Gender Neutral Public Toilets in Bognor Regis

[Musomama1]

Hi,

I just wanted to get some advice, some dodgy public toilets near me are just about to get dodgier.

I found out this information from a doorstep question download for the Respect My Sex campaign. My local council, Arun District Council are doing a much needed referbishment but altering it to gender-neutral.

Now I think this discriminates against women. What do I do? Where do I start in opposing this? I've emailed all the town councillors and made contact with a local women's centre to raise awareness.

Thanks in advance.

Watching with interest. I visited Arundel a little while ago and they have installed new toilets at the main car park by the visitors' centre (not sure how new, I saw them in lockdown so within the last couple of years).

I can't remember how many there were but I think it was a couple of wheelchair accessible ones, and then mixed sex ones (disgustingb piss absolutely everywhere) and then some with just urinals. So men have access to more facilities than women. We are going backwards.

Write to them saying you understand the toilets will be gender-neutral but that you assume (as allowed for in the Equality Act) they will also be single sex.

Say - as per the EHRC guidance recently published - you are registering your objection to mixed sex provision on the basis that it is indirect discrimination against females, and now that they have been so informed, they need to accommodate your needs.

I would also add to that that public toilets need to ensure a woman’s safety more than most.

That's a very 'News or Fall Song' headline!

Are they fully enclosed with sink and open out into a public area? I've been to some like this at the beach recently and actually I thought they were good. The Queue was the same regardless of sex and because they were fully enclosed with sink but opened up back to where my family were I actually felt they were an improvement. They did have regular cleaning.

Yes I went to Arundel last summer. Disable loos, mixed loos and then men’s urinals. The queue for the mixed was terrible.

I would ask what they mean by gender neutral and what the plans actually look like.

We have gender neutral toilets locally which are actually very good. There is a porch area which is open to public view, in a high traffic area, all toilets are individual brick built rooms wth their own hand washing facilities and there is also a separate room with urinals for men that don't need or want sitting facilities. All toilets are large enough for a wheelchair user and carer. Seems quite well thought out.

A few miles away it's a different story. It's a is mixed sex facility, all cubicles with floor to ceiling doors and thin partition walls, no urinals and shared hand washing facilities. The position and accessibility for disabled users is awful. In fact, although I don't have a disability it's the shit provision for disabled users which makes me most angry because the space could easily have been used differently to make it much easier for people with disabilities.

Make a complaint stating how you are personally affected. Then go to the Local Government Ombudsman.

Thanks for the information, I'll definitely be complaining to ADC and ombudsman and asking about accomodating women's needs.

All the public toilets in Bognor are pretty rank as you would imagine, but there's a lot of drug dealing around this toilet, a lot of activity and users this side of town so women are being asked to lump this as well.

Also, a final question, AIBU? This is no different to other proposed or existing mixed sex facilities right that face a lot of questioning, am I missing something or is mixed sex loos now a thing?

I actually don't agree that having them enclosed with sinks makes it ok.
I remember a case a while back in a fully enclosed mixed sex toilet (I think in a Costa) where someone found a hidden camera, so I don't think that this is a solution that really addresses the need for privacy.

have they done a risk assessment?
if the doors will be down to the floor, how will they know if someone is collapsed behind them (google toilet deaths and most will be people who have been taken ill and no one has known as they are behind a full height to floor door for hours or days). Do they ackowledge sexual assault/relations and drug use will occur in greater amounts behind these closed mix-sexed doors?Is cleaning going to be compromised in terms of having to wedge the doors open? What happens in the event of a fire or other emergency about getting people out behind a closed door?

…sorry that last bit should read that if there is an emergency how to you know if there’s a person behind a closed door or not, if it’s full ceiling-floor height?

It puts women and girls at increased risk of assault or voyeurism.

"Unisex changing rooms are more dangerous for women and girls than single-sex facilities, research by The Sunday Times shows. Almost 90% of reported sexual assaults, harassment and voyeurism in swimming pool and sports-centre changing rooms happen in unisex facilities, which make up less than half the total."

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/b6093ee6-ae19-11e8-bc16-e88ad6fee895?shareToken=01bec2596e99264274b20dd9b4ddaa50

It's fucking everywhere. I walked into a popular local venue today with a male friend where we were both thoroughly embarrassed to discover they'd turned the male/female section to mixed sex. Made for a deeply uncomfortable experience, and this is a dear friend of longstanding.

Would all the cool, trendy people please create their cool, trendy spaces, rip their kit off with and infront of whoever they choose with their very interesting language, celebrate how very specially progress and superior they are, and please, please leave the rest of us the fuck alone to live in peace? Because you're making everyone else fucking miserable with this tedious and never ending onslaught on our lives.

for more history on toilet doors (!):

www.mentalfloss.com/article/642735/reason-public-bathroom-stalls-have-gaps

I like the last sentence in this article:
if you collapse from the fumes of the previous occupant, at least someone will be able to see you.

Yep had same at a council park recently. They all had urine over the floor clearly sprayed from the angle of an adult man.

Basically the concept of women, who generally don’t piss on the floor, being entitled to enter a room without male piss all over the floor, has been abolished.

Hey OP, it's my council too. Which loos are they? I wonder if the plan is to replace with those single-unit ones like the horrible metal-lined ones in Chichester M&S car park ? If the plan is to have a traditional layout then it's hugely problematic.

Also, the women's centre has a TW working there so is unlikely to be of much help in seeing the problem.

I always thought the gap at the bottom was to make cleaning them easier and so the partitions wouldn't rot.

The town I live in built a new swimming baths and gym many years ago, before genderwoo and 'phonecameras. The changing room was cubicles with solid, boltable doors, a bench seat and gaps top and bottom. If you stood on the seat, not that I ever tried, you could see into the neighbouring cubicles. Every single cubicle had small holes someone had bored through to the adjoining cubicle. The management never repaired them, though customers would try to block them with tissue. I was much younger when I went there, but I'm still surprised I never complained. They did try to make them single sex (putting male/female signs up) but because of the design it was impossible to police. I did hear of voyeurs getting thrown out and one story in the local rag about a specific incident. I haven't been there in years. But voyeurism and sexual assault was essentially designed in, albeit inadvertently.

They've done this next to the Clifton suspension bridge too in bristol

Maybe it's time we dusted down our she-wees and incase the urinals en masse. I'm guessing the men using the facilities might not like it much.

Started, but incase 🙄

I give up.

My local arts venue has really inadequate mixed-sex toilets (they call them "gender neutral"). They are not individual with washing facilities, the basins are shared and the doors and cubicle partitions don't go down to the ground or up to the ceiling.

They obviously used to be single sex with two sections but the dividing doors have been removed. It's quite funny - when men see a woman go into one section they go the other way, and vice versa. No-one says anything but it's almost instinctive. (So it's a danger signal if a man doesn't do that - but not grounds for a complaint, which following a woman into the ladies' would be).

It does punish the men because there are no urinals and they have to queue. But I have never been in a ladies' toilet that needed signs in every cubicle telling people to shut the doors.

It's the skanky loos by hotham park main car park. Looking at the plan it's all separate toilets, no shared facilities or urinals at least. It's a pavillion style I guess with an open double door. I'll find the plan.

TW actually working at the women's centre? How progressive of them . That's why they ignored my email.

I don't mind the m&s ones, I get that no one like piss but they have a cleaner there at least.

Unfortunately those that wish to install cameras will do so regardless of them being single sexed. I agree it is not ideal bit is significantly better than what Artichoke describes, although the being dead in a toilet has put me off somewhat!