Thoughts on 'gender-neutral' toilets

[SeamusFinnigan]

Hi all - I've been lurking on the Feminist boards for a while now, and have firmly come round to the GC viewpoint!

Sorry as this thread may seem trivial and not really thread-worthy compared to others but I had a thought on gender-neutral toilets. The other night I was at a bar with DP and some friends and went to the loo. Loos were typical crappy quality that you get in bars and my door seemed to only semi-lock. Another woman, presumably tipsy, had been standing behind me in the queue and had, I'm pretty sure, seen me go into the loo, but she pushed the door open while I was in there and the feeble lock just fell open - me in full wee-flow. Now as we were all women, I could just say 'oops no, still in here' and push the door back and not let it bother me but it did play on my mind that if we become forced to have gender-neutral loos everywhere, given the shit quality of most public loos, this kind of thing will happen more often. Whether it's a bloke doing it on purpose to assault you or get some kind of titillating buzz by doing it because he can, or whether it is a genuine accident and he's also mortified, it wouldn't make my embarrassment any less if that makes sense. So it just made me think I really resent that gender-bloody-neutral loos are being forced as the so called liberal position, when surely I should at the very least have the liberty to know that if someone accidentally or not pushes my cubicle door open, she's female? Just struck me as another downside.

(NB obviously loos in e.g. smaller restaurants which have always just had a single loo that's used by everyone are not what I'm talking about here, I mean multiple loos in a room with cubicles).

And apologies, I know loos have been done to death. Have just been musing on this and thought who better to share my thoughts with!

I agree. Single sex toilets are so important we just take them for granted.

I can't stand mixed sex toilets. I don't like queuing up with men to go to the toilet. I also think there is a safety thing, that having a woman-only area outside the cubicle (where the sinks/hand dryers are) makes it safer to exit. You can emerge from your cubicle and if you are concerned a creepy man is hanging around outside, you can wait for another woman to exit at the same time. Having them standing right outside your cubicle is horrible.

I wouldn't use them alone, I'd feel quite vulnerable.

Someone made a good point on this board, which was we should call them what they are - mixed sex toilets.
Men may just want to pee but women use bathrooms for so many more reasons. To get away from pestering men, to have a cry, to deal with a period or a miscarriage.
Women are not asking for mixed sex spaces. Its not us pushing for them. They don't benefit us.

I’ve never seen mixed sex loos where it’s cubicles with sinks in a shared area. I would really hate that. Actually I quite dislike the mixed sex ones we have a my work which are multiple little rooms with sinks but can live with them reluctantly.

Really not a fan of mixed sex toilets.

I have twice now been in unisex (don't called them gender neutral, they're not separated by gender at the mo!) loos where the cubicles were fully enclosed but the basins were outside for all to use. I really disliked the one at Pret by South Kensington station (might as well name and shame!) because it was a very tight space and a man had to squeeze past me. In that one it was one room with separate male and female cubicles but mixed washing, and the stench from the men's cubicles was vile. The woman I was with didn't like it either, and I think DD would have hated it and possibly refused to use them.

The other was slightly better in that it was a huge space, but I still didn't like it.

A lot of the toilets I use are crammed into the smallest space possible, so you do have to squeeze past people. Interestingly the women MPs moan about how everyone's squashed together when waiting to vote. Total cognitive dissonance.

I would be ok using them in certain circumstances. I think.

At work? No. I know the people too well and that level of exposure to eachother would be awkward.

During the day in busy shopping centres theoretically sounds ok. During the day it probably is

But those same toilets potentially on a different floor being used early in the morning or late at night. I'd probably be a bit wary. And although I probably don't really care enough about myself to worry too much. The idea of my dds going out with friends and sharing toilets with adult men. Just no. It scares the life out of me the. It's one thing to take the risk for myself. But I work evenings. Dp works in the day. Alot of the time when we go out it's just one of us not having female only toilets would mean that dp couldnt take them.out.

So I vote no. No way.

The ones at my work I find quite awkward. I would prefer single sex but the building layout makes it difficult.

We have mixed sex toilets in one area of my work where it's just a corridor with fully enclosed spaces each with a loo, a mini sink and paper towel dispenser. I really hate going into them just because I feel weird about doing my business with just a door between me and the general public. I like the separation of the sink area and the cubicles.
Rather than making women accept men into their bathrooms why don't we try to educate men to be more accepting of effeminate/gay/trans men who dress like women. I fully support any man who feels he wants to dress and act like a woman but in my view if you have a penis you go into the penis toilets. If you have a vagina you go into the vagina toilets. It's a matter of biology, simples.

why don't we try to educate men to be more accepting of effeminate/gay/trans men who dress like women.

And why don't we try to educate effeminate/gay/trans men who dress like women to respect women's boundaries and that they have no business going in women's single sex spaces.

I hate them. As others have said we use toilet for more than just going to the toilet. More than once I've used them as a place to get away from the men I work with just for a short while.
When travelling it's a chance to connect briefly with local women on neutral safe ground. Particularly in the Middle East where women will adjust their veils in the privacy of the toilets and chat briefly or smile if you smile at them as it's a place which reminds us we are all the same underneath.

Yes!!! Women don't use toilets for one single thing - as so many of you have pointed out, they're a valued space for us to do so many things for which we usually need privacy! I just don't understand why we are always dismissed when we say what we need

If you are going to do loos for everybody, they need to be designed with privacy in the forefront of the mind.

banks of cubicles with floor to ceiling walls and doors and shared sinks? That might be OK for a lot of the time, but when I am changing sanitary products or emptying a cup... not so much.

There needs to be an advertised private option, ie a sign on the mixed loos saying "the nearest single cubicle (or single sex) loo is at X".

It doesn't have to be all loos all the time, it is possible to share some toilet spaces. But it can't be forced and a private option needs to be supplied.

That's my take on the loo issue.

I've only once seen mixed sex toilets organised in a way I thought was vaguely acceptable and that was because they were at a (private) centre with a restaurant and play area which was specifically aimed at parents taking their children.

The toilets were in a large area with cubicles each of which had an adult and a child-sized toilet in them. I could understand why they'd designed these as mixed sex because a parent of either sex could take their child in there. There was plenty of room outside on all sides to access the central bank of 'trough' type washing facilities.

That said, I went in alone and there was no-one else in there. I still felt nervous about the notion that a man might follow me in or be lurking in there and then realised that some parents might well send older children in alone...

I used to work in an office with fully enclosed cubicles, each with a sink off a separate corridor. It was fine - no more exposed than just walking into any public loo.

It wasn’t a large office and there were only 3 loos in total.

What doesn’t work is simply changing the sign on a door.