Young Vic theatre: gender neutral loos... with urinals

[PotteringPondering]

Others have commented here on venues where the loos are gender neutral, with open urinals. But I hadn't seen it up close myself till this evening.

It was at London's Young Vic theatre. The loo choice is Gender Neutral With Cubicles, or Gender Neutral With Cubicles & Urinals.

Of course, this basically means women's loos and men's loos. Except that's not what it says on the doors. And if With Cubicles is busy, the clear message is that women should use With Cubicles & Urinals.

But in With Cubicles & Urinals, any woman heading for a cubicle has to walk past rows of men standing peeing into urinals.

This is farcical. So much indignity and embarrassment; so much that's utterly inappropriate. All because of a stupid cultural fad. I'm fuming.

This. It’s basically an invitation to potentially predatory men, including all those who wouldn’t have done it without an invitation, who will now join the small number of super-predators who would have invaded anyway.

Well don't go there again, if you dont' like it. And thank god, I'd rather not share the theatre with someone who think this is worth getting angry over.

😂
Don't worry Daisies. Your mates will already have identified all the witches women concerned for the safety of women and girls, the law on provision of single sex spaces and women's rights to privacy and dignity and will be burning them on a stake outside the theatre.
So you can be all warm and toasty as you watch the play in your smug anti women bubble.

I believe this was Creation nightclub in Cardiff. They reverted back to single sex toilets after the owner’s son was charged with raping an underage girl in the toilets.

Sorry, the above was in response to @ZeldaFighter . Quote fail.

There's lots of evidence that mixed sex facilities enable predators and pose a risk to women. Yet this is always ignored:
**

It’s absolutely appalling and it’s the same at the Lyric Theatre in Hammersmith.

I tried to be brave and walk in to essentially the male toilets (labelled gender neutral) walking out of the cubicle I had to walk past three men urinating. It was such a horrible experience I didn’t enjoy the play afterwards. I felt violated.

When it's been statistically proven that mixed sex facilities endanger women and little girls, you deciding not to get angry about it tells everyone which side you support, and therefore exactly why we need them.

Which is always useful.

That has potential to start a death spiral - alienate a section of paying customers - costs stay same so prices have to go up for rest - prices rise which puts off even larger potential audience.

Even arts funding is being cut right left and center and if they diminish their audience to elite group - well political will to offer continued support diminishes further leading to greater cuts.

But not going again and letting them know why - ie hitting their bottom line probably will get noticed eventually if they lose enough of their audience.

I've just been struck by a comparison. If a man exposes himself in a public place, this is an offence: indecent exposure.

The Young Vic is actively encouraging women to enter a space where men are peeing in an open area, so sight of a penis or two is likely.

In one case exposure is a criminal offence, in the other it's a gender-affirming act of social justice.

Am I being unreasonable to compare the two and note the hypocrisy?

Not at all Pottering. There's no doubt (as Kemi B pointed out in parliament this week) that the sheer number of predators (especially voyeurs & flashers) are enabled by mixed sex facilities with girls and women being their main victims.

And you have to ask how many of those predators are embedded in the organisations busy removing single sex toilets, changing rooms, showers, hospital wards etc? I know many are useful idiots but someone is pushing the "safeguarding women and children is right wing bigotry" and "women's boundaries no longer matter"

Or smaller businesses. Maybe owners, or family members satisfying their own perversions/fetishes and creating access/putting women and girls in a vulnerable situation.

I wouldn’t care about making men feel uncomfortable if women were put in situations of having to be among men with exposed genitals. If women are to have similar toilet access. Maybe some loud discussions about how a huge majority of sexual assault against women occur in provisions which are mixed sex. How women are having to be among of men with exposed genitals. In general of course, not personal to any of the men present at the time with their junk out.

I suppose loud voices about how you hope there are no cameras put in by the men who have used the provision previously. Sharing how one doesn’t know what voyeuristic or perverse men have used the mixed sex facilities that women are now having to use. If women want to be able to have any access to toilet provisions, that is.

Obviously it would be good to have someone to say this to, or on the phone too. Not talking to yourself.

if a man goes into the one without urinals, they and I would be in a cubicle so no problem

You said this several.times, @Ablondiebutagoody but a not-insignficant proportion of men use the cubicle with the door open - so are 'in' a cubicle in only the most technical sense (depending on layout, women with buggies may have to choose between open door or leaving the buggy outside). Some men will stick phones (or their heads) over or under gaps into your cubicle.

As for evening out the queues - most women, like you, won't use the 'neutral.with urinals', so the women's queue.won't get shorter; some men will use the 'unofficially women's', so the women's queue gets longer.

MrsOvertonsWindow · Yesterday 14:04

There's lots of evidence that mixed sex facilities enable predators and pose a risk to women. Yet this is always ignored:

It's interesting that so many lay people here, for example, are entirely aware of the implications, but so many people in positions of power seem to be utterly incapable of grasping the dangers inherent in having mixed sex facilities. Some may not be very bright, but with others, it seems to wilful blindness, because of their hidebound ideology.

It's depressing isn't it? Wondering what goes through the minds of those in the NHS as an example when they read policies describing how male rapists can be placed on women's wards? I assume they all need their hard drives checked - yet I know that can't apply to every one of them. Is it just fear? Hatred / contempt for women? (yet lots of those implementing these things are women). Or as you say - just an unthinking obedience to an ideology?

I think that they have subscribed to the ideology and now, even if there's an inkling at the back of their minds, they're terrified of admitting that they were wrong. Whether that's because of arrogance and overconfidence, or simply fear of vilification, I don't know.

Either way, it shows a lack of moral fibre, in my opinion.

The Bridge Theatre has this (or did pre pandemic, I presume it still has). I was very confused, I think it was "Female" & "mixed" (I can't remember what the terminology was). I blundered into the mixed one as it had no queues to be met by the sight of a load of men with their penises out at the urinals.
I haven't been back since.

Everyone I know hates mixed sex loos, male and female, straight and gay.

I was a 'friend' of the Old Vic until they brought in their ridiculous set of loos, but not anymore, I've got better things to spend my money on.

I went to an alternative venue last week with mixed sex toilet cubicles (urinals behind a closed door tho, funny that...) and it was genuinely a bit frightening. The doors were shitty venue ones that don't close properly, no lock, there was a gap at the top and they were quite far from the bar and not very busy, ideal for sexual assault what with it being full of pissed up punters. I could not pee fast enough (with one leg holding the door shut natch). I was just grateful I didn't need to sort a moon cup out.
It's a fucking joke.

OP "Of course, this basically means women's loos and men's loos"

no, it means men can access all loos. And women (in theory).

There's nothing "neutral' about women having to walk past men with their dicks in their hands just to use a toilet. Any venue that has 'gender neutral" bathrooms with urinals and cubicles are choosing to put their own agendas ahead of women's boundaries and have no concern for women's discomfort/fear.

Room Six (music venue in Glasgow) has "unisex" toilets but it's the same deal - cubicles in one and urinals/cubicles in the other with poor or non-existent signage. I couldn't see any signage at all on my first and only visit there. I was literally beckoned inside the toilet by a male attendant as I hovered, confused, at the entrance. When I entered I saw a row of guys at urinals and I turned on my heel. It was such a visceral, automatic reaction to feeling I was in the wrong place. When I found the separate cubicled loo, and was washing my hands, the same scenario was repeated but with a female attendant who waved a group of regular looking guys inside saying, "It's unisex!" They looked uncertain as they could see me at the basins. This bullshit makes a mockery of years of evidence about toilet provision/waiting times for men and women. I was unnerved and pissed off by the experience and wrote to the club afterwards, saying the lack of clear signage serves nobody - including trans women customers who allegedly can't share toilets with men for their own safety! I got no reply.

I haven't been to either the Old Vic or Young Vic since they did this. I went to the Bridge Theatre for the first time recently and theirs were the same so I won't be going back. Why would I pay so much money to be made to feel uncomfortable?