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.

The future unisex toilets…. I don’t think they need to provide male or female toilets… they just need to provide fully closed cubicles.

Sabire9. No one should ever complain about anything, let everyone do what the hell they choose. Conniptions, I know where this word comes from. A very dark society.

Wow, where on earth do you live? I've used perfectly pleasant ladies loos all over the world!

If you think women don't snore and fart you e been in different hospitals to me. Last time I was in it was hell and the woman next to me was off the scale. When they tried to admit me with pneumonia last year I declined and just asked for the antibiotics. I knew I wouldn't cope with the exhaustion.

Our place has ladies, gents and uni. Along one corridor, uni in the middle.

It's noticeable that the women, including me, treat the uni as the khazi of last resort. And it does smell noticeably of male piss even though my colleagues are pretty clean lot.

If I ruled the world I would insist on floor to ceiling doors and sinks in a self contained unit. I would have female, male and unisex for choice. I would use the female set for safety.

I loathe them. They have them at a place I go weekly. They smell bad and 9 times out of 10 a man has left the seat up. So I have to touch it to put it down. I end up wiping the place down before use. Even worse there's a string pull light which judging by the colour of the string has never been cleaned. And we all know men always wash their hands.

If women want to keep these things away from men, who are you to tell them that there's anything wrong with that?

Have not RTFT
but if it is mixed sex loos
and each cubicle DOES NOT include a wash basin
its illegal
under the 1992 legislation (that never actually went away)

i do love the enclosed toilets for privacy, smells and sounds. But can tell when men have been in as they smell like piss

I am campaigning for gaps under cubicle doors in single sex toilets. And I want there to be as many single sex toilets as possible. To be honest, I would love there to be an option for disabled toilets to be single sex too. So they could have door gaps. I have been the carer for both elderly and young people. I know young people who could transfer from their chair to the toilet themselves but had the indignity of me having to be inside with them just in case they didn’t and ended up on the floor. It would have been nice if I could have waited outside. However, disabled people always seem to miss out so they don’t have a choice except mixed sex. Also remember there are some disabled people who are better off using single sex toilets with door gaps such as people with invisible disabilities such as epilepsy, diabetes, POTS and other conditions.

If you are interested in helping campaign for disabled toilets, there’s a lovely charity here:
https://www.euansguide.com/safertoilets
Disabled toilets are very badly looked after.
They have a scheme where you check the pull cord is in the right place and place a card on the cord to remind people.

Unfortunately disabled toilets are the locations for lots of sex (consensual and not). The BBC disabled loos are said to be used for sex. The ‘mile high club’ means the plane loos for most people. Would there be so many in that club if there was a gap under the door? I doubt it.

The ‘most vulnerable person in existence’ could be any of us having a medical emergency if we are on our own and can’t warn anyone. The wonderful, late Michael Mosley saved a woman’s life when she collapsed, because he happened to see her collapse in a corridor at the BBC, gave her cpr in time and she went on to have 2 children.

You keep listing unsafe toilets as though their presence means they are ok. It doesn’t. We are in danger of adding unisex toilets into some very unsuitable places. It doesn’t mean they are safe.

Every secondary school has a defibrillator yet the place where pupils head to when they feel ill and could collapse will be the place where they are on their own. It is frustrating as it is so unnecessary when children are harmed when it could have be prevented with the right single sex designs.

You mentioned hospitals. Not all hospital toilets are enclosed. I know because I research. There are a lot that do and a lot of people that unfortunately die on toilets. Hopefully now we can have single sex wards then this will change. Mixed sex toilets are most unsafe and unhygienic. I have lots of studies. Click the blue link here. Also you will find loads of stories about the thousands of sexual assaults and hundreds of rapes in hospitals easily but it’s just not studied where, as the location isn’t logged. Toilets are a problem location and there are many incidences in the papers.

You can’t research toilets if you are squeamish. There’s a lot of detail in the research I have to time-limit myself though because there’s some really unpleasant stuff that goes on so it gets depressing.

Who said that?

I didn't.

Just bored of the frothing about toilets and constant expressions of disgust about men. If there were men out there frothing about how repulsive women's bodily functions were we'd think they were a bunch of freaks.

Male piss smells much stronger than female. And standing to urinate does mean the stream can't be aimed as accurately.

The boys' toilets were off the entrance lobby of my kids' primary school. You couldn't get in except by passing them.

Good grief, they stank, even with the door closed!

They weren't used by adult men, as there was a male staff toilet. And the vast majority of the boys would have been pre-pubescent. Yet still the toilets absolutely reeked.

Alright Hyacinth Bouquet, but there's no evidence that men's urine smells 'worse' than women's, and almost all of us manage to live with men without dying of disgust about their bodily functions.

It sounds like there are a few issues that aren’t related to being unisex, but rather how they’re maintained.

I’d suggest raising those with whoever deals with building management.

All mixed toilets in my experience just stink of men’s piss.

I agree this is fucking grim but our office toilets have these stupid automatic flushes where you hold your hand in front of a panel instead of pulling a flush. Fine... except pretty regularly the electric flush just whirrs and doesn't actually trigger the flush. The whole back of the loo is behind a panel so you can't just open the lid and flush it manually. It drives me loopy!

However i also agree that the unisex toilets are disgusting, they all have that men's toilets stench and the seats are always up/piss everywhere. I refuse to use them and will travel to a different floor if needs be. The ones at my office still have hand basins outside the cubicles too. Gross.

Most of us don't live with 90 males, which was roughly the number of boys using those toilets.

They really don't bother me. A toilet is a toilet. And if I want to check my face, hair or clothing, I'd rather do it in private than in front of the mirrors in a public space. Also, in places visited by families, I'd much rather boys use the same facility as as their mums, rather than being sent off to men's toilets on their own.