Gender-neutral toilets stink in more ways than one

[IwantToRetire]

Shared loos have been imposed on the rest of us in the cause of making a tiny minority feel comfortable – and they’re awful

The gender-neutral toilet is a Trojan Horse. It’s designed to shore up the pretence that men and women are interchangeable by people who don’t agree there are only two sexes in the first place. However, there is no mistaking the fact that the Ladies and the Gents are very different. One stinks, and it isn’t ours, is it, girls?

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/columnists/2023/09/27/gender-neutral-toilets-stink/

Behind a paywall but can be read by going to https://archive.ph/ and pasting the telegrpah link into the box provided.

Exactly.

The headline says gender neutral - which used to refer to single-user unisex.

But when you read the article she’s actually describing a workplace with multi-user mixed-sex toilets.

Some female toilets stink too ... depends how clean they are kept

I don't think posting a link from the Torygraph behind a paywall is a great idea

I used to clean toilets. The female facilities were in general perfectly fine, just always needed a tidy up and wipe down, the male facilities were utterly disgusting. Piss EVERYWHERE - the floor, the seat, the wall. Pubes. For some reason, there would sometimes be shit wiped across a wall or two. It was vile.

Our local Costa eventually with all the woke shit changed the female toilets to shared - went from being as nice as a public toilet can be (you know, generally cleanish etc) to the toilet seats being left up with piss stains on them, piss on the floor, they STANK of urine...it was disgusting.

I used to to clean toilets in a school - in order of cleanest to least clean it was women, girls, boys, men. Even teenage boys were better than the men's.

Has anyone had the misfortune to use the BA Lounge at Heathrow? They have got rid of men’s and women’s toilets and instead there is a bank of around 10 unisex individual cubicles. Foul smelling and disgusting and not nearly enough cubicles for the hundreds of people in the lounge.

I ended up walking out and using the women’s public toilets in the main airport which were sparkling clean and didn’t stink (ie hadn’t been used by men)

Its either unhygenic or you spend your time cleaning someone elses mess up before you can use the facilities. More likely for women to do this since removing more clothes, assuming sitting position (even if you hover) is inherently more likely to put you closer/in contact with the equipment. So its yet more time spent in the toilet for women, who already take longer and they are in the designated support human role, cleaning up after the men. Great thing to teach women and girls at home, in public, in the workplace - the message is basically know your place, you cant expect equity of facilites clear for your use, no matter your age or role you will spend time cleaning up other peoples piss.

We had this at work (NHS) briefly, where 2 individual toilets opening on a corridor were designated gender neutral use (had been male and female before) by 'the powers that be' and signage was changed.
Within the space of a morning the gender neutral signs had been covered by laminated male/female signs again with a very sharp note about cleaning up and being considerate to colleagues on the male toilet door. Decision made by head of department in the interests of workplace relations, enforced by the site manager, and supported by all except possibly the culprit. Unless it was a deliberate dirty protest.

The ones with the running water and bird cheeping sounds piped in?

We’ve had shared toilets at work for at least a decade. They’re always fine 🤷🏼‍♀️

I am by no means in favour. But.....son had to actually queue the other day because gender neutral. Maybe men will realise the issue with lack of female toilets when they have to queue.

Guess who got lambasted in the Dalston club (LGB.....) ?

Yup. Little OJ. Those in the line stood up to him but he pushed in anyway.

In my last job my office was across the corridor from the men’s toilet, which was used almost exclusively by the consultant physicians. THEY NEVER WASHED THEIR HANDS AFTER PEEING. NEVER! CONSULTANT PHYSICIANS!!

So at a team meeting I mentioned it. They always washed their hands (when I was in my office) after that, but sweet zombie Jesus, I should NOT have had to tell them.

In one place I worked we had a toilet that had a sink in the middle and a mens cubicle one side and womens on the other. No one really took any notice (both were loos with a sanpro bin next to the sink).

One day a (male) colleague came bowling through the door of the ladies loo (I’d not secured the lock properly) just as I was getting up off the loo. He looked like he was going to die from embarrassment. I wasn’t overly happy myself.

Can I ask those of you with specific (bad) experiences of the lack of safety, privacy & dignity (men barging in, not locking cubicles) of unisex toilets, or those of you with professional experience of cleaning unisex loos, or managing them, please please please respond to the Government consultation on new regulations for toilet provision in public spaces.

I mentioned seats left up, urine & faeces left unflushed, or on the floor ... these are all pretty common experiences of unisex facilities, that are different from using female single sex facilities - in my experience.

Otherwise, we're going to get TRA-influenced legislation.

Sex Matters has a handy guide to the consultation, with links to the consultation, and the Sex Matters suggested responses. The survey asks for specific experiences - lots of posters on this thread could just cut & paste what they've written here.

It's really important that WOMEN respond as apparently the Equality Impact Assessment (EIA) was done in consultation with TRA organisations and no consultation with relevant women’s groups.

You can see that from the detail of the the consultation document: they publish their EIA and the section on the “gender reassignment” protected characteristic is far more detailed & specific than the one generalised & basically dismissive of women's concerns.

It closes on 8th October so we have a week.

Links:

https://sex-matters.org/take-action/respond-to-the-toilets-consultation/?mc_cid=fe7b296b16&mc_eid=311b3b5ba7

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/4907121-sex-matters-urging-responses-to-proposed-new-toilet-regulations?reply=129577541

@Startingagainandagain @Chipperfish @YouJustDoYou