The removal of ladies toilets

[Sparks654]

I like many women, have been really dismayed at the removal of separate sex public toilets - and also the lack of discussion and women's voices being raised and heard on this topic. I live in Somerset, and where I live the town hall, and all public toilets are mixed sex. Private businesses also seem to be either refurbishing their facilities to remove ladies and gents toilets, or new businesses directly are making all toilets mixed sex.

This is actually silently excluding women from public spaces, although I know anecdotally of men who've told me they feel uncomfortable with the mixed sex bathroom arrangement and that they are intruding on women's space. In fact recently I was visiting an art gallery and had no option but to use the facilities - which I discovered are now unisex. A man entered and saw a row of women and asked - "this is unisex isn't it?" He hovered awkwardly at the door.

I wonder if other regions are noticing the same thing? Polls seems to suggest that over 70 percent of the population want single sex toilets and yet with public money they are being removed? I feel this is actually silently excluding women and girls from public spaces we might have been able to access. Now I feel obliged to check in advance where I am going to know if there are ladies toilets available, and I am finding something that used to be a given, and a women's health service, is disappearing. Wonder what is happening elsewhere and if there is a free discussion taking place, or - if in my experience - a dose of cancel culture is stopping the question of women's rights being raised?

There’s another aspect to this ‘what is wrong with men’ question; what is porn doing to us, and to men? Widespread access to porn is a relatively new thing, and research increasingly shows that it’s changing not only the way it is viewed (increased de-sensitivity) and the way men/boys see women. Etc. It’s a massive subject, and often minimised.

My local park has also revamped its loos in the last year or so. So two "unisex" and one with urinals. At a guess who will use the local park most? Most likely women and small children of both sexes. So a majority of users have two loos to choose from; a minority (males over 8 or so) have three.

All done with zero consultation.

It is depressing researching.

Interestingly, Robin Moira White wants to use the women’s but says (although Robin calls them ‘ghettos’) mixed sex toilets are useful for those at a different stage in transition. So both. And by that definition and usage every toilet would be mixed sex and enclosed anyway. Therefore making women’s and men’s obsolete.

If there had been fully enclosed cubicles at St Barts Hospital back then I would have died in 1988. (I don't know what the situation is there now).

Thank you for recounting that. I know my question didn’t get asked to Wes Streeting or Bridget Phillipson but I hope at least their researchers saw them and will remember. The most upsetting thing is when things could have possibly been prevented. That’s why I do this. With hospitals and schools they have defibrillators/epipens/meds there but you need to know someone has collapsed in the first place.

Quite a lot of younger women in the profession are Muslim and religious. I can only imagine how excluded they feel.

They need to integrate with the British population, we shouldn't be making concessions for Islamaists.

Oh right, since when did "Britishness" involve mixed sex toilets? Isn't that a "continental" idea?!

I'm not commenting on that, I'm saying we shouldn't be making concessions for muslims, we live in a Judeo-Christian country and they need to respect that.

I think a lot of orthodox Jewish women won't want to use mixed sex toilets. What do you think they should do Knightyknight?

@SmudgeHughes I grew up in the 80s & 90s and felt that women were making progress in terms of breaking into careers which were previously male dominated. Girls were under less pressure to wear revealing clothes. Now we seem to have gone backwards in terms of women’s rights. Strangulation during sex has become mainstream & girls are expected to maintain a certain appearance. If we try to argue for women only spaces (based on the behaviour of some men meaning we don’t feel safe) then we are told to accept it & threatened if we continue to argue back. That said I know some lovely men - but how do we know what they’re really thinking?

@Knightyknight I think most women want female only toilets (and most men too). It’s not really a Muslim issue.

I agree with you, I certainly want single sex spaces - I wasn't the one who said we should do it for the muslims though.

@WhamFantastic I particularly hate this too: “I hate going into one after a random man.”

Even when they are self contained with hand washing facilities I get the hell out as quickly as possible from most public mixed sex toilets I’ve used lately. I’m afraid to admit I use my hand sanitizer once I’ve escaped as I just can’t stand being in them longer than essential.

Judeo-Christian? Really?
You should make yourself more familiar with traditional Judaic and Christian views on segregation of the sexes!

If the toilets are unisex the washing facilities must be in the lockable cubicle with the wc. Sinks in the middle for mixed sex use are illegal, I think.

A couple of arts places near to me have got what I think are non-compliant toilets.

Hauser & Wirth art gallery in Bruton. Single sex cubicles with a communal sink. 1 disabled loo. & no separate staff toilets. These have been in place since the gallery was built - c2014. *some of the existing farm buildings were converted - but not all sections.

The Newt - there’s a mix around the site. Single sex by the main entrance. But single sex, with communal hand wash by the Four Seasons Garden. I’d have to check the others - it’s a big site. & to my knowledge, no separate staff toilets - unless they have them in the main house/spa complex.
Also, they’ve opened a cafe at Castle Cary train station. Again, single cubicles, with communal hand washing.

Would be interesting to know why these architects aren’t checking building regs/statutory guidance.

It’s not a lack of cash - esp re The Newt. The owners are currently buying up half of Castle Cary by the looks of things.

Those cases sound pretty dodgy all right, QuornPlaster, communal handwashing isn't right.

Keeptoiletssafe is an absolute star for making herself an expert, and championing the safety aspects of toilet provision.

It would be great to have a Hit Squad who made themselves similarly expert on the planning, workplace, health and safety and building regs who we could send around the country to say a definitive Yay or Nay on cases like these.
I can hear the Batman theme tune and see them swooping down to condemn dodgy toilet arrangements as non-compliant

Seriously though - at the same time as the tide turns against the excesses of genderwoo, and gradually things like the SC ruling restore a bit of balance, there seems to be a wave of probably illegal [I mean non-regs-compliant] alterations being made to existing buildings, and very probably non-regs-compliant toilet configurations being built into new buildings which are subject to the 2024 Building Regs which clearly state that single sex toilets MUST be provided unless there is insufficient space; unsex toilets are an optional extra, not an alternative.

So as intangibles like legal rulings are going the way of restoring women's rights, denial of those rights is being permanently built in to the built environment.

It feels like a scorched earth rear-guard campaign by TRAs and their allies.

Absolutely true. I go out of my way to avoid mixed-sex toilets and I object to my options being restricted.

Having been pushed into a confined space and sexually assaulted as a child, I feel claustrophobic in any such space, and hypervigilant if there’s a man between me and the escape route.

Ironically, I fled from the man who attacked me when I was a child into the safety of a women’s public lavatory staffed by an attendant. Little chance of that refuge now.

And there’s the unwelcome knowledge, in mixed-sex facilities, that many men get off on listening to women peeing. A woman or girl alone with a sexually aroused man is in obvious danger.

On holiday in Europe this summer and at a museum they had clearly removed the signs and urinals from two sets of toilets, side by side in the entrance hall.
There was a wash of unsure people of all ages outside them, peering in trying to see which looked like men’s or ladies.
It was a pretty international museum so it looked like all nationalities were expecting sex segregated toilets and having a bit of a moan about how ridiculous it was.

I went into the toilets that had the most women, but when I came out of the cubicle to wash my hands it was all men. I really did not like it AT ALL. I think you are supposed to listen to your instincts, and all of mine were alarming to get out.

Not a fan of gender neutral toilets.

Fewer than half think of themselves as Christian these days. Fewer than 1 in 10 belong to a church. We may have been such but we're not any more. Anyway, Islam is just a third Middle Eastern Abrahamic religion...

Ahh thanks, you are quite the expert yourself with Document T!

Yes it’s all a bit of a nightmare with lots of people not following building regs.

I am concerned there’s a lot going on in government that will overide regs that were underpinned by health and safety.

'So...what part of (1) (a) (i) in Part T of Schedule 1 to the Building Regulations 2010, 2024 revision, don't you understand? '

(1) Toilet accommodation in buildings other than dwellings— (a) must consist of— (i) reasonable provision for male and female single-sex toilets
Toilet accommodation: Approved Document T

People tend to use Islam as an example so that they can highlight the incompatibility of the Leftist's 'progressivie' alliance with the agenda of radical Islamists ( in the name of Pro Gaza) and with muslims as victims.

Even if one’s not at danger of assault, the thought of being an unwitting participant in someone’s fetish is horrible as well as frightening.

Exactly. Being a resource for the use of men should absolutely not be a condition of access to public facilities for women.

Women happy to provide their body and bodily functions for the emotional, existential and sexual needs of men have the gender neutral spaces where they can do so all they want. No one's stopping them.

But this should not be something any woman has to worry about when she goes to the loo.