Are toilets still allowed to be cleaned by members of the opposite sex?

[PoisedRubyLion]

I see signs saying toilets may be cleaned by members of the opposite sex in a lot of places. Is this allowed after the supreme court ruling? If a male cleaner was in there it would be a mixed sex space.

I think maintaining single sex spaces is about far more than toilets and it makes sense to draw a line at biological sex for clarity. Otherwise everything has to be decided on a case by case basis surely which just leads to confusion and sometimes newspaper headlines.

There will be exceptions made for practicality like cleaners and small children. These are for the service users benefit as small children need supervision and women like clean toilets.

There isn’t a benefit to women in letting men who identify as woman use their loos at best it’s a neutral act.

Honestly if you are looking for people to blame for the Supreme Court decision you should be looking to the “piss takers” within the trans community who aren’t content to nip and have a pee but need to photograph themselves wanking at the sinks to share with the internet. Or the ones who want to get changed in the ladies changing room regardless of other peoples discomfort. Or the sex offenders that would like to go to a female prison.

There was a social contract and people were being kind but they fucked it and a hard line was drawn. I believe they lurk on Reddit if you want to mooch over and have a chat?

@Tiredofwhataboutery

I think maintaining single sex spaces is about far more than toilets

Agree, but toilets is what this thread is about.

There will be exceptions made for practicality like cleaners and small children. These are for the service users benefit as small children need supervision and women like clean toilets.

I’ll put it very simply: a woman is being harassed by a man and runs into a woman’s bathroom for safety. She leaves the cubicle, and sees a male cleaners. She is shocked, scared and thought this was a women’s space- she didn’t have time to see the sign on the door. She also has no idea of the intent of the male cleaner.

How is that okay with you all? Don’t you see how that’s not in line with ANY of the arguments you peddle on here?

I’m not looking for anyone to blame. It’s just very frustrating that none of you are admitting that these are double standards.

Surely it’s the Brazilian tribal counting system in action?

One - two - plenty

Do you mean to shout to get your views across? Whatever, you and several others are missing the point that many toilets do not put the sign out for male operatives purely on a contemporaneous basis but rely on a permanent sign. As a result, women are left never knowing when a man might pop up. As many have said, dealing with period blood, leaking boobs after breast feeding, adjusting/changing clothing are all reasons this is not acceptable to many of us. Even when forewarned we cant necessarily wait for a male cleaner to leave if we are flooding, leaking or have needs related to disability. Our views count as much as those of you who are not bothered.

I came on to say I think someone has been catching up with pertinent episodes of Woman's Hour and decided to try them out.

As someone who has cleaned loos for a living there is no one more invisible than a cleaner essentially you are a support system for a mop, or a cloth and bottle of cleaning spray. In the scenario described I’d be happy to see a male cleaner as I’d ask them to look outside and see if anyone was waiting.

Can you not see how challenging it would be to have different rules for toilets and other single sex spaces? At a previous workplace the female toilets were in the female changing room.

Any man in a woman's single-sex space is behaving creepily/being creepy, whatever he identifies as.

Explain to me why that WOULDN’T apply to male cleaners?

for some woman it does!! I don't know what so difficult to understand about this. Not all women think the same.

Some women will not use public toilets if there's a possibility of a man in there.

Other women will.

'I think you should inspect'
Aye OK.
Patronising much?

But to answer, yes, a woman would quite possibly have that instinctive fear, but then think, 'Oh, well, it's a cleaner, he's probably seen it all before, and anyway he's just got his head down and wanting to get to the end of his shift.'

And anyway, public loos have signs saying that male cleaners may operate in them; so by going in them, you've given your – informed, crucially – consent.

WhatNextCatsAsDoctors

do you understand now?

If there's a sign that says there's a male cleaner in there, a woman can avoid the space altogether.

If there's a sign that says there might be one in there, but we don't know when, she can avoid the space altogether.

But since you raise the issue, maybe sanitary companies could put signs in toilets that say this toilet is only ever cleaned by women.

I'd quite like to see it, to be honest.

Very reassuring to know that some companies completely understand the trauma that some men inflict on women.

edited to add that the reason companies use these signs is precisely to warn women. Precisely to warn women who might be troubled.

Unlike you, they realise it's not a game

I always imagine Bernard Manning, offensive and often deleted

A male cleaner would have a tabard or uniform on, often with the name of his employer, so that it was clear that he was working. I can absolutely imagine initially being scared if this happened to me, but then the fact of the guy being in a uniform and having a mop or bucket or whatever would register, and I would be OK. I would venture to suggest that that would be the experience of a lot of women.
Obviously there are going to be individuals who have anxiety issues and/ or historical trauma from sexual assault or similar, for whom it might be a more traumatic experience; but that would be pretty rare, and also quite easily dealt with by the male cleaner asking another woman to stay with the one who was scared, and/or going to his employer to get some appropriate support for her. Some appropriate support for her.
Honestly, this is really just common sense/social contract stuff, which we all knew about until somehow it was magically wiped from people’s minds a few years ago.

The obvious solution is that the toilets could be temporarily closed if the cleaner is of the opposite sex (I’ve seen this happen a few times lately).

Or a mobile sign is used, stating that the cleaner is of the opposite sex, and then the service user can decide for themselves.

Yes, TRAs saying, but what about this male person, eh? How about this scenario? What will happen under these circumstances, in this context eh, eh?

Obviously they're doing it to needle women, but women can campaign to nail down these possibilities if they consider them serious enough.

Silver linings and all that

Are you a woman? I ask because that doesn’t seem a likely scenario.

Firstly, if she is being harassed to the point of running, a woman is more likely to go to someone like a shop assistant and start talking to them. People would notice a woman being chased by a man. So I presuming in this fictitious scenario, there is no one else about. In this case I think she’d be delighted to see the cleaner, especially if he were male. She wouldn’t be shocked to see him as she would have been able to hear him and his cleaning materials and see his shoes as there’s a floor to door gap in the single sex loos as she would absolutely used the gap to look out before leaving the cubicle. She’d probably say, can you see if there’s a bloke outside who is waiting round looking like…

Theres not a magic force field round the entrance to the ladies so the last thing you do is block yourself into a room where you are alone with someone chasing you so much you are running.

Constrast this with a real story: I have been in the ladies where a bloke came in after me and waited. That was scary because we were on our own in that block of loos. This was pre mobile phones. I knew he was there and it was a man by the sound of his shoes walking in softly, being able to tell from the way he walked and seeing his shoes from the floor to door gap. He was waiting by my door. I froze and didn’t do anything for what seemed like ages. When I heard the outer ladies door open, he ran out and another pair of ladies shoes I could see and hear came in. I came out and we had a few words about what happened. She said he just rushed out, she didn’t get a good look at him, peered round the door to look under all the cubicles and decided it was safe to come in as she could only see my feet. I didn’t report it because this is the kind of thing woman put up with. This is another reason why single sex toilets with door gaps matter.

If you saw statistics on how many sexual assaults there are in public toilets, you would realise why women don’t think toilets are a place of great safety.

Obviously yes, that's why they put up warning signs.

That's awful. Very frightening

One of the other creepy things going on at the moment is men finding out as much as they can about women's toileting habits, and trying to break down their barriers by negatively analysing them.

You can feel it coming off the screen.

Oh, I hadn't realised women took little kids into the toilets. To me their toilets are just a place to stroke my ego/cock.

And suddenly, i've noticed several people saying oh there are signs in the women's toilets about male cleaners, I didn't realise that. And trying to shoehorn that into their argument!

Just to be clear, WhatNext, I'm not talking about you. I have no idea what your interest in women's toilets is.

It's not. That's why she'll run out screaming or panic/freeze or all of the above. She will have a negative response without being a bigot.

Only a man feeling entitled to her space would ask her to reframe her trauma in that instance - and remind her he can be there too.

And if he's the cleaner he should be sacked for it.

I’ll put it very simply: a woman is being harassed by a man and runs into a woman’s bathroom for safety. She leaves the cubicle, and sees a male cleaners. She is shocked, scared and thought this was a women’s space- she didn’t have time to see the sign on the door. She also has no idea of the intent of the male cleaner.

You are mixing up two scenarios.

Women escape harassment in night clubs by going to the womens toilets. It wouldn't matter if there was male cleaner in there because the womens loos at night clubs are packed.

If a woman was eacaping from the man for saftey, she wouldn't run into a confined space with only one way in and out.

Nah, pal, I meant to whisper.

Fuck me.

"Some of you have argued about informed consent, but how does that work for the first point where women’s bathrooms operate an emergency refuge (again, a common argument used on here)?"

And even in an emergency situation, a female person can choose to go into that space or find another one. There might not be another one and that person can make decisions about their needs. Such as, ask a female person for help, even if it is just to come in with her to make sure she is ok. Or to check who is in there.

Being pre warned means that those who have specific needs can make decisions.

"And even then, as we’ve established, the sign will almost always say ‘please be aware male cleaners sometimes clean this toilet’. I’ve actually never seen a sign which points out a male cleaner present in that moment, when there has been one inside."

Really? I have come across it many times because I travel around a lot and use public toilets a lot. Just because you have not experienced it, why do you believe that your experience is the norm?

But then you say:

"I’ve also never seen a ‘male’ presenting trans woman in the loo but I’ve seen plenty of male cleaners."

So, have you seen male cleaners in the toilet, or not?

"I understand that currently men CAN legally clean women’s toilets as they are a service provider and user, but the it’s a matter of if they SHOULD. My point is that if you were consistent and wanted to prove you weren’t just targeting trans people, you would be rallying against this too."

"If your logic were consistent, you’d be fighting for NO men or trans women, no matter who they are or what they are doing, in women’s spaces. But you won’t, because male cleaners just don’t make you as angry because you all have a deep bias against trans people."

I don't see any inconsistency though. If a female person sees a sign that says there is male cleaner / maintenance person there, they can make decisions. One of those decisions could also be to ask that male person to temporarily leave that space. And I would expect that that male person and the organisations that hire them to have a policy that would say that those male people should leave temporarily if asked.

The point is that female people feel they cannot ask a male person with a transgender identity to leave the space. Indeed, we have just seen Sandie Peggie's tribunal and are about to see the Darlington nurses tribunal about exactly that.

Do I want a male cleaner in female single sex spaces with me? No. But I can make a reasoned choice about it knowing that the sign is there.

It is difficult discussing what goes on in public loos and why universal designs are so bad. On one hand you want to tell people why you come to your conclusion but on the other you worry men will get ideas. I have mostly settled on a balance of not telling individual stories unless the people have told them themselves.

...you all have a deep bias against trans people.

A deep bias against men who choose to use women's toilets seems both reasonable and healthy - even advisable - to me.

Bizarrely not thought about it too much. Certainly doesn’t feature in the top 10 frightening moments of my life. Man with bloodied knife running towards me is much higher and again I froze. So much for running! He ran straight past though, trying to find and kill his wife.

The top scariest moments always involve children - other people’s and mine.
I reckon most parent’s do.