This is so unsafe. I hope it’s stopped immediately.
Odd choice of colours, biologically. Yellow and black are warning colours.
When there was the public consultation for Document T (building regs for toilets), a few years ago, Stonewall very effectively got lots of people to write in. Which is fine in itself. But look at the detail and it skewed the results when it came to safety. 79% of responses mentioned safety concerns for trans/non-binary people and 75% mentioned safety concerns for women. Fewer than 5% of responses mentioned safety concerns for one of the following groups: girls, children, men, disabled people, and boys.
Stonewall UK’s LGBT in Britain – Trans Report (2018), was cited in 11,866 responses. This is 67% of the total number of responses for the government consultation.
Stonewall encouraged people to mention their report which looked at a survey of a 733 people identifying as trans from 2017. In it, it stated 48% of transgender people felt uncomfortable using a public toilet. It listed two examples both when people were shouted at, and one where two women pushed a person to get out of the ladies.
I am not condoning this, but these two incidences must be put into context of health and safety for the population as a whole. It throws out some anomalies as well - 51% of the LGBT population are disabled according to the Stonewall report, but in the Doc T analysis only 2% of people appeared to be supportive of ‘disabled’ toilets.
Another more recent report by a cleaning company said the majority of people felt uncomfortable using a public toilet - 80% of the 2,000 people polled, say they would only use a public toilet if it was completely unavoidable. This time they mentioned hygiene as a big problem. This does not mean anything in relation to Stonewall but just shows how toilet needs analysis are problematical. We need unbiased datasets based on actual incidents - who they are happening to and in what type of situations. Then we can start looking at prevention.
I also have information on people dying in toilets. These are mostly medical condition episodes but also drug overdoses and self harm. We need to look at how to prevent those when anyone is at their most vulnerable. The simplest tried and tested method is a floor to door gap but this means single sex loos.
I have collated information of where there have been sexual assaults and prosecutions. As far as is reported, these are all by men on girls, boys, or women. They are typically in unisex toilets or single sex toilets that are private cubicles /secluded in design.
The problem with the unisex design is that it is private and it ‘gives permission’ for people to be in the same private space without the protection of supervision from others (typically from the door gaps in single sex loos so you can see/hear what’s going on).
The only ‘protection’ unisex cubicles give is that they can lead out onto very visible places so there’s the hope that someone waiting around will be suspicious. In reality, this doesn’t afford very much protection. But this is not what this is talking about.
This is endorsing and encouraging strangers going to toilets together.
This scheme couldn’t be more unsafe.