Waterside Arts Centre Sale clearly ignoring Supreme Court

[SigrunGard]

i was at the Waterside last night with my partner. The Women’s was marked “women’s” but then written on the door in large letters was something to the effect of please feel free to use whichever facilities” match your gender identity or gender expression “. Mentioned it to my partner who said the same was on the door to the men’s ( he said someone asked a friend what that meant and the reply was apparently” some modern bollocks” - hard to argue!)

I rather feel I should email them and point out that this is not right- anyone got suggestions for wording that doesn’t just make me sound bigoted!?

thanks

I'm expecting you not to suggest women put themselves in danger by approaching these men.

But what are you expecting more generally...once the provision of an additional gender neutral facility in most places has been achieved? Do you really expect workplaces and entertainment venues etc to have guards on the door?

Unless they were the staff toilets, they can do whatever they like.

The Supreme Court ruling was about provision of single sex spaces where they are legally required.

There’s no requirement for an arts centre to provide single sex facilities for anything for their clients. There are requirements for staff provision by employers.

It's down to the individual venue how they practically enforce the supreme court ruling, as long as they can guarantee there will be no men in the women's toilets at any time then there won't be a problem.

No they can't do whatever they like.

The Supreme Court ruling was about the whole of the Equality Act which covers services as well as employers.

There is no requirement for a service provider to provide single sex facilities but if they do, they can't then allow men in the women's and vice versa. If they only provide mixed sex facilities they may be at risk of a claim for indirect sex discrimination and harassment.

You are never going to be able to guarantee anything; but with the establishment of discrete provisions and the passage of time it will become less of an issue. The way that toilet facilities used to be before the advent of trans mania.

And they are very clearly by the sounds of it not providing single sex facilities.

The OP has been very clear on how clear the signage is.

Women don't have the luxury of time to be kept safe from dangerous men, how many more women or girls being assaulted is acceptable to you?

If this group of men are determined to flout the law and break women's rights, equality and access for their own personal agenda, and good will and basic social contract has now been permanently fucked, is that what you're saying? Isn't that rather transphobic?

If that's the case, and these men really are this women hating, then it'll have to be the same as the penalties needed in law that protect people's rights and properties, and will have to start involving arrests, fines and other harsher consequences.

It's kind of up to those men. 'I want' is no different to a mugger who feels entitled to your wallet. The answer is that being that kind of an antisocial dick in society has to hit hard consequences if they can't get past 'but unless someone's there to stop me, I'm gonna do it cos I wanna and I don't care about anyone else but me'. It isn't up to people to just get used to being mugged.

I think we're at cross purposes here and I've no intention of getting pulled into this pointless exchange any further. I'm not sure why you are ranting at me?

Ditto! You just seem to be intent on creating aggro with me for some reason I can't work out? I'll not be responding further.

The signage said Women with some further words about gender. If they intend for the toilet to be mixed sex thay need to remove the word women from the door and relabel it mixed sex

They are labelled men and women. There is then a notice which says 'Visitors are welcome to use the facilities reflective of their gender identity or expression'

It's not lawful to have toilets for women + some men with a certain gender identity or expression, and vice versa for the men's.

Both toilets need to be open to all men and all women, with signage which makes this clear, or they need to be segregated based on sex.

It appears you haven't really thought this through, have you?

No they can't just re-label an existing single-sex toilet as mixed sex -
mixed sex toilets or 'universal' toilets as they are officially called have to comply with regs, they have to be completely enclosed and contain handwashing facilities inside the cubicle. Shared handwashing facilities are not compliant.

The easiest and most obvious thing for venues to do is to keep existing single-sex toilets exactly as they are, and correctly labelled . If an optional 'gender neutral'/mixed sex toilet is added, it must comply with regulations, it can't be a rebadged single-sex toilet.

Some venues are overcomplicating things, like Jallypally does, when they already have adequate and compliant facilities.

That was in reply to a poster saying that it was OK for it to be mixed sex because of the words on the door. It was more the point that you can't label a toilet womens if it's not single sex even if you do add some extra words about gender

ETA that was a reply to Marie

Yes, i have, I have simply come to a different conclusion to you - based on reality and how long things will take to turn around.

What you seem to be expecting is not going to happen in reality. Nobody is going to place guards on toilet doors. What we need is for appropriate and legitimate facilities to be put in place for all that need to use them - the rest will take care of itself given time.

The workplace regs say that a toilet for use by men or women must be a separate room lockable from the inside, but that only applies to the workplace.

Approved Document T says that 'universal toilets' must be fully enclosed but that only applies to new buildings or 'building work' on existing buildings.

As far as I know, there is nothing to stop a service provider from simply changing the signs to mixed sex (aside from the risk of an indirect sex discrimination and harassment claim) because it wouldn't count as 'building work'.

If they try to avoid the risk of a claim by ripping the urinals out and rearranging the plumbing to even up provision for men and women, or by replacing the male and female toilets with a number of fully enclosed 'universal toilets', then this would count as 'building work' for the purposes of Approved Document T, which applies to all non-residential buildings, so they would fail building regs.

So while I think they could just change the signs, I agree with this:

The easiest and most obvious thing for venues to do is to keep existing single-sex toilets exactly as they are, and correctly labelled . If an optional 'gender neutral'/mixed sex toilet is added, it must comply with regulations, it can't be a rebadged single-sex toilet.

If there's a man in the women's toilet you can report to the management who can ask him to leave, possibly ban him from the premises, and if he refuses to leave the police can be called to remove him.

This is exactly the same as it has always been for any man in the women's toilet. So how have you coped so far? Keep doing that.

PP wanted a cast-iron guarantee there would never be a man in the women's toilet. None of us have ever had that. It's not me living in cloud cuckoo land.

Then it needs to become a starter. It should be normal for women to be able to complain to the management if there is a man in the women's single sex spaces - toilets, showers, changing rooms etc

Even if no staff respond immediately, or the man has left, management need to make it absolutely clear on signs, on any website and in all other communications, that 'women' means biological women and 'men' means biological men, whatever they call themselves and however they present.

I can't believe I've got so interested in this topic, I think it's a combination of it being a matter of principle, and my love of chasing down details...

The Current Doc T only came into force in 2024, but there were plenty of regs concerning toilet facilities prior to that - not just workplace regs, but documents like BS 6465, Doc G, Doc M, etc.

These regulations were based on the established pattern of men's, women's and accessible toilets; Doc T seems to have been prompted by the trend towards 'unisex' toilets replacing single-sex provision, and re-asserted the requirement for, in the first place, single-sex toilets.

The intention to do this was signalled in 2022, so there was plenty of warning that buildings would have to comply with Doc T.

You make a good point, PencilsInSpace, about Doc T not just applying to new buildings constructed since 2024, but it also applies to 'material alterations to existing toilet facilities in non-domestic buildings'.

So removing single-sex toilets in old buildings and replacing them with all mixed sex/'gender neutral' toilets is subject to, and does not comply with, Doc T.

It also makes no sense economically - the existing configuration [including an accessible toilet] plus the addition of a mixed sex toilet is perfectly adequate, so why the unnecessary expense and disruption, especially as the result may be in breach of building regs.?

Answers on a postcard please.....🙄

This is a commercial company's website, but I think it's a useful no-nonsense guide:
Navigating Approved Document T: Modern Washroom Design and Compliance Made Simple - Dunhams