Can we lay this to rest, once and for all?

[HelenaWaiting]

I'm disabled. I have MS and a congenital heart condition. I'm wheelchair dependent. Only if you are disabled or a carer do you understand how difficult it is to find a disabled toilet (there is always just one), how disappointing it is to find that toilet occupied, and how infuriating to discover that the occupant was some twat trying on a dress. So please, please stop saying "trans people can use disabled toilets". I've been fielding that particular curve ball for years but now we have Kemi Fucking Badenoch saying it. (No, she's not great. No she's not on our side. She's an entitled, vacuous, talent-free zone. She just happens to be a gender critical entitled, vacuous, talent-free zone). I can't wait for the loo as long as you can. I don't get as much warning as you. I can't hold onto it as efficiently as you. And I have no desire to piss myself in a shopping centre because some hulking great bloke in an ill-fitting dress is touching up his make-up. Disabled people campaigned for years for accessible toilets. There still aren't enough of them. Please don't hand them over to a group of people who have chosen to have a problem.

NRTT

My MIL has to use the disabled toilet due to having bowl cancer. She sometimes needs it quickly and will take a long time.

I am GC as you come but I really object to TIM/F using the disabled toilets. For all saying ‘the numbers I are small’ is all well and good but it’s not fair. Should my elderly relative have to wait as she potentially has a horrible,
public shaming accident?

TIF use male toilets
TIM use female toilets

Everyone else in the toilets when they are using them don’t be dickheads.

Leave disabled toilets for those with (visible and invisible) disabilities (and no the ‘psychological trauma’ of your gender is not an invisible disability 🙄🙄🙄🙄).

Job done.

Garrr think I got that the right way round?

Basically if you have or had a penis, regardless of dress or lipstick status you go in the blokes bog!

@VeraWangTea - I think you got your TIFs and TIMs mixed up?

TIFs should use the female facilities (as they are female).
TIMs should use the male facilities (as they are male).

I feared that!!! 🫣🤦‍♀️

’Time’ can also be an access need. Someone may be capable of using non-accessible toilets but not have the time to do so. I don’t mean they need to pick up a kid from school, I mean they need to reach a toilet very quickly to avoid soiling themselves. Urgency is very debilitating.

It’s difficult replying to this as I could quote lots of examples but don’t think it’s fair on the families. I do know of people that have been left days in an enclosed public toilet while people were looking for them. There are no official figures for how many people die in specific toilet designs but it’s a lot. Google. It’s where people go when they feel ill. Heart attacks are a particular concern.

What I will say about overdosing is that 1 in 6 vapes are spiked. Children go to the toilets to vape. Children end up having seizures at school due to vaping. At the moment, I believe everyone who has had a seizure due to being spiked and stopped breathing has not been in a toilet but in the playground or in a corridor. So cpr has been done in time.

It’s not just deaths, it’s prevention. Prevention of serious sexual assaults because the opportunity to do something without being witnessed is reduced.

I have experience of not getting to someone in time because there was a full height door between us. I absolutely could have prevented something. Years ago, I also saved a stranger because I saw they were on the floor of a cubicle and we got her out and cleared the vomit from her mouth, whacked her on the back so she started breathing again. This is why I campaign. Two very different outcomes.

‘On the other-hand, not having the spaces may mean someone is unable to leave the house leading to isolation and worsening mental health.’ Could also apply to the people I have heard from, including medically vulnerable children, who don’t have a safe toilet to use because they are all enclosed. Children don’t have choice at secondary schools if the school use the DfE standard designs - they are all enclosed.

In my understanding there aren't disabled toilets now, they are accessible toilets. Autistic people can use accessible toilets and are highly over represented in the trans community. Assuming a trans person isn't also autistic/disabled is offensive IMO and I'm as GC as they come.

I also don't blame trans women for not feeling safe/comfortable in men's toilets and (rightly) not being allowed to use women's toilets - so until there's a better option i think using accessible toilets is fair. I have never in my life seen a trans person in public toilets so I think the chance of one wanting the toilet at the same time as a disabled person is extremely slim. I guess it can happen very occasionally though, just like having to wait because another disabled person is using the accessible toilet.

I can completely understand why disabled people would be against the idea though.

Are you arguing there should be no fully enclosed toilets at all? That all toilets regardless of location or accessibility should have a gap under the door? Including in cafe’s where there is a single door between the toilet and people eating their cakes?

No I am arguing there should be as few as possible. We already have too many. They have not been risk assessed properly.

We need to do proper equality and impact assessments on them before rolling them out. The gap under the door is there for health and safety reasons. When there’s even a hint that toilets are mixed sex, the designs become private.

From my research what will happen is:
They will be retrofitted into unsuitable places eg. that are isolated.
The space and expense will take away from other budgets.
People will have sex in the private toilets and use them to deal and take drugs. Much of this will involve men-women, men-men or men-children.
They will get very dirty and unhygienic.
Men will spend time setting up tiny cameras in them.
They will only be used by men as women decide they are too dirty and unsafe.
Homeless people will sleep in them.
Occasionally there will be a medical emergency which may mean someone dies.
Lots of money will be spent on extra supervision, lighting, ventilation, alarms, and cleaning until eventually it will be closed because it doesn’t work. That may mean all toilet provision goes.

But the vulnerable people who could be harmed along the way deserve better.

A while back, one set of public toilets had 400 people a month arrested before they closed the toilets, but that’s because the police had drilled holes in the ceiling to view people! Contrast that with public toilets in the centre of Rochdale, overlooked by Social Services offices, who could see very young boys and men (from all over the North West) going into the toilets together and seemingly turned a blind eye. Then the multiple allegations of women being spiked then followed by the spiker into enclosed toilets when the women feels ill. I have all this research but no one cares about toilet safety. It’s all about privacy. And that’s the problem.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqjvnkzgr1no

Story about accessible toilets

There shouldn't be just a single door between a toilet and where food is being prepared or eaten, there should be a lobby in between:

“British Standard 6465-1:2006 Sanitary Installations - All toilets in food business premises should be separated by a lobby from food eating or preparation areas”.

There are exceptions eg if there is a big distance between the toilet and the main area, but normally a toilet shouldn't open directly onto the area where people are eating.

It would be much nicer if there wasn’t but I know several small cafes locally, including a Costa, where this is the case. A couple they are round a corner so you couldn’t see in if the door was propped open, still only a few feet away from tables, but arguably ‘separated by a lobby’.

I am not sure why it is still coming up on the thread about whoever, whether trans people who dont like the EHRC guidelines of using the toilet of their birth sex, or women who find the queues to the women's tiolets too long, should therefore use the disabled toilets.

The issue is about creating enough toilets, male, female, disabled and gender neutral.

And as has been suggested up thread, many organisations wont bother for as long as the can, just to save money. Let alone those who stupidly changed their single sex facilities to gender neutral and are now going to have to change them back.

So even in an ideal world and there was sufficient provision of at lest 4 categories of toilets (and additional baby changing facilities) it is likely this wont change the problem.

Because too many people who identify as trans want the affirmation of using the facilities of the "sex" they identify as. So a lot of the uproar is because they dont want to have to give up on that affirmation.

And the other issue is that at the last count there were apporximately 8,000+ people with GRC (Marach 2024) so even if this number has increased to say 10,000 it is a small number.

The bigger problem is all the people who have been Stonewalled and think they have the same status as someone with a GRC because they have self identified. They haven't. But not just Stonewall, but also main stream and social media have created an impression that this is a fact.

So effectively the larger issue is those who have made a life style choice that they want other people to validate.

No other life style choice has the political power that this group has.

And at the moment no sign that those with the power to clear up this imposition by a minority on the majority are ever going to make it quite clear that identify as much as you want, but nobody else has to share or affirm as real your personal choice.

Yes it would apply to others. Mental conditions can be disabling as well.

There is no way to eliminate risk.

Yes, people OD in toilets. Kids vape, and all the rest.

But there are many many places where people can go to be alone if that is what they want to do.

Including, in many cases, at home.

There can be public advantages from discouraging people from using public toilets in that way, it's a lot better for the other people using the establishment, but you aren't going to stop people from accessing private spaces, they will go home, go into the woods, wherever they need to be alone and out of sight.

All you are doing by saying self-contained toilets in places like cafes are a problem is requiring more and more space for toilets in small businesses.

I am not sure where you thought I said that about businesses? I am not sure what you are saying in the rest of the post? That people do bad things in private toilets but they’ll just find somewhere else to do them if we have door gaps in toilets?!

I am saying we need as few private enclosed designed toilets as possible at schools and in public places. If there’s only room for one toilet and you can’t create more space for more, it will be private because all mixed sex designs are private. The newer standard secondary single sex toilet design in school is private too.

I am saying single sex designs with door gaps are safest. They should be the default.

Car seatbelts don’t eliminate the risk of being hurt in a crash but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have them. I have never needed a seatbelt to save me but I still put one on because in an emergency I know I have better odds of being ok.

A door gap doesn’t eliminate risk but enables quicker rescue in any medical emergency that can make a difference to life, and the gap also has the ability to prevent things (like assaults) happening within the cubicle in the first place. People end up having medical emergencies in toilets as that’s where they go when they feel ill and also straining puts extra pressure on the body increasing the odds eg. heart attacks. This is documented and medically proven.

You were saying people with mental health difficulties should not have the option of enclosed toilets spaces even though this may prevent them being able to leave their home. This in a discussion specifically about disabled toilets not about toilet design in general. No one one this thread is arguing against single sex cubicles with gaps for most provision.

We now have it clarified that GRCs do not change your sex for the purpose of the Equality Act and the provision of single sex spaces. So the number of GRCs is irrelevant.

The issue here is trans activists do not want a gender neutral space so ultimately they are a waste of money in most situations. They want trans identified men to be able to access female spaces. If they were given a firm unequivocal ‘no’ by everyone, then after a bit of foot stomping and screaming on the floor they will find they are perfectly capable of using the men’s toilets. Gender neutral toilets are unnecessary as if they have to use them then no one is being forced to uphold their fantasy and they might as well use the men’s.

Ahh we talking at cross purposes then. You are advocating for lots of availability for enclosed toilets because you think the fact there is a gap at the bottom of a toilet door is the specific barrier for people with particular mental health difficulties getting out. Are you sure it is the enclosed factor that would make the difference? I like discussing because I want everyone’s viewpoints.

I know, through my research, that enclosed toilets are a location of concern for people with mental health difficulties and I was touching on the subject of people in crisis. I am aware this is incredibly tricky to discuss, but it should be discussed if people are saying enclose toilets for people with mental health issues. I realise mental health issues covers huge range of conditions. I talk about disabled toilets as they were the only ‘option’ for mixed sex and enclosed, this is why they are attractive for lots of other activities that shouldn’t be going on in them. And why they are dangerous for the occupant and that can put people off public toilets.

If you read about venues that have made all their toilets enclosed and ‘gender neutral’, there’s a sense of unease amongst most people and a fear that something could happen. Some people don’t go back to that venue. Women are much more likely to look around and be aware of what’s going on in the periphery and for some that means not being in a small space when they can’t assess who is around them.

Disabled toilets are left in a disgusting state because they are misused and I believe a big reason for this is because they are private. When you make other types of toilets private, the same misuse happens. This is because if you have enclosed and non enclosed school toilets, the difference is that the enclosed toilets are dirtier, pupils vape in them and take/deal other drugs, pupils have sex in them and that medical emergencies are not witnessed. It makes it a more unpleasant experience. Schools start to limit access or girls avoid them.

Disabled toilets and some secondary schools’ toilets are all enclosed. There’s not another option. That’s why a lot of my data uses these situations.

I am not saying we should ban enclosed toilets. I have never said that. I am saying we should have as few of them as possible. In order to do that the default should always be single sex cubicles. When there’s no ambiguity about toilets being single sex then the design gets door gaps and becomes much safer for everyone using them.

When the Supreme Court decision was announced I thought ‘great, single sex toilets it is then’ and (I can stop talking about design) but then people started talking instead about enclosing more toilets or more people using the few disabled toilets!

I am raising awareness on how and why enclosing toilets is a bad idea for everyone but particularly women and medically vulnerable (including mentally vulnerable) people.

Getting back to disabled toilets, I would love to see more single sex disabled toilets within a single sex block. I think that would be a fantastic addition if more toilets are on offer.

Where did I say ‘lots’?

Are you advocating that disabled toilets should be in single sex spaces with gaps at the bottom? How does that work for opposite sex carers? What happens when an older child or adult needs to be changed on the floor due to the absence of changing places toilets? Should changing places toilets also have a gap at the bottom of the door even though the individual may need y9 be showered naked?

We’re in danger of dominating this thread!

Please could you answer my question if you have any evidence of people not going out specifically as they can’t access a toilet that is completely private? I am always after evidence to formulate ideas.

I will answer yours in good faith:

I wrote ‘lots’ because in order to satisfy the requirement for a private toilet in all locations around the country, there would have to be lots. Some areas don’t even have any public toilets.

Yes I would like to see single sex disabled toilets with door gaps. I know my friends in wheelchairs would prefer these (they are women). This, as I said, would be in addition to other disabled toilets.

It’s interesting about opposite sex carers. The more I look at incidences where abuse has taken place in disabled toilets, the more I wonder why a mixed sex couple should be afforded more privacy than a single sex couple. So I am conflicted on this point. It has to be a balance between male voyeurism and protecting the more vulnerable person of the couple inside the toilet. There appears to be a lot of cameras set up in toilets already which kind of negates the protection of not having a gap, but I can’t confirm how widespread this is in this country. Bizarrely I have more data on South Korea which has a massive problem with it. Of course men have all the time they need in a private toilet to set this up.

A changing places toilet again is different scenario. These have very specific requirements. And again I am not advocating for a ban on all enclosed toilets.

That is very specific question about a 9year old being showered naked. I am beginning to think it’s some sort of gotcha like Robin Moira White talking about a mum bringing a boy into women’s toilets on Radio 4. Very odd.

y9 was a typo it should have read ‘to’

It is unclear whether you think enclosed disabled toilets should exist. I am also unclear how you expect individuals with opposite carers (eg a teenage boy looked after by his mother) should manage.

OK, fine trans people shouldn't use disabled toilets.

But part of the argument is that the toilet is occupied and you need to use it. What if it was occupied by someone else disabled? You'd have to wait, just like everyone else who has to wait when a toilet is occupied.

My relative with Crohn's disease would be terribly humiliated by toilets with door gaps. It is only the privacy of a closed private cubicle, knowing it is harder to overhear a person having explosive and foul smelling diarrhea (every single day, several times a day when in flare) in the closed disabled toilets that means that they are able to leave the house at all.