Toilet Information

[ryaryar]

I know there is a very informative poster who has researched toilet provision on here. I hope she will find this post.

I have a question regarding Gender Neutral toilets.

I understand that to qualify as gender neutral they should have wall to ceiling cubicles but can those cubicles be contained within an enclosed room?

So, for example could a gender neutral toilet facility contain multiple enclosed toilets with sinks in the middle of the room accessed by a communal door from a corridor?

The reason I ask this is because I have used a toilet facility like this and felt particularly vulnerable. After entering the initial door, I was faced with being in an enclosed room on my own with effectively multiple lockable spaces (toilets) with one other man. No one else was in there at the time except me and another man and I immediately felt vulnerable.

Is this legally acceptable or do gender neutral toilets have to be accessed from a public space like a corridor?

Yes, I’ve been in a toilet like this in a Zizzi restaurant. You just open a blank door from a corridor with no idea who might be behind the door. There are multiple lockable cubicles and I felt very unsafe. It might help if there were a window in the door in the corridor. The toilet is quite a way from the restaurant itself so no-one could hear you either. I don’t think I’m paranoid, but I’ve been assaulted more than once in the past.

@keeptoiletssafeis your expert

@keeptoiletssafeis your expert

@keeptoiletssafeis your expert

Ffs, sorry for the multiple posts!

This is what it is like at my work. Not happy at all with them or the floor to ceiling doors which were done away with in the 1970s for safety reasons!

I've experienced this in a cafe (gaps top and bottom of door) and there was a man peeing with the cubicle door open. Another time was in a police station. "All gender" toilets with cubicles fully enclosed. Again, male peeing with the cubicle door open.

No that is not legally acceptable. You are absolutely right that such a set up leaves women extremely vulnerable to assaults.

I dislike this set up too. I have experienced this at national trust venues and museums.

It's not legal. To be legal it needs the hand-wash basin within the cubicle

Floor-to-ceiling cubicles in public toilets are themselves not safe. The gap at the bottom is there for a reason: if you collapse, or are being sexually assaulted, in a cubicle with floor-to-ceiling doors and walls, you will not be seen (and possibly not heard/able to hear - some are sound-proof), and therefore no one will be able to save you.

The safest option that preserves privacy is single-sex spaces with door gaps.

Thanks everyone.
I'll wait for @keeptoiletssafe

They always stink too…

If you open your cubicle door to a man waiting outside, all he has to do is push you back in and lock the door. It's actually terrifying.

hello! Yes everyone is right in the fact they are not safe. Whether they are legal is a very interesting point.

There are so many variations of toilet cubicles and rooms historical.

Document T is the one to look at. It came out last year. In was to make sure single sex toilets were the norm - then a unisex or ‘universal’ toilet if there is room. The Health and Safety Executive have told me gaps can be put in the single sex toilet doors. They haven’t specified them in the Document annoyingly but they haven’t said they have to be enclosed unlike….

Universal toilets (which gender neutral fall into). These have to be enclosed ie private and proper rooms with sinks in.

I believe if you are doing a refurbishment or have a brand new venue (schools are different) then this is the document you should follow. So for all toilets from last year.

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/67167c02d100972c0f4c9b38/ADT_2024.pdf

Is this some kind of Beetlejuice thing you’re doing? 😀

The floor to ceiling cubicles in my town have electronic doors that open automatically after a certain time, I think it is 15 minutes. You can extend the time but you need to do that or the door swings open. They feel much safer than the old blocks which could feel quite creepy as you had no idea who was in a cubicle and no one was stopping anyone, male or female, going into them. They were OK in the day but at night they didn't feel safe. Not to mention walking in on drug users injecting.

Just edited to add they do have hand washing facilities in the cubicle.

Looks like it worked - she appeared! 🤣🤣

My busiest day at work and this happens! I get no one interested in toilet gaps then everyone is 😂

All a bit overwhelming but very grateful people understand. Thank you.

I want toilets to be safe for everyone.

So, I would like to draft a letter to the restaurant.

I think the main points would be;

1. unisex toilets are less safe for women (assaults) I need to find stats for this.
2. Privacy and dignity (basins in the middle)
3. religious protection sharing intimate spaces with men - have they considered how this impacts women more than men

Anything else?

@ryaryar just my pov, but I wouldn't write an overly long letter that includes every single issue. This is your complaint so I would focus on how you felt and back it up with law and fact.

Unless you are from a religious group that makes this even more of an issue, I wouldn't list that as well, though you are correct. I would keep on point and keep it punchy. I would also think about what you want as a response and ask for it clearly.

I agree with keeping it punchy and relevant.
I am doing lots of cutting and pasting for another posts so sorry if this is disjointed but on the topic of stats (if you want them):

The problem with finding stats eg. from police is that no one has collated them to toilet design!!!! It’s infuriating.

There has been no proper research in this area!!! Unbelievable really when you realise what’s at stake. But it’s only in the last few years the designs have changed so much - without thinking of the consequences

You can say from these that public toilets are where a lot of rapes and sexual assaults happen.

If you google where your nearest city and add ‘toilet’ and ‘rape’ it will bring up the number that were reported and the man was caught and charged. This is a tiny proportion.

You can go on ‘What do they know’ and search for FOI requests for rapes and sexual assaults in your area. Not a pleasant job and none of it is coordinated.

Here’s just a couple of examples for the FOIs for public toilets:
Public toilets
Public Toilets 2

Theres loads more but it takes a bit of work trawling through.

The main problem is privacy over-riding safety, because mixed sex toilets are private in design. There was a case of a woman who had unfortunately died in a restaurant toilet but she was there for 2 or 3 days before she was found because it wasn’t checked.

Single sex design can have door gaps. It is therefore the safest.

The ‘locked’ cubicles aren’t that secure because they should nowdays have a mechanism in which you can open them from the outside easily in case of an emergency. So if you are on your own, you are in a space where you can’t see who’s out there, and if someone lets themselves in, there’s going to be no witnesses. You are right to have your guard up - women do recognise this.

I have done most research on schools. I think it’s safe to assume that most people would stop something happening to a child. These are a few of the more recent statistics of sexual assaults and rapes in school premises from Freedom of Information requests. Obviously the exact location is not noted but it is reasonable to assume most serious assaults will be in a private, unsupervised area open to mixed sex. The locations I have seen quoted in prosecutions are store cupboards and disabled toilets. In schools there are lots of articles about sex in ‘gender neutral’ designs.
Essex Police
Metropolitan Police
Warwickshire Police

Heres the medical stats:
There are known medical reasons for a disproportionally high frequency of cardiac arrests and strokes while an individual is in the toilet room. Whilst there’s no accessible data where people collapse. However, it is known there are around 100,000 hospital admissions due to heart attacks in this country, equating to one every five minutes. It is estimated there are 400,000 people in the U.K. with undiagnosed heart failure. There are also around 100,000 strokes in this country, equating to one every five minutes. Around 1% of people in this country have epilepsy and around 80 people are diagnosed with epilepsy each day. There are many other conditions that lead to collapse where you need to be noticed and accessed quickly eg. diabetes and asthma.

My FOI, which to DfE was about risk of private cubicles included assessments for: those with invisible disabilities, girls, medical emergencies, fire evacuation, ventilation, disease control, crime.

in summary: healthy men are the ones best suited to the toilet design at the restaurant.

I expect their cleaners would appreciate the change too. Much easier to keep toilets clean when you can mop, bleach and drain under a door gap.

Thank you so much @Keeptoiletssafe

https://archive.is/M6Dhm