Share your experiences of gender neutral toilets

[Trou]

I went into my first gender neutral toilet this week and I have to say I wasn't impressed. As I walked in two young men stared at me as they were spraying water all around the sink area. As I was washing my hands a man came in and started undoing his trousers before he was in a cubicle. Ok not crimes of the century in either case but quite grim. Never experienced these things in a traditional woman's loo. I was the only woman in there so I felt very odd. Going to the loo at work used to be a nice 5 min break to collect my thoughts. Now it's stressful. Not impressed. Anyone else tried one of these new gender neutral toilets and if so what where your impressions?

[ScapaFlo]

I was queueing for the loo recently in a cafe which had two unisex loos, both fully contained cubicles with sinks and bins and everything. Both signed men, women and disabled. The (older) man in the queue in front of me let me go first when a cubicle became free, and said he really didn't like this new fashion of sharing everything, he far preferred separate male and female loos. Even though there were only two loos, he would have preferred one for women and one for men. Men don't like unisex either.

[HulksPurplePanties]

Never had an issue in gender neutral toilets. I've marched myself into many a men's only toilet, including at Yankee stadium and in Dubai and received nothing more than a "totally understand, women's lines are crazy, please excuse the piss on the floor."

The only time I've been attacked in a toilet was when I was 6 years old, at school, by a girl in grade 12. She crawled under the stall and assaulted me sexually. It took 3 female teachers to drag her out all the while she kept touching me and I kept screaming.

When they had her restrained, they told me to go back to class. No one asked what she had done to me in that toilet. No one asked why my pants were down. No one called my parents.

I don't like public toilets. Either sex.

[HulksPurplePanties]

Sorry. Just read the whole thread. Am I the only one who has been attacked by more than a smelly toilet?

[SirVixofVixHall]

I have never been assaulted by a female person, other than a gang of girls when I was about 11.
Hulks that girl sounds mentally disturbed, needing to be dragged away by three adults while still assaulting you. How old is grade 12 ? I am very sorry that you had such a terrible childhood experience. Sexual assault by females acting alone is exceptionally rare. Even by females acting with and under the influence of men it is only a tiny fraction, that is why there are no women commenting on it here.
I hope that you have had help and support.

[blissfulllife]

Mixed toilets at a beach in Devon this year. I took my autistic daughter to the toilet to strip her down to remove sand that was making her distressed. She threw a meltdown and bust out naked from the waist down. Pretty sure this wouldn't of been a problem if it was just ladies/girls but the absolute look of horror on her face when she saw men. She tried to climb to get out of a window! Another mom helped me get her calm and covered. She's early teens and she no longer will use any public toilet

[Knewmee]

bertsfriend has a great idea. In future I’ll always ask when booking a restaurant if they have mixed sex facilities- and go elsewhere if they do, explaining why. And put a comment on tripadvisor warning others.
If we all did this it would make a difference. In a lot of venues, men won’t go there unless women do- because they are in mixed sex groups/families, or hoping to meet women there.
Also, I think we need to stop referring to mixed sex toilets as unisex or gender neutral. Those labels are used deliberately to obscure the reality, and so that people don’t realise their 14 year old daughter will be sharing the loo with middle aged men. Because virtually everyone would object to that....why, I wonder? Bigotry? Or something else? Like being not completely divorced from reality?

[MorganKitten]

Never had an issue in the five years I’ve used them

[darkside29]

Who asked for them? Who wants them? Who prefers them?

We assume rationality on the part of those making the changes, but who spends money on architectural alterations which are actively disliked by their users?

[GrimDamnFanjo]

In Canada.
A museum in Toronto. There are m/f loos in the ground floor. These were on another floor and two sets, obviously once male and once female.
I felt very vulnerable- cubicles were not floor to ceiling.

[FoundWonderland]

I haven't tried a gender neutral bathroom/toilet yet, but I've just found out that the gym I've joined has a gender neutral changing room, with a few (emphasis on the few) private cubicles. I've got my induction next week, so will see how I feel about it then. Luckily my membership is valid at other gyms too, so I may be able to access another gym with sex separated changing spaces.

[HulksPurplePanties]

Sexual assault by females acting alone is exceptionally rare.

Gosh, that makes me feel so much better.

[HandsOffMyRights]

Mixed sex toilets are hideous. How do they benefit women?

When my children were younger I'd often have to leave my toilet door open as, being twins, they were in a double buggy. Sometimes I'd have to close the door though, but often other women/mothers were around to help or keep an eye out.
I would not have been able to do this with males in my space.

At work we had mixed sex toilets. These had formerly been ladies only. When they became mixed sex they were vile, stank, dirty. I walked in one day and a male colleague was urinating with the door open.
I do not want my 18 year old niece who has learning difficulties to experience this. Why should she have to see a penis when using the toilet?

Anyway, fortunately, the once female toilets at work became female again after all the women complained about how uncomfortable we felt, that we'd been holding in going to the toilet/changing our tampons/towels/cups and that this wasn't fair or healthy.

My husband has mixed sex loos at work. He doesn't like them either. He doesn't like using them in public either because no decent man wants to make women or girls feel uncomfortable or scared.

[VMisaMarshmallow]

Decades ago I used unisex toilets without thinking about this in a few places, one bar, one event place, and another service station I think iirc. It was a none issue at the time and I felt fine about it. In hindsight I wasn’t drunk, I was with trusted friends and it was early in the day/evening. At the very least the ones from the bar scare me looking back, if I was on my own among drunken men I didn’t know I’d be terrified. The service station had an attendant I think (it was a school bus trip of some kind, I guess it might have been a teacher or volunteer I didn’t know well but I think it was an attendant).

Since having children I’ve used unisex changing rooms at swimming plenty, the kind with separate changing cubicles that are open at the top/bottom and one large play place we go to has unisex toilets. These are brilliant imo, they are like any other toilets I guess but there’s no wall separating the toilets from the long walk way they are part of, they are set fairly far back, with the row of sinks first then the toilet cubicles further back again. These are super clean, because of course they would stink the place up otherwise due to being open. I have daughters with asc and other disabilities. They are in no way able to go into female toilets on their own yet, despite being ‘old enough’, and there’s no way they would ever enter the men’s toilets without huge melt downs. Techno they are entitled to use disabled accessible toilets but they are ridged that they use the girls and can’t cope with accessing disabled access unless it’s the only toilet in a tiny cafe iykwim. So basically it means I have to be with them, or if their dad takes them out they can’t be out for long or need to identify single use toilets the girls will be willing to use. The unisex ones at this play place are so open it feels safe to use (the entry desk is easily in ear shot) and they are fine with dads or boys using them as they see the other mums and girls are. I know this mostly definitely isn’t applicable to many places, and I think women’s safety comes first, but my girls needing me to be with them/be their primary carer when out on longer trips reinforces traditional sex role stereotypes, so the fact their dad can be their carer while I get a break and we don’t need to worry about toilets at this place is a relief. When I’ve spoken to friends about this they’ve often said the same- their children don’t have disabilities but they find that the usual 8 yr old expectation as the age when kids must go off to single sex toilets on their own concerning and the question of how it becomes limiting to plan around the same sex parent (if there is one) needing to be with the kid to access toilets is at best a pita. Obviously this isn’t anywhere near as important as women and girls being able to be safe, so if it was all one way or the other then I’d think single sex facilities comes first- even open clean safe unisex facilities are not appropriate for schools/work places/hospitals/bars, where women or girls maybe at greater risk of attack or being shamed for having female bodies with female needs. But being stuck sending girls out with mum and boys out with dad (if he’s around) for the few yrs in the middle where they aren’t independent enough to access single sex facilities but are too old to go to the ones with the opposite sex parent isn’t ideal either and if it’s possible and appropriate in some circumstances, like this play place, then I think that’s a plus point. I remember getting dragged into the male toilets with my dad when I was swimming with him on a contact visit and being deeply uncomfortable at seeing men use urinals, but I was tiny and couldn’t have been left on my own then and contact matters (even with a shitty dad like mine) and while it’s just one of those things parents need to plan round it’s not a bad thing if it’s possible to make this easier where is safe to do so. Baby change facilities are often either only in female toilets (or solely in disabled accessible ones) which again reinforces the same sex role stereotype that mums should do the care/changing of babies. I’ve changed my fair share of babies on my knee etc so I know it doesn’t make life impossible for dads to take out their babies, but it does reinforce that it’s the social expectation for women to have this role and wouldn’t be a bad thing to challenge that where possible, providing it doesn’t compromise women’s safety.

[Beamur]

In Bradford. Mixed sex changing area by the mirror pool a few years ago with DD and a friend. One of the staff working there told me to basically stand in front of the doors where the girls were getting changed to prevent someone taking photos under the door. They admitted quite openly there was a real problem with it.
I didn't report it at the time but I've never used them again. Shame really as the mirror pool is a really great space, but I got really put off and stressed by the number of openly pervy men with telephones on their hands walking around the pool. One guy was obviously trying to photo DD and her friend (they were aged maybe 7 or 8 at the time and very obviously little girls. I watched him like a hawk and stood between them and him and eventually he gave up and went to look at somebody else's kids. I was so uncomfortable I spoke with a Warden and told them.
I think there is a lot of this behaviour going on there. It's very well and visibly highly staffed. I didn't take DD there again despite her really liking it there.

[Uncompromisingwoman]

darkside29
You ask who want mixed sex toilets? Certain types of men want them . That's all.
Parents want some family provision so that mothers can supervise their sons and vice versa. But apart from that, the only people openly demanding these are men who don't respect boundaries. Unfortunately men like this are over represented in certain very powerful lobby groups.

[Ereshkigal]

Gosh, that makes me feel so much better.

You are understandably wary of women. But it is a fact that 98% of sex crime including that which has happened to other women on the thread, including me, is committed by men.

Single sex toilets, changing rooms etc are preferred by most people. They are safer for women. I'm sorry for what happened to you, but I don't think making women objectively less safe, comfortable and private is fair or reasonable.

[xJodiex]

I hardly go out anywhere anymore because it seems everywhere is making toilets unisex. I am a sexual abuse survivor and the thought of putting myself at risk of that ever happening again is too much. I should not have to be afraid of a man exposing himself to me or assaulting me when I need to use a toilet. I used women's toilets all my life with zero problems, never been attacked by a woman in a toilet, ever.

So thanks all you 'inclusive' people, you have officially excluded people like me, hope you're dead proud of yourselves.

[raisinseverywhere]

I went to a wedding last weekend and the venue had single sex toilets. A teenage girl came out of one of the cubicles and I noticed that her bra strap was all twisted around the straps of her dress at the back so I told her. She was very grateful to me, and in front of the women by the sinks she hoisted her dress up to sort it out, and then left the toilets. All very innocent, and women helping women. It made me sad to think that this can’t happen now in mixed sex toilets.

[Birdsfoottrefoil]

Was listening to Radio 4 earlier - a programme about pubs and microbreweries. One landlord was offering advice to a new start up and his advice for running a successful pub? “Make sure you have a separate ladies toilet”.

[Kuponut]

Uni have them - but they've gone down the route of converting the disabled loos into disabled/gender neutral toilets and kept the original ones as male and female ones. Not ideal in that it increases the pool of people using the ones previously only designated for disabled but I think the only way they could implement it in their existing buildings. We have a lot of Muslim students which I think prevents them going the whole hog and making them blanket gender-neutral (thank goodness)

[MrGHardy]

At a bar the toilet had a shared room with the sink, and two stalls, though these were labelled (I guess for hygenic reasons ) and when I walked in there was a woman in there and I was like wow ok, and she went no, no you are in the right place. It's just weird. And it will never not be weird, no matter how much you want to normalize it.

[ItsChristmaaaaaaaaas]

Speaking of loos... from twitter

[ItsChristmaaaaaaaaas]

Sorry back to front - but they have a nice new dispensed for tampons... and the men’s loos will have them too! I’m sure they will be out to good use

[cheesewitheverything]

I nearly went in the men's at Everyman cinema as the door said 'everyboy' which I read as 'everybody' as I don't go out much but have read about gender neutral toilets. Fortunately I noticed 'everygirl' just in time.

[darkside29]

“Make sure you have a separate ladies toilet” shouldn’t need saying.

I’d like to say this current situation is mad, but it is quite deliberate. There was no consensus and no consultation - so why is it happening?

I know the official answer. But think about it. It is unlikely that the so called ‘powerful groups’ got to be that powerful, all by themselves.