Gender neutral toilets at the Barbican London

[Laurapalmer90]

Has anyone heard about this? Great that women are speaking up. Why can't there be gender neutral toilets AND retain men's and women's?

www.standard.co.uk/news/londoners-diary/londoners-diary-no-toilet-humour-for-samira-ahmed-at-the-barbican-a3507901.html

Oh great - no woman will be using the 'gender neutral - urinals', so the men get to keep their space, but the women have to share??

I agree with the Turner article in the Times this morning. This malarkey just makes me want to pitch up to the urinals with a SheWee.

As the person whose tweets flagged the issue up can I just urge you all to make a fuss and complain about unfair treatment if you see the same problem with ladies' Loos being taken away in this way.

The other downside of this is that all toilets will now start to smell like men's toilets.

I went to an LGBT event a little while ago where they made both the women's and men's toilets 'gender neutral' for the evening. The men didn't know any different so thought I was being fussy when I told them afterwards the smell was rank.

I agree that there should be gender neutral toilets, plus women's plus men's. People don't seem to appreciate that, whilst toilets obviously have a practical use, they are also used by women:

• as a refuge when they feel unsafe when being followed or on a dodgy date;
• socially;
• to get a bit of headspace and thinking time;
• as a beacon of calm in a noisy exhibition or crowded space;
• to text their friend to say they're ok when meeting someone new;
• as a dressing room, etc.

Regardless of the trans issue, the removal of women-only bathrooms risks losing all the other uses of the space that women value and will eventually make bathrooms just about functionality.

I guess that goes to what men want when they complain about women taking too long in the bathroom, going in pairs, etc. Take away our spaces so they can follow us in if they think we're taking too long.

Oh ... won't men from some religious groups have a massive problem with sharing facilities with menstruating women? Anyone want to bet it will be these issues which stop this ill-considered idea rather than the problems it causes women?

Yes.

Apparently, I am the only one who sits. Next time I need a wee (on my own toilet) I will attempt to squat and report back.

How do you squat whilst also holding your trousers up so they don't get wet on the pee below, whilst also trying not to stand in it and making sure that your bags are up off floor level but also not going to get pinched?

TBH I've not had too many problems in women's toilets (unless they were in an area where I'd predict there to be problems anyway). Just unisex.

The last time I used unisex was in an airport. Women's have always been fine there but the unisex - ewwwwwwww!

Good to see you on here Samira Ahmed!

Feeling very angry about this too.

If only because of longer queues this is a totally ridiculous idea but the other issue is that like many on here I wouldn't feel comfortable using the women's toilets either if there were men there. I just wouldn't.

Glasgow Theatre Royal has gender neutral toilets. All toilets are lockable, fully enclosed cubicles with individual basins and mirrors.

I wouldn't have a problem with that.

From the article that Datun posted

Anna Henry Elementary in Tucson has blocked off all urinals in boys restrooms for the time being, following multiple incidents of girls who identify as male reportedly squatting over the urinals to void, pulling down their underwear in front of boys, and causing privacy issues with boys who were upset by girls watching them urinate. Closing the urinals to all students of both sexes has been the district’s immediate solution until privacy partitions are installed between all the urinals so that the girls can continue to use them in expression of their personal identification with male reproductive biology.

Pretty amazing how quickly there is action when boys are inconvenienced!

Indeed! Funny that. As soon as boys are inconvenienced or feel uncomfortable they're listened to.

Isn't it interesting the way that women's groups and disability groups have campaigned about inadequate facilities for years, to broad indifference and a glacial pace of change.

Make it about males needing access to women's spaces and BAM! Change happens so fast it makes your head spin.

I'm sure there's nothing in it, it's just that we're dinosaurs, imagining sexism where we should be acknowledging progress

How do you squat whilst also holding your trousers up so they don't get wet on the pee below, whilst also trying not to stand in it and making sure that your bags are up off floor level but also not going to get pinched?

Do you want advice for squatting in the wilderness, or for squatting over a loo?

Okay, loo first:

Bags: I use a backpack. Women's loos often have hooks you can use for your handbag, or at least they do, here. But if you expect to encounter adverse conditions, always opt for a backpack.

Trousers: The dirty floor problem is avoided by trousers tight enough around the ankles so they don't slide over your shoes.
The dirty toilet problem is a problem if you can't stand far enough away from the toilet, which is a problem in very small loos; I have no solution to it.

Skirts are sometimes easier kept clean in small, dirty toilets, by just pulling them up to waist level before entering the cubicle. It goes without saying that this is NOT possible in unisex loos.
(Keeping the underpants away from the dirty toilet is a problem with that method; that's how I understood for the first time why women didn't use to wear underpants)

Wilderness is much easier. You squat lower so the pee is well away from your trousers and feet, and choose the location so the pee won't pool at your feet. Some women find skirts easier for wilderness peeing.

Some female pro-trans "feminists" who acknowledge that women do not want to be in confined spaces with males propose as the solution the individual, lockable cubicle with washbasin.

That is all nice and good if the location has the space.

But not all do.

And with limited resources, I still prefer the tiny cubicle / larger sex segregated space outside combination to ... well, tiny cubicles with no segregated space outside.

Women want to have fun. (I say that as actual, no-fun-feminist.) Some women want to go to reenactment festivals and wear hooped skirts which requires a sex segregated space outside the toilet cubicles to hoist up or get out of completely.

Should those fun activities be banned because those organising them can't afford private cubicles of the size of a small bedroom?

That is ridiculous.

they have gender neutral toilets in the Everyman cinemas usually and have done for years. Never found it to be a problem at all. Its all cubicles so no one sees anything of anyone else except in the hallway anyway.

Maybe naicely dressed small/elderly/infirm women should resign themselves to Tena for theatre visits?

they have gender neutral toilets in the Everyman cinemas usually and have done for years. Never found it to be a problem at all. Its all cubicles so no one sees anything of anyone else except in the hallway anyway.

Have you read my post? Do you think only cinemas that have enough money to build spacious cubicles with washbasins inside should be allowed to stay in business?

Semira - thanks for tweeting about this Hope you don't get a dreaded BBC warning or experience no-platforming

Quite right PoochSmooch!
There'll be gender neutral toilets before changing places for people with disabilities.

Well done Samirah for raising this publicly.

There have been a few threads on mumsnet about this since i joined a few months ago ( not me that started them like) and you get the usual moaners signalling how pragmatic and superior they are, because they don't have a problem with this, they have a no nonsence approach to toilets , and they share a toilet at home with men you see and that's exactly the same! My goodness all this fuss over a loo!

But once the questions start, why now? Why womens toilets? Who does this benefit? Are women and young girls asking for this? And once people start making their many valid points, their argument falls apart and they can't answer the questions so just carry on repeating themselves.

Some people seem to be completely unable to put their own feelings aside and remember what it was like to be a young girl out alone starting periods or not, or understand how women who have been attacked might feel.

Why are they doing this, I see no matches asking for this. They are just adding these things and giving the majority no choice

I went to the Barbican recently and didn't notice this, where was it? The poos me and my DD used were female and packed with women

I am really worried at that push for this, there are very few female only spaces and I really worry that whether the majority like it or not there is a very strong agenda to push this. People won't miss what we are losing until it's gone.

Cap agree with the gist of your post completely, but just want to say, if you point out how this or anything else inconveniences Muslim women you are likely to get more people bloody mindedly agreeing with it just to prove a point, they will cut their noses off to spite their faces.

All the Muslim sisters I know that wear hijab use the toilets regularly to whip off their hijab and fix it properly and if this carries on Muslim lady swimming in my local leisure centre will have to be cancelled too. Let alone the sisters sections at the local mosques where women frequently relax their clothing or breast feed. If we end up with laws like in the US all these spaces are threatened.

But unfortunately only a few if them on my fb account are getting this. I think they somehow assume it will never get that bad or apply to them. Well, nearly all the women I know on fb are ignoring this actually, whatever their religion. Nobody wants to look bad or kick up a fuss it seems.

You're right, sister moonshine.

Where are all the SJWs when it comes to the Changing Places campaign? Where are all the "they just want to pee in peace" brigade when the person who wants to pee in peace is disabled and just wants not to have to lie in other people's pee on the toilet floor to get changed? This affects a quarter of a million people in the UK.

But it's not nearly so useful in terms of getting in some really good virtue signalling for something progressive, or for getting women to shut the fuck up and cater to males, so, meh.

Welcome to Mumsnet, Samira.

I went to a conference at a centre owned by the NUT recently. There was a men's toilet next to a gender neutral. I watched men strolling into the gender neutral and had to go to the other side of the building to find a toilet that was still designated women only.

Titania, apologies if my post came over as insensitive to Muslim women. That wasn't my intention at all.

There are so many conflicting and aligning issues at play.

Transwomen don't want gender neutral toilets. It completely defeats the object of validating their identity.

Gendertrender have a really good analysis of how the Pink News knee-jerk reaction to Samira's tweets were edited and re-written to eliminate the rage they contained.

gendertrender.wordpress.com/2017/04/06/unisex-restrooms-discriminate-against-women-and-youre-a-ranting-bigot-if-you-notice/#comments

"Rebecca Stinson, head of trans inclusion at Stonewall who was quoted in both articles, penned a piece two years ago titled “I’m a TransWoman And I Don’t Want Gender Neutral Toilets”.

In that piece he opined that forcing himself into female restrooms, although it caused women distress, was his way of affirming his identity. He suggested that women who feared him should be “Ejected from the loo” and forced to use a “gender bigot toilet”. “I’m not going anywhere. I’m a trans woman and I am more than happy to piss wherever there’s a girl on the door,” he states. Read his post here:"

thetab.com/uk/northumbria/2015/03/24/im-a-trans-woman-and-i-dont-want-gender-neutral-toilets-7359

Such ridiculous thinking. They attack Samira for objecting to gender neutral toilets, and in the same breath say they don't want them anyway! They don't want them because it doesn't validate their identity, but woe betide some bloody lowly woman not wanting them because it violates her boundaries.

We don't want gender neutral toilets, but we disagree with you not wanting them because you having an opinion is more outrageous than anything else.

Then I transitioned. I donned my dresses, painted my nails and scurried into uni as Rebecca

Yes, that's what it takes to be a woman.

So they don't want gender neutral toilets as they stop them from asserting they're women and forcing women (sorry, cis women) to accept them as such without question, lest be branded bigots, but a woman doesn't want them and she's presented as being unreasonable. Incredible.

IAmAmy

It is ridiculous. Have they never heard of strategy? All they have to do is agree wholeheartedly with her and say they don't blame her for not wanting unisex loos. Job done. Or better still, just kept their mouth shut.

But they HAVE to disagree, because she's a woman.