Another toilet one...

[Stroopwaffels]

I was in a restaurant with friends last night - somewhere I hadn't been before. The toilets were labelled "urinals and cubicles" and another door marked "cubicles".

Obviously women aren't going to go into a bathroom with urinals. So rather than having one bathroom for men and one for women, they have created one unisex bathroom and one for men. How is that fair?

It’s not. It’s direct sex discrimination.

Is it though? Absolutely nothing to stop me waltzing into the "urinals and cubicles" zone and using a cubicle should I want to do so. They're not saying I can't.

Still indirect discrimination as it could be argued that it would be more detrimental to women than men.

Have you ever been in a men's toilet? I had to once as the women's was out of action, on a training course. Couldn't believe how dirty and smelly it was. This is about our dignity and privacy, not just safety.

Not too bad if cubicles are fully enclosed and off a corridor or similar. Not OK otherwise and I'd consider taking my custom elsewhere.

However, if young or less confident staff have had abuse off customers who don't like a strict male / female division or who want them to police who's accessing which toilets, they are in a very difficult situation.

It's so our transfriends aren't compromised, at women's expense.

Go to the desk, ask where the single sex female provision is for female people who can't use mixed sex provision.

If asked why, give them a hard stare and ask why you are being asked to disclose extremely sensitive and highly personal data, how are they qualified to unpack that with you, are you doing this with all service users or just the ones with protected characteristics, and how will it be used and recorded?

If they don't provide female only provision for females who can't access mixed sex, ask have they made arrangements to locate the nearest such provision for these females they're excluding? And ask if they're aware that they're directly discriminating against females, and against females with a number of protected characteristics, and have they heard of inclusion and diversity.

And then ask where you send the letter of complaint after you've gained legal advice.

And a few tweets about females with x protected characteristics, be aware that this restaurant discriminates against you should also help.

Great to provide inclusive mixed sex spaces. Just provide female only ones as well. Otherwise it's really not inclusion.