Why does it always boil down to toilets?
For Rachel Taylor’s ‘solution’ to work, there would be no single sex toilet design left.
There’s a massive cost implication to this for businesses (if that’s what she’s bothered about) and a moral cost implication too.
What she is proposing is not a ‘neutral’ act.
Who suffers most? People medically vulnerable. People with heart conditions, at risk of strokes, with diabetes, epilepsy, asthma, those choking, having mental health crises, drug overdoses (including spikings). Toilets are where you go to when you feel ill. Nausea is a symptom of a heart attack.
So far, fairly ‘inclusively’ bad in terms of sex and gender.
There is a stroke every five minutes in this country. There is a heart attack every five minutes in this country. Millions have epilepsy. Millions have diabetes. 11% of cardiac arrests happen on the toilet. It is a reasonable adjustment to have door gaps as some conditions are classed as disabilities. We have defibrillators in so many public places but the place people go when they feel ill needs to be slightly visible in order to access the person in time.
Because of all the above, all new designs (building regs) rightly say a door need to be able to be opened easily from outside and the door needs to be able to changed so it can be opened outwards (because of bodies getting in the way of a door). But this is retrospective to an extent as you need to know as quick as possible if someone has collapsed to do cpr effectively. People have been left for days in private designed toilets.
For her solution all toilets would, in building design terms and legislation, have to be changed. This means all toilets be fully enclosed, have a sink in, a hand dryer/paper towels, be fully enclosed and have sound resistant properties.
So far, so ‘inclusive’ as a detriment to everyone. Less toilets. More queues as people spend longer in less hygienic designs (it’s scientifically proven these designs hold more pathogens due to a lack of ventilation and less cleaning ability). Female toilets have the least pathogens.
However, her ‘inclusive’ design also means assaults in toilets aren’t prevented. Because no one will know what is happening to the occupant. This affects women and especially children the most. There are rapes and assaults in private designed toilets in very public places like schools, train carriages, nightclubs, pubs etc. children are led into cubicles and women pushed back in. It is always males who are the perpetrators. In 2016 the government discussed the BBC investigation that found one child per school day reports a rape inside a school premises.
Rachel Taylor talks about transgender people being aggressively pushed out of toilet blocks, I am talking about safeguarding and protection. About preventable deaths and sexual assaults.
She talks about transgender people using toilets for decades. In 2008, less than two decades ago, there was a comprehensive government consultation on the provision of public toilets done by the government. Nowhere did it mention transgender people. It is inconceivable that this would not be mentioned. Discussions were about lots of difficult topics eg. sex in toilets and how adding toilets as a specific location in the 2003 Sexual Offences Act didn’t make it stop. One organisation made toilet cubicles as physically small as possible as a prevention measure.
For Taylor’s ‘solution’ everyone is at a disadvantage but the least disadvantaged group is healthy men.
Anyone writing to her is welcome to use this picture. The design on the left isn’t allowed if the cubicles go by ‘gender’ ie are mixed sex. It will have to be replaced if it is ambiguous who is in the space in front of the toilet cubicles.