Female-only toilets will be guaranteed in new buildings

[ArabeIIaScott]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/23465951/separate-toilets-men-women-law/

'New regulations mean women will be guaranteed appropriate facilities either through a single-sex space or private toilet.
The changes will be made through building regulations and will not affect residential buildings.'

Enforcement of rules and regulations needs serious attention. What about the poor kids forced to share loos at school when the rules say separate facilities for girls and boys from the age of 8?

Are they planning to add potty parity provisions to mandate equal wait times for both sexes? So frustrating how that's fallen by the wayside considering many U.S. states have had legislation to that effect for decades.

Sorry this is too drip drip drip. Stop wasting time and get on and ensure 'sex' in the Equality Act means biological sex. Then when gender neutral toilets are provided they are breaking equality laws. Covers all buildings of any size.

The Conservatives are running out of time here. Go back to the start and make it clear, everything else will follow.

I loathe the term "gender neutral" for what is actually mixed sex.

My gym studio has unisex loos. You can walk down the corridor of about six and pick one.
Even in an environment that is regularly checked and cleaned to a high standard, every time I'm there, quite a few have the toilet seats left up and pee on the rim and the floor around them. I don't believe women are the culprits, so it's some men making things a bit grim for women, as usual.

Architects design buildings according to the requirements of clients, dependent on budget. They have to follow both building regulations and Health and Safety reguations. The latter have clear rules on provision for each sex for toileting.

I'm not quite sure how these have been disregarded in favour of 'unisex' provision, it would seem to contravene regs. These are for workplaces, I suppose, rather than public buildings:

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1992/3004/regulation/20/made

I would welcome this. The last time I used a mixed loo in a workplace, whilst washing my hands at the sinks, I could not help but notice a male urinating who hadn’t bothered to close the door to his cubicle. 🤢

Kemi Badenoch's article makes some good points:

'We want a society where transgender people are treated with respect and sensitivity. But this needs to be done sensibly. For obvious reasons, women face longer queues than men to use the toilet. We have physical needs that are more complex, from menstruation to pregnancy and menopause. Female-only toilets give women the peace of mind that they will be shielded from having their privacy violated. '

Why not extend this to retaining all of those that currently are in existing buildings?

Doesn't stop a self identifying woman from entering- it provides a 'third space' but doesn't actually do anything to help the current issue, which isn't gender neutral toilets- it's making women's toilets gender neutral.

I wish they would pass a law that they have to provide more women’s toilets than mens in buildings. So so sick of going to concerts / restaurants/ museums / attractions /stations with ubiquitous long queue snaking out of the ladies tollets as the men bob in and out using the urinals in the gents.

Politicians acting on that would get my vote!

And a significant number of women cannot use toilets at all if male people are in them, regardless of how the male person feels or identifies.

Not all female lives can revolve at all times around male people's wishes and feelings.

It cannot be ok to provide all this lovely respect and sensitivity to male people if it's at the expense of actual exclusion and subordination of female people. Respect and sensitivity equally for all - great. But that's going to involve the guts to be clear what and who female is, and being very clear that while additional options can be made available for those who do not want to use the space for their biological sex in respect of their needs and feelings, they cannot enter single sex female only spaces and harm women in the pursuit of meeting their own needs .

We are going to have to be this blunt about it, and this firm about it, because hoping that male people might be decent and capable of extending respect and sensitivity as well as demanding it, really isn't going to happen. Much 'education' on this is obviously needed. But Kemi and the rest are really going to have to pull together the guts to put down a boundary and mean it, because all the nice wibbling just provides room for male people to crack on harming the rights and equalities of women.

Partly because that would potentially entail remodelling buildings, at great expense.

And yet they find the money to convert perfectly good single sex provision into mixed sex provision. I'm thinking of schools and trendy eateries and museums and galleries and theatres etc.
In many places where they have not remodelled, it would just be a question of changing the signage back to what it was.

We have these in a new building I work in. There is a proper ventilation system. It’s a heat recovery system so cheaper than having an open window/ regular extraction fans and letting all that expensive heat escape.

There is a maintenance corridor that runs behind all the toilets so all the cisterns, flush mechanics and pipe work is accessible to maintenance which is much more cost effective. Less disruptive when one is being repaired as well.

It is obviously tricky if someone is taken ill in any loos. Possibly better to use accessible toilets which has emergency cord if feeling unwell. Same for people who are claustrophobic.

You can actually remove the toilet doors quite easily. Hinges are on the outside you remove the bottom cap from each hinge, slide out the hinge pins and unlock the door from the outside using maintenance keys. Lift out the door. There is always a janitor/ maintenance person on site when building is open.

This question came up before so I asked at work. It takes him less than a minute to get the door off. Maybe a couple of minutes to get there if at opposite end of building. It has happened a few times. Other people they’ve been with have raised the alarm. Often it’s small children who lock but then can’t unlock the door rather than someone being taken suddenly ill but there have been a couple of collapses.

I think this set up is only possible in new buildings though. It’d cost far too much to retrofit. I’m not sure what the answer is if someone goes in alone and collapses either. Possibly in years to come buildings will be be smarter with some sort of AI monitoring. Or our smart watches will alert someone that we are in need of assistance.

Completely agree. They should only do this if they're ready to have a sitting-down-only policy and enforce it with splashback paint.

That's exactly what I was talking about earlier! It's called potty parity legislation, and it's been around for decades in other parts of the world, often mandating ratios of 2:1 or higher. Sadly Europe including Britain is not as progressive in some regards as it likes to think.

As usual not a word of disabled provision. I guess the message is clear. If you need a toilet, start with being able. Then male, then female.

Thank goodness we solved accessibility eh ? Who remembers that ?

In all fairness there have been separate announcements about improving disabled provisions in new buildings. I work in a fairly new public building and we have a number of accessible toilets plus a changing places toilet.

https://www.gov.uk/government/news/changing-places-toilets-for-severely-disabled-people-to-be-compulsory-in-new-public-buildings

When I was 10, I got trapped in a toilet cubicle in an old building where my dance class was being held. The bolt wouldn't open when I tried to leave. The door was floor to ceiling and so no one could pass me anything. I waited 10 minutes for the caretaker to arrive, who had to take the door off the hinges to get me out.

I am not a fan of floor to ceiling doors, 40 years later. I am a fan of women talking and laughing together, having a communal experience, without men in a safe, clean(ish) space.

But if men can use them they will still be dirty and stinky, plus more chance of hidden cameras. Women only toilets work best in my opinion.

Why is this news? We already have separate sex facilities in almost all public buildings.

They just need to enforce it.

In all fairness there have been separate announcements about improving disabled provisions in new buildings.

Fuck "announcements". I've had 40 years of announcements things will improve for the disabled.