman exit a cubicle and leave without washing her hands, so I wonder if there is an element of "social compliance", for want of a better term. I have no idea if the same applies in the men's.

Are people in general less likely to bother with hygiene if they're not observed/heard? I don't know.

We have both at work and I genuinely don’t have a problem with either, will just go to whichever is closest. I’ve not find either to be cleaner / dirtier, but the cleaners are v good.

Went into a McDonalds today in central London at 9am… 3 cubicles, all mixed.
Cubicle 1 - sheepish bloke came out. didn’t wash his hands and pulled open the main door 🤢… toilet was full of recent bubbly piss. Floor awash and all over the seat.
Cubicle 2 - seat up, piss all over the rim and floor
Cubicle 3 - engaged so I waited. And waited. Bloke came out. Toilet and floor were clean but it stank of the bloke’s recent production and there was no loo roll. Not sure how he managed?!?

Whilst I don’t have an issue with gender neutral toilets in theory, in practice it is just gross.

I am presuming the first paragraph is sarcastic.

I would say from your description, that is a toilet that should have been cleaned a lot sooner than when it got to that state. If the sanitary bin was overflowing that was probably several weeks worth on an average cleaning schedule.

It is much easier and safer to clean cubicles if they have door gaps at the bottom as you can swill water and bleach round and shove a mop under the door before entering. Many mixed sex toilet doors are designed to rest in the closed position so a cleaner has to go into a cubicle to clean and then close the door behind them to get at the detritus being pushed up against the doors and partitions.

Cleaning toilets is not a sought after job. Making the cleaners job easier and safer is a way to keep them clean.

Had them for years where I work. They are nice and private, have their own sink and dryer. They can smell but that's a drain issue. To be fair, we don't have many male staff, but I've never noticed any mess that seemed particularly male related. Sometimes people don't flush but I can't say they are the male users necessarily. I have no issue whatsoever with mixed sex toilets generally. If men want to lurk in women's toilets in public (non trans men or otherwise), there are many isolated park etc toilets where it couid happen. Not that I've ever come across that.

@Keeptoiletssafe

The women's toilets at my local Sainsbury's are horrible. Always. Ditto the public toilets at the local park.

Yes - men are more likely to splash pee on the seat, because they pee standing up, but then lots of women hover over the seat when they're peeing in a public toilet, which explains why you see so much pee on the seats in women's toilets, and also sometimes on the floor.

"It is much easier and safer to clean cubicles if they have door gaps at the bottom"

SAFER? Good grief, are you serious? 😂 Transphobia is making people insane.

Interesting you have isolated parks that have toilets. Most of them are closed due to sex, drugs and other antisocial behaviour. I very much doubt women would choose to go to isolated park toilets.

There’s very much a lack of public toilets in the UK.

YANBU! They are horrible, I hate them. So do all the men at work, though, to be fair. They want their own loos, too!

One of these special group of men had spattered the whole of the toilet seat at Gloucester Services last weekend, where there are dedicated loos for males and females. If they’re going to use those for females, they could at least lift the seat. Grim.

I am not sure how to respond to that. I want safer and cleaner toilets for everyone. That means door gaps. That means single sex toilets because that’s the only design regulated to have door gaps.

The universal toilet design is resistant to sound, fully enclosed and, rightly, has a mechanism to override the lock from the outside (to retrieve a person because so many people collapse in toilets). The designs have been called ‘rape cubicles’ as they favour the perpetrator not the occupant.

I saved a young woman’s life because she was in single sex toilet. I could see she had collapsed because of the door gap.

Years later, and I don’t mention this much because it is difficult, I did not rescue a child in time. I was a few feet away from them but there was a door between us so I didn’t know.

Now, as a ex-teacher I can look back and see the problems the new designs were causing.

This is about health and safety. What is ‘insane’ is people are prepared to ignore health and safety to such an extent that we had children in schools that may have been able to be saved or assaults prevented.

If you want to complain, make it about the issues rather than the designation of the toilets. By all means raise the matter that the toilets are often not clean, and ask whether they can be cleaned more frequently. If locks are broken/nearly broken, raise that, and if locks are breaking because people are rattling the door, ask whether it is possible to replace with ones that indicate whether or not the cubicle is occupied.

I would imagine that most men leave the place as they found it; perhaps you should feel sorry for them, as they've presumably always had to put up with their colleagues who don't.

@3Mz73 how do you know it was men who splattered the seats in the designated female toilets? much more likely to be hovering women…..

Hospitals, filthy toilets. Mixed bays, another layer of hell for women. The snoring and farting at night. Arrived in the early hours, asked the male nurse how many women in my bay, all men.

I like having a fully enclosed toilet at work. I'd like it a lot more if I didn't have to share it with the men though. I rarely use the normal cubicle toilets because not enclosed and men might walk in at any moment as the washing machine is in the women's toilets (though happens less often now the sinks aren't used for washing up since we got a sink added to the break area)

@Keeptoiletssafe

"This is about health and safety."

So are you campaigning for disabled toilets and parent and baby toilets (often the same) to all have gaps under the door, given that these are the most vulnerable people in existence and disabled/parent and baby toilets are usually stand alone, with locking doors that are completely closed off from the rest of the space? And often they're in out the way corridors in shops, restaurants and shopping malls.

Hospital toilets on wards are also locking, single person use and have no gaps under the doors. Are you arguing that these are all dangerously unhygenic and unsafe?

Genuinely laughing at your obsession with toilets.

@70Cats

"The snoring and farting at night"

I bet you snore and fart at night. Most women do.

Because women don’t splash the rear semicircle of the seat.

I can’t stand them! I hate being on my period and changing pads which obviously rustle, to then be greeted by a man waiting for the cubicle. I shouldn’t feel embarrassed but I do. I also find there is always wee on the floor or seat. Don’t get my wrong ladies toilets can be and are pure filth but the thought of a man taking a dump next door to me or using the loo after a man has makes me want to heave, it’s bad enough using my toilet at home after my husband lol.

The only benefit they have for me as a mum with a son, is as he gets older, and I feel he is too old to be in the ladies but not old enough to use the men’s toilets by himself, I can go with him and wait outside the cubicle for him so I know he is safe, but to be honest in that instance a disabled toilet or the rare occasion I would need it serves the same purpose.

So many pearl clutchers here.

Mortified about normal bodily functions - eaten up with shame and embarrassment over periods and having a shit.

So glad I've raised my kids not to have conniptions about these things.

They don’t bother me. In fact at work I prefer to go the quiet floor and use the disabled unisex toilet as I like that it is fully enclosed.