Accessible Toilets

[WarOnWomen]

I've just seen this thread by Fair Play for Women regarding their stance on toilets. Maya F is also on the thread clarifying the issue.

twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1312062467191734273?s=21

They are saying that everyone should be comfortable choosing the toilets they want to without being forced to share with opposite sex. Yup. Trans people should also not have to share with people designated at birth. Yup, also agree. Have a mix sex category for people who don't mind and trans people. Sure.

They are saying these facilities already exist. Accessible toilets. This is where I feel lost and let down. These toilets are for disabled people. People worked hard to get these accessible toilets. I don't want my mum having to share these toilets with trans women, anymore than I want them in female spaces. It's just wrong. And don't disabled people have a say as part of the EA2010?

Please tell me I have the wrong end of the stick.

This again? Women are perfectly able to cope with masculine looking women. If a woman appears male at first glance she needs to do no more than smile or speak and it's obvious she's a woman.

Right! I think men underestimate the sensitivity women have as to the sex of a person. It's more than masculine features on a women. She's got a different energy.

But you know what -- jj has managed to derail a perfectly good thread on toilets for the disabled to make it, once again, about the hurt feelings of men.

My position as a widow who had to care for her disabled, wheelchair bound husband for many years before he passed, and often had to use these facilities is that they are not anyone's to give away.

@OhHolyJesus

From February, the HoL debate in toilets. Note the discussion on single sex spaces and on disabled toilets.

hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2020-02-24/debates/D9459D1B-FADF-4765-AB3F-F55D4B322060/ChangingAndToiletFacilitiesInPublicBuildings

As I am not disabled in any or a wheelchair user so I'm going to listen to those who are.

Baroness Tani Grey-Thompson:

As a disabled person, I face that problem every single day. When an accessible toilet is not being used as a storeroom, there is a last-moment celebration. Every train I get on and every new building I go to, I have to think about whether there is an accessible toilet. I was in a restaurant last week. Everyone checked that it was accessible for me to get in there but, right at the last minute, they realised that the women’s toilets were downstairs. There was a panic because, if I needed to go, I would have to tell about 10 people and they would have to clear out the men’s toilets for me to use them. That is not a position that any woman wants to be in. We need to have more accessible toilets. It is great that there is recognition of invisible impairments, but this comes back to redesigning what we have.

A lot of disabled toilets are locked for a reason. Apparently, they are places where people go to take drugs and have sex. That is the excuse and the reason given for why they are locked. But the Radar scheme, which is available in so many places, does not show on the outside whether or not the toilet door is locked. I was in one of these toilets recently, when a gentleman did not realise and opened the door and walked in on me. We both panicked, and it felt like for ever before the door closed again. That is one option I have. If there is somebody in an accessible toilet who needs to be in there for a long period of time, the only other option I have is to use the women’s toilet. In that instance, I have to go with the door open. I am not sure whether I have publicly declared this before, but I am incontinent; I have to catheterise. I have to sit with my chair in the door of the toilet. Without going into the details, I am in a potentially vulnerable position when I catheterise myself. I need to wash my hands before and straight afterwards; it is even more difficult when I have my period. My biggest fear is that someone will run away with my chair for a bit of a laugh. As a disabled person, that is a very vulnerable position to be in.

And Lord Blancathra:

As one of 800,000 wheelchair users, I, too, have an interest in access to toilets and I agree with what has been said so far about their inadequacy. There are over 70,000 public buildings in the UK that wheelchair users cannot get into, let alone have the luxury of deciding which toilet to use. My blunt message to the Government tonight is this: when will you stand up to the small, militant, transgender fascist lobby and say that the rights of 32 million real women and 800,000 wheelchair users are more important than the rights of tens of thousands who identify as transgender?

Incredibly powerful. I'm convinced.

Must keep this link somewhere, excellent speeches.

In practice the government is not going to change the law on this or mandate a major building process.

Whatever happens will happen through individual businesses applying the existing law . Currently they are doing it the way stonewall tell them to do - the question is there a legally compliant, workable better way ?

We can say it's not our problem to solve , but in practice no one else is coming to sort it out!

In cases like this small venue owners have directed trans people towards use of the unisex accessible facilities when they were upset and kicking off at being asked to leave the opposite sex facilities.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2988430/Transgender-man-wins-1-500-compensation-nightclub-ordered-leave-men-s-toilets-use-disabled-loo-instead.html

www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/transgender-musician-cancels-gig-after-21183203.amp?__twitter_impression=true

What should the bar manager have done in these situations?

@MForstater

Did you consult any disability groups before you came up with this proposal?

@SpartacusAutisticus

And what if this happened? You may be able to wish verdicts like this away but most businesses could not afford to take the risk.

www.lawcentres.org.uk/policy/news/news/kirklees-law-centre-wins-landmark-transgender-discrimination-case

Anyway tbh TW are not the most vulnerable males in male toilets. Boys aged 8 - 15ish probably are. All sorts of males are vulnerable to physical or possibly sexual assault. My DF is 89. There are males with LDs and physical disabilities, there are small men, weak men...

Why, when it comes to this one group of possibly vulnerable males, is it suddenly women's job to sort out? It's the gold lamé isn't it?

As male toilets are underused compared to female toilets despite still having the same floor area, why can't they be redesigned to provide just a urinal area and then a separate fully enclosed toilet room opening onto the corridor which can be unisex. Not possible everywhere but could be done in lots of places. This would allow a female only toilet and leave the disabled toilet for those who really need it.

@334bu

As male toilets are underused compared to female toilets despite still having the same floor area, why can't they be redesigned to provide just a urinal area and then a separate fully enclosed toilet room opening onto the corridor which can be unisex. Not possible everywhere but could be done in lots of places. This would allow a female only toilet and leave the disabled toilet for those who really need it.

^ This actually makes a lot of sense. Urinals plus separate mixed-sex or unisex or whatever you want to call it cubicles.

@334bu

Because it would still cost a lot of money and bring little in the way of gain so why would any business do this? That's the harsh reality, without laws requiring it no business is going to spend the money. And Truss has clearly indicated no new laws are on the horizon any time soon.

I think the vagueness of the GC movement has been part of it's undoing. It's all very well demanding protect sex based rights, but Governments have to look at practicalities, how much would this cost, who would oppose it, how would it be policed, are there any unanticipated consequences, does it meet international human rights and ECHR laws etc.

You didn't give Truss anything to work with. No clear demands, no solutions to some of the potential problems. Campaigning to make trans women use disabled toilets may not be universally popular but at least it is a clear and currently implementable demand. Without that no government is going to legislate.

Transwomen don't need to use disabled toilets as they are all male they can use the gents.

@334bu

Transwomen don't need to use disabled toilets as they are all male they can use the gents.

Well why aren't you campaigning for a bathroom bill then? Because at present trans women can legally use the women's and all the evidence points to it being illegal to force them to use the mens.

No need for a bathroom bill as female only spaces are already allowed under the EQA.

Well why aren't you campaigning for a bathroom bill then? Because at present trans women can legally use the women's and all the evidence points to it being illegal to force them to use the mens.

No they can't. No it doesn't.

Update:

mobile.twitter.com/fairplaywomen/status/1312787407071256576

All those people saying it has no effect on disabled people for anyone to use their loos....NO, THAT IS NOT TRUE. At the very least it means that more people would be using that loo so the disabled person is more likely to have to wait to use it.

You might think that everyone has to wait sometimes, but very very often disabled people CAN'T wait. I have MS and one of the earliest symptoms/effects of it is that my bladder is virtually uncontrollable. That''s why the Council spent money on installing a loo on our ground floor, why the HVs brought me a commode when I was virtually bedridden with an injured back. If you make me wait I'll almost certainly wet myself in public. When I was first diagnosed I had been housebound except for essential journeys for fear of wetting myself. I stayed on the first floor of my house most of the time because I could get to the loo on that floor in time (mostly). Sometimes, I would bump into someone who wanted to chat when I was on my way home from the local shop; I generally wet myself then. And I was walking unaided. I didn't look disabled.

But hey, what harm giving away that little thing which makes so much difference to me of living a relatively normal life; waiting never hurt anyone.

Oh well done FPFW, good to acknowledge the actual impact on people who have no choice of other facilities.

Totally agree . Disabled toilets just for the disabled. Also proper design for disabled toilets should be mandatory. There is no excuses for putting a toilet in a corner where anyone with weakness in one side or the other is unable to use it.

There are no excuses..

Well done for listening but disappointed it happened in the first place tbh

[quote jj1968]@334bu

Because it would still cost a lot of money and bring little in the way of gain so why would any business do this? That's the harsh reality, without laws requiring it no business is going to spend the money. And Truss has clearly indicated no new laws are on the horizon any time soon.[/quote]
We are still allowed to suss out solutions for the future.
Women's voices are going to become louder on this, their NO more strident. They will gain more confidence in saying NO, and sooner or later it will not be possible to ignore us.

Transwomen will either have to return to their designated male loos, or if that is too "hurtful", find another solution, ie third spaces. This seems the most feasible and perhaps needing the least building work, as the space would actually be there.

Best though they return to their own designated loos.

@Clymene

Well done for listening but disappointed it happened in the first place tbh

Yes. Utterly bizarre. They need to spend more time on MN.