Had to use a male bathroom which called itself 'gender neutral' - seeking legal advice!

[annalouiseadams]

Hi guys, I'm active on Twitter under @annalouiseadams but haven't used mumsnet before. I recently went to a music venue in London which didn't actually have any female toilets - it was 'gender neutral' which was essentially a male bathroom. I've written a brief statement below - am seeking anyone who could offer me any legal advice / expertise / experience in this area as I would like to challenge this. I wrote a review on their Facebook page and here is a link to the review and their response: www.facebook.com/AnnaLouiseAdams/posts/10156817578880098?notif_id=1573491952451634&notif_t=feedback_reaction_generic

My statement is below:

On Saturday 9th November 2019, I attended an event at Peckham Audio on Rye Lane. Upon entering the venue I realised that the toilets were presented as ‘gender neutral’. When I first went to the toilet I realised that the toilet space was comprised of an open urinal area, and a number (3-5?) of stalls / cubicles (although these cubicles were not fitted with doors reaching from floor to ceiling height). As the evening went on, I continued using the toilets. Possibly the 3rd or 4th time I used the facilities, I had gone into a cubicle and as I was preparing to leave, heard a group of 3-4 males enter. They were using the urinals and proceeded to consume drugs (I could tell because of the specific sniffing sound associated with the consumption of drugs such as cocaine or ketamine). This lasted around 10 minutes, whereby I was stood in the stall making as little noise as possible, whilst they openly consumed drugs and engaged in loud and intimidating conversation. I felt frozen in the cubicle and was scared to even get my phone out of my bag as I did not want them to become aware of the fact that I was in a cubicle. I stood upright without moving for around 7 minutes before I decided it was safer to move further back into the cubicle and move my feet out of sight from the gap at the bottom of the cubicle. The remaining three minutes I maintained the same position whilst using my nose (as opposed to my mouth) to breathe which ultimately left me in a state of hyperventilation. Eventually they left, and I finally felt comfortable to leave. I didn’t use the facilities again. When I eventually was able to leave the cubicle I found my friends and recounted my experience - there are at least 4 (possibly more) friends who I spoke to about my experience who could vouch for the fact that I spoke about this experience soon after it happened in detail.

Sorry for the long statement but want people to know what happened before offering their help - please advise if you can - I don't want any woman to experience what I did.

So effectively if a young woman is in a club/pub and a creepy guy is bothering them, they can't "escape" to the ladies.

The ramifications are huge.

Licensed premises are under an obligation to provide adequate toilet facilities and their license will depend on this. You can report them about a potential breach of the licensing requirements

www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1976/57/section/20

So in order to use the toilet, you’d have to walk past men using the urinals?

I’m sorry you had such a bad experience. I can totally understand why breathing through your nose would lead you to hyperventilating too as it’s much more difficult to take long slow breaths through your nose.
I think licensing board is a good start and hopefully your story will also be picked up by larger media outlets to demonstrate why mixed sex toilets are such a bad idea. Unbelievable that we need to provide examples of why this is a bad idea in 2019 though 😡

Perhaps I’m being thick here but if you want to introduce gender neutral toilets why not have the option of men, women and neutral at least then we have a choice.

Sorry this happened OP sounds awful

That's great thank you - where exactly would I report them to? Local council?

Yes the Local Authority issues premises licences.

I will proceed with my one-woman campaign to call such toilets "mixed sex" as opposed to 'gender-neutral'. There is nothing neutral about them!

Fucking disgusting. Women fought for those rights and we want them back.

I won’t go into Costa because of the one-toilet situation. There is ALWAYS wee on the floor and/or the seat and they always stink of wee. I’m not paying the best part of a fiver for a drink and then be expected to use those sort of facilities.

Please report them to the licensing authority and tell us what kind of a response you get.
Sounds like you had an unpleasant experience. More women will have this happen to them unless unisex facilities are kept seperate from single sex ones.

This was the response from the venue:

Hi Anna. Thanks for the feedback and sorry you weren't able to recommend us based on your experience with our toilets. Gender neutral toilets are not everyone's preferred option, but due to the space available for toilets within the venue it was really our only choice for providing enough cubicles. Friday night was the first time the venue had been operating at capacity during a club night and we've certainly noticed there were issues and are looking at ways to rectify that and make the toilet area as safe as possible for everyone. We always have SIA trained security on site during any live or club event, and our staff and management are trained to help with any issues. Admittedly its not ideal to have to go and find one of them and we will be stepping up patrols around the toilet area significantly during all future club nights. We operate zero tolerance policy towards drugs and anyone caught taking them on site will be removed from the premises and reported to police. We're also looking at long term solutions to make the toilets as user friendly as possible and I do hope you return for a future event. Thanks

I would leave out the bit about breathing through your nose. Feeling like you had to hide in the cubicle for several minutes is sufficient and the nose breathing thing could be interpreters as if you are a bit strange as it is normal to breathe through you nose and should not cause someone to hyperventilate. You may have felt that as you were obviously and understandably scared.

I don't know how they manged to get a licence if they provide sufficient toilets. Report them. I really don't understand why the HSE isn't all over this.

Are they seriously suggesting to you that women should go and get a security staff member to accompany them when they want to use a toilet and have to run the gauntlet of the urinals?

I just saw your story on my Facebook feed, shared in a GC group. As well as the response of the venue, and women replying that they won't use mixed sex facilities.

I've hope that the message is slowly trickling through that women are majorly pissed off and not complying.

Slight derail but I had to post this.
I see it's from 2011 - anyone know which university rubber wank guy went to?

Those notices are usually hoaxes and have been doing the rounds for years. See

www.dailytarheel.com/article/2016/09/first-year-student-masters-a-fake-masturbation-notice

I love that someone did an FOI to factcheck that:

www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/masturbation_notice

If this all goes to the extreme and we stop going to pubs, clubs and gigs etc, how will we make friends and meet new people let alone meet someone to date?

An arranged marriage?

Don't clubs want women to go? They used to so want women to go that they would advertise that women didn't have to pay the entrance fee.

They make it sound like a weird new problem that is hard and complex to solve. I hope they are shut down.

popehilarious
I had a feeling the notice was a joke, but a good one. I love the FOI response.