I agree with @AnSolas and others about the difference between rooms and cubicles. A cubicle isn’t a room. Legislation was created when rows of unisex cubicles weren’t a thing. At the time of 1992 legislation designs for blocks of toilets were very much ladies and gents with door gaps under and over the doors and partitions and doors that opened up in an emergency. It was stated the latter point was ‘particularly important where elderly or disabled persons or children are involved’. The sinks were in a single sex area outside the cubicles. It certainly wasn’t anticipated that men would be using women’s toilets or vice versa. It was only designated ‘disabled’ toilets that were mixed sex (unisex) and were a separate room and completely private as standard with a sink inside them. These are covered in the different Part M of Building Standards.
This is from the British Standards 6465 (part 1) on toilets which were from the 1984 edition regarding ‘schools, offices, factories, public buildings and public conveniences’ and were the standards in place when the 1992 legislation was being set up so this was what the legislators were working with, regarding standards:
…where a range of WCs is provided, each in a separate cubicle within a single room, e.g. in schools, offices, factories, public buildings and public conveniences, it simplifies ventilation, cleaning and, to some extent, supervision and prevention of wilful misuse, if the cubicle walls terminate above the floor as well as below the ceiling. These advantages are gained only at the expense of a certain degree of privacy. Where cubicles are used, the whole room in which they are situated may be regarded as a single unit for the purposes of ventilation.
Where partition walls and doors of WC cubicles are kept clear of the floor, the clearance should be not less than 100 mm and not more than 150 mm. Partitions and doors that terminate below ceiling level should be not less than 2 m in height from the floor.
Note all the italic bits are directly taken from the standards and centred on health and safety needs.
Doc T is from Building Standards BS 6465 (1-4) which has evolved over time. The good thing if there’s a big refurbishment (anything from 2024) for building regs it should conform to Document T which prioritises single sex toilets. Unisex should only go in after single sex provision is satisfied. Document T doesn’t apply to schools.
In 2008 accessibility was about older people and disabled people not being isolated (See Provision of Public Toilets 2008 on gov.uk). Now public council-run toilets are so few there are all sorts of weird and wonderful designs have replaced them in businesses, cafes etc, forgetting health and safety principles.
‘Inclusive’ in toilet-speak just seems to mean private cubicles. It’s a buzz word not a legal or standard term.There’s no criteria on whether washbasins are in or out of the inclusive cubicle/room but usually it is a feature everyone shares the sink to make it inclusive to everyone. Complete privacy with ‘inclusion’ is a given because no one (except a few men) want to see the feet or hear the opposite sex. The inclusive toilets ignore the standards and legislation which is why Document T incorporated BS6465 and was published to help businesses and the public (British Standards are incredibly expensive, long, and usually only really accessible to architects etc). It was to stop the surge of ‘anything goes’ designs.
Toilet manufacturers seem to promote unisex provision as there’s more equipment involved and pipework etc. From my research I would advise them not to. No demographic (except women who don’t want to use the women’s but also then feel uncomfortable using the men’s) wants this and even then, when given experience and choice, they go back to using the women’s when the unisex ones smell and get dirty. Men who want to use the women’s don’t want unisex, they want women’s toilets. Everyone will say unisex is ‘outing’ - though why disabled toilets are not outing to the many people who need them is then incomprehensible.
I would want them to think of:
fire risks assessments (how difficult it becomes to evacuate a building when you have to check each toilet room and unlock it) real inclusivity for people with medical vulnerabilities such at diabetes, epilepsy and heart conditions (where the ability to pull an emergency cord will be compromised). This is an important consideration because 11% of cardiac arrests happen on the loo. Normally a door gap would inform others that the occupant was in trouble immediately upon entering the single sex space before the toilet cubicles. In ‘olden day’ toilets there were more attendants which helped. Now people can be left for days because there’s no supervision for locked cubicles and people don’t check. They assume someone is in there or it’s broken. At worst, and this is blunt but reality, it may be only when there is a smell that people start to notice.
Some have put intercom systems in to their private toilet cubicles. They have costly mechanical ventilation. All more cost, more stuff to go wrong and places to hide ting cameras (some so small they are disguised as screws). Individual emergency lighting and sound/flashing alarms are a factor to cost in too rather than one on the ceiling of the single sex sink area that people can hear and notice the flashing from a gap over the cubicle door. The single sex cubicles with door gaps and sink outside in a single sex area were what legislation was meaning when it said ‘(f)the rooms containing them are sufficiently ventilated and lit;’.
I have so much research to show unisex toilets are worst. For hygiene see this: salus.global/article-show/pathogen-findings-raise-concerns-about-move-to-unisex-hospital-facilities
There are a few tweaks that need sorting out. Remember because people collapse in toilets (collapsing behind any locked door is the number one call out for the London Fire Brigade) the building regs rightly say every toilet door should be able to be opened outwards. So there’s no such thing as the door being completely secure. This conflicts with:h)separate facilities are provided for men and women, except where and so far as they are provided in a room the door of which is capable of being secured from inside….’
If secured was defined in legislation as being able to be opened in an emergency then it would naturally lead to people realising more dangers of unisex toilets.
Any unisex toilet should be in as busy thoroughfare as possible. However in reality this isn’t a fail-safe preventative measure otherwise there wouldn’t be so many attacks in disabled (now called accessible) toilets or train carriage toilets. It also means doors are self-closing as they are more likely to be fire doors so worse for people being left (or pushed or led into) a sound resistant and unseen room.
I believe BS6465 is going to be looked again soon. Annoyingly, in Document T they didn’t specifically specify door gaps for separate sex cubicle toilets. The HSE have since told me the single sex cubicles (designs C and D) can have gaps above and below partitions and doors, and the building regulations documents certainly had them in for good reasons as shown above. As usual, all mixed sex toilets have sinks inside the enclosed area, with the toilet. I hope there is mention of specific door gaps again on the grounds of health and safety.
I know the gaps have been designed out of toilets cubicles in single sex toilets. There is direct link to ‘inclusivity’ and have traced it back to the influence of Stonewall, American transactivists and a large architect firm who were advising the government. It’s easily traced from reference and evidence lists because I followed it from Document T backwards from all the consultation and analysis documents that are still on the government website. Inclusivity just means mixed sex by a different name without any regard to health and safety.
Women have greater safety requirements and good sightlines enable women to feel more comfortable. Toilets need to be close to the woman’s workstation and not in an isolated area. Women do not need men exposing themselves accidentally or on purpose when men forget to close the cubicle door. Women need sinks in a single sex space to wash blood off clothing and hands.
HSE consider employers should ensure workers have reasonable adjustments for medical/health needs. For example there is an example on how a man with prostate cancer can get changes made to his toileting facilities. I think this sets a precedent for single sex toilets (with the standard gaps) to be available as an option because their design is needed for people with invisible disabilities such as diabetes, epilepsy, heart conditions, elderly people as risk of falls and, women, particularly with endometriosis and trauma. Being a woman isn’t a medical problem (!) but we have health and safety needs that require separate toilets from men. All people convicted of voyeurism and rape of women and young children in toilets are men.
https://www.hse.gov.uk/disability/employers-duties/examples.htm
Regarding voyeurism, I think mobile phone cameras have obviously had a big role in cubicles becoming private. However this is now not such a persuasive argument because: Women’s toilets are for women, there are specific new voyeurism laws, and hidden cameras are so prevalent (easy and cheap and gather lots of info) that a man is less likely to go into a women’s toilet with door gaps waiting around and take a risk. A private mixed sex cubicle gives more footage and more opportunity - he’s not out of place being there, a £25-from-Amazon hidden camera is easier to install, hide, and it is less risky. People tend to ‘do more’ in private cubicles.
Ironically, there was a poster claiming to be from Melbourne on another thread very much in favour of inclusive toilets and so I googled his area to show what’s going on is universal and there’s a doctor who has filmed around 460 other staff on the toilets. There’s lawyers involved. Businesses can prevent this by design so cubicles are single sex, have door gaps to prevent ‘wilful misuse’ and make the inside as simple as possible (no extras like mechanical ventilation, hand dryers, sinks) so it would be easy to spot a camera. Do businesses really need this liability? www.carbonelawyers.com.au/case-files/nurses-doctors-could-receive-big-payouts-from-melbourne-hospitals-after-they-were-allegedly-filmed-in-toilets/
Also complicating matters is different legislation for different countries within the U.K. and the education guidelines are different again. There’s 1967 legislation for Scotland I believe.
Here’s a safety in design bit that discusses a row of cubicles - it’s a video clip that is worth discussing with employers: