"But toilets in France are unisex"

[JellySlice]

As people have been saying to me, "and I don't feel any different in them than I do in the Ladies' loos."

How to reply?

(Is it even a thing? I have never to my knowledge or recollection used unisex public loos abroad. All communal loos were separated by sex, often with a fearsome female guardian at the joint entrance, ensuring that people went into the correct section.)

I lived in France for 6 months back in 2005 and didn't see any unisex toilets in bars or supermarkets. I'm also just back from Disneyland Paris and didn't see any unisex toilets so I can't imagine they're actually that common

Yeah, yeah...

Oh so familiar with the "Everyone else has...." argument proferred by whiney children...

No they don't, it does not matter what someone else is allowed, the answer is still no.

I remember, as a teenager, on holiday in France having to walk past the urinals to get to the cubicle. I felt uncomfortable and vulnerable.

Rebecca36 I think you misunderstood what I was trying to say,
I'm sure that everything is hunky dory when facilities are in well maintained, monitored, graffiti free, and with floor to ceiling cubicles.
As usual people who can't afford this sort of facility are at the sticky end of the unisex policy.
There was no one checking these showers apart from the daily clean. Graffiti was not removed.
I certainly don't think that working class people are not entitled to proper facilities. This was the holiday camp where I was staying, remember.
Of course they are segregated by class. It all depends what you can afford to pay for.

They have some unisex toilets in Belgium, usually bars, where you walk past the urinals to get to the cubicle. I always feel uncomfortable walking past men with their dicks out, I don't imagine a lot of men enjoy it either. They also have public urinals, walking past the Gare du Midi there is the stench of stale urine which lingers all along the road towards the station's entrance and no facilities for women either (In the Netherlands too there were recently protests about the very same type of facilities for this reason: www.theguardian.com/world/2017/sep/21/protests-planned-amsterdam-urinals-women-toilets), so foreign facilities are hardly a good example for making the TRA's point here, and in any case what is being proposed would be entirely different from the example they are using.

link: tinyurl.com/yd2l2v55

When I was a student in France in the 80s, the halls of residence had a unisex shower and toilet block. The urinals were behind a sort of low wall and the showers and toilet cubicles were beyond that. The shared toilets never worried me, but the showers didn't seem anything like private enough. I never used them - went to a friend's flat and had a weekly bath there. I had a sink in my room that I used for washing the rest of the week.

No, I'm not mad! We can't squat in this country because we don't squat regularly, and as a result, we lose leg strength and the flexibility in our knees, hips and ankles, so it feels really hard. I used to live in an Asian country where people of all ages, including pregnant women, routinely squatted, not just for toileting, but to rest, for example when queueing or chatting.

I'm not saying we should ban seated toilets, but that using squat toilets has its advantages.

Yes, France is not the best example......

It wasn't TRAs, it was people to whom I was trying to explain my GC attitude. The men accepted that women might feel differently about it, but the women present were insistent that they had no problem with the unisex toilets.

I'm curious how many women here avoid using toilets that declare that male staff are cleaning the facilities? Or whether that might depend on the facility itself, eg. how busy it is.

I hate squat toilets and am physically incapable of using them.

Toilets are not unisex in France, unless there is just one toilet, for instance in a small restaurant.

Came across one of these in a fast food outlet in Lille this summer. DD (aged 6) wants the loo, so I go with her. There's a unisex type of sign and we go in, I'm expecting to see three more doors M, F and accessible, instead there's a bank of urinals and beyond that a single cubicle door. "Merde" I think, "I've misread the sign, we're in the gents". Out we go. I check the sign. I check the rest of the cafe. I ask the staff. That is the only loo. I hope it never comes in here or we'll have to give up eating out, it was grim.

I've been living in France for nearly 20 years and have never walked past men's urinals to get to the toilet.

I have also only ever seen mixed toilets in small cafes where there is just one toilet.

I've been in many campsites in France where the showers and toilets were unisex. All toilets and showers were in cubicles.

I have to be honest and say it didn't bother me.

I've also been in smaller unisex toilets in France and been very surprised to see a man using a urinal on my way to each a cubicle. Each time I've sort of been caught unawares and been very surprised. I've just kind of got on with it, I guess because I just needed to use the toilet.

I realise there is a huge debate around this, and I respect this entirely. Just reporting my own experience.

Slightly off topic but I went to university in the mid '90s. A very well regarded university.

Our halls of residence toilets (5 in a room), and bathrooms (2 baths and 2 showers in each) bathroom were unisex. I didn't like sharing a bathroom with a flimsy door with a large gap beneath with anyone. But I didn't feel any more uncomfortable about sharing with men than I did women.

France always seems a really unhelpful example to use - the catcalling and groping of women there (in Paris at any rate) is far worse than in the UK and suggests a lack of respect for women and boundaries anyway. Small wonder I suppose that some boundary pushers think we should adopt their toilets too.

That was my experience, Scipio - I had my fair share of flashers etcin the UK, but in France it seemed I was fair game for being wanked at, groped, propositioned, stalked, all in full view of the public, and never a hair turned by anyone. I never went back but hoped it might have changed by now.

ScienceRoar, where I'm at, it's common for the cleaning person to just block the door with a big floor display which says "cleaning in progress" or something. I'm assuming it's because it's much more efficient and quicker to get the mopping done when the worker doesn't have people in their way. They really do tend to be quite fast, just a few minutes and they're done.

But there's also usually a chart on the wall somewhere, and you can see that in busy places, management has someone going in there every hour or so.

I walked into a unisex loo on Friday of a burger restaurant. Row of about 5 with sinks inside. You had to walk through a door to get to them from the restaurant.

The seat was completely covered with piss. Whoever had been in there would have been better off with a urinal.

I felt disgusted. I also felt really uptight with my daughters going in there in case a perv might drag them into a cubicle or had left a mobile phone camera in there. I fucking hate these repulsive mixed sex toilets. Grim.

This has been useful as i see this argument often but I don’t spend much time in France. lBe interesting to ask women in France if they would prefer single sex or unisex.

I've no interest in who "wasn't bothered" by using toilets with men using urinals in them. I'm bothered by it and so are millions of other women.

I've no interest in who "wasn't bothered" by using toilets with men using urinals in them. I'm bothered by it and so are millions of other women.

Quite.

You can grant consent for yourself, but you cannot grant consent for others.

I’ve said this before but I guess I will repost whenever relevant -a man stuck his head under the gap beneath the cubicle wall when I was changing post-swim, in a unisex change.

I was about 20 at the time. Haven’t used a unisex facility since (single occupant toilets in cafes etc are different) and I actively seek out women-only swim sessions, exercise classes and facilities.