To dislike male cleaners in female public toilets?

[GarliceGran]

I travel a lot with work, mostly via train. For some bizarre reason, a huge amount of train stations have male cleaners for the female toilets. Worse yet, these men are often doing non-urgent cleaning, such as washing mirrors etc.

This makes me very uncomfortable. If I’m not desperate, I’ll often just walk out.

AIBU?

Why is this facile comment always trotted out like some sort of gotcha?! Women do not, as a class, represent a physical or sexual threat to the safety of men. There’s no equivalence.

Only when they close the toilets because it’s a male cleaner, they do this at the gym I go to, with toilets and showers it’s so inconvenient. If it’s a female they stay open.

At no point did I say that I didn't "agree" with men cleaning women's toilets, or vice versa. I simply said I understood the OP's discomfort at finding men in the ladies. I also said that it didn't particularly bother me personally. So you'll just have to try harder, won't you.

As we're so often told though, it's not just about safety, it's about privacy and dignity. That applies to men and women surely.

But if we’re really talking about keeping women safe by having strictly female-only spaces, why are male cleaners/plumbers etc exempt from this rule?

I didn’t think it would bother me until it happened that a male cleaner was cleaning and I felt very uncomfortable as only woman using facilities. So I agree with OP

Same - I was in a very quiet service station and a man was slowly using some machine to clean the floor. It made me feel very uncomfortable. It just doesn't feel right when there's only one other person there.

I don't really mind, only going in to use the loo!

Obviously , I meant are you happy with female cleaners going into mens toilets if men are such a threat to women, how many people really show concern for female health workers, emergency workers, the list is endless.

I see these cleaners but I don't understand what they do because the loos at train stations are always disgusting.

Our local one has had poo and blood all up a wall for months. I've told the station staff but nothing changes.

Why do you care?

If men are pretending to be women (trans) to get into the ladies loos, surely just getting a job as a cleaner is easier?

Plus, if men are getting jobs looking after kids to gain access and satisfy their sick desires, why not job as a cleaner to access lone women.

But the female cleaner in the male loos is presumably still at risk, or did you forget about her right to safety?

Why? Preferring men not to clean toilets isn't a disability.

There’s a thread about people not wanting male childcare. So no men as cleaners and no male childcare. Interesting

It doesn't bother me if the cleaner is male. I don't see why this make any difference since female loos are always in cubicles.

No. Its considerably easier for a man to walk into the ladies toilets knowing that if he gets challenged he can say he's a woman (because there's no need for a man to modify his appearance to claim he is of the female 'gender', it's purely self declared) than it would be to potentially resign his current job, get a new job as a cleaner, and actually clean toilets all day. Obviously.

Don't they usually put a sign up saying male inside cleaning toilets?

This doesn't bother me at all. I'd rather have a male in there cleaning than them not being cleaned at all and I'm sure most male cleaners are keen to get in, cleaned and out as quickly as possible

There's a difference between a man using women's facilities on the assumption he is a woman and a bloke who is a cleaner, putting up a sign to announce he is a male in there cleaning, doing his job, cleaning, and then leaving 🙄

Not misandry. Fear.

So the idea is that predatory men would pretend to identify as women to prey on women, but they would never get a job as a cleaner to do so? 🤔

I'd hate to be a man in today's world, everyone is suspicious, I wouldn't want to be working in any capacity alone with a woman under any circumstances.

Couldn't care less, as long as someone cleans them.

Give over with the hyperbole. No man was ever harmed by a woman feeling uncomfortable about seeing him in the toilet. It's the woman feeling the fear or discomfort. The man's none the wiser, is he?
It would be 'misandry' and 'disgraceful' if women were going round trying to harm men. I can assure you, they're in no danger from a bunch of us sharing our thoughts about having them clean our toilets

Obviously, they could do either, and I'm sure there are cases where they have. In the case I mentioned earlier, which you can Google, it happened at New Street Station, the sexual assailant pretended to be an employee, then when arrested and asked why he was in the toilet, claimed to be trans. So there's at least one who did both in fact.
However, you must see that it's far easier to simply walk in off the street than it is to look out for cleaning vacancies, apply, interview, and actually do a cleaning job?

Plus, assaulting women in the course of your job carries a far higher risks of being caught. A woman reports a cleaner for assault and there will be records with his name, address and so on. If she reports a stranger off the street the police will be working only on a description, so its far lower risk for the perpetrator.