Wagamama and gender neutral toilets

[TulipsTulipsTulips]

40% of wagamama’s toilets will be gender neutral by September. The last thing I want to do when I go out for a meal is share the facilities with men. We are different and deserve privacy! How have women’s interests become such a low priority?

SimonJT Why do you have such a bee in your bonnet, to keep on demanding an answer to a question you've thrown in for your own purposes? We're discussing male/female toilets. If you have a particular interest in having male/female disabled toilets start a thread about it and stop haranguing me and demanding I pay attention to your cunning ploy.

OMG Wetherspoons and their labyrinth to find the toilets... I've never been in a Spoons that had toilets on the same floor as anything else

Also (totally outing my location to anyone local) our Spoons recently closed for renovation and when they reopened had swapped the men's and women's toilets I mean ok they'd put a sign up to say so, but WTF? It's not like either was any bigger or better located, they just randomly swapped them so now people like me are always opening the wrong door then backing away in a hurry!

In that case, it’s fair. But I do worry that it will encourage other organisations who will not have fully enclosed spaces .

@Outanabout

Surely it’s the same issue? What makes it okay for disabled people to have shared toilets, but it isn’t okay for people who aren’t disabled? Disabled people are men and women you know, it is the same issue, disabled people deserve the same rights as those who are not disabled.

Accessible toilets are designed primarily for wheelchair users. There will, to put it crudely, not be high traffic of men using the toilet standing and peeing all over the seat.

Which is, if you look around, one of the biggest reasons women do not want to share high use, high traffic single cubicles with men.

It depends entirely on the layout.

If these are floor to ceiling wholly self-contained cubicles (toilet, sink, sanitary disposal bin) that come off an open corridor that's widely visible, that's fine in my books.

If you have to go through a door to enter a communal area (with shared sinks, for instance) off which there are toilet cubicles, that's more problematic. Women can then find themselves in a confined space with men.

Here is why:
www.thenational.scot/news/17674915.shona-craven-the-bogeyman-lurking-in-womens-toilets-is-real/

And:
www.walesonline.co.uk/news/education/pupils-missing-school-because-dont-15839558

Doesn’t sound too bad if they fully implement what they said and that they are still committed to keeping some women’s only spaces. Until you think about what that really means. What’s a women only space after all. You just know trans women will insist on using them rather than the gender neutral ones and of course they’ll be in the right as ‘transwomen’ are women. In summary nice attempt in being woke but won’t work (and the executives are probably patting themselves on the back oblivious that TRAs will never accept this).

I don't see the problem. If its a florr to ceiling door then it's basically a single sex room.

As for communal basins, all you do is washbyour hands there and go.

My local Wagamamas is has unisex loos. Absolutely grim the time I used them (about 8.30pm). Bizarrely John Terry (footballer) was also eating there that night.

Should I blame John Terry or should I blame the shitty sinks.... was it piss or water.

They've literally made them to save space. I don't think they actually care.

It depends entirely on the layout.

If these are floor to ceiling wholly self-contained cubicles (toilet, sink, sanitary disposal bin) that come off an open corridor that's widely visible, that's fine in my books.

If you have to go through a door to enter a communal area (with shared sinks, for instance) off which there are toilet cubicles, that's more problematic. Women can then find themselves in a confined space with men.

^^ I agree with the above. I’ve been a restaurant with the second arrangement before - communal sinks etc - and that’s not an arrangement I’m comfortable with.

Especially when it’s set up so you have to walk past all the men’s cubicles to get to the women’s ones. There was a man urinating in one (men’s) cubicle with the door open. Something I’d rather not have to walk past on my way to the women’s cubicles.

It was fortunately pretty busy in the communal toilets when I went in, I’d have felt rather nervous if I’d been the only woman in there.

I work for wagamama, have done for years, love my job and really believe in the values we work towards, they are a fantastic company to work for and look after the team.
I rolled my eyes at this news. It does piss me off the virtue signalling smugness of it.
But, our toilets have always been mixed, one women's, one men's, two both and a disabled/baby change unit. All have floor to ceiling walls and doors, sinks, dryer and sanitary bins. All are checked for cleanliness regularly.
The walls are pretty thick and you can't hear between the cubicles. So I'm happy with that set up.
Like I say more the virtue smugness that bothers me really.

The smugness and virtue signaling is a bit annoying - particularly as from what some of you are saying this layout isn't even new.

In a chain like Wagamama I really don't see there is a problem. This layout gives more privacy than traditional single sex cubicles. I doubt if Wagamama attracts a drunken/ loutish clientele who will mess up their toilets . If toilets aren't kept clean customers will complain.

Wagamama is not asking women to share with men. This really isn't a hill to die on.

I don’t care what names prissy people like simonJT want to call me, but I am really feeling limited by all this crap. There is a reason that toilets are supposed to be single sex and I’m really angry that if I am thinking of going out, I have to double check the facilities before I go somewhere.

I don't feel safer in enclosed toilets, it's a confined space that you can be pushed into and it's harder to be heard if you need to call out for help.

It makes it easier for men to plant hidden cameras when they legitimately have access to the toilet. These aren't just for their use, there is a market for toilet fetish online, especially public toilets.

Men's toilets are generally disgusting. I am not expecting to find a clean toilet if I have the misfortune to go in afterwards. Perverts will have a field day knowing or thinking a woman will go in after them. Some people have no idea...

And this is for no good reason...they really don't care about their female customers.

I am fine with individual cubicles. What I don't like is when toilets are relabelled without any attempt to make sure they are satisfactory - no gaps, enclosed basins etc. Or worse still, changing rooms with badly fitting curtains. That is just virtue signalling and all the worse because it comes with no investment.

Moonrises is right that we need better toilets for everyone - better baby changing spaces, better recognition that not all disabled people are in wheelchairs and some need extra space for a person to assist them. And an end to horrible toilets miles away from anywhere that are not cleaned properly and which are unacceptable for anyone of any gender.

I would have been ok with fully enclosed toilet cubicles but then I read about the pervert who was arrested for recording women's peeing so he can wank off to it later and the bogeyman article posted earlier.

We will have to use them, when you need to go you need to go and I have a history of UTIs so if unisex loos are the only ones available I'll have to use them, but I will complain afterwards and keep complaining.

I honestly don't think anything will change though, now this has started it won't stop, more and more companies will jump on the bandwagon . No one respects single sex spaces or the Equality Act anyway!

For me it depends how it's done. If it's individual rooms then I couldn't care less. If it's stalls in a shared room then I'd be uncomfortable. A bar in town has individual rooms, marked m or f, but shared handwashing area. It's a huge area. I've only used the bar for the toilet midday so I've no idea what it would be like to be there if an evening.

Maybe we need to be more vocal about dirty toilets, make it worth their while switching back. Everytime there’s a loo with urine pools on the floor etc go to the front desk where the queue is and say to the manager the loo is messy please can someone go & clean it. Post on trip advisor or opentable when you find a messy loo if you give a review, let the council know you are concerned about the hygiene levels in the restaurant.

I work in a modern hospital, all the public loos are m/f , never heard anyone state there was a problem with them. I actually prefer them. And since when have restaurant loos been a danger to anyone?

Do you get a lot of pissed up men using the facilities in your modern hospital?

Plenty of pissed up men in a&e

I never go out much and live rurally so haven't come across the current gender-neutral toilet trend. But yesterday was in All Bar One in Birmingham Central, they had a door off the bar area into a communal corridor with cubicles that looked on first glance to be fully enclosed. Only when I sat down to pee did I notice there was a good three inch gap from the floor to the door. I'll admit I was relieved all I needed was a wee once I noticed this. I can't fully say why but it did make me uncomfortable in a way that using a cubicle off a sex-specific room wouldn't.

This trend reminds me of the Costa toilets I have been in. There’s normally two. Unisex. Completely disgusting.

I have no problem with any toilets as long as they are frequently cleaned. It’s the piss all over the floor and the seat up so I have to touch it that really makes me feel ill.

Women seem to be very unaware of the reality of hidden cameras in toilets.

Mixed sex toilets gives greater opportunity to install these cameras and there is a demand for these videos, they have a marketable value.