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?

Oh that is interesting thank you Gail

Ha ha, your bias on this issue is very clear. So no thank you.

Women don't need these changes, there is no need for the consultation.

Transwomen want the validation of going where women are. And they don't seem to give a shit about how women feel about it. Single sex and disabled is all you need.

No honestly I'm not biased, at least I don't think so. I like single sex facilities best. I'm just recognising that they don't work for everyone.

Also, I know lots of people, women included (mostly young) who adamantly want gender segregation not sex segregation. Yes they're the 'be kind' variety. And same as you (I imagine) I tend to think they'll change their mind as they get older and see more of the world.

Great post from @GailBlancheViola . I would add that there is often benefit in women / girls having a collective space. Eg to ask for advice or help in shaking off a male who is pestering them, or to ask for support in facing up to anticipated harassment. This is especially true in schools. The creation of unisex toilets, albeit with floor to ceiling cubicles has removed the one place girls could be together away from the male gaze and endless bloody comments on boobs, virginity, periods, sexual availability et etc

Single sex don't work for people who's opinion I no longer respect

I don't think it's bending over backwards to listen to everyone and then balance needs (and wants).

Yes. Listen to everyone. And provide what all groups need.

This will need to mean two things.

1. More and additional facilities to add diversity

2. Men accepting that their want to get in female spaces whether or not females consent is bloody awful exclusionary and dominant behaviour and they do not need to do this, and they do not matter more than females needing access to single sex facilities.

Women losing access to make men happier is NOT an end point to this. Ever.

We can obviously choose which restaurants/pubs to go to, but how much choice is there over toilet facilities in workplaces, any public places such as car parks or libraries, or limited facilities per town like cinemas or sports centres, conference facilities, theatres etc.

No, we need a socially accepted standard so people can use facilities without worrying or lots of planning to check in advance.

So honestly who does this proposal of yours benefit?

It's just males. Males who want to impose themselves on women.

There are so many inequalities that women face that society has no interest in addressing. The way menopause is brushed off for example, the fact that cars are designed for male bodies, etc, etc.

Yet women are supposed to negotiate away from our single sex spaces?

I used to think we should 'be kind' until I opened my eyes to what the end game is for TRAs. Now it's a hard no. Not ever.

So which interest groups do single sex toilets not serve @VoodooQualities ? With single sex spaces everyone gets treated exactly the same so who dies this not serve? What about all existing facilities? Surely to avoid confusion, as it would be too time and cost consuming to change all those, its better to stick with single sex. That way no one can claim they got confused about which toilets they were meant to use can they?

This is basically what we’ve got right now though. Choice. Any business can insist on sex based segregation for changing rooms and toilets etc.

Segregation by sex and female categories were only introduced because women are judged less favourably than men, even when they are as good or better than men at something. It simply isn’t the case that the person, who gives the best argument or the person/ people, who shout loudest get what they want. The lone male voice / opinion is listened to over hundreds of women. Look what has happened to the Brit awards.

I don’t see how it will be possible to get people, who’ve made up their mind to engage open-mindedly in the process and want to give up their time to openly explore what works best for their businesses / services. I truly don’t believe a lot of people would engage in the process at all. How many times was Nicola Sturgeon asked to engage with women’s groups? And even when she finally agreed to do so, I don’t think she ever did. Is that correct?

Even if say one in 5 agrees to use the sex based model, there’s still an accessibility issue. Distance to said business / service, access for disabled people, timings, which correspond for people with differing needs etc.

Then there are public services like the council and the NHS. No one can self-exclude themselves from the NHS for emergency treatment and most cannot pay for private treatment.

How about men don't behave like entitled dickheads and they stay out of our spaces?

Transwomen and transmen obviously, and all those youngsters I mentioned who believe TWAW.

(I am not suggesting changing anything btw, my proposal was for it to happen during refurbishment and new build).

You can't really 'vote with your feet'. Sometimes when you have to go, you have to go!

Urgh I ended up in mixed sex toilets yesterday in a science museum they were usually womens for some reason yesterday they were not so everyone sent there husbands in with the children to use the toilet I went in by myself there was an embarrassed man and one with his daughter pointing out loudly there is a queue! (Yes which you pushed into with your daughter) then a toilet became available dad and daughter making heavy eye contact with me (honestly I felt he expected me to step aside) so I went to the toilet which were manky (usually very clean I go there a lot) he was preaching outside the doors about parents letting the children go first and how different it was to be able to take his own child to.the toilet (it was a girl) I just washed my hands and left but it changed the whole atmosphere of the place normally you go in do your thing and go out why is there a need for conversation? Why is there a need to be so fucking LOUD ABOUT EVERYTHING shut up pee wash and leave 😒

I fucking hate it in future I will be sticking to Starbucks single cubicles locks and a camera outside

Visited a Hospital in another area that had 3 toilets in their foyer, Women, Men, Everyone else.

Seemed like a good solution

I will also say that when I was elsewhere there were some parents going to send their children to the (children's) toilets they then panic just in case they are mixed too and take there child over themselves (usually they access them independently) so it's clearly an issue

Interestingly, not long after the consultation I referred to in my earlier post the EHRC reiterated the EQA regarding single sex spaces and confirmed that it is indeed a legitimate aim to keep the spaces single sex and all TW can be excluded from female single sex toilets whether or not they have a GRC.

Of course the TRAs protested this, they treated the EHRC to a 'Piss Protest' outside the building, tipping bottles of urine over themselves, throwing urine on the pavement and at the building, leaving full bottles of urine outside the building - and we are led to believe that these self same people are too afraid to pee in the men's toilets?

Males using female toilets - however they identify, whatever they are wearing, whatever modifications or alterations they have made to their body or none - are doing so as an exercise in power, domination and control over women, nothing more and nothing less.

Or maybe, jut maybe - we could stop tying ourselves in knots to avoid saying NO to some individuals?

Single sex facilities is the optimum option.

and all those youngsters I mentioned who believe TWAW.

My daughter currently is of the TWAW mantra.

That's definitely not a good reason to pander to males who want everything.

Urgh I ended up in mixed sex toilets yesterday in a science museum

As an aside, I applied for a job at the Science Museum and got offered it, but turned it down for precisely the reason that they were gung ho about the mixed sex facilities and everything everywhere was all rainbows and TWAW. The bloody SCIENCE museum. I just didn't want to work there.

A luxury choice I know. But that experience was, to a degree, something that has informed the ideas in my OP.

That is to say, mixed sex facilities or gender-segregated ones are here to stay (despite what Gail posted which I haven't had time to properly look into yet but I will). I had to 'vote with my feet' and I did. It was a good job too.

One of mine currently identifies as a boy.

Still uses the female provision because she knows it’s safest for her, seeing as she has a 5’ 3” female body and humans can’t actually change sex.

Women and other girls are perfectly capable of understanding that the tiny person in the oversized men’s clothing and ever-present woolly hat is a girl (who prefers to be called a boy’s name).

There are currently 2 types of toilet; single sex and single access. Single sex facilities are offered with either urinals or sanitary waste bins. Single access should also offer adult changing facilities and sanitary waste bins, they take up a lot of room which means you can't fit so many in.
Women are already so disadvantaged by toilet provision that the Govt was at one point considering permitting venues to offer more women's cubicles than men's. (This is already permitted in some licenced premises, which can offer more men's toilets than women's so I have no idea what the hold up is.)

Instead it looks like they are going to introduce a third type; mixed sex. Again, these disadvantage women who are unable to use mixed sex facilities, and there is no evidence they are as safe as single sex facilities.

Its not women who have created this situation but yet again its women who have to move over.

Also, I know lots of people, women included (mostly young) who adamantly want gender segregation not sex segregation.

You really know lots of women who do not want share spaces with women simply because they are gender non conforming?

Even mermaids say gender is a spectrum. How would if be possible to segregate by a spectrum?

My daughter currently is of the TWAW mantra.

Mine too, oh god yes. In our house it's worse than just TWAW too. I feel like we are losing her.