Gender Neutral Toilets

[BaffledPanda]

I have arrived at work this morning to discover that one of my work colleagues has decided to change all the loos to gender neutral loos.

I don't want this to be a debate about whether people can change sex. But I would like some ideas on how I can word an email to say that I don't agree with this decision.

To give a bit more context, I work in a building that is used by the public and the toilets that are being changed are the ones that the public use.

I've name changed so I can't be linked to my work. MN can verify that I've been around for yonks.

Who is being disingenuous?

But all of those just have a toilet with a door that you can close, and in most examples with a lock. They are only used by one person at a time.

If you read the thread, this cafe has facilities with urinals - hence my comment.
As for trying to argue that the toilets in our homes are equivalent to ones in public spaces?? If you can't see any difference between these and public toilets then I'm not sure anyone on here can help you.

Why is it that transactivists can never find credible arguments when they try to insist that women and girls must have no privacy from men. 😂

I didn’t say these particular toilets were suitable. Any toilet be designed to be safe and appropriate for the building and customers they serve - be it children, people with disabilities, men, women, transgender people, people with babies and very small children.

This post is about specific toilets, your posts are increasingly looking like an attempt to derail the thread rather than respond to the OP

Are you the thread police?

The best option is male, female and a clearly marked to the point of being OTT gender neutral toilet. The best one I saw was at a gallery in Berlin of all places - Damen, Herren and GENDER NEUTRAL in huge letters on a single private stall. I actually saw an elderly man approach the toilets with some trepidation, as did I, before noting the clear sex-based division and a third space. It was very reassuring, left no room for confusion, and respected everyone.

What's the clientele for the cafe? As I personally stop using any cafe that has these. I think some posters are still imagining you're talking about three separate individual toilets, talking about putting a lock on the outside door! Embarrassing your customers generally doesn't help repeat visits.
However if you are next to a university, for example, it might boost customers.

As I personally stop using any cafe that has these.

Why? Genuine question. What is bothering you?

Where I work we have a bank of toilets and a disabled toilet. Each cubicle has a sink, dryer and sanitary bin. The toilets are always clean. I don’t even think about the fact that men use the same facilities.

That's nothing like the Op describes though. I don't want to open a door and be in a room with urinals, and possibly a shocked man - so I stay or do I go? Or to meet an equally uncomfortable man as I emerge from a cubicle in what was the women's toilet. I have no need to give my money to a business that happily makes me uncomfortable and overrules legal protection for women and children.
Individual room style cubicles - fine, though they will be less clean ime than individual single sex ones.

They need to remove the urinals. Now you have mixed sex, disabled and mens because women will not use the ones with the urinals. So that is sex based discrimination.

This is seen a lot, to be seen as 'inclusive', organisations take the cheap option and discriminate against women by giving men more options.

OP, highlight this to HR or management. The only fair option is to make it all gender neutral by removing the urinals, but then they are still actively discriminating against some religions, young mothers with prams and accepting the increased risks that mixed sex spaces bring. Just point out that if things do go wrong, they might be asked for their risk assesments.

@BaffledPanda Has anyone actually asked if the intention is to either put a lock on the outer door or remove the urinals?

Just wondering if there is a "work in progress" as opposed to a job done ? Just thinking of a local cafe that did similar but had a lock on outer door until they had the urinals removed.

What about women and girls who don't want an XY in their lavatory?

Do their needs about feeling uncomfortable around XY in XX loos not matter?

How about we find a solution that works for everyone, and doesn’t leave anyone feeling unsafe or uncatered for?

I know in work places there used to a guide of x number of toilets per sex. If I was cynical person does this save an organisation money?

Ask for:

the risk assessment
The EIA: equalities impact assessment

Ask about single sec accommodation for women with religious beliefs which do not allow them to share such facilities ( this will be mostly Jewish and Muslim women)

Ask about safeguarding for children and vulnerable adults

and tell them these are not “gender neutral” lavatories - they are “mixed sex”.

And if you were feeling bold and truculent, and up for a bit of mild civil disobedience, use the Men’s loo All.The.Time.

Leave obvious period products in the men’s loos.

Put all the seats down and close all the lids.

Do everything and any thing you can to inconvenience and disrupt the men’s loos.

And 9 times out of 10, that will NOT be a mixed sex facility.

In practice, women will back out of the toilets when they see the urinals. So you end up with one set that women use and two sets that men use.

The trouble is, as soon as males (however they present themselves) go into a female only space, it becomes mixed sex.

Do you have a solution? I would have said single sex for M and F and then a third mixed sex for the women who don't mind sharing with men, the men who don't mind sharing with women and any one who believes they are transgender and therefore not wanting to use the facilities provided for their sex.

But I have come to realise that males who believe they are transgender would still use the women's facilities as it is really the women in there that they want to access in an 'all girls together' kind of way rather using a space that isn't designated male. (eg India WIlloughby walking a long way to get to the women's toilets rather than using a more convenient single unit unisex)

I agree with @YellowAsteroid. If you're not triggered by walking in on a man at a urinal I'd be popping in and out of the (formerly) men's tut all day. The vast majority of men dislike having a woman walk in on them at a urinal, and their complaints will get this shifted.
Actually, writing this, I've realised that the men's complaints will lead to the toilet with urnial being relabelled "Male" and the other two continuing to be labelled "Gender Neutral." I now suspect this is how that very arrangement comes to exist in so many places (rather than being by initial design).
Hmph. We really are assigned support-humanoid at birth, aren't we?

Urgh my OH works in very male environments, a lot of the men (not all of them) are disgusting at several sites she has worked at they end up locking the female toilets and giving all the women keys, because the men go on them for a dump and leave the toilets unusable.

I have used gender neutral toilets, that feel safe, have a sink sturdy doors that open to the outside, sinks inside. But then men have used them, left the seat up, that they have peed all over. I have to touch it to put it down. I am sorry but it does not work.

I was recently at a historical site that had six toilets, five 'gender neutral' and one disabled, doors floor to ceiling, each with a sink, facing on to a narrow corridor. We waited in line for a free toilet and my heart sank every time that I saw a man emerging from the toilet. It's so out of my comfort zone to use a toilet that a strange man has just used.

I was pleased that at my turn I followed a woman into the toilet. The seat was down, but did not cover the porcelain at the front which was yellow with urine and was dirty. The floor was also very wet, some possibly from splash, and perhaps some from the sink. I definitely wasn't happy using the toilet.

I also live near where two young girls were preyed on in supermarket toilets by Dolatowski, a man who identifies as a woman. One girl was filmed and the other was forced into a cubicle, sexually assaulted and threatened. Allowing ANY men into women's toilets increases the likelihood of assault, and especially as in this cafe case where a male and female can both be in the space at the same time.

Who in their right mind thinks that women want to walk past urinals? It's degrading to both men and women. I hope that there's a sign on the door warning women that men may be using the urinals when they use that toilet.

I agree with other posters who say that women are not support animals for men who say they're women. They are very unlikely to be assaulted in men's toilets - I've yet to hear of a case - and men say that they don't care and just ignore them. It's not up to women to go along with the validation that such men want.

The problem is that mixed-sex toilets don't work for everyone. I know several traumatised girls and women who cannot use them. Going to a public toilet, even a single sex one, is a challenge for them. Sharing toilets with men, eg. men waiting in front of their cubicle or men in the cubicle next door, makes it impossible for these women and girls to use those toilets.

I also know girls who have seizures and for whom ceiling-to-floor doors pose a health risk, because it is harder to notice if someone has had a medical emergency in one of those cubicles, and it is often harder to get a person out of those cubicles.

Therefore, mixed sex toilets are not "a solution for everyone".

I’m a biological woman aged 60. Gender neutral (fully cubicled ) lavatories are fine by me.