Toilets - a chance to make them safer for everyone

[Keeptoiletssafe]

Toilets weren’t specifically mentioned in the Supreme Court judgement. But there may be some rejigging of work/leisure/shop toilet facilities after today.

Here’s what I hope will happen and the reason it’s best for everyone:
I hope people will make sure their premises have mostly single sex toilets with door gaps, at least floor to door gaps - as the evidence suggests they save people’s lives and prevent assaults.

The document for this is DocumentT because if you refurbish your toilet facilities this is the government guidance from 2024 (exceptions are listed, including schools).

Document T says you must have single sex facilities (designs C and/or D). If you have no room for multiple toilets - like a small cafe - you can have a universal toilet A and/or B, the mixed sex toilet. If you have room you must have single sex toilets then you can also have a universal toilet(s).

Confusingly, the design for universal toilets (fully enclosed with a sink in) can be used for single sex. The difference is the sign on it.

HOWEVER

The toilet design that is SAFEST for everyone are the single sex ones C and D. But with door gaps at least at floor-to-door level, big enough to see if someone has collapsed.

This is what the Health and Safety Executive said to me: ‘Gaps under doors into a single-sex cubicle are permissible, so for the cubicle layouts shown by Type C and Type D. Admittedly, this is not specifically mentioned or illustrated in the guidance, nor in contrast is it expressly stated or explained as a matter
to consider.’
‘Floor to ceiling partitions are described for fully enclosed toilets and the specification
for Type A – fully enclosed self-contained ambulant universal toilet and Type B – fully
enclosed self-contained universal toilet both describe a full height door. The section
drawings do not show any gaps under the door to these two toilet types toilets.’
‘On people collapsing within an enclosed toilet, outward opening toilet doors are
preferable for all types of toilets ….if the door is inward opening, it should have an emergency release mechanism so that the door is capable of being opened outward, from the outside, in case of emergency, such as when a person has collapsed while inside the toilet room or cubicle. This provides the emergency support for people with conditions such as asthma, epilepsy, diabetes or where the risk of collapse exists.’

What happens in reality in these private toilet cubicles is that children and adults collapse and aren’t found until it’s too late. I have examples of this in schools and in public toilets.

Ironically people like the privacy of these enclosed designs but fail to realise that they aren’t truly secure as they need a emergency release mechanism to open outwards as a body gets in the way of an inwards opening door.

I have scientific evidence these designs are less easy to ventilate from air borne diseases, and keep clean (logically you can’t swill bleach and a mop round as easily as the partitions and door stop the circulation and drainage).

It is a huge concern that toilet safety hasn’t been analysed properly. I can find no study (for public or school toilets) where a fully enclosed design was safety tested against a design with a door gap.

I have asked for an equality impact assessment for girls and invisible disabilities in comparable secondary school designs and the DfE say they have no records. The DfE designs in the 2023 design document mention privacy multiple times in the toilet section but never safety. Now the gaps for secondary schools are down to 5mm. When I question about safety, the DfE referred me to healthy and safety legislation from 1974.

I asked the government for how the toilets in Document T were safe for those with invisible disabilities. They pointed me to their commissioned report from a private company that was supposed ‘to carry out research into the requirements of the population of England in the built environment, in particular disabled people and people with long-term health conditions’ (so those with a greater risk of collapse) and report back with recommendations with ‘the ultimate purpose of providing data to inform future policy and guidance’, in space requirements and design of toilet facilities.
If you examine the document it does not mention the health conditions listed above by the HSE. It doesn’t even mention heart attacks (one every five minutes) which are medically more likely to happen in a toilet when you ‘push’. However, they recommended enclosing some types of designs - evidence for enclosing was an opinion piece which stated this: ‘A better solution, supported by many transactivists, and increasingly found in trendy nightclubs and restaurants, is to eliminate gender-segregated facilities entirely and treat the public restroom as one single open space with fully enclosed stalls.’ The activists who wrote this article hadn’t safety tested designs. To be fair they weren’t thinking about people with long term health conditions.

What I have found evidence for is that more sex (consent and without consent) goes on in private cubicles, particularly mixed sex ones. Various groups have reported this happening in schools. This would seem obvious, as there are no witnesses. One parent described mix sex private cubicles as rape cubicles. The data for rapes in public toilets and inside school premises are very depressing. It is very difficult to link to the toilet’s exact design but I have evidence to suggest assaults and privacy is linked, particularly with mixed sex toilets. There really needs to be a detailed urgent impact assessment done.

In your workplace or leisure facility (or school) you need to make reasonable adjustments to keep people with invisible disabilities safe, and anyone who is having a medical emergency. This is in various disability and health and safety at work legislation. I don’t think adjusting a full height door’s hinges to open outwards by the time you’ve realised someone has collapsed is enough. A defibrillator is going to be less successful by then.

I don’t think designers have done any of the above maliciously, they have prioritised privacy, a big part being that no toilet blocks were guaranteed as single sex spaces.

I am not a legal bod or an architect but a woman who has experience of what happens when toilet design saves lives and when things go wrong. So I started researching, collating stories, doing FOIs, and contacting the government. It inspires me that women can make such a difference as they did today.

We have a real opportunity here to get back to prioritising SAFETY for everyone.

Door gaps make voyeurism really easy.

I am in awe of your toilet knowledge: you are brilliant!

I too am in awe of your knowledge and agree no time like the present!

Hopefully, with single sex toilets, we can go back to safer toilets with a gap to see if anyone collapses or if someone is being raped in a toilet.

I would argue that cameras make voyeurism easy and floor to door level gaps are less likely to be the ones men use if they have to go in ladies to do so. The worse offenders have been in private toilets where men have had all the time in the world to set tiny cameras up. Voyeurs don’t like getting caught. I am not talking huge gaps!

The influential article that I quoted above (about enclosing toilets) was by an American architect. It’s interesting the difference in American v UK toilets. He in turn was originally influenced, decades ago, by a piece in a journal called Stud about toilet door gaps in male public toilets. He talks about using sight lines, gaps and mirrors in his early designs in his YouTube videos. That was an interesting few days of research! American toilets have lots more gaps up the sides etc. I read Stud and thought how did we get here?!?

I want proper scientific research looking at the optimum toilet design, not an American opinion piece on something completely different, to determine safety/privacy balance.

I broadly agree, but it does happen. You know very much more than me about the issue though so I’ll shut up!

I’ve found people collapsed twice in the ladies toilets, and I’m not old. It’s more common than you think!

Thank you for this, I hadn’t considered the safety aspect before. It’s totally logical, if people are feeling a bit odd/unwell they take themselves to the loo, just in case they need it. But then collapse

Single sex with gaps at the bottom worked before and, where they still exist, work well.
The issue is although good men stay out, some men have forced their way in. If we'd been able to direct them out straight away, to their own facilities, a lot of time and energy would have been saved. This 'be kind' nonsense needs to be replaced with an acceptance of the word 'no'.

No don’t shut up! We need to find solutions. I am trying to get the government and DfE to be interested. No one seems to be collating the data and doing proper research on this.

What I do know now is some horrendous things have happened in toilets in the busiest places. I can not believe that would have happened if people knew what was going on. A degree of visibility would have prevented it happening in the first place.
I also know people can get left for days in public toilets (or even bathrooms at homes if they live on their own).

For me, when I was followed into the ladies as a teenager, I waited until I couldn’t see his feet as I heard him run out, then when bent down and peered out and saw some female feet I came out the cubicle.

I wish lots of women researchers and designers could come together and create the perfect public toilet cubicles for women. You will note in Document T in the single sex designs they have still centred the toilet in the cubicle before they put the sanitary bin in. Pet peeve as it always seems to brush against my leg.

Yet in the government commissioned document for people with health conditions, they talked about the crotch height for urinals for non-binary people but not about heavy periods for women.

Thanks keeptoiletssafe.

It is remarkable how often people forget that there were very important reasons for that those gaps under the doors in the first place.

We are in a Chesterton's fence or maybe Chesterton's toilet scenario.

Which is why it is so important to keep men, however they identify, out of women's toilets.

Of course.

This is really interesting. I think public toilets are shockingly badly designed. I agree the heaving sanitary bin squeezed into inadequate gaps in a purpose built female toilet is ridiculous. Myself I prefer a basin in the cubicle. I rarely get to use a public toilet at all though as I’m a carer and while able and disabled are catered for, carers are not. It is extraordinary how important safe toilets are to your ability to participate.

That's very interesting, OP. Ten years ago I was working at the Government Equalities Office and I got chatting with an architect about the toilets issue. He told me that there are architects who specialise in toilet design and suggested bringing them together to discuss how everybody's privacy, dignity and safety could be protected. I floated the idea at work but sadly it didn't land. I still think someone should do it, though.

@Keeptoiletssafe, have you ever approached any newspapers about this? Just wondering if some sunlight might be good.

Also, we are all here and - like the NHS auditors - have the internet at our fingertips. Tell us what you need us to do/find/shout about. Where should we put our efforts?

Maybe there should be a campaign aimed at men to be accepting of all men using men's toilets safety which includes the ones who like to wear dresses and make-up. Stick a scene in every TV drama to make it the norm.

This is so interesting, OP - thank you for laying it all out in so much detail!

Things I'd never thought about before, but make so much sense.

Something I'm curious to get the collective take on here, especially seeing your earlier post @Enough4me : I saw a video this morning of a trans man saying that yesterday's ruling means that trans men now have to use womens' toilets – and that means that men can still easily walk in to SS toilets, say they're a trans man, and can't be challenged. So it's still a test of how much you 'pass' rather than biological reality.

What do we think about that angle?

The whole thing tangles my brain so much, it takes a while to find where I land on questions like these and it's really helpful to hear from women here who have already put so much thought and energy into the subject.

Just reiterating what @TwoLoonsAndASprout says about helping out! @Keeptoiletssafe , if there's anything we should be doing in the light of FWS, please let us know.

I've been so grateful for your help, OP, on getting my kids' new school building to have single sex rather than mixed sex toilets. I bet there's a heck of a lot of headteachers waking up this morning, pleased that they don't have to worry about new toilets - because they have already given in to grumpy mums like me vociferously objecting to planning applications. But as you say, the toilet battle is half-done if we have single sex facilities without door gaps.

Public toilets and modern plumbing and sewerage are an incredible resource - we are so fortunate.

I have epilepsy and have had a couple of seizures in locked toilets the gap meant the paramedic was able to reach me I'm glad they exist 😊

Yes. And politicians. Only the Scottish ones want to know. Which is awkward because I am in England and it’s difficult because Education is devolved.

The most obvious and most pressing is UK schools as they are the ones whose toilets seem to have changed so much and so consequently quite a few of us have data and stories.

I would like there to be a 10 year follow up into the sexual abuse figures in schools that the BBC did. Every so often the stories get so much that it blows up again - like in 2021 with Everyone’s Invited. Then, the government got Ofsted to look at schools and sexual abuse. Ofsted had to go back to 2015/2016 to get data from a BBC investigation that did a FOI for every police force in the country. The BBC results were discussed in Parliament 10 years ago - the rape location example discussed inside a school was a store cupboard. There were over 600 rapes over a 3 year period. A school year is 190 days. Ofsted bemoaned the fact they had to go back to the BBC data. They said abuse was so common, schools had to assume it was happening.
I think I am right in thinking that the BBC woman journalist who got an award for that story may have moved on to another broadcaster so that makes it trickier.

When I looked at Everyone’s Invited a lot of historic cases were also in disabled loos. Depressingly it seems it’s always going to happen if there’s the opportunity. So reducing the opportunity as much as possible is a good idea.

Ten years ago we didn’t have the toilets we have in schools now. The DfE weren’t specifying gender neutral toilets nor 5mm gaps. We’ve had an explosion of smart phones cameras and cheap hidden cameras, spiked vapes, the upskirting laws, gender ideology, the breakdown of LEA structure to give advice to schools, academisation, push for children with disabilities to be accommodated in mainstream schools (as pupils they should have the option to).

Do you’ve got examples of (male) headteachers and designers in the newspapers showing off their new set of loos, thinking they can solve everything by making all cubicles private, mixed sex with one big round sink in the middle for everyone to use together. Then you’ve got Merched Cymru in Wales - fantastic investigation from some women listening to teachers, parents and pupils - and the reality of the these new toilets. And the women at FWS producing a report too (how did they have the time!?!?).

What kicked it all off for me was not knowing a nearby child was critically ill even though I could have helped them. I didn’t want that to happen again. So I started looking at safety in schools and why door gaps had disappeared. And realising it was so big a problem with so many factors, so quickly.

What really made a difference was yet another group of women, WRN, who produced some fantastic diagrams of what happens in real life when girls and boys have mixed sex toilets. But the problems centred round the door gaps so a pushback from Twitter was to enclose toilets then seemingly the problems of mixed sex were solved. It joined everything up for me with gaps on my mind! Because I knew this was what was happening in real time and what the DfE were doing with a new private gender neutral toilet on each floor and 5mm gaps max for all toilets. These are the offerings by manufacturers to secondary schools now as they are following 2023 DfE design guidelines. I have found out from the DfE they don’t even have to follow them and should also be thinking of 1974 H&S at work!

The problems are then shoved into mixed sex, private cubicles which can’t be cleaned properly and aren’t safe for the very girls and boys I wanted to help - which could be anyone’s child at their most vulnerable - when they don’t feel well, go to the toilet and collapse and aren’t found in time.

It’s about trying to prevent things happening - literally keeping people safe.

Any journalists out there want to do a 10 year follow up? The serious assaults are still happening. This time there needs to be an emphasis on where it happens (I reckon I know) and how we can prevent it (also have a good idea).

p.s. apologies to men out there but I have realised it’s men who design and women who report the problems. Please prove me wrong!

Yes I’m happier with single sex and toilet doors with gaps.

Yes this is a massive concern now that many schools who have refurbished recently and followed 2020 or 2023 guidelines from the DfE. They will have NO toilets with door gaps. There are no safe toilets for these children.

Roughly 1% of pupils have epilepsy. There will be many more having one off seizures through other illness or drugs. Teenage years is a common time for epilepsy to start.

Many children go to the toilets to vape. The University of Bath found 1 in 6 vapes are spiked. Several children have collapsed and had seizures through vaping in schools. So far I have just heard it happening where they have been found quickly (the playground).

I think this needs to be explored. Obviously harassment laws are there for a reason and highlighted yesterday and will help people with this. It wasn’t so unusual in the 80s!

It’s interesting and I have thought about it too. What I have observed on YouTube and in real life, is that young women who are adamant they don’t want to use women’s loos, end up using the women’s even when other loos have been converted for them and labelled gender neutral. A very small school study in America definitely had more boys liking the gender neutral toilets. There’s a realisation amongst women they are not so safe and that the gender neutral toilets are messier, smellier and sanitary pads etc if available, are messed with.