DM: Women avoiding new gender neutral toilets in the home office because men can't close the door

[miri1985]

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6065075/Female-Home-Office-employees-refusing-use-new-36-000-gender-neutral-toilets.html

Great job wasting money as usual!

I'm intrigued why the cost was so high for the conversion, given that none of the toilets in the HO HQ have urinals

signs bearing a picture of a lavatory and the words ‘Gender Neutral Toilets’ cost an additional £8,070.70

Excuse me what?

I wouldn’t use these loos either, I don’t blame any of these women. The men should be disciplined/reported for indecent exposure.

Victoria bus station arrivals had unisex toilets with signs up telling men to close the doors when they were in there. They didn't!! I haven't been for a while so i dont know if it was changed but its an obvious issue with unisex toilets

Surely the question should be why these men aren't closing the doors? I presume they have bathroom doors at home and use them? It sounds like they are doing it on purpose to intimidate other users?

I wouldn't bet on the men being accustomed to closing the door at home, or certainly not all of them.

Men have been used to peeing communally in public their whole lives and the need for privacy or modesty isn't as ingrained as for women. Some will notice the signs and adapt, but closing the door isn't necessarily an instinctive behaviour. I don't think gender neutral toilets do anyone any favours.

And even if they do close the doors, in the absence of urinals the men will likely get urine on the toilet seats. That's why urinals exist.

I wouldn't want to pee there.

Christian Concern chief executive Andrea Minichiello Williams said she was not surprised that women felt uncomfortable at having to share toilets with men.She added: ‘By attempting to be inclusive towards a very small number of trans-identifying people, companies and public authorities have actually made conditions significantly worse for women – as nearly everyone predicted would happen.‘We hate to have to state the obvious, but men and women – and boys and girls – need separate, single-sex toilets. This is something women fought hard for in the past – and still fight for in parts of the developing world today.’

Hmm, never heard of this woman. Wise words

I haven’t read the article, but we have unsex toilets at work. I have never seen a man not close the door, and i have not come across any more wee on the toilet seats than when they were Women’s only toilets.
I used to work in Belgium where we had unisex loos - no issues there either.
Men are perfectly capable of shutting the door and wanting privacy in my experience
I find it bizarre that this has been an issue in a professional work environment

Cross posted with you Trans
I think that woman is speaking nonsense. Unisex toilets are easily made safe spaces. Ours are separate ‘rooms’ for each loo, with basin, dryer and sanitary bin in each loo. There is a small corridor connecting all the loo rooms to the main office (so the loo doors dont open only the office directly IYSWIM)
Perfectly private and safe, its just Bob from accounts might be then next one to you a particular loo after I do. Saves space in our office - much more efficient use of space

You = use

Oh and our move to unisex toilets wasn’t a trans thing, it was a better use of space thing

I've just been to Denmark where nearly all the public toilets I used were gender neutral. It was odd at first but fine. In a work situation I would much prefer single toilets with no shared space that can be used by anyone.

Separate cubicles with sinks would be ok, as long as the doors were weighted to shut automatically. Small cubicles with just a toilet in are easy for men to quickly pee with the door propped open without even thinking about it.

The theory that gender neutral toilets makes people more comfortable only applies to the male people. Of course.

Separate rooms being unisex shouldn't be an issue, provided they are regularly cleaned. I would assume that a series of small separate unisex loos is actually much less space efficient than two large multiple cubical male and female loos. But in this case we are talking about multiple cubical unisex loos, so basically just relabeling the door of the male and female and opening them up to everyone. I've heard of this being done at other workplaces and staff deciding to use them as if they were still male/female. I would have thought that most people would prefer a single sex environment for a shared bathroom really.

Christian Concern chief executive Andrea Minichiello Williams... is a highly litigious person also from the Christian legal centre. The causes these organisations are for and which they pursue legal cases against are very far from women-friendly or LGB- friendly issues, typically.
However, even a stopped clock tells the right time twice a day etc. I have to say that I agree with that quote too which is a lifetime first for me so there we go.

If they've got the space then they should have a room with a urinal then a strip of unisex toilet cubicles. That'd save men tying up cubicles and reduce the peeing on seats. I personally think unisex cubicles are a good idea - especially in offices with mainly female or male teams.

Yuck the thought of sharing toilets with men the mess, the smell.

Can't close the doors? Or won't?

I find it bizarre that this has been an issue in a professional work environment

This.

Exposing themselves in public...that may be a way to turn this around.

These will be the guys who like to sit with their legs spread and show their crotch. Yes, we know you're male and no, we don't want to look, however much you want us to.

In busy single-sex male loos, it is common to use a cubicle to pee in if the urinals are all taken. Standing up, back to the door, door open.
It's if anything more private than using a urinal.

I've seen this happen at airports, concert halls, theatres, etc.
So the men may not be being deliberately intimidatory.

( and they're not exposing themselves! )

This was my experience of the unisex loos we used when we were on holiday in France. They were very busy with a big queue and several men peed without closing the door. I wasn’t too happy as I had DD with me. Also there was pee all over the seat.

Funny how the mantra is for toilets to be 'inclusive' They should be offering the users privacy, dignity and safety.

We had gender neutral toilets at my old work and I never once saw a man leave the cubicle door open They were small cubicles with just toilets and the sinks were shared. Once I’d got over the initial surprise of seeing a male colleague at the sinks they were absolutely fine.