Idea to solve the toilet/changing room 'problem'

[VoodooQualities]

1. Government consults special interest groups (women, trans, disabled, religious etc.)

2. Guidance is issued on best practices for designing and building mixed sex, inclusive facilities that work, as best as possible, for all the interest groups. (So you know, that'd likely be wall to floor lockable doors, no steps or narrow spaces, sinks and showers inside the cubicles), cleaners and other staff (or CCTV?) highly visible in shared areas etc etc.)

3. Organisations when doing refurb or new builds, can choose to (a) implement the guidance, or (b) go for traditional sex-segregated, or (3) gender-segregated facilities depending on their beliefs.

4. Customers and service users can vote with their feet. (Perhaps there's a register so potential patrons can check in advance what the facilities are like.)

5. Organisations are allowed to challenge customers who transgress boundaries, and customers who do so should expect to be challenged.

I would assume that publicly run facilities like pools and council buildings etc should go for the mixed sex option, done in line with the guidance.

Can I have your thoughts?

I meant ceiling to floor in Point 2, not wall to floor

I think this is insanity.

Single sex works and costs much less.

Floor to ceiling lockable cubicles are also dangerous.

The fact that a tiny minority (of males) expect either businesses to spend a fortune to pander to their gender feelings or women to put up and shut up is ridiculous imo.

Floor to ceiling lockable cubicles are also dangerous

My employer refurbished the toilets - some years ago, before gender was a thing.
They put in floor to ceiling doors to the cubicles, men's and women's.

It wasn't long before they had to saw bits off the top and bottom because people complained that there was nowhere for "the smell" to dissipate 😁

Thanks, but in my system the business owner can choose which to implement, and you get to choose to visit or not. Doesn't that change your mind?

Floor to ceiling poses problems with adverse events (eg a person could become unwell and be unnoticed for a dangerous amount of time, whereas gaps beneath help minimise this).

Plus it makes them much harder to
clean adequately (eg in swimming baths cubicles have drainage beneath partitions and can be hosed down).

A man once out his head under the side of my cubicle in a mixed sex ‘changing village’ (this was before camera phones and spy cams where a thing) and I have not used a mixed sex facility ever since. If everything went gender neutral I would be forced to self exclude (which would have a knock on effect on my daughters who would no longer have a parent available to take them swimming).

Open changing areas are important for team sports.

A few additional, separate, enclosed units (like disabled toilets, only as well as, so that disabled provision isn’t reduced) is all that’s required.
Parents with opposite sex children can use them, as can anyone who refuses to use the existing provision for their biological sex.

No

Businesses are having to adapt to survive in hard economic times and you expect them to spent £££ to appease males and to risk boycott for nailing their flag to the mast.

It's insanity.

No, as I said they can continue to choose single sex if that's what they believe in.

Floor to ceiling loos especially risky if someone needs help.
Men should stay out of Women’s facilities.

Not when it’s your employer or a school, or a hospital, or a publicly funded facility, no.

obvs places like coffee shops and pubs can just have a completely lockable loo or two and I can choose to go elsewhere.

So you're suggesting that people wh

FFS...

People wh

Yes and we know what that will result in from people who do not believe that women exist as a sex class.

The unsafe part doesn't matter in your system, and you would also require the mixed sex model in leisure centres, so some women would choose to self-exclude.

I might have got wrong end of the stick here, so your thoughts would be most welcome, OP.

people who need to access their council services in person can choose not to do so. Kids can choose which school they'd go to depending on facilities on offer. People can choose which employer to work for etc. yeah sure can't see any problem.

People in car accidents can just choose not to go to hospital.

It’s not complicated.
You use the facilities for your biological sex.
You do not use any facilities that exclude you based on your sex

I briefly worked in a school with mixed-sex toilets for staff. I 'chose' to not visit again by cancelling my bookings. It was a nice school but I didn't like being in a cubicle next to a man I only knew because we worked in the same building. I have no idea whether he hated the provision or enjoyed listening to me pissing, but I didn't enjoy the experience and voted with my feet.

Yes, the self exclusion is indeed a sticking point, but that's the purpose of the initial consultation. Women's groups and religious groups would feed into the process and make sure that the guidance worked as best as possible.

Now of course, if it's simply impossible to have guidance that takes all needs into account (because the needs are mutually exclusive) then so be it. But at least then we'd have government guidance to that effect. And therefore we'd know for sure, mixed sex can't work. But I don't think that'd happen.

The way to solve it cheaply is to stop regarding males as caged tigers waiting to pounce on anyone who doesn’t look like He-Man venturing into their space.

If they made the men’s lavatories mixed sex and kept the women’s restricted to natal females only, it would solve the problem.
That idea has been rejected many times. Evidently, the problem is not non-binaries and transwomen “just wanting to pee”.

I have no idea whether he hated the provision or enjoyed listening to me pissing

Raise this in the initial consultation, and see if there's a way for a clever architect to solve that problem? Which the woman's group being consulted would need to sign off on before the guidance is issued?

if it's simply impossible to have guidance that takes all needs into account (because the needs are mutually exclusive) then so be it.

No, that is exactly the job of guidance.

All needs must be taken into account.

It is reasonable to provide additional gender neutral provision for male people who do not want to use male spaces and state they feel unsafe there, and for female people who do not want to use female spaces/have changed their appearance to the point that confusion and difficulties may arise. It's not easy, but yes, it can be done the same way that creating accessible toilets was initially not easy.

What is not reasonable is male people refusing to permit female only spaces to exist because they don't want them to. And that must be dealt with by law if need be, the same way that law would have to deal with able bodied people excluding disabled people because they didn't want them to have a space.

The want is mutually exclusive with the need .

Just accepting that some women are going to have to lose equality and access so men get happier self expression and freedom? No. Absolutely fucking not.

Or , here's a better idea, keep facilities single sex.

All of this bending backwards to give males what they demand is ridiculous.

This has nothing to do with needing to pee and everything to do with male entitlement.

Where I work we have 3rd space mixed toilets and singe sex toilets. It has not become an issue yet because even though there are quite a lot of trans folk they are actually decent people and don’t behave in a self centred way and just get along with their lives.

There was a consultation done by the Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities in 2022 this was said by them on the 4th July 2022:

All new public buildings should have separate male and female toilets, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities has announced today (4 July 2022).

The approach will mean women, who may need to use facilities more often for example because of pregnancy and sanitary needs, have appropriate facilities.
The move follows a call for evidence which gathered a wide range of views, including from pregnant women, older people, disabled people and people who come under the protected characteristic of gender reassignment.

The rise in ‘gender neutral’ toilets raised safety concerns from women who feel they are losing privacy and being unfairly disadvantaged.

Separate unisex (or universal) toilets should be provided if there is space, but should not come at the expense of female toilets.

A consultation will be launched in the autumn, which will also consider the design of unisex self-contained cubicles to maximise privacy and whether improvements to disabled persons toilets should be made.

The changes will be made through building regulations and guidance.

Disabled toilet provision will not be affected by the changes.

Minister for Equalities Kemi Badenoch MP said:

It is vital that women feel safe and comfortable when using public facilities, and that their needs are respected.

These changes will ensure that separate toilets for men and women are preserved at the same time as providing universal toilets for those that want them. This is a common sense approach.

The overwhelming response was for separate male and female toilets and for them to remain absolutely, without exception, single sex. So there you go @VoodooQualities your questions have been asked and answered, what needs to happen now is implementation and strict adherence.

Or , here's a better idea, keep facilities single sex.

And if this isn't working for all interest groups, tough luck? I don't think it's bending over backwards to listen to everyone and then balance needs (and wants).

I'd run the consultations, don't worry 😉. Id make sure women's voices were listened to.