gender neutral toilets

[amazeandastonish]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this.

My work are doing a poll (not anonymised) asking how we feel about introducing gender neutral toilets.

I don't want them but I also don't want to make my views known unless anonymised. So I think the majority of results will be scewed towards on side of the debate over others.

Some brilliant response ideas on this thread. Am saving as i strongly suspect the same is soon coming to my workplace.

Lack of single-sex toilets for women is considered a serious third world problem. Women throughout third world and indeed developing countries have to campaign hard and fund raise to create single-sex toilet facilities where they can maintain their dignity and be safe from predators.

Women do not want to use mixed-sex toilets and will often rather not "go" than use them.

@Sicario

Lack of single-sex toilets for women is considered a serious third world problem. Women throughout third world and indeed developing countries have to campaign hard and fund raise to create single-sex toilet facilities where they can maintain their dignity and be safe from predators.

Women do not want to use mixed-sex toilets and will often rather not "go" than use them.

I raised that one with a highly woke management, who said kindly that we weren't living in the third world.

They were a bit shaken when I pointed out the racism implicit in that, although they struggled to believe that this would be a real issue to women's safety until they had sufficiently piled up and hurt victims to make a carefully balanced, objective decision about whether women might need to be listened to as opposed to head-patted.

There was no indication as to the background to the survey, or whether it is director approved. It was just sent out of the blue - "would you support the introduction of gender neutral toilets at [company name]"

Send by someone who is a "head of...." not sure if the CEO (a woman) knows and/or approves

‘ logsonlogsoff
Personally, I don’t care I’d a transwoman uses our female toilets but I would care if my male colleagues started using them.
That's the same thing.’

Not to me it isn’t. Still, I wouldn’t want to have work toilets that don’t allow single sex use.
Op - without more details the answer is, it depends. Isn’t it? They need to be more specific. If they’re going to build a new unisex loo then go for it. If they’re going to turn all toilets as they are into unisex, then that’s a no from most people. If they’re going to take away from available female provision then I would be happy. If they want to change the men’s then carry on…

I’d find out if this is even legit or official - it sounds an odd way of going about it. Is this just someone at your company thinking that it should all be unisex off there own bat, and trying to get some support to take it to HR type thing?

@logsonlogsoff

Personally, I don’t care I’d a transwoman uses our female toilets but I would care if my male colleagues started using them.

Transwomen are men!

Depends on whether they're going to totally rebuild them as a self contained, wall to floor cubicle with a sink or just clag a sticker on the ladies.

The former is fine. A bit of moaning about piss on the floor from the blokes. The latter is not.

Would you feel comfortable replying directly to the sender with something like “This survey is unlikely to generate useful responses as staff may not want to disclose sensitive personal information to support their position. Would it be possible to set this up on survey monkey to allow anonymous responses?”

Someone has probably already suggested this, but I'd be tempted to say that I have no objections to the men's loos being made gender neutral, but that the women's loos should remain single sex. The company can be inclusive while not undermining women's safety.

We have two toilets in our office, one on each floor. They are used by both men and women, and it’s fine.

However, they are single toilets, with the sink enclosed. I think I would feel different if it were a row of toilets with sinks outside the booths. Also, if the door wasn’t floor to ceiling.

In the olden days, they were known as unisex toilets.

just found out that up until 6m ago, the survey host was working for Stonewall!

@amazeandastonish - quel surprise. Stonewall is now a one-trick pony with their only agenda to dismantle women's hard-won sex-based rights.

@Riverlee do they open straight out onto the corridor ?

What's their authority for the questionnaire OP?
Are they one of the many flakey equality bods (who only knows about a couple of the protected characteristics)? Or are they an enthusiastic misogynist who's doing this off their own bat and then will present it with a flourish to management to demonstrate how keen everyone is to share toilets with the opposite sex?

www.hse.gov.uk/contact/faqs/toilets.htm

These are the HSE guidelines.

Have they explained what they will be doing about urinals?

Do they plan to spend money on converting existing toilets?

I worked in a small office that had 2 single loos on different floors - so unisex basically. Not an issue when they’re stand alone with basin etc inside.
If one or two of those are provided then there wouldn’t be anything to worry about.

@logsonlogsoff

Personally, I don’t care I’d a transwoman uses our female toilets but I would care if my male colleagues started using them.

Personally after an very unpleasant experience (unpleasant for me not the transwoman) in a female toilet at work I’d prefer fully mixed sex toilets than a transwoman using the same toilet as me. And I hate mixed sex toilets.

[quote tootyfruitypickle]@Riverlee do they open straight out onto the corridor ? [/quote]
Yes, so each toilet is it’s own room with the sink inside (if that makes sense). It not like a toilets you find at a petrol station where you have a row of toilets, and a row of sinks.

AFAIK there is no authority.

The poll was sent around with no indication as to why it was being done, no indication as to whether it was anonymous or not.

We have mixed sex toilets at work. It's horrible. I hate rustling an obvious tampon wrapper or trying to quietly rip a pad out of my pants. But then I also feel guilty, like am I a "bad feminist" for still being embarrassed about periods in my late 30s?!

Definitely kick up a fuss. We have them in our work and they're awful. Here's why:

• there are more men the women in my company so now when women go to the toilet most the toilet seats are left up and we have to touch them to put them down
• the cleanliness of the toilets are not disgusting. Often the previous person hasn't flushed.
• it's awkward waiting to go to the loo and out of the cubical comes some bloke from finance who has done his morning stinker. He's embarrassed, I'm embarrassed
• it's also embarrassing the other way around
• need to borrow a tampon? Now you have to have that conversation in front of male colleagues
• having a miscarriage? Again - now you need to seek support in the loos from males colleagues too.

Everyone hates it. Before, we had one trans woman who came into the womens toilets. That worked fine in our office. Now they've made it shit for everyone.

okay I've now sent an anonymous email, with many of the points mentioned above. Whilst I feel strongly about this issue, I'm also nervous that I could somehow still be identified and experience problems at work as a result.

Editing function please! The cleanliness is disgusting

@Riverlee that's what we have but there's a shared outside space behind them . Hate them