Open City wants to destroy single-sex facilities for women in London

[DropDTuning]

I have emailed them in response to this in their latest newsletter. Here is my email and the articles they linked to. I welcome anyone else writing to them. The email address is [removed by MNHQ at OPs request]

Dear Open House

After many years of supporting you, including attending Open House events since 2008 along with my children, I would like to unsubscribe from your newsletter and register how appalled I am by your attempt to destroy the provision of single-sex facilities for women and girls. Marianna Janowicz's appalling article, that you linked to supportively in your latest email newsletter, states that:

"Every household in the country has a gender neutral toilet in their own home for use by family members and guests without any segregation, so the idea that gender neutral loos are unusual is farcical."

This is itself utterly farcical. Janowicz appears to have missed the painfully obvious point that we don't let any and all random strangers in off the street to use the toilets in our homes. The dishonesty and ridiculousness of this non-argument is absolutely insulting.

I suppose Janowicz also thinks it is 'farcical' to have locks on our front doors - after all, we all have doors that don't lock inside our homes, don't we? And it's 'farcical' to have security on the doors of schools, synagogues, mosques, hospitals, bars - after all, none of us have security guards outside our bedrooms or kitchens, do we?

What a pathetic and stupid argument.

Women and girls (as well as men and boys) are entitled to single-sex provision under the Equality Act. By attempting to remove this provision, you are not only promoting breaking the law, but you are promoting discrimination against disabled people, and women and girls from minority ethnic or religious groups, many of whom are unable to use facilities shared with the opposite sex. You are also promoting the endangerment of all women's and girls' safety, privacy and dignity.

You state in your support for this awful proposal:

"We believe that London’s spectacular variety of music, food, culture, architecture and civic life is enriched by the diverse nationalities, languages, sexualities, faiths, and ethnicities of the people who call our capital home. "

And yet you are blatantly ignoring the rights and opportunities, dignity and safety, of women of diverse faiths and ethnicities who will simply not be able to use these facilities at all if single-sex facilities are removed.

You should be ashamed of promoting this. It could not be further from the genuine promotion of an 'open city'. You are making the city less equitable, less accessible, and less welcoming.

I could have simply unsubscribed from your newsletter and stopped supporting your events, but I wanted you and your partners to be aware of the consequences of your reckless lack of care for women and girls, and for your promotion of the frankly insulting, dangerous and stupid argument in Janowicz's awful piece.

Yours faithfully

Links are:
open-city.org.uk/blog/learning-from-londons-lack-of-lockdown-loos
open-city.org.uk/blog/public-toilets-statement

Apparently the consultation ends on Friday. I'm not sure where the details of the consultation are though.

It’s astonishing that this even has to be spelt out, RedToothBrush. I find it hard to believe that there are people so hard of thinking as to not get that. In fact, I don’t believe that they don’t. I think there is a lot of motivated ignorance around the issue of women’s safety.

@NiceGerbil Been trying to search for it now but I'm rubbish at scrolling through on my phone. It was definitely in the last week though.
I can't take credit for the the idea, someone else with brighter thinking posted it.
A GC friend works for WaterAid and she mentioned that their website mentions the need for 'separate facilities for men and women' and their work is about ensuring female friendly toilets in other countries. They are challenging a 'gender-blind' approach to planning and building toilets. And yet they need to be 'more inclusive' within their own organisation with women's spaces being shared.

Excellent email, OP. The gender-neutral toilet at home argument is an extraordinarily dim one.

@JustTurtlesAllTheWayDown

Excellent email, OP. The gender-neutral toilet at home argument is an extraordinarily dim one.

But even more so for an organisation that should understand the difference between public and private space.

.. and on those threads, usually the consensus is that we need more accessible enclosed single unit toilets

Some argue for this, but there is no consensus. Posters make the points that these spaces are unsafe for women, they are often dirty, men tend to piss on the seats and so-on.

There needs to be provision for family toilets, but not at the expense of single-sex spaces.

For the sake of argument, my toilet priorities are:

● sufficient safe single-sex facilities for all
● additional single-occupancy self-enclosed facilities for people who want them.
● adequate provision of standard accessible toilets for people with disabilities
● Last, but by no means least, a proper network of Changing Places toilets.

The Changing Places Consortium launched its campaign in 2006 on behalf of the over 1/4 of a million people who cannot use standard accessible toilets. This includes people with profound and multiple learning disabilities, motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis, cerebral palsy, as well as older people.

To use the toilet in safety and comfort,many people need to be able to access a Changing Places, which have more spaceand the right equipment, including a height adjustable changing bench and a hoist.You can download our campaigns leaflet for more information.

www.changing-places.org/