Old Vic toilets

[adulthumanfemalemum]

Went to the Old Vic yesterday. Christmas Carol, amazing show. Fucking annoying toilet labelling.
'12 cubicles", 'Urinals, 1 cubicle'

I saw an elderly woman emerge from the one labelled urinals looking a bit confused and worried and went into the other one, obviously had not understood that was the mens. Also the cubicles in the ladies (or the 12 cubicles) were not floor to ceiling so I felt quite uncomfortable that there was actually a man standing in there while I was in the toilet. He appeared to be holding his wife's coat, rather than any nefarious reason but I still would have felt happier if he was outside.

The Old Vic sent me a survey to complete so I took the opportunity to complain about their toilet labelling. In case anyone else wants to do the same here's the link. https://uk.surveymonkey.com/r/OVpostvisit?promo=36317

@meloncotton I would describe the triple threat of your journey down into the toilets being a lone woman, in an isolated area, in an enclosed mix sex space. And the man’s reaction too. To be honest it sounds a bad place for any toilets. I would also describe the man’s reaction on how awkward it was for him too.

https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/women/sexual-assault-unisex-changing-rooms-sunday-times-women-risk-a8519086.html

Ask if there is an alternative set of toilets because of the experience you had.

Yes and Professor Susan Stryker www.susanstryker.net/about

Their names keep coming up when I look at toilet design and their influence is far reaching - even though they have not (certainly not by summer 24 - I haven’t checked recently) done any impact assessment on how their designs are affecting users. They had a concept for inclusive toilets and ran with it. It appears very lucrative too. What’s bizarre is that there’s no academic challenge to this - they are both Professors so you would have assumed some sort of academic rigour in their work. If you look them up you will see how difficult it would be for a student to challenge them (no one has in the lectures I have seen) and they go round the world promoting their ideas. They promote their designs as safe, without evidence, stating ‘restroom users can visually monitor one another, reducing the risk of violence’. There is so much I could say about that and so much evidence to the contrary. They also say their designs are good for people with disabilities. I can tell them exactly why they are not. But with them it’s all about concept.

Also their social justice angle they have taken presents their toilet designs as the endpoint of some sort American toilet rights evolution with all issues sorted - in a promotional video the impression is that toilets are now used by everyone in harmony and everyone lived happily ever after. It appears very noble until you focus on the substance, the practicalities and realities. Which is that the evidence shows their designs are unwanted by most, unhygienic and most importantly, unsafe. Bringing us back to The Old Vic toilets.

What’s upsetting is that their article was the reason full height cubicle doors and partitions were recommended to the uk government for people with long term health conditions. This from a government commissioned report that didn’t even consider heart disease, period problems, epilepsy, diabetes or asthma. The people with these long term health conditions are not best served by this design change from a common door gap design that has been proven to be life-saving.

@Vinculum are you in a related field? If you get to see either of them speak I have got a few questions for them! They haven’t answered my email.

@Keeptoiletssafe no, not in a related field in any way, but just fascinated/appalled to join the dots with all this stuff and see what’s behind it. A look at inclusive toilet expert and ‘public intellectual’ Susan Stryker’s long (very, very long) list of publications is…quite alarming, actually. Stryker is a very powerful figure to be pushing all this.

IME Stryker is a grifter. He wanted £1000 to give an academic talk for 40 minutes via Zoom.

Just tell them how you felt about the experience and how uncomfortable and anxious it made you feel. Explain that it has made you reluctant to visit their venue again.

Point out that he didn't appear comfortable about the encounter either...

@meloncotton - and this too ^

I haven’t been able to catch up on the whole thread yet but also wanted to add my thanks to @Keeptoiletssafe for the really informative posts. I spoke to someone at a networking thing several months ago who said the answer to ‘the toilet question’ was clearly single cubicles with hand washing facilities within them and that’s what he had decided to do within his organisation. I remembered your posts on this topic from a previous thread and was able to explain the health and safety issue and he said he’d have a rethink. No idea if he did or not, but your really informative posts stuck in my mind and empowered me to share the message.

You’re doing a really important thing (and brilliantly) educating people about the issue, it’s obvious once you’re told, and it’s an easy message to spread. So just wanted to say thank you again!

Thankyou @PepeParapluie I live in hope that the government will see sense and add a tweak to Document T. And that schools and venues stop all these nonsense ‘inclusive restrooms’ designs. They are not risk assessed!! They are inclusive only as much as they are inclusively bad for everyone. But they are worse for the most vulnerable.

Lovelyview · 31/12/2024 11:31

Thanks for giving your feedback. I complained to the Baltic in Newcastle...

It's local for me, I was there just before Christmas, but only for a couple of hours, so didn't notice the toilets. I have a neighbour who works there, our girls were in playgroup together, she's quite senior and very "woke." Lovely lady, but I won't mention certain subjects.

As for the poster who said that you might die alone in your own toilet, well, what a ridiculously trite thing to say, in order to justify making public loos unisex. Don't you understand risk mitigation?

Thank you@Keeptoiletssafe for all your information, and @adulthumanfemalemum for starting the thread.

I've saved a link to this thread so I can refer back to it.

Bumping this thread to say Scottish Conservatives have started a campaign and I think some of the very knowledgeable people on this thread would have useful things to say to them. We know privacy, dignity and safety are important, but too often safety is interpreted as being free from violence, when in fact we also need safety for people who are disabled, ill, or unwell and may collapse in toilets.

https://x.com/ScotTories/status/1894676696235704771

The website is here if anyone wants to follow the campaign or get involved:

https://www.singlesexspaces.com

Thanks @IDareSay . We've just been talking on another thread about safe loos - safe for people with health conditions as well as being single sex - and whether we can get a campaign going.

Thanks @NoBinturongsHereMate it was reading that thread that prompted me to come over here. No idea if this campaign by the Scot Tories will come to anything but it would be good if knowledgable people got them thinking on the right lines at least.

😴

The good men stay out so that the bad men stand out. That's how a sign helps reduce sexual assault.

Lennon (aka Katie) Dolatowski dressed as a woman to attack a girl child. Men absolutely dress as women to attack women.

People with long-term health conditions can choose whether to take the risk of living alone or mitigate that risk by living with someone else. They don't get to choose what public loo to use when they've gone to the cinema and their back teeth are floating. Public loos impose a set of risks on their users by the nature of being public in a way that private houses don't.

Thank you @Keeptoiletssafe . I have also been able to talk in real life about this issue because of your very helpful and informed posts on this board.

That Stryker link with photo is a real eye opener. Stryker is Director of an organisation named TEN:TACLES (Transgender Educational Network: Theory in Action for Creativity, Liberation, Empowerment and Service).

Am I the only one to find that a rather creepy and frankly male name?

Went to the Market theatre in Brighton 2 years ago, went to the loo at the interval, gender neutral toilets had no queue, ladies loo opposite had women queuing down the corridor. Women don't want the share loos with men

Not even in Brighton, eh? Funny that.

Well this has been an eye-opening thread! And, @Keeptoiletssafe , you have completely changed my view on the question of cubicle design, so thank you for that.

Obviously, toilet design is governed by physical and financial constraints; often venues can't put in the number of toilets required nor of a type that satisfies everyone's sensibilities

I am a firm believer in single sex spaces and I also believe that men also, in general, are uncomfortable with unisex toilets. They're not scared though if they encounter a woman, in the way that women might well be when finding a man in a quiet shared toilet

@Mittens67 why shouldn’t she?

At the Unison Women's conference in Brighton virtually everyone in the venue was a woman (3 transwomen delegates that I saw, out of around 600; the only other men were a handful of security staff who probably had separate staff loos). There were male, female and unisex loos. Even then, as far as I saw, no women used the unisex ones.

If you actually read the thread you will see that my question was genuine and I am not sure why you think it means I am suggesting the interest is wrong.
You will also read that @Keeptoiletssafe then kindly explained her interest, which is indeed an unusual one, in very helpful detail and I thanked her for the enlightening information.

Hi
Sorry , you’re right, I waded in too quickly and failed to read properly . Still getting the hang of this Internet posting stuff. Mustn’t become a keyboard warrior!

I am thankful for everyone engaging in this. I never thought I would have an interest in toilet design! I just wanted no one to have the same experience I had and wanted to find out how to safeguard against it. It’s taken me to some interesting and horrifying places on the internet. My history folder is nightmarish. But there were some unexpected laughs (of incredulity) too. Who would have thought medieval toilets in our country were thought to be progressive to the American designers, as our men and women shat and chatted together?

Yup. Lennon/Katie first struck in supermarket toilets in Dunfermline, where he was caught committing voyeurism against a 12 yr old girl. The second time round - in the toilets of the Kirkcaldy branch of Morrison's - he attempted to rape a 10 yr old.

https://www.thecourier.co.uk/fp/news/courts/819644/mum-of-supermarket-toilet-sex-assault-victim-warns-freed-attacker-could-strike-again/