Challenging no single sex toilets at work

[fairymouse]

My office is having a refurbishment and this includes all gender neutral toilets. My workplace is horrible for this stuff and generally I just disengage but this is rumbling around in my mind.

I can't risk my job, but I do feel I should raise this with the chief executive.

I am thinking if sending an email asking if there will be a single sex women only set of toilets available , and explaining that as a survivor of DV, I am unable to use gender neutral toilets unless they are individual disabled style toilets .

Thoughts would be welcome !

''The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 state under Regulation 20 that employers need to provide separate rooms containing toilets for men and women.
Toilets used by women must also be provided with facilities for disposing of sanitary towels.''
worksmart.org.uk/health-advice/where-you-work/toilets-and-washrooms/does-my-employer-have-provide-separate-male-and

Point out that it discriminates against Muslim
and orthodox women, who now can’t come to work as there are no single sex toilets.
Ask them if they have risk assessed, checked they are compliant with legislation, etc. Ask if the workforce have been consulted and what their views were.

Just come put of a meeting discussing toilet facilities in a new set up. We are going for gender neutral, individual, seperate entrance and wash basin for each loo. But that was purely driven by not knowing what the sex balance of employees will be and needing to minimise cost and space used.

As long as the new toilets have proper floor to ceiling walls and doors, and are completely self contained (include hand washing and drying facilities) this is perfectly legal. And I don’t really understand the problem with them?

They are self contained but in a block each so you open a door and then you're a room with a row of 3 toilets.

This isn't ok with me as it's often just me and one other person coming and going and I don't feel safe in this situation if I know a man may be there.

But each toilet is a room with a washbasin. So not sure if that contravenes the law. But it certainly discriminates against me. I won't be returning to the office if there are no single sex toilets as I can't physically manage with that .

I think you need to contact support near your location

I use mixed sex as it makes it much clearer.

I think there’s an article from a few years back highlighting that 90% of incidents in changing rooms occur in mixed sex spaces.

I’d ask what it meant for changing rooms or external venues (lunch venues, conference venues, train stations etc) - if they’re saying it’s safe internally are they saying it’s safe everywhere and will they provide financial compensation if incidents occur.

I’d ask where the pressure for mixed sex loos was coming from and I’d send a link to the Nolan podcasts and maybe a few pdfs of the recent Times articles on Stonewall.

I’d send stats on patterns of offending and the pay gap.

I don’t know that you need to send anything too personal at this stage unless you are really comfortable with that as you don’t know where that info will end up. You could say many victims of DV will struggle.

@Seainasive

As long as the new toilets have proper floor to ceiling walls and doors, and are completely self contained (include hand washing and drying facilities) this is perfectly legal. And I don’t really understand the problem with them?

There's a safety aspect to having a gap - it allows ventilation and to check to see the user hasn't, for example, collapsed. If a self-contained unit opens onto a shared room not overlooked by the workspace or cctv then there is still the issue that someone could assault you. And there's the practicalities - piss on the seats, the floor, unflushed turds, the general lower level of personal hygene behaviour of males. My university and workplace had mixed sex self-contained toilets opening onto a corridor, so while they didn't feel unsafe, they were often stinky and rank.

Guess what, we're a Stonewall diversity champion!

There's actually lots of research to support single sex toilets. For Women Scotland have this primer which is about schools but includes a number of points that apply to workplaces too
school toilets

They also produced this more detailed document which mentions that the Royal Society for Public Health stated a fair ratio for female to male toilets was 2:1 . This was in relation to public toilets but women in the workplace have the same needs regarding toilet provision. Moving to gender neutral decreases the number of toilets available to women because they will self-exclude due to issues like DV; period poverty, etc. It also includes research from the Washroom Services Association that says gender neutral toilets don't work and that they have seen a trend of gender neutral toilets being fitted and then reverting back to single sex - so for your company gender neutral represents a flawed financial decision too.
FWS Detailed Toilet Provision

Does each cubicle contain a sanitary waste bin? If not, its not designed to be used by women.

I'd also add something that happened in a women's toilet pre-lockdown, an older woman having an accident in the cubicle and needing help from other women in the washbasin area. This could have been exposing and embarrassing in a mixed sex space, rather than in a community of fellow women. Women need toilets for things other than going to the toilet, and sometimes will, unexpectedly, need to call on the aid of others.

I'm fully GC, but I'm not sure how strong your case is here. If the only possible 'mixed space' is the small corridor that leads to the individual toilets, how is that worse than any other corridor in the building?

the fact that men make more of a mess of the toilet etc is a pain, but that should be dealt with by officious notices on keeping the area clean + plenty of cleaners. men shouldn't have to put up with stinky loos any more than women should.

if cubicles are in a separate room accessed by an outside door then these are not single occupancy toilets. Single occupancy toilets are single rooms with walls not merely partitions and open out into an open area.

People making decisions should be aware that the Government is looking at policy in this area.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10148817/Men-women-separate-toilets-plans-away-gender-neutral-loos.html

Ask your management for a copy of their risk assessment as well as their equality assessment for this change of facilities. What safeguards are they putting in place to stop covert filming? Have they alarms in place in cubicles in case someone is pushed into one by an attacker and then locked in? Have they factored in extra cleaning necessary for such facilities, given that urinals have been removed? Have they provision for male and female employees who may not be able to use these facilities because of their reloigious beliefs?

[quote Reptar]''The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 state under Regulation 20 that employers need to provide separate rooms containing toilets for men and women.
Toilets used by women must also be provided with facilities for disposing of sanitary towels.''
worksmart.org.uk/health-advice/where-you-work/toilets-and-washrooms/does-my-employer-have-provide-separate-male-and[/quote]
I feel uncomfortable and unsafe. My dignity is important.

How can they argue against that?

Ok this is all very helpful. I think I will use the evidence links here and arguments and at the end state my own personal situation as it speaks to so many other similar situations and I am comfortable sharing, it's very historic, but at the same time it has left me with an element of trauma which is triggered by being in an enclosed space alone with a man I don't know .

I've climbed over a toilet stall to get to someone unconscious and unlock the door. Couldn't do that with floor to ceiling cubicles so for me they are a no every single time. Totally unsafe unless you can easily unlock them from outside, in which case....

I'd highlight the problem with molka.

This is the ghastly business of men hiding miniature cameras in toilets, changing rooms, hotel rooms etc used by women to livestream women using them to online viewers who pay for the kink.

Questions to ask:

What risk assessment does the employer have in place to ensure this is not happening / can't happen?

What standard operating procedure is there in place should it be discovered that it is happening?

What disciplinary / compensatory procedure is in place should it happen?

www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/02/south-korea-woman-kills-herself-after-being-secretly-filmed-by-doctor-reports

Protected characteristics under law include:

Faith, culture, race, disability (especially neurodiversity, trauma, PTSD, MH needs): the staff may include female employees who due to these protected characteristics cannot use mixed sex facilities. And like you, may have to consider this workplace as inaccessible and no longer an option for them. (And then look into the pay out for discrimination via legal action against the employers.)

Employees cannot be required to disclose highly sensitive, confidential information in order to justify provision being made available to them. The duty of inclusion is proactive. Employers must be aware and prepared that these female staff are likely to be amongst their employees as much as they're getting so vigorously prepared for trans/NB staff. Inclusion is not selective, there are 9 characteristics. Not one. Regardless of what Stonewall thinks.

Employees would very likely have a case, and get a payout. The insurers and your employers might like to think about doing some arse covering ASAP.

Although frankly it's going to take some women taking their employers to court and sueing the crap out of them before some of these idiots engage their brains.

We have gender neutral toilets but all individual cubicles with hand basins, it works really well. I agree with above if your only option are mixed sex with shared facilites I think it's discriminatory. If they are completely independent cubicles I think you would find it difficult to argue but i would still raise

Our building has these (in a public space) - all off a narrow dark, gloomy corridor that opens both ends on the basement. It’s bloody creepy! The local junkies used to go there to shoot up/have a sleep. It was pretty unpleasant.