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?

Sex Matters found that men and women both preferred single-sex facilities: sex-matters.org/posts/updates/why-do-single-sex-services-matter/

I don't see how OP's proposals will help, given that some TW will go out of their way to use women-only facilities even when gender-neutral/mixed sex ones are closer and more convenient.

I'm absolutely dumbfounded at a suggestion that removing single sex toilets in schools would reduce the risk of bullying?

Never mind the increased chance that even more girls could be raped or sexually assaulted in school, as a result of this set up being adopted in schools.

@VoodooQualities are you Adrian Chiles doing a follow up on your toilet article?

or another journalist posting on here to get ‘the other side’?

As pp have said, the government has made its view clear. Which is the side practically everyone is on. Except it appears some young females who luckily haven’t had the experiences in life that which enable to see things from others point of view.

Interestingly the place near me that has now got a ‘gender neutral’ toilet due to a campaign that was started by a young non-binary biological woman, is used by men. The non-binary woman used the ‘gender neutral’ toilet for a few weeks but now uses the women’s. Haven’t asked her why but I would like to know.

If you are a journalist, I would start researching how girls and boys feel about mixed sexed toilets in schools. Especially those who have had them change so can see the contrast. Also ask the staff if they like mixed sex loos too. It still seems to be a thing that youngsters and male SLT and architects seem to push. The only thing I can think of with male teachers is that they think the girls being in the toilets will make the boys behave better. It’s not up to girls to make their lives worse to make the boys better.

I used mixed sex toilets as a teen, due to building works at my school. It was honestly horrid. The boys were fucking horrid little fuckwits - at hearing the noise of a pad being torn off the packaging -"URGH, she's on the BLOB!" and queue 14 year old boys laughing and saying how we "stunk" etc. Boys trying to peer under doors. Boys constantly, CONSTANTLY, trying thr door handles when they knew full well a girl was in there. One boy even ordered a "skeleton key that he could then use to open the toilet doors. Boy piss everywhere. Fucking hated it.

It’s not up to girls to make their lives worse to make the boys better."

And that holds regardless of whether the boys in question identify as girls.

I used mixed sex toilets as a teen

The school broke the law. All children aged nine or over are legally entitled to single-sex loos at school.

at hearing the noise of a pad being torn off the packaging -"URGH, she's on the BLOB!

The school arguably discriminated indirectly against the girls by failing to protect them from this sex-based harassment. Puberty is traumatic enough without having your privacy and dignity taken away. The number one reason for girls in developing countries discontinuing schooling is lack of privacy at school for dealing with menstruation.

We used to sponsor a girl through PLAN in Tanzania. One of the barriers for girls going to school was the toilets. Our money was used to help build separate sex toilets for the girls so that they would be able to go to school. This was the 2000s upto 2015.

No. Single sex toilets work.

Mixed sex toilets. Huge potential for hidden cameras. You think men would not exploit the potential? There's also the smell, the pee everywhere, the potential for being locked in ( a friend of mine got so drunk, she passed out in the toilet and blocked the door with her body).

Something about the last couple of pages is eeriely familiar. It feels just like the last few pages of this thread in chat. I can't put my finger on why...

www.mumsnet.com/talk/_chat/4725860-has-a-man-dressed-as-a-woman-ever-come-into-a-communal-changing-room-with-you-or-joined-a-specifically-female-group-you-belong-to?page=20&reply=123372035

I agree all facilities need to change with changing attitudes. What's so scary about someone identifying as male using a sink next to you? Single cubicles are surely enough, they don't even need to be floor to ceiling as a peeping weirdo isn't going to stick their head underneath their going to use a concealed camera in this day and age.

Surely if this was purely about safety (I don't think it is, I think it's prudish old fashioned attitudes about gender identify being linked to genetics) being in a toilet with strong individuals capable of defending you is safer than being the lone person in a discriminatory space segregated by genetics where a predator has been camped out for hours waiting to pounce on someone weaker.

A man I didn't know, quite happily, without compunction, told me that I had a 'nice arse'' getting up close to me, at a bus stop in borad daylight when I was 19.

I don't want to share these spaces with men, no matter what they call themselves.

Another man assaulted me on a bus the same year. The men sat around us did/said nothing.

I rather think a group of other women would have done more.

Has the assault rate committed by males changed? Are the bulk of women less bothered about dignity issues when sharing more intimate spaces with males? If not, whose attitude needs to change? I think yours.

Most of us don't really care about gender identity when it comes to sex-segregated facilities. It's sex I care about, which is a result of genetics.

I don't really know what anyone's 'gender identity' might be - it's basically personality, isn't it? It might well be linked to genetics - many aspects of personality are inherited and are controlled by genes - but not to sex chromosomes in particular, though. No reason for XX or XY to have any specific characteristics, interests or feelings, or desires to appear in any particular way.

So definitely not a prudish attitude about gender identity here. Just a strong principle of sex segretated spaces being just that - segregated by biological sex.

I agree all facilities need to change with changing attitudes.

Surveys and consultations show time and time again that the only way attitudes have changed is a hardening of the stance that single sex facilities must remain and actually be single sex.

What's so scary about someone identifying as male using a sink next to you?

Someone 'identifying' as a male would be a woman, a person of the female sex identifying as a man, so what point are you trying to make here?

The rest of your post, much like all your posts, is just risible tosh.

Safety is a thing. As are privacy and dignity. I don't want to wash my hands next to my male colleagues after a shit or pad change even if I'll happily have dinner with them.

@Grumpybutfunny i have no problem with a female identifying as a male using the female toilets. I do object to males using the female toilets. What’s your point?

This is why those who want toilets separated by gender instead of sex are transphobic. They are saying that anyone with a gender other than man or woman should be treated as their sex and only the special ones get to be treated as their gender.

Single cubicles are surely enough, they don't even need to be floor to ceiling as a peeping weirdo isn't going to stick their head underneath their going to use a concealed camera in this day and age.

Oh well, that's okay then! If I don't know they're perving on me using a concealed camera, it's presumably fine for us to have facilities that enable their access, is it?

No thank you.

But how to do you know the person stood next to you is genetically female without asking and believing them?

Some people would be happy with someone who is genetically female but taking significant amounts of testosterone and potentially with significant strength being next to them but not the one taking estrogen. That to me is discriminatory alone. Im a strong woman, how am I any less of a threat than a man, surely it's my strength you are worried about as most men aren't predators.

All those talking about pad changes do you really touch toilet locks without using a wet wipe to clean up first!!! That alone makes me more convinced we need sex/gender neutral toilets!

At the end of the day we are all human, my husband is no better or worse than me because he is XY vs my XX. I also love the quote from the science museum about dads in the female toilets, a) who doesn't let a kid go first and b) why should it be unique for him to be able to look after his daughter.

After the likes of Jamie Bulger who wants to be split up from their kids of the opposite sex just so people don't feel embarrassed! I would rather grown adults were embarrassed and dads could stay with their kids/wives etc.

Gender/sex neutral solves all the problems as no one is left out you just use the loo, changing rooms etc like a normal human.

Why are people so unable to see the real issue here??? This is NOT about what individual may or may not use a certain space. The point is that there is a genuine societal need for certain spaces to be separated by sex, and that both sexes should feel secure in their own private spaces, and that society recognises that need. Without that general consensus, sex based rights cease to exist.

All those talking about pad changes do you really touch toilet locks without using a wet wipe to clean up first!!! That alone makes me more convinced we need sex/gender neutral toilets!

🤨

Wetwipes are fucking atrocious for the environment.

Gender/sex neutral solves all the problems as no one is left out you just use the loo, changing rooms etc like a normal human.

Single sex works as long as it is adhered to, no-one is left out, everyone knows what sex they are, gender identity is irrelevant.

Gender/sex neutral solves all the problems as no one is left out you just use the loo, changing rooms etc like a normal human.

so do single sex facilities. What is your point?

"no one is left out" - except the people who can't use mixed sex facilities for whatever reason, whether religious, trauma, or anything else.

I'd much rather have someone XX next to me, however strong. They are unlikely to attack (female socialisation, rates of violent crime in females etc show this), and if so, it's not likely to be rape. Most men aren't predators, but we don't invite them in regardless, because of the small number who are and the inability to tell in advance which is which.

Problems staying with small children is a different issue; family toilets could possibly solve that.

Of course someone who is XY is no better than someone who is XX, or vice versa, but they are different in terms of their sex and their requirements for single sex facilities.

If mixed sex facilities are the answer, why were women curtailed from public life for so long because of the difficulty finding suitable facilities when out? There is a need - privacy, safety, dignity - for single sex facilities, and most women want to keep them. Campaign for extra toilets if you really want mixed sex ones as well. Or family toilets or whatever else you think is needed. But don't do it by taking away needed facilities that others want.