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

The DM has two articles on this (warning: one of them is a Littlejohn article!)

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4385984/Fury-Barbican-Centre-ditches-male-female-toilets.html

www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-4388748/RICHARD-LITTLEJOHN-Looby-Loo.html

The Barbican was terrible for women's toilets 20 years ago. I hope they've built more since..

Paris Lees has (badly) written this piece for the Telegraph about the Barbican toilets. In which she says in one breath she doesn't use gender neutral toilets, and in the next she says that she does

Fuck, who is worse, Paris or Littlejohn?

*They smell nicer, feel safer and best of all don't contain men"

Oh Paris, you are a hoot,hahaha haha.

This hasn't been properly thought out. I was at a venue for a conference recently with proper gender neutral toilets recently. What that meant was a room with a row of fully enclosed cubicles all containing a toilet hand basin mirror and sanitary bin. No urinals.

Just changing the signs is madness.

I'd prefer that the cubicles not be in a separate room but instead open directly onto a corridor or open area, if they are going to be for either sex.

With cleaners for when there is wee on the floor because men can't aim properly!

Thanks for those links Datun, makes for very interesting reading.

“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

What an absolute twat.

Am I the only one experiencing a strong desire to swan into the 'gender neutral with urinals' toilets?

No! I would be prone to doing that too...

Assuming they're adequately cleaned regularly ... I sort of hope a lot of women who are fed up with the queues for the ladies 'gender neutral, cubicles only' do.

Laurapalmer90

Gendertrender is a mine of information. They take the time to research people's Internet history with illuminating results.

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

I think these are OK so long as the doors to them are set within a visible public space and are cleaned all the time, because men can make a particularly bad mess with urine everywhere.

Sorry, I sent that too soon. There should have been two sentences. My concern is that they should be: 1. Joined to a visible public space. 2. Cleaned frequently

In tonight's London Evening Standard.

I have just contacted the Barbican to complain. Here's the link for anyone else who wants to:

www.barbican.org.uk/contactus

I have been in men's toilets to clean them years ago, and the sods in a that place deliberately used to walk in to wind us female cleaners up, even with signs on the doors!
The only time I have used a men's toilet was at a Bruce Springsteen concert, and that was desperately needed

I got banned from my uni's SU nightclub in the late 80s for using the mens loos (to avoid the ladies queue). I stuck my head in first and asked if anyone in there minded, they didn't, so I went in. Presumably someone wasn't happy though, as security banned me (although they were happy enough for me to pay my money on the door the following week ).

There's a #savetheladies hashtag for this on Twitter if anyone wants to use it.

Think of those lovely "Ladies" which used to be called Powder Rooms, with scent bottles with those little puffer sprays, tissues in special containers, enormous mirrors, luxurious carpets and chairs and a special attendant.

Or a wonderful, very different sort of Ladies there used to be in Paddington, with a certain attendant who was always there, year after year, and who may have had a cat, I think.

These places were special havens for women.

It would be very nice if they came back, let alone nice to just keep the idea of a Ladies in the first place even if there are some gender neutral ones in addition for some people.

Ding

Everyone i know squat over, not sit on a dirty public toilet.

The other thing you can do is tear off strips of paper and carefully lay them along the seat on each side, with another bit across the front, then carefully sit down so as not to 'puff' the paper off by the movement of sitting.

You can also buy special paper covers in small, travel packets.
www.google.co.uk/webhp?sourceid=chrome-instant&ion=1&espv=2&ie=UTF-8#q=paper+lavatory+covers&tbm=shop&spd=12056764155256713831

Thank god my kids are older and aren't in the same cubicle with me anymore. "Mum, mum - that's a big poo - well done!", " mum, mum - why have you got hair on your bum!" - as Dave next door guffaws loudly.

Used a unisex loo yesterday for first time - was ok but a big family place for kids so mostly women and kids anywway. Did notice as i was washing my hands there was a seperate area "gents - urinals". This whole thread immediately came to mind.

Good article www.feministcurrent.com/2017/04/12/inclusivity-priotrity-let-men-make-washrooms-gender-neutral-savetheladies/

Also, btl pretty good.